sketchbook of a pangolin

[Flanagan]

Looks good. The girl's mouth should have more structure though, maybe some darker values to indicate planes. Right now seems more like a line. Perhaps it's just a style thing. Keep it up!

[letsgopangolin]

Looks good. The girl's mouth should have more structure though, maybe some darker values to indicate planes. Right now seems more like a line. Perhaps it's just a style thing. Keep it up!

Thanks!
Annnnnd that's actually a boy but I can see why people keep mistaking him for a girl hahahaha. He's a bit androgynous-looking... But then again, I used my own face as a reference. I'll be sure not to do that in the future again... *eh hem*

Yeahhhh the mouth thing is sort of a style thing, but mostly out of habit. I'm not really sure how to approach the mouth in a more 3-dimensional way when I'm painting realism. I think I mentioned somewhere earlier I started out drawing in a VERY, VERY anime-influenced style so I have a hard time interpreting the mouth as anything other than a line when I draw, heh.

[MartinC]

Awesome oil-paintings, the flowers are nice.
The last tiger peace looks great and finished

[Springly]

These are some really nice studies! The tiger peace has really nice style and expressiveness to it. I'm not really sure it's necessary, but if you wanted to try modeling the mouth in a sylized way the easiest way to start is by throwing in a shadow as the upper lip, and a shadow below where the lower lip would be.

[letsgopangolin]

@MartinC: Thanks! haha I plan to do a little more work on the background, though. ^^

@Springly: Ohhh, I see.... To be honest, I think I'll keep mine the way it is just out of personal perference. Though I do really like what you did with it. I just feel like it would be too weird if I changed my mouth-drawing so suddenly when I'm drawing the rest of my features the way I have been for a while. xD But that does help a lot! Actually, I might add some of those elements but tone it down a bit. Thanks for taking the time and effort to show me though :"D

[Saurabhinator]

I actually prefer it without the shading under the lip as well. I don't think our cartoon face will work if you try and add such form to particulate areas.

As for your perpendicular border conundrum, I'm no master of composition but I think I understand your predicament. Could try decreasing the contrast at the top and making trees less straight, more bendy, more branches.

EDIT: If you really want to add flowers maybe stick them around your character facing inwards (towards characters) if they are far and facing outwards if very close.

Note these are just suggestions. I'm not too sure if they'll work myself XD.

[letsgopangolin]

@Saurabhinator: Hmm, good advice! And did you mean to say "increase contrast"? Because that seems to be what you meant 8D;;

I showed some other people and they actually said it would be a good idea to add some leaves and etc. because it does add some depth. Question is where, though.. Further back, I guess. Off to google images!

I will try to fix up the trees, though!

[letsgopangolin]

I finally finished it!

Anyway, I'm totally open for suggestions, critiques, etc., but I just want to say that I feel like I've slaved over this picture long enough and I won't be making edits to it.. I'll just take any advice and apply it to future pictures haha.

I totally guessed on the leaves on the tree, BTW. No idea what I was doing there, to be honest. 8D;

But yeah, feel free to crit. ^^

[letsgopangolin]

I've been ridiculously busy lately so I don't have much art.. gonna post some doodles.

EDIT: Oh crap! Does anyone know how to make these smaller without me having to shrink them and re-upload one by one? x__x;; Thanks!








I really need to comment on other people's threads too but since I'm not really looking for feedback ATM I guess I'll put that off for just a little bit too..

[karantina]

so cute sb please more work

[letsgopangolin]

Holy smokes! I haven't posted in a really long time...
I got really caught up with senioritis towards the end of the school year and slacked off a bit art-wise.. But I also ran into a big art block and couldn't draw for a while

I'm currently a freshmen attending Ringling now, and the homework's been keeping me pretty busy but I still find a little bit of time to doodle. I even quit facebook, tumblr, and deviantART to devote myself more! xD

Here are some doodles I've been doing...













