♫ I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts dee dee... ♬

[Ambiguity]

Thumbnail, please ignore:


I finally worked up the courage to post here.


Not all of these are very recent, but I'll post 'em just so I have something up here o.- :

I used multiple (poor quality)photos of the same person to construct this face. I dunno why my sketches of people always turn out too cartoony though .



This is actually supposed to be my sister, I forgot I drew this. The likeness is pretty good actually.


Something I drew like 2 years ago with tons of reference(including the pose at the top). I had intended to make a finished piece, but I'd rather study more instead of making a bunch of crappy "finished" works.


I don't remember what I was doing here, but the original file is called "FacialPartsStudy.sai" so yeah...


The bottom left was a study, the rest are just random sketches from my head(including the bottom right eye).


Probably my most recent sketch, it's actually a study of one of Sycra's(from YouTube) old videos. I'm not sure if the hair makes any sense the way I did it.

[qlotzan]

that's good step to make your own sketchbook, sharing your experience with CA members

keep it up and welcome in CA world


Qlotzan

[Ambiguity]

Thanks for the warm welcome .

[dierat]

I wonder if the reason your drawings feel 'cartoony' is because you're focusing almost exclusively on the prominent features of the face and have very little structure or form to the face itself. The most recent drawing, of Sycra, is a step in the right direction because there you're obviously thinking about the sockets in which the eyes are placed and the plane on the side of the nose that connects with the cheek. Try to think of the face as a 3-dimensional object made up of planes, not a flat 2-dimensional shape with some floating features on it. A little like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/garysev...7602588651653/ Keep practicing, and keep posting!

[Ambiguity]

Oh hey, I expected this sketchbook to have gone to the CA abyss never to be seen again by now hehe. Thanks for commenting.

I really do want to draw more often, my room is just so cluttered I can't concentrate(cluttered room = cluttered brain). I suppose I should put my physical sketchbook in a place that's easy to reach like my guitar.

On the subject of "cartooniness"(can't think of a real word for this lol), I guess shading would help, I usually leave things at the line drawing stage and call it cooked.

.:Edit:.
A quick study of an unborn baby's skull:

It's really hard to check myself against the reference when I have to look up at it instead of it being right next to the sketch like in Photoshop.

[Ambiguity]

I spent 3 hours on this so I dunno if you'd call it a study anymore. It's just not right, but whatever
:

[dierat]

Yeah it's still a study; time doesn't matter. Overall it's very good, there are just some minor misplacements here and there but they don't really affect the overall structure. I do think, however, that you could push the value more and emphasize the sense of light by darkening the neck and exaggerating the light on the left side of the face just a touch. It's pretty subtle in the original photo, so you really have to look for it, but it's there.

Quick paint-over:

[Ambiguity]

The ref was pretty hard to work with because of the lighting, it feels very diffused(although that drop shadow on the table suggests otherwise). I'm guessing there are at least two light sources since both sides appear to be lit.

I still cringe at my inaccuracy, but at least it doesn't feel very disproportionate somehow, although if this was a real person my painting wouldn't look like him .

[xia]

Nice head study, keep it up. Light and shadow is one of the best way to study painting. Cheers!

[Ambiguity]

Thanks Xia, it's a pleasant surprise seeing you comment in here. Thanks for the advice too, I'll try my best .

[JFierce]

The head studies definitely the right direction to go. Observational drawings in general are how you really up your skill level. Once you attain a certain level of observational drawing and start doing people for instance that transfers over to the work from imagination more. Because your mind already has some things to use instead of trying to make it up as it goes along.

[Ambiguity]

Well said mate, and that's definitely the plan. Now I just gotta stay motivated hehe.

[dierat]

The ref was pretty hard to work with because of the lighting, it feels very diffused(although that drop shadow on the table suggests otherwise). I'm guessing there are at least two light sources since both sides appear to be lit.

