Sketchbook Adventures

[warburton]

Latest stuff is looking great dude, my only crit is i want to see moooooooore of it ;D

[Othrandir]

dude , post MORE! In my opinion , your non-digital is stronger , so you gotta push the tablet stuff man. Anyway , it looks like you're doing exactly that , SO KEEP THEM COMING

[Stpete]

Really badass anatomy! You should do more environments!!

[Meps]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! Man, I need to update more. Seriously.

warburton - Thanks! I present more! Thanks for pushing me to actually update XD
rastaray - Really? I always thought my traditional stuff wasn't as good. Now that you mention it, I guess I am a bit more at-home with a pencil and charcoal. So I'll definitely push the digital now. Thanks!
Stpete - Funny you should mention that: Lately I've really gotten into environmental work, and plan to keep pushing them. Environments have always been a real weakness of mine, so it's time for me to stop running away and get to work on them!

Anyway, this isn't even close to all of the art I've been doing lately, but here's some. I have a finished piece I should be posting as well soon, too.

The first four are quick from-life studies I did in class, followed by a 1-hour figure study from the same class. Next are four environment studies, either from photos or film stills. I included the references I used on two of them. The last one is a finished piece I did to try to apply what I learned in my landscape studies. It's based on Cori Celesti, the home of the gods in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

One thing that does (and always has) given me a lot of trouble is depicting foliage. I have a lot of trouble trying to simplify all of that information and texture and portraying it in a convincing manner. This goes for foliage of various densities, and I have the most trouble conveying it at mid to long-range. Does anyone have any tips on painting foliage, or rather on simplifying/portaying that kind of detail and texture in such a way as to still make it look convincing? I had the exact same problem trying to portray all of the tiny buildings and details in Isengard. You can probably see my ham-handed attempt to incorporate a photo texture to help with the foliage in that shoreline sketch--I honestly just gave up on that one, as I couldn't find a way to make it work. Does anyone have any advice they can give me on this? I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Meps]

Quick update, including some finished pieces!

The first two are quick (2-2.5 hours) speedpaintings done from photos. I really need to get better at rendering masses of foliage and rocks in particular. The biggest challenge for me in environment painting has been simplifying large masses of detail in a way that looks convincing and good. If anyone has any advice, I'd love to hear it. I'm considering doing some master studies soon to see how they handled rendering the landscape (any recommendations? Claude Lorraine, Bierstadt, Sargent, and the Hudson River School all leap to mind).

Anyway, next one is the finished version of one of the pieces I posted earlier. Unfortunately, it got a bit damaged in the course of me hauling it back and forth to and from campus trying to get as many critiques as possible from different professors. So I should probably work back into that.

And the last one is a digital piece I finished recently that I'm actually quite happy with.

Critiques please!

[Newman101]

You've got a really nice sense of design. And I love the balance between studies and creating. Keep it up and will be watching your progress :3

[Meps]

Newman101: Thanks! I try to keep it in balance. I enjoy doing studies in-between larger pieces--it's a great way to take a break, and learn something while I'm at it. Although it's well past time for me to paint something more finished.

Just some quick sketches for now. The first three are some character design ideas for my upcoming school project in which I'll be taking a swing at illustrating The Hobbit (best. project. ever.). Please excuse the atrocious photo quality--I just moved to a new apartment and my scanner isn't quite up and running yet. I'm in the process of doing a redesign of the Dwarves, so I'll post those sketches soon

And the last two are more environment speedpaintings. Overall, I think my quality of work within the time limit of two-three hours is improving, although foliage remains a problem. That first piece (the red one) actually had a forest floor covered in fallen leaves. I tried to represent the texture through a photo overlay (from the image I was referencing, just to see if it would work). It did not. Simplifying highly-textured areas and representing it in my images remains a struggle. Any tips, anybody? I'd really appreciate it.

As usual, I ask on bended knee for any and all critiques. Thanks for stopping by!

[littlebones]

WHOAH.

Well, you've improved since I last came to your sketchbook. I wish I could see something to crit, it distresses me when I can't.

But where'd you go?

[Meps]

littlebones: Thanks! I wish I could say that I'm feeling the improvement, but I suppose it's always hardest to see from one's own perspective. I return, and will try, as ever, to update more! Good to hear from you again! Thanks for stopping by

WIP time! I've been playing around with the idea of continuous narrative recently, so for a class I decided to illustrate part of a chapter from The Hobbit ("Riddles in the Dark") as a sort of extended/continuous "tapestry" sort of composition. Here are the WIPs for the two parts. The first one is obviously much farther along than the second (I'm trying out the black-and-white coloring method for the second one, to see if I can get my head around it). The two pieces are meant to be viewed side-by-side, but that wasn't really possible here (or is it? If it is, I'd love to know how).

