lazymember's sketchbook

[lazymember]

Well I finally decided I'm going to start a sketchbook with the hope that I'll improve, as well as draw more. I'm a graphic design major, though I much rather mainly just draw cartoons and the like. I'd much appreciate any help and advice offered.

[lazymember]

Some practice poses from posemaniacs,. That's about all I managed for now. I need a better understanding of some things, so I just need to keep practicing and study up.

[lazymember]

Robot thumbnail designs for a deviantart group I joined. Was suppose to create an original giant robot, but I don't really draw mechs too often. I'll try to get beefier updates rather than just uploading one thing every other day.

[Tides]

Good start The figure studies look great. The only thing I'd say is work on line quality. Try and think of the start and end of the line. Like a journey. Once you can get your line quality up drawing is soo much easier and quicker (in my opinion

Keep going and make sure to make your user name ironic

[lazymember]

Well I sketched more from posemaniacs, while trying to make better line quality as suggested from Tides. It was nerve wrecking for me because I'm so unsure of the thing I'm drawing. Main reason why everything I draw looks so sketchy. I have a strong tendency to go over a line again and again, until I pretty much destroy my paper.

I tried drawing hands, and I knew I wasn't very good with those already. Well found out how bad I'm really at it. BBBBAAAAADDD. I drew deer as well from references.

Well I got a lot of reading material that will hopefully stuff knowledge into my head to get a better understanding of all this.

[Tides]

Oh wow! That line is much better already. It'll come, as you get better you'll notice that you'll start drawing with your whole arm instead of just your wrist.

Hands are crazy hard. One day I'll tackle them.

Good work The deer are very lovely.

[lazymember]

Thanks. I've tried, and I'll just keep trying. I'm just going to juggle reading up on things I don't have a firm grasp on yet and hands on exercises.

[lazymember]

More poses and hands. Working on a portrait sketch in pencil. Scanner is against me, so everything was scanned wrong.

[lazymember]

Still working on the portrait from reference, and that's what I have so far. Having quite a hard time with it and getting all the values. I'm going to spend one more day on it.

I realized that I haven't drawn anything I've enjoyed or at all to my interests, so I drew the pyro as a girl. It was fun to draw something that wasn't a study of any sort. I'm still trekking.

[lazymember]

Well I decided I'm done with the portrait, and it looks terrible. For some reason I thought it would a good idea to smudge the graphite. Well it looks bad. I'm not going to continue working on it anymore and just continue on.

I've come across the 100 things challenge/project/whatever and I plan to do that for the time being. I'll be taking a week to complete each 100 set of poses/feet/hands/etc.

This was the photo I was referencing from.
http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&se...owata#/d3hchq1

[Tides]

See if you can get some drawing pencils of varying hardness. It doesn't look like you're getting the contrast needed for shading. Maybe even charcoal. Then you'll be able to get a larger set of value and more tones to work with.

[lazymember]

I did 100 poses which was more troubling for me than I thought. Glad I managed to finish it in a week and that I'm done with it. I need better time management because just getting this done, doesn't feel like I accomplished enough. Large pic is large.

[lazymember]

I haven't posted in awhile. I attempted at shading and that's the result. I took a picture of the mannequin to compare with the sketch (sorry for poor phone camera quality).

[lazymember]

Attempted a still life and digital painting. Overall color is still very difficult, and I've recently learned that I need to learn how to apply tone before really color (or at least I think that's how it is). *long sigh*

[lazymember]

Started practicing applying tone. Recorded myself so that anyone can view what I'm doing wrong. Worked on within an hour.


Video

[pimpwacker]

cool stuff, looks like you are coming along nicely, better than me at any rate. Those pose studies are great, I should do something like that, a hundred of them though, haha, gees!

aside from a lack of definition, the shading on those eggs looks good. people keep telling me I should use a higher opacity and harder/ larger brushes, maybe that would help you get more definition in there?

[lazymember]

More tonal value exercises. Painted the background, but I think that may have been a mistake seeing how similar the tones are. About an hour.

Video

[dierat]

You're on the right track in that you need to understand light and tone before you can master color, and you recent tonal studies are a great step in the right direction. When you do work on color, remember that the light source has its own color which will appear on the lit side of all the objects in the scene to some extent, so don't paint in your highlights with white. And the local color of the objects will reflect onto nearby surfaces via reflected light which will add a little more color variation on top.

Coupla suggestions regarding the video of your process:

I would suggest that from the very beginning, you create a new layer on top of the background layer to draw your subjects in. That way you can easily paint in the background without having to waste time reworking the subject's edges and whatnot. I would also keep decorative details, like those four circles on the front of the jar, in a layer on top of the subject so you can paint under them easily.

You started off with a line drawing, but you skipped into value pretty quickly. I would suggest you stick with the line drawing a little longer to make sure the forms shapes are accurate before moving to the next step. You can continue fixing little things up as you move along, but faster and easier in the long run if you fix those general shapes early on. Remember that you can flip the canvas to double-check your symmetry too. The jar in front looks pretty good, but the pitcher's base isn't lining up with the center of the object; it's pushed all to the way to the right side. You probably had a harder time with the pitcher because it's partially obscured by the jar. Personally, I like to draw out the whole object and keep it in a separate layer behind the object obscuring it so I can make sure it's accurate independently of the rest of the still life.

Anyway, very nice work, keep practicing and you'll go far. And keep posting videos of your process; it's a lot easier for us to give you suggestions on how to improve your process when we can actually see the process in action.

[lazymember]

A non-digital sketch from reference. Trying to become more accurate. About an hour.

You can watch the video to view my process. Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Video

[lazymember]

More tonal value exercises. I try to set a time limit of a hour so that I'm forced to work at a certain pace. So far it feels as though I'm just rushing through it. I'll also post a link to the references I used for comparison.

Time spent: 1 hr 40 min

Tonal value process (video)

Reference used

[lazymember]

I'm living up to my user name unfortunately. Some really messy doodles from my sketchbook.

[lazymember]

More sketches from my sketchbook.

[Mr.Ebony]

You're not that lazy! You're already budding into high potential here. Keep it up!

[lazymember]

Had a group screen share with some friends. Tried to paint an eye in photoshop.

[lazymember]

Object shading. No mas no mas.

[lazymember]

Some super sketchy studies. I think I'll try to work with a pen to improve my confidence in my linework.

[lazymember]

Attempt at rendering in photoshop.

Link to reference.

[lazymember]

Tackled digital painting in grayscale. Found great difficulty in blending.

Process (~23 min/actual time ~2 hrs 30 min):
Video 1
Video 2

[lazymember]

Grayscale still life study.

Prcoess (~19 min/~1 hr. 40 min.):
Video 1
Video 2

[lazymember]

Doodle 1.