Rev needs to draw more. Posting daily!

[MrFrenik]

Great work, Rev! Your gestures are looking a lot better and definitely have more construction to them. Something that helps me with getting a solid feeling when doing gestures is to to combine rhythms with bone structure, such as the bowing inward of the tibia, or the difference in the gestures of the arm whether the forearm is pronated or supinated, etc. But you seem to be getting along just fine, so keep doing what you're doing.

Your values are starting to be pushed more, which is great, and your edges are starting to reflect this as well. But the contrast between sharp/soft, shadow/light can still be pushed more. I've heard over and over to NEVER use black in shadows, but what I'm finding more and more is that this is bad advice. I think it's more appropriate to say that you use black sparingly, and usually that means only for occlusion shadows. The hands resting on clothing in the reference paintings posted here show this quite nicely, actually. No amount of light can get into where two objects squash up against one another, so there will be some black there. Knowing how much to use is part of good observation.

Keep up the great work, and, as always, i appreciate the comments when you drop by my page!

[lionheartGFX]

wow your figures and portraits are improving like hell! keep it up rev! also try to have a bit more value range and actually use it to show the planes even more clearly that you already do, cant wait to see more!

[Renart]

Really good sketchbook! Really deversified and interesting. Also inspiring! Great job! You're talentted for sure

[viki oh]

yo revvvvv, really loving those figure studies you did andddd that wonderful photostudy in post #715, amazing colors and form of the overall face!!!

[Revidescent]

Man, I just want to throw out a general major thank-you for all the responses I've been getting lately. I really do appreciate it, guys, and it helps me motivate myself to keep on getting stuff up here every day, knowing people are actually looking. I try to always comment back, but I've been lagging behind on doing that, and I apologize! I love you guys. =D

Michael Howe - Thank you! =D (And as this looks to be your first post, welcome to CA!!)

ecki - Heh, it's always that fight between structure and fluidity, isn't it? And you totally caught me on the saturation. I upped it at the last second because... idk, I just like oversaturation. I shouldn't have done it, after carefully picking colours for two hours. =) Thanks!

Tea of Doom - Oh wow, thanks a ton for the paintover! I see what you're getting at now. I think what threw me was an attempt to adhere to the reference, while a) struggling to figure out where exactly the lightsource was, and b) being unsure how much of the torso muscle structure would show through the armor. The greater torso tilt and sharp edge there really does make it look way less flat.

MrFrenik - I've actually been trying to get a better handle on bone structure lately, trying to bring stuff like forearm bones into gesture, but as soon as there's 60 seconds on the clock that intention often goes out the window. =) Occlusion shadows! Good point. I don't think I could ever bring myself to use 100% pure black, but 1 or 2% brightness, yeah. More dark darks when appropriate. I will work on it! Thanks a bunch!

lionheartGFX - Thanks! Can do. I've been focusing on colour a lot, but I've gotten quite a few comments lately that make me think I should take some time for value. =)

Renart - Thanks a lot! =D

viki oh - Thank you!! The ref had such great colours, oh man. I'm glad they came across.

15-minute tiny colour studies, GO. 3/4 were reffed from National Geographic images, I honestly forget where that sky one's from. Last couple of weeks I did these on a theme (snow, forests...) and I think that was maybe a better idea than grabbing random images like I did this time. I dunno... this forces a wider variety and greater contrast of subject/etc, but the theme stuff helps bring out real understanding of a specific subject. We'll see.

[Revidescent]

Missed yesterday, bleh. I'm in the middle of a big design project at the moment (I do more freelance design than illustration, TBH) and while it's a cool project and there's a lot of stuff I love about design work, I find it very... creatively draining? I never hit that zen point that drawing and painting tend to, where I can just relax and go with the flow, I have to fight it every second, and when I'm done for the day it's hard to sit down and make some art. Then again, that was what started me on the daily posting kick last year - a big design gig that basically stopped me drawing for over a month - so I need to push through it more! Find that energy.


Gesture dump today! All 60s, used pixelovely instead of lovecastle like usual, for a little variety. Pixelovely does a lot of stuff right, but the two main reasons I tend to go elsewhere are the major lack of male reference (lovecastle only really has that one guy, but there's a lot of him?) and the lack of custom times, because I love me some 15-second intervals.

