Llothcat's Llayers of Llucidity updated 05/25ish/07

[llothcat]

Anyhow..I'm gonna go back to doing some figure studies, since I've this new job to do with oodles of time on my hands.

I'm a guard again. It's a living. The good thing is I don't have to scramble for jobs, which I hate doing, and art-wise I can afford to pick and choose which ones I want to do, and can do well. Usually that means cleaning up other's work, or doing murals.

My art site is still here: http://www.llothcat.com
And my latest project is here: http://www.llothcat.com/workpress
(yeah, I know i've got to work on that wordpress template)

I want to get a good comic done by the APE this year, and, if there's time, clean up that 3d project I did earlier this year to release at that convention. (Y'know, the blender3d game demo I did before I learned how to properly texture map models. Ewwwwww! 'Least the code works...mostly.)

Will post the studies a bit later.

[llothcat]

Did this today to pass the time..got me a good post for this sort of stuff, but I've got to remember to bring a mirror next time, 'cause the bathroom mirror isn't ideal.

[llothcat]

another one..fresh today:

It was dark in the shack ok..damn supervisor pulled the plug.

[llothcat]

thought i play a bit in painter

[llothcat]

new today:

[llothcat]

this is actually quite accurate...i'm getting there.

[llothcat]

more stuff..., and a few from a failed sketchmeet.

[Moai]

Your latest digital works have improved greatly over the stuff in the first few pages of your sketchbook. That bulldog logo, your CoWs, and the above Painter portrait have a really nice sense of volume. Your logos are really nice as well.
I don't really have any crits for you. I think you're already on the right path for artistic growth. Nice sketchbook.

[llothcat]

thanks moai

At the moment..I'm tackling live media. Back to the (cheap-ass) acrilics that I learned to paint with. I'm hoping to turn the knots I did earlier into a series of paintings that I can hang in some upcoming shows.

[llothcat]

quick color job on this portrait..i hate losing skills

[llothcat]

playing with saturation settings...and another paintover layer to smooth things out.

[llothcat]

yeah..I got inspired by that week o painting video that's in the lounge.

[DanielC]

Nice updates llothcat!
The last one is particularly good. i'm liking how you played around with the elements.
The sp's are looking good too, keep doing some.
Maybe try to add a few things to them like a bit more expressions or different postions.
Anyway, keep it up !!

[llothcat]

and charactors for an online comic i'm trying to start. i've got a bit of a story generated in my notebook.

[llothcat]

gah...I coulda done a better job cleaning the inks, too.

Too many goobers there...

[llothcat]

nearly in the mail at the moment....Art show deadline in next week. We'll see if it makes it there in time

[llothcat]

trying to brainstorm here...

[Kronos]

wowzers! you made some massive, massive improvements since last time i posted, keep up those self portraits they seem to be helping heaps. i really like some of the later painted ones. your noses and mouths in particular are really nice, you've got that slightly graphic shading style creeping in (similar to evildisco's) i like it.

i do have to say.......MORE SATURATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you did it a bit more with those last couple COW's and they work really well, but some of your selfportraits are so unsaturated they are closer to brown tones than flesh tones, i know it is really hard to get them right, but it would pay off big time, everything would become much more lively.

awesome, well yeah, i'm back btw, its holidays again....yay!
so check out my sketchbook again if you like, its gotten a bit dusty (errr, almost 7 months of dust) but i've made a few updates.

i promise to make a bit critique to the next thing you post (if you like) to try make up for the long absence.

[llothcat]

for the TD that I'm doing. Self-taught verses the schooled.

[Moai]

There are some proportional issues on that last drawing. Her head seems too large, and her torso seems too short, though it's not really apparent where her torso ends and her legs begin (which is a bit of a problem in itself).
The character design looks good, and should turn out well if you're going to finish rendering it in digital. Have fun with it!

[SillyLing]

I think you have a very good start on it. Like moai said you still have proportional problems... Probably the best thing you could do now is look for ref and compare it to your drawing...

Keep on updating. =)

[Kronos]

Hey llothcat cool start, would you mind telling us what the subject for the TD is or giving us a link to the thread so we know what we should be commenting on? cool! at the moment i don't know that the angle/view is doing much to describe anything, obviously you just started so its hard to say where you are heading, but yeah. i agree with what Moai and Lynn have said so far.

perhaps a mid shot would better describe the characters thoughts???

[llothcat]

ah silly me...It's supposed to be a full body historical portrait. I know better than to half-ass it..This one's obviously w/o refs. The idea is to get it, I dunno, like Valezquez....not that I could paint that way in a million years or anything....

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=83202

[llothcat]

corrected a bit with refs....i'm quickly running out of time here.

[Kronos]

eeps! could have - should have made a reply sooner

well just keep going on it i think, anatomy and stuff look great. about the skin tones, i found thins awesome site... its someone's personal website thing but shes amazing and has a quick "tutorial" on skin tones (not so much a tutorial but gives some cool examples of colours to use)

http://www.furiae.com/

click gallery, then tutorials, then thoughts on skintones

[llothcat]

better?

good link, btw, thanks a bunch

[Kronos]

yeah thats better the eyes are quite seductive, nice one. i think the top lip could do with a little bit of reworking though, just the way its darker gives the impression of facial hair or something, its weird i know but its there.....???

also try getting some shadow going to describe the overall form of the head mass, the facial features are the only things that sell it at the moment.

also in the one before her left hand looks kinda chunky.

keep workin on it!

[EDIT]

ok, i had a quick fiddle, try push more in this direction... but further

[llothcat]

i know i'm outta time here. there were things I wanted to add to the bg, but, there's just no time dor it. So..I guess the best thing to do is to simplfy it.

[llothcat]

a quickie tonight.

[Kronos]

cool, good overall proportion on the last one. and the flesh tones have a little more life in them... but there aren't many darks, with the next one really try and push the darks, and saturation if you can... like to the point that it doesn't look right then at least you can work back from there. i feel that is what is hurting your work most at the moment. too washed out colours (although thats getting better) and not enough range with your values.

like in the thunderdome piece, you have some good dark saturated colours in the purple parts of the gown, but the rest of it didn't catch up??? know what i mean?

also the perspective of the chair is quite strange... but yeah focus on the colour still, because i know you can do perspective relatively well.

keep a goin!