Point and Glick! (a.k.a. desperate attempts at improvement)

[glikster]

I wish I could post now too, but not yet...

GriNGoLoCo - yeah, I draw by hand still, too. I'm actually mch more comfortable drawing by hand with pencil and charcoal than with a wacom stylus. Something about the tools that I'm still not used to.

silentbrain - thanks! I can't work more than 2 hours at a time, and I only have that much time on weekends. Still, I guess all told I'd say 7-9 hours. That's not counting the time standing back and hating myself for screwing something up.... and then a half-hour later (or 2 weeks later) deciding it's all right and continuing.
My problem is that I never think in terms of 3-d planes when I draw, so I need to do that more.
And yeah, you're both right that I have to clean-up the study.


EDIT
Whoah! 2 pages?!

[glikster]

I know it's been a while... and I know it's a cheap update... but I'll post real ones soon...

[mentler]

Loomis is a good basic resource for this ~~~ I am working on some as well """ will post is "Bones" next week

[glikster]

a quick and bad pic of some sketches at work...
done with gel ink


and some more digi sketches. brought my wacom to work today. Slow day...

[Spooky Tonberry]

I love the first wacom drawing, the shading on that is great, it gives it real mood. great work!

[silentbrain]

I dig your pen drawings, it does take some confidence to be able to draw with ink, and they look pretty good. (the lined paper sure brings back memories also )

I think the planes are working pretty well on the last update's pic.

[glikster]

Spooky thanks again! He was roughly based a character in a book I reread recently...
silentbrain I'm really trying hard to internalize the volume and planes of what I draw. I want to create the object from the form instead of having to always sit and think how to give from to what I just sketched...

Anyway, I have a WIP thread going where I'm trying to "paint" a girl's head in Painter, in color, using a mouse... this is the latest stage...


-EDIT -
Thanks Spooky! I tried to fix her a bit...
Here's the WIP thread
-EDIT-
and another update....

[Spooky Tonberry]

hey! looking good!! the only thing thats bothering me is that the eyes dont seem to fit with the angle the face is turned at. but otherwise its looking execellent-love the colours for the hair! XD

[glikster]

this might be finished.... not sure yet...

[V_N]

Looks cool so far!

I think her left eye is a little bit too high. The hair looks more like a hat or something, maybe add a little more details. I wouldn´t leave so much space in the background unrefined - maybe add a texture or simply cut the edges off or make it a plain color without any airbrush effects.

Keep posting!

[glikster]

Thanks V_N, I laid this piece down to rest; I felt that I learned an enormous amount and I'm not gonna beat a dead horse. I agree with you about all of the crits, but I'll keep them in mind for my next piece. I'll be posting some more soon...

[glikster]

just doodling...

[Flip]

Ok, first of all - your forms.
It's good to see you doing hogarth studies and looking at the structure of the head, but I'm not sure you're quite applying it. Some of your drawings look flat. Make sure you put down your basic (3D) shapes first, you really need to think in 3d and apply it every time. Sometimes you may not feel you have to draw it, but you should be thinking about it, it'll allow you to tackle more difficult views and it'll give you your shape so much quicker. It will also help your lighting. While a number of your pictures show you practicing this the softness of your green eyed girl seems like you didn't define the structure of the face and so weren't confident in placing a light source.
Colour and lighting
Your skin tones tend to be shades of the same colour. Do some colour studies from photos and you'll see a large change in hue and saturation, and not just when changing from light to dark. Prometheus' tute is a good one to look at for colour and lighting. Your green eyed girl shows some variation but not really based upon the bouncing of light.

So keep those anatomy studies coming!

[Ivan.R]

V_N is right you should spend some more time on the hair! A tip in a book I have read says that you should spend as much time painting the hair as the time you spend painting the face. The eyes are not placed very well: they should be placed closer to each other (there should be approximately one eye between them).

[OleOlsen]

hey ja, those pen head sketches up there are looking good. and for the colored potrait, i just would say the same like the two above me ....

[mentler]

Eyes are to white : also remember thickness of upper lid, it will have a shadow under it : eyes are spheres and are shaded (shaped) the same way but most importantly they are not white

[Spooky Tonberry]

love the sketch! it makes me think of asterix XD It also amuses me, haha, the beard, the beard!!! ok sorry *tries to keep staright face in presence of beard* great work!!!!!

[glikster]

Everyone - Thank you for the priceless crits! Flip and Mentler in particular, thank you!

