Whitevillage wants to learn how to paint | Update: 2009/12/28

[Whitevillage]

A potrait. Hmmmm indeed...

[Whitevillage]

Character potraits from mind, A3 size neck muscle study, skull looking down and inked with G-pen and some environment thumbnails from reference.

[Whitevillage]

I'm maybe going to work this out by redrawing it etc. Just a concept for now.

[Whitevillage]

Some good old Bridgman studies, try to do a series of the from Complete guide to drawing from life.

[hmanafi]

i like your cloth study idea.I'm going to do something like that.
learn anatomy in a way that you can apply it to your own drawings.
when you are drawing a character in perspective,you can first draw a box to set up your character easier (read looms book to learn it better)
and i have a suggestion to (but you can refuse it )
try to learn realistic head drawing before getting into the anime
at all,you are doing it well.keep it up

[Whitevillage]

hmanafi: Thank you for your reply. I experimented a while a go with boxes , I had some trouble getting the perspective and body parts look more natural, but I will look into it some time. Same goes to the head drawings, I'm aware of the anime influence in my work yes. It's something I like, but I'm not afraid to look past it.

Alright then! This is the last post of the year, have some Bridgman and a happy and artistic new year!

[Whitevillage]

Not technically a fresh start of new year, but my last drawings/studies from 2007, which I made on old years evening. Characterdesigns.com reference studies, due to lack of real nude models I have to rely on this then...

I included the original images with the studies to get the idea what model I referenced from and how many mistakes you can spot . The first drawing got chopped off by the scanner, I did draw her right hand and foot. The image has been altered to fit the drawings composition.

[Whitevillage]

Guilty Gear's ABA in cut out style.


The waitress from the back cover of Witch Cat #2. It's from last summer I believe.


A quick concept doodle of a young witch practicing witch craft.

[Nizza_waaarg]

i like the anime influence you got going on here. Don't forget to get some more realistic face studies out though every once in a while as I think it helps learn the planes and form of the head.

and those last life drawings came out really well, your shading style is nice and clean. And you also inpired me to pick up my bridgman studies again

all the best and keep drawing,
chris

[Smarty]

those figurative studies are really looking great, the gesture is captured pretty good... One thing i would work on is value, i'm not a fan of the diagonal background lines as well, they give the image to much linear movement... Although the hatch style one was quite nice

[invinciblewombat]

hey, you've got a very nice book here, lots of progress which is always good. the studies, especially the technical anatomy and shoes are very very strong. i would recommend watching your imagination drawings though and incorporating what you learn from the studies more closely. the bodies are very solid but you seem to fall back on symbols for facial features and head structures instead of feeling out the volumes of the forms in the face. don't be afraid to work into these drawings with some vale too, while your lines are very solid adding just some minimal value to your drawings can help really make them feel more like objects in 3 dimensional space. in any case you work shows you are persistent and dedicated and you will go far.

[MattLloyd]

Haha, wow that piece which looks like its cut out of paper is awesome! Loving the bridgman studies, very fluid, also I really like the building in number 152, got a cool feel to it

[Whitevillage]

First of all, thanks for your comments while I was abscent. I really appreciate your critiques so I can look in other ways to study. Answering them now:

Nizza_waaarg: Thanks, yeah the head thing again. I always go into the simple structure, because I don't like to overdo too detailed faces. Not as an excuse, it's a annoying thing I can't learn my self off yet from and it has become something automatic.

smartkyle: I see it now myself and I have to agree, it looks odd.

invinciblewombat: Thank you for your post. I'm very certain I have to give the head and the facial expressions more attention instead of the regular body studies, it suffers from it I guess. I'll try to be more careful with the lineart, giving it more a depth feel. I should practice this as well since i'm 'afraid' to mess things up with my lineart. I should'nt be afraid though, although it is easier said then done I guess.

MattLloyd: Hello fellow sketchgrouper! Thanks for your post!!

Ok, it's very sad but true: I did'nt do much anyway since the last post. Thanks to some school stuff and a sudden flu. I so hate being ill.

I'm busy with an environment, a witch's room I guess in some castle, which is cylinderal and there is the big obstacle, I'm not familiar with cylinderal depth that much and espacially the stairs hurt, so I took a pause with this drawing and see how I could do it better. And a folds studie from Loomis.

(attachment is being weird to me)

[Whitevillage]

Just a start to practice faces again. This is Hogarth stuff, so I hope it's good to learn from his head drawings, since he's critiqued pretty much because he's too stylistic.



Work In Progress. It's the witch girl experimenting with witch craft. She's going to mess up her witch crafting though... More inkwork will be added with high contrast shading.

[The Fez]

Awesome work so far! You're studies are nice and clean.

I've taken the liberty of altering some of you images to show you some things I've noticed.

One, work on perspective more heavily. You're using a straight edge, I can tell, but you need to use it more carefully. I've seen your perspective studies, and they look tight, but your recent WIP has angles shooting all over the place.

