...::Caskin's Creature-book::...

[Caskin]

Decided to re-vamp this sketchbook a little since I think it's by far the best thing I got going for me art wise. Hope to learn lots.

Greetings all! The name's Bethany, I'm a 18 yr old girl currently in highschool, but I have hopes of becoming a concept artist for the film business someday. Mostly this is going to be me working on some personal projects, you'll notice reoccuring characters if you pay attention.

Updates are rather sporadic, but I'll be trying my best to keep posting whatever I'm currently working up.

And if you're currently reading this, thanks for stopping by!

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[Slash.exe]

Very nice work mate. You got talent and at the age of 16 that is a plus. I'm in the same area as you, just finishing highschool and want to be a concept artist but im no where near you. Just keep it up. Don't stop drawing and you'll get there. I made the mistake of stopping and now that I want to start again, I have gone back to how good I could only draw in middle school. Keep working for it mate and you will get your reward. Post more please.

~Slash.exe

[worxe]

I be a 16 yr old aspiring concept artist, currently focusing on finishing high-school at the moment. I really hope to work in the film business someday, specifically as a concept artist, but any job making movies works for me!

At the age of 16 theres no right for you to be shy about your already developed and thorough skill with color, values and form =P. Deffinently post more, your work here is already quite intriguing and dont be intimidated by some of the others that come here, its a place of learning, not a place of fearing anothers skill.

As for your current works, add more than just the head shots and/or try your hand at environments and scenery, incorporate your creatures with them, create illustrations aswell as right now its two head shots and a creature design chart (particularly good ones mind you). Another consideration is to attend Life Drawing Classes if you dont already, while at the moment you seem to have a good know-how of how muscles will work, flesh will react to movement etc, Life drawing can still further help in realising form from flat as you practice with it.

We are all students here, and your sketchbook should be your forte, so dont be afraid to post other works here aswell, not just paintings but even sketches/doodles. Think of it as a visual introduction to your imagination, people can get a better idea of where your coming from, what you hope for, what you want to achieve in your work and style of your work.

Hope to see more from you and as Slash.exe said, don't stop drawing, judging by these works you owe it to yourself and your own imagination to keep going.

[Evxyza92]

good job with the stuff im 14 but i suck anyway the stuff is madgood keep posting and with the dragon heads try to reference three aniamals hawks snakes and cheetahs they have very simialr features to dragons

[silvestri99]

Really, really nice start to your s.b. I like the paintings and your simple use of color. Keep posting, I'd like to see more!!

[term8or]

Nothing to be ashamed about here - I wish I was as good as you when I was 16.

[Caskin]

Thanks for the comments guys! I bet I could pull a few pages from my little sketchy-book.

Slash.exe - Thanks muchly! I'll most definitely keep going.

Fafnir - If only there was some kind of Life Drawing class around here! Here being middle-of-nowhere Colorado. What exactly are "Life Drawing Classes" like? I always see artists with gazillions of such said life drawings, it has me really curious just what it's all about.
Y'know, I think I have a few environment pratices tucked away somewhere. Thanks so much for stopping in, and commenting too!

Evxyza92 - Thanks!... Ah, I remember when I was 14, I sucked then too XD. But then I discovered the internet... and Ba-woomf! Talent explode! I guess it just takes a little mind-prodding to unstick from the suck for anyone.

silvestri99 - Many thanks! I actually just got into fully fleshing out drawings with color, aka... painting. I'm hoping to see where I can go with it.

term8or - As do many people I bet. Thanks for stopping by!

:::::::::::::::::

Some sketchy-ma-doodles and old environment practices.
#1: Everyone so often something 'humanish' sneaks on to my drawing paper.
#2-3: Good examples of typical sketchbook pages.... Chaos! My scanner almost completely washed them out however.
#4: If Hydra's (or something like them) were real animals this guy would be a sub-species. My brain thinks that way whenever I draw anything.
#5-6-7: Environment practices, drawn in my painter 9 free demo, from early september. Personal fave being the mountain range!

[worxe]

-edit- Grab a drink or something to eat, its a bit of a read, heh.

Life drawing classes are the study of the human anatomy, so yes, it'll involve drawing naked people. You can use pretty much any media your able to bring with but I suggest starting out with either charcoal (condensed charcoal, not that crappy woodfire charcoal if you can avoid it ) along with some decent paper thatll give tooth to the charcoal, Printing paper will do just fine. Otherwise a pencil or if you have an assortment of graphite pencils already, those will do aswell. As for the paper, bigger is better (just dont go insanely big) because you have more room to practice with your strokes and line work, you can stand back from your drawing and work from the bigger picture alot easier (also decent excersise for your arms ).

