bengonzalez's Sketchbook

[Wertle]

Okay I'm back, woo!

Visible improvements with each post, man. Your faces are starting to look a lot more natural, less flat and really part of the head. Great job on the legs with this most recent one (and cool headgear, too!)

The arm holding the bow looks a little awkward. If pulling it back and having it that high/close to your shoulder, you'd have to flare out your elbow quite a bit. If it were lower you could keep it very close to the body like that, but would probably need to pull it further back to keep the tension you have depicted here.

[bengonzalez]

Hey Lisa thanks for the comment. I know that the sword looks like a bow right on that last one but I was trying to give her a double sword type of weapon. maybe If I put more time into it will look like how I intended it to look.

Well here is a wip that I'm working on for a friend. It's a pirate village made from sunken ships.

[bengonzalez]

[bengonzalez]

The one shoulder is throwing this whole sketch off. i got to work more on it.

[bengonzalez]

[bengonzalez]

Santa was good to me this year. Just got my new toy a 4x5 tablet and just started playing with it but here are some very basic sketches that I've tried on it. just trying to get the feel for the pen.

[sve]

Hey, Ben, I really like this character, running futuristic soldier, in both versions from the yesterday and today. Yeah, the right shoulder is a bit low, but i like this rough rendering, textures on his boots, pants, hair. I like this manner. And i like this landscape sketch. Happy New year to you, and best wishes. New work to be published.
Sveta

[Danomight]

Good to see you experimenting a bit Ben, keep up the studies and the hard work. Have a Happy New Years man.

[bengonzalez]

[bengonzalez]

Ever get that damn I got to work on this feeling. for some reason i'm feeling unispired by this piece. well that's all I got to say. now i just have to finish it.

[bengonzalez]

Finally started getting into this but I'm gona put it down for the day and start back up tomorrow

[redFIVE]

Heya ben. I see you're still ticking away at the sketchbooks. I'm seeing some great progress here. My quick bit of advice is to practice drawing people with some more interesting facial expressions- right now alot of your figures have a idle distant look to them. Use Google Image for facial expressions or check out this nifty book


Keep it up!

[bengonzalez]

Thanks a ton Red. I'll see about the facial expressions.

Here is the finished pencil for the Pirate's Cove

[sabe2003]

Good finished bost sketch. I'm feeling the dark tones in the fornt a whatnot. But not buying that it's water....
keep em coming!

[bengonzalez]

Hey thanks a lot Sabe. yeah I have to work on the water some more. I need to find some good ref for it.

Did these first few layers of water color digitaly. Just trying to get used to the tablet.

[bengonzalez]

[bengonzalez]

So just fing around in Illustrator. behold my orange cock



and some free layout work for KDR the things you do for friends.

[spacemanchris]

I like the water scene, the drawings are very nice. BUt the ble of the water doean't look right. It's way too saturated, especially comapred to the surrounding grass. Also the spaces between the trees in the background could be darker to imply a thicker jungle. Several parts of this picture start to flatten out with the addition of flat color. The graphic design stuff is great, I love the cock! But don't qoute me as saying that. I'm strictly a ladies man

[bengonzalez]

Thanks Chrs the water kind of got me on that other color one. I'll give it another try soon.

[sve]

Hello, Ben. i love the two landscapes of yours : near the sea ans with a big tree, but i like them in greyscale much more. The have such a wonderful atmosphere and rough rendering. Your colors look a bit too bright for me though, not very matched to each other. I think more natural colors would be more suitable, calmer, not so loud, in my opinion. But overall, very nice drawings, rendering and perspective wise.
Sveta

P.S. perhaps using dome highlight on the brunches of the tree will hive it more volume.

[bengonzalez]

Thanks Sve. I'm still learning a lot about painting so I'll take your suggestions and see what I can come up with.

I call this one "gone fishing" it's still in the initial stage and I plan to add darker lines to the foreground and mid ground.

[bengonzalez]

The finished one of the one above.

[sve]

Looks beautiful, Ben. I like everything in it. It is stylised, actually very much stylised, looking at trees and rendering of the rocks (I was told many times the pencils strokes should follow the form, so be roundish in this case). But I like it very much just like you did it. Just beautiful and very original, fresh execution. I like the little figures too, very dynamic, although I didn't notice them right away. But it might be the whole idea, they are hunters, disguised. The whole scenery looks a bit like theater decoration, probably because the ideal beauty of the composition. Wonderful, I like it very much. Do more in this style, no one do it like this.
Thanks
Sveta

[Kittywolf13]

seeing some great improvment here!!!

[frilli]

very nice pics and ideas you got... you have had a positive impact on me to start doing some serious drawing again, and interest that has unfortunately faded greatly after i started studying in my graphics design department (odd?)... anyway, keep up the good work

[poise]

Ben,
Great! nose studies, and good enviroments. I especially like the last enviroment you posted, very interesting pleasing shapes.

[bengonzalez]

Sve: I can't say that I have a style yet but that one is close to what I want it to be. Now I have to formulate a cityscape one and see if I can pull it off like that one.

Kitty: Haven't seen you in a while glad you could stop on by. hope you get everything sorted soon.

(Edit) Frilli: Sorry didn't catch you there. I was in the same situation a few years ago. Started Graphic Design and then stopped doing everything else. Well in my case I graduated and worked in the field for a few years and found out that I hate it. so now it's back to what I loved to do and Substitute Teaching. I'm much happier.

Poise. Thank you for the compliment. I was trying to see how far I could simplify the trees in the background before they got lost.

Well I just got this kick-ass coat given to me. I can't even afford a coat. Black leather exterior and the interior is in a black and gray striped synthetic fur. The best part, its reversible. I always wanted a pimp coat. And the collar is insane. So I thought it was about time for a Selfportrait. Well here it is let me know if you like it.

[Danomight]

Ben, It's coming along man! Your work seems to be steadily improving, expecially the pencil enviros, and that last portrait, probably the best face I've seen you draw man, keep it up. I think what really helped that last eniro was the varied values. You did a good job keeping the darks at the bottom of all the objects and varying the line widths, it reads really well, and the shading was done really well too.

Hmm, a couple of crits, I would like to see maybe a few more small planes on those solid surfaces of the rocks. They have a boxy feel to them, rather than a very irregular and bumpy surface that most rocks have from water erosion. Also, I think that last portrait could have used some darker values to help the shapes and planes stand out a bit better.

Other than that, great job, can't wait to see more.

[bengonzalez]

Hey Danomight Thanks a lot for the compliment. The crit well I see what you're saying about the rocks and the lack of darks in the SP. With the rocks I did use Ref but I was trying to simplify them. I do think that they could use some more planes and groves in them.

Here is some work I did real quick over the weekend I hardly have any time to work on anything but I try to open the sketchbook once a day and do something. right now I want to get the back view of the figure down so I started with very simple block work and a bit from Brigmans book.

[bengonzalez]

Study From ref with the wacom.