helio's sketchbook (updated when needed)

[Helio]

Not much to report today, kind slacked up on the job. Watched the first volume of Vilppu's DVD on the human head and took mostly notes.
I did try to do a portrait study but I seem unable to correctly capture the likeness of the person...



Also, dicking around in photoshop, sketching this:

[Loathsome]

Hey thanks for the visit!
I like that recent painting, the light totally make the piece, it gives it more story really.

Keep pushing the studies. There were a few things I got hung up on when I skimmed through the images but you're already studying most of these things. The biggest thing for me was the generic faces. That happens when you think too much about structure and you end up going with the exact proportions you've been studying.. that happens to everyone, especially when you're in the middle of studying faces. It will get better when I do more portrait stuff.

Keep it up maaaan!

[Helio]

Loathsome- Thanks for the critique. yeah, I've kinda reached that phase where my eye is way better than my hand, and it's getting frustrating seeing only mistakes on everything you do. I guess I'm kinda impatient like that, but I also understand that it's a natural part of the learning curve. I'll just keep pushing on, even thought I feel that I'm not progressing at all right now (more like regrading) and hopefully the "click" will come sooner or later (the sooner the better thought).

Anyway, today was Loomis day. Started on his "Figure drawing for what it's worth", struggling badly with proportions but I figured out I'm so weak in that department might as well take care of it ASAP:









Also, some pretty poor PS stuff. Hopefully in a few months I'll be able to look back at it and say "God did I suck":







C&C /pointers to help me out in the right direction are more than welcome.

[Helio]

some more stuff, spent the day messing around with something more industrial oriented stuff (and getting frustrated with it). Taking a break from all the figure and portrait study, will probably spend the day tomorrow doing some more fundamental technical drawing and get back to some landscape/environment stuff.

[Helio]

still trying to get out of this art frustration plateau i've been on lately by doing the only logical thing: draw more, and then some more in hope to force my technical side to catch up with my imaginative and highly critical side.

I'll probably change pace tomorrow and actually go out and ride my bike all day long, stopping at random places and draw from life in order to chill a bit.













C&C more than welcome guys

[Helio]

Is it just me or I'm getting worst by the hour?
I did notice that I'm starting to get more conscious about proportions and measurements tho. That oughta count for something
I also did a lot of biking today. And took a shitload of photo refs of an old castle. So if anyone needs refs for medieval castles and churches, gimme a call, I'll be happy to oblige

[Dalibor Dejanović]

Your work is getting so much better, don't self doubt your self please!

My anatomy and life drawing instructor from years ago has posted a great blog post about bad drawing day check it out.
http://man4art.blogspot.com/2010/10/...technique.html

[dracken]

Dude, it's tough staying on top of yourself and constantly produce good art, however you have some great stuff here. I love the insectoid creatures on the previous page. I also love the environment studies, great stuff.

Not much else to say since I'm way bellow your level, maybe try and focus on doing 100 faces, 100 gesture studies or 100 environments... just something to have a tangible goal you can reach, it helps motivate yourself.

Now draw more and post

[Helio]

Dracken- Thanks for the kind words. I do know deep down that I'm improving bit by bit, but sometimes you can't help and ask yourself "what am I doing wrong? why am I not yet at pro level like these guys?" and then get a slap on the face when you see that it took them 5-10 years of constant hard work to get where they are, pumping quality art in almost every piece, and I'm hoping to get there in just months. I'm just impatient like that. But I do love art, I've been drawing ever since I was a kid but only recently (in my 30's) decided that it was really what I want to do for a living. So when I'm doing these kinda "bawwww I suck" self-pity posts I'm mostly poking fun at my will to get things done quickly.

And yeah, I'll be more than happy to oblige and draw more, more more MOAR!

Anyway, today's daily dose of real-life studies and photoshop randomness:

[xinleh]

At the rate of going, you're going to realise that one day you DID improve and that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I'm going to follow your SB because you are inspiring me to draw more.

Just a crit, it'd be good to see you play around in different mediums once in a while to loosen up your sketches, like charcoal, ink, watercolours... also it's fun. Sometimes it gets to the point where you no longer see which direction you're heading towards, but having fun in the progress makes this ride more worthwhile :]

Keep doing what you're doing. I'll be visiting often.

[Helio]

Xinleh- thanks for the words of encouragement. As I said it's pretty much my perfectionist phase kicking in, and I do know that everyone goes through it now and then (signs of maturity and grow to me).
As for playing with diferent mediums, I do mess around with acrylics, indian ink, I've done some oil painting as well and I recently started to dabble with charcoal. Maybe I'll make a post with my older stuff one of these days. Plus, I should really do lay off photoshop for a while and just go back to enjoying the process of messing around with real material.

