Stuff and...stuff

[Waipunga]

Dude, even though you may think that you fucked up the last caricature there are a shit load of us out here who think its way cool!

We have a saying here in New Zealand : Kia Kaha! Means : Courage, Keep on. You are doing great, just keep pushing. :-)

[Setherial]

Waipunga: thanks mate, appreciate it!!

here's what I did today, so far

[Setherial]

decided to learn how to use a Brushpen and prismacolor art stix. here's my first attempt



if I get more comfortable with this technique I can use it for live acts

[SeraphSword]

I really like the pencil rendering style you have going on with most of these. As you get more comfortable with the brushpen, it'd be interesting to see you try a technique similar to your pencil stuff.

Good luck.

[lionheartGFX]

daaaaaaaaaaaaamn, those recent ones are the shiiit, god i love graphite i would love to look at those in person its a completely different impression, no matter how nitpicky i ever get always remember i think you talent is fantastic!

i would love some figures from time to time tho ;D!

post your paintings too! cant wait to see those i saw your painting 101 thread in maxforums its so great!

[zou]

another caricature artist to inspire me

nice nice pencil technique, this last technique is very original

[Setherial]

SeraphSword: thanks, I have a long way ahead of me in terms of learning to master that brushpen. I really need to think about my line first and then put it down in one confident stroke linewidth variation and everything. I'm so not used to doing that as pencil is way more forgiving. Yesterdays test was ok but todays was far less confident (as you can see below). But I have to learn this so I'll keep at it.

lionheartGFX: thanks for your continuing support, much appreciated. I'll see what I can do, currently I'm doing watercolor paintings after live model. I have one below that I did this morning in class.

Zou: thanks, I appreciate the support!!

live model watercolor study I did this morning. took 2 photos as it was still wet and there's a lot of reflextion going on



todays art stix and brushpen attempt




cheers

[llex_paul]

I like this wet canvas techniques! very nice!

[Setherial]

llex_paul: thanks man, It's a fun way of painting, put down water, insert color, watch what happens, improvise, react, tilt the page in the direction you want the water to flow. water management. still in the early learning phase but its interesting and a nice variation on what I usually do.

here's this mornings sketch, I need to put down more contrast, I was holding back to much. I guess thats what you get when you jump between techniques all the time. For the watercolor stuff I do a very minimalistic drawing, a minimum of marks, just indicating shadow areas, all very light, lines only, then I paint which is where the real work starts. When I do a regular drawing after that I have to do heavy shading all of a sudden, sometimes it's hard to make that switch.

[llex_paul]

In university i also used to paint with all sort of colors but since then..almost 3 years i didnt paint anything on wet canvas techniques. It was a fine time then...but yes now i have to work on digital, but some day i will get back to this just for relaxing I also liked to impovise and paint with all kind of textures and colors mixes.

[Setherial]

In university i also used to paint with all sort of colors but since then..almost 3 years i didnt paint anything on wet canvas techniques. It was a fine time then...but yes now i have to work on digital, but some day i will get back to this just for relaxing I also liked to impovise and paint with all kind of textures and colors mixes.

Yeah I get that, digital painting has brought with it such a revolution in speed and efficiency that you just can't do without as a professional illustrator/concept artist, but man the feel of a brush compared to that plastic tip... if its just for fun there is just no comparing the two. If you ever get the time to sit down and do a nice relaxed little oil painting, you'll be surprised how much you missed that feeling.

[Setherial]

day 23, this mornings sketch.

[siiilon]

Oh man, your portraits are really inspiring, great character, great simplification, very confident! If you'd like to get a cleaner rendering, I'd suggest to limit your textures you introduce with hatching. You know, you can lay line next to line the way it's not almost visible, or at least it's more evenly spaced. That way you control where to put busy noise and where you'd like to just show the form, or plain value/shape. It's a matter of experimenting, not a rule of thumb, because I really like your expressive mark making. It's just you might want to learn a bit more patience and control your picture making even more.
And about reading stuff, well, it depends what you want to focus on : anatomy (Bridgeman), form (Hogart), general draftsmanship (Loomis), ... . I would keep pushing form, I do it myself and feel it's the most beneficial part of the whole study. Anything that force you to see and feel stuff in perspective. Any book teaching how to draw comics could serve you well in that.
Hope to see more from you, keep posting, great stuff dude!

