Scrap Brain Zone

[Noun]

Welp, I figure having a sketchbook thread will help keep me inspired, practicing, and producing work regularly. I've been a cartoon person for most of my life but it's about time to get serious with the basic techniques like anatomy and perspective. Once I'm confident with those I'm hoping to integrate them into more stylized cartoon works since that's what I actually prefer and hope to excel at someday.

Enough rambling from me, on with the

Feel free to point out mistakes and don't worry about hurting my feelings, I've got a long way to go. Thanks for stopping by!

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Some recent stuff so I can one day look back and laugh at how bad I was

3 figure studies that need serious work lol. 4th was me practicing the crouching position, all but the small one in the bottom right corner are from reference. 5th is a fabric/cloth study, it was actually pretty fun but I had a hard time creating deeper folds (the upper left is from reference, the kid on the bottom right was me trying to recreate a fabric texture from imagination). Some posemaniacs junk, and the last 2 are just some head concepts of a couple of original characters.

I should clean my scanner. Or be more careful about smudging.

[Noun]

Posemaniacs, a bunch of hands because they've been giving me trouble, some faces from observation, and an hour long value/cloth study.

Also included an environment (I guess) I've been struggling with since yesterday since it's one of my real first attempts at the subject lol. The idea was to fuse a bus and a biplane into some sort of future vehicle, set in a ruined post-apocalypse America. It feels heavily lacking though, the design of the airbus feels really plain... so any advice on that is welcome. Probably should've spent more time on thumbnails/planning.

[lohes]

Hey Welcome to CA! Great start so far, looking forward to watching your progress

[Noun]

Thanks and welcome yourself!

Been doing a bunch of studies lately but I didn't get many satisfying results today. Also feel as if I've been neglecting my digital painting skills, which is equally important to stay strong with.

Some cartoony concept, I had an idea for a race of doll-like creatures with freakishly long arms. Gotta learn to tighten up those edges. I think I'll continue working on this series for a while in between serious study time.

And a character portrait. More composition/figure drawing practice is in order to get those proportions just right.

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Hands from imagination, hands from observation, and I worked some more on that other thing I posted earlier.

As usual, comments and junk are welcome.

[lohes]

Ooh I like the digital paintings Are they done with Photoshop?

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Thanks, and yep. I use CS4 for all of my digital work. Hopefully I can get some more of that done soon alongside the study work.

30 sec posemaniacs, then a few studies with the random pose viewer, and the third set is from imagination to see how much I'm remembering.

[Noun]

Lazyyyy, gotta get back into studying and updating this thing everyday. Been getting a bunch of ideas for finished digital works but I need to start sketching them out and posting them here.

Nothing really interesting today lol, more poses and a female figure study. If anyone has any comments on what I need to be doing I'd appreciate your help.

[Noun]

A slightly more productive day than yesterday But I know I can get a lot more work done still!

Going to dive into studying faces this week and probably next week too. The studies and portrait were all from imagination just to loosen up before doing serious work time. Also included my Creature of the Week entry for the heck of it since I finished it today

[M.A.C.]

heya, thanks for dropping by. figure I do the same. Keep going with those gestures, just watch the proportions on some of them, especially for the lower limbs. another thing would be to do a few plane studies to better understand how lighting would work on the subject, oh and don't rush so much with those values man, take your time, I'm sure it'll work for the best, laterrr

[Noun]

Thanks! I really appreciate that. Never even realized what you said about the legs lol, I will def look into correcting that in future studies.

Some still life disasters today Yikes.

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More junk, faces were from imagination.

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Few more faces today.

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Vilppu studies and I tried some gestures from television this afternoon. I actually liked it better than the 30 sec ones I was doing from posemaniacs before since I have to think/mark precise lines much faster, because the people are constantly moving. Nice change of pace.

I swear I need to get something more polished/colorful to look at in this sketchbook though... Soon.

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Some brainstorming/process work for this week's CHOW, also some more Vilppu/face study. Critiques welcome as usual

[JRumpff]

Keep the studies up.
Careful with how many darks you're using in your images.
Some of them feel a bit overly-dark

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Thanks for dropping by, and you're right. Still have a ways to go in getting a balanced value range. Might look at some shinier materials soon where highlights are more emphasized.

A still life from tonight, spent too much time fumbling over details too early instead of blocking out values. Also, my CHOW from last week.

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Some (weird) hands and heads, looking back though at least they're a bit better than before. Also a for-fun character sketch, tried to build volume with thinner lines this time.

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Plugging away at head studies + new character

Also, if someone could please tell me what's wrong with her legs I'd be grateful. Something is off.

[Sycra]

Your studies are looking good. I think the main issue with the leg may be the muscle placement... It's hard to explain so I just did a quick sketch over your work.

[Noun]

Wow thanks, that's a really huge help I'm glad you pointed that out before I went too much further on it lol.

Guess I'd better get on those leg studies pretty soon.

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Movin' along

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More junk.

Been thinking about character design a lot lately... well, more than usual lol. Amazing how rather simple characters like Mario or Sonic can become major icons. Mario doesn't have any of the traits you expect from a hero--he's middle-aged, overweight, and has an ordinary career, but he stands out as arguably the most iconic figure of the gaming world. What makes good character design like that? Starting to realize for myself it's not just about adding a ton of microscopic details to the costume and calling it a day. Even if that is fun sometimes

[Noun]

A bunch of random stuff... I was really unfocused the last few days

Head practice as always, still bad at foreshortened faces lol. Then some creature designs--was watching a Feng Zhu tutorial and noticed how he was using different overall shapes to convey different 'feelings' of monsters. 4th is an initial character sheet for another character I want to work on soon, and the last is some rough preliminary work for character commissions.

[TomDeVis]

cool sketches! Keep it up !

[Noun]

Heh thanks

Messing around with gestures this evening. I also tend to scribble while I'm reading so I tried to turn those random shapes into actual ideas/creatures.

On a side note Windows 7 updated tonight and now, for some reason whenever I use my tablet in PS it lags while I'm painting Really frustrating. Not sure if anyone else has had similar problems, but I'm wondering if anyone might have a solution. Guess I should mess with the pen settings and see if I can fix it...

[n1frit]

Great anatomy studies! Keep it up!

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Thanks for stopping by! I'll do my best.

Really trying to focus on values/color theory lately so tried out some color tests/still life work. Also, Red Riding Hood for absolutely no reason.

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Slow day...