Lyraina's Sketchbook

[Lyraina]

zou: Thanks as always for your encouraging words! I appreciate it a lot.
I'm a lot less panicky now, just have to find the right balance between drawing and university.
Thanks for the asaro head!
I see what you mean about hair - first it was really huge (looked stupid), but now it seems I cut it back too much.
Thanks for all your help!

bbwolf: Thanks a lot! Yeah, relaxing is something I should learn someday

LtPlissken: Yes, I think I really took on too much with the painting for my sister.
But I don't think this is always a bad thing, because with each challenge we grow, even if we fail! I'll just do better next time. Or just tell her to give me an easier subject matter
I'm trying to follow your advice and not stress myself out too much, not an easy task, time feels so limited when there's so much to do!
But I guess this is a struggle everybody who cannot study art fulltime has to fight through.
Thanks for the compliments for the portrait! I actually tried to paint in a small (but sharp) blue rimlight, but felt it was too distracting.
So I stayed with a soft glow around her head. I'll have to find a balance here! (I do love rimlights)

JiR: I think it's important to leave one's comfort zone now and then, discover new ways to work, new subject matters... can't hurt!
Just see it like this: If you do something you really, honestly have no clue about, you'll most likely produce something really bad
(like the weapons in this post) - and that's okay! But this also means there is much room for improvement. And the next time you try, it will already look better.
And don't we all love improvement?


I tried to deliberately use "stretch and squash" in those poses, I don't think it is showing yet - my brain may need some time to process what I'm telling it to do.
I have a hard time really understanding it though, because while I understand what parts are stretched and which are pinched together, I don't think the effect is
very visible in most poses. Like, not as many skin folds as I would have expected there to be... but I'll wrap my head around it eventually! (Yes, I'm practicing optimism as well!)
I did my homework and posed in front of the mirror though! Until my back hurt from trying to exaggerate poses and understand them better











Oh, and some weapons - daggers and axes pulled from my head, but the firearms are referenced.
Seriously, I'd count myself glad if I found the trigger on those things without shooting myself in the face! Much to learn.

[Murderotic]

Ah gosh Lyraina! Great updates as usual! I love the swords

[Rustveld]

Nice updates! I like the painting you're working on for your sister. The colours and light create a beautiful atmosphere. I hope you decide to finish it.
The biggest thing holding the piece back is the anatomy. I noticed a lot of your anatomy looks flat.
It might be helpful to draw the limbs as cylinders with ellipses to create form.
This tutorial explains it better http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...ight-rendering
Keep it up!

[LtPlissken]

Those figure blue pen studies are amazing, I cannot believe the large improvements that you achieved by your
everyday studies. And the weapons, fantastic, who would expect from a young girl to do those rifle and axe concepts?
You are making wonders in each and every possible way and direction.

[Lyraina]

Thaaanks Murderotic!

Rustveld: Thank you! I'll finish it. Oh well, anatomy, why do you have to be so hard? Thank you for the link. It's funny, no matter how many hours I spend digging through old CA stuff, there always is more to discover! I'll try to use it for my next anatomy studies.

LtPlissken: Thanks to you as well! Glad you like the weapons - I'm not this young anymore, you know I'd love to be able to draw/paint lots of the things out of my comfort zone, like weapons or armor or space ships or architecture, or... so many things!

Today I wrote the last biology exam of my life. (No, I'm not done yet). Let's celebrate that with some value practice!
With the asaro head (but started out with a random non referenced sketch)


With photo ref


And here is... don't laugh! I thought I'd try to paint something involving interesting hands poses, and try to get them right once (for real!).
Not always let the hands ruin the images. Can't be so hard if I shoot some reference from my own bony hands, right? Well, wrong.
How the hell does one go about this? I tried to construct, eyeball, guess, copy, understand, exaggerate the hands, but can't find a way to make it look acceptable O_o
Anyone has some advice how to practice this stuff? I don't feel that all those drawings of my own hands really helped anything. Practicing simplified hands might be better.
Or actually painting them, struggling through the process until it gets easier. But the only way to make a painting like this one look good, seems to be "slavishly copy a reference" so far...
not sure if this is the way to go though? Or will it help in the long run?

[Lagarto]

the value studies are very nice! about the hands: I really find them so hard myself, but what I try to do, is first do a lot of anatomy studies: the bones, the tendoms, etc. then, when I try paint hands, I just repeat the sketch over and over till I'm satisfied with it. It's tiring but I think it's worth it. Don't give up if they look bad the first time! Usually, the problem I find is that they are just out of proportion.

