Cranberry's SB - Updated 18th of November 2011

[Cranberry]

Hello, my name is Cranberry and I'm (NO LONGER) a gameaholic. For the past 10 years I have been throwing my life away but that has changed for the better the past month, gaming system is in the closet, all distractions in my room have been removed, surrounded myself with books and art by the people who inspire me, been drawing like crazy and haven't skipped a single day since I started, which is a current personal record, one that I'm looking to continue into infinity.

I've hit some plateaus in the past and though I feel that I don't have to complain about the level I reached in the past (though it was average at best), I'm wanting more and I finally realized that with effort, everything is possible. This past month alone I've surprised myself on so many occasions that I finally enjoy doing this again, which ultimately is what I'm in it for. Landing a job would be nice of course, but I feel I improve a lot more when I just enjoy it and there is no pressure. I have this school year left to prove myself and am dedicated to succeed.

I'm putting some goals for myself that perhaps are not the most realistic but I can and will try to succeed, and if I don't I'm sure that there at least will be progress in the right direction, hopefully enough to keep me going and wanting more.

Goals?
- Draw every day, maintaining a daily routine where I pick at least 3 subjects from a list I put together (x pages of figures, x pages of hands from life, blabla, will maybe post the list soon)
- Do at least one digital painting every day, a still life, a portrait, a photo study, or even a crappy doodle, but I have to start up photoshop and produce something that is presentable
- Fill the remaining 250-ish blank pages I have left, with whatever, by the 15th of this month (November)
- Human skeleton from memory by the end of this month (November)
- Human muscles from memory by the end of December
- Believable figures from memory by the end of Januari
- Believable portraits from memory by the end of Januari

Bones are coming along well, muscles are going to be hard but I have 2 weeks of vacation in december so who knows what I might pull out of my sleeve...



It's time to stop earning virtual XP and start earning real life XP, and with that said, here's a first dump of recent digital stuff that I feel good about posting. Manual stuff is harder to upload, I don't like the tedious task of scanning sketches and stuff so I'll probably make selections of stuff I like or that are worth showing and just scan those, I don't think there is anything interesting about gestures anyway.


Still life from yesterday night, 2 hours so far, not sure if I'll work more on it or start a new one, which of both options would be better for me at this time, finish this or just start a fresh one? Have the setup in front of me but I'd rather just do a new one instead.


Unfinished still life of a skull I had just bought


Another unfinished lifepaint


An apple


Apple painted on a DSi XL using Colors, should use it more, cool program



There is more but I don't like how most of it turned out. More stuff coming soon, have stuff from today left to post but going to paint some more first.

Cheers!

[Cranberry]

So here's yesterday's stuff.

Some horrible news to go with it too; My laptop HDD crashed yesterday, it's not starting up anymore and I can't do anything :/ Somehow I'm happy that I uploaded a selection of my recent stuff yesterday because if I lost everything I would've been f*cking pissed. Let's hope they can recover some data...

What's even worse is that this is the third time it has happened with this laptop, which is a Macbook Pro, like wtf? I bought it because it was advised to me on several occasions, it would last me a long time and they said it was powerful enough to run all the software. At first that was the case, but now it's just a pile of junk, should've seen it coming a third time. It's a 4y old laptop but whatever, I'm going to try and get my data back and probably get me a decent PC laptop, I'm done with this overpriced sh*t that still crashes.

Things I have had repaired in the past; Entire motherboard replaced, no warranty, battery replaced, no warranty, screen replaced, no warranty, HDD replaced, no warranty, and literally days after they replaced my HDD the battery, which was at the time no more than a couple months old, died AGAIN, didn't get it replaced, it has cost me so much by now that I'm just better off buying a new one. I hope the data recovery is under warranty as the new HDD is not even 3 months old -.-'

/rant, nobody is reading this anyway




Here’s some stuff for an assignment I’m working on; Read a book, pick a key location from the story, turn it into a concept.

I picked “The Monkey Wrench Gang“, by Edward Abbey. It’s about 4 anarchistic environmentalists in the 70′s who are trying to protect southwest America from the upcoming development, trains, dams, …



So here’s some thumbnails, rough sketches,…



Modeled a quick scene in Autodesk Maya 2011 to get my perspective the way I wanted it, looking up behind the car so I can put some interesting details in the car, eventually.

