★ TheDirtSyndicate ★

[mike butkus]

Well structured sketches and very good design!

[TheDirtSyndicate]

gearing up for the newborn competition... haven't drawn or painted in PS for quite some time, feel rusty.
so i did a couple speed paintings, kind of a warm up i guess. i've got some big ideas for this competition... anyway, check em out:

[Mane]

Why Have I never seen this SB before??!! fabulous works especially the last piece, Kudos!
Chris

[magnut]

Dirty Syndie,

These paintings are very striking! Very interesting character, subtleties galore... very nice!

Would you mind telling everyone HOW you did these? What kind of brushes did you use? Were they custom brushes?

Why, in whatever way did you go about producing this great work?

HMMM?

[TheDirtSyndicate]

no custom brushes used, just a square brush.
i set the "shape dynamics" to pen pressure but had the minimum shape size set to 50% instead of 0, that way when i did a light stroke it still had some thickness instead of dropping down to a single pixel
i also had "other dynamics" checked with the opacity set to pen pressure

first step i took was to invert my page so i started with a totally black room.
then i just painted in the light with white:
started with a mid gray (by this i dont mean i selected the color gray in the colors pallete, i mean that i painted LIGHTLY with white) to get the basic shape, then build up the forms with more and more white, but always working black back in to help blend and define the forms.
and then i just added shit that popped into mind while i was painting. a friend of mine said the character kind of looked like frankenstein so i went with it, drew in the table and the second character.
i think what helped me to do these was to just relax and jump in head first, trust my instincts, adjust things that look funny on the fly. if i didn't like something i blacked it out and re-did it.
after i did the painting i added a bit of dirt, some color overlays, a curves adjustment layer, bumped up the contrast with a levels adjustment layer (blacks blacker and whites whiter)
but i just made sure to NOT get attached to anything.
my biggest problem has always been "but that part looks great, i dont want to fuck that up" then i tip toe around it and try to make the entire piece look as good as that ONE tiny little part, like a shoulder.
on these i forced myself to just not care! to black it out if i start feeling attached to it, and a few times when i blacked out something i realized that was more accurate for the lighting anyway.
i used to try and paint my more detailed drawings but would have the same problem. id spend all this time doing the drawing adding details, then i didn't want to cover it up with cool lighting or color! so for these i did no sketch! just went at it with a big fat square brush.

i think i have the tendency to over think things sometimes.
and procrastinate.
so i'll come up with a great idea, "i can take some reference photos for this" and then i'll go take photos... but in the end i never end up painting.
my goal in doing these was to get past that. just jump in and whatever happens happens.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

thought i'd start in reverse from what i did before on this speed painting: start with white and paint in the shadows.
just more practice. i feel like im getting the hang of it finally
haha
oh, and of course this one is un-treated.

[cout<mecha]

Not bad! Your work seems very conceptual lately, maybe you should try some studies.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

just thought i'd post my Newborn entry here too... for my process visit my contest thread:
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162912

this is my entry:

[TheDirtSyndicate]

speed painting with reference
here's the ref image:

[GriNGo]

Nice work dirt! your website is also amazing.. the sketches section blew me away! awesome every way you see it... keep it up man.

[Giorge]

rough but not yet defined , i feel that you need to throw more work into it

cheers!

[midknight523]

great job on those last few

[JellevdVegt]

hey man, nice sketchbook, you've been around here for quite some time, you have some very intersting pieces and photo's aswell.. Well, i want to give some pointers to help you improve in your drawing..

in the last post, you've got your lines down pretty good, but i dont think you have your values down.. just ask yourself, what is the lightest light in the photo and what is the darkest darks in your photo.. and then what are all the value's in between.. So a good method is assigning numbers to all the values, say 1 is your lightest value and 10 your darkest, you can compare all the values and really get it down. When i now look at your drawing, you have alot of number 1 value area's (lighest light) while in the photo there isnt. i have to say that the picture is pretty difficult to work from because there isnt alot of contrast that describe form... so if you would do these valuestudies, make sure you get good photos. its still very difficult but maybe this method will help you not get lost in the complexity of a photo

i dont say im very good at this, but lately i've been rediscovering value, just by looking at things in real life....

well i hope it helps some.. cheers and good luck!

[TheDirtSyndicate]

teh goshu, thanks for the crit man! im gonna have to practice that.


quick update: i had never read hard boiled until tonight. darrow is fucking amazing...
anyway, it inspired me to sketch so i did this quickie afterwards:

[mariusz]

Very cool sketchbook, keep it up!

all the best,
Mariusz

[TheDirtSyndicate]

hey man, thanks, i truly appreciate it.
i'll be taking next month off completely just to work on my comic. im still in the writing stages but i'll be sketching on the side. probably random shit for now until i finish writing...
anyway, thanks

btw, teh gosu
i re-read my post earlier and i dont want you to think i was just dashing off a thankyou!
i really mean that, i take all the crits im given and put them to use. trust me, when i say im going to practice something i do it. so thanks again! i know im not the best painter, i need all the help i can get.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

my girlfriend and i have started taking this abstract painting class for fun.
i've done 3 paintings. i love this shit, i spend so much time on the computer lately... it feels great to actually touch PAINT!

[Stark]

Those paintings are sick. Keep taking those classes and posting your stuff man. Have a good one.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

hey, thanks man. im not sure if i can afford to continue going... maybe one more class. but yeah, its a lot of fun.
for me its just a reason to be surrounded by a bunch of other people who want to make a mess with paint, a reason to be in that artistic environment. at home i dont have a place where i can make a mess!
in a way it kind of sucks that i have to pay 75 bucks to be surrounded by other people who want to make art. but fuck it, its worth it. if you cant get it naturally (i've been trying to set up a drawing group for the past 2 years and have no takers), pay for it.

more to come.

[Nutter]

love the skull

[TheDirtSyndicate]

this was my chow 176 entry that was 44min late:

[Stark]

This is nice. For some reason I really like the flat image. Don't know quite why though. Finished looks better overall.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

this is my chow 177 entry
pick a season, design a character to represent that season.
i chose winter because i was born in winter, and being a sag i chose the obvious: a centaur. im also part pawnee indian, so i added war paint.
crits appreciated:

[Stark]

Other than cleaning up the lines in the horse's body and adding a shadow, there's really not much to crit. If you want to leave it like this, it's ballin'. If you decide to take it into PS later on and render it further, that'd be ballin'. See if setting it in a more active/dynamic scene helps as well. Looks like you could use this for a holiday poastcard (which isn't bad).

Good stuff man, can't wait for the next update.

[kelly x]

beauty style and the grace of a fellow Sag!!!!!!! Woop!

[TheDirtSyndicate]

thanks stark/kelly


i went to "the drink and draw social club" last night for the first time, had a good time. the gallery girls showed up to model for us.
here are my sketches:

[AestheticMachine]

I really enjoy your work, and the graphic designs are appealing looking forward to more!
a drawing group would be awesome, i really need to see if there are any around here that could kick my ass.

[kittymeow84]

LOVE your work man! So incredibly awesome - all of it! :-D

[TheDirtSyndicate]

thanks for the comments guys

i didn't think i'd have the time to participate in this latest chow, but i had a few hours to kill yesterday and went for it.

here's my version of frankenstein's monster:

[freakmod]

Holy crap! Me = /fanboy

This is some amazing work. May I ask what medium you used to draw the Chow sketches? The lines look very precise, are they on a large paper?