StressCavity's Stuff /// I Want to Improve: Advice Appreciated!

[AJM]

That guy looks pretty cool...and kind of sad.
What kind of animation are you doing?

And yeah, CA's reply system has been pretty fucked up lately.

[StressCavity]

Just some stupid flash animation. Mostly to mess around and spend some time with my cousin before he leaves for school.

[Edit] Added a crappy sketch since this is supposed to be a sketchbook.

[Samszym]

Sup, thanks for the comment! Nice sketchbook, you're working hard!

It seems to me you're in a big hurry to learn all you can, and I think that might be a mistake. A couple years ago I tried to draw through all of Bridgeman's big orange book during a summer to go over each part of the body, but I moved through the body parts so fast and copied his lines so mindlessly that I don't think I really learned much.
I suggest you take it easy and spend a lot of time learning fundamental knowledge. Don't be in a hurry to move on to more complex stuff, just master what's in front of you. I think you should spend a few weeks mastering perspective and tightening your forms, drawing accurate forms in space is much more important than knowing the muscles of the leg.
As for your anatomy studies, I think you should start by learning the structure of the skeleton and the ways it can move before learning muscles and exterior forms. Breaking the body into blocks would help you more now than copying all the muscles on an ecorche figure.

Good luck!

[Samszym]

Sup, thanks for the comment! Nice sketchbook, you're working hard!

It seems to me you're in a big hurry to learn all you can, and I think that might be a mistake. A couple years ago I tried to draw through all of Bridgeman's big orange book during a summer to go over each part of the body, but I moved through the body parts so fast and copied his lines so mindlessly that I don't think I really learned much.
I suggest you take it easy and spend a lot of time learning fundamental knowledge. Don't be in a hurry to move on to more complex stuff, just master what's in front of you. I think you should spend a few weeks mastering perspective and tightening your forms, drawing accurate forms in space is much more important than knowing the muscles of the leg.
As for your anatomy studies, I think you should start by learning the structure of the skeleton and the ways it can move before learning muscles and exterior forms. Another good exercise would be drawing the body made of simple boxes. Breaking the body into blocks would help you visualize the form of the body, and you need to be able to do that before you can draw specific muscles on it.

Good luck!

[StressCavity]

Samszym - Thank for the advice man! Yeah, I do think that rushing through anatomy is bad, but I am sitting there trying to absorb the information. I'm doing less exact copies and more trying to understand the forms, how they wrap and flex, etc. Which is why I've been spending so much time on each individual part, it's just condensed into more hours per day >_> I haven't actually practiced simplified forms which you mentioned so I'll get on that!!!

Here's some poop from today, a mixture of 2 enviros (which I need tons of work on) and 1 aircraft thing? Slacking on anatomy lately but I will try to do more characters in the future. Gotta do some more studies too, I feel my grasp on lighting/color is degrading.

[Overtoom]

Great studies so far, you are really improving. One thing I notice is that your pencil work seems ahead of your digital work. Try to use a bit more contrast and sharper edges in your digitals, they seem a bit too suggestive. There is a great thread about sharp and soft shadows here on conceptart.org, but can't find it atm This should do too: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/hard-and-soft-shadow-edges/
I think some definition would help you a great deal.
Keep up the great work!

[StressCavity]

I have not uploaded in forever :C I fell in this weird rut between getting stuff ready for school and getting used to the new schedule. I have done zero digital work (except today) since my last update but I have been drawing in my sketchbook and doing little studies. Also picked up anatomy for the artist by simblet, really like the overlays in the book. Between hogarth bridgeman and simblet I'm pretty sure I'm set on anatomy for a while haha.

Overtoom - Thankyou for the compliment. I definitely want to improve in defining forms, which is one of the hardest things for me because I want to take a 100% painting approach in digital, but linework makes it so easy to figure out forms (which is probably why my pencil work is better).

I hope everyone that sees this will excuse the stupidness of it. It's been a while since I've touched my tablet and it always seems I need to get over that awkward resettling phase after being away from it so long.

[StressCavity]

Decided to make a real quick thing before I head off to school. Just a stupid sketch for another website event thing. I think it'd be super awesome if some of you better artists took part in the http://www.reddit.com/r/SketchDaily events, pretty sure you'd win every time xD

[StressCavity]

I've been doing very bad at the whole painting every day thing, but I have been doodling in my sketchbook at school and what not. I managed to spit out this stupid robot thing for my cousin's birthday and I figured I might as well track all my work here. I also have this super crappy 20 minute mermaid thing done for reddit since the topic was something I'm not very good at (people and faces). Let me know what you think! Some advice would be awesome because with school hanging around I never really stop to think what to work on.

[StressCavity]

Another update with a big gap I haven't been painting too much but still dabbling in my sketchbook, I really should take pictures of that too some day. But for now I just have these stupid things I did for friends. One's supposed to be an ostrich and the other thing is a potato cow. They're crappy and dumb but I had fun

[Slothstuff-J44]

Its a cow whale pig frog... awesome

[Cherri]

I love your stuff! :] Everything! The hulking masses, the glowing eyes, the splattery painterly forms!

[StressCavity]

J-44 - Thanks man, I felt very stupid drawing it but it was fun and easy
Cherri - Thank you! You should really think about opening up a sketchbook on this site too! It's super fun and it's nice to get some good feedback

Ok, so I haven't been digital painting or even studying as much as I should be but I got some traditional stuff I've done over the past few days and a painting. I'm not too good with acrylics but after about 5 or so paintings I think I've got a presentable drawing haha. The colors are all a bit fucked up though, stupid phone cameras...Anyways...feedback, harsh critique, advice, resources, anything! I'd love to hear something I need to work on or anything I can do to improve faster

[FightingSeraph]

Amazing Bridgeman studies, Stress. By the way, I thought I'd stop by after seeing what you posted in Sinix' design thread.

