sketchbook (10th Feb 2007) 365 design challenge

**glikster** · February 24th, 2006, 08:16 AM

You're right, I saw the tut the first time without all that text... but I've tried learning about perspective before, so I figured out what you were doing in most of the pics. Definitely much clearer now, though!! Thanks!

I'll be honest, I didn't even realize you were recreating the building from my painting till the third time I went through your post.

Her arms look 20 times better already!

hp · February 24th, 2006, 01:48 PM

i'd still make her legs just a tad thicker...

you're outlining the lips too much and the colors are too grey still. it looks sort of strange because the skin colors are desaturated yet the cheeks have a bright red-pink glow to them.

nice anatomy studies!

**machzero** · February 27th, 2006, 10:02 AM

couldn't access c.art at all during the weekend. A lot of database error pages, so couldn't post.

glikster, onir - you don't want to learn everything about perspective... or you'll end up as one of those guys that convert architectural plans for buildings/houses into advertising. Just enough to pick out mistakes. Don't bother committing the tutorial to heart either, just pick up some pointers. And ask questions. This is sorta a support group. Farvus knows his stuff too... will prolly have answers if i'm stumped with a certain perspective problem (try ellipses and staircases!).

Farvus - got those links saved! thanks! Some of it actually made sense, will attempt some of it in the future.

hpslashluvr - think there's something wrong with my eyeballs... heheh. The real world seems pretty desaturated to me, until I check out magazines or those demo plasma TV screens. I promise I'll check the entire pic when it's near completion and make sure the colours/saturation are somewhat consistent.

oh yeah... still working my way down. Arms/hands/legs... stopping to do anatomy studies while at it.

- redo arm at the left
- calf at the left
- funny crook in the right elbow fold
- check shadow on the nose
- hands too small
- shadow wrong on thigh on the right

- hide all other mistakes with shadows... kekekeke

hp · February 27th, 2006, 04:48 PM

her lips and forehead still bother me...but that's not the important part now of course, you gotta work globally first (i need to tell myself this)

i think that maybe if she was wearing such a tight fitting outfit the material would stretch across her boobs?

**glikster** · February 27th, 2006, 05:16 PM

I dunno... I keep coming back to her neck... I think you need to do some neck studies... it seems off... maybe you have the insertion point of the muscles off a little bit?

still, good updates... keep em coming!

**Farvus** · February 27th, 2006, 06:43 PM

Well. I don't have so great knowledge about perspective as you may think. I concentrate mainly on making interesting enviroment

.
In your last pating I would add small part with feet or crop it to the right knee. It's beacause there is sudden end on the bottom of the picture that spoils the composition. Maybe I'm not right. I don't know.

**machzero** · February 28th, 2006, 08:46 AM

hpslashluvr - you've given me an inordinate amount of boob advice haven't you! KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE

noticed I'm cheating by not doing a lot of flowing cloth... cause that'll mean i have to sit down and do some cloth studies! heheh. Did add some minor metalic highlights for the metal bits though. Sharp specular highlights, not too gradual shading.

I haven't retouched the lips yet... but I went back and redid the forehead slightly. It was a bit too flat (hope that was what you meant).

glikster - hmm... only thing i noticed was the neck a little too thick to the right... toned that downa bit. As for necks, was looking at some pics... and noted some people have incredibly long necks, especially those "8.5~9 head tall" models.

Farvus - you're right... the crop is definitely bad, being right across the shins. I might want to crop the final pic tighter... zoom in.

did a little bit more on it... will most likely take a break from it. Doodle some environments or machinery. I'm risking overdoing some parts. Hand to the left looks a bit too small.

