Sartell (*~retry?~*) sketchbook (updated DEC. 14th!)~*

[blanquish]

cant wait till you get back, this is one of my fav sbs!

[asoir]

Too modest, man
Great update!

[Goodbye..fromthevoid]

You seem to have the talent. Please use it as hard as you can.

[tensai]

lovely detailed well lit and dynamic stuff here man. i'm sure i would enjoy to see some more loose pencil/pen sketches if you were to put them up.

[Sartell]

BACK to SCHOOL (HUGE DL)

blanquish You made my day w/ that comment, thank you dude~*
I'll try to post more often!

Asoir Thanx man,to be honest i'm SO scared of being content w/ where I am, and my school program isn't really
promoting growth (maybe cuz i'm in computer animation?) I always end up comparing myself to where I want to be rather
than my improvement

Goodbye....from the void I really hope so man, I promise I won't let it go to waste if I do indeed have what it will take to
do art for a living. BTW I read your deviantart comments.... you should try to be more optimistic about your art no matter what
level you're at, not having the proper mindset may be whats holding you back~* good luck

tensai You honor me I got tons of respect for you sir, so that comment really means a lot. I will try to do a LOT more loose pencil sketches,
I def. will only have time for just that at school

GOING BACK TO RINGLING, it was an amazing summer I got to meet a bunch of cool artists and learned a TON. Here's the first
3 finished playmats, i'm pretty happy w/ them considering they are supposed to be anime-ish~*
Comments and crits welcome!



I wanna thank Donato Giancola, Howard Lyons, Edward P. Beard Jr., Lars Grant-West, Randy Gallegos, Christopher Moeller,
Mark Tedin, and Mark Poole for taking the time to answer my questions and giving me some great advice.
Of course the guys at the NBD Helzon, Mikel, BDfoster, BWkeough, and Advocate of Fate for their support, and Kiem and Sam
and Eyal and everybody who game me awesome crits
Special thanx to DSillustration for giving me some insight into the art of Magic the Gathering, its amazing to talk to one of your favorite artists~*

Ohh and Halo? me- -dan (and ben- and brendan-)

[Helzon]

Hey there Joel, these game mat pieces really show a great progression in your skill level. Just killer work. I wish you the best at Ringling this year and hope all goes well.
Cheers!

[bdfoster]

dude... Hotness. You need to post these in FF. Seriously.

I had too many beers to even think about presenting you a challenge. At least, that's my excuse.

[Evxyza92]

i like the pheonix very orginal and the ninja is very cool oh can i give you an idea to create how about a lizard man i wanna see how other people draw the lizard man cause i always draw them

[rblitz7]

Woah dude! the ninja piece is just wicked! I love the composition and color. Keep it up!

[FaRiL]

damn joel, i havent seen any of your stuff since that sketchbook last year(i think thats when i saw it) but wow, definitely a lot of improvement.. u got a hell of a lot of skill and its showing. im sure i will be checking this thing for updates cuz im always interested in stuff like this. keep up the good work

p.s. its mike (meredith's friend)

[Sartell]

Animation is for bitches

Helzon Thanx man i'm gonna try to find some time to do as much drawing as possible, unfortunately it's gonna be more computer animation driven most of the time~* OHH and yay on the WOW thing, i'll get back to you on that.

BDfoster Ohh beer Thanx man and thanks for the FF suggestion, it was great to get some critiques there too, I miss you guys already

Evxyza92 omg your post cracked me up, I want to draw lizard men too!! Thanx for the comment

rblitz7 Thanx man, I think you go to Ringling don't you? I found panda and red rook i'm sure i'll see everybody soon~*

FaRiL Thanx dude its been a WHILE, meredith is actually the reference for the fair blowing on the butterflies (don't ask me why.)

Okay here is basically some sketches from the first week of school (*trying to keep it looser, and obviously more animated), the first is just an update of a sketch from a month or so ago~* Thanx all for the crits, and if anybody knows how to put only one image per line i'd appreciate it~*

[Sartell]

Silhouettes

So I just realized, Ringling CA majors use 30 inch LCD screens........ most other people don't..... and I don't have internet at the apartment
(i'm GETTING to it eyal...) so I can't see it on my screens. Sorry if these are out of control large.