Back to the naked people thing, seeing as your 16, im not sure how much trouble you might have getting into life drawing classes as there may be age restrictions, but if you have a good and solid folio of this kindof work you may be able to convince them otherwise that you are a mature person to attend life drawing and certainly have your artistic wits about ya, and hopefully theyll let you in. They may not let you show them though, which'll suck and in that regard you'll have to wait till your 18 (or above? thats minimum age restrictions in general I think) - having said that, keep looking whenever you can, there has to be a class out there that isnt stingy . Life drawing is crucial to everyone aspiring to get into the art industry, if you can find one around your area, just a small studio that hosts it for a few bucks every day you go that you can attend for about 2 hours and get some sketches or drawings in will help a great deal if you put enough time into it, its not a quick fix or anything, it'll be something you do perhaps for all your drawing life time, but every time you do it you'll be that much better with constructing your figures and a better knowledge of the human anatomy - thats when you can butcher it and change it into creatures like your already doing (first page) . Also, there are some people that may be shy about going to a place where they draw naked people or may feel kindof embarressed, dont be, the people that go there will be going for the same reasons I said above if not more.

Also, something to look out for is Tutored and Untutored, im not sure what the going rate is usually there at colorado, but Tutored classes involve a teacher or supervisor to guide you with your studies pretty much, just like a school teacher, this can be significantly more expensive. Untutored is hitting the ground running and getting into the drawings without a designated teacher there to help/guide you. If you feel confident about drawing from life then by all means go untutored, besides, other artists there may be able to lend you a hand occasionally aswell.

When you get the time, talk to your parents, they may be iffy about their son/daughter going to a class where they draw naked people, you'll just have to try and convince them it'll be a part of your studies and its important you get in some life drawing because it helps you study form, value, line, texture, shape, foreshortening, proportions, so on so forth. Life drawings are also important to have in your folio for job interviews because they'll be looking for your ability at constructing your figures.

So at the moment that could be your priority is looking for a life drawing class near ya, *sometimes* schools will even host life drawing classes. If your doing art at your highschool, talk with your teacher if he/she knows where to find some or if they host it at the school. If you plan on going to university, they should deffinently have life drawing classes available.


Now, to your current pictures here! Evxyza92 mentioned about studying skeletons. This is probably one of the best things you can do right about now if you don't already. To figures, there is knowing the flesh, theres knowing the underlying muscles and then theres knowing the bone structure. The bone structure is litterely what you would take advantage of when constructing your figures (along with your gesture lines - well get to that later) of creatures, dragons, humans, anything. Studying animal skeletons will be a great help in creating new creature designs, cats, dogs, snakes, birds (espescially - regarding dragons), lizards - including dinosaurs if you can get a few pictures from books, any animal you can think of. All of it helps to the collection of ideas and 'mixing and matching' of features from all these animals to create new ones on the page and at the same time understanding how it'll all work together.

Your environment pieces could use more work however, avoid using too much black as it can flatten your work, instead using a more desaturated tone of the color your working with works better as a shadow and vise versa (more saturated for under direct light) (this, looking at your first enviro). Believe it or not, if you have a metallic object like your fathers car keys, putting them under a light on the table and sketching that can help you with shadow and light play, how metallic objects look under a strong light, how they reflect, so on so forth. Be creative with your studies, think of anything that you think can help you down the track by simply drawing it and noting the interesting features of its surface or what it sits on, again how light or shadow plays with its form, texture and color, drawing from life is probably the best practice you can get that reality offers.

And I'd have to agree, your 3rd enviro is also a favourite out of the 3, but I reckon you can push the values (darks and lights) further particularly in the foreground and adding in some interesting objects to keep the eye following where you want the eye to go. This is referring to focal points, I was going to leave composition for a bit later but since I've brought it up now I'll give you a link that I use to learn about landscape composition that a person on this site had given; Johannes_Vloothuis: Landscape Composition Rules (Page 1 of 23)

You dont have to get stuck into it straight away, for now focus on drawing from life and not having to worry about too many rules clogging the system, but its certainly something to consider down the track because composition is the one thing that makes, or breaks the effect of an illustration for just about anything.


Also, feel free to take a look at the Tutorials, Tips & Tricks section on these boards, it contains invaluable information on figure studies, composition, color, so on so forth. One tutorial I really think you might want to see is Prometheus|ANJ's General Art Concepts Tutorial - when you get the time.

