Sweetgut's Sketchbook

[sweetguts]

Hey there! I've kind of been lurking here off and on for ages. Figured it was about time I finally start a sketchbook. Apologies if I screw anything up... To start off, here's a painting of some glass dragons I made for a contest.

[AllyAlbon]

Hi Sweetguts! And great start, they are deadly cute. Is that photoshop or painter?

[sweetguts]

Thanks! It's Photoshop.

[DKHutcheson]

There's no need to worry about screwing up here. I'm pretty sure it's near impossible. I really like the design of the dragon wings and the atmosphere of the painting.

[sweetguts]

Before I go to bed, here's a painting I did for my conceptual illustration class this last quarter. At the beginning of the class we were told to create a "little mermaid"-style story, mine was about a robot (the mermaid) and a mechanic girl (the prince). Her name is Amira.

There's a ton of additional stuff we did for the class that I'll post tomorrow, I think I'm going to need to resize a lot of it. It was a lot of fun and I got some great work out of it.

[sweetguts]

And finally, some studies of dinosaur stuff I did at the museum today. Time for bed!

[DKHutcheson]

Seems silly to ask, but do you study at SCAD? From what I understand, the conceptual illustration class there does a Little Mermaid re-imagining.

[sweetguts]

Yep, I do! I think she does different fairytales for different classes though.

[sweetguts]

I was at Heroescon this past weekend, I tried to do draw at least a little every day. Here's some gestures and sketches from a webcomic I'm going to start soon.

[Duplicitious]

great whimsical ideas love the windmill/fan concept
I'd say for your gestures what someone said to me, try to focus on form and mass to really do studies on anatomy if that's what you're aiming for

but anyways keep it up!

[Velocity Kendall]

love the dragons!

[sweetguts]

Finished this today. The first chapter cover for my webcomic.

[sweetguts]

Oh no, it's been ages since my last post! Oops. Well, now that I'm done with school I figure my best place to get feedback would be here, so I'm going to try to post fairly regularly. To start off, here's a practice piece I'm working on. The ref is from here. Mostly I just want to practice picking colors based on observation instead of using the eyedropper, because it's a huge weakness of mine. Also I've found that I really enjoy painting metal, though I haven't got it down yet.

There's also something else I want to post about that will be up in a few minutes after I make some adjustments.

[sweetguts]

While I'm job-hunting I've decided to start up a project for fun and to get some nice portfolio pieces. See, my dream is to land a job as a concept artist for animated films while working on indie comics on the side. I have a ton of concept work already that I'm getting together to send off, but I a) don't want to get rusty and b) feel like I can do better.

So I thought it would be fun to do an entire concept project on my own, characters, environments, props, everything, ala “The Skillful Huntsman”, but for a kid’s animated feature. If the new work I make gets me a job, hey, it’s served its purpose, and if I finish and still have nothing to show for it, at least I’ll have all this material for a neat little book I can sell or something.

Anyway, my idea is called “Hell’s Belles”. It’s a story about two girls, an angel and a devil, and they meet up and start a band and get tangled up in a plot by some humans to start the apocalypse prematurely.

Here are some rough ideas for the devil girl, Beth. I want her to be pudgy and have a kind of feminine 50’s look, but I’m having trouble figuring out details like the look of her horns, hairstyle, regular feet vs. hooves, etc. I’ll do some more variations, any feedback and ideas are greatly appreciated!

Once I get really into the swing of it I’ll start up a thread in the critique center but since I’m in the very beginning stages I figure I’ll keep everything in here for now.

[sweetguts]

The holidays have been keeping me busy, but I did a bit more work on that project. Mostly solidifying Beth's design and a few preliminary sketches for color pieces. Oh, and a few random faces, I suppose they'll be background characters and such.

[sweetguts]

Some prop stuff.

[sweetguts]

Oh hey, the site's back up!

Here are some ideas for a logo, because every band, fictional or not, needs a badass logo.

I'm doing some studies right now (after putting them off for too long-been caught up in drawing comics and this) so I guess I'll post those later

[sweetguts]

I lied I haven't done any studies

Here's another Beth

[sweetguts]

Did some studies and copied some stuff from Drawing the Head and Hands, because I need a lot of practice with that. :/ It's already helped a bit though, and I'm only a few pages in.

[sweetguts]

Also, been working on my concept project. This time for Sera, the angel character. I have a clearer idea in mind for her but I think she still needs some refining.

[sweetguts]

Really trying to push myself for this one. Hell is a sort of Las Vegas-type place where the entertainment revolves around torturing the damned and general debauchery. Still really messy and in the very beginning stages of work but I think I've got a solid idea and I'm excited to work some more on it.

[Rhubix]

You have some pretty cute stuff in here. I really like the guitar.
On the last piece, I feel the balcony rail is quite low. Most balcony rails tend to go about rib-high on me (I'm 5'6) so we don't fling ourselves over it. If you brought it up, you could give the lady a less awkward pose- and make sure you get those feet oriented on the floor.
I like to build myself a little top-view map with groups of objects like this- helps me puzzle it out.


Right now, there are lots of design jobs in hand held gaming and online stuff. It's a good place to look for jobs on your way to feature .
happy sketching

[AeonPhoenix]

Your sketchbook is off to a strong start. Wish mine had looked half as good at the beginning.

[sweetguts]

Thanks, guys.

I've had to put that illustration aside for now to take care of some other stuff, but I think I've got Sera's design down so I'll just dump that here for now :U

[johnny24]

good stuff! i like your style and your last piece! keep it up!

[sweetguts]

Here's a recent quick thing.

[sweetguts]

Been busy lately. Here's some gestures and more stuff from head and hands.

[sweetguts]

I'm trying to sculpt a ball-jointed doll in my spare time. Still in very rough stages, obviously.

[sweetguts]

Some random building concepts.