Oh, and a quick sketch of Tom Hiddleston I did as a warmup one day, just because.

I have loads more pieces I've been doing this summer--graphite work and oil paintings, mostly. I just need to bully myself into getting that done. What's more, I have some commission work I've been doing lately, which I'll upload as soon as I double-check with the client and get the green light to do so

Critiques, anybody? Thanks for stopping by!

[Meps]

Okay, so I double-checked with my client to make sure it's okay to post this. Here are two pieces that I was recently commissioned to do by JapanFest Atlanta--which, if any of you are located anywhere in the southeastern United States, you should definitely look into attending. Anyway, the first is a design for this year's poster, and the second is a design for this year's t-shirt. A question for anyone who is familiar with the commission process: is it considered bad form to post early drafts or rejected drafts of commissioned work? I have some earlier versions of the t-shirt image that I would like to share, but I'm not sure if that sort of thing is okay, what with this being one of my first commissions.


Some Tolkien sketches I did for class, including some re-posts of stuff I put up recently, this time with actually acceptable scan quality.






And a finished piece that I worked up in graphite and then finished in the computer. Gandalf didn't actually use fire in this scene, though. Whoops.

And finally some random sketches and warmups. 1-minute figure sketches, torso sketches, faces. Some from reference, some from imagination. There's some Stephen Fry and Edward James Olmos because they have awesome faces.






Critiques are oh-so-very welcome Thanks for stopping by!

[warburton]

Hey Meps, sorry its been such i while since i last popped by here, its awesome to see you've updated loads in the time inbetween!

The latest tolkien characters done with graphite are frickin amazing. I especially love that Gandalf piece you did. I can visualise your style of illustration on childrens book covers and posters.

In terms of having trouble with textures, its a tricky thing to learn (as is most stuff art related) but i think the one thing to keep in mind about painting is its all an illusion. Your making things look and feel almost like real life but all your working with is flat colours and marks. So alot of the time you only need to imply textures and details, and the brain will fill in all the rest of the blanks. In fact, an image is usually more appealing when theres less details as apposed to too many all over the place. Less is usually more. (Something i'm still trying to get to grips with being someone who likes to render the shit out of everything.) Take a look at Jaime Jone's work to get a beter example of this, and see how little he actually does while making his paintings look so dam good. Craig Mullins is a good example too, and also check out some of Feng Zhus tutorial vids on youtube. He takes alot about this sort of stuff.

So yeah, basically my crit would be study these dudes (not copy though!) and see how they do it, and maybe even some master studys too. Focus on the overall read as apposed to worrying too much about textures, do some environments as little thumbnails to get into the habit of big marks and shapes. This will also help your values, which could use some slight touching up too

hope this helped dude, and best of luck. Keep posting stuff, i want to continue seeing your progression!

[Meps]

warburton: Thanks so much! I'll definitely take a look at Jaime Jones and Craig Mullins. I'm already a fan of Feng Zhu's videos; I just need to get in the habit of watching more of them. (Thanks for the tip about the environment thumbnails--I'm probably going to make that a regular part of my warm-up routine).

Some WIPs! Two concept pieces that I'm pretty close to finishing up, the first of a goblin/orc...thing (I love goblin/orc things), and the second of a character from my most recent tabletop game.


More Tolkien sketches.

Composition practice. This is super-fun; I must do more.


Thanks for stopping by!

[Meps]

Quick update. Here's the finished Goblin concept. I'm happy with how the rendering turned out, and the fact that I experimented with photo textures without a complete disaster.

Some random sketchbook pages, including some studies from Ron Lemen's articles in IFX's anatomy special issue.



Critiques are much-appreciated. Thanks for stopping by!

[Meps]

Just a quick update. Here's a WIP of a concept for some kind of sci-fi big game hunter. In the snow. I'm having a lot of fun with this one; it started out as a sort of idle doodle, so I'm pretty surprised with where it's going. I have a few sketches from my non-digital sketchbook that I still need to scan, so I'll put those up soon. Critiques are welcome and very much appreciated

[jinny]

Awesome sb! Both your digital and traditional work are incredible.

[AdrianNagorski]

Very nice indeed, i like your cross hatching style with your sketches they are pretty well
shaded, also a healthy amount of studies happening . . . .