[Cranberry]

Here’s a selection of sketchbook stuff from this past month. Nothing fancy, just going through past stuff so I can focus on future stuff!

Figure from imagination, sucks so bad


Portrait, horrible scan...






Vilppu






Planes


Loomis!










Some bones, first from ref, then from memory

[Cranberry]

And this is from another assignment that is currently on hold but here’s some stuff for it anyways. Working on a game for a local library, should be adventure-ish and suited for ages around 12-14. Just some ideas for a mean robot that sucks up all the books in the library, OR you play the robot and save the library from bad books, nothing definite yet, just exploring.










ONE DAY, I will look back at all this shit and laugh so hard, I promise.

[Cranberry]

Pretty pathetic how little I got done this weekend... Still bummed out from my f*cking laptop HDD and I got stuck again, drawing from imagination is still complete sh*t, guess I really should abandon the linedrawing for a while and focus on construction, but no matter how many heads I construct, they all look the same, horrible,... Doing Loomis while having your constructions look like total sh*t is NOT FUN, have to push push push ffs... Did keep up my "draw every day" however, but kinda abandoned the schedule the past 3 days, not proud of that... So to have at least SOME content that is not total sh*t, I scanned, errr took totally crappy photos of my A3 stuff from the past month(s). Most of it is from life. Can't scan A3 and have to 'edit' the photos on a computer that has no editing software whatsoever on it so bear (phew, typed bare first) with me

Skull from life


Facial features, mirror


Hands from life


Some muscles, Szungoghy


Figure drawing class


More skulls, life


More Hands from life










More from figure drawing class


































Figures from photos








Borrowed a Scott Robertson DVD on rendering matte surfaces, some notes






Blargh, procrastinating drawing by uploading shitty drawings that show I need to draw more, great. At least now that the older garbage is out of the way I will have to force myself to draw if I want to show stuff in my SB... Figure drawing class tomorrow, yay, mondays are always my most productive day (no joke)

[Kungfoowiz]

Heeey =) Jus relax bro and draw =) Forcing yourself to is maybe not such a hot idea, but qwl, use whatever means! =) Liked the Vilppu stuff lots! =) Good luck with your next piece =)

[Cranberry]

Here's yesterday's stuff, worst day of figure drawing in the past months D: Did two A1 sizes as well but I have to leave them in the class so no pics for now, I liked those better but oh well.

Reaching that point where in the past I would just drop everything to get it all out of my head, it's frustrating me to no end. I like to believe that at a certain point it gets easier, I guess most people have off days but on the off days they still produce relatively acceptable things which is not the case at all here, off days feel like I just picked up a pencil for the first time in a my life ffs... It's a goddamn vicious circle and I fcking hate it, good mood -> bad art -> bad mood -> more bad art, done. Fuck this. I hate complaining, that's why I rather just give up, but not this time, I swear.

SO here's the figure drawings, worthless. Rather quick poses, not that that should be an excuse.






Bridgman


The following is garbage from my other sb I have laying around, older stuff that I add to from time to time...
Hands from life


Faces without ref, obvious


Some doodles...


And a constructed head without ref, looks horrible like everything else


Oh and some thumbs for a bike design or something


See you on the next lousy update

[Cranberry]

Managed to get the painting from yesterday off of my NDS through the app's gallery system, guess I'll be using that from now on, added bonus; you can see how bad I paint in the playback option, yay!

Hope this stays uploaded there..

An onion from life.


For the playback;
http://colorslive.com/details/57932-..._Cranberry.php

[Cranberry]

Wanted to create some male astronaut that looked rather female-ish, on the moon or another planet, no idea yet. Wanted to include one main building in the background and perhaps some craters or just a big one.

So here's the wip, based on a pencil sketch that I posted earlier, little bit of ref for the pose, still a lot of work.

What I know is (probably) wrong; the lighting situation on the moon, it's different from earth I believe so I have to look that up. And her (ours) left leg is bad too I think.