Second, character balance. The human body can be broken down into a series axises. Use these guiding lines to distribute weight and better understand how the human body deals with different stresses being applied to it. For instance, the right arm of the waitress needs to be higher, as we can see from drawing and axis through the body.

I hope that helps. If you can nail the perspectives, your artwork will look much tighter and natural.

[Whitevillage]

Odin_ 052: I'm very glad with your critique and paintovers. This will give my self a better idea to approach perspective. A big 'thank you' to you!

Characterdesigns.com stuff, I'm not pleased at all how it came out. First has too high hips and misplaced nipples and the second one was'nt really serious anymore; butt is to short.

A step by step skull study from Gary Faigan. Horrible horrible pencils...

[Whitevillage]

A head sculpt, I wanted to sculp for a while and since I got some clay, I decided to make a head with it, because i'm practicing them at the moment. I know it's not the best head proportion wise, but I was never a great sculper to begin with. But it was certainly fun!

And some simple eyes studies, the ones at the bottom are redrawn of how I think it would look like with more detail.

[The Fez]

Your studies look very tight and refined, and I can see definite improvement in your sketches. For instance, the way you drew heads and faces at the top of the page compared to how you're drawing them now: everything is balanced and proportional. Keep up the good work!

[Whitevillage]

Odin052: Thanks man. Well, I think the point is that my heads from imagination are not on the same level as my SP's. Still working on it, the Whitevillage must draw good heads!!

Just another Loomis head and a Cammy coloured with coloured ink (Ecoline). Lot's of mistakes but I needed some fresh artistic air, if you know what I mean.

[Whitevillage]

Drew some heads from imagination to check up if I improved and Bridgman studies.

[The Fez]

Your Bridgman studies are coming along nicely. About the Cammy/streetfighter fan-art. I do not know if this was your objective or not, but Cammy has seemingly lost any sort womanly appearance. This is not to say that some women do not become overtly muscular, but you will find that the muscular definition of an athletic woman is usually less pronounced than an athletic man. The sort of musculature you chose for Cammy, I'm sorry to say, if sort of contradictory to the sensuality of the pose.

[Smarty]

The last bridgeman stuff is looking really strong, especially the arm. The cammy has numerous anatomy errors, I think its just applying what youve learnt from your bridgeman into other things. In particular is how you seem to bend the knee, its looks a little squashed.

I agree with Odin, I know capcom girls are very muscular but alot of it is suggested through value in the forms. Not drawing out every single muscle.

[Whitevillage]

Odin_52 and Smartkyle: Thanks. I'll keep it in mind to not get too carried away with the muscles next time.

I decided to start with gestures, hoping it will improve my poses from imagination more. These where from gymnastics photo's.

Bridgman studies, fold types and heads.

[MattLloyd]

I like the latest update, the body studies are nice and fluid and the fabrics looking good. Keep at it!

[Nettle_Mountain]

You are making studies hard, this is the way to go i believe and i can already see progress from the beginning.

I think i know the recipe for you, the same stuff i will be trying myself next.
You should take a clock with you and make 1 hour or more just imagination pose studies using 60s on each pose and then moving on to the next. the idea is to get drawing more fiqures in quantity and drawing fluid, trying to push yourself into drawing important shapes that defines posture and leaving unimportant shapes for retouching.

If 1 minute is too short then 2-3 minutes are fine also (but you'll draw less). Imagine if you do this for few hours, you have drawed over 100 poses and that should make something as a practise.

keep posting!

(i found about this wonderful place after this post so decided to add it here if you don't know it allready, might be useful to draw session of reference from here as well: http://www.posemaniacs.com/blog/ )

[Whitevillage]

MattLoyd: Thanks! I should do more fabrics though, they can be fun afterall for me.

Nettle Mountain: That certainly sounds like a good advice, I tried a couple of times the 'draw 30 or 60 seconds poses' from Posemaniacs, which I thought was okay to do. I'll try the 1 to 3 minutes figure drawing since I can be a bit too critical and slowing the progress.

Tada! It's ressurection time!!1

Haven't updated for a while because got some technical computer problems and the first weeks of my internship kicked in as well. Talking about kicking, I should get my ass kicked to draw more... there goes my promises for 2008 already.

[UnSharpened]

Hi Whitevillage, thanks fro dropping by my sb.
You're experimenting with various technique and subject, that's nice practice. I think you can do more of those side-by-side photo study, which helps you see the whole figure. And look how light perform on the body.

Keep it up!

[Whitevillage]

UnSharpened: Thanks for the advice on doing more of these. Haven't done that for a while as well.

Okay, gesture stuff that Nettle Mountain adviced and bridgman stuff. Should do more indepth anatomy again as well and photo studies. Shit, too much to learn from...

[kidult]

Lots of good studies man - check your proportions on some of your faces tho

[Peter Berkovski]

great improving dude,keep that way
Cheers!