**Onir** · February 28th, 2006, 11:57 AM

coool updates man, those renderings are really coming out nicely. Nice detail you've added as well, looks great; said it before but I like the rendering on the face. understandable taking a break from it though, probably best to come back at it with a fresh eye. post any doodles you do

hehe

**machzero** · March 1st, 2006, 09:08 AM

yo onir~!

no time for much sketching this week... half the guys in my department are overseas, and the workload is a bitch. But here's a quick half an hour doodle. This is what I like to do best... no worries about poses, anatomy, colour, lighting... just one "brush" and some concept designing. Same character as the coloured pic, decided to design some of the props/clothes.

**johnny78** · March 1st, 2006, 09:48 AM

I like the last sketch. Lopks very nice, vivid lines. Do you use a mouse?
Oh, and the poster idea is very cool as well

**Onir** · March 1st, 2006, 11:33 AM

whew nice sketches man, both look really really nice. your lady on the left has really cool clothes, designs work really nicely. and swordman on the right looks hardcore, I'm likin that pose. just a curious question thuogh; what's he holdng? hehe looks a bit like lobster or something to me. either way nice stuff man

**glikster** · March 2nd, 2006, 04:04 PM

I like these last two sketches a lot! They feel loose (whether they were or not is your little secret, huh?)

One thing I noticed in your last update up the colored girl is something I see in mine a lot. I think it's because of the lines that run from her nose to the corners of her mouth, her upper lip and mouth look very flat... And I just reread your post and saw that you didn't redo the lips yet.. .oops. My bad.

I think it would help a lot if you tried different facial expressions more... it's not too hard to get ref for that...

**Farvus** · March 2nd, 2006, 04:30 PM

There's nice looseness in these two sketches. Especially in the second one. The background looks interesting in it too

. Hope to see more of such fast stuff.
Cheers.

**ChrisMayernik** · March 2nd, 2006, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by machzero

yo onir~!

But here's a quick half an hour doodle. This is what I like to do best... no worries about poses, anatomy, colour, lighting... just one "brush" and some concept designing. Same character as the coloured pic, decided to design some of the props/clothes.

If you don't worry about any of those things then you are going to be a horrible artist. If you don't care about quality then go ahead and be lazy. The only way your stuff is going to improve is when you start caring about poses, anatomy, colour, lighting. All of these things you mentioned you need to work on. Make your line work clean and stop using different opacity settings.

I'm not saying you should give up, Just start taking things more seriously if you want to improve.

**machzero** · March 3rd, 2006, 10:16 AM

ooeerr... either i got misunderstood or i'm misunderstanding something... so pardon me since english isn't a first language. I take a break from the various figure studies, throw up some quick thumbnails plus additional study for the previous pic and get called out as horrible and lazy? And if I don't get serious, there's implication of giving up?

**machzero** · March 6th, 2006, 10:06 AM

hey johnny78~! it's been a long time since I've used a mouse for photoshop. All these were done with a 4x5 intuous2 or graphire2.

oi glikster. Haven't redone the lips. But did not notice the issue your comment was directed at. I'll keep that in mine. As for facial expressions, I got great reference for glowering, brooding ones already! *gets killed by glikster*

yo farvus, I think all my pics start as a total mess of lines at the beginning. Something like gesture drawing, or it is just plain laziness? Then the eraser comes out. Another CA member, koshime and I used to doodle like madmen back in junior high/secondary school. I think our best ideas came out then, just loose fast sketches... working out ideas for cities, vehicles, clothing, weapons, ornaments... our anatomy and perspective were non-existent back then... but we were sure more creative.

As for the background which you commented on... opted for a more interesting look than a perspectively correct background (following what you said earlier on... "don't get too hung up on perspective"). However, I will go in later with "straightedges" and correct some of the lines.

ATM, it's 11pm here. Been at work since 9.30am (hey, I show up late every day after the first week... they can fire my arse). Now, conducting some systems test with a bank, and their sorry end is going to make me see the sun rise again. However, got the office laptop, and koshime's old graphire4... sooo... grabbed some reference material (based on glikster's earlier comment... ahem ahem) and started doodling...

