Sketchbook

[nickbernstein]

I recently purchased a wacom tablet (initially a bamboo create, and then I took it back and got an intuos 5 medium). I drew avidly in highschool and then just kinda stopped. The tablet's been somewhat of a re-awakening to me, but I feel like I need to re-learn a lot of the fundamentals. I mainly work in manga studio 5. I'd love to get feedback from other people. I know it's generally considered polite to give feedback 2x as much as you get it, but I think that at least for a little while, I've got to be like Socrates and admit that, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." Hopefully I'll give more feedback and critiques to others once I've developed my skill a bi more.


Koi from photo reference. I want to try and do more stuff in color. I really need to make that a priority. Fairly pleased with this for a quick (20 minute-ish) sketch.

Sister w/ bow tie & monocle. She wanted a drawing of her like that after seeing the other one below on my facebook page.

Friend asked me to do a drawing of him, and I thought the monocle and bow tie would be funny. I need to stay away from the airbrush until I get better, I think.

From imagination. This took a few hours. Improving, but not where I want it to be. I need to work on proportions, fabric, and shading.

Perspective & ellipse practice.

I need to do like 100 more pages of heads and faces.

Doodle that I was actually fairly pleased with.


These basically go in order of newest -> oldest further down the page, over a few weeks.

[nickbernstein]

Friend liked the koi I posted and asked me to draw a tattoo for her. I'm probably going to post a few of these coming up with some basic ideas based on what she asked for.

[nickbernstein]

Drawings from the last couple of days while the site was down. This is some of the first work I've done in about 15 years and my first time trying to do digital art - I'd love to get feedback & criticism from people.

[nickbernstein]

I've mainly been working on draftmanship for the last couple of days- doing a page of lines 2", 1/2 page & full page 8x repeated, then the same with arcs, the same with waves & then three or so pages of ellipses. All in dead-tree format though. Didn't seem like it was worth it to scan in such basic exercises and upload them. I'm trying to formulate a plan of study for myself and I think I'm basically going to try and do:

draftsmanship -> perspective -> anatomy -> life drawing -> color theory -> back to draftsmanship. I'm going to spend about a week with each subject as my primary focus. I'll do other stuff, of course, but I'm going to try and focus on one subject each week so I can hopefully see some progress. Does this sound like a reasonable plan of attack?

[nickbernstein]

Sick today and yesterday. Just doing some quick practice head sketches and trying to work on draftmanship stuff. I've been doing these "draw over the same line 8x" exercises, and lots of ellipses, but that's probably way too boring to upload here.

[nickbernstein]

Still sick. Just some doodles & some quick reference sketches after watching a little of "drawing the human figure from your mind"

[nickbernstein]

Spent most of the day in bed - can't seem to shake this cold. Hopefully I'll be getting better soon and be able to spend more time on artwork next week.

[nickbernstein]

Think I might be getting a little bit better. Still a little sick and really tired, but hopefully I'll get better in the next day or two.

[nickbernstein]

[BickeringDog]

Cool stuff! I especially like your fish drawings! I'm sorry I can't offer you much in the way of critique or advise (still learning myself) but it looks like you are off to a good start to me!

[nickbernstein]

Working on different types of head constructions.

[nickbernstein]

Undirected doodling. Worked on an illustration for a friend's tattoo of some koi fish for a few hours but just didn't quite lock in on it. These were just some warmup doodles and before-bed doodles. Still can't shake this fricken cold - just started on antibiotics so hopefully I'll be better soon and have more energy. This week was supposed to be focusing on perspective but I've really just been all over the place.

[lionheartGFX]

draftsmanship -> perspective -> anatomy -> life drawing -> color theory -> <<<<<<<< that is a GREAT fucking idea i strongly support it! dont juggle with stuff take it slow and one thing at a time, there are alot of aspects that are taken into account to make a kick ass painting so you must learn each of theese aspects and then slowly build them together, go to michael hamptons site hes got great anatomy examples www.figuredrawing.info

also try to do more confident lines dont make them so scratchy OR at least try your best to not make them as sketchy, it will get better with time and practice! keep it up man im rooting for ya!