[blooz]

Hey, really promising work here, you're making good use of the studies.
Try to incorporate them more directly into your imaginative work though, relating the two is key.
As for the painting method i just used 3 similar values and rarely use pen pressure opacity.

[StressCavity]

FightingSeraph - Thanks man! I do enjoy bridgeman's work
Blooz - Thanks a bunch!! I'm trying to cross em over, but I tend to get caught in either reference mode or imaginative mode :/ I tried to take what you said into account when I did these though, setting up my own bases/gestures, etc. On a side note I hope to see you post more on CA! I wanna see all your scribbles

I'm getting more comfortable with my traditional stuff which is why I'm posting it now c:
This was a mix of studies and just random doodles once again, used my pentel brush pen to do some graphic outlining because I thought it looked nice. Just need some grayscale copics when I get more money. Advice, critique, etc. is always appreciated! Tell me how stupid the skulls look and that the legs are all fucked up, just let me know what I can do to fix my mistakes or improve

[Slothstuff-J44]

I didn't know you're a brony! Nice studies! Very sketchy and cool

[StressCavity]

J-44 - How'd you know

Speaking of which, I actually did a bunch of requests today but I'll just post what's more 'acceptable' First one is spock as a pony (had a good laugh with this) and the second is a griffon (Gilda). Now that's cleared up back to studies! I kinda took a break today from doing the boring stuff and did a bunch of fun things more relevant to my personal interests (like ponies) but I'll be back on track first thing tomorrow!

[Xcarbon]

nice sb
i like the way you use colors and your traditional linework is so cool. so far its going great
keep up the good work!!

[StressCavity]

Xcarbon - Thanks dude!

So I have a couple of random things to upload today. I'm still focusing on legs and hopefully I'll move back into arms and feet later, but I've felt a need to improve how my legs look. There is one digi page which I did to try drawing girls but I ended up falling asleep and forgot so when I got back to it I drew a dude and 2 arms lol. Hopefully this stuff isn't too lame considering I haven't posted in a while, I've done some digital painting as well but it's just fangasming so I thought I shouldn't post it here. Also sorry about the quality of the pictures, I hate transferring pictures from my phone...

[n1frit]

Lot of studies! GuT!

[StressCavity]

Thanks n1frit! I'm a huge fan of your style and work ethic and I'm glad my studies are to your approval

[ForScience]

I really like the graphite doodles that you made on your first page. Have you tried starting with a pencil drawing then scanning and painting it? That work flow seems like it would compliment your strengths.

[StressCavity]

ForScience - Thanks man, I have thought about using that as a work flow before but it would simply take too long. I'm pretty slow and leisurely with my pencil renderings and importing it in would probably double the production time. Maybe when I get better I can start to do that without wasting too much time.

I thought about trying out for the current COW but I ended up failing very badly at it. Metalfingers and Scorge is just dominating and hopefully one day I'll stand a chance Here are the 2 creature ideas that took way too long to paint for what they look like.

[Forrest_I]

Hey man really nice work so far, keep on studying and learning and you'll do great. And listen to what Sam said earlier on this page about fundamentals. Fundamentals are everything, try starting simple by doing still lifes of very simple shapes like cubes and spheres and do it in black and white. Try to really focus on values at the moment, I see you really don't have that big of a fear of color and that's a great thing to have, but for now you should break it down and be simple. Learning value will help you a lot. Another thing to focus on that's very simple and will help a lot in the long run is construction. Breaking the human body down into simple forms like cubes and spheres and cylinders will help you get a better understanding of form and breaking things down. You can then apply what you learn from construction to other things in life.

If you don't have it yet I suggest getting "Figure Drawing For All it's Worth" by Andrew Loomis, it goes over what I just talked about and more. Good luck

[Slothstuff-J44]

Very nice studies! I wish I had the motivation to do all those random speculars :/

[smrrfette]

Some great studies and 'doodles' in here!

[Xcarbon]

Damn man you linework is so cool i love those legs
and an awesome job on the creatures specially the fish
love those specular highlights

[StressCavity]

Xcarbon, smrrfette - Thank you for the compliments!

J44 - Those speculars were super fast! All I did was take a 100 opacity round brush and poke everywhere I'm too lazy myself to do the nice little anti-aliased edges xD

Forrest-I - Thank you for the advice I'm trying to get my values more accurate but it's probably the most boring thing for me to study right now, makes progress slower than I'd hope. I pulled 2 pics off google and referenced them but how would I do them from real life? I don't own any perfect spheres or cubes at home I do also try to break down everything into simpler shapes, the benefit of working from bridgeman But excuses aside I will definitely try to do some more painting studies! All I've been doing really is anatomy and I need to start doing some still lives, environment studies, and master studies.

Oh yeah, and the sphere is really shitty. The fact that I couldn't chisel the edges into a perfect circle without screwing up the backdrop definitely ruins the illusion of form :C Not to mention I couldn't get the values right for the shadow/highlight areas.

[Dirgeance]

Hey Man, nice amount of studies you've got going here!

I really enjoy your creatures as well-- from page 1 to now there are some key improvements. If I were you I might try to work on my edge control a little bit (hard, soft, and lost) to better define the subjects you paint. Your traditional stuff's looking pretty ace though.

Other than that, keep it up!