voxelfog's sketchbook

[voxelfog]

figure studies using ref from characterdesigns.com
and some studies from Mentler's Book of Bones thread. Thanks Mentler!

[voxelfog]

value / bounced light study, after Scott Robertson's "Rendering Matte Surfaces" DVD
and some more Bridgeman studies; trying to understand the overlapping and interaction of muscles in the arm. Still need much more work here.

[voxelfog]

more bridgeman arm studies and then a page of random crap

[Mischeviouslittleelf]

Wow, some good studies here mate, really liking the latest stuff, is that hogarth? da vinci? I never do bookstudies myself, so I can never tell those cats apart. Well anyhoot, I looked through here a bit, and it would be cool to see you do some real conceptwork. Pick a setting, do some research and go for it man!

Come on cats, let's craaaaaawl!

-E

[voxelfog]

elf: some bridgeman, some from mentler's book of bones thread.

Here's some more arm studies from Sarah Simblet's "Anatomy for the Artist", and some Alchemy sketches. I Alchemy.

[animosapien]

hi voxel,

cool sketchbook
liked your blue line anatomy study....in terms of strokes...cool strokes...

and ofcourse the first post..
watever it is..it looks awesome..
especially those bright red circle at the bottom..
is that a ferrari engine powered creature..
cool nyways..
work more on anatomy...and dont make those sketches beautiful..
cause the trick is to 'study'..
hope my comment will help..sorry if it is harsh..didnt mean to..
bestaluck man..

ive got something in my sketchbook..
feel free to visit and shout loud..
take care

[animosapien]

wow..alchemy stuffs awesome..
i agree..
thats a fabulous tool..
thanks android for that cool youtube demo..

[voxelfog]

more alchemy sketches and a city block painting I started playing around with.

[voxelfog]

thumbnails. lots of thumbnails.
I'm obsessed with shapes and silhouettes all of the sudden.

[Man Made God]

Wow, those are some nice designs on Alchemy! I tried it a while ago and couldn't really get the feel for it...

Your studies are looking good, but on those environments I think it would help a lot if you used higher opacities. You're getting too many semi transparent blobs, it looks as if you're trying to block in values with a blender brush.

Let's see some more

[voxelfog]

Man Made God: thanks. I'll try higher opacities.

Another update: a bunch of random things from my scattered brain.

[voxelfog]

took one of the enviro thumbs a bit further

[voxelfog]

J.S. Sargent head studies and random sketches

[voxelfog]

faces; some from books, some from life, some from imagination.
...and my iguana was standing still, so I was able to do a quick study of her. She's pretty fun to draw. I should draw her more often.

[voxelfog]

some shitty self portraits, in oils.
I'll do better next time.
I'm moving to Seattle in 3 weeks. My plan is, once I get there to do a self-portrait every day.

[voxelfog]

some quick, silly sketches before I go to work. Didn't have time to fill out the whole page.

[voxelfog]

caterpillar study. Kinda got bored with this one

[voxelfog]

bob marley

[voxelfog]

There's freezing rain outside, so I spent the morning doing another SP in oils.
starting to maybe look like me a bit... well better than last time, at least. I still don't know how to mix colors though.

[saa]

Great work man. I see that you can achieve alot. As for oil painting, try to focus on values first, meaning use black and white only. When you got used to the medium you can start working with limited palettes.

A good limited palette which is working for me (for portraits) is
titanium white
yellow ochre
alizarin crimson
(burnt umber)
(ultramarine blue)
ivory black

you can add the umber and the ultramarine when you feel comfortable working with the other ones. Limiting your palette will help you focus.

Hope this helps.

[voxelfog]

saa: thanks for the advice. I will try out that palette next time. On that last SP, I used a kinda limited palette: titanium white, prussian blue to cool down the shadows (this made everything a little too green for my liking, so next time I think I'll go w/ ultramarine), burnt umber, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre. I'll definitely continue the value studies too. I just wanted to try out some color.

Speaking of value studies, here's a digital one of Barack Obama. I've been using GIMP for my digital stuff lately, mostly just because I'd rather run Linux instead of Vista on my tabletPC. It's been interesting. The brush features suck, so I've kept my brush very simple. I think it's helpful because it forces me to focus on painting and value, rather than brushes. I do miss Painter and Photoshop tho.

On this value study, I intentionally kept my brush opacity high (>80%) throughout, and didn't do any blending. I picked each value from the value gradient rather than from the image. I just really wanted to focus on value, and picking the right value. It was interesting at least...

[Katzenminze]

hey there! your alchemy stuff is very interesting too! i love those green ones, they look a bit like watercolor paintings,really nice!
thanks for commenting in my sketchbook!

[voxelfog]

ugh... can't sleep. So, here's a painting of an old woman.

[Samuel Gray]

hey man thanks for the comment on my sb. keep up the work man. i plan on doing the self portrait thing if i can find the time!

[voxelfog]

another sick-ass self portrait. Trying out some charcoals....
bleh. Fail.
Glasses fuck me up. I think next time I'll put in my contacts. And pick a different position for the mirror / light.

[Blackhawk]

Hi Voxelfrog, sorry it took me so long to get into your thread, but I made it. I'm curious, how long do you spend on each piece you work on? If you are only spending acouple hours, I'd advise that you sit down and really work something out over a full day, or a week perhaps.

I'm seeing it in your portraits especially where it looks like you aren't really observing the subject as strongly as you could. Some of the issues I'm seeing are with the mouth for instance. You need to always keep in mind that there is a front and two sides to the mouth. It doesn't just sit flat on the face. It wraps the head like a tie would wrap around a neck. Also, there are proportion issues happening, heads stretching and getting too long and the axis' on the faces look off in a few of them.

Also, a general issue I'm seeing with your forms is you aren't thinking in terms of big shapes first. It looks to me like you are trying to establish small shapes first, then work around them, like the noses for instance. The nose is a classic example of a form that needs to have all of it's major planes defined before moving into the details, such as the nostrils. I'm seeing it happen in the cheeks as well, many of the portraits are coming off a bit flat. Establish that big picture before details are brought in.

With that said, you are on the right track and this wasn't meant as a discouraging or scathing critique. I like the variety in study you are doing and it's important to touch all bases, but slowdown with your studies for now and work on speed later when you've established a good foundation, and really work to understand the form, understand values, and get some intensive, hard fought studies under your belt, whether from life, the model, or master copies. You'll learn a lot from taking your time.