I'm just going to work on planes for a while, since I obviously need serious help when it comes to forms.

here's a mouse work in progress.

[Ivan.R]

It is amazing how you managed to draw it with a mouse! It looking nice now, but I am waiting to see it finished!

[V_N]

A mouse? Cool, I don´t even know how to use a mouse anymore

I´m trying to understand faces as well, and I think you made some mistakes (oh man, my English is so useless.. I´ll try to explain anyway).
The forehead is too flat, it has to be more spherical on the left and right edges. Between the eyes, the nose has a recess. The shadows under the eyes look like his right eye is below the left eye (but since the eye´s aren´t drawn yet, it doesn´t really matter). The cheekline has to conect to the nostrils somehow (but I don´t really know if you´re right or wrong there). And the hair ^_^ work on it, it´s fun!

New words learned: 5
I´m looking forward to the finished version!

[glikster]

Ok... it's been a bit of a while...

Ivan thanks!
V_N mucho thanks for the crits! I plan to take it somewhere.. whether it will end up "finished"....welll....

Here are a few odds and ends....


I tried this one from life:



I kind of like this fella:

[mentler]

The art of it all is the art of living <><> drawing is to engage you in someway with the rest of the world ‡‡‡‡ it is the earthmother and you need to keep providing her with children ‡‡‡‡ last post here was on the 26th last image starting to feel for the form <> the rest seem to lack your full attention ‡‡‡‡ the trick is to get into the zone and the challenge is to stay there

[glikster]

Mentler, thanks for the kick in the ass!

I'm sorry it's been so long, and all I have is one lousy Painter exercise....

I'm extremely stressed these days, and I've been finding it very hard to put pencil (or anything, for that matter) to paper (or Wacom....etc).

I'm working on a portrait for a fundraiser my sister is organizing... this time it'll be mainly in graphite and not so focused on the face... I decided to try something new... I'll be posting progress shots soon....

anyways.... here's this...with mouse...

[mentler]

You know this is a very solid weighty form <> something is starting to happen here <> I get stressed when I don't draw <> it is never and excuse not to draw or paint <> I know we like to use for that but that it dead wrong <> art is our shield against the Philistines.

[glikster]

I submit myself to your justified flagellation....
the cleansing of the flesh and mind shall be done through pain and fire...

Thank you...

Or, to say it another way:
Thank you for reminding me when I'm talking out of my ass.

[baquitania]

Hey glikster:

Like the self portraits from the other page, and the baby is hilarious! I know what you mean by drawing with a stylus, it feels like an out of body experience sometimes. I like the shading in the b&w pieces, that seems to be your strong point. Besides Hogarth, who else do you like?

[glikster]

ugh...
hi.... I will get around to posting what I've done (not that much, unfortunately).

I depressed myself by trying to draw my new daughter. Can't get the damn thing to look right. I also want to finally get over my fear of color.

Since this is the end of the year, I guess I'll try to kick my ass up into gear and get this SB going...

I want to make progress damn it... so I will be drawing and posting here...




By the way, Baquitania, I got into Bridgeman also... I went through a sort of epiphany when I actually sat my ass down and tried paying attention to what they wrote instead of looking at the pretty pictures.... Also, finally taking Hale's Drawing Lessons From the Great Masters (or something) seriously...

[glikster]

[Hanuka]

hey glikster, thx for dropping by. good pencils lately.
sometimes i see a lack of confidence in your pencil lines, maybe you would want to do some line practice, like drawing papers full of straight lines and circles... may sound dumb, but i think it helps. i like to do it before i start out a new piece. kind of a warm up.

your last digital piece has an awesome pallete and texture. I think most of the colours are spot-on, i just wished the piece was overall more fleshed out. you might wanna check your anatomy/pose there, too... hips seem to narrow, for example.

[glikster]

Hey, thanks for returning the favor.

I am definitely going to start doing those line exercises. I just re-read Hale's Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters and chuckled to myself when he said to draw "thousands of circles and you will start to see improvement"....
I guess I should take that to heart...

To be honest, that last digi piece was really damn quick - I had just read one of Mattias Snygg tutorials and was feeling very depressed about my lack of painting anything at all, ever...
I followed his advice and tried grabbing every brush I felt I could get away with, and that was the result. Maybe sometime soon I'll revisit it and flesh it out more, fixing the anatomy issues.