Erilaz's Sketchiness. Alphabet sketching. 15/02/09

**Erilaz** · September 16th, 2006, 08:40 AM

Panda: Thanks for the advice man! I do tend to draw much of my figure work from the same angles. I must diversify.

Jim: Ask and ye shall receive, my good man.

Here's a little WIP on this weeks EOW. Pretty craptacular, but that's why they call it a WIP!
GASP! Colour!

Whee! I suck.

**Macar** · September 16th, 2006, 11:13 AM

Hey, looking at your sb for the first time. It's fun to watch so much progress in fast motion! But it's true- you've come a long way.

PS. your silouets remind me of those Ipod comercials!

**crazy3dman** · September 16th, 2006, 01:25 PM

Hey man, I really like this last EOW WIP. Really captures the night time feeling. The light from the windows is very convincing also. And I love the hint of forest in the background. Thumbs up! Keep going

**Erilaz** · September 21st, 2006, 10:50 AM

Thanks guys... i'm a little crap right now, so it's only bad colour study for me.. back to basics. I'm trying to keep active but work is a drag on the brain-system recently.

Sucky.. but at least i'm practicing I guess.

**Erilaz** · September 22nd, 2006, 10:58 AM

Studying more light things. Swampy. :/

**Idiot Apathy** · September 22nd, 2006, 03:44 PM

http://www.artfuloddities.com/2D/Ske...09b_erilaz.jpg

AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's a perfect expression of frustration, say let's start a charity for artists struggling with frustration! We'll need millions of dollars because well, it will involve probably every artist ever @_@.

I might recommend you set up a round brush or whatever you like to block things in with like so: keep opacity and flow at 100, set size, opacity and flow to pen pressure. This should help things go a bit quicker and keep you from overpainting areas. 'Manual' opacity can create some nice effects and things, but I don't think it's a good tool to learn with. Setting your brush up like this should help keep your shapes clean and allow you to blend when needed with a light touch in combination with a softer setting.

Also think more about edges, the two most important things to describing three dimensionality are values and edges so they are pretty important.

Cheers mate! I like this last update!

**Erilaz** · September 24th, 2006, 08:39 AM

Thanks Apathy, frustration is my ever churning dilemma!

As to the brushes... most of them are set up like you say. I must be too petty with my stokes though, because the edges always end up a bit rough. Any suggestions?

Here's my 100 gestures after last night's all-out battle with Min. I got there, even though it took me until 4:00am!

These aren't of the beautiful quality of Mins, and some of them are quite shocking, but the practice helped I think.

Close up (I didn't want to bore everyone with them all in detail):

**bumskee** · September 24th, 2006, 09:36 AM

Martin, good good, glad to see you keeping up those pencils.

but scanning does suck, hehe.. yeah I think some are a little too flimpsy but you also nailed a few good ones out! Btw, check out the thunderdome section, we've got the 100 gestures TD happening in there. well we should aim for 200 this week?

hp · September 24th, 2006, 02:44 PM

wow! you inspired me to join too. the 100 gestures that is.

you need to come to san frannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn fran fran fran fran*echo echo echo echo* and room up!

i would tone down the greens in the swamp pic but it looks wonderful. and the cityscape too.

keep it up, you tea monkey, you.

**crazy3dman** · September 24th, 2006, 03:20 PM

Very impressive sir. 100 gestures truly takes some discipline. Too bad you can't make it to the next workshop. Half way around the globe makes it a little tricky I guess.

**Idiot Apathy** · September 24th, 2006, 03:32 PM

Hmm hmm, what brush is it? It might be possible that it has some built in softness around the edges. I'd recommend starting pretty hard when blocking things in and then softening the edges you need to soften. You could work in reverse soft then hard but I think for the most part you'll end up hardening just about everything!

Nice gestures mate!

**Jim Kalogiratos** · September 24th, 2006, 05:16 PM

damn you and min!!

, now all i have in my head is "do 100 gestures do 100 gestures do 100 gestures"

Nice one martin , i would have pussed out and subesequently failed to learn anything...

I rekon you really got something out of doing this challenge , perhaps it should be a daily event :p.. heheh well you do need sleep / food

inspiring!

**Erilaz** · September 28th, 2006, 08:35 PM

hpslashluvr: Wheee! Miss you girl. It's been too long already. Can't wait to see you gestures. Thaks for the comments on the colours... it's my weakest area!
crazy3dman: Yeah, but Italy will be a go. Try and make it to that one!

Idiot Apathy: A agree with you, but for some reason I end of getting sloppy. I'll to focus on getting those edges cleaner. The brush is a standard hard-edged brush with pen-pressure opacity. Thanks!
Jim: Hey, you made it man! Well done. Now do MORE!

More wiggly crap. Min's busted a cap in my ass for anatomical sloppiness, I'm going to do a hundred more and a hundred more until they look right!:

**koppa** · September 28th, 2006, 08:48 PM

hey mate your making good progress keep it up, haha those drawings of bumskee are spot on but i think you need to make his hair a lot crazier

**Erilaz** · September 29th, 2006, 06:33 AM

Ta koppa.

