ClockworkSketchbook

[tsabu]

Hey ClockworkLives

Your drawing looks really good. I like your lines, and values. These multiple heads are my favor i think.

Is it weird that I post these so often? It's almost becoming a bit of a ritual and it keeps me doing studies, but I don't know whether it's annoying to only have one or two updates per post..

I am not some kind of a pro member here but i would say that as long as it motivates you to work, you should upload as often as you like
I think that everything going in the right direction so keep pushing!

[ClockworkLives]

Yemi775 - Thanks a lot! There's actually a ton of stuff I am having to figure out as I go along, but I'm doing my best.

tsabu - Thanks! It really is a great form of motivation to grow this little thread, and it's easier to track progress this way for some reason. Good to know people don't mind the sketchspam.

Been a little busy past week - job interview (wish me luck!), freelance, and trying to think of a concept for a local themed show. Happy to report I was able to make time to make some doodles in between.

[ClockworkLives]

Some little things from yesterday.. not too exciting, sorry. Need to allow myself more time to warm up.

[ClockworkLives]

Some head studies from DA photos. All that blind contour practice starting to pay off, woo.

[CyrilMegem]

Good works!

[ninaren]

Thanks for visiting my sb, I really like your pencils and especially post #27. Seeing your art makes me wanna go back to pencils again, but so often I end up in photoshop and with my drawing tablet Ill keep an eye on this sb. Great job and keep this up!

[ClockworkLives]

CyrilMegem - Thanks!

ninaren - Hey, no problem! Photoshop is mighty tempting, I gotta agree, but there's something very intimate and honest about traditional media that is really nice too. So much stuff to draw with, so little time!

Been pushing this piece towards completion more - knocked back the stylization of the heads and the differences in the head sizes, though of course there is still some wonky stuff going on that is more obvious in the small format.

[ClockworkLives]

Some more dwarves, this time in Photoshop. Starting to do silly things, time to go to sleep.

[ClockworkLives]

Starting to dig into my biggest weakness, mechanical things - oddly enough, I love mechanical stuff but don't generally draw it.

Does anyone know a good way to indicate scale in a design without the use of comparison points outside of the piece itself? Like, if I don't want to rely on showing it next to a person or something like that.

[ClockworkLives]

Some observational sketchlings smushed in between other projects, just to keep myself drawing from life.

[ClockworkLives]

Trying to emphasize the differences between planes with directions of pencil strokes.. a little uncomfortable at the moment.

[ClockworkLives]

Imaginary things - testing out sketching with a carpenter's pencil (this thing is amazing!) and early development for a personal set of concepts involving a crashed terraforming spaceship.

[Cerasela]

To the question to compare the object without scaling points maybe place, another object which is bigger ,smaller than itself, near by? Like a human silhouette many artists do that,to indicate scale or you could try smth more creative for your own.. But great progession so far ,nice mix !!! Great composition thumbs and this also shows quite the scale of the object too,with the mountains as a surrounding .So it´s huge? I find the first thumb the strongest because it seems more dynamic and interesting to me ! Also if its crashed maybe somewhere burns fire out or there are some broken parts around lying,flying ,you could try more destructive scenes if you want ? Anyway Loving it , keep going

[vineris]

Nice work. You have a good mix of subjects and are good at both loose sketching and rendering. Good job! Keep it up.

[Lyraina]

Wow, lovely sketchbook!

About your scale question: It also helps to add things inside your design that people instantly recognize as a certain size indicator, like windows, doors, or really anything you 'know' the size of. That's of course quite difficult if your design doesn't really resemble this real life stuff... another way might be atmospheric perspective if something is very huge, fade out the parts that are farest away from the viewer.
Don't know if that is helpful - showing scale is something I'm struggling with as well at the moment..

Keep up the great work

[ClockworkLives]

Cerasela - Thanks so much for all the advice you're giving, I appreciate it! Yes, I wanted it to be pretty big, and I feel it's not getting across at the moment. I like the idea of scattering debris but I am steering towards making it a ship that has crashed a while ago and started to terraform an area it really wasn't supposed to - so it's going to be more of a peaceful scene filled with weird plants and stuff like that.

vineris - Thanks! Sometimes I wish I could incorporate some of that quick looseness into my more finished work.. guess it's something to work towards.

Lyraina - Those are really good suggestions, thanks a lot! I don't know how easy it will be to add recognizable stuff as I am going to try more organic designs for the next round of sketches but as I want it to be big the atmospheric perspective might be doable.

Been a busy weekend - doing a test for another job. Only a page of photo-ref heads and a bust sketch of a statue from the AIC. Oh, and a new avatar/thread thumbnail.

[ClockworkLives]

God, has it really been a week? Need to get back into doing work with an actual sketchbook and paper.. slipped up a bit this week. :/

Redesigning artificial human Neifirst from the old but awesome Genesis game, Phantasy Star 2 - she was one of my favorite villains way back when and I like the challenge of updating designs of those older game characters , now that we're not so constrained by graphics limitations.

[ClockworkLives]

So this is pretty much my day so far. Ow my hand.

[nixe_dreamer]

Wow, your drawings are so beautiful! I love the expressions

[kamikazel33t]

you've got some some nice stuff here! I really want to see how well you fair with gestures though and the super quick stuff.

[ClockworkLives]

nixe_dreamer - Thank you! A lot of my face studies so far have been from photos, so kudos to the photographers!

kamikazel33t - Ahaa, my Achilles heel! My speed painting skills need work, I think. I can post some gestures from working with Nicolaides' Natural Way To Draw later this week, I didn't think many people were interested in that.

More Neifirst for now.. I think something is off with the neck/shoulder/upper back area.. :/ Also.. I seem to really want to do a piece with this expression, it keeps sneaking into my stuff.

[vayne108]

Neat stuff, your life drawings are soo good.

[ClockworkLives]

vayne108 - Thanks a lot! I still feel I have a long way to go, though!

Gestures, crossposted from Cerasela's 1000 Gesture Challenge thread. I forgot how fun these are. :3

[ClockworkLives]

10 days since my last post in here? Shameful, let's rectify that.

I decided I really wanted to push my redesign and got a good reality check about my value structure and composition in the WIP forum. So, back to working in greyscale to work those values out a little better - still pushing those pixels around, but the idea is coming together. Any advice would be appreciated, of course!

And, that plant from the first page got finished last week. Pastels are awesome.

[iMigraine]

Wow, I really like the plant. Very lively looking.

[ClockworkLives]

iMigraine - Thanks a lot. I think that this is the only reason I was able to get away with putting it into a square.

Revisiting an older, previously discarded character design. Feet elude me at the moment, guess I know what to study next.

[ClockworkLives]

Slightly more presentable botanist sketch.

[E.P Ramirez]

Thanks for being the first (and so far the only) person to comment my sketchbook, It really means a lot. Liking your attitude as well as your drawings, especially the quick life drawings, I'm getting motivated to start doing those again.

[ClockworkLives]

E.P - Hey, no problem! Don't worry, sometimes it takes a little bit before people start to give feedback, but it's that way for a lot of sketchbooks, I think.

Some progress on Miss Neifirst. Getting there... very slowly. That face still bugs me.

[ClockworkLives]

Plugging away at Cerasela's 1000 Gesture challenge, figured I'd post some of that stuff in here just to keep some kind of personal record. I'm curious as to how these will change when I hit the last 100.

Also, I pulled out an older watercolor that I never pushed to completion for some reason or other and decided I like it too much to let it wallow in my pile of abandoned pieces. Now the trick is to see how big of a dent I can make in my pile of WIPs before the end of the week, I guess. : )