Getting my hands busy

[Simbelmynë]

Hello! My name is Barbara and I'm a 22 year old/young aspiring concept artist and illustrator.
I have almost finished my third year of Fashion studies, i just have only two exams left and both of them include a lot of drawing. So I'm quite a happy person now. So i took this year off to finally pursue my biggest goal. I love drawing, i loved every second of drawing classes we had. But i didn't have time to draw more than for my drawing exams as i had a lot of physical work with designing dresses and textiles. So now I'm ready, i have the time and i know it is not a piece of cake, it's a hundred story cake and i need to start at the very first layer.

I have been lurking around on concept art forums for quite some time now, so decided to finally join. I know that this will only inspire me to draw more. I do not know all the correct words yet or how to correctly asses my work or work of someone else. But I'm wiling to learn and study anatomy books in English. So if i make a silly comment do excuse me

My plan is to draw a lot and to learn different techniques.
So lurking around as it's best.

I assembled some of my previous work just for a starter.
Here it goes.

[Simbelmynë]

This is a piece i was doing for a glam metal band besides their logo. The piece stayed unfinished as i had a lot of work with uni but I'm planing on finishing it sometimes soon.

The plan was to go for a sin city comic look. I kinda failed on that, but i think i can still manage to do something with it.

[Simbelmynë]

At the moment I'm doing my very first digital painting with the regular brush set in Photoshop. I just threw myself in it and did the first one just to get the feeling. I think i started to complicate through the middle and started to detail a bit to much. But i think it came out well. I know it doesn't resemble the face much but i wanted to get the tone right and maybe the look. What do you think of it so far?
Next i will do the hair.

Comparison of 4 hours of painting and 5 hours of painting.

[Simbelmynë]

I done some paintings with permanent oil pastels this weekend. I was on the countryside and didn't have my laptop with me, so the digital piece I'm working on left untouched. The oil pastels were very fun to work with. It got really messy and my fingers were all dirty as i highlighted with my nails but i love that kind of painting. I will be doing more work with them after i finish the digital painting. I also made some pencil sketches that i will upload later.

[nouge]

Hey, Barbara! Again: welcome to CA, and thanks for stopping by my sketchbook! If you've got a year to work on your drawing skills, keeping a sketchbook can be very helpful, both for tips, critique and motivation!

Your rendering skills with pencil are very good, and you have a sharp eye for light and colour changes, judging by the shading of the figurine in your latest post (very nice!).

In your digital painting, you might find it easier to get colours right if you place them first (don't use an eyedropper!). If you put down the rough colour of the hair and background before you start working on the details, seeing whether the colours are correct or not can become easier as they all affect the perception of the other colours too.

Also, let's see your pencil sketches!

[Simbelmynë]

Thank you Nouge for writing such a constructive comment and taking the time. This sketchbook really is a personal motivator. I'm drawing every day now and also to get feedback like yours helps me evolve.
I will do so with the digital painting. You are right with the perception of colors, i haven't thought about it in that way. I will have to do just some simple paintings with only rough colors and yes, the eyedropper will be sentenced to death .

[Simbelmynë]

Some pencil drawings i did in the last days. I have started reading Drawing skills 2 from Tone Racki which teaches figure drawing with only lines. It concentrates on fine observation of the body and schematically drawing the figure from mind. In the book it says that we can learn figure drawing with abstract practices and a more stylized, expressive drawing. But that kind of practices are more direct, alluring and easier. They promise a faster progression, but sooner or later prove to be lacking. It is a shortcut which flatters the students ego, because they get him soon to interesting and attractive fine products. The bad side of this kind of practices shows then, when the student has to identify the progress or to evaluate the results. When evaluating he can soon get into a empty discussion about gesture, materials, the working of surface and movement.

I think this is a interesting point made. I see now how important it is not only to practice art, but also to learn art. So i started the first lessons today. Before that i made some rough drawings just for practice. I'm planning to progress the drawing with the dress digitally and transform the girl into a wooden doll. But that after I'm done with my first digital.
And I'm sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. I bought a used scanner but as it turned out it was a broken scanner. The head won't budge nowhere but it does make a weird noise. Maybe i can have it for a Halloween decoration

[Simbelmynë]

My first digital painting will soon be finished. I have now done the hair and colored the background and the shirt. For making the hair i found some tutorials online and i incorporated some techniques in mine just to learn and maybe use them in later paintings. The main thing was coloring the hair with a background color and then smudge the edge. From that i used the dodge tool and burn tool with having the brush size 4 pix. I also used the smudge tool in between. A great tutorial was from this guy who created a custom brush to paint hair.
http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/pa...ealistic-hair/
So i followed the steps and did the same brush. I must say it was easier to paint, but i had to incorporate other techniques with it. This lesson of painting hair tough me a lot. But still, i will have to paint a lot of hair to master it.