Anyway, heres hoping I haven't made you completely bored at this point , so If you want me to elaborate further, please say so and I'd be happy to do so.

Again, hope to see more from you, keep those sketches coming!

[Caskin]

Wooo! very long read! thanks for taking the time to write it all out Fafnir. Very very helpful indeed. I'll have to do some hunting around to see if anyone offers such said classes, maybe the college in the next town holds open life drawing.

Animal anatomy actually has been something I've been intensely studying for the past year or so. I have several books and such... I guess it comes with my natural creature love.

More sketches, I certainly took a long time updating again. XD

#1: Personal creature design, trying to figure out some plausible tack and such for them.
#2: Used my dog for some quick hind-leg sketches, and a forleg canine skeleton from memory.
#3: Bored with a pen! little doggies started bounding all over the place.
#4: Oh hey! spotted this is my art folder, drawn a while back, thought I'd share it.

[smuli]

The coloured creature pics look magnificent! It's hard for me to find anything to crit, you seem to have construction and values in your backbone. In some cases, the lines don't seem too rythmic though (draw them long and smooth, try to get them right on the first go). But awesome work, the werewolf picture is my ultimate favourite of your pencil sketches.

Keep it up!

[worxe]

Hey caskin, damn, your also already into the get-go of planning your drawings (looking at all the dog sketches), doing these kinds of sketches helps greatly down the track when you want to do illustrations, to choose the right figure, the right pose, the right composition for your drawings/paintings. Also with creating new creatures, if their anatomy is plausible as you mentioned with sketch #1 . We can also see how the animal anatomy study has paid off and enjoying studying animals is certainly a bonus .

Smuli brought up a good point, just elaborating on what he said here, try to draw your lines more loosely, it gives your lines a more 'relaxed' feel to them, sounds pretty corny but I can assure you it gives a more dynamic feel to your drawings . Gesture sketches - much like alot of the ones you were doing with your dog, but in particular, the human in the top left, thats a good gesture with good weight to the direction hes arching to, not flyswatted or awkward at all.The Gesture sketches can help with this, as will the life drawing classes if you can get em (the people that will pose at the classes will do so in a particular way to get the best gestures usually). The more gestures you can do the better, you can only improve from it. I have a bad tendancy to draw very meticulously line-by-line and not work from larger and more smoother lines/gesture lines, something I still have to work on. While your linework isnt too meticulous at all, it can still be improved with those gesture studies . If you're having difficulty finding a life drawing class or simply waiting, alternatively drawing people as they walk past you is good practice. Noting their expressions, (ie: how can you tell when a person is happy or angry, its pretty obvious but with everyone its a little different and keeping a tab on these when you draw them is also good practice) when they talk to others and their movements is also very important if you want to mimic that same 'feeling' with the figures you draw.

Also adding onto what I mentioned about color and your landscape pieces, reserve your whites to the most brightest area that is exposed to most of the light, and your blacks to the darkest shadow that has no light at all reaching it, it'll continue to add form to what you paint and the brightest areas will be the focal point and lead your audiences eye to them.

Hope to see more from you, keep up the good work!

[Caskin]

smuli - Thanks muchly! Yup, the werewolf is my favorite too.

fafnir - Thanks so much (again) for stopping by! Hey, maybe if my siblings are up to it, they'll let me sketch them a couple times over. XD And I just realized I only have 5 pages left in my little sketchbook! Any suggestions on sketchbook shopping? Brands? sizes? good stuff like that.


Oh noes... I'm starting to run out of art steam!

Decided to draw my fave digimon Antylamon tweaked to my liking for the fun of it. Aside from that my brain is really tired and fresh out of ideas... feh.

[Caskin]

Having run into a wall because of schoolwork as of late I haven't had the chance to post, let alone draw in the past few weeks. Hope that changes soon, I've managed to eek out a few sketchs though.
And one digital piece I'm hoping to finish sometime in the near future. It's large width wise, so I uploaded it elsewhere.

Critiques and Comments greatly desired!

[Caskin]

Well, looks like I'm going to definitely be having some trouble keeping this sketchbook going. XD What with scanning pictures being so hard an all.

Here's something I finished recently though... just to try and pump some life back into this thread...
This was mostly an experiment in detailing and shading drawings in pen.

