The Honey Badger's Credo

[MaverickGirl777]

Hey guys! I need your help.

I'm a 25 year old mechanical engineering student from Washington State. I started out my higher education as a media arts and animation major, and then switched, but I've always kept up a trickle of arty activities. Basically, I'm taking some time to give this some serious attention, and see if I can actually make something of it.

So! I'm hoping this sketchbook will give me the right combination of motivation and objectivity to really start to improve, and prioritize, and just get some of my ideas down. I've got some serious holes in my practical skills, and way too many ideas floating around in my skull. I'll probably be throwing all kinds of things up here from different mediums and random projects. Hopefully you guys will be able to see where I need to focus, and what needs improvement.

I had an old sketchbook here, but with the span of years in between, and the fact that that account is under a different email, I kind of wanted to start fresh. In the interest of forward progress, I'm gonna start cold turkey here. These are just doodles I did at work today with some photoshop slapped on, hehe. Full disclosure: I don't know that I'll post every day, but that's my ambition. Thanks for looking!

[Heyriel]

Awesome creatures, no crit so far

[Nowio]

Your creatures are fantastic! ;D

[Star Eater]

testing

[Cryptidsaurian]

Nice gorgosaurus! These are all great, especially the second from the top.

[MaverickGirl777]

Hey, thanks for the feedback you guys! Bleh, getting back in the habit of drawing consistently is gonna be tricky for a little bit I think. Anyway, here's some stuff. :>

First one I've been working on for a few days, but I thought I'd put the background up here before I start working on the dragon thing.



Put some more fur on this guy, testing out some brushes n stuff...



And this was a quick doodle that I actually kind of like how the anatomy came out. More fur brush, lol.



(edited to dump first post's stuff to this one )

[zou]

you animal are beautiful

hope to see them fully rendered

if you want some critic:

try to vary your line strokes (make longer strokes vs shorter ones)

in fact your paintings should contrast anything (forms, lines , shacky vs confident, colors ...)

good luck with your nexts

[MaverickGirl777]

Hey Zou! Thanks for your comments. Yeah, I think you've hit upon my main problem; I'm just not that great at painting. But hopefully I'll get better with practice!

Anyway, here's progress on the dragon--just putting in some values.



And a couple sketch pages. I like drawing little character gestures. They're always either cowboys or batman or darth vader for some reason.

[Jenny Jacobs]

I love the concept of the giraffe sabortoothed carnivore thing. lol There is something very cute about it without looseing the underlining sense of danger from an animal that large. The weight the creature exhibits in the last concept of it (next to your little guy saying whoo!) is very nice, I almost like that sense that his feet are like tree roots, more spindly than animal paw like. But as someone said before, varying the lineweight and detail levels throughout your work would help.

[MaverickGirl777]

Hey Jenny, thanks for the feedback! Regarding lineweight, I hear what you're saying. Two of the pages were actually just pen, which is why there isn't a lot of variation.

Anyway, here is an actual human! I really need to get back to doing human studies; I spend way too much time on creatures. (I guess that goes equally for architecture and machines and what not) But yeah, just trying to work on painting instead of line drawing. I just kind of don't have the instinct for it yet I guess. This pic will probably come together more when I figure out where they are, and hence what the hell the lighting should be.

A proper lady and her moose. I don't know how I feel about her hat or hair. I was thinking maybe a bonnet? But a cowboy hat looks more badass. Hmm...

[MaverickGirl777]

Blergh, haven't been finding as much time to draw as I'd like. Here's a lerter bert of sterf.

These are just some quick 2-3 minute gestures from watching ultimate fighter :b Yeees I watch it. It's actually really great for dynamic poses and interaction n' surch.


And these are some doodlies from my kid's book I'm "working on", heh.

[MaverickGirl777]

Real quick, here's a wip of something I'm doing for my boyfriend. Critiques on this especially would be really great! That's Batman over there on the right; I saved him for last cause I like him best. Captain's face is gonna be pretty different; I'm going for a mix of Alex Ross' version and Paul Newman I think.