Painting process:

[Natzetta]

^looks good so far. The texture of her hair looks very natural. :thumbsup:
I would tone down on the dodge tool, though. The highlights on the bangs and the bright strand beside her eye look too saturated orange to match the otherwise natural color theme.

[Simbelmynë]

Thank you, I spent a lot of time getting the texture right so I'm pleased you think so. And you were absolutely right with the orange tones. I have now fixed the problem and finally finished the painting. So I'm showcasing a cropped and non cropped version. I hope it looks more natural now. Have to get used to see problems like that. Have a long way to go i see.

[dimi]

nice start barbara good linework and pencilwork the shoes are amazing! cant crit or anything just keep posting

[Simbelmynë]

Thank you for the positive feedback. I will keep posting

I did two speed paintings yesterday to practice color work. The first one took 35 min and the second 25. I used just one brush and varied the size. It is hard to keep it simple but i have to work on that and not complicate to much. So this is a good practice. This weekend will be dedicated to pencil drawings and gestures.

[Simbelmynë]

Weekend drawings coming your way. I did some portraits of family members for practice and two drawings from imagination. The clowness I quite like, but with the multiple legged girl i discovered i can not draw the surrounding from imagination. More practicing in that area also. Lot of practicing.

[Simbelmynë]

Latest studies of the human body. I'm still reading Tone Racki and following his studies. The hardest part is to get someone to pose. I think i will concentrate more on the lines not so much on the shading. I have not done so much in this last days as I maybe got a job. I'm still a apprentice but we will see how is went. Have to do more drawings this weekend.

[Simbelmynë]

More gesture studies from yesterday. Friday night spent well

[nouge]

Nice studies, especially the last 3. You could take a look at the length of the neck, you're making it too long sometimes. Also keep doing twisting dynamic poses like those last ones. Keep it up!

[Simbelmynë]

Thanks for that observation. Have to measure all of the body part. I didn't focus on the neck so much. Will do now

So i tried to make this weekend as productive i could and put my hands in action. I did a painting of a cool skull photo by this guy, Jean-baptiste Senegas. I don't know if the proportions of the skull are right and the teeth to be honest, but i guess that just means i have to do more sketching of the skull.

[Simbelmynë]

Some crow studies. I changed things up a little and did animal figure studies. I tried to incorporate the studies from the human figure.

[Simbelmynë]

I was very inspired by the crow pictures i did the sketches in the previous post from. My friend who is a photographer took them. The picture have a cold tone to them and a blurry background so i did today also a digital painting. Friend's photo blog: http://anjamatko.blogspot.com/2012/11/crow.html
But i see that most of the times i find a picture i really like and have the urge to make a digital version out of it. I don't know if i should focus more on imagination digital paintings but i learn a lot about light with this way.

[Aquascale]

Ooh, I love that skull study! I'm not one to talk about proportions but I love the shadows.
On the bird, the head looks a bit flattened, and I think that may be throwing the balance off. I really like where you defined the feathers.
I think a good thing to do is to continue your studies, and then try out an imaginative piece so you can see what you can remember. Any areas you struggle on you can go back and practice. (:
Great stuff!

[Simbelmynë]

Thank you for your observation i noticed that I'm not that good with bird's feet. But it's fun to go back and practice. But that is a good idea, it is like a drawing homework.

[Simbelmynë]

Have not posted in a long time. This week i did more pencil drawings of random things. Also my roommates gave me a ink pencil and lots of colors of ink so i had to try it out. It is a interesting technique. I have to get used to it a little and learn hot to draw with it.

[PeteJ]

thanks for visiting my sketchbook, ur studies look great so far and I really like ur skull painting.

[Simbelmynë]

Thank you

I have made a little illustration from the pencil sketch. The sketch i draw from a photo but i challenged myself to paint with acrylics just from imagination, all the colors and shadows. I wanted to go for a forest fairy look with soft colors.

[kamikazel33t]

Good effort! for some suggestions on some books to pick up I suggest you go with "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" by Andrew Loomis and a couple of books from George Bridgeman because right now the book in which your are studying appears to borrow the concepts he is teaching from these two books and reteaching them. I also suggest you do some form studies where you draw cubes and other three dimensional shapes at different angles, that way your drawings would appear to show more volume and perspective then they are currently. For the gestures I feel everything is a bit stiff, try to capture the movement more than the actual model and try doing them in thirty seconds. Here is an example to get an idea on how gestures are done.