[worxe]

Wow caskin, thats a real gem you got there, the scales are well done and they fit like a glove to the movement that creature has in those areas.. My only concern is that you could push the values a little further, particularly behind the nostrils and under the jaw-line but otherwise top-notch drawing! The features are also interesting, the snouts probably used to dig/break rocks to get to its prey-in-hiding along a mountain side perhaps?.. Speaking of which, landscapes! you should do more of them. You could start with one of your creatures and think of their habitats, where they would live/hunt (like I was describing above), they'll come in real handy later on espescially when you get into the career you wanted as a concept artist =]. Employers will be looking for a broad range of skills in all sorts of areas, environments being one of those many things =]. Reading books is a great way of getting ideas too, any sortof novel be it fiction or non-fiction will have atleast a few places describing the environment the reader should be situated in with whatevers being narrated in the novel, its a great way to get those creative thoughts rolling when you find yourself stuck on thinking of a landscape.

I also see people creeping onto your sketch pages, keep them coming! Like I said before, draw people as they walk by if ya can, doesn't matter if theyer moving just try your best to quickly draw down a few figurative lines and then work from there from your imagination later when you have the time if you want, otherwise if theyer sitting still then great! go nuts and draw 'em, again, doesn't have to be on a big piece of paper or absolutely perfect (believe me its nigh impossible to get perfect =x ). Those hands are also looking good too, keep them coming aswell, hands can be the hardest part of the body to draw..

As for the sketchbook question, any reflex/hard-cover/spiral bound sketchbook will do for a pencil-book, there are specialised books for painting, charcoals and other mediums for art, of which im not too sure about, your best bet would be to ask in the Art Discussion Forums or to see if anyone else has posted a thread on the same thing you're looking for. Its also a good place should you find yourself in a tight spot with money and need to get specific materials or utilities for your drawings and paintings for a project.

Ill leave it there for the moment and ive got this sb bookmarked so I can find it next time. Can't wait to see that creature chart you got cookin' finished =].


-edit- Speaking of those sketchbooks, I remember a friend of mine making her own sketchbook in studio arts as a part of a work project and she painted the covers that reflected everything that was inside, like her artwork was both inside and outside the book and she used the rest of the book (it was about 270 pages worth, a really thick sketchbook that had a buckle stitched onto the fabric of the outside for it) the following year for the rest of her work. Something to consider should you find yourself bored =P

[chaosrocks]

I make my own Sbs, its the best way to get the paper you want.
Love the page of dogs... huge amounts of gesture and motion in them;....you might want to try the same technique with humans.

very nice work keep it up..I think Faf said eveything else
chaos

[Chermilla]

Hmmm really lovely creatures you have here!! Your coloured work is really nice. I enjoyed looking through these, cheers!

[Envisor]

Great skill for a 16 year old. Your creatures are unbelievable, and you have taking them a step further with planning out your sketches and putting some awesome rendering. Definitly inspiring to me and the other members. I also have no life drawing classes around where I live, so the only thing I have to work from is nude photographs and the such. Theres a teacher in California named Kevin Chen, he does some magnificent figure drawings. I'll post the link below. They should help greatly when doing some figure studies and life drawings.

KevinChen tutorials
http://www.characterdesigns.com/inde...page=tutorials

Hope these help out. And in regard to your creatures and character designs, just keep sketching and drawing whenever you can because you can only become better at what you do. Keep at it. Cant wait for more.

[spartiate]

Cool sketches, lots of ideas and inspiration, post more!

My sketchbook

[Caskin]

Fafnir - Thanks! that's detail was so painstaking though, oi >.<, I'm surprised I even lasted to finish it all off. Kinda reminiscent of another piece I did a long time ago, but this was really the first time I ever attemtped to pull of an inked piece of that magnitude.
I think what I had in mind was something similar to that, for the beak XD maybe they can use to forage for roots, or to scissor-cut carrion. A muzzle that big must have an enourmous nasal cavity giving it an incredible sense of smell to locate favored plants and roots, or rotting meat, maybe even creatures underground. And the little tendrils of flesh, the "meat dreds" on the lower jaw there, have scents glands on the tips of them, which they use to rub up against things and mark their territory or where they've been. That strong sense of smell would have to mean scent plays a part in how they function... lol, goodness, I got rambling again, you'd be surprised what all I have stored up in this head... trouble is getting it down into something visual.

Oh, those pesky environments XD. Maybe once I get better (I got drop-kicked by the flu, on spring break of all things!) I'll go up into the mountains and see about sketching some of the sights there. The novel idea sounds good as well.

