Cuppa Joe's Sketchbook- Occasionally Updated...

[Dile_]

Hey man, havent visited this sketchbook for a LOOOONnnnggg while man!
Glad to see your stabilized progress!
Since i dont just wanna come by and act like an asshole giveing you thousands of crits, I stay calm and just thinking of ONE general thing

This one:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1164687238

You pointed out the displacement of that knee , but WHY ON EARTH DIDNT YOU FIXED IT ? ... really , if you can spot a problem, take your ereaser (if you dont have an ereaser, do what you did, but then, make a new studie and make it right ) ohwell, im being picky here! sorry, just something to think of!

~Dile

[Cup of Joe]

(Oncedilenow)Dtemp- Feel free man! if you got crits, go crazy. Yeah, I should have just fixed it, I'll look out for stuff like that in the future. (P.S.- stop changing your name, I can't keep up with you!)

More work on the TeenC. Crit this ya'll. Value stage pretty much done. I've fiddled with colors and I have a base scheme, but I'm not very happy with where it's going, so I'll start over tomorrow. The leg further away looks wierd too, but I'm not sure why. Too short? Gotta work on the hand too.

[Cup of Joe]

Not much time today, just some rough color ideas.

[Idiot Apathy]

Hey man, overall I think it's looking pretty good. Your skintones are working and I don't think you really need to desaturated your midtones like you suggested. If they are too intense I might just desaturate everything. You also mentioned adding in some blues to the shadows, consider why you would do this first of all. The blue would be coming from the sky. Anyways, not sure where I was going with that, but what you will see most often won't be blue. If your skintones were white then it might appear blue. Here what you will probably have as far as 'blue' in the shadow is perhaps a little more redder of a hue and quite a bit less saturation. Experiment with that a bit.

What I think will help this piece most however is if you focus on sculpting the form. Think of shading shapes in these terms - full light and shadow. In between is the terminator and the half light. Think of full light as daytime, shadow as nighttime and the half-light as either dusk or dawn. Just a little bit of daytime or a little bit of nighttime is creeping up on you. Render all shapes this way and in very primitive form, arms as cylinders etc. From there you can move on to more 'details'.

I dunno, I'm rambling. Anyways a picture is worth a 1000 or so words so here is a quickie mini-PO; http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6421/attachmentbl3.jpg

[Serpian]

Yeah, I think the right leg is too short think what would happen if he straightened his left one so that is would be paralel with the right. It would be much longer. Also I think Idiot Apathy's PO works well, that is, if you want the sunlight feel. It DOES look like a beautiful day. But I'm not sure about the composition. The figure's right in the middle and there's about as much space above him as under. Also I don't know if the perspective of the figure is working with that of the horizon. I might be wrong...

This is all oppinions, just so you know!

[-ThePenciler-]

nice stuff here. Looks like you are dedicated when you work. Like you keep going back to it and learning from mistakes and from comments from people and then you work on it some more. Way to take advatage of the power of CA. Looks like you are learning a lot! Keep up the good work.

[Cup of Joe]

IA- Thanks for the tips! Didn't quite get it at first, but the PO helped. Thanks!

Serp- Fixed the leg. Hmmm, hadn't thought about the horizon, I'll check on that. Moved around the composition too.

Penciler- Thanks!

Closing in on the end. I'm not too happy with the BG, so that might change, but most of the big decisions are done, so now it's mostly up to just rendering and other, well, work. Thanks for the help guys!

EDIT- Hmmm, that looks more saturated than it did in PS. I'll look into that.

[Cup of Joe]

Final! Return to regular studies and such tomorrow. Might do some more life drawings.

[Idiot Apathy]

Yo! Looks good man.

Check out his uhm ... arm on our right. Looks like he has two biceps! I think it's probably because his arms are too long, maybe just that one. In any case, check out your own arm, flex your bicep - there isn't that much space between the actual muscle and where the tendons connect to the bones in your forearm. I dunno.

[invinciblewombat]

you've improved massively throughout this sketchbook man. this one http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1165287837 came out really cool. keep on pushing.

[amer-nazri]

hey there! Your studies are looking very good! Reminds me that i have to start drawing gestures again. Keep it up!

All the best,
Amer-nazri

[OBX]

I've also decided to put off the purchase of the wii, perhaps indefinately. I regained a big chunk of my day when I gave up videogames, and I'm not ready to give that up again, at least not yet.

Good for u. Art over addiction!

or is art actually addiction.... i think not.... becoz addictions are counter productive.

anyhow, good stuff. like idiot said watch the anatomy on that arm.

peace out bro.

[Cup of Joe]

IA- Ouch, that one slipped past me. Thanks for the warning! I might work on it more even though the contest is over.

Wombat- Thanks for dropping by!

Amer-nazri- Thanks!