[LtPlissken]

I totally agree, let’s celebrate your last biology exam,
and let’s do some values. I painted a bit more.
Your improvements, I already said it, you have
it you are talented and creative enough to
do anything you want. So you never stop.

[kamikazel33t]

Your sketchbook is awesome! I am nowhere near your level but what I can suggest to wrap your head around the pinch and squash or a related issue to tackle is to read Michael Mattesi - "Force Dynamic Life Drawing For Animators" it really helps and I find it very easy when he describes how movement or "force" works in life drawing poses. Now from what I can see is that the only issue you have is the force or movement is not really going "through" the model and only remains around the contours of the drawing. What I can suggest is that you use the anatomical landmarks such has protrusion of the rib cage or hip bones to show the movement "through" the model. I am not to sure how reliable my insight is but I assure you the book really does simplify understanding of movement in poses.

[SophieW]

Great sketchbook!! I really like your recent figure studies, there’s a clear style that makes them really interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your work! There’s so much potential here.

[Lyraina]

Lagarto: Thank you! Yeah... I guess it is just more practice, as always. And repetition.

LtPlissken: Thank you thank you so much! You know I love it! Exactly what I had in mind! It's so nice of you to paint something for me, makes me really happy

kamikazel33t: Thank you! I looked up your suggestion, Mattesi's sketches really look dynamic, I'll see if I can get my hands on his book. Thanks!

Thanks SophieW for your kind words


Not much to say today, only have some values (and composition) again, environments this time

[Lyraina]

a few alchemy doodles



refined in PS, not sure if I like them better or not

[kamikazel33t]

I love the style of the recent drawings, especially the mirrored and symmetrical look to them, it adds this really nice theme to it.

[Lyraina]

Thank you, kamikazel33t! Yeah, I definitely had fun with alchemy's mirror tool


Sorry for not visiting all of your sketchbooks lately, I hope I'll find the time to do so again soon.
For now, just some portraits and me trying to get a grip on painting hair.

non referenced


referenced


Then I tried to focus on hair, I think I will have to step back again and start with pencil & paper before painting.
I have a really hard time watching my edges,
so it won't be so messy, and on the other hand not make it look like glued together. Also, I need to watch the "flow" and movement as always...
(Rest is photo referenced)

[LtPlissken]

That Alchemy thing, I never managed to get friendly with the software,
but now I can see that there can be made some interesting things with it.
Looking your portrait renders, I have to tell you that you have improved
much with your render and colors. You render skin and hair much more
realistically than before. But there is still a problem with proportions.
You remember the old story; no matter how good you render anything out,
if the base is wrong then everything is going to look wrong. My advice at
this moment is that you take a pencil and draw as much as you can,
heads mainly if portraits are your primary goal. Your weak spot are
proportions, you are much ahead with your render thing. Fix up the
proportions part and you will achieve even better and even more
amazing results. Hope you are doing fine and that you are still
active with your art life. Two weeks passed since your last thing,
so it would be nice. Don’t let us down.

[zou]

hey the alchemy doodles stuff are great

for your last digital painting, beware saturation, some area are too desaturated and other too much (hair)

good luck with your nexts

[Lyraina]

LtPlissken: You're so right, I'm back to drawing daily now, no touching a brush before I haven't done some (pencil) sketching!
(Even though this post will not show that yet...). Thank you for always reminding me of those important things, be it doing more value studies
(which really help, as you predicted), or reminding me to draw more. I tend to go astray easily if not reminded of the crucial things.

zou: I see what you mean, not that you mention it - thank you!

---

I'm back, I hope.

I'll start with some paintings. Skin color studies from last year.




Something random from last year. (Proportions are very off)


Random things I did over christmas, because I thought it's better to do anything than nothing.

[Lyraina]

And still lifes I did over Christmas, mostly in the evenings, while watching TV with my family.
Like, better do something enjoyable and relaxing, than only stare at the screen.
Why do I feel the need to justify myself? O_o

[LtPlissken]