It is soooooo hard to find a descent place to draw around here that actually has enough people coming and going to make it worthwhile XD. hmm... maybe I could hang out in a fast food place, or something like that.

Making a sketchbook isn't a bad idea, if I can figure out a way to do so.

chaosrocks - Making one's own sketchbook, that's a genious idea! How do you usually go about doing that? Just punching holes in some paper and placing it in a binder? Or what?
Thanks for the comment! and for stopping by.

Chermilla - Thanks! I always love compliments on the critters XD

Envisor - Thanks for the awesome link! Looks like it could be really helpful. I'll definitely try and post more to keep this updated.

spartiate - Thanks for stopping by, will do!

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Now, lets see what I have hidden up my sleeve here....

#1 - A pencil drawing I did for school to stretch my graphite skills, and to actually draw a finished piece for once! Not any kind of whale that I know of, the markings were loads of fun to do, no reference needed either!
#2 - A definite work in progress for a personal creature of mine. Working out how the muscles. I wanted to eventually finish it off as something reminiscent of The Wildlife of Star Wars (awesome book!)
#3 - Another personal creature of mine, which I draw quite often XD they're mammallian if you couldn't guess by all the fur. Although this guy is more furry than others. I'm hoping to color this in sometime soon if I can get my butt in gear.

[Caskin]

A few doodles from today, I am so incredibly tired though... it's weird how the flu gives you zero muscle control, making it impossible to pull off any smooth or fluid lines. Or to draw for longer than 10 minutes at a time.

[Caskin]

Slowly trying to rediscover my ability to "sketch"

I have an abosolute fascination with ears at the moment....

[frostsnake]

omg!
love the anatomy studies!
last updates are sweet to.
keep worknig with simple shapes before refining anything

so 4days and no updates??

[Wingg]

i love your work in general, your creatures are incredible, i would love to see more

[Moai]

Great sketchbook! Some of the most elegantly designed, well-drawn, and anatomically plausible creatures I've seen in a while. I was consistently impressed with your knowledge of from and animal anatomy as I looked through this thread.
I have but two critiques: work with color more often, and try to branch out from four-legged dragon-type creatures. You did the latter when you drew those whales, and they are one of your more awesome and striking creature designs, in my opinion.
You have a new fan!

[KromNz]

So much talent, that you could sink the Titanic again!! love your work, keep posting!

[Zombie_dla]

Great sketches! Just keep updating! Would like to see some more humanoids though

[Caskin]

frostsnake - Thanks so much! Haha, yeah, I'm bad about updating on a regular or event recent basis, I'll definitely try and keep you guys updated with what I'm drawing.

Wingg - Thanks!

Moai - Wow, thanks so much! I really appreciate the comment. And you're so right, I've really been limiting myself as to what I draw... gonna try and branch out some more.. I've kinda gotten myself stuck as far as coloring goes though almost lost some faith in my own abilities...

KromNz - Haha, I love that! Thanks so much!

Zombie_dla - Thanks! I'm doing my best to work on that, my options are somewhat limited around here though, are there any websites that might have stock photos of people that I could just draw off of?


Onto the drawings!

#1-3: just some doodly sketches from the past week and several weeks ago. And a human! a rather crappy one though... I've been drawing lots of canines for some reason.
#4: Leopard geckos! drawn from some photos, I own three of these guys and love 'em to death XD tempted to do a little photoshop project relating them.
#5: Argg, tried my hand at simple coloring... I really don't like this whole thing except for one part, the hind-leg facing us, the upper part... as for the rest? meh...

[Moai]

Nice! I like the giant mount beast in the second image and the spotted canine in the third. I think what impresses me most in your creatures is the character you imbue in them. And their feet. You draw good feet. And I usually don't.
Some crits on your colored image: More contrast is needed, especially where you want the viewers to direct most of their attention, presumably the head. Don't be afraid to leave some brushstrokes visible; not everything needs to be blended. Don't use pure white or black as your background color. In fact, in colored images, don't use pure white, black, or gray at all. Just use very unsaturated colors if you need something like a gray. Also, rather than just lightening or darkening (just adding white or black) in shadows and highlights, change the color temperature a bit as well. And forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know.
Keep on keepin' on.

[Sway West]

You have a really good sense of animal anatomy, and some very interesting ideations. I adore your post with the whales, the muscle/bone layout, and the polished creature piece. I'd love to see more like this! The mounted beast in your last update is a great concept, but the perspective seems a bit skewed in some areas- his tail is also viewed in an odd manner, the base a little too forced to the forefront. Keep up the great work!