^--This last picture was done in one of my school clubs.. We had about an hour and a half to draw a picture relating to a prompt haha. I know the girl's anatomy is a little funky.. I'm really bad a blocking in shapes :/

I had more, but these are just my favorites. I know these are all kinda silly and cartoony (yes, I am doing the 30-day monster girl challenge from tumblr...even though I don't use tumblr anymore) but they're the only pictures I have on my computer at the moment, hehe! I'll try to include some of my figure/gesture drawings from school and get my sketchbook drawings scanned soon. I think I've improved a little bit ':]

Critiques are welcome!

[letsgopangolin]

Here are some figure drawings I've been doing in class... These are all pretty old though, from at least 1 month ago. I only started doing studies from real nude models a month ago so I think I'm improving a bit. I definitely think I improved gesture-wise from when I first made this SB thread, though! But I could definitely still use more feedback.







These are just the files I had on hand so I'll try to get up more later :/

[kevin_]

good looking stuff, your on your way!

[nodeerskulls]

oh, i love your traditional studies and lines! so fleshy and lively!

and the painting you have as an user picture is lovable, love the contrast you added at the end! i really like the other concepts too, you mix animal and human features really well!


to interpret the mouth easier in 3d, just imagine it wrapped around a barell. i think loomis has a good thing or two written on it, as well as some other books i have in my computer. if you want, i can search for the guides in the respective books and give them to you!

[dessinateurimpulsif]

you've got pretty drawings here....:-)

[keeptime]

It's cool to see the sudden jump from high school student to Ringling freshman. I really enjoy your style. I think it's pretty cute and fun.

[letsgopangolin]

kevin_, dessinateurimpulsif, keeptime: oh wow, uh.. thanks, guys!

nodeerskulls: thank you! I couldn't have done it without the help of the people on this board, though. They were so helpful to me! That's why I really want to be more active on here, the feedback is great! If you do have files and stuff and don't mind sharing, then by all means go ahead! Although I do have PDFs of two of Loomis's drawing books.

[letsgopangolin]

some more studies from class!






now I have to make my SB "NSFW".... hehehe

Also, sorry for the terrible quality of the skulls! We were supposed to draw 4 for homework and I'm still missing one, so I didn't bother to take a good picture. Actually, none of these are really good quality! :/ Some of them are even distorted towards the bottom because the newsprint board is so floppy. Sorry bout that!

[letsgopangolin]

A study I stayed up doing last night. I gave up on the hands and feet after hours of pushing virtual paint around a virtual canvas because the reference was too small to see any details. I'll make sure I use a bigger reference from now on! Ick.

[Neyut]

Good stuff, great ideas
i think you still lack in foreshortening skill hm?
there are a lot of good books for this problem, i can recommend hogarths dynamic anatomy, which describes the 5 methods of shortening ^^
keep it up ;P

[letsgopangolin]

Oh! yeah. My foreshortening skills were never really developed, so that sounds great! I'll look into it
Thank you for the critique! It's nice seeing one for a change~

[triggerpigking]

Can't really say much but really good work keep it up!
*subscribed*

[AllyAlbon]

Lovely stuff - my favourite is the spider woman, love the long legs. Your lifedrawing is great too - more!

[Dave'sWarmInsides]

Hi letsgopangolin! Let me suggest you take a look at one of Andrew Loomis' books, "Drawing the Head and Hands". Maybe it's a personal preference, but after looking your drawings I feel a lot of manga incluence and I really think that having anatomy basics could really help you explore more drawing styles.

Keep it up, I truely like the tiger/boy drawing you did too

Cya around!

[letsgopangolin]

Thanks, everyone!

Dave'sWarmInsides: I spent up until a few months before I opened this sketchbook thread drawing only hardcore anime, haha! It's a hard habit to knock, though I don't mind having a little influence from it. I think there are a lot of Loomis's books at our library, so I'll give 'em a look!

As for my drawing style, for some reason my hand always reverts to a specific drawing style when I'm drawing digitally, so it's probably not the best representation of how I draw! I've been going back to basics for the past year and actually have a lot of bizarre styles in my physical, paper sketchbook. But I'll still take your advice and study into it a little harder! It would be nice to not have to revert back to one style just because I'm holding a tablet pen.

Thanks for great comment!