A pleasant nice surprise and an excellent start from you, in this beautiful new divine year.
After two months you have worked hard and came up with a very solid admirable update.
Obviously you are strongly focusing on portrait digital paintings, and I like that orientation.
I said in my earlier post that you significantly improved with hair and skin render, and with
colors also. With these new paintings you went a few steps even further, and I like that
very much. Now, let’s see about your proportions. They are kind a better, but still a lot to
learn and to improve. As I said, you will improve by doing simple pencil head drawings,
do pages and pages of heads, drawn from different angles, and maybe in perspective. Rotate
the head in your imagination, try to brake down to shapes, spheres, cylinders, boxes.
I want you to think about planes, I want you to thing strongly like this when you draw or
paint a head; LINK
Also you be very careful about the placement of the eyes, on your first portrait painting
(portrait58) it’s very obvious that the eyes are placed very strangely and look awkward,
they don’t have the depth like they are in the eye sockets.
Flip your paintings. I don’t know how to emphasize, how important this step is. Flipping
your painting while you are working on them is an absolute MUST. If you want to continue
with digital art, and I know that you want, you have to remember this. As you paint, flip
the piece horizontally and vertically from time to time, so you could detect proportion and
other issues. Non symmetric and skewed things, will be detected by this method the
most easiest.
Flatness – you still have problems with flatness, you most probably work from imagination
or you photo reference things. You need to turn the 2D things into 3D in your head, so
you could present them in a believable realistic fashion. Always think 3D. The eye is
not a flat fish shape. It’s a sphere, a ball, round as hell. It’s planted deep into the eye
sockets, it’s in the skull, and there is a big thing protruding out from the middle, that’s
a pyramid, a nose. Ok, I am bit bringing things to a banal level, but you should think like
that when you are drawing or painting a head, or whichever other subject. Everything is
3D, stands somehow in perspective, this way or another, and you have to create an illusion
on paper or canvas, you have to create a very good illusion, turning 2D to look like three dee.
While you are at portraits, I would recommend that you do full head paints like on portrait59,
and do not crop them as on the other ones, cause if you are painting the full head you will have
better grasp of understanding the whole situation. If you are missing a part of the head, you
are getting confused, and you are getting even more flat than you usually do.
Allright, I think that I am going too long now, I have to shorten up this reply, sorry for the
lengthy text. I will just say a few words about your still lives, they look surprisingly good
and they look outstanding. Not that anyone expected anything less from you or your
capabilities, but I really like the color and the feeling in them. Watch with cylinder in
perspective and with circles, they are a really tough sons of bees, lots of practice and
perspective studies needed to put them down correctly.
Finishing this one, sorry for writing too much. You are improved a lot, and it makes me
very very happy that you are still on a roll, and that you are getting better and getting more
serious about art. In the end, I would like you to have everything that you wish in this new
year, lots of love and all that, you know what I mean. Till our next meeting be good, stay
enthusiastic and think positive. I will be in the little wooden shack, behind the house, you
just call if you need anything. Cheers.

[dimi]

heya thnx for visiting me hows it goin?lots of stuff happening heredig the alchemy designs,carefull with the head construction think as a sculptor do some greyscale studies to get the planes right i see that there are some things off, the noses f.e are good structured so are the lips eye to eye distance is off at some portaits but you are def in the right track keep grinding hun ill come again so post some moar!

[Jaik]

SO much improvement. So jelly!

Your portraits are coming along really good and those blue gestures earlier on the page are stunning! I only recently got back in to the gestures myself (never should have stopped). The only thing i see is that you might benefit from some skull studies, drawing the human skull over and over, because in some of your portraits it looks like you are missing a bit of cranial mass. Coming straight from my sketchbook to yours I can really see how crappy my colours are, great work!

[Lyraina]

LtPlissken: To be honest, I didn't do much art in those two months, only over Christmas I got back into the habit.
And very gladly so. You're right about the skulls, I'm going back to the basics (drawing wise) again, thank you for the link! Good key words to google.
I flip my (digital) paintings, but I guess not often enough! The 2D-> 3D transition is really hard for me,
while drawing and painting alike. I'm not sure how to improve that, maybe I should construct things more often,
and try to change my way of thinking. I'll keep it in mind.
Thanks a lot

dimi: Thank you! More head studies it is.

Jaik: Thanks Jaik *digs out her fake skull*


Some more experimental stuff from Christmas vacation, I'll soon scan my drawing/pencil stuff, I promise
my cat




my sister


tried "constructing" those instead of eyeballing with photo ref, then painted on top

[Lyraina]

Here is something highly experimental from a few days ago, I'm almost embarassed to show! Not so much a design practice, more like trying to get that perspective stuff down.

[Rustveld]

I would say your experiment was a success. These look great, I would love to see them finished. Keep it up!

[Lyraina]

Rustveld: Thank you! Glad you think so!


Anatomy! Mostly from reference, 2 sheets or so from mind (yoga inspired ).

[LtPlissken]

Yoga inspired poses are looking cool, except that plenty of times your lines are “wavy” for
no reason. Maybe you were under some kind of stress, if not then more practice will surely
solve these minor errors. The experimental environments are looking good, but the perspective
is mainly off on most of the objects in the rooms. Using a layer of perspective grids would
help tremendously in this kind of situations, or just try to tackle with some basic 3D
software, I would suggest Google Sketchup, there is a free to use version downloadable
I think. On the airplane paintings, I like that you went greyscale, and your values are
getting better, but there is still this flatness two dimensional issue, you have to paint
and draw more to understand form. Sorry, I am becoming a bit boring with some
of my advices, but I just want to help you and want to create a constructive feedback.
It’s great that you are updating regularly and that the determined look is
back in your eyes, once again.
Do keep going this way, don’t give up, and success is guaranteed.

