ChM's Tome - Cthulhu up close!

**ChM** · October 9th, 2005, 09:51 AM

\/ As usual, for newest things it's going down \/

Hi everyone!
I am new to CA, so first some info about myself: I am 24 years old, living in Switzerland and studying Visual Communication. I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil. Lately, due to my studies and projects, I have spent less and less time drawing, so I decided to open a sketchbook here, primarily to motivate myself to draw more. The major part of my most recent pictures are pencil and therefore uncoloured. I plan on using more colour and getting into digital colouring (PS, painter).
More aims are: Learning to draw better and more distinguished faces (particularly noses), better hands and more perspective and vehicles.
Currently I am taking an Act Painting course at my school, which helps me to losen my style a bit.

Anyway I would be very glad about comments, particularly constructive criticism & hints.

Starting this sketchbook with some sketches which are 2 to 1 years old. More recent stuff to follow...

I am interested in the melting of machine and flesh (eagle is losely based on photo). Left is an Egyptian Cat God

One of my favourite comics

Goliath ganger from Necromunda

Three caricative takes

An act not based on reference

**ChM** · October 13th, 2005, 02:38 PM

Back with some more recently scanned sketches...

Guy: Something is not quite right with this fella, I geuss his arms are too long...
Gal: Somewhat akward, strange face proportions and an ugly flower

Pleased with the face of the lady, not pleased with the ghost's hands

**Qxzi** · October 13th, 2005, 03:11 PM

yo cHm, your shading looks quite good and that bird looks creative....keep it up and no crits for the mo

**Flaskpost** · October 13th, 2005, 03:19 PM

Very nice character designs! Would be cool to see you color some stuff too!

Peace!

/Flask

**Badger** · October 13th, 2005, 03:19 PM

Hey there ChM!
Nice sense of character in these drawings! Which is really important.
I would say don't be afraid to pull out that dust 6B and throw down some real dark tones. It'll give you more depth and solidarity.
Also try playing with the line weight. Less solid outlines, allow the viewer to fill some gaps her/his self, such as where a muscle falls, by a subtle change in tone.
Necromunda rocked.
Laterz
-B-

**ChM** · October 17th, 2005, 11:24 AM

Thx to you

@Badger: Indeed I only have a 2B biro-pencil with me in school (all of these were done in school). The thing with 3B+ is, my sketchbook gets all dirty and smudgy before I get home to fix the sketches properly. That's why I don't doodle with 3B+. Well maybe I'll give it a try in the near future, since I just bought a 9B graphite pencil...

Excpect something in colour soon, since I'm getting to learn Painter now

**max1975** · October 17th, 2005, 05:44 PM

Your drawings have great personality, they really come to life. And that bird is awesome.

**mayshing** · November 21st, 2005, 10:02 PM

Love the bird on the first post.
I love your sketch quality in the figures, but sometimes the weight and balance really look off to me, whether exaggrated or not, maybe it's a good idea to think more about the balance, if you want exaggration, perhaps add in extreme exaggration so we get it right away.

**ChM** · April 19th, 2006, 08:47 AM

Ok finally grabbed the pen again and started off with buying anatomy books.
I also used a B9 here like suggested:

I am not very confident in drawing human faces, especially the eye area, so I did some studies from a fashion mag. Second uncertain area: Hands. All right from the eyes is from imagination, so the hands are false, especially the one of the girl seen from above

Practice drawing a "basic head" from different angles, trying to get a feeling for the shape of a human face

I will continue my studies of the face and hand until I am certain I can draw them more or less accurate from imagination...

As usual any help appreciated thanks

**ChM** · April 22nd, 2006, 02:08 PM

Ok here's today's "work": Random scribbles, one from ref (woman's face, does not actually ressemble the ref, but nobody gotta know, right?). The head in pencil on the left actually does please me

**gmags** · April 22nd, 2006, 11:50 PM

Looking good there ChM! Like the anatomy studies. I was wondering who is that in your avatar? Just curious. Keep postin bro.

