Leo's sketchbook 2013 life drawing is good for you!

[ceddo]

STAGGERING improvement here Leonard! You should be proud of yourself. Great discipline, great studies, and you are definitely studying the right things, which is most important of all. I see a lot of form studies, and your dedication has improved your drawings of figures really noticeably.Have you studied much perspective? I saw on an older image of yours that many of the cylinders had rugby ball edges, which is why I bring it up.

Some will stress that you should always have a "background awareness" of perspective as you draw forms. I bought Andrew Loomis's "Successful Drawing" book a few weeks ago and he really emphasizes that perspective is an illustrator's most crucial skill. It might be worth trying to find some of his pages on perspective, and studying it for a few days.

If a drawing is not working, instead of fiddling with it and getting frustrated, perspective is that extra tool of helping you figure out what's wong. Knowing the rules well means you can see which shapes are well-placed in your "imagined reality", and which ones you thought were well-placed but as you give them more attention you realize they weren't. So I highly recommend reading up on perspective, Loomis was great for me but I'm sure there are lots of good guides out there.

All the best! :]
Cedric

[lionheartGFX]

Cedo: Thank you so much and no my prespective need alot of polishing and actually i want to tackle it while i study some more anatomy you see i focus mainly in the gesture for me if im not confortable with the initial sketch theres no way im gonna be happy with the end drawing so thats also why my redering sucks, so i want to try and juggle digital painting, figure anatomy and Perspective, i have bridgemans and hamptons figure drawing books so in anatomy im covered so thats why im really glad you recommended me loomis for this, havent really read his book i brushed it and found hamptons more compelling so ill check that one more time, thanks for stopping by.

BTW i havent updated because seriously i suck too much at digital its so frustrating i cant get the flow of ideas the same and i dont have any traditional materials left i mean im glad of this because finishing all 15 pencils and 12 notebooks i bought its SOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOD i feel awesome but i dont have money for more so im gonna try and begin doing some digital studies see how that goes probbably ill like traditional better but well in the mean time

and NEW PAGE IN MY SKETCHBOOK wooohoo first page feels so good i would like to have an amazing drawing to conmemorate!

Wait maybe ill do just that

[lionheartGFX]

im kinda getting used to digital, im not getting used to how i suuuck at color and blending hahaha, well theres only one answer practice practice practice

[PNate]

Cool studies man! Good to see the hard work, keep practicing and working hard. We're all in it together

[Shahan]

yes practice practice indeed. and i mean for all of us!! I agree with ceddo, and also. sweet imagination! great attitude and life in your work. but like ceddo said... don't dawdle or "waste" time y'know? not that anything here is a "waste" of time, i don't mean that. just always work and do what you want but try to have a productive goal in mind while doing so. Push yourself to do complicated sweet satisfying finished works.
I don't think the color blending is that bad in the niiiice lady in the latest post

and MORE SB PAGES!!! MORRRREEE

oh and thanks for stopping by my SB!
the video helped, thanks you!

[lionheartGFX]

PNate: Thanks man i know we are !

Shahan: glad the video helpes ive been seeing ctrl paint videos and it really helped me ease my way into digital, and theres also tons on videos on how to draw i really lecommend it

well havent done much been trying to force myself to do something creative but nothing really worth it comes out guess its just a bad week huh, well been doing lots of figures mostly in digital still kinda afraid of color i mean i suck so bad at it, it just ruins the drawing at it pisses me off T.T

[lionheartGFX]

heres a figure i did today messing around in painter C:

[Amarok]

Hey, if you're worried about working in color, there's nothing to be ashamed of! I think at your level it'll be a lot more helpful for you to work on getting a solid understanding of values first--you can always build upon that later.

[lionheartGFX]

warm up thingie haha i kinda like it tho C:

[lionheartGFX]

costume sketching, theese are really loose and my main focus is not figure but learning different styles and a bit about drapery and basicly gain a better undestanding of how clothes behave cuz ive done aloooot of nudes hahaha

[lionheartGFX]

well im back to traditional, i think id rather work more on my gestures and basics and also values before trying more digital, it feels like i was rushing, well nothing worth posting but a kind of shitty portrait

[Luk999]

Nice work so far. Keep working hard on the basic stuffs like gestures and proportions. Forget about the details by now

Keep it up!

[LtPlissken]

Like sunflowers turning toward the sun, your art kept turning toward success.
You’ve put a line between happiness and stress, you said to yourself, you will
do it no matter how high the price is. And that is how things should go down
and how certain matters should be done. Dragging it up and down, the studies
becoming more and more clearer, your battle for the forsaken, just like a bestial
grey zombie, pulling his coffin straight to the light, your mind got sharper and brighter.
A black cap wearing greasy hillbilly could not understand the way and method of you
mayhem. Deep snow, red blood, the day of reckoning is very close. I saw what you did
till now, I saw the surprise of others people faces, your talent is expanding just like
a sponge in a freshly carbonated river water. You just keep this up, keep dipping
it deep, and then pulling it out suddenly. This is the day when we will
all start to celebrate together.

[SophieW]

Looking good! You’ve clearly improved since the beginning Like what has already been said, focusing on proportions etc. will help you improve even faster. I know exactly what you mean about being afraid of adding colour, I’m exactly the same! Just keep pushing the studies and drawing Looking forward to seeing more!

