4 Years to get good.

[pfloyd]

Welp. I'm starting art school in about a month, I figure now is a good time to
start a sketchbook (a final sketchbook.) This is mainly for motivation and to track my progress. Hopefully it will inspire people when I am an art God in about 10 years.

Anyways, I like to think I'm pretty good at portraits. But what I really wanna do is environments, which I am not so good at.... I try to do studies everyday, and a finished piece once in a while. Hopefully this will all pay off.

So, here are some portraits. The first two are kind "meh" (one is a self portrait, the other is liam nesson), the third (legolas) I like but is not finished. I'm working on a mac so it will probably look saturated to anyone on a pc.

[kevin_]

nice start, the orlando bloom one looks pretty good! keep posting!

[pfloyd]

Time for some recent landscape stuff. On most of these i just see errors, maybe you guys can give me some tips. Iv read that it is smart to do lots of studies, some from master paintings, and speed paintings. let me know if this is correct.

this study is okay, except for it defies the laws of gravity. the river shouldn't be to hard to fix though.

this is a study of one of Albert Bierdtsads pantings. i think i got all that i could out of this one. mainly color in clouds.

this is like a mountain/tree/cloud/rock study which i will probably make a finished peice.

tree study

the next two are simply speed paintings from my head.

some things i like about this one, most i absolutely hate.

this one i actually kinda like, but unfortunately the lighting is inconsistent. i have this problem alot. any tricks to preventing this? or just more practice. the mountain should not be white, correct?


i need to keep reminding myself to use reference, otherwise my stuff tends to like bad. hopefully the studies will help though.

[Pete Hidalgo]

Fine book you have here! Looking forward to following it. What school are you going to If you dont mind me asking.

[Psychobuddy]

Good start man, and yeah just do studies of everything and anything...the only way to know how to draw something, is to learn how to draw right.

[Snafu]

Hey, beautiful work, if this is your level now, I can't wait to see your work in 5 years time. I quite like your painting style, interesting strokes and colours, giving them an almost surreal feeling.

I'm still a learning artist aswell, but if you need help with environments, look up videos by Feng Zhu on Youtube, they are really helpful. My personal advice would be to buy the book l'ighting for the realist painter', by James Gurney, it's a wonderful book with all the rules you'll ever need when it comes to atmosphere and lighting. Finally, keep your style going, but if your ever bored, play around with soe custom textures and brushes, it's a ton of fun, helped me out. m@s set is a lot of fun to use (you can download it on CA I think) but that's if you're into playing with brushes and stuff.

I'm gonna subscribe here, looking forward to seeing you develop

[pfloyd]

kevin: thanks, your sketchbook is awesome!
pete: i'm going to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, its a small school, but i decided to save money rather than go to one of the "prestigious" art schools. way too expensive despite my scholarships.
physcobuddy:good to know, thanks!
snafu: hmmmmm... do you mean "color and light"? I have that book. i looove james gurney. i have some custom brushes, i prefer the painterly style of a simple square brush though.

Here is a study i did today. i will probably take it to finish. i'll keep you guys posted. lemme know your thoughts.

[Kaihartj]

Hey man! your envionments are fantastic! Really cool! i love the roughness and at the same time how kind of clean-sh they are? I'm not sure how to put it really! haha but they're amazing! keep it up!

[pfloyd]

haha i know exactly what you mean, thanks a lot!

[pfloyd]

newest speed painting. i'm doing this for a band called "Evergreen" hence the evergreen tree. I was trying to do something a little Rodger Dean inspired. I'm going to take this one to finish also. I like it right now, although that may change with fresh eyes.

[Kresh]

Love your de-saturated pallete and the hard edges in your enviroments. Solid portraits as well. Don't have any crits at the moment.....neat work!!

[bobtail]

Hey, thanks for visiting my sketchbook . Your work looks really good - you have a really different style which is cool. I can't believe you said you're 'not that good' at environments - it looks to me like you're already pretty practiced . It looks like you're doing a really good balance of studies and imaginative stuff too (not that I'm an expert, I just think a balance is good!). Can't wait to see more !

[Basham]

The environments you've given more time to seem to have come out really well! I'm not much to critique them right now, as I could stand to paint a few more environments myself, but I like what you're doing, and you seem to have a really good attitude, so keep it up.

[frankfrank]

really digging those portraits.

Cool stuff.

[pfloyd]

thanks guys! here are some thumbnails I did at work, while i was not working...



If you haven't noticed, i fuckin looove trees.

[pfloyd]

more thumbs, i like these better.

[Yefim]

keep it up! You'll be a killer in 1 year

[Mihail]

Hey. I think these thumbnails are cool. I like the design. What you could do is add some darker tones into them. Right now they look a bit too bright to me. Have you tried doing thumbnails using only 2 colors black and white?I think it could be interesting.

[kikindaface]

hey dude, nice enviro thumbnails ! for your portraits, i find that the drawing is good, but something is wrong with the values/edges, because it lacks of volume/ solidity ! keep it up !!

[pfloyd]

mihail: your right, they are kinda bright. i'll be sure to work on that
kikindaface: thanks! I'm not sure what you mean with the portraits, do you think the look flat? i think the blurred backgrounds have something to do with that. maybe I'm wrong

finished version of poster:

[pfloyd]

new speed painting from one of the thumbnails.

[pfloyd]

another speed from a thumbnail. this one is a little messier, not quite as happy with it. tomorrow i will try and finish the one above.

[vices]

Your compositions are great and it's impressive how well they read while being so rough with so few tones!

[jinny]

Killer environments! I can't wait to see what you come up with next.

[Seeker Asmodius]

Your work is very good, you're quite efficient at using minimal colours to produce tone, something I'm struggling with atm. Also, good use on contrast

[pfloyd]

thanks guys!
speed painting: almost 100% sure I'm gonna crop the bottom 4th when i take it further

[CR Faerber]

wowza, i really like the style of your environment pieces!
gogogo!

[pfloyd]

I got a bunch of speeds here, lemme know which ones you like the most

[pfloyd]

Some new stuff.

bunch of thumbs

finished painting

wip

another wip

i suuuuck at drawing figures

I could really use some advice on this one! still got a lot of work to do though. especially the face:


thanks for looking!

[Klaustrophil]

Great sketchbook - if this your sketchbook even before starting art school...wow, looking forward to see you progress :-)