[Meps]

jinny: Thank you! I still have a of practice to do on both. I appreciate the kind words
AdrianNagorski: Haha, I often feel like I don't do enough studies. Then again, I often feel like I don't do enough finished work, either. Gotta crank out more stuff. Thank you!

Quick update! Man, I'm sleepy. The Snow Hunter is progressing along steadily. I haven't had as much time to work on him (her?) as I'd like, what with classes starting up again, but I don't see why it shouldn't be finished in the next couple days.

I'm honestly kinda stumped on where to go from here. Obviously it needs to be generally tightened around the focal point, but if anyone could give me any hints about what really needs attention or more generally where to go next, I'd be hugely appreciative


Just some environment thumbnail exercises. These are super useful. I just have to do more--gotta work on my values, composition and speed. EDIT: Whoops! I realized I double-posted one of the thumbnails. Ah well. I'll put the other one up in my next post.


Thanks for stopping by!

I started playing around in Alchemy recently, and MAN is it fun. Especially the mirror tool.

[warburton]

hey dude, i saw you were askin for abit of advice so i thought you might like a quick paintover. Ive noticed some main pointers as i did this which ive labled in your original. To be honest i really didnt do that much, just some tweaking here and there, the piece is prity cool btw

1, watch for tangents. The characters head is almost touching the top of your canvas which is a bad idea, heres a link to tangents which you might find useful - http://emptyeasel.com/2008/11/18/avo...watch-out-for/

2, Your edges, which are all very similar and not varied. Around the folds and creases i softened them all up and threw in a few hard edges to contrast.

3, Probably the most important, is your values. I upped the contrast between light and darks alot more, plus i pushed the contrast of light on dark to try and push the forms more, as the original is looking abit flat atm. I upped the light source and used shadow to try and show some slight foreshortening around the gun/arm area. Also i did an overlay layer and dropped in some more variations of hues, especially in the shadows. I think working off a plain background doesnt help, maybe its just me but i found it difficult to judge the values with it plain blue/grey, which is why i did a background to try and compliment your character and their values. I also used the values and shapes to push the composition more.

4, and finally, not so much a big deal but just some sight anatomy issues around the feet and hands area, which are making the posture seem abit odd on your dude.

and thats about it, you've done a great job so far, i just hope you don't mind me painting over your piece and this helps in some way. Keep pshing dude, and i look forward to seeing more from you

[Othrandir]

Oh wow duude! You've got some awesome stuff! I especially love this guy :



Your digitals are getting better and better!!

also great paintover Warburton ! I learned alot from it too.

[Meps]

Warburton: Holy crap, man! Thank you SO much for the awesome crit and the paintover. You were totally right on every one of those points. I'm doing my best to incorporate all of your advice (although I still feel like your paintover looks better XD). I learned a lot from that crit that I can apply to future pieces as well. Much appreciated

Rastaray: Thanks! I really enjoyed working on that piece. It's always nice to hear that some improvement is showing. I wish my oils were progressing at the same rate.

WIP time! I think I'm nearing completion on arctic hunter guy here. I've been busy with university classes lately, but I'm still trying to get in whatever (non-school) art time that I can in between. I have some traditional sketchbook stuff to post if I ever get my scanner sorted out.

[Meps]

Blah blah university workload blah excuses blah trouble logging into forums blah. I really have no excuse Here's a quick update of some studies I've been doing for a personal piece in between school-related artwork (which I'll photograph and upload next!)

Because I will never tire of drawing goblins.





More to come soon!

[Nina-the-Tiny]

Great stuff!! As much as I like your paintings and full-color things, I think I like the lines in your sketchbook pages even more :3

[Meps]

Nina-the-Tiny: Thanks! I don't often get around to scanning things from my physical sketchbook, but I do really enjoy working in graphite

Crazy swamped with school stuff. I have a big painting that I've been working on for one of my classes, trying to learn my way around acrylics--I'm gonna photograph that and a few other things as soon as they're done. For now, some pages from my physical, pencil-and-paper sketchbook! More to come soon!

[Meps]

Update time! Some assorted studies, doodlings, drawings, and other things various and sundry. I finally had a brief window where I could spend an entire day doing personal stuff, so I got to have a painting marathon day. It was awesome I realize that I promised to upload some of my school/other traditional stuff, but the camera that I use to photograph my work was stolen recently because people are awful. So I won't be uploading anything that doesn't fit in a scanner until I can borrow a friend's camera and take my pictures.