PS: also you could use http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php for your figure practice really an awesome site to practice gestures and more renderes figure stuff too!

[nickbernstein]

Tattoo for a friend of mine - work in progress. Think I'm getting close to done.

[nickbernstein]

Should have spent more time drawing today. I'm finally back to good health, but I just bought a new condo (yay!) so today and the next few weeks will be busy.

Sketch of the girl was from a photo reference, lamp was just a quick doodle from life, and the other guys are just crappy doodles.

[nickbernstein]

Going through the yoitisi thread http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...13-Assignments

I'm not sure if I tilted the "D" box in the second set of perspective drawings correctly. I could use some feedback on that. Thanks in advance.

[Yemi775]

i'm happy you got a condo and great updates. I see you are doing some still lifes keep at it, i'll recommend that you get the loomis books keep up the good work

[nickbernstein]

it's actually really sad - I had an amazing art library that was given to me when I was a kid by a family friend who's wife was an artist and had passed. Had all of the Loomis books, brigeman, etc. Unfortunately, they were really conservative and blacked out all the pages with nudity on it, which was almost everything. I've got creative illustration, but I'm going to circle back to it after doing some more perspective stuff and then going through the bridgeman books, which I re-purchased.

Thanks for commenting.

[Yemi775]

Ugh that's terrible, i guess they had their reasons and you can't blame them .

[Notophthalmus]

It looks to me like you're on the right track! Just some quick notes on koi anatomy:

The head should not be so distinctly separate from the body all the way around, they merge more or less seamlessly at the nape (and at the throat, though that's not relevant here).

The pectoral fins (the further forward of the two pairs of fins) insert relatively high on the body; the juncture should be visible from this angle.

The tail does not taper to a point, with fin attaching above and below; instead the tail should end in a broad, rounded stump, with the fin rays extending out from the curved end of the 'stump'. This drawing should make it more clear: http://files.worldfishingnetwork.com.../carp_1000.jpg

The scales on the blue fish look more like an applied pattern than actual scales. They are too spaced out, at least at the front end of the fish, too inconsistent in size, and do not bunch along the inner curve of the fish's body as they ought. I suggest you drop that element, as you have with the other fish, since (unless the tattoo is huge) such fine lines likely wouldn't come out well anyhow.

I realize you're going for a stylized look, but I feel these issues are distracting. I hope this is helpful.

[nickbernstein]

Thanks. I'll go back and take a look at some of my reference images. They asked me to try to add an element of "art nouveau" to it, so I tried to stylize the tails a lot, so those aren't really intended to be accurate. I really appreciate you taking a look and giving me such though out feedback.

[AngeUnge]

wow, i love your line weight! and your use of brushes and pens in your portraits is something i envy!

can't wait to see what comes from those perspective practices!

[nickbernstein]

Thanks so much!

[nickbernstein]

Does this make sense? I was looking at the solution proposed in this thread on how to make a perfect cube in perspective and didn't couldn't believe it would be that complicated. Came up with this solution instead, but I'm not quite certain there aren't any holes in my logic.

[nickbernstein]

I've been terrible about drawing lately. I moved and got tied up with a bunch of stuff, but it's not much of an excuse. I've been back in the swing of things for the last couple of days and hopefully I'll keep it up.

[nickbernstein]

Going through Bridgeman's the Human Machine

[nickbernstein]

Bridgeman's human machine, pgs 7-9

[elboy]

Keep at it. At this point I think it's important that you just continue with deliberate practicing, which you are doing (practicing with focus, trying actual lessons and such instead of just doodling). =]
The koi tattoo looks great! I love the colors, the scales on the blue one, and the gentle (?) lines for the tails and fins.

[nickbernstein]

just a couple of quick sketches. I wanted to get *something* drawn today, even if it was just some quickies.

[nickbernstein]

Thanks. I usually have something that I'm thinking of when I'm doodling, it's not completely arbitrary, but you're right. I should be trying to do things that are more directed at practicing something in particular. I appreciate the feedback, thanks!