First are silhouettes for the Drawing for Animators class, last image is a WIP on my animation character~* Just tryin to stay up to date

[Banshax]

The size dont bother me, scrolling a bit never hurts. However I dont know bout others. The inkshapes are way cool, Im inspired of trying it some time.
Always fun to see cg chars being build in wireframes. Im not sure about working in Sub-d though. Just sticking to poly`s for a while and working out the sharpness of certain corners might be worhth your time. However its a personal thing.

[carakhan]

Joel:

About your silhouettes. I can see what the character is in every one of them, and I'm only seeing one character. You need to be more abstract. It looks like you're drawing the character and then just silhouetting it. I can't see how these are going to translate into three completely different characters. I like that you're experimenting with more than just bipeds, but things like those robots and stuff are too straightforward, almost transparent if you get what I mean.

[blanquish]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1157481774
that piece is nice.
However, the rendering seems a bit "scratchy".
Id suggest getting a mechanical pencil if you dont already have one, and going over it softly.
Silouettes are cool, darktwin does some great ones, so you should definately check it out if you havent already.

[Sartell]

Yo

Banshax I work in CPS, which has a constant subdiv going, but its still low poly (you get to switch!) so you basically animate in low poly and only smooth at the end or to check textures and deformations Thank you for the crit~*

ThinMint Cara You sound just like Ron. Thank you I needed a student to tell me I was doing it wrong, well not wrong but not what the assignment was, and the way i'm doing it it kinda defeats the purpose. I appreciate it little face~*

blanquish HAHA yeah I have mechanical pencils, I was going for that texture but I must have failed its good to know~* Ohh and Darktwin's are real nice gave me a refreshing view thanx.

So I did this over the weekend for a T-dome that the illustrators were doing, and since i'm a rebel wannabe they let me play Still some problems but I was pretty happy w/ it.

[Helzon]

Hey Joel, interesting silhouettes, really get a feel for the characters...though I take it from yours and other comments they didn't quite hit the mark.

This t-dome piece...was there an overarching theme? Or a keyword?
Also, you may want to revisit the feet....they dont jive with the way the ground plane is set up. Also you might want to flex the foot.
The hand with the knife is looking like it has six fingers....the knuckles themselves need a bit of going over as well.
Otherwise very cool!
Best to ya.

[Sartell]

Helzon Ha, you pretty much summed up the critique of the guys sitting beside me~* OHH i forgot to put that last finger/hand part BEHIND the sword ooops.... its the little things, thanx again mike. Oh, and the prompt was peter pan redesign, I don't wanna post my other sketches, their a bit creepy~*

Suuuper boring blend shape lecture this morning and Greek philosophy lecture, so I whipped out the ol' DP (dirty paper?) SB. Comments and crits welcome

[White Rose]

I dont know why, but i really like the way the colors look in this picture...beautiful shading :3

[Tamte]

seeing your Captain hook now i think i would go back and saturate the colors. the light has way to much white in it and its washing out your vividacity. the silhouettes i love and i am very impressed how far out of your comfort zone you went with the design of some of thost. happy to see not as many muscley super chop men in there. keep t up. hope your not hung over but then again i know you arent

[Alday.J]

Wow, nice bunch of work you posted here since the last time I have check your SB ! I really dig the silouhette stuff. Keep posting the good work.
J.

[Sartell]

White Rose I assume you're talking about the white Thank you man I LOVE the toned book, I actually just bought a new one so expect to see a bunch more.

Tamte Good call on the pirate, i'm trying to stay away from oversaturated colors but I may have overcompensated....... and super chop men will never die

Alday J EY thanx, my teacher seemed pretty happy w/ my silhouette stuff so that was a plus, I kinda wanna try it again see how i'd approach it~*

Real quick process shot of my 3-d model, its about to be all rigged up and weighted..... w/ like 60 blend shapes........ ruins my life....comments and crits would be awesome~*

[Helzon]

Hey Joel...great model. The only thing that strikes me as a touch off is that transition between the radius and ulna shrinking down super abrupt to the wrist. I know the gloves compensate..but it just looks a bit like gloves on the ends of stumps. Maybe it's just me.
Oh btw...was the same way about saturated colors for a while....if you balance them against desaturates...you are friggin golden. Take for example a 75 percent gray background...or even what you have for your 3d model here. you can saturate the hell out of things because the desaturate is there to provide a counter balance. Black/White and super saturated red work really nicely together and look badass...look at Jason Chan's LMS2 R1 piece.
Keep it rollin in boss.
Cheers!

