Sean's Sketchbewk

[TFsean]

Hello, my name is Sean Sevestre and I'm a 17 year old artist from Scotland

Like most of us here on CA I plan to become an illustrator and concept artist, I realised art was the only path for me just after I started university so I quit and am now studying at home full time (as of 3rd page).
I try to draw and improve every day and would very much appreciate any comments in this sketchbook to help me get there because theres no doubt in my mind it's where imma go

Without further a due here is le sketchbook.

Please do leave crits & feedback it's really tasty.

[TFsean]

Ok here are some sketches I did on a train yesterday yup.
This is a mix of imagination and sneaky drawing people on the train. The second page is a self portrait done from a reflection in the window at night time on the way back.

Opinions???
If people like these I have a bunch of bus sketches and will have more all the time.

+ A quick charcoal thing

[TFsean]

Gahh really quick thing this morning.

My most troubled area in digital (and traditional probably) art is creating that rocky mountainous look where its kind of lots of shards creating the impression of the rocky bits. NOT MAKING TOO MUCH SENSE but basically what I was tring to do on the dips in this crossroads which clearly are unsuccessful, any help? I cant get it!

[TFsean]

Woman from imagination in progress. Could someone point out anatomical errors?

What helps make skin more realistic? I find picking tones quite hard and how dark shadows could get and how shiny skin can be. just a couple tips would be cool

Anything compositional or everything is welcome too

[TFsean]

Some life drawing of my own hand and my girlfriend reading a book.

The hands are quite old but wanted to put some studies up. Will do some new ones very soon to compare

[TFsean]

One of my few plein air still life studies. Done in about an hour at friends house.

I still havent figured out had to give the impression of trees (see mangled tree on right) any tips?

[TFsean]

Some environments.
Quite simple in terms of complexity of the objects in the pieces. Im very hit and miss with my pieces at this point dont know what way works best for me but things seem to go better with a grayscale then a colour overlay

[TFsean]

Mushroom Environments.

I dont know if anyone has a fix for this or if its just a time thing but a lot of my digital art isnt quite "solid", kind of "blurry" i spent a while on the glowy one trying to get away from that blurryness but things still dont seem solid and in place but they do in my paintings or pencil work even if its a sketch.

[TFsean]

colour sketch. I find it much easier to draw figures properly with pencil and paper dont know why.

is this common at the start?

[TFsean]

Fleshy painting in acrylics. I feel this has some weight behind it, I can't get that at all with digital paint. #frustration!

Also Experimental paintings on movements & energy done on A1 boards in acrylic, bad photo quality too big too scan.

[Rhubix]

colour sketch. I find it much easier to draw figures properly with pencil and paper dont know why.

is this common at the start?

This is really common, even among professionals I know plenty of people who prefer paper.
Some people get the hang of it, others always prefer paper. Cintiq's are the happy medium.

Some general advice- improving your painting skills most effectively would be to do simple directed studies.
Do some lighting studies of simple still-lifes, ideally white ones. This will help you see how light works on simple objects- and with white objects it's much easier to see how colour reflects onto the objects as well.

It's harder working with coloured studies because you have to look at tone separately.
It's very common for people to make lighter looking colours (yellow, orange, pink) too light and darker looking colours (blue, purple, green) too dark.
Below you can see how colours that are seemingly very different are tonally the same once you desaturate them.
On the right you can see the brightest colours aren't necessarily the lightest.

True tone is easier to see if you squint - it helps you see dark/light better without all that colour and detail tricking your eye so much.

Anyways- I get long winded so I'll stop there >.< - So far I think your right on track, good proportions and the like.
Keep studying the fundamentals and you'll see improvement in no time ^_^
Happy sketching!

[TFsean]

Thanks for taking the time to write this for me! That colour tone thing is very interesting!
Will do studies on light very soon, will post when done

[TFsean]

Painting from ref so far. Mountainous stuff is killing me again I get bogged down trying to create it fully instead of somehow getting the impression of it so it's quite bare just now cause i kind of scrubbed it out

[TFsean]

Well this didnt go too well. I only worked from a small thumbnail of the ref because I didn't want to sit there and try and copy every line in the canyon but putting them next to each other like this i didnt get the values for the background canyon even, i found that canyon so killer, why cant I do mountainoussss!?

[TFsean]

Some environment thumbs. Some came out better than others.

[TFsean]

Environment from imagination. Tips for this would be quite appreciated, things about it just arent quite right but dont know what.

[TFsean]

Dumping this stuff before it gets too old and too have some traditional in here.

+ These are portraits in acrylic and watercolour from a bit back, acrylics are on A1 sheets watercolours on A4

+ A paint sketch from my old sketchbook

[TFsean]

Worked on that digisketch from higher up on the page!
I'm really glad I went back to it. I liked working on her extra design stuff, adding the things in her hair and her war paint was cool. Shes meant to be the war princess of a tribe or something and shes out hunting by a waterfall or a fast river of the sort

[littlemonsters]

Wanted to show this sketchbook some love. Keep it up man, you are on the right track!

[TFsean]

Wanted to show this sketchbook some love. Keep it up man, you are on the right track!

Thanks Littlemonsters! It's good to get a comment about the work here I appreciate it

[TFsean]

"So how did you spend your Wednesday Sean?" You might ask.

The answer is reading all of ctrpaint.com and doing this study from ref.

I could have kept refining it forever, uploading it just now I remember I wanted the collar bones a little redder but ye. Please comment I try to stay away from very smooth finished things like this these days because I used to get so bogged down in this stuff but it's been so long I thought today couldn't hurt
Left the face out BECAUSE IM STILL USING A MOUSE X( and the image was very low res, i print screened it from a sight aha. So i felt it would have degraded the rest of the piece. Enjoy and tear apart

[TFsean]

Here is a mix of my first muscle anatomy studies and some imagination stuff.
I'm really happy with them, even the first leg study fixed some problems I had with my drawings. The double leg sketch was from imagination, I always had issues making legs stand in that natural position and then it just happened, good day

Yes the last girls head is too big.

[TFsean]

Some imagination stuff on the bus and in class and an observational

Comments on any of the work in here is highly appreciated

[lohes]

Hiya, great start

Right, critiques! Although I'm no expert myself so feel free to disregard what I say entirely I think your shading looks a bit erratic, try shading with the direction of the forms, it will make everything look more 'solid' too Great thumbnail studies!

[TFsean]

Right so I spent pretty much all of today doing this. Done from ref, I use ref as a small thumb to the side as to not fully copy, this isn't exact to the ref. I tried some new techniques out on this although I feel I could have learnt more from this.
Critiques and advice always wanted!

@Lohes - Thank you for the comment and feedback! My shading is a bit erratic at times, will try to be a bit more consistent thanks

[fishysmell]

Your skin tones are looking much better!

Also, few things with the tribal warrior babe:
-missing her right shoulder
-long left arm
-a bit short right leg
-slightly short lower body
-flat, paper-like hair

Here are some suggestions:

[TFsean]

Thanks very much for that fishysmell! I appreciate you taking the time to do that, its all very glaring now, might have to go fix it

[TFsean]

Latest bus sketches, sometimes bus goes well sometimes it goes badly, bleh

[TFsean]

Gesture Drawings! 30 seconds mostly, some 60 seconds.
First time doing this, some forms came easier than others.

[kidult]

Just keep working at those studies. Don't rush and try do lots, rather spend time on your subject and learn about it. Rather take 5 minutes to do a gesture so you can learn to think about the head, shoulders and hips. These will show you the weight and pose