I draw shit

[Will McCraw]

Scribbles from school assemblies. Dashkin

[Will McCraw]

Some scribbles done over the last few days. A few figures inspired from Andrew Loomis' work.

[Will McCraw]

Went back and touched up and rendered in some old work.
Bastion fan art, still a wip

[Will McCraw]

A quick scribble of a lion.

[Will McCraw]

So I'm in the midst of exams atm with most of my time taken up by attempting to study.
This is just a sketch for relaxation.

[Will McCraw]

Some rough biro character concepts.
And some Backwater Gospel studies, cause its awesome.

[Will McCraw]

A small rendering of one of the previous characters.
Still a wip

[Fess1001]

Cool sketchbook man. Really like your drawings from traditional sketchbook - a lot of character there!

For rendering stuff out in ps, my suggestion would be to just start off by massing in big flat shapes in mid value instead of trying to get everything in one go with lots of brush strokes. That way you can also examine and improve the silhouette at the start. Start with a two value shape description: the light side shape and the dark side (shadow/cast shadow) shape. It's also very important to make them interesting and strong/distinct (even if you would lose a bit of that when you render it out more). It's kinda like composition, except only within a character/object. Your portrait in post 63 is a good example of that (except the light side has a feeling of too many strokes) - and it doesn't need to be this graphic (unless you want to) -- even more subtle but clearly distinct/separated values go a long way. It also helps to use a harder brush without pressure sensitivity for opacity for this - cleaner edges and takes less time to fill out the shapes. After this you just build it up in a similar fashion.. but I think that this initial stage is really crucial to getting a stronger looking painting quicker. Hope that helps.
Keep it up~
P.s. :Your drawings are awesome

[Will McCraw]

Fess1001: Thanks allot for the advice man. I really need to start working like that, using a hard edged brush without transfer on. Messed around a little with that on one of these. Unfortunately i did the first two before i read your immensely helpful comment thus they are similar to my old stuff.

[Will McCraw]

Again trying to use hard edged brushes without pen pressure on, still failing but is fun to do.
and some biro drawings from a few days ago

[Fess1001]

Oh hey, I meant to try using hard shapes/no pressure control for opacity for when you already know what you want to do - i.e like when you are doing a study from a photo, or rendering out one of your sketches -- or just have a lot of markings that you want to turn into something.. I think it's fine (and could actually be pretty useful) to mess about and look for interesting new compositions/designs with pressure on, since all those paint overlaps also create shapes that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Afterwards you could fill them out in shapes and then render those out. Another benefit of doing it hard shapes is that you can get a clean selection with a wand tool, then isolate it to another layer and just airbrush or do whatever to it. It doesn't have to stay as flat shapes for ever, it's just very good to use when blocking out a foundation and also to think of all the gradations, value changes you see on an object as distinct shapes too. So that when you render them out you don't use identical strokes for everything, but try to match their shape to what you see (as in, do a more complicated stroke in one go as opposed to just a tick or a line). And having pressure on for flow is usually fine and often makes it more natural to paint while still easily giving you the 100% opacity.

One other thing I am not sure if you know of, but is pretty helpful is to start painting really zoomed out, where you can't really see what's going on, and then, once you have some interesting shapes/composition, gradually zoom in and resolve it. Hope it helps~

Some cool sketches in the last update - keep em coming~

[Will McCraw]

Thanks Fes1001 for being so helpful and generous with your time. I have spent a couple hours today just trying to do as you suggest, experimenting with hard edged brushes, unfortunatly i dont really have any good brushes that are like you one you seem to be talking about. And yes i do try and stay zoomed out from the canvas so i dont get too distracted by applying details too early on which is one of my worst habits. Thanks again for your kind words and advice.

Experimenting with new brushes. And a gorillaz study from the Feel Good Inc video.

[Will McCraw]

Inspired by Afro Samurai and the characters from Backwater Gospel its one fucked up dude.
(rendering still sucks but love it )

[Will McCraw]

Attempting to get better at rendering. Progress is slow.

[Will McCraw]

Messing around with new brushes and an old idea for the steam workshop, the Demonator, welcome to hell(glad that i didnt continue with this, terrible idea and infringing copyright)

[Will McCraw]

Some recent scribbles, most done infront of the tv.

[Will McCraw]

Just some little bits for fun

[Will McCraw]

Im so lazy, hope this time i can do a bit more figures

[Will McCraw]

More of the same stuff.

[Will McCraw]

Just a few very quick studies today