[Setherial]

siiilon: thanks man, appreciate it. I 100% agree with what you are saying, makes perfect sense. I really need to make a concious effort of building variantion between rough texture and soft hatching, play with hatching that pulls form forwards by drawing attention and hatching that pushes stuff in the background by creating a nice clean shading. Contrast in everything is everything .
I do feel I'm getting more and more relaxed over the years and that has been very important in my growth as an artist. The more relaxed I am the better my work. It's like you say its all about patience and control. I think that's the reason I love drawing/painting more then anything, it's where I find peace, not always but it's so good whan I do. Its like a battery recharge

About comic drawing, Its becomming more and more apparent to me how crucial it is for me to build up a strong foundation in character design if I want to push ahead in the direction I want to go. Especially for caricature art being able to fill in the blanks and design good form that works is so important. My lack of experience in that area is holding me back at the moment.

cheers man!!

here's my morning sketch (about 35 minutes). It's a bit messy but I'm ok with the likeness.



this one I did last night before bed (it's a friend of mine, no one famous)

[Setherial]

Trying to get more controlled hatching combined with a lose drawing style

[siiilon]

Fantastic job man! Now go even further and focus on hair - go slower and define it the way you define the nose for example. Can't wait to see the next one!

[Setherial]

Thanks man

Final one before bed, need sleep

[Setherial]

Morning sketch

[Setherial]

another shot I took of the drawing for a sense of scale. I think I had a little breakthrough yesterday. I feel like I can sketch it very lose now without caring to much about likeness and the likeness seems to follow automatically. This makes my sketches less stiff looking which I'm pleased about. Again a big thank you to Siiilon for the inspiration and advice.

[Cabbage Caterpillar]

holy crap what sketchbook have I ran into... impressive work man...

[Yemi775]

great update man, your pencil stuff are off the hook.

[Setherial]

Cabbage & Yemmi: thanks a lot guys


ran short on time for this one, it could have easily used another hour. I started rushing it as my morning sketching time ran out, might have damaged the quality somewhat by rushing. I can easily see where the likeness can be improved by playing the with volume/mass... Anyway, I feel like my control over my hatching has improved quite a bit and that's nice, next I'm going to focus more on overlapping forms/lines, try to make these sketches less flat looking.

[Setherial]

Ups and downs

[Setherial]

Morning sketch

[unknown_epiphany]

Looking good, really like your play on shadows and hatching. Would love to see some more watercolors too.

[Setherial]

Thanks!


4 hour sitting alla prima I did in class today (oil on linnen)

[llex_paul]

hey man! I missed a few days on the forum and you did a lots of drawings, you have some speed!
yes about the oil painting i know that feeling, but it was long ago...i was very frustrated by the plastic feel, i used to love simple pencil drawgins techniques and it was pretty hard to get used with the tablet, and i also changed my rendering style a ton and now when i get back to pencils i dont like what i do with those lines. but yes...times change.

[Setherial]

Thanks man, I try to practise whenever I can.

I have the flu, feel crappy but I managed to do some sketches anyway

[Suira]

Woah m8, I've checked it out all, and it's great, lots of personality. I really like the fluid style of your drawings, and it seems that more and more you're loosing the fear to use dark values. If i'm to be asked ( wich I'm not cause I suck) I'd say you're on the right track for certain in the values department, the only thing is that a little too often there's a lack of contrast in some of the portraits, mostly due to the absence of black of dark greys on the main spots, although you've got pretty muh the hard part solved wich is the middle greys.

I also wanted to talk about some of the SUPREME watercolors you've got. Mate, really, the naked woman has a lot of life to it , I love the warm/cold balance , it's really eye-catching overall. In this the only "criticism" is that structure gets a bit lost sometimes , but nothing to worry about.

Well , to finish I'd say keep up the great work. And even though you declare yourself a porrait maniac I'd be really interested ( and I think other folks would too) in checking out something out of your field of comfort, meaning some landscapes or some robo-concept or what ever you're not used to do, it might come with great benefit for you, and most certainly for us, who're checking out!

Cya around and keep up the good work!

[Setherial]

Thanks bro, love your stuff too, you've got skill!! I gotta practise some of those studies you've got posted.

As for me doing more allround stuff, its not so much that I declare myself a portrait maniac as you call it, it's a matter of time. Focussing on portrait art alone takes up my every moment of spare time and I still think it will never be enough to become great. I love comic books, I love landscape art, they are both subjects I want to tackle but it will take time. I doodle from time to time, and slowly I explore these differnt subject matters but at a much lower priority. Right now I paint 5 days a week from live model in 3 hour sessions and I do a minimum of 1 one hour portrait sketch each day. I also try to study a bit here and there from art books. Fills up most of my spare time. But give this sketchbook a year and I'll post differnt stuff from time to time, it will happen, in time...

There so many things I love to do like sculpting in zbrush, It's been at least a year since I sculpted anything and I would really love to do some caricature sculpting, just don't know when. Drawing I can do while sitting in the living room where I see and can talk to my kids and wife, sort of multitask, makes it easier. Things are going to get worse for me in terms of free time before they get better, I have major construction works on my house starting next month, going to take a year at least to complete.