Anyhoo, today's batch of photoshop stuff (the lazy man in me didn't want to go out today because it was raining, so it was pretty much photo study day):

[Brandon Pilcher]

Nice studies!

[Helio]

Brandon- Thanks for the compliment!

Dalibor- I've only read you reply now, sorry about that. The text you've posted is indeed inspiring, and yeah, I'm not going to self-doubt and keep on pressing until I get where I want to be.

didn't do much today, was pretty much busy trying to hook up a CRT for a dual monitor (and still haven't managed to put the damn thing to work).

[Helio]

So I've pretty much spend the last two days messing around with sculptris. I had tried out Zbrush but didn't really managed to make much sense out of it. The great thing about sculptris is that it's an ultralight version of Zbrush without all the confusing commands for a beginner. Managed to wip out these heads without any kind of tutorial:







I then proceeded to do another head and then a slight paintover on photoshop:


Tried my hand yesterday at some watercolour, didn't go that smooth tho:





On other news, some quick studies, random doodles and a sketch collab done yesterday evening during some sort of impromptu sketch jam:

[Helio]

some more sketches from imagination, quick paintings and trying my hand at self portraits. I've noticed I'm pretty weak at drawing myself, so the goal now is to do at least a self portrait a day.

[Helio]

sketches, sketches and more sketches. Been lazy as hell lately with the studies, must get back on the right track!















Also, decided to do some IRL Zbrush stuff (AKA sculpting). It's actually quite fun, and a great exercise in analysing forms from every single angle. I might be looking more into it.

[Helio]

yay, more stuff coming up, including various color studies, botched attempts at doing something worthwhile with graphite and random doodles.



















C&C more than welcome guys!

[Helio]

Color study stuff, a random pig flying about and the usual graphite stuff.

[Xelar]

Your color sense is fantastic!
I noticed when you draw from imagination you tend to make the jaw a little bit lopsided.
Nothing too bad but you should pay attention to it^^

Btw thx for introducing me to scultris!
I remember wanting to try out zbrush a couple of years ago and being dazzled by all those buttons o.o seems a lot easier to handle!

[Helio]

Xelar- Thanks for the compliment! I don't really think that my color sense is quite up to par yet, there's so much to learn and it's been quite a pain in the arse getting my head around color theory. Yeah, now that you mention it I do have the tendency to not pay attention to proper alignement and proportions, must fix that ASAP.

As for sculptris, I love that app, but I'm still struggling to find a good use for it in my workflow. Hopefully I'll be able to see some of your 3D modelling stuff soon enough!

Damn you uncharted 3 beta for turning me into an even lazier person! Only came up with two photo studies and a sea environment from imagination.

[Helio]

I should be tackling the whole human figure and start to dabble in cityscapes/industrial environments instead of just doodling heads

[Helio]

random sketches from imagination, Roger Smith from "American Dad" gets a makeover, another statue study and a remake of a 9 years old drawing!

[Helio]

more stuff that's been laying around the office, including a first attempt at messing with gouache that didn't go as smoothly as planned :|

[Helio]

Laying off the ol' PS for a while and burning out graphite like a madman.

[ismo]

I like the varitety in your studies. Good stuff, especially the digital enviros. The pencils are getting better all the time too.

Those educational dvd's sound interesting. If I wasn't broke I'd definately get at least Ron Lemen's lesson. Would you recommend it?

[Helio]

Ismo- Thanks for the feedback. About the dvd, yeah, I will say go for it. I noticed a great leap on my portraits after watching it. If I'm not mistaken Ron has a thread around about drawing the head, you should check it out because it's totally worth it!

Playing around with sanguine pencils!

[Atroxinn]

Great work man!

Love the envivorments and also the character/creature designs.

Can't tell that you are lazy like you say you are in some posts, wipping out a few sketches daily, more than I do (got to kick my ass, HARD, on that thou)

But as you know, while you are not 100% satisfied with your work, you are still growing as an artist.

[dracken]

Awesome stuff.

There is a lot of improvement among your environments and color and those last few anatomy studies look great. This is a fantastic sketchbook and you should keep updating, keep pushing

Not much advice, just work more and you'll be incredible in no time.

[Helio]

Right. I'm back after a whole months of holidays (spent a month at my parents' place) and I didn't touch a computer since (well not to paint anyway) so I focused on pencil stuff only. Lots of studies, and looking back at it I feel I've improved a lot.

Be ready because this post is quite image-heavy. I'm trying to put them in order of creation.

The first two were made with a white pastel pencil on black k-line board leftovers from my laptop shade box-







































And now, it's time to apply all of this to my digital stuff.
C&C more than welcome!

[Helio]

I've been attacked by the lazy bug today, so here's what I'm up to. I'm still struggling to apply what I've learned this past month to my digital work (and it feels kinda weird to go back to digital after a month or so of exclusive traditional stuff).