SWA - Improvement needed - A sketchbook

[Six Winged Angel]

Hello! This is my first legit thread !

I'm a new comics artist, and illustrator still in the making and I'm opening
this sketchbook as means of self-improvement, the goal is to post something here daily-!

Since many times I can lack the inspiration on something original to draw just for the sake of trainning I guess I'll be doing lots of random stuff, fan art of characters that I enjoy and D&D things

I have a BAD habit of not using any reference when drawing, I should get off that soon. My main concern for the time being is backgrounds. I suck at them. That though, doesn't mean that I don't need to do
MASSIVE anatomy studies..

so, here I go with some stuff of these days around:


^I've been trying to make a panoramic of an abstract-looking underground ancient city for a background I need. UNFORTUNATELY I failed to save the progress on this file and the above stage is all I'm left with.
In any case, I found out that this needed too much detail and time, so it didn't fit my purposes.

^This one on the other hand is a more abstract approach but I'm still not satisfied with it. More searching needed

^a small lake made for the sake of... lake trainning. Not by any means completed but I think it served it's purpose. (the grass is actually a hair brush, lol)

^It's been a long time since I quick-colored a piece from grayscale, and shame on me for that. Anyway this piece was an enjoyable rendering trainning and nothing more

^Nothing much here, pencil to photoshop. I found out that I was unable to render the multiple clothing details of this piece directly in color so I gave up on it for the time being (the anatomy is also messed up)

Random manga shit portrait sketch, character from a story

Any kind of critic is *very* welcomed
I will be posting more today as I go on

[MeteorCat]

Hey there. Welcome to CA! This looks like a good start.
If you're into backgrounds/environments try checking out Feng Zhu's videos. Other then that make sure you study nature from photographs or even better, if you can, from life. I'd say try starting with using the hard brush with 80-90% opacity and flow. This is the advice that I recieved from CA and it improved my process a lot.
Good luck and keep going

[Six Winged Angel]

Thank you very much for the welcome Seeing how much work a person can dish out daily in some sketchbook freaks me out! In the end it was a very good idea to start posting/viewing these forums

Many thanks for the suggestions, I'm not sure how I study something from a photograph directly to photoshop but I will give it a look! I will definitely check Feng Zhu's videos (i think you mean these? http://www.fengzhudesign.com/tutorials.htm) I will use the brush advice you gave me right away! I think it will help ^^
I'm gonna focus mainly on grayscale for the while

Now: some studies I made at posemaniacs (turns out to be a very useful site)



a set of some fast 30 sec drawings from 3d. I had literally AGES to use a pencil for something other than toneless pre-inking sketches
They seem like a great practice, I'm gonna do these daily


^More free drawing on hands and feet, seems like a good tool

^I gave these three more time to complete than the 30 secs- I hope I can find a way to view the models on fullscreen so that I can study the anatomy better


Now on to some background trainning! There is never enough time..

[kingkostas]

Mate great start !!! For now try to get in the rythm with daily studies.Keep it up

[SpareChange]

Looking great, keep up with the studies! And if you really want to improve on the background front, I suggest doing some photo studies of environments or city scenes. They're quite helpful in teaching you to distinguish different materials.

[Six Winged Angel]

@kingkostas: thanks dude! o_o You were right- the sketchbook is a great way to help get in the rhythm of things! I will try my best

@SpareChange: Thank you, I definitely will! I hear you! I will focus on photograph/live terrain studies for that matter from time to time, thanks for the suggestion!

Posting the practice/stuff I did today along with a few from yesterday night:



^30 sec studies from posemaniacs again, it actually is kind of addicting once you start it ..


^extended time studies


^some not so good anatomy studies done roughly alongsite reading an anatomy book


^a banner project for a litle job. I got to scrap this version


^really fast surface lighting study. I need to seperate the tones better in my head. Next time I should add more contrasting tones I guess



^some 5-10 minute tone and form studies done from grayscale photographs with hard brush. No idea how much this style can contribute, maybe I should switch to fully detailed studies.

There are SO many different things to practice in and read for a single days work D: I think I should split the anatomy and the enviromental studies between days for better results..