[Rotor]

If you are crosshatching, the direction of your lines can express form very strongly.
Think of the character in planes or faces first and how light affects them, then try to express those true values to create depth.
Everything starts with pen and paper, it's good to go back and work on your basics before jumping into the digital world.
Keep up with the studies, looking good so far.

[M.A.C.]

heyyy, figured I'd drop by and give my two cents as well. Seeinggg progress for sure, one thing though, I think your hitting the general length correctly for the figures, but I feel your masses get a bit too large at times.

also you might want to look at some skeletons and draw them and get a feel for the underlying structure, pelvic area especially, buuut yep nice stuff so far sirrr, keeep going

[lionheartGFX]

@luk99 yes i believe its best for me to work on my fundamentals
@LtPlissken wow thank for that comment it lifted my spirits actually
@SophieW yes im taking note of several people noticing my lack of proportion thats what im currently working in C:
@rotor thanks for the hatching advice it really helped!
@M.A.C ok skeletons feels like something i havent done i a while and i feel like brushing up

Thanks to everyone for coming by and commenting it really helos me keep going, havent made anything that id like to post if this keeps up ill just upload what i have but in the mean time its draw draw draw for me and for all of us!

[sin eater]

From the first post to last, i see amazing improvements in terms of anatomy. Your sense of design is already good. Some of thoose illustrations are really nice. The anatomy studies are coming out great, and your constant improvement can be seen. You are on the right track. Keep pushing the antomy studies and mix them up with your design skills and you gonna be taking your art to the next level.

[Whirly]

Big big improvements here. Its nice to see. I like your warm-up thinggie you should do more of them. Loads more. Then you might start to see things that need more work, or things your pensive about drawing and you can focus on that when you go back to proper studies.

[Yemi775]

Dude great work and improvement, i would suggest that do you more still-lifes though. Keep up the good work

[lionheartGFX]

well im here with another update basically all ive been doing, alot of studies and understanding of the forces within the body, also been focusing of putting everything together, theres till big issues with my drawings but i can feel the progress and plan on doing much much more

[lionheartGFX]

woops forgot these

[nouge]

Hey, great studies here! You're improving a lot, both in figure drawing and your lines. The latest hands and arms are looking very crisp. What level do you aim for in the short term?

[kingkostas]

Hello mate!!! Man thats a really great start you are doing here. The amount of studies shows how hard working you are, and thats the most important thing. You are improving your drawing skills and that will be the greatest base for your skills to improve immediately later. I think they say a great rendering cant save a bad drawing. From page 1 to page 2 there is improvement, looks like you are really serious. And when you step into colors just think about this "color is closely related to values", when i started going into color i asked that great artist zhuzhu to tell me how to approach them, and he simply said, color is value. So keep improving your drawing and values and color will come[color will have to respect the values to appear real]. Keep up, and its good to see you working on anatomy, these stuff really force you to improve overally.
Lets both keep up man

[lionheartGFX]

@nouge well i plan on making a living off my art so in a short term id just like to get to a level i can get some works done at least until i can enroll in an art school so i can get some proer schooling all i have done is a loooooooooot of reading of the sources of the internet, and i got books on anatomy and drawing i still have alot of stuff i havent read so im packed so far thanks for the compliment im also surprised they went this good, ive read alot about arm anatomy i guess aaaaaalll of that gesture practice kicked off it he end and i could focus on working on the placement proportion and general Feeling of the limb hahahaha

@kingkostas wow man really appreatiate the pointers actually that tells me i made the right call deciding to study planars of the body next so i could dive into values afterwards C:!


im thinking on going into animation/illustration as a long term goal soo yeah haha first is foundation for anything so thats what im working on and probabbly will never stop working on it Hahahahaha (manic laugh)

i spent the whole day working on legs so tomorrow ill ´probabbly post that C:!

[BlackDelphin]

I can see improvement with your figures, which is really great!
Don't forget to always understand what you're drawing there, and trying to apply it on a study
of your own afterwards. It gets harder when you have to looks for the cubes and angles for yourself.

Other than that, i'd suggest just that you pay more attention to your proportions.
Looking forward in seeing you progress some more!

[phatbuddha]

Hey, thanks for dropping by my sketchbook. I appreciate the feedback. You sketchbook shows great improvement over such a short amount of posts. Especially in line quality. Your first sketches had a lot of those short chicken scratchy like lines, but the later ones are much smoother. One thing I am working on is slowing down a bit and being more deliberate with my line. Anyway, keep up the great work man.

[lionheartGFX]

@ black deplphin thank you so much for your advice and yes my proportions are off really often, specially in those last ones because the ref was of only the arm and i only advised a poso for it and tried to also apply some construction to it it went bad hahahaha but i learn aloooot specially abot how much EASIER it is to shade and render a drawing if you know the workings behind everything and plus basicly they are ill-formed spheres on top of each other.

@phatbuddha no problem man keep up the good work, and about slowing down, ive been doing some conscious thinking while sketching and found that drawing fast and slow are two very different things and trying to improve my method of working in both thanks for the advice!

[lionheartGFX]

hi here is todays update, this were so helpful some of these are from imagination using hamptsonts diagram, im going to practice the foot next and finally start on portraits next

[wutangclam]

keep going man! great to see the emphasis on anatomy! check out some of the books by loomis, bridgeman, vilppu, you can find torrents for most haha but very helpful to have different breakdowns and angles to approach anatomy