**ChM** · April 23rd, 2006, 09:37 AM

Hi gmags, thanks for posting. My current avatar is not done by myself (like you couldn't have guessed). It's from a cover of the 2000 AD Comic "Slaine" painted by Simon Bisley. Funny, cause I am actually thinking about drawing an avatar by myself someday soon...

**ChM** · April 28th, 2006, 04:55 PM

Rearranged and resized the whole previous posts a bit, for better visibility on smaller monitors.

Ok, new head/face study. Pretty pleased with them. Any suggestions on improvement?

And...COLOR!...Fotographed some older stuff, two color studies, the rest is coal and pencil, done from life.

**Orozc0** · April 28th, 2006, 05:03 PM

you really need to work on those hands.

**rob-ot** · May 2nd, 2006, 02:59 PM

Thanks for stopping by my SB! and thanks for the crit, it makes a lot of sense and was very helpful! Also i think you are dead on about good days and bad days...'cause I feel like i really suck sometimes..expcially considering the compnay on this site!

Per your questions -
sharpie - it's a brand name of permanent marker.. I personally really like them because they are cheap and they also have a fine point on one end and a large tip on the other. The only draw back to them is that some other markers will react poorly with the ink and it will turn you lines purplish.

Prismacolor pencil - this is also a name brand. honestly i am not sure if they are the best or not, I just like them because they don't smear as much as regular pencil lead (i am very messy!) another advantage they have is that prisma color also makes markers which can be used together, some of the other colored pencil brands smear or dicolor when you use marker over them.

Hope this helps!

**Zanconato** · May 3rd, 2006, 04:49 PM

ChM, once again thanks for dropping by my SB.

I really like your life drawing pieces, does it help you learn alot? I can't get into Life Drawing classes atm due to my age, i've tried - but hopefully next year.
I would like to crit your work but it's hard due to the fact i'm not at your level yet - sorry!

P.S. I tend to keep away from sharpies, they frequently bleed on the page and I hear their fumes ain't to good for ya

**ChM** · May 13th, 2006, 06:18 PM

rob-ot: Thanks a lot! Gotta get one of those Prismacolors...
Zanconato: Thanks, but just crit what you see, sometimes (if I feel courageous) I crit some people whose skills are way beyond mine. It can still help them, I think. Take life drawing classes if possible. It helps you to get a feeling of the human figure without constructing it first (maybe depending on the teacher). You will also be forced to draw in a short amount of time, which really helps to get to the point.

Ok, since my hand studies are too crappy to post here right now, I post a self-portrait (based on ref), done in photoshop, using my crappy Aiptek tablet (no money for a wacom

). Inspired by killing's thread: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18980

If I feel like it I might even colour it some day. Since it was easy and a lot of fun, you should expect more PS stuff soon...

**Tenelaus** · May 14th, 2006, 04:23 AM

Hey man, I really like the muted colour in this painting and your lifedrawing lines have a nice sense of rhythm. As you're going to do more ps work use a brush with more/100% opacity. You've got the values down pretty well but everything's a bit, well, 'bitty'. There's a bunch of superfluous brushstrokes that would look a lot better if you could remove - use that high opacity brush to try and capture the largest area of tone with the largest brush you possibly can then steadily work smaller into the details.

**ChM** · May 25th, 2006, 02:55 PM

Thanks a lot for your helpful comments, Tenelaus!
I already considered your point about reducing the amount of brushstrokes.
I will also try out your tip about solid brushes in my next piece.

Something else, I recently discovered a nice monthly (pdf) magazine, which some of you may already know, for the others here's the link: http://www.2dartistmag.com/
For a full issue you pay 4 US$, and IMO it is well worth it!