[Sartell]

Helzon Once again, right on the nose, I asked my teacher after you said that and she was like "uhhh, yeah" so thanx~* And yeah that sat. problem will be fixed, i'll just update the image when I make the fixes

Sorry to everybody whose posted and I haven't gotten back, animation has been hell and it doesn't help my teachers think I make a good example for critiques in general....... good and bad Here's a drawing I did in visual mathematics (we were plotting points..... i'm like 22.....)
Comments and crits welcome, the anatomy is way off I think the shoulder is too low and the torso is too long but maybe i'm wrong~*

[bdfoster]

the anatomy is way off I think the shoulder is too low and the torso is too long

I think you nailed it. The proportions on the head are particularly out of whack. The features are falling nowhere near where they should for the skull. I also don't get a general feel for the structure of what is happening in the image. Is he wearing some sort of armored suit? If so, use your contours more to show the layers. The area around his left shoulder is a great example-- it's one curved contour across, when you should be able to distiguish the depth of that shoulder/back piece he's wearing. Incidentally, I don't think the perspective on that shoulder piece matches up with the perspective on his back, unless the shoulder piece is intentionally asymmetrical. (and if so, make it MORE so.) There's my $.02 (or a dime and change)

[Sartell]

bdfoster Yeah. It basically was the process of "rendering a turd." Super smooth? Yes~* But I wasn't thinking at all about
anatomy and the structure of this guy, which means that i'm not going to get any better and it is right behind color as my weakest
points. It was the first page of my new SB so I figured i'd go nuts on it Thanks again man, and I wish you tons of luck on
the T-dome~*

Couple drawings, first is the last page of my other SB. The second is a WIP for a "cyber dragon" i'm not sure how thrilled I am about the
drawing but I like the composition. Last is just a drawing I liked for some reason.... I gotta get out of this wierd stylized anatomy
it's starting to look dumb (and by starting I mean it always was~*)

[Helzon]

Hey Joel,
I understand where you're coming from with the armor...bro, could sit there and noodle armor for hours. Ultimately if it's screwed up in the beginning there are few corrections you can make in decorating the armor that erasing it back down to structure won't fix. I.E. your newest guy in armor. His traps must be unimaginably massive to connect to a shoulder that far back and down. Not to mention they are supporting a weee bitty head.
Don't get me wrong though...if it's a head in a massive suit then I can understand that. But what leads me to believe it's not are the muscles on the forearm and ribcage. I think in a sense you are going for MAAAAASSSIIVVEEE.....super thundering ginormous. You can achieve that by relativity. Put something we know to be big in our minds (drawn relatively small) next to your super mega over the top guy, the contrast in visual sizes then will be more apparent.
And you wont have to try so hard to convince us that he's huge.
Would like to see the next two fleshed out more.
Keep it rolling in!
Cheers!
ps. hope this wasn't too harsh...didn't mean it as such.

[bdfoster]

What Mikey said.

Great dynamic comp on the cyber dragon. There's lots of structural things in the drawing that will need some love, and it may screw up the wonderful spiral you've got going on there. I'll let you noodle it to fix the issues you see in the drawing before I chime in too much. I can tell you it's a similar issue I had with my TD piece-- I designed the composition around bad anatomical structures, and then kicked myself when I had to repaint huge sections of the piece. (I'll try and get some wips up in my SB soon)

[Koistar]

Back on Page one, the Monster with the Human strapped to him is very tight. I would love to see that in color with some background information to it. The style is dead on. You did a great job of shading the beast. On page two I am really impressed by the fairy with butterflies. Beautiful piece. Your Ninja for some reason is the only one that feel off. I don't know if it the perspective or the colors, but something is missing. Your pencils of it are really great, but when it goes to color it is missing something.
Overall you have some really great stuff.

KoiStar's: SKETCH-O-RAMA: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78222

[Lake]

Yo Sartell,

cool stuff you got in here - I'm a big fan of your digital work. I don't know what you mean about being weak in color; your paintings look fine to me. I'd worry more about your linework. Your rendering is obviously very good, but it's sometimes difficult to see what shapes you were trying to draw in your pieces. The fairy girl and the first piece in this latest update are good examples of confusing lines, especially under the ribcage in the more recent one and under the leg on the girl. I'd suggest working with many varying line weights to show the light instead of rendering it out.

peace - Panda