Without Rhythm or Rhyme

**Rhythmus** · April 1st, 2007, 03:20 PM

I've been posting occasionally in the Sketch/WIP section, but I finally sucked it up and decided to make a sketchbook.
I'm only using PS Elements, which, as far as I know, can't convert images to greyscale. Which means my sketches end up looking crummy. So I apologize for that.
(And I apologize if the format for this post is incorrect)

**Rhythmus** · April 8th, 2007, 06:06 PM

Here's a little update. It kind of hit me today that just because it says "Sketchbook" does not mean that people only post sketches. Not that I really assumed they only posted sketches, it just made me realize that I really do only post sketches.
Of doubtable quality, at the moment.
Anyways, here are some doodles I... doodled.
Two pictures of Kroenen.
I was trying to practice perspective and foreshortening on one of them.
Tried my hand at a head study, didn't go as well as I would have liked, but hey, it's a try.
The last one is a very preliminary sketch of a guy with a flaming skull for a head, going to be holding an axe and raising his fist. I just started out trying to focus on the shapes and pose, I'll be going into detail soon.
Critiques and advice greatly appreciated.

**Sepulverture** · April 8th, 2007, 11:43 PM

Hey dude. Your drawings are so extremely light it's really hard to see anything at all. Try pressing harder with your pencil, and try using different degrees of pencils (hb 2b 4b 6b are all you really need for a good range of values). Keep posting man. Here is a little exercise I want you to do. Take a piece of paper, lined paper, printer paper, toilet paper, whatever, and and make 10 verticle columns, in the first one (going left to right just to make it easier to explain and understand) make one box, in the second column make 2 boxes, in the third column make 3 boxes, fourth, 4 columns and so on and so forth in the manner. In the first column shade that box very lightly, in the second column shade the bottom box the same shade, and then in the second box shade it just a little darker, and in each column make each new box progressively darker. By the time you finish shading the tenth box in the tenth column you should have ten distinct values. you can't do this exercise very well with just a number two pencil, so you're going to have to go buy a set of 2b 4b and 6b pencils to do it. Good luck! I hope to see this study up in here soon.

-sep

**Rhythmus** · April 8th, 2007, 11:46 PM

Excellent advice. The pencil variation is a great idea.
I'll get right on that!

**bluefruitbowl** · April 8th, 2007, 11:59 PM

Good to see you drawing. Post that exercize posthaste [says the girl who rarely updates]. Also, if you could resize your work so it's a little smaller when you post it? My advice is to do lots and lots of anatomy studies and stuff. Anatomy studies ftw, pretty much. You'd be amazed at how much they help.

**Rhythmus** · April 11th, 2007, 01:12 AM

Anatomy studies ftw, you say?
I can't argue with an acronym.
New posts coming soon...
Speaking of resizing, what would be the average or basic number pixels (height and width) that you would recommend?

**Rhythmus** · April 11th, 2007, 01:31 AM

So here are some more sketches.
Unfortunately, I'm still working on the Values chart.
I tried sizing these down a bit, not sure how they turned out. I also utilized the "Auto Levels" of Photoshop, which I don't personally like, but I think it makes the sketches a lot easier to see.
One of these is a hand study, trying to work on my anatomy.
Another is a sketch of a zombie with an afro, and if you've ever been to /b/, you'll understand. I tried to make it look like he was walking, but it was a quick sketch, so I don't believe I succeeded.
The last was a peice I did all in pen, which started out as just the little crypt, then gradually developed to what it is now. My main focus was testing out the hands, and I'm... well, more pleased with them then any other hands I've ever drawn. But I've still got a long ways to go.
Thank you, and goodnight.

**tporter08** · April 11th, 2007, 08:44 PM

The last one with the crypt is awesome, I must say.

**Rhythmus** · April 11th, 2007, 09:54 PM

Just a little text only update: I've finally started doing anatomy studies. I joined CA thinking "Alright, I've got to work hard, learn, and practice." So I bought some anatomy books and stuff like that, and flipped through them.
But now the game is changed. I'm really trying to get better now. Every sketch I do, I'm trying to practice more anatomy, more dynamic poses, stuff like that. It's going alright.

