Natalie's Sketchbook. Let's do this.

[Natalie Becker]

Hey all, so I've been drawing for a while, but I'm still very new to using Photoshop, so basically I'm going to be doing a lot of studies to push myself and improve so that I can eventually paint with the best of them.

First post: A few pencils and 2 grayscale studies from the last week or so. I hope I can keep the momentum building and post fairly often.

- Natalie

[Natalie Becker]

Back again, Haven't been able to update as often as I'd like, my schedule/momentum sucks. But I have done some new stuff, more portraits and I'm posting an unfinished study now because I don't think I'm going to work on it anymore, I need something fresh.

Ordered a bunch of anatomy books! and found a really good website for landscape studying so I feel a little better about the availability of material to study from now. Until the books get here though I'm going to continue to use this new website I found. http://fineart.sk/

Anyway, like I said, not a lot to show, but feeling a little better about the process.

[MarckSH]

Not bad for being your first attempt in photoshop. keep going. ^^

[Exhno]

These are amazing! I'm in love with your portraits. And dem studies. Mm!

Thank you for the inspiration. I'll be dropping by frequently!

[Iristhevirus]

wow, you draw the body, expressions, and clothing so well! awesome art keep it up!

[mariposa213]

Love all the different expressions! Beautiful stuff, looking forward to more!

[Natalie Becker]

Hey all!

So I know it's been a while since I posted anything, and I know that also goes against my pledge to keep updating regularly, but with all that in mind I am still excited about this post.

I've actually been getting a fair amount of practice in, and granted I haven't been painting much, I feel like I've definitely learned a lot so far in these studies. The anatomy books I ordered, (Bammes, Bridgman, Vanderpoel) came in and I started studying from all 3 simultaneously, along with my Loomis books, and I think it has helped me understand things much better than my previous attempts at this stuff. Also, important to note, I owe a BIG thanks to Hannes (algenpfleger) for uploading a bunch of his old studies, which helped me, not only as a nice reference in my own studies, but also as a reference of which master artists would be beneficial to study from.

I also ordered a scanner, and bought a new camera, which I am already in love with. And these will help make posting drawings way easier, as well as help me get some nice references to study from. My camera performs really well in low light, so I'm going to try and take some dramatically lit images and use them to study light/shadow/form later on.

So, aside from the big pile of anatomy studies, I've also thrown in some old old paintings from my senior year of college. They're acryllic, and probably the best handful from that semester. Just wanted some color in this thread.

And finally, I made a compiled image of all the portraits I've done of people in my capoeira group, which was a lot of fun to put together, and I figured it would be easier to upload that than each one separate.

Okay guys! Hope you like, and hopefully now with my new tech I'll be able to post a lot easier and thus more frequently.

- Natalie

[Natalie Becker]

Hey! So as I had hoped, my camera makes uploading these drawing so much less of a headache. As such, and since it's only been a couple days, here's the anatomy I've been doing. It's been a week of Arms so far. Hoping to do a bunch tomorrow too, and then do some torso's that aren't armless.

Also, been thinking a lot about the "Deathline" challenge/initiative that Dan and the Crimson Daggers have started up. I am going to work on setting up a blog so I can start that up, I think it's a worthwhile practice and hopefully I can stick with it for the year. Though I'm going to refer to my efforts personally as "Skyline" because I think I would depress myself talking and thinking about a deathline all the time. S-kills, K-nowledge and Y-ou = SKYLINE. It's probably a corny thing to change or fuss over, but like I said, it's more for my own emotional contentment than anything else.

Onward and upward. - Natalie

[Natalie Becker]

Hey everyone,

So it's clearly been a while, and I don't want to ramble on and on with excuses so I'll just give a quick list of all the stuff I had to deal with in the last couple weeks. Thanksgiving weekend was a nice time with my family, and overall one of the better holidays I've had at home, but it still threw off my work schedule a bit. The week after I was able to get some drawing done, but I never got to post it because on the 6th I ended up in the ER with appendicitis. Had to have surgery and spent the rest of that week recovering. It was unfortunate because I had to cancel birthday plans and a bunch of other things, not to mention I couldn't get any drawing done for a while because the medications I was on made me really drowsy and it was painful to sit up for long periods. Anyway! Finally got back into the sketchbook and did some portraits of some of my friends' kids to give as presents, and a few other side projects that weren't drawing related. Now that I'm feeling better I'm going to try and push through Christmas and New Year's celebrations without a whole lot of slowing down, and start 2012 off with some good momentum. I have a few commissions to work on for friends, so that will be a nice way to break up the monotony of studies.

Here's the work, hope you like it, I'm glad to be back. - Natalie

[littlemonsters]

Hey Natalie,

It's Nick from Hasbro. Just randomly saw your thread on the front page. Stopping in to say hi. Great stuff here!

