MrFrenik's Sketchbook

[JFierce]

Haven't been on CA yet alone visited in awhile. You've really bumped up a notch or two. Kudos for sure.
For color on the last one. One of the few basic things I know about color is usually warm light cool shadow. It's not a universal but it's often the case. Maybe try adding some cooler values in the darker regions ever so slightly and experiment, don't go overboard though since the skintones pretty nice so far. Just a thought.

[rappdg]

Its really fun looking at the first page and the last few pages of a sketchbook. The first page was great but the last few pages made your progress really obvious! Good job! Inspiring pieces!!

[lionheartGFX]

hey man so much stuff!! i love it all ! if you want to learn color read james gurney he has 2 books id say read them both but color & light is the one you want if you really want to get color in your head i want mroe updates! make it happen!

[Ian Barker]

Nice sketchbook man!
I would focus on studying the forms of simple objects. For example most of your folds aren't realistic, same for wrinkles on the skin. use photo reference for studies and be careful to not over-exaggerate (which some of these drawings tend to do). Once you have mastered small folds and simple geometric shapes you'll be able to apply that to more complex figures.
Also many of your human figures are very warped. Build them from the ground up to make sure they work as a base model, once you have solid guidelines beneath you can add clothing
Keep up the hard work, you're making lots of progress!

[angieb.]

Hello!
Looking through your sketchbook, it's incredible to see the improvement in just over a year! I hope I can follow suit. I'm really impressed with your elevation / perspective studies, and the digital rendering is looking pretty fine to me... but.... aren't you going to miss traditional media?

[MrFrenik]

I was probably misleading, cause I won't be abandoning traditional - I'm just excited to finally get to digital painting now that I'm able to. My silhouettes suck, so I worked on them tonight. Here's the page I came up with.

[MrFrenik]

Picked a silhouette and did a back view to it. I'll render this out further for practice.

[Wheeljack18]

Wow, Massive improvement since my last visit! Good work Mr F. I really like that I'm seeing so much dedicated study and I don't think that you need me to tell you that it is paying off. Also, I like seeing that you are doing a lot of your study with traditional materials which is super important and a big plus. Too often we get reliant on the computer as a tool and forget how much of a crutch it really can be. As a funny side note but some what related. About 2 weeks ago I was working on a painting for a client using traditional media ( Gouache) and I F'd up and instinctually tried to press Ctrl Z. My hand performed the action without me even thinking about it. Sadly nothing happened and I had to paint it out myself. The point is, you are learning the right way. Keep it up!
Cheers

[MrFrenik]

Always love having you stop by Wheeljack. Thanks for the comments. Worked on a portrait tonight, based on the last concept I posted. I want to finish it, but we'll see whether or not I'm a lazy ass about it.

[ecki]

I love the silhouettes and hooded figures!

The closeup could use some more subtle dark shades – there's too much black going on. Also try to use some sharper edges.

[MrFrenik]

Thanks, Ecki, if I go back to finish it then I'll definitely work with the values more.

Worked on CHOW and IDOW ideas tonight. I'm thinking of looking at COW as well, but we'll see how busy just doing the two keeps me for the week.

[David Keen]

Hey mate! Thanks for stopping by my SB again. You've been HUGELY prolific lately, great work! I'm very impressed by your dedication to studies, it's easy to see that all the hard work is paying off big time. Your figure work especially has taken a big leap forward. Even in the little quick sketches I can see how the anatomy is fitting together and a clear representation of the forms. As always I still really like your perspective studies as well. I'd love to see you do a full piece based on the complex studies on the bottom of page 5. If you were a fine art guy I reckon you'd kill it doing abstract cube paintings Keep up the hard work man! If you're looking for another place to hang out and post art I've been using http://www.facebook.com/groups/awesomehorse/ a lot recently, it's a pretty cool little community but you have to be a facebook guy to make use of it. All the best man.

[Joe777k7]

Awesome man!! Loving the designs!!

[thebestwes]

I really love the owl/mouseguy, as well as the hooded skull dude. That detail around the nose is sicknasty.

[MrFrenik]

Color swatches for the hermit design

[ecki]

Hey nice updates! I really love those silhouettes (are those done with alchemy?). I would like to see one of those worked to a higher level!

[MrFrenik]

Bought SB Pro 6 today, because I really liked the perspective drawing features that it boasted ( user controlled line drawing from ruler/ellipse/french curves, steady stroke, symmetry on both x and y axis, and others). It's a same that photoshop hasn't implemented things like this yet, because it really would make it an all-in-1 program for me. Anyway, here's a quick perspective sketch that sucks and I really shouldn't even be posting, but just to put something up that uses SB pro I'll post it anyway. Again, like most things I post, I might or not finish it; a lot to do this week but I might revisit this if I can find something interesting to design around this composition (maybe it's a space port that has a ship docked; maybe it's a group of scientists studying some alien creature or beast; maybe it's a bunch of dudes looking at a big box; Iono.)

[MrFrenik]

Was attempting to render out my hermit design, when it all started to turn to shit and I just basically stopped thinking about what I was doing. So what does that mean? Studies! Rendered some torsos and focused on planes of forms. Right now I suck at actively thinking about how I'm wrapping forms as I'm rendering, so that's what I focused on here. I think it turned out alright, but we'll see how it looks tomorrow. Probably like shit.

[Joe777k7]

Wow them contour lines man!! Awesome work! Hope you dont mind but im going to jack your technique hahahah it looks awesome! Cool Sketchbook pro sketch as well. Yea if only it could be combined with photoshop, it would be amazing lol

[MrFrenik]

WIP for IDOW. Working on clean linework. Design is more or less shit, ha.

[Aether Technician]

That linework is really impressive! Is it all freehand, or did you use some kind of straightedge tool?

[Joe777k7]

Wow awesome man! Its cool seeing the effect of having the vanishing points close together. It makes it look like you are a worm on the ground looking at this impressive structure straight up. Really awesome line weight as well man, you are killing it. YOu skills in perspetcive and crazy good

[Lucarky]

Hi mate, and thank you for your always good advices. I saw your hermit drawing. I like the giga rat. I think the best combination of colors are the second on the first row, with the red cloak, and the third on the second. An advice if I can: try even change the color of the rat. Great works man. I will try too SB Pro, I have it from about 5 months and never touched it.

[MrFrenik]

Almost done with this one. Need to start the CHOW for this week. That one sounds really fun and challenging.

[eclip-se]

Great stuff mate, the booktraveler looks dope and thanks for you kind words

[Joe777k7]

Wow so awesome man! You should feel really proud of yourself! That looks intense man! I couldnt even design something like that ahhhhh hopefully soon Keep up the awesome work man! Your killing it!

[MrFrenik]

Waiting for the next IDW to be posted...patiently.

[ecki]

Wow man! You're SO kicking my ass!
Are you improving that fast or did you get exchanged by a professional over night? D:

This perspective study, as well as the anatomy studies are totally awesome.
Keep it up, you're doing great!

I'm crawling back to my drawing board in shame...

[MrFrenik]

So I haven't played a video game in forever, and now I remember why. Spent ALL night last night playing Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. It's fun shit, but SUCH a time-suck.

[Jarrad]

Yes! awesome stuff. I really like how well your latest IDW came across. My only crit with that is: Since it is a design challenge that mimics a "real world brief", It might make it hard for the client to understand the dimensions and proportions of the library cart since the perspective has such a dramatic amount of convergence. But yeah, you are making me feel like I gotta up my game!