OBX- Yep. One of the first things I did when I got serious was give up anything I was addicted to that would slow me down. First I moved my art station to a room with no computers, then videogames went. Art first!

Today- Life drawings of whatever was near me. Starting the first steps toward value, but I'm still not as confident with line as I want to be.

[Cup of Joe]

Today- Life drawing on the bus and with friends. Oh, how I love you moleskine. Apologies for yesterday's severe lack of update.

Maaan I need christmas break. I feel unhealthily burnt-out.

[DanielC]

Hey cup!
sorry for missing the upadtes.
the life drawings are nice. Something that might help is thinking more about planes instead of lines. Everything's made of planes.
The colored piece is good too. But i second idiot apathy said about the biceps.
Keep working !

[frog and *BAM*]

Dude you've made a TON of headway. The amount of motion in ;your sketches is awesome, and you have some slick painting skillz too!
Keep up the great work man.

[Cup of Joe]

Dan- Thanks! I'll do some plane studies soon.

Frog- Thanks alot man!

Sorry for the silence. I had a few really bad drawing days, so today I decided to just plow through the suck. And that means life drawings!

Today- liiiiiife. I don't know if it helped, but I tried to think about planes.

[Cup of Joe]

Had some trouble accessing my thread tonight, but I got it. The Break is so close I can taste it! YES! I'll also start on the new T challenge soon.

Today- Just some simple life drawings. Heading back to line for a while, I think. I also think I'm improving my elipses.

[Cup of Joe]

First day of break, so I got some solid drawing done. tried a new method to get mne started on stream of consciousness stuff. I drop a few drops of ink on the paper, then blow it around with a straw, though I'm still getting used to drawing from imagination.

Today- Some life drawing, and then imagination with a bridgeman study and some SPs thrown in. Pretty happy with how most of it turned out.

[Cup of Joe]

Merry Christmas!

Just getting over a cold, so that held me back for a few days, but I'm back! Some more finished things today.

Today- WIP of a OFDW study. Pretty happy with this one. Plus a crappy photo of an oil painting that isn't dry yet.

[Cup of Joe]

Today- A 'lil life drawing and s doodle that was originally to be for the TC, but I'm not so fond of it now.

Scan of yesterday's oil will come tomorrow.

[Cup of Joe]

More life drawing. Really happy with the likeness in these.

[Cup of Joe]

More life drawing. I'm trying to get more variation in my faces.
I have a lot on my to-do list. There's oils, more work on the OFDW, peer project, TCs, the sketchlings, and I should probably do my homework. I need to set some priorities.

[Cup of Joe]

Back to imagination. Trying to get the sketchlings started again, for reals this time. I feel a lot more confidant now, and I'm happy with my thumbs. More tomorrow!

In non-drawing news, I finally got a lot of music that's been on my list. The Thermals, Clue to Kalo, Two Gallants, Birdmonster, Bound Stems, they're all so good, and I still have more on my list!

[DanielC]

Hey cup. Good updates.
Your line's getting confident and accurate.
Also, when you shade always keep in mind that when you're shading, you're also shaping the object/cahracter/whatever....So you're hatching direction is ones of hte most important tool you have to get a good form.
I know you already know this, but it's something that's really important when drawing.
maybe do some things a bit more complexe from time to time too. Like machinery or cloth folds.
keep it up monsieur !

[mentler]

Movement and weight improving all the time... keep up the great work in 07

[mondegreen]

making some serious progress. I'd really like to see you do some planar studies of the face. Planar studies of the head and face in different perspectives, and of different facial emotions. Trust me it works.

I'll be back to check on further progress.

Oh and one other thing, when you're going to throw values on top of something... try this next time. Break it up into 4 different values. Try throwing down your darkest darks first. If you do this... then you pretty much limit your problem to 3 values. 3 Is much easier to think about than 4. Also if you're going to use tone try not to define the edges of something with hard lines.... you wanna make your lines the same value as the interior value along that edge. In that way you can make it pop off the page and not flatten out. The difference between something flat and something 3 dimensional is generally very subtle.

Anyway, I'm out
~Ben

[Cup of Joe]

DanC - Thanks! Direction is something I should work on. I've been meaning to do some cloth studies, and machines are something I should put into my mental library.

Mentler- Thanks bone daddy!

Mondegreen- I know, planes. It's on my list, I swear! As for the second part, they're both things I was just starting to realize on my own, but that simplifies it a little. Thanks!

Today--- More work on my main character for the sketchlings. The front-most leg and the hip/crotch area need a lot of work, mainly because I have no idea what I'm doing there. Can you tell I recently watched the Marko DVD? (I can't stop drawing striped pants!)

[drd]

Much improvement since page 1 =) I especially enjoy the master study of the man holding the boulder, I can't paint that well in Ps yet...=(

Interesting pose on that last one.

You posted in mine so I'm returning the favor =D Keep it up!

[stalsby]

nice studies!! and progression!