[Natalie Becker]

Hey everyone! So I hope the holidays were enjoyable for everyone, mine was relaxed and low-stress, so that was nice. I got a couple of James Gurney's books on painting which look to be full of delicious knowledge. This post has the studies I was working on prior to Christmas. I was doing some figures from memory and realized that I couldn't really get their feet to look correct. Probably because I haven't practiced feet yet! So that's what I was working on. After I did a bunch of them I did a few leg studies just to practice attaching the feet to the ankle correctly.

Also, in light of my inability to physically train Capoeira for a few more weeks, I've started doing some reading about the history of the art, which in my academy we are held accountable for how much we know and are able to discuss during the annual testing period. The book is really dry, but some of the events themselves are interesting, and I'm taking notes so that I hopefully retain a little more of what I read. It makes it a slower process, but I think I'll actually learn more this way.

And progress has been made on objective 3, specifically amongst my family, at least as far as I can tell from recent events and conversations.

That's all for now, pushing forward towards a productive and successful 2012. - Natalie

Here's dem feet.

[Natalie Becker]

Hey everyone, so this is a commission for a friend of mine, reproduction of some painting of Churchill that was on a magazine cover and she wanted a copy to give to her brother. I don't know who painted the original, or I would credit them. Now that I see them side by side on the screen the flaws look really obvious, but the original jpeg is really fuzzy so I was working with some pretty terrible prints as reference. Overall though, I'm happy with how it came out, considering it's the first acrylic painting I've done in a while, and it didn't take too long to complete. 8 hours give or take.

I'm almost halfway through that history book, and tomorrow I hope to make some headway on that project.

And! I want to thank Iristhevirus, Exhno, mariposa213, MarckSH, and Nick for the compliments on my stuff! Sorry for not doing so sooner! >.<

- Natalie

[Kuddlekins]

Great stuff! I especially like those arm studies. Keep going~

[Snyder]

Soooo much studies - I love studies! (I should do more anatomical studies by myself.)
I also love your paintings in post 7
The one of them which looks like a movie poster reminds me of "The Neverending Story" somehow...

Keep it up!

[Natalie Becker]

@Kuddlekins - Thanks. Just have to keep at it. I'm nearly done with a full and intensive study of the body. After this I'll be working on other areas but including a figure in my work to keep this anatomical knowledge fresh in my mind.

@Snyder - Thank you, yeah that painting was part of a weird project I did my senior semester at school. It was pretty much every fantasy movie from your childhood accidentally merged into one. I realized this as I did each piece, so the running joke all semester was, "oh Natalie that's just like that thing from that movie" every time I would hang up a finished piece. haha


So, I have a series of portraits commissioned (go figure, more portraits) but these I won't have any reference for and will have to make up myself. yay! Time to see what I've learned from all that practice. I've been studying features the past couple of days. Working on ears today and then putting the whole face together after that. Here's stuff from the past few days.

- Natalie

[Eightball_]

loving the dedication, quality and quantity in the studies! keep up the good work

[Natalie Becker]

Eightball - Thanks, I feel like I'm picking up a little momentum and I've decided to stop making excuses for myself. I want to be a member the Daggers can be proud to have amongst it's ranks.

Hey team,

Page of ears and then some necks. Been listening to Daniel Warren livestream his life while I work and skype-ing with other people too. It's an online community! I both love and hate that that is the case, and I'm sure Dan feels similarly. Anyway, I'll probably be updating this in the mornings because I can take decent pictures of my drawings in the morning light and it gets it out of the way before I buckle down into working mode. Also I can do this while I'm still groggy and waking up. I am very much not a morning person.

I'm also going to try and go back to class tonight at my dojo. I think I am healed enough from my appendix surgery to be able to start being active again. I miss training and exercising so I think it will be a nice change of pace instead of sitting literally all day at my laptop.

And finally, my local newspaper might be sending me some very exciting news today, so fingers crossed I get what I'm anticipating.

- Natalie

[Natalie Becker]

Hey guys,

So I'm just posting some sketches from the end of last week. I have other things I've drawn/painted since then but because it's all stuff for the Crimson Daggers: Bloodsport Challenge 4 I'm going to wait and upload all the work I do for that at once. And while I'm mentioning that I might as well also say that as of this week I will be working on as many of the challenges as I can and hopefully that will force me to get over my apprehension of working with my tablet. I've been avoiding it for whatever insecure reasons I kept giving myself, but I'm done with excuses and I'm going to try and face my weaknesses as best I can. Anyway, more stuff soon. And yes, these are referenced from some of Hannes' work because his faces are soooooo nice.

- Natalie

[Natalie Becker]

Hey guys!

I know it has been a while, but I wanted to post this as one big update just to set a marker for the upcoming months. Attached is my entry for the Crimson Daggers Bloodsport Challenge on Toy Design. And also a compiled image of all the studies I did for it.

