Neave's Sketchbook

[MeteorCat]

Some animal and animation studies. Plus, a bunch of unworthy scribbles from doodling imagination stuff.

[MeteorCat]

I'm quite happy with this. I needed to create a storyboard with a minimum of 3 shots which portray some kind of situation that has an element of surprise. I think this isn't too bad for my first ever storyboard. I also used reference which I shot myself! Thanks to my brother

[MeteorCat]

Sketchbook Pro doodling. Tis' quite fun

[Eric-Anthony]

i like the storyboard, some of the shots are quite dynamic but it looks a bit like u were rushing it.
take your time and if something looks wrong then erase & redraw. try to learn from ur mistakes and fix them

keep at it!

[Revidescent]

Your oils/still lives are coming along really well! I like the one at the top of post 208 a lot; it feels a little washed out (both in terms of value and saturation) but I'm guessing some of that's just the photograph. It has a nice energy to it, and though the perspective feels slightly off here and there, everything sits nicely in space.

Your figure study from post 209 - off to a great start, and your structure looks solid. I know I always bug you about your brush opacity, but in this case, the fact you've got some background greys showing through in places isn't doing your colour accuracy any favours. =) That aside, your colours aren't too bad at all. Just watch the saturation, mostly. See how warm that tone along the left side of her torso is?

Good luck with your new courses! =D

[Valyavande]

Hello MeteorCat!
Very nice variation of studies and sketches around here! Was great to see the changes in your work on page 7 as you started to use some hard brushes.
I just feel like less could be more in your work. Means: less lines, less brushstrokes. I know it'S difficult, but most of the stuff is just getting busy and hard to read with too many strokes. If you do sketches, and there is a wrong line, let it be wrong. Because it's not going to be right if you support it with even more lines.
Maybe you can do even some more basic studies of 3D forms. You know, the awful boring stuff like boxes in perspective. But they really help to get even organic masses right, if you start to understand.
Anyway, don't forget about having fun and keep it up =)

[Kerah]

Hey Neave, it's great to see that you're working tediously on improving your skill.
You're probably not very happy with your imagination stuff, but as you know it, the only way to fix it is just to draw more. Silly advice, but yeah.
Really love the little cub, really good job on that painting (especially the eyes).

A cool song, just in case -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK35oeJzK7I

[MeteorCat]

Eric-Anthony - Thank you! I'll keep that in mind.

Revidescent - Thanks for visiting. It's always nice to have you here. Thanks for the kind words and tips I'll try and be more accurate.

Valyavande - I know what you mean I've been trying really hard to change that but I feel like its a bad habit of mine. Hopefully if I work hard enough it will end soon. Yes I have like a month off from college now so hopefully I'll get back to doing some more proper studying. I've done many still lives but I'll go even more basic if you think its a good idea

Kerah - So good to see you mate. Thanks for the support and the song link!

So now I've got some 'free' time until the beginning of March where I'll be swamped. It will be like a dream come true. Studying almost all week (4-5 days) like a proper student! No more feeling bored at home trying to come up with assignments to give myself - YAY!

My animation teacher said to come in March ready to work on our short film (up to a minute) so I've decided to go for The Fox and the Grapes or the The Fox in the Vineyard tale. I want to do something like a 30 second film and really focus on drawing everything as best as I can so I can really prove to myself that I have some knowledge and skill and I'm not completely useless.
So, to being work on the pre-production model sheets, concept drawings & storyboard I thought it might be a good idea to study drawing foxes from every possible angle as best as I can so I will be prepared to truly capture the nature of the fox's movement and feel. I'll see how it goes and hopefully I'll have something good ready for March. If I have any extra time I'd love to work on some other things too

So these studies were quite fun - I wanted to keep it rough and loose so I did three tasks, first I traced the general shape and form, secondly I studied and drew from the reference and lastly I tried drawing it again from memory, only glancing if I forgot something. Foxes have so much emotion and character in their faces. Each species is so different and unique its so beautiful.

[AeonPhoenix]

Glad I stopped by your sketchbook. And yay someone else whose done storyboards. Best way to improve your shot composition is to study films and learn all the different kinds of shots and what they represent. And remember that the camera is a character too!

Otherwise just keep on doing what you're doing. You made the right choice to come to this website, you'll be getting good critiques. Keep in touch!

[MeteorCat]

Thanks for visiting AeonPhoenix, I will eventually spend more time studying films and learning the story telling side of animation and illustration but I just don't feel I've got the fundamentals down yet. Don't know if I ever will feel that I do but heck I gotta keep pushing forward.