[Spacecat]

ah thanks for your comment on my sketchbook! i was feeling lonely, haha!
ooh, i like your feet and hands studies! they look like they have weight and mass
i like your drawings, and if you're having trouble colouring, try thinking about value first. it will definitely help you define the forms without having to think about color as well. you don't have to make an entire grayscale painting, just draw a line along where you think the terminator should be and shade it with a darker value (think cel-shading in anime) that will be enough to give it definition. also, i would suggest thinking not only of the local color of an object ("the coat is green") but how the light and shadow affect the color. is it a warm yellow light? then the green of the coat will have a warmer, yellower tint to it where the light hits. and if the light is either warm or cool in color, the shadow will be the opposite. so, the green coat that is in shadow, will have more blue to it. It's a good way to make colour pictures pop!

[Six Winged Angel]

I posted replies and new images yesterday but a message poped indicating that my post would need some kind of moderator approval and still hasnt shown up :/ I guess it is because I still have a below ~15 post count, but anyway! Guess I won't be posting any new stuff till the previous ones appear

@Spacecat haha You're welcome! I like your sketchbook! Thanks for taking the while to post here and for your suggestions! The problem is that I have a bit of trouble selecting the right value and usually I end up selecting not-so-dark tones for the shadows when applying color directly.. I guess I need more guts in my color-shadowing but I'm still not quite into it XP What you say about the light and shadow affecting the local color is right to the point, and even the nearest objects can affect each other with their color! I will study more about how light affects object and try to incorporate it little by little, thanks again!

[Six Winged Angel]

That post did take a while to show up. I'll make an attempt to post today's stuff in hopes that I'm off the bot list


^quick head studies, I really needed to check these angles out


^Part of the 30 secs studies I did, no point to flood with all of them, I really enjoy doing them!


This is a kind of old piece, I returned to it today to fix a piece for practice purpose. I don't consider it finished but i think I'll just leave it like this since it's old


background trainning! 2 grayscale 1 color study from photographs found on google. I think I get it little by little- I'll continue at this rate of pieces

that's it for today ! By the way, I've been checking out the tutorial videos of Feng Zhu little by little The man simply kicks ass!

[kingkostas]

Great to see you keep up, thats it !!! I am taking a break for a while but i will come back soon hehehe, lets keep up

[Six Winged Angel]

Thanks for the support man, gotta keep this pace up! ^^ I see, everyone needs to take a break from time to time, it's actually good for the overall productivity even though it sounds wierd So take care and I look forward to seeing you back and running!

today I didnt do any more than simple sketching. I've been reading up a few of anatomy and figure drawing books and it will take a while until I can finish all of them
Here are some figure studies and sketches for practice, that I did while reading, mainly concerned with figure balance (a not-so-easy-as-it-seems concept) and line form/figure sketching stages:

[DaimonHand]

heheh i recocnize the book i give you in the first pic

nice studies keep it up!

[Six Winged Angel]

@Daimonhand: heheh it's indeed that book! Thanks for giving that batch to me dude!

Hey cs.org it's been a while

In the end I found myself leaving for xmas holidays for a few days in my village were I had little to none pc access and I came back only to find out that the site had some kind of malware problem and had been access-blocked o.o

Fortunately everything is back to normal so let me post a few sketches in my proccess of coming back to the sport

Lately I've been mostly busy with some 'commission' work but it's mostly graphic design stuff so I dont think it's of any interest to post them here
I can't wait till I finish that stuff so that I can focus on some rendering trainning.

I also want to start working on commissions that I can do with my *current* set of 'skills' so I'm gonna focus more on manga/comics and characters or tatoo work. I will in no means completely give my background or rendering trainning up though-

so here's a few 30 second studies, I have TONS of papers of this stuff but I will just be posting a portion of them since there's no match of a point in flooding the thread with them anyway:









^One day I didn't have access to pencil and so I picked up a pen instead.
As I thought it was harder to do them because there is no tone variation or correction with it, so I think it's a better practice and I should keep up with a pen!



^A cat. A couple of the freehand sketches I did while on my village. Unfortunately I can't find the few more that I drew around then..





^concepts and ink lining for a female paladin (work in progress)
I wanted to give a more feminine "warrior princess" look to it than the usual knights I draw.



^super general and random character figure sketches I did to show an example for a manga project



^random tatoo work in progress. I need to clean it up a bit and paint the black tones in.



^random comics pattern application test. It helped me in discovering a new way of doing backgrounds but....I think I didn't save it, lol

anyway, these for now, more to come hopefully more rendering stuff cause I'm very dissapointed with my progress and proccess of making them.
This year I have a completely new outlook on tones and rendering, and even though I have a better understandment in it, I just cant create satisfactory images
compared to even 2 years ago! I should get my brushes up.