[Lumens]

The gesture of the astronaut wip looks good, drastically better than the previous sketch. It has a nice flow to it instead of being stiff.
Because its still in the early stage i dont have alot to crit.. i can recommend Andrew Loomis '' creative illustration '' - an in depth book on composition and narrative illustration.

there should be a pdf of it, along with the other loomis books online, cant miss it.

[Cranberry]

The gesture of the astronaut wip looks good, drastically better than the previous sketch. It has a nice flow to it instead of being stiff.
Because its still in the early stage i dont have alot to crit.. i can recommend Andrew Loomis '' creative illustration '' - an in depth book on composition and narrative illustration.

there should be a pdf of it, along with the other loomis books online, cant miss it.

Yeah you're right, the sketch was without ref and I'm still struggling a LOT when drawing without ref, guess it'll come after a while.

Good advise for the book, coincidentally today I received my Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and Drawing the Heads and Hands in the mail, finally the books have been republished Expensive shipping, import costs, but it was sooo worth it, amazing books and great quality, hardcover,... No more working with PDF's, finally! Going to order the other 3 books as well, including Creative Illustration, but they haven't been released yet.

To add some content to this post; some noses from reference. God I suck at rendering, skin tones, ... D;

[Lumens]

The last study looks great! already seeing improvement in the structure and rendering.
A great source for things like skintones,ect is james gurney's color&light.
He actually goes beyond the typical how to nonsense and provides solid information on just about anything on lightning, color temperature,ect.

[Cranberry]

Thanks a lot! I have Gurney's Imaginative Realism: How to paint what doesn't exist, like it a lot so perhaps I should order his color & light book as a Christmas gift to myself

Here's one more nose, these are a lot of fun, so hard though... Need to do a lot more of these, and mouths, and eyes, and ears,... :p



Feels too cheap to be called an update ;.; Next time there will be more.

[Emrey]

nice, keep posting your studies! Maybe together with your references if you want more critiques. Last study isn't bad, maybe before you render skintones, try to paint it in gray scale, just to train your eye on getting the right value, edges, etc. What are you studying btw?

[Luckers]

You're good at picking colours, I would love to see more colour studies!

[Cranberry]

@ Emrey; agreed, I should do more value studies, will do some greyscales next!
@ Luckers; Thanks! More studies coming up!

For now this will have to do;
Brand spankin' new Loomis books! Finally after all these years they are being reprinted, all of them (I think)!! Ordered the first two as soon as they were released, waiting for the other 3 but I'm certainly going to add those to my collection.

Quality is fantastic, removable cover which I love because I take my books everywhere and the hardcover is obviously sturdier than the thinner cover wrap. If you're still doubting for whatever reason; they are so worth the money.

Here are some pics, put in my mechanical pencil for size comparison.

(also; uploading to tumblr from now on)











Going to try and finish the Figure drawing one this weekend, never got past the anatomy, shame on me...

[bogan]

Cranberry my man, nice work on the noses, have you tried painting a full portrait yet? I'll be waiting for more from you!

Moon-lighting (on the moon lol) is really weird cuz you get all this bounce light along with these really inky black shadows, since theres only one light source.
See here
Other than that, I think her knees may be a little low? You could try doing some studies of legs, since it looks like her space suit is rather close to the skin.

[Ceinwen Fang]

Congrats on the gamequit and all your hard work! The colours in those noses are clean and bright and lovely. I don't think they suck at all. Keep it up.

[Sycra]

Jeeze, those skin tones are NICE. That's cool that you picked up those Loomis books. I have 2 so far, hope I can save up and get the rest. I haven't read Gurney's Imaginative Realism, but I have Color and Light and it's really worth the investment in my opinion. Great book. Even if you didn't learn anything, it's got beautiful artwork too.

[r zanchetin]

Damn that last nose is sexy. I agree with bogan, you should try for a full portrait. YOU CAN DO IT!

[andres333]

Loving 551! And thanks for the link to enlighten, looking good!

No problem man I always take the time to share priceless instructional material

[ErikR]

yeah, good looking color studies, keep doing them!!.

[n1frit]

U done a lot of work! Just keep pushing, you are on the right track!)