[kevin_]

character stuff on the last page was really good and i like the enviro thumbs in the last post, you got the moods and color schemes down!

[kingkostas]

lovely figures mate!!! I understand what you say about the design work, its really something very challenging

[Revidescent]

kevin_ - Thanks, man! That's what that exercise is for, trying to force myself to focus on mood and colour without getting caught up in detail. =)

kingkostas - Thank you! I don't know how some people can just do design all the time, whether it's graphic design or character design or basically anything that requires that constant creative thought. I mean, mad props, but HOW.

Leyendecker master study in progress! Didn't want to post it half-done, but I don't want to miss another posting day and there's no way this is getting finished tonight. Needs a couple more hours, minimum. Aside from the obviously unfinished bits, I think some of the facial construction is wonky (what is his nose even doing), and I've botched the expression.

Nobody does facial planes quite like Leyendecker. Leyendeckeeeeeerrrrrrr.

[Whirly]

Great Leyendecker study. Keep going with it! Your head is a little taller and thinner but I'm not sure its important as you are getting the planes down well. The two portraits in #715 are fantastic and your repaint of the 2011 peice shows massive progress! Awesome.

[ecki]

Awesome updates! I've got no crits, just wanted to tell you that you're awesome

[lionheartGFX]

oooh wicked master study! you better finish it! and also dont use the eyedrop tool, eyeball the colors or use a gamut mask: http://www.livepaintinglessons.com/gamutmask.php they are pure awesomesauce also if you want to quickly check your value range put a layer on top of your ps document that negates the hue of all the colors and really see how much they actually differ in VALUE, push them further and this will make your painting read more, watch fengh zhu videos in youtube he explains and uses this thoroughtly lets both keep up rev!

[Revidescent]

Whirly - Thanks! I think it looked taller because the chin was drifting off into the sunset, but I think I fixed it. =)

ecki - Aw, thanks! =D

lionheartGFX - It is done! Nah, I don't eyedrop. (Okay, that's not entirely true - I'll use it occasionally after picking the colour myself, to check if I'm seeing accurately, but then I'll reset it and re-eyeball the colour a few minutes later. I don't do it a lot, but it's nice to make sure I'm not on entirely the wrong track.) I also do a value check layer on final illos all the time, but it never occurred to me to use it on studies, and it actually really helped here! Thanks! =D (I love Feng Zhu's stuff, he's a huge inspiration.)

Finished Leyendecker study! Not bothering to link the ref, since it's right there in the previous post... the face is still slightly off, but overall I'm happy with it. I really need to do master studies more often.



Here's a head study, attempting and failing to apply some of what I'd learned in the Leyendecker study. Unlike normal, I didn't make any particular effort to get the colours exact, went for a more interpretive approach. It's really not finished, but I got really frustrated and would rather just start something new than bang my head against it.

[REF]


Finally, on what is apparently Leyendecker day, here's something with an incredibly stupid Leyendecker connection. It was a pencil study of a Leyendecker head from morning warmup sketching that turned into a sketch of my character, for reasons. Then I took a webcam photo of it (scanning takes EFFORT) and painted it a little. This is dumb. I am dumb.

[ecki]

I like your update – great color study!

The guy in the middle has a little extreme saturation going on (Maybe he watches me burn? )
I love the explanation on how the last one came to be

[RyanRyan]

dangggg

[Shadow Stalker]

Looking great!! I've been out of it since Thanksgiving, and I'm finding it incredibly difficult to get back into drawing. The worst part is I don't know why. Anyways, loving your progress!

[poetry man]

tea of doom, I think ur right in post #720.

[Michael Howe]

Rev - thanks for the inspiration to draw something every day, which I have been attempting for the past couple weeks! I need to draw more of course, but starting with something every day is good!

[MeteorCat]

Awesome studies as usual Rev!

[Marria]

Don't have any critique but I just wanted to say beautiful and inspiring sketchbook you have here.

[Yemi775]

Thanks for the thorough crit Revidecent i really appreciate it. Great updates i love the gesture and the color studies thanks for sharing!