Exactly. It's so much easier and you learn more from it if the object has a single light source, but since you don't have the object yourself to light as you want, we have to make due with other people's photos. Another thing you can do it self portraits if you have a mirror and your own space to work in where you can set up a single light on yourself and work from that. It's hard at first to get past the likeness barrier (obsessing over whether it looks like you or not), but the practice can teach you tons. In any case, whatever studies you choose to do, keep up the good work! ^^

[Ambiguity]

Not sure why I chose to sketch in blue...

Anyways, I did some skull studies for proportion reasons so they aren't super detailed:

I realized just how well divided most heads are after doing this. That's something that I've heard talked about before by many other artists, but it didn't hammer home until I actually did studies myself.

This also made me realize how much I need to work on controlling my lines, I'm always tempted to chicken scratch. That's something I picked up from others since I was young and I was never told it was bad until way later, so it's a hard habit for me to break.

[JonHop]

Good job on your studies, the eye in the human parts studies is well done keep up the hard work!

[Ambiguity]

Thanks guy, I appreciate it .

[Ambiguity]

Some pretty meh proportion studies, I seriously gotta remember to work on my line smoothness =P.

[Icecold]

Thanks for visiting my sb, you're doing some hard work in here, keep at it and you will achieve the goal. thumbs up!

[kevin_]

keep bumping out these practices, it can get dull at times doing it over and over but just keep at it!

[Neyut]

hey ^^
hmm line smoothness, try to make a rough sketch and take a second layer over it to redraw it with clear but fast lines, this will give you some feeling for rythm, just practice with quality for the first, quantity comes later on ;D

[Ambiguity]

Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments guys, it means a lot ^_^.

Icecold: No problem, you do good work. Thanks for the kind words, I'm trying(though not as often as I'd like).

kevin_: Very dull indeed hehe, thanks for the encouragement.

Neyut: Thanks for the tip, and I agree, better to have a few decent pieces then a lot of half-arsed ones. It'd be even better to have a lot of decent sketches though ^o^.

[freakmod]

Looking nice, I like the skull studies, you should do some more of em! In terms of the line quality, what I found works is to draw lighter lines (for the unsure ones) to begin, then draw over them to gradually enforce the "real" line which ends up looking much smoother.

[Ambiguity]

freakmod: Thanks for the compliment and suggestions. I agree about doing more skulls, I really want to get good at faces first so that seems like a good place to start.

I did some posing with the stick figure skeleton as per Sycra's suggestion(on his forums).

I had intended to do this without copying poses, but I couldn't do it =P :


Getting foreshortening to look right with circles and sticks is hard for me q.q, I'm not sure the 8 head method works so well for that either *shrug*.

[freakmod]

Looking good - are you sure those proportions are correct? You seem to be drawing the legs just a little bit short to my eyes - although I'm not familiar with the system of proportions you are using here - what is it?

[Ambiguity]

Looking good - are you sure those proportions are correct? You seem to be drawing the legs just a little bit short to my eyes - although I'm not familiar with the system of proportions you are using here - what is it?

Modified "8 heads" method, not sure how accurate it is(or how accurate I am for that matter), but I got it from this site:
http://www.alienthink.com/inventiont....blogspot.html

Anyways, these are in perspective so some foreshortening is happening, but like I said it's hard to get that across with sticks.


.:Edit:.
Derp:


.:Edit:..:Edit:.
Done from memory this time:

I obviously cleaned up the lines as well, initial sketch was much messier.

[Ambiguity]

I noticed the rib cage on my last one was way too big so I did some drawing practice. I obviously didn't gain any sort of consistency. What else could I expect from 1 practice session though =P.

[Dahlium]

Keep up the good work!!

[Ambiguity]

Dahlium: Thanks for the encouragement, I appreciate it.

I did this for showing another artist something, but I liked it so much I thought I'd post it here:

[Sajok]

Hi Ambiguity! It's Josian from Sycra's forum. You've given me some courage to try posting some of my stuff here on CA. Keep up the good work on both ends!

[Ambiguity]

Hi Ambiguity! It's Josian from Sycra's forum. You've given me some courage to try posting some of my stuff here on CA. Keep up the good work on both ends!

Hey Sam, nice to see you here. Wow, glad to know I helped out in some way. I hope you'll continue work hard as well, I'll be watching you o.-