end of sketchbook, come see my new one under the username AlexC

**entdroid** · November 15th, 2006, 05:21 PM

Happy belated birthday blanq!!! I hope you had a great day

I love this study, the fabric looks so real: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1163332665
You're getting there with some of the figures, but remember to watch the proportions! I'm pretty sure the fifth guy (counting from the left) on the top of the last image is on steroids

Arms and elbows in the first image look really nice.
Keep it up!
Cheers,
entdroid

**Brendan N** · November 15th, 2006, 05:35 PM

Yo blanq,

Good stuff!
Great that you're pushing yourself with the pencils like this, your progress is stunning!
Think the main thing troubling some of your faces is the eyes - work a bit on em, and these'll be cracking mate.
ciao dude!

- d.

**Lee W** · November 17th, 2006, 11:23 PM

okay, we need to see a nice finished piece

put all your studies to a test

oh, have you try using charcoal pencils, carbon pencils, or pastel pencils? they are great if you can keep them from smudging.

**bhanu** · November 18th, 2006, 01:51 AM

yeah i think I agree with rodrgio, you are doing great for 14 year old. I drew shit at that time. Really good kid. Keep up the great work.

**blanquish** · November 19th, 2006, 05:48 AM

kublay: thanks, nice too see a pro here

asoir: I like the sarcasm

One day maybe..
dile:thanks, i ordered the skillful huntsman, concept design one, and mas creaturas(not sure what its called), should come this week :fingerscrossed
entdroid: thanks, I had a great day, I forgot to mention: they were all studies, from bridgeman and michelangelo, my figures arent that good, lol. But yes, he is on steroids

thanks

brendan: eye studies for you coming up, thanks

Lee: finished piece here, hops its good enough

bhanu: Im actually 15, as of last tuesday, but thanks

dammit, im getting lazier, I blame xbox360 and splinter cell double agent.
really, really crap update, sorry, better stuff next, working on some wip stuffs
thanks again for all the comments

**blanquish** · November 19th, 2006, 05:49 AM

the finished stuffs
from life, 5 hours
the photo really flattens it
from the portrait class, everyone said i had the best likeness

, but my fav was by an older lady, absolutely brilliant, but the angles didnt capture the likeness well

**rodrigo!** · November 19th, 2006, 06:04 AM

nice stuff man! i like that its really expressive. i think in this forum the emphasis is always on an academic style but i like to see different stuff. that said, the ear may be too far from the eyes, looks like her cranium is a lil too big

**Lee W** · November 19th, 2006, 11:16 PM

good job on the life drawing, but as rodrigo has mentioned, the skull looks to be a bit too wide. It looks like it was drawn with vine charcoal.

**blanquish** · November 22nd, 2006, 04:45 AM

no design studio press books yet

I bought Gears of war today, top game, the emphasis is on fun, and it succeeds in a lot of aspects.
Havent got xbox live yet, but will eventually..

rodrigo!
hey mate, personally with the freedom with charcoal, the "overly tight" render doesnt appeal to me. To really flesh out a personality in a person, I reckon you need to enphesise certain features in the face(eyes especially), to capture something.
My teacher said that her best portraits were the ones when the person looked like they were about to talk or laugh.
In terms of portait artists, Lukias and Andrew Jones are my favs, because of the creativity they possess, David Kessan and yourself

round out my fav 4.

The reason some of it is loose is because I ran out of time, but I also wanted the emphasis to be on the face, not bogged down on the figure.
I agree 100% on the skull. Glad you picked up on it, because it kept nagging me throughout the entire portrait.
I think that its because I lack consistency. Some areas like the right eye I though were good, but the other eye and ear let it down.

Lee: I used a lot of different charcoals including a hb and 2b charcoal pencil
and white and black conte for highlights and dark spots.thanks

really pathetic dump, some from ref/life, gotta fill the pages more
0.5 2b mech, 0.3 b mech and 0.7 2b mech, on a4 paper
besides that I have been experimenting with watercolour, gotta practice to get out of the crap beginning stage

**entdroid** · November 23rd, 2006, 01:38 PM

Hey man, you just keep getting better. I really like the eye studies form the first image. It's really helpful in those kinda studies making the whole eyeball, you should try that out

The sp with the hat in the last one is great! Just watch a bit the eyes, they're a bit different. The lady's back is looking nice too, but her shoulders and neck are too wide, which is the most frequent flaw in your figures, so I think you should be specially careful with that...
Keep it up!

**Lee W** · November 25th, 2006, 05:07 PM

good stuff as always

I like the shark and octopus ...