[Umbravita]

Liking those studies. Your colours are vibrant, and for the most part you seem to have a good eye for them, though I agree that the middle one's saturation is a tad too intense. Also, watch the curves and angles of your lines -- looking at the sailor's neck on the left there, the line curves inward much farther than the reference, where the line is less curved. Be careful with how you paint, too, and take care you're not using too hard brushes for edges, otherwise it looks like your figure doesn't belong to the background.

[diamandis]

I'm in the middle of a big design project at the moment (I do more freelance design than illustration, TBH) and while it's a cool project and there's a lot of stuff I love about design work, I find it very... creatively draining? I never hit that zen point that drawing and painting tend to, where I can just relax and go with the flow, I have to fight it every second, and when I'm done for the day it's hard to sit down and make some art.

So you're a designer too. I wonder how many others here are. I'm up and down on it, personally. I figured out a long time ago that I'm better at creating things than I am at putting together layouts. I'm better at logos, photo-illustrations, etc, than I am at websites, brochures, other types of page layout. I'm better at working within frames than I am at framing things and relating the frames to one another. Dunno why, and dunno why I haven't gotten better at it over the years.

[Revidescent]

ecki - Once more I oversaturate. It's a crutch. D: Thanks!

RyanRyan - Thank you?

Shadow Stalker - It can be really hard to get into the groove again! (See below, I'm kind of in a similar place albeit on a much smaller time scale.) The hard part is getting started, though, so I wish you luck with that. Once you find the spark again, it's worth it. =)

poetry man - Yeah, that was a great crit. I think at this point I have no choice but to find the time to take that thing to some semblance of a final.

Michael Howe - And of course you post this right as I fall off the earth for over a week. GUILT. But thank you, and good luck! It's a worthwhile habit!

MeteorCat - Thank you!

Marria - Thanks a lot!

Yemi775 - Thanks, and you're welcome. =)

Umbravita - Thanks a ton for the comments, very valid crits. Seems I've been hearing about overdoing saturation a decent amount lately, so I'll have to watch for that more. I'll keep an eye on those curves and hard edges as well - edges are a definite weakness at this point.

diamandis - I fell into design basically by accident - a few skills picked up at artschool that turned into small jobs that snowballed through word of mouth. I've never felt entirely comfortable as a designer, but it's still creative work, and my clients seem happy with what I'm providing, so I guess I must know what I'm doing to some degree. It lets me pay my bills as a freelancer while I try to get a stable illustration career going, and I'm grateful for that. I absolutely hear where you're coming from, and I feel similarly - layout can definitely be a learned skill, but it's one that some people pick up much faster than others, and I'm well on the slow side. I also struggle like crazy with composition, though, which is basically the same thing, so yeah.




WELL, THAT WAS AN AWFUL WEEK AND A HALF. TL;DR: super sick, frantically trying to catch up on work missed while super sick, broken computer, frantically trying to catch up on work missed while computer was broken. Aside from some awful pencil doodling which I am emphatically not scanning, I hardly drew anything, and oh my god, I apparently don't cope well with not drawing. As well as the obvious guilt from not working, I feel like a chunk of my life was missing. That aside, it was still hard to sit down and get working again? Geez. Art. We've chosen weird lives, guys.

And after all that, I'm not gonna be able to post tomorrow either, for reasons. I WILL GET BACK IN THE GROOVE, I SWEAR.


Gestures, to try and find some flow again.



Simple head study. Feeling real rusty, not painting for 10 days. Urgh.

[REF]

[GarryBarry]

Revidescent , You have a cool art and cool hand to do those stuffs..

[Revidescent]

GarryBarry - Thanks. =)

I've been flailing over Skyfall since I saw it in theatres, even doing studies from the TRAILER, and now it's !!!out on DVD!!! Better yet, this awesome guy has already done the work of screencapping it - his blog is an amazing resource, by the way, loads of beautiful visuals, great inspiration. (Though I may not get over Skyfall studies for a while. Uh.)

I've been meaning to try using screencaps rather than landscapey stuff for these tiny studies, to see if I could do it more than anything, so this seemed as good a time as any. 15 minutes each.

[Revidescent]

Gestures gestures gestures

I actually like a lot of these, which is rare for me?

[Revidescent]

Not over Skyfall. Never over Skyfall. Ref from here.

[dessinateurimpulsif]

Your gesture sketches are really nice

[Pavel Sokov]

Fantastic Sketchbook!