MerMuse Sketchbook

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:21 PM

Here are some sketches from my trip to Japan over the holidays...

A few statues, a rock garden, Ponto-cho (Kyoto), and Fuji with snow.
I'd planned on doing a lot of painting while I was there but it was so cold I ended up just doing a lot of quick marker sketches.

**IanE** · January 7th, 2005, 05:25 PM

Ooo, Japan looks so pretty. Great job on the marker sketches. This is no doubt a great start to your sketchbook. I love you choice of colors, great job.

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:28 PM

Here are some quick soccer gesture studies and some similar anime poses...

I'm wanting to start working on a sports/fantasy game concept but need to get in the right mindset so I though this would be a good exercise to loosen up with. Also trying to find a nice balance between the scale of the upper and lower body. I like the big puffy coat/sweater contrasted witht he skinny legs.

**IanE** · January 7th, 2005, 05:30 PM

The soccer gestures look great! Looks just like any real soccer game, you did a great job capturing the poses on this one.

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:31 PM

IanE-
Thanks, I've found that the key to a great value study (whether ist a painting or a sketch) is a nice warm/cool contrast. So I like to work with a selection of both warm and cool gray markers.

As for the soccer concept. I want to get the basic character shapes and gestures feeling right before I start getting caught up in details... like adding fantasy elements. I'll post more on this project as I experiment more.

**IanE** · January 7th, 2005, 05:33 PM

Ahh, what better contrast than warm and cool colors. Such a simple concept, but it you work it so well. Thanks for the input!

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:36 PM

Victorian

Christmas

Costume ball

**IanE** · January 7th, 2005, 05:40 PM

Man each post gets better and better...

Excellent job drawing the clothing and fashions from the eras you have here, really good research and results!

**Nike** · January 7th, 2005, 05:43 PM

Hi
Love your marker sketches....exspecially that japan sketches...just beautiful!
Keep the good work

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:43 PM

Thanks...

I finally got around to scanning this stuff. The drawing club is basically a figure drawing group that meets each week and they always have lots of interesting themes, costumes and props. I really like it because it gives me a chance to draw a variety of clothing styles.

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:45 PM

gothic coachman

football fan

gypse

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 05:50 PM

savage

boxer

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 06:29 PM

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 06:31 PM

**hurricane** · January 7th, 2005, 06:37 PM

very nice images !

alittle small maybe, but still nice.

have anything larger or digital ?

post on and welcome to the boards !

cheers !

**mermuse** · January 7th, 2005, 07:09 PM

hurricane-

Lets see what I can dig up... I don't have a lot of digital work that I can show.

Here are some loose environment sketches...

and some thumbnails for characters....

I tend to draw and paint small to avoid getting caught up in lots of useless detail.

**mentler** · January 10th, 2005, 10:25 PM

Very Nice!

**mermuse** · January 13th, 2005, 12:22 PM

here are some quick sketches and the paintings based off them...

**Icey** · January 14th, 2005, 10:38 AM

verry nice stuff! Maby you should post them larger, they are hard to see right now...

**knowmind** · January 14th, 2005, 10:48 AM

yes,larger!
fantastic,stuff,really.

**mermuse** · January 14th, 2005, 12:34 PM

sketches from the drawing club last night...

**mermuse** · January 14th, 2005, 01:17 PM

I’ve been really impressed by the progress made by artist who update their sketchbooks daily. So I’ve decided to try and force myself to sketch every day and post to this sketchbook every weekday ( I don't have access to a scanner on the weekends). I also want to start moving from just doing studies to doing sketches and designs for my own original projects again. I got so caught up in trying to ramp up my skills that I forgot why I started drawing in the first place … to tell my own stories and bring my own characters to life.

So here is my new beginning…

These are sketches based on the works of several French artists who have an elegant approaches to rendering the figure that I hope will rub off if I sketch from their work enough. The sketches are from a Claire Wendling sketchbook and from a graphic novel called Skydoll.

These sketches are from pose books and a Hyung-Tae Kim sketchbook.

**van** · January 14th, 2005, 01:35 PM

Oh hell yes! I love your style. How do you go about constructing forms? Like the human body? Gotta pick your brain...sorry.

**mermuse** · January 14th, 2005, 05:11 PM

van - here are some quick process examples...

I start with just a few lines to capture the flow and then add a few more to create the silhouette... once you have the silhouette you can tell if the balance and proportions are correct. Next I hint at a few anatomical sections... that way when I go to add detail I know where and why the details exist. Also at this stage I like to decide what area should have the focus. Last is adding details like important angle changes, shading (to show overlaps mainly), lost and found edges, and hard and soft shadow shapes.

Here is another example. The arms and legs are just tapering tubes. Once the anatomical sections have been hinted at I can pull angle changes out from those tubes. I like to use darker lines in the undercuts (under side of plane changes) and I also prefer to simplify one side of the leg and add all the detail into the opposite side.

Hope this helps. I don't always put all these stages down on paper. If I'm in the groove I can do many of them in my head.

**van** · January 14th, 2005, 05:17 PM

Mermuse, thats perfect. Thanks! Hmm. Im going to snag a bit of that from you....currently I am working on devising a construction system to make my drawings a bit more...umm...consistent. Im having a hard time with it.

What about head construction? Do you lay in lines to guide you as you go?

**mermuse** · January 14th, 2005, 05:48 PM

You can get a feel for my head layins by looking at the above examples. I start with the correct simplified silhouette. and make sure its balanced with the body. and then I can define the perspective simply by placing a simple ear shape (like in the first sketch) and sometimes I will lay in a wedge shape for the closest eye (like in the second set of examples) those two reference points plus the silhouette and maybe the hairline are all you really need.

I'll look and see if I can find some better examples. I know I have some old examples from Kevin Chen's head drawing class.

**mermuse** · January 15th, 2005, 12:39 AM

Van -

I stopped struggling with drawing heads after doing several studies from an Asaro Planes of the Head model. I think they have stopped making these but they are great for really getting an intuitive feel for the natural flow of the head.

Here are some old sketches from the head model...
after a while you start to ignore the planes in the model and find new ways to divide up the head that flow better.

here are those handouts from Kevins head drawing class...

construction page 1

construction page 2

construction page 3

**van** · January 15th, 2005, 12:46 AM

Man, you rock. Thanks!

**mermuse** · January 15th, 2005, 01:36 AM

More sketches...

These are from pose books, Mandrafina, and Upstairs Downstairs...
I like sketching from the old BBC series because all the actors have
very distinctive faces and the period clothing is a nice change.

**van** · January 15th, 2005, 04:26 AM

Defintely stopped making them.

I have been searching everywhere. Thanks for the info.

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