**Recursive_End** · March 6th, 2006, 10:16 AM

hehe nice portrait ^^
The other updates look good. But the abdominos have a funny shape. It looks like the characters are always hard....hummm can't find a good word :/
Make it look like a cylinder.
Some studies should fixe that

D.

**glikster** · March 6th, 2006, 10:18 AM

lovely... I'm glad you managed to get my chest hair in there... it's always a big hit with the ladies...

I seriously laughed out loud in my cubicle when I saw that.

**Onir** · March 7th, 2006, 12:06 PM

haha nice update! I'd say you caught that look glikster had really well (that and it DOES look like glikster which is always good haha

) very nice portrait man, keep postin when you can

**machzero** · March 11th, 2006, 10:48 AM

sorry, sorry... no updates... after my old scsi drive blew, decided to built a new PC from all my spare parts. All this time, I was using an old 1.53GHz athlon, had parts for a 3.0GHz P4... stupid idea. Took four bloody days to get it running up to speed... and it doesn't seem any faster than the old machine, but much hotter.

Recursive_End - think I know what you mean. Everyone's basically flexing their six pack or something.

glikster - glad you got a kick outta it. The hair was the hardest though (not the one sticking outta your wifebeater). The first couple of attempts looked like a toupee. Also did a quick sketch of hpslashluvr's SP pic with pencil while waiting for bloody MS patches to load, but got to hook up my old scanner.

Onir - i added a little extra lip curl in there, didn't I? heheh.

DSG from earlier this week... dark sepia again cause my office monitor is a POS. Anything dark gray turns instantly black. And my home monitor has weaker reds than my laptops... *grumble* Same technique as always. Used a similiar with conventional media. Neutral paper, a dark pencil, and a white conte pencil for highlights. Ship in the background isn't "tilted" but didn't put in enough atmospheric perspective to fade it away.

this weeks industrial design thingy... slept 12 hours friday night... super refreshed, cranked out the whole thing in about 3-4 hours... no thumbnails, just a rough sketch, laid in the perspective lines, and started rendering. Bound to find a whole bunch of flaws tomorrow.

**Onir** · March 11th, 2006, 11:31 AM

hey man, nice that you got to build a new pc, but that sucks that it's not much faster

maybe it'll kick in sooner than later though (hopefully at least).. great pieces though, that dsg is really cool; love the detail and the way you did alot of the characters in that. I can see what you mean with the atmospheric perspective, but it's not that bad really. The "guppy" design ship is looking great, really cool ship idea and design, and the rendering is really nice. I'd imagine this would fly almost by hovering? I'd assume that mostly just from the vents. again great stuff though, keep it up

**machzero** · March 11th, 2006, 11:58 AM

yo dude~!

actually, I've no idea how that thing flies... real helicopter blades would work. Actually did a double take when I re-read the description and it could have easily meant "ground troop" carrier... was brainstorming how to add more wheels to it... heh.

i'm actually cheating when putting in those vents and stubby wings. They're sorta icon-like, like visual aids. People see those, they think vertical take off craft. If I put in some directional thrusters, large oxygen tanks, people will think spacecraft. Tanks, stubby wings, and propellors, equals deep sea vessel.

**glikster** · March 13th, 2006, 08:46 AM

whoo! Nice job on the IDW... I'm never sure about things like this, but is it bending towards the back? It doesn't look exactly straight, but that could just be me... I love the red interior glow...
also, that's a really good profile on the DSG...