I was watching the John Carmack 2006 Keynote today (yes, my life is amazing), and since all I had to do was stare at him, I thought i'd sketch him up. a total failure in terms of likeness, but a relaxing way to pass the time.

I just realised his hand is WAY too far in front... sort of looks very VERY wrong...

**crazy3dman** · September 29th, 2006, 12:14 PM

Nice going on the gestures. Were you looking at something to base the gestures on, or are they out of your head? And the last one is nice. As simple as it is, you've captured the geature of the pose nicely. It looks very natural.

**digi** · September 29th, 2006, 12:18 PM

Keep those sketches rockin' Erilaz!! You're doing good

**digi** · September 29th, 2006, 12:20 PM

Lol!! just noticed that hand you were talking about!! hehehe... yeah maybe just a bit too much towards the front hehehe

**Erilaz** · September 29th, 2006, 12:26 PM

crazy3dman: Thanks buddy!

Most of them were from my head, with a little help from a few refs here and there. I think I do better when I'm more relaxed.
digi: Thanks man, I hope to keep updating often. You're often an inspiration. EDIT: Yeah, I know.... scary huh?

This is pretty terrible, but it was fun to do. I've been getting into Sargent recently, marvelling at his amazing talent. I keep meaning to sit down and do a complete focus piece, but it's friday night and i'm just chilling out and seeing what I can do. I've floated over this study for about 3 hours now. The facial proportions are out, which i've readjusted a few billion times, and I just can't quite manage to capture the way he handles the light. Practice is important I guess.
I'm going to stop blaming my crap hues on my colour-blindness. It's a weak excuse if I can just see what's in front of me.

I'm finding it easier to come back to pieces now, but the yearning to get on to new things is sometimes overwhelming. I feel there's so much to catch up on, and I have too many focuses. I'm trying to stick to one area during the week (figures this week, as you'd notice).

**CGMonkey** · September 29th, 2006, 12:27 PM

wow Erilaz -- you've developed great skills.. Keep fencing that pencil mate!

**Erilaz** · October 5th, 2006, 09:23 PM

Thanks cgmonkey!

Here's a brief warm up from this morning. I studied it off Dan Milligan (I'm shamefully addicted to his work), but it sort of went off the rails at some point:

**Steph Laberis** · October 5th, 2006, 09:41 PM

Props to you for rising to the 100 gestures challenge! I had no idea it was going on until now

If you're getting into Sargent, order this book NOW: Alla Prima by Richard Schmid He's all about the Sargent way of painting and breaks it all down in plain english. I picture the author and Ilaekae getting along well, for some reason...

**Erilaz** · October 5th, 2006, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by Steph Laberis

Props to you for rising to the 100 gestures challenge! I had no idea it was going on until now

If you're getting into Sargent, order this book NOW: Alla Prima by Richard Schmid He's all about the Sargent way of painting and breaks it all down in plain english. I picture the author and Ilaekae getting along well, for some reason...

Thanks Steph, I was actually looking at that book only last week! On your recommendation i'll have to buy it now.

**crazy3dman** · October 5th, 2006, 10:34 PM

Nice updates man. There's a certain confidence coming through in these last few updates. Making progress that's for sure.

**Zord** · October 6th, 2006, 01:12 AM

Hey man, I just have to say that your persistance and dedication is really admirable. As is your tackling of the 100 gestures... definitely sparked the fire under the kettle to get me started on my own set of 100. Keep up the hard work and your head up, just know that we're all here as support. Cheers!

**Erilaz** · October 8th, 2006, 07:36 AM

Thanks crazy and zord. Hopefully the persistance will keep up! I'm sick of being crap, so thanks for the support. I really mean that.

I'd like to thank Min (bumskee) for kicking my ass so often.

I'm on to the 200 gestures TD now, so I thought i'd kill two birds and do some character silhouette studies for a piece i'm doing. Here's the first 50:

I've got higher res of these, but i'll post them later once i'm done. I've tried to keep as quick and loose as possible to keep them popping out.

**Erilaz** · October 9th, 2006, 04:59 AM

Some lunchtime studies of Travis Charest's wolverine. Damn that guy is good.

There's some quite pitiful shading here... my bane it seems.

**crazy3dman** · October 9th, 2006, 06:47 AM

LOVE those silhouettes. The imagination is kicking into high gear. You're working hard man.

**digi** · October 9th, 2006, 09:01 AM

ooo i like the bottom right hand corner8)

**rodrigo!** · October 9th, 2006, 09:15 AM

cool gestures and shapes there!
witht he faces, its not shading thats actually difficult...but placing it to match the planes of the face with the light source...which is what i think you could work on more. another thing too is the muscles..in particular the ones around the eye socket, on the eyebrow, and the cheek ones that bunch up..they all work together..once you study those for a bit everything just falls into place, iive never regretted the afternoon i spent going through it and i reckon you should check it out when you can.
cheers melbournite! say hello to min for me