I realized that I never uploaded the final version of this concept--thanks again to everyone who gave me such wonderful critiques!

Assorted armor studies and sketches.



Drawing I did for my girlfriend--she says barn owls are cute, I say they look like aliens. So I found a way to compromise.

Studies for the drawing above. I will say that barn owls are pretty fun to draw.

Started out as a photo study until I spilled imagination on it. I may or may not take it further.

Quick 2-3 hour portrait and some noses.



Thanks for stopping by! I beg for critiques

P.S. I stumbled upon Steve Prokopenko's video series on drawing the head and facial features on Muddycolors recently. It's been -hugely- helpful for me. The nose studies above were based on his video. All of the episodes so fare are available here, for anyone who's interested:
http://www.proko.com/how-to-draw-a-n...and-structure/

[warburton]

Great stuff lately dude, i can defiantly see improvements here. The final version of your character dude came out awesome too.

Sorry to hear about your camera dude, some people are arseholes. Looking forward to seeing more anyways, keep it up!

[Meps]

Warburton: Thanks!

Update time!

Assorted sketches, doodles, and studies.




Final drawing for an illustration project for class. I'm going to try to colorize/paint over it in photoshop. I'll have to rescan it though--apart from being cropped slightly on the side, I lost a lot of subtle shading and detail, even thought I scanned it at 600 DPI. If anyone could shed some light on what might have gone wrong, I'd really appreciate it.

[Meps]

OKAY. Finals are done, the semester is over, and I finally have time to start working on personal pieces again. So here's some of what I've been working on this fall. These are from my painting class, in rough chronological order. I started working in acrylics this semester, and liked them enough that I might continue to do so. I love oils, but I hate chemical solvents so very much.

The first paintings I did this semester. Both are in oils, the second one using a palette knife.



Trying out a technique of acrylic washes. Time consuming, but a lot of fun. The still life was a mass of colored paper I built to study the effects of reflected color on a white surface.


Very large (for me, at least) fantasy-ish portrait thing. This one took a while. I'm not fond of working this big.


Landscape studies. First from a photo:

And then from life. Plein-air painting is so, so much fun.


And my final, done from a combination of photos and imagination. Also done in a little less than a week because I was down to the wire on deadlines.


And that's it for my traditional paintings. I'll get the stuff from my illustration class up soon. Critiques are hugely appreciated! Thanks everyone!

[Meps]

Update time!

Work from my Illustration class last semester. I was trying out a variety of media, including pencil + digital, pencil, and pencil + watercolor.

I came to a realization while working on these (especially when sending them to print for my final), that colors show up on my computer rather differently than they did on the final print version. I realize that there will always be some variation, but the final print version ended up very dark (large areas of detail were obscured by dark shadows that aren't there when I view the image on my PC), and it was much warmer and more saturated. My professor said that we should always check our work on a Mac (I use PC) because it processes color more accurately than PC, and insisted that most professionals use Macs for their work for this reason. When I checked the image on a Mac, it did indeed look closer to the printed version--darker, warmer, and more saturated.

What I want to know is, what are the options available to a PC user? I know that there are at least some--and I'd hazard that there are many--professionals who use PCs for their digital painting. Is there a way to color-calibrate a PC so that it displays colors more accurately?

Unfortunately, any attempt to research this issue online has failed, as it seems that any discussion involving OS issues devolves into Mac and PC fanboys screaming at each other on forums. If there's any help I could get on this issue, or if anyone could direct me to a place where I could get some solid, objective advice, I'd really appreciate it.

And now for art.




And some assorted armor studies.




Thanks for stopping by!

[Meps]

Happy New Year!

It was just about one year ago that I joined CA.org, and it's probably been the most inspiring and productive one yet My thanks go out to all of the awesome people on this site, and everyone who has inspired and helped me along the way. Goals for the next year remain the same: keep making art, and keep improving.

And now here's a self-portrait comparison, one from this year, and one from this time last year. It would seem that some progress has been made.

Left: New Years 2012; Right: New Years 2013


In other news, my computer battery has died and stopped charging, so I'll probably be working in pencil and acrylics while it's in the shop. Anyway, Happy New Year, everyone! May it be awesome and inspiring.

EDIT: My computer keeps throwing up flags calling CA.org a "reported attack site." Is that happening for anyone else, or is my computer just insane?

[warburton]

What a beast! This latest stuff is awesome, your line work, values, marks are all improving hugely. Also the paint stuff is really cool, would love to see more of them, makes me want to try some traditional stuff myself :p Keep going man, your doing great so far