**machzero** · March 13th, 2006, 10:52 AM

hey glikster, don't worry about the rear. All there is to see... is there. Think of the slight tilt of its tail when a dragonfly lands.

real life just caught up with me... heh. May not be able to post for a week and a half.

so, here's an art dump. Just to collect the remainder of my concept art stuff and some REALLY OLD STUFF~! (well, not that old, I still have my kindergarden stuff somewhere around here... and no... there's no colour involved back then either... heh).

illustration activity from the sketch forum. One of rare pics where I had multiple thumbnails for composition.

another illustration activity. Thanks to rick hershey for managing this activity. Around this time, started working with one/two layers in photoshop only for quick pieces.

illustration activity again, this time with dsillustration lending a helping hand. Learned a few things from this one. One of the rare "completed" pieces.

oh yeah... today's piece. One of my few attempts are creature design. For weekly design. Wanted to do the character and environment one but got work to worry about.

did a quick sketch based off one of onir's posted picture too... i don't think it's accurate though. Anyone wanna see?

**LoTekK** · March 13th, 2006, 11:51 AM

Those recent sketches are great; love the DSG one. Nice arm and leg studies, too. That montage of all your uploaded pics is awesome. Talk about inspiring, and awe-inspiring.

**Onir** · March 14th, 2006, 08:50 PM

hey man, sucks that you might not be able to post for a little, but hey real life first eh? hehe very nice updates, amazing how much detail you put into your pieces. the illustrations are all really nicely detailed and composed; also must say it's nice seeing a recent piece with these older ones. show's that you've definitely improved (at least imo). your most recent looks great btw, really cool idea. since he's a suicide digger I assume he blows up when he hits what he's digging to? seems like a really cool idea either way, great design. nice stuff as always

whoa I didn't realize you sketched me! POST IT! lol

**glikster** · March 15th, 2006, 08:50 AM

Very cool illustrations... I really like the composition on the first and everything (except the face) on the second.
The third one looks like it's almmost ready to be a book cover or magazine illustration.... Great job.

Also liking the COW concept...it digs itslef to death, huh?

Oh, and hell yeah I wanna see your sketch of Onir!

**machzero** · March 15th, 2006, 11:39 PM

This monday, I was expecting another semi-boring 9-6 week at the office. Tuesday night, I'm in Karachi, Pakistan. Typing this from the hotel lounge atm. Weather is great here atm, cool mediterrenean, almost like so.cal in the late spring... and digging the food... yumyumyum.

i'll post onir's pic when I get back... heheh. It's on my home machine.

LoTekK - yo, thanks~!

glikster - those are semi-old. I think I would have gone with stronger shadows and highlights now.

Onir - well, got to pay the bills. Also means I racking up vacation time. heh.

Dug up some old files, low res but from 3-10 years ago. Will post them later. I was stagnating like glikster for a long time too... For the past 1.5 years, I think I surpassed my total output for ten years.

hp · March 16th, 2006, 01:42 PM

hey!

this has to be one of your best pieces so far in terms of detail and story.

the problem i see with this:

is that the back of the girl is too straight and posed to look natural. remember most ppl hold their head out just a little (so the neck isn't completely straight from the side view) and there is a slight s shape in the back to butt. you sort of did it, but your girl looks way too stiff to me.

here are two paintovers i did, i messed up some parts but here is what i saw wrong: forehead too high, chin too prominent, eyebrows drawn on etc. i did a second quick po with maybe an idea of cutting down some parts of the face.

**machzero** · March 18th, 2006, 01:47 AM

yo hpslashluvr,

still typing this from the hotel lounge in karachi, so can't view most of the images cause the internet is a bit erratic. Can't see your paintovers now, but recalled seeing them a few days ago. I remembered you had a bit of quivering lip going, plus some wooley eyebrows... heheh. As for the proportions, sometimes I get myself stuck on previous designs... got previous char design sheets with various profiles of characters to used (semi-large project in the works).

I'll try to dig up version 1 of that pic which was done about 2 years ago, you'll go nuts spotting all the anatomy errors going on.

the illustration activities had nice briefs to work with, some of it quite detailed, so the end results always had a bit story going for them.

as for the figure being stiff... yar, me still noob. Wanted to figure out the clothes, equipment, and stuff... and completely disregarded any anatomy. The torso is a wee bit too long as I look at it again.