This is super exciting for me, for a lot of reasons. It's the first full color illustration/project I've done in Photoshop. I was able to get over my apprehension regarding a lot of things surrounding practice and just getting used to my tablet/painting in Photoshop in general. And not to sound like I'm blowing my ego up, but I'm actually pleasantly surprised with the final result, I didn't think when I set out on this challenge that I would end up with an image that looked like this.

Anyway, really excited to continue with these challenges, the next one is going to be a ton of fun. I'll probably post my studies as I work on them instead of doing the giant compilation at the end this time around.

- Natalie

[Yemi775]

I like Your studies and the Gorilla Guardian is not bad at all.

[SoulReaper]

Awesome studies, very inspiring.

[Hoang Nam Viet]

Love your way of study, keep going

[CarbonBased]

Woah loads of goodness! Keep work coming.

[Natalie Becker]

Yemi775 - Thanks! Gotta keep myself focussed and working on something.
SoulReaper - Thanks I guess, I don't think I'm all that impressive though
Hoang Nam Viet - If you like this you should check out the Crimson Dagger study stream with Daniel Warren
CarbonBased - I will try to update as much as I can!

Okay, so hey everyone, like I said I'll be posting my studies for this challenge as I do them instead of waiting the 2 weeks. Hopefully it pushes me to produce more on a daily basis. Starting the 5th Bloodsport challenge, Miyazaki Re-invented. I chose Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Been thumbnailing and doing comp studies for a couple days and I finally have 2 that I like. I will probably only finish 1 within the time frame, but I'd really like to paint both images someday. Anyway, rambling, here's the jacket I painted today, practice for Nausicaa's costuming.

[Natalie Becker]

Hey guys, here's today's studies for the Miyazaki Bloodsport. Working on animals that I can apply for her little pet thing, and some faces of actors I might try to work into the other characters' likenesses.

my eyes hurt.... T^T

[eroquii]

Loving the dedication you put into your studies. I'm curious as to what anatomy books you're using to study from. Care to share the names? Keep up the good work!

[Natalie Becker]

Eroquii - Thanks. I've been using a bunch of different books and going back and forth between them as I move through the human figure. I feel like that way I expose myself to multiple approaches and hopefully internalize as much information about each bit of anatomy that I can. But to answer your question specifically, I've looked at Andrew Loomis, Gottfried Bammes, George Bridgman, and John H. Vanderpoel so far. And also for faces and some of the figure poses I've been looking at Wes Burt's drawings and some of Hannes' old work. Anatomy is a big thing to comprehend, so the more resources you explore and apply the better you'll get. *sorry ranting again*.... -_-''


Okay, hey guys,

So I didn't post yesterday, was feeling really crummy and didn't get a whole lot done. I'd like to blame the horrible job I did painting Amy Adams' face on the fact that I have a cold, but really it's just because I suck. Still I learned a bunch and its the first time I've practiced doing a portrait/hair in color in PS. Anyway, got what I wanted out of it, and then this afternoon I did this study of moss/mold as an exploration of textures and things I'll need to apply to my toxic jungle. I did a color adjustment just for fun afterwards and I am really excited now. Probably going to work on design stuff in pencil for the rest of today and do some more face studies of my actors. I'll post those tomorrow.

[CarbonBased]

Ha ha, your self bashing in the last post made me smile, as it was quite honest. I however don't really see anything wrong with it. In the end all that matters is that you learned something from it.
Anyway the two moss pictures look quite different, first one looks fun to play in, second one looks like, I don't wanna touch that moss and I wish I was home.. I guess that's what you were going for, with the color adjustment anyhow.

[Natalie Becker]

CarbonBased - If you like self-bashing then stick around, that's the one thing I'm reallllllly good at lol.

So hey everyone. Here's the face practice I did the other day. They are terrible and I spent way too much time on them. Don't know what was wrong with me, I just could not get anything to look right. Also there's a forest study I did this morning. I wanted to look at large trees receding and practice creating depth in that kind of environment. Anyway, probably going to start working on my final image tomorrow, and then paint paint paint until the deadline on Friday. It's going to be lotssssss of fun.

and in other news, I went to the annual awards banquet for my capoeira group and much to my surprise they gave me the "most persevering" award, so I guess that is a good sign in terms of progress towards that part of my Deathline(Skyline) Challenge.

[Natalie Becker]

Hey everyone! So here it is, after 2 weeks of working, studying and basically doing nothing but this, my Bloodsport 5 entry. I've included my compiled studies and references just to show process and the things I used to bring this painting to where it is. Thanks to everyone who gave me crits while I was painting this, they were definitely super helpful.

For those of you who don't know, this is based on Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

Can't wait to start the next challenge.