**Rhythmus** · April 22nd, 2007, 06:27 PM

Here's all the sketches I've done in the past week and a half or so. I'm still unhappy with most of my work. The sketches just don't look like the other sketches on CA, mine are dirtier, less professional.
The Snow White sketch is a little shaky, it was one of my first times really sketching a female figure. I did the Cinderella sketch a few days later, and it turned out a bit better.
I'm having a really hard time drawing faces. Are there any good tutorials out there for that sort of thing?
I'm still looking for the different pencils, not having much luck.
I'm also eager to start coloring on PS again, but I want a sketch that actually deserves to be colored. So if any look like they'd be nice in color, just say so.
Critiques graciously accepted!

**Rhythmus** · May 2nd, 2007, 12:35 AM

Here's a couple random sketches and doodles I've done in the past week or so. On some of the drawings, I threw protocol to the wind and just started sketching.

**PandaLord** · May 3rd, 2007, 11:26 PM

Originally Posted by Rhythmus

So here are some more sketches.
Unfortunately, I'm still working on the Values chart.
I tried sizing these down a bit, not sure how they turned out. I also utilized the "Auto Levels" of Photoshop, which I don't personally like, but I think it makes the sketches a lot easier to see.
One of these is a hand study, trying to work on my anatomy.
Another is a sketch of a zombie with an afro, and if you've ever been to /b/, you'll understand. I tried to make it look like he was walking, but it was a quick sketch, so I don't believe I succeeded.
The last was a peice I did all in pen, which started out as just the little crypt, then gradually developed to what it is now. My main focus was testing out the hands, and I'm... well, more pleased with them then any other hands I've ever drawn. But I've still got a long ways to go.
Thank you, and goodnight.

Wow, that hand on the very bottom right looks amazing...

**Rhythmus** · June 2nd, 2007, 04:27 PM

Here are a lot of doodles I did over the past month. Some were random, some I was working on specific aspects with.

**Rhythmus** · June 2nd, 2007, 04:32 PM

And I've been experimenting with a little digital work here and there

**Rhythmus** · June 2nd, 2007, 05:20 PM

And then I went to Celebration IV in Los Angeles, where I spent the majority of my time talking with artists like Matt Busch, Adam Hughes, Brent Woodside, Craig Howell, and Tom Hodges. I picked up a lot of good tips, and went back to the drawing board.

**tporter08** · August 3rd, 2007, 02:50 AM

Wow, you've really improved a lot over the last few months. I was looking through your work, and it is amazing the difference I see. Good job.

**jfarsenault** · October 14th, 2007, 01:21 PM

Yea the improvements are coming along! I would suggest doing some anatomy studies, that will really help out your figure work. I need to do some more too. But yea things are definately impoving here man, keep it up!

**Soul Karl** · October 14th, 2007, 04:18 PM

hey man, so i just thumbed through your sketchbook and you definitely are improving. But I think in order to kick it up to that next level you really should do some work w/ referance of the human form. We all start out with a basic understanding of how the human body (or anything from real life for that matter) should look and thus pull from that when drawing. However, we have to retrain ourselves to have a new series of referances to pull from since what we initially start with is incorrect (ie drawign stick figures for bodies). So basically my suggestion is to draw more from life, and lacking that draw from referance. Also you shouldn't think of this as a chore, it's pretty fun to draw stuff from referance - for instance why not get some pictures of scantily clad women to work on female anatomy

Or a picture of some ripped dude with a sword to practice that kinda stuff. It can be whatever you want it to be, but drawing from referance helps infinitley more than just drawing from your mind (at least this early). Heres a pretty good website to help you get started

NSFW http://characterdesigns.com/index.ph...page=photosets NSFW-- you can see different photo sets from the bar up at the top.

two other notes are on things that were stated/asked earlier. First is you may not be drawing too light (and even if you are its fine). These later ones are much darker and more readable to the viewer, but i think you can bring the old ones foward too just by adjusting the contrast in photoshop (assuming you have it). Just go to image > adjustments > levels and then move the bar on the bottom around until your satisfied. What this does is change what your black and what values are in the piece. So for the earlier images you can turn the really light grey (your darkest value on it) to black and the rest will change accordingly, thus making it a lot more readable. Then you can define the white and so on. Also your image sizes have dropped down to a good level, but since you asked and no one answered yet, its a pretty good rule of thumb to set the images height to 700 pixels. This way 90% of peoples monitors can display the full picture without having to scroll through it.

anyways man keep it up :] good work