Teresa's Sketchbook

[spanishrose]

I am an artist who needs to improve on drawings. I want to get into concept art so here are some of my drawings.

[Wingal]

Howdy Teresa! Glad you started your sketchbook! Looks like you have the right idea, you have to study, practice, study, practice, STUDY! Talk so you on skype =) Loomis! Hampton! go!

[spanishrose]

Here are the same pics but better viewing

[spanishrose]

I am really having fun with doing all of this. I hope you will enjoy and I hope to get some critiques so that I would be able to improve.



CC much appreciated

[spanishrose]

Well Here are 4 simple shapes that I have redone as value studies.

[Eternal Apprentice]

Draw more boxes!! Perspective will help you TONS in your work! Good stuff!!

[spanishrose]

Had alot to learn by using photoshop cs6 - extended and fun
Attachment 1662909

[DefiledVisions]

Hey, welcome to conceptart.org Teresa. You're on to a good start.

Right now as you're getting into the habit of drawing, the most important thing is to just draw. Don't think too much about rights or wrongs. Try to draw as freely as you can, and after that analyze how you could improve your drawings.

You asked for some critique, and I will do my best to tell you some things I feel you should be more aware of. If you think I might sound harsh, I want you to know that's not my intent. I want you to improve as an artist and from experience, the best advice I have gotten has been the direct advice that sometimes even hurt. Also, I am no way near being any kind of master. I'm just a student as everyone else and I'm simply presenting my opinions, based on my own experiences and what I have learned so far! So here goes.

Critique on anatomystudies - Be more careful with your anatomy studies. The most important thing you should think of here are proportions. It will be very helpful for you to get a general sense of how things are relative to each other before going into specific anatomical areas such as arms, legs, torso etc. I remember back when I started how I used to just copy what I saw in the anatomy books, withouth thinking of the figure as a whole and without relating the individual parts to the whole. I didn't really get a solid sense of the figure because I didn't get the foundations down. Think about it. Observe and understand what you are doing.

The lines in your arms and bones are wobbly. It's as if you're looking at the reference and then trying to get down the silhouette correctly, which is a difficult approach in the beginning. I wouldn't say wrong, because it's a valid thing to do, however, you're trying to learn constructive anatomy and the main focus you have is to actually construct and not draw outlines. To save yourself a lot of trouble, start by laying down a directional line that you build your arm/bone around. Artistic anatomy is about constructing the figure, and that means drawing inside-out. We start by getting a sense of the gesture, then we check to see if the proportions are correctly. After that we find the angles of things, and then we construct with basic volumes and build on top of that.

Right now your drawings are like spaghetti, because you don't build them around a solid base. See the visual example in the post.



EDIT - It's supposed to be the oposite, the upper arm is too long compared to the lower arm. My apologies!


Critique on value studies - Your values are off and you don't use the light correctly. In the geometrical shapes you have too high contrast. White very rarely, if ever, has such value changes in light and dark as you have in the cube. And the light falls strangely off the cylinder and cone. You need to learn how light and shadow affects these shapes to give them form, and how the environment around the object effects the lights and shadows with ambient light, bouncelight and atmospheric effects. Don't let yourself down though. These things are difficult and you're definitely on the right track. It takes a LOT of practice and a long time to really get to know these things, so the best thin you can do is keep an open mind and keep studying and painting. See visual example for more information.



See the links further down for good information on this!

This value-system is a bit complex and almost only good for learning how to render matte surfaces. As soon as we are dealing with any other kind of surface, the light will react differently and this system breaks. When it comes to life, my tip is to draw, draw, draw, and do studies. As time goes by and you learn more about values you'll get a feeling for it, so don't think too much about it. So gogo draw and paint!

p.s I just noticed the pointing arrows in the cylinder are a bit confusing. It looks like they are pointing to the small text, when it's actually the whole text. My bad.


Critique on the texture spheres - If you want to learn about light and different textures you have to paint them. Adding a photograph of a certain texture onto a sphere won't help you. You need to understand the basics of the sphere and how light gives it form before you can texture it. Right now they look flat because the photo is pasted on, and because you don't use light and shadow to give it form.

That was the crits I wanted to share with you. I hope they are helpful. If there's anything you're wondering or want clarified just hit me with a PM. Now for some resources that will give you more knowledge about light and shadow, and a small one on constructing heads (since I saw you did some heads earlier). Enjoy!


James Gurney's blogposts about light and form -
part 1 - http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.se/201...part-1_15.html
part 2 - http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.se/201...rm-part-2.html
part 3 - http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.se/201...rm-part-3.html

Niklas Jansson aka Prometheus|ANJ's amazing art tutorial - he has an especially good chapter on how light works - http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm

Ron Lemen has some useful and interesting words on light and dark - http://www.anticz.com/drawing1.htm
as well as constructing the head - http://www.anticz.com/heads.htm

I saw someone mention Loomis and Hampton, they teach good anatomy. You will also want to look up Bridgman and Vilppu for constructive anatomy. Michael Hampton is another one worth mentioning, his teachings are also based on Vilppu

Keep on working hard and challenge yourself and you'll definitely be able to reach your goals. Keep it up! see you around

[spanishrose]

I know that I am still off on the arms but here is the most recent arms that I have done. Also i realize that I need to work on the muscle. I will draw the muscles out then I will paint them.

[spanishrose]

DefiledVisions I wanted to thank you for these tutorials that I will definitely work on. I will be updating more regularly soon as I go about creating art.

[spanishrose]

I am trying my hand at an environment.



Any advice would be appreciated.

[spanishrose]