Little update on my self-portrait, now looks even more like me (and has maaaany more strokes). I use it primarily to try some things, like colouring it later on. But for now:

**ChM** · May 27th, 2006, 02:37 PM

WOOOHAAA! First digital color piece from me!
Basically dropped a color layer on b/w-version, then another normal layer with opaque colour to clean up and accent further...

As soon as I get the time, I will do another digital color piece, which i'll try to do in color from the beginning. The narcistic product above felt enormously like doing an analogue wash-image (washing with opaque color over b/w), just not as wet!
Since I am slowly entering the exam-phase, pressure at school keeps on building up, which leaves me little to no spare time. Also my coffe consumption will reach new peaks

pld: . If I am lucky and get a job during the summer break, I will hopefully scratch enough money together in order to buy me a new LCD Widesreen and a decent tablet

. I am beginning to gain interest in environment design and would love to do some vehicles and architecture too, but alas....

**ChM** · June 7th, 2006, 04:03 PM

Some new sketches:
Somehow I still end up with stretched/asymmetrical faces most of the time...

Played a the new PC Game "Call of Cthulhu" a lot the last days, I love it since I have read everything from Lovecraft. The game also inspired me to do some colour rendering of great CTHULHU himself very soon. Here some preliminary sketches on the design of his ugly tentacle-trap

(even some fishy things and a detective!)

Come on people, somebody must have something useful to share here!

**anticonnor** · June 7th, 2006, 04:25 PM

I'm a Lovecraft fan also, and your beast's head is awesome! I'd love to see more full body sketches from Cthulhu. I haven't played the game, but will likely try it out soon. One difficult thing about illustrating the kind of blind fear that those god/beasts exude is that they are mostly unseen and intangible. Rarely in his books did the narrator ever give a clear discription of their physical appearance. So I guess that means they need to be rendered dark, dark, dark. Basically start with a nearly black bg, black in the creature's mass, then add just enough highlights to hint at it's grotesque shape.

Everything is looking good... keep posting!

**enthombed** · June 7th, 2006, 04:48 PM

hey dude, interesting stuff here, i like the crachter who you made bud.

keep it up

Icaro

**ChM** · June 8th, 2006, 02:21 PM

enthombed, thanks for dropping in!

anticonnor, you are certainly right about Lovecrafts monsters, that is exactly why IMO they won't work in any other media, because they lose their power once they are rendered on paper, in movies etc. But nevertheless I like to draw them exactly because they are only vaguely described in his fiction. I will think about the darkness when I'm doing the painting. BTW I PM'd you about the game!

**ChM** · August 19th, 2006, 02:32 PM

Ok, after a longer break due to intensive school projects, I am now back working on my planed Cthulhu-Piece. It's showing Great Cthulhu himself emerging amongst the ruinous ancient city of Ryleh, backlight by intensive starlight, showing that "the stars are right" for Cthulhu's return. First two worksteps below

First, rought digital layout sketch. I decided to work out the details step by step rather than planing everything in advance.

I then decided to start right off with colors, instead of doing a black-white rendering first. Hoping the color palette will come out as planned...

**ChM** · September 3rd, 2006, 03:05 PM

new update, comments appreciated!

**Zanconato** · September 3rd, 2006, 03:38 PM

I like it, but the monsters features are a little hard to make out. You tried using differant brushes? Also, stay away from black, use darker tones of colours.

Keep it up!

**ChM** · September 4th, 2006, 01:51 PM

Next step.
Zanconato: Thx, man. Yes indeed I used different brushes, as you will see better in the details below. Also in the step above cthulhu was just a placeholder whithout any work put into yet. Progress on him below.
I also noticed the different darkness in the picture depending whether viewed on a Mac or a PC (different Gamma-curve), which makes things rather difficult (I work on a PC).
Comment and criticize please! Oh, and rate it if you like!

**Spats** · September 4th, 2006, 02:45 PM

I'a I'a Cthulhu F'taghn!

Super good studies here, and I love your interpretation of Cthulhu!

Keep it up mate! I'll be sure to check up on you every once in a while