Nathans Sketchbook

[hallowtreez]

im pretty new to digital. im come from a background of drawing with mechanical pencil. ive been drawing for about a year now. here is a portrait of a dwarf i doodled in photoshop (: please, tell me what you think and give suggestions

[hallowtreez]

[hallowtreez]

im having a pretty rough time getting used to digital. bleh, i guess time will tell.:/ this is Bizarro from DC's Superman (:

[I-Bomb]

try to work more on human anatomy and do some traditional observation sketches as well

[hallowtreez]

a rough sketch i did today

[hallowtreez]

ahh thank you. i will forsure. (:

[hallowtreez]

an organic still life (:

[hallowtreez]

sketch practiceee

[hallowtreez]

[hallowtreez]

so that last one was the 1st piece to my 11th grade concentration in my art class :s i have to do 12 illustrations of a story i wrote. so here is moar

[stevebeadleart]

I like the loose rendering and brush work in your characters back there. It gives a more traditional feel something I struggle with personally in Photoshop but find easier in Painter. I think if you're new to digital it's promising work your more recent environments here are very strong.

[hallowtreez]

thank you very much. yeah, i do struggle with that painterly feel. it just randomly works out at times haha. but i would suggest (if you want to paint, painterly in photoshop) to use the chalk brush with the dual brush setting on it gives a nice texture.

[hallowtreez]

okay guys, here is stuff from my sketch book (: its a mix of fundamentals and design. idk, i enjoy learning fundamentals with challenging designs. so i dont get to bored with them :p

[Eric-Anthony]

i like your sketchbook! it looks like you are a really creative person and you are sketching down many ideas which is pretty good imo. i would say to work a little bit on your line quality and then you can move on to anatomy.

and dont forget to draw happy little bushes and clouds like bob ross says

[M.Calza]

you're improving very fast, try to draw a little more clear, with less but more confident lines

[hallowtreez]

thanks! currently right now i use a ball point pen to sketch. alot of the loose lines underneath show and its kinda hard to go over. do you think i should use a pencil? or learn to be cleaner with a pen? if so, any suggestion how to get better at the lines? :o

[I-Bomb]

I see you have been improving keep it up

[hallowtreez]

thanks! here is a knight sketchhh

[M.Calza]

About the pencil/pen, I think you should use what you feel more comfortable with but experiment with both, I think the lines is more about control and not the medium itself, I saw some people recomending Peter Han's dynamic sketch video for lines and stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgDNDOKnArk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFVggG7ajXM

maybe it helps

[hallowtreez]

thanks. ill bounce back and forth. i wish i could see the full thing lol o well. here is the stuff for today

[M.Calza]

Really cool insects, after you've done this study, try to draw them from other angles from imagination

[hallowtreez]

[Colour Coded]

Looking good. Your recent pics look a lot cleaner.

[hallowtreez]

lol this one definitely pissed me off. but this is the next piece for my concentration (11th grade)

[hallowtreez]

lol this is my own chaos warrior. ive never played warhammer but the art and overall aesthetic is absolutely lovely

[hallowtreez]

My Dnd character Zanriel c: just a quickie

[kevin_]

try adding more saturation and contrast to your colors, always a problem with beginners. anyways keep at it man!

[ConnyNordlund]

Thanks for checking by my sketchbook, mayn!

I think your work shows good effort, that's great! I can tell that you have a sense for design but the skills aren't there yet. But when they are, you'll be doing awesome with those.
As for crits, I think you should stop scribbling in lines into your work. Use bigger strokes that follow the form rather than adding random lines. Use smaller brushes towards the end for detail and texture. Do an exercise and only use bigger brushes for an entire painting (not too huge so it's impossible, use a brush that you think might could be a bit too big but still manageable).

Do some photo studies with different materials and different lightning situations. Also do some still lifes in the same manner. I can see you're already tackling anatomy so keep that up!

Hope that helps, keep up the good work. You're doing great.

[hallowtreez]

thanks alot conny! yeah i can see what you mean. the scribbles kinda lead the eye away from following the form. im going to try to get into cross hatch shading in my pen sketches i do alot. i have my digital brush as a hard round with size control to pen pressure and i control the opacity by hand. do you think that could also be a result of the random lines?

[ConnyNordlund]

That recent thing looks a whole lot better than the other stuff, to be honest.
I personally feel that opacity is only needed when you actually have to use it. So if you feel that you can make the same result without the opacity, then it usually turns out better. I think it's because photoshop doesn't really blend the colors, it just adds so it can look odd when using opacity. So if you add it without opacity you get clear values. The only time I would use opacity is if I really need to blend out edges with a softer brush, never for direct painting. But that's just how I go about it, it must be different for everyone. But it could make sense to you so that's why I'm mentioning it.