**rodrigo!** · November 26th, 2006, 05:27 AM

nice sketches man, the sp's still look good as a drawing on its own. the girl back view- remember to consider the rib cage ! think of the barrel form then the cylinders of the spinal muscles as they go down to the waist bone.

**blanquish** · November 27th, 2006, 03:37 AM

damn; still no dsp books, im gonna email them and give them a piece of my mind!!#://
anyway, I have been slacking. Gears of War is the most fun Ive had in a long while, and I got live up and running//My gamertag is steak fat, if ya wanna join me to your friends list, ill gladly give you a game.;p
Last saturday was the last portrait drawing class. We worked on tone paper, mine turned out crap because i smudged it, had a crap angle and the whole face was lit up on that side so it wasnt very interesting. I did 2 thumbs on cheap paper which I really liked sketching on, but My mum chucked it out =(.
some ref/life/head

entdroid- hi
the eyes are purposely crosseyed lol, Im gonna do more studies, but thanks for pointing it put, gracias

Lee thanks a bunch
Rodrigo! thanks, as i said, more female studies to come.

ok, ive come to a stage where Im not sure where to go with my art. I think I would like to do more portrait work, and more industrial design bots and ships. I would like some indepth crits on what is my weakest stuff( dont hold back, if its shite, tell me its shite) If there is something you would like me to do more of, holla, k?.
I know I far from perfect and have a huge journey ahead of me, in a few weeks I have long holidays(6 weeks) and i want to knock off a ton of work and improve a lot,

**Lee W** · November 27th, 2006, 06:09 AM

I would like to see the rendering pushed further along with more in-depth portrait/figure and animal/insect studies.

the paper used for these sketches .

.. is that painter's masking paper?

**Israfel856** · November 27th, 2006, 04:40 PM

Hey Alex, guess who? I have to say, I'm impressed. Your skill at drawing has increased drastically since I was around. I guess all the hard work is paying off. Anyway, I guess I'll try give some crit, but I'm not an artist. Here I go....

Although your self-portraits are becoming more like yourself, they still aren't quite there yet. I'm not sure how you could improve this other then practice. Still, drastic improvements have been made. You're making me feel bad about my lack of progress in English! (Which I should be working at)

In other news, I've added you on my friends list. Why didn't you tell me you had Xbox Live, nay, a 360? I know I haven't exactly been keeping you guys informed regularly either though. Please excuse my laziness! I'll have to play Sam and you at Gears of War sometime.

Anyway, keep up the good work! You determination is commendable.

By the way, if you hadn't figured out, it's Ben.

**Zynic** · November 27th, 2006, 05:33 PM

Hey there Blanq

My apologies for being so "not here" lately

I've been doing some other stuff.

Well, let's get to business.
Your stuff is looking great, as usual

But since you said that you were a bit undecisive of what you wanted to do, I have a suggestion.

Make a project of your own

It could be anything, a game idea with which you create concept art, a portrait, a landscape-painting. Do whatever you want to do.

Come up with an idea, plan it and execute it using all the skill that you've collected so far.
When you're finished, put it up and let us crit it

This way you'll most likely find out your weak points, and at the same time you might have something to add to a portfolio?

Ah well, it's just a suggestion

Have a good one mate!

**Johnny Badass** · November 27th, 2006, 11:28 PM

Hello alex,

I reckon that latest self portrait in blue looks more like you than most of the others do. All in all everything looks pretty good except I have to say that I find most of it to be kind of samey. You should do more varied pieces in different mediums, use darker lines, more stuff in pen, etc.

Although, I still stick by this,

Originally Posted by Johnny Badass

You rarely draw hands in your pictures.

You should draw more hands.

Gewd stuffs.

**blanquish** · November 30th, 2006, 07:31 AM

haha, dsp books arent here.
Been playing a lot of Gears of war, its a great game, finished it but will replay it- co op of course
oldnoobie- I was trying to work on line so please excuse the crappy rendering. Sometimes I dont push it hard enough even though I know I can.
the brown paper was cheap paper that they used to wrap up the expensive paper I bought, it was free basically, but i got a kick out of using it, great stuff

israfel. hey ben. hows Wales treating ya?
Self portraits are hard, one thing I lack is consistency, and Im not a great draftsman, well compared to some members here Im pitiful lol( rodrigo Im looking at you lol)
play you over gow if your ever online
thanks
zynic; hey mate, excellent idea, and I am(will) start a project very shortly(check some pre-lim sketches of creatures in this/ upcoming posts
Ill explain a bit more about it later, and I want to do a lot of brainstorming now, but I already have some ideas, and inspiration sources.
thanks

JohhnyBadass: haha cheers sam, the blue one looks like me?
I know, consistency!!!
hands for you, you stinky bastard#!!