Had a really hard time to motivate myself to draw this week but I pulled through and continued the fox studies plus continued the female nude (going to call it done though). I also wanted to experiment some new digital painting processes as I really want to see if I can draw cleaner and more efficiently. Right now a lot of people have pointed out that it's very hard to 'read' my work hence I thought I'd focus on that. I also tried going for a very textury dirty process just too see maybe what not to do.

Also I'm trying to visualise how to simplify this animal (fox) in order to animate it eventually but there are so many features of his that I love and wouldn't know how to show without blending many colours and having lots of strokes. I really want to be able to draw a bit more for animation but I'm not really sure how

[MeteorCat]

A little something inspired by Valentines, James Gurney (attached is his Oriana and Arthur painting which I used as reference) and Pascal Campion.

I found out about Pascal through here: http://onanimation.com/2013/02/11/in...ascal-campion/
This is his website and blog I highly recommend taking a look: http://pascalcampion.com/ ; pascalcampion.blogspot.com

Also James Gurney if you don't know about him: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com

[Freshfool]

yo cool animal studies man i see improvement keep it up

[MeteorCat]

Thank you Freshfool!

I thought this fish would be a good colour study for me. Was quite hard but I really enjoyed it. Also, sketch dump.

[MeteorCat]

More fox studies. Brown paper is great fun. Also studying Balto to see the art of the canine I can't wait to really start creating my fox character.

[MeteorCat]

I feel a bit of improvement but still I have no idea what I'm doing More real life studies? More animation style stuff? Arghhhh! I really want to be able to draw for animation!
I think the Balto studies helped a little.

[MeteorCat]

Lots of more foxes (drawn at work) with no reference, very quick, very rough; just trying to get some more stylised versions but to no avail. At least I see I've improved a bit.
Other then that some terrible gestures - it shows that I haven't practised these in a while but I'll do some digital ones tomorrow. I was trying to focus on cutting unneeded lines, attempting to keep it clean and clear - this idea was taken from CTRL Paint (highly recommend you visit this link) and from a few, very good comments, made by the awesome and friendly people who visit my sketchbook.
Also, I tried drawing what I see outside on the street with a pencil but it was really hard so I gave up and drew my bag I love drawing faces with pencils!

Hope everyone is having a good week!

[MeteorCat]

I don't remember this being so hard. I just can't do those 30 second gestures. 60 is sometimes good but still quite difficult.

[MeteorCat]

Force animal design studies and gestures both from life & photographs

[MeteorCat]

65 second gesture drawing - much better

[Kerah]

Hey man, really enjoyable fox and canines studies
This one caught my eye - http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1360859040
Really full of expression and liking all the surrounding you did although bare but still good
Cheers!

[MeteorCat]

Thank you Kerah!

Been doing loads of stuff lately but I've decided to upload a lot less to CA as it's been bringing me a bit down. Here are a few sketches for the heck of posting

[Kerah]

Hey Haver, don't feel discouraged to keep posting. Do it for the sake of chronological order, something to look back upon and say - "Hey I improved greatly since that page!". That is really great motivation knowing that you're moving in the right direction.Cheers!p.s- Pesach Sameach! It really is sameach for me, I'm on a vacation from the boredom of my day job and I get to draw a ton

[MeteorCat]

Thanks Kerah. Happy holidays to you too
I know what you mean about the looking back but to be honest, I post stuff here to get critique and/or support of any kind. I see a lot of artists asking for just critique but sometimes its nice to see someone just likes something you did.

What I love about CA is that it's a give and take. I noticed that if I don't take the time to really critique or show support on other people's threads (sketchbooks and whatnot) then they won't come to mine. So, many times I found myself really needing help from someone and couldn't find it so when I posted it on CA I was really looking forward to getting some useful tips.
Anyway, I found myself posting loads of stuff and not getting really any feedback so I got really depressed about it. I saw that on my first couple of pages, a long time ago, when I was worse, I got a lot of feedback, and now, it seems that even though I might be a little bit better I'm getting very little feedback. So I told myself I don't want my feelings to be so reliant on CA any more and I thought it might take the pressure down a bit. I also found myself doing more and looking less at others do

Anyway, sorry about that rant. Here is something I did for college. Was very fun and I kind of like the results.

[MeteorCat]

I had a lot of fun with this so I decided to post it. I really tried to push the painting to what I wanted using photographic reference as a base point. I didn't do anything too fantastic but I like the result.

[MeteorCat]

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