Also as an art update, I REEEAAALLY desperately need some critique on this picture:



I want to try to finish it by this weekend and I don't want to get too far only to realize I have some awful flaw somewhere, hahaha! I've been trying to get it up for the past week but for some reason I couldn't access conceptart :/ Better late than never!

[Dave'sWarmInsides]

Re-reading my comment back there I actually remembered something very important about "style"...I once read in Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit a couple of pages in which he narrates an anecdote about his "becoming an animator" and how much he had been told about learning to draw. Learning to REALLY draw. What everyone that told him this meant was that he should study intensely the actual human figure, perspective and all basics. Since he was an animator, he should have been able to know the figure so well that he could rotate it, deform it, look at it from different points of view etc. He continues saying, that being on his 50's, trying to fill all gaps in his draftmanship, his bed-bound mother gave him a great piece of advice and I quote "Don't try to develop a style. Ignore style. just concentrate on the drawing and style will just occur." (pg. 29).

This is true. focus on your drawing skills, focus on the drawing itself. Try to improve as much as you can, and style will flow naturally.

About the painting. I can think of many things you could do to it, only depends on what you're doing it for. for example, I can think of it being an invitation to a halloween party of some sort (HALLOWEEN YEAAAA!!!). If it were the case, making it taller and making the moon bigger, allowing for space to insert text could be good idea. Maybe making the moon bigger could be also nice on its own. I don't know if it's because it's not finished yet, but I feel the zombie gentleman needs more work. The girl looks way more advanced and with a different light source than Mr. Brains.

All in all I think you should finish it and move on to the next. It's not so healthy to dwell so much in a single piece. If you feel saturated you could take a walk and come back to see it with new refreshed eyes later.

Hope that helped Cya around!!

[letsgopangolin]

Thanks for the quick reply!

About the style thing.. I've heard that advice a lot, actually, and from a DVD version of the same book! I guess my comment earlier was a little fuzzy. I've been trying hard to do that (and I think I've gone a long way from drawing in one anime style for 5+ years, though I'm still trying to push it) and even though most of my doodles up there are slightly influenced by cartoons and anime, they don't have very much in common in terms of proportions and facial features because I'm not trying to develop a style yet and seeing how many different ways I can draw people.
But I really appreciate your comment! I'm just sort of lost, since I AM studying perspective, anatomy, etc. I just happen to be drawing cartoons as I go along rather than at the end I guess I'm just a little confused as to what specifically your advice says I should do, aside from drop everything but realism.

ANYHOO!
You're right about the zombie because I haven't touched him yet, while the girl is almost done (bad habit, I know). The picture itself is something I'm considering submitting to our freshman show and we were told we could submit "anything". I'll definitely make the moon bigger, though!

I'm confused about what you mean about dwelling on a single piece, too. Could you clear that up?

Otherwise, thanks a ton! I haven't had someone leave me a really well thought-out comment trying to help me in a while. It's a nice change from the typical "nice sketchbook, here is the link to mine very noticeably placed in my signature -winkwink-" comment, haha!

[Dave'sWarmInsides]

Indeed. I always try to add some substance to comments so that ppl actually remember what and who wrote it.

About the dwelling to much in one piece, what I mean is that sometimes we take too long to finish certain paintings/drawings/pieces. I had a time when I stayed focused on ONEpainting for days! In the end I felt like starting it all over again. That doesn't really help because you just never finish it in the end, always finding more things to change here and there etc... I felt it could be usefull advice because u mentioned u were trying to get it up for the past week, hence me thinking long time on a single piece

Hope that clears things up. If not, let me know!

[letsgopangolin]

Thanks! Now I get what you mean, hahaha!
I hadn't been working on it for the whole week, I didn't have time because of homework and etc. (also wanted to wait for some critique before getting myself in too deep) so I just did a little bit last weekend and I want to pick it up again. Your advice is interesting because I've never heard anyone say that to me before! I actually haven't spent this long on a drawing in almost a year though, and I don't see the harm in switching things up a little bit. (That tiger picture took almost 2 months! Though I had marching band the entire thing, also leaving pretty much only the weekends for me to work)

Thanks for the feedback! :]

[Morningtea]

Wow, I really love this sketchbook!
Please update it~~