**entdroid** · November 30th, 2006, 12:05 PM

Your fabric studies are really cool.
On the portraits, you should really start considering getting the construction and proportions right before rendering. Well, that applies to everything really.
On the digi sp, a base color of medium value (it can be any color, depending on your chosen palette, in this case blue or cyan would've done) would have helped. And some of the textured brushes of the bg don't really add anything to the piece, they just make it look random and unfinished. But it's really nice that you're experimenting with non-realistic color schemes and a palette that's pretty monochromatic, which lets you focus on the values a bit more, you have a range that's a bit too wide there, but it's a nice start.
I don't know much about industrial design or stuff like that, but t would be nice that you do some more studies of those kinda objects you're interested in, trying to draw it from different angles and views. You could also try to do different flat views of a design (like orthos, sort of) and then try to do rendered images of it.
I'd also like to see a final image, fully rendered from you sometime.
Keep it up blanq, you're constantly improving

**Zynic** · December 1st, 2006, 05:25 PM

Hey hey hey ;D
Cool update once again

Lots of fun stuff!

Just keep drawing ^^ Always improving!

**blanquish** · December 1st, 2006, 06:12 PM

ha more regular updates, who would have though
entdroid- i agree on all of those crits, Im starting a series of landscapes, not exactly finished because they will be speed paints..
Im waiting on the design studio press books, which contain a lot of tech stuff, so that should help, and ill have a look for some references. Thanks as always

zynic thanks

these are some characters for my project.
SOme inspiration taken from the book faerie, a book i found on my bookshelf with amazingly beautiful illustrations.
the other page is a bus page, but the face on the left from my mind, the rest from life, and the last a speed landscape paint, using several refs( my dad has literally hundreds because he is a landscape painter), expect more, i learnt a lot from this. CLouds unreffed

**Zynic** · December 1st, 2006, 06:18 PM

Nice mate

I'm glad to hear that you got started on a project ^^
Cool ideas for the characters, the guy with a mushroom on his head looks a bit stiff, but since it's just a preliminary sketch, it's probably allright

Nice digi btw! It has a nice oil-feeling to it ^^

Keep it up!

**entdroid** · December 4th, 2006, 06:09 PM

This one is gorgeous! I think is the best digi I've seen from you. Some of the brushes are still a bit random, but overall they're much more assertive than on the portrait stuff, most of them are actually contributing to the feel of looseness and expressiveness of the piece, and this is a huge step!

Keep it up!

**blanquish** · December 5th, 2006, 05:49 AM

zynic; thanks bro

entdroid: thanks, I enjoyed that one, it was after a day of no drawing and I needed to satisfy that last minute pang of joy before the day ended. Im working on another one, however painting grass is kinda hard digital.
This is some project stuff-
the reason for all the white spaces is because I'm going to write a description/story.
Im really glad Im doing this.
So far Ive written a explanation on what its all about, and Ill write more(type), it up in the holidays.
some sketches and studies as well

really enjoying sketching with pen( 0.1)
its worth noting that they are all crap scans, especially the frog dude, it moved a bit while scanning =(

**DARAF** · December 5th, 2006, 11:03 AM

These studies are looking good man. Frog dude rocks

**asoir** · December 5th, 2006, 11:12 AM

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1165014755
where the fuck did that come from? saved!
awesome.

**Soja** · December 5th, 2006, 11:15 AM

Hey Blanquish!

Really enjoying ur ink quick sketches...think if u do more of them u'll improove pretty fast! Keep u away from thinking too much like when u use a pencil!
and like asoir! the color one ist brilliant!!!
Keep on goin!!!

**Dile_** · December 5th, 2006, 11:36 AM

I feel sorry for the guy who bothered voteing you down to 3 stars Blanquish, however, im to down
right now to write a comment with real crits.. all I can say is that your stuff has become so much better under the last weeks.
My crit, just genereal thing would be to length your strokes! dont be so tiny when your shadeing

good shit man, and I havent voted you up yet I think, maybe I have... but whatever, I want you to know your one of few teenager around that deservs 5 stars... keep it up friend

~Dile.

**Craig Houghton** · December 6th, 2006, 10:08 PM

man.. I've missed out on a lot of serious evolution. not only is there a lot of great stuff on this page in terms of the technical stuff, but more importantly you're really communicating. The reclining male in #155 and your shark sp in #147 are perfect examples of a raw beauty (there's a growing edge to it) that I bet will come to really characterize your work.

Also, I can definitely see that you discovered Froud's work. It's actually great stuff. I think he's had a huge trickle-down influence in illustration.

In the latest update, the lines on that horse-head are fantastic.

Fantastic work.

-Craig