[Lyraina]

LtPlissken: Thanks again for all your feedback! I'm not sure what you mean mit wavy, you mean me drawing additional muscles/bulks/knuckles that don't exist? Or the general line qualiy, when I need more than one try to get it right?
Believe it or not, I did use grids for those indoor sketches! I already experimented with Google Sketchup, but before using tools like this, I really want to know I can do it by hand. I think the main problem is that I worked too sloppy while doing the second layer of sketching, and maybe I need to use more perspective lines and less guessing. I can see it myself now, the laboratory door for example is horrible off! Really didn't realize that while drawing.
I really hope I'll get over that flatness problem, I see it in my work, especially compared with other people's figure drawing, but I don't really know a solution yet. I'll keep at it though.
Thanks as always!

Here’s something I’m very unhappy with, but I will post it for the record, and for the case anyone wants to offer me some advice. Hair is one of my (many) weak points at the moment, drawing and painting wise, so I added some exercises to my daily routine. I’m trying to understand how the strands, locks etc are falling, and try to copy it (“learn from nature”), but the more I try to be accurate, the uglier it looks. If I go more abstract, it is going better, but only slightly so. It’s always getting messy in the end. Is it just "draw more" again?








And this one I did a while ago, a character my mother requested. Don't worry, I'm already back to practicing planes of the head etc. by now

[JiR]

It is like always.. seriously every time the same...

Every time I came and look through your latest post you get better and better- plus the boarder of your comfort-zone
is even further away.

I am quit interested in your work-flow and time-schedule.. how long do you paint each day, when do you start and so on.
Keep it briefly because I wanna see more of your work ;D

[Rhubix]

Fun sketchbook, you've got a good variety of subjects - eviros & animals - but you seem to draw a lot of 20 something ladies. Don't forget the variety of people there are too!

As for the perspective stuff in 352 - maybe they're not technically perfect but I think they're very cute. makes me want to do some similar drawings

[Lyraina]

JiR: Thank you, thank you! My schedule is very hard to describe, because it varies so much. I try to do "something" every day, even if it is only 5 minutes, so I won't get lazy. I also try to just use most the time I don't spend at university for drawing (no gaming for me anymore, at the moment ). This can be almost nothing (like the month/weeks before christmas), or quite a lot like the recent weekends. Unfortunately, even sitting on my desk with a pencil from 9 am to 11 pm on a saturday does not lead to lots of practice neccessarily, because I lose focus so easily, fall asleep, start procrastinating, etc! No idea how those crazy 16 hours drawing/day people do that. If I don't get enough sleep and food, I'm a emotional and physical mess after 2 days!
So, at the moment, I would say I can get in about 2-3 useful hours a day on average? I'll try to keep an eye on the time the next days/week or so, it's an interesting question I really don't know exactly.
I don't have a schedule at the moment because my days vary so much with university, but I try to stick to a certain routine to focus on my weakest points. At the moment this means starting with simple warmups like lines, circles etc (stolen from this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgDNDOKnArk), followed by one page of drawing hair (not fun), and then.. whatever I feel like (right now anatomy and planes of the face, no painting in PS for me until those get better). Again, this varies a lot, whatever I feel I need to practice most...
I know this answer is quite vague, because I really do not plan much at the moment. If you have any idea how to use time more efficient or whatever, feel free to share, I love hearing how other people work and practice!

Rhubix: Thank you! Agreed, I mostly draw from those photo slideshow pages, they do have a few males, but not may different ages or body types. I'll see if I can hunt down more differences, or try if I can do some from imagination. Glad you like the perspective thingies!


---
More anatomy, and more hair, this time with pencil. While drawing, I never realize how warped and awkward my faces are, until I scanned them...

[Jaik]

So much nice stuff in here, every time I come in. The last portrait was really good in some aspects but I agree the planes of the face are a little off.

Those interiors look really good, the only think is that the lines on some of them, those bordering the image, are very unsteady/wavy, its probably a digital problem only because your pencil lines are much better. Practice drawing 2 dots on the canvas in photoshop and trying to draw a straight fluid line between then, throw your lines so that you over shoot the second dot, but have the speed to make a smooth line. Then do it again, and again, and again, and fill hundreds of canvases You'll see an imprisonment in your line quality without have to use the old Shift+click trick.