Mik's sketchbook (starting today!) + digital paintings

[Mik2121]

Hi there and welcome to my sketchbook thread!. I'd love if you guys can comment on everything I post and give critics so I can get better, faster!.

Anyway, I bought a notepad a few days ago to do sketches and keep it on my bag every time, so it's quite small. I started it yesterday with a few hand studies with shadows, done with the left hand (I'm left handed) while looking at my right hand:



I will continue drawing today and keep updating this thread daily with everything I draw!. This thread should be interesting in about a year, to see how I've been improving (or getting worse!! )

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And a digital painting / speed painting I made yesterday. It was an apple. I saved the steps through it so I will post them all:





I will post some other more complete and big digital drawings later or in the next days so I don't update with only my sketchbook pages!.

I'm still an student so I'm trying to get as good as I can as fast as possible, though I guess I will keep 'learning' until I die , but yeah.. now before I start working I guess I will have more time, so as I said at the beginning, critics and comments are welcome (needed, actually), so go ahead and post them! Be as harsh as you might need! (though try not to make me cry .. just kidding )

[Hammed Al-Tamimi]

Nice start! my only comment has to be that you should draw other people's hands or hands from references and not your own. If you do some studies on someone like Joseph Sheppard or Bridgman, you'll not only learn the anatomy, but the drawing style as well.

[Mik2121]

Thanks for the comments Hammed. I will try and draw other peoples' hands too!.

Ok, here is today's sketchbook pages (two). I have not done much, so I will do some digital drawing life drawing (some fruits?) and post them later!.



More hands and a small study of the bones and joints of the hand.

[juicy]

awesome skeletonhand sketch! sometimes your thumbs
seem to be disproportional, but they are coming along very nicely!

your apple is beastly man nice work. trus

Jack

[ajvenema]

yoyo! good to see another guy with apples...harder than i thought they would be, dont you think? keep working, never stop, and the hands are good practice, superhard to make look good. when you put a lot of time in a hand, try to get in the texture of skin as well, they look a little bit plastic right now, but thats no problem if you just keep on practicing! i doubt if you should make it a goal to learn bridgman or sheppards drawing styles, id say look what exactly makes you like them, and start doing that in your own way.
enough talk, you probably know whats best to do, good luck

[Mik2121]

Thanks for the fast reply, juicy!. Yeah, hands are one of the things I have most problems with (only faces/heads beat it!), so I guess I've gotta try a lot until I get the thumbs and overall size ratio correct.
Then I will go for the faces and draw them until I get to see the lines flows in dreams and go insane

edit -

Thanks for the reply too, ajvenema!. Yeah, apples are hard to make!! But not as hard as other fruits, imo!.
Right now I don't have any fruit around here so I guess I'll go and draw something else..

Regarding the hands, yeah.. they look like plastic right now But I guess I first need to get the basics correct before getting into the texture, right?
Thanks a lot for the comments!!

[Zorcron]

keep em coming! those studys are looking mighty fine


we demand more!

[juicy]

don't sweat it - hands are extremely hard. Just practice and eventually you will be a pro

[Mik2121]

Thanks Zorcron and juicy!. I know, I've got to practice A LOT yet!!

Anyway, yesterday I was going to post another digital drawing but ended up busy with some other stuff I had to do for school and couldn't post!. I will post it with today's drawings later (in a few hours), as my girlfriend is now around here keeping me.. busy

But yeah, thanks a lot for the comments!

[Mik2121]

I made a new page of sketches, but damn.. today I've done basically nothing!!!. Tomorrow I've gotta go back to class (Monday..), so I guess I'll do stuff there, seeing how the first class is theory only and it's one damn boring class (has almost nothing to do with design).

Again, I have noticed some errors and I'll try to fix them in the next hands, rather than spending more time in the same hand. Mostly the pinky in the top left hand and also the thumbs in basically all the hands.
Really, hands are giving me some serious problems, hahahah!



edit - Woah! I just noticed I wrote 11/MAY/2009 on the note, even if today is 10th!! Hahaha.. oh well, I'll change that on my sketchbook, but I'll leave it like that here, I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.

[Mik2121]

I just made a lemon:

[Mik2121]

Oh, and this.....



Yes, I like fruits..

[Mik2121]

Made this today during class while listening at the teacher (brought a pen tablet with me, lol). It took me 2 hours so I had to finish it during the lunch break.



Original size is 2480x3508 (a4 300dpi?)

I will do the daily studies/sketches later, as I'm a bit tired now :/

[Mik2121]

Made today in around 4 hours in ZBrush 3.1 using a Sphere3D as the base object.

[Mik2121]

Uhm.. this is a bit embarrassing... I've not updated this thread since a few months already even though I started with so much enthusiasm!.
But now I wanna redeem myself and get back to it!. All the comments helped a lot and I sort of miss them.

Well, I have done some new stuff since the last update, so I will keep posting it between today and tomorrow. I know this is concept art but I would like to also post my 3D stuff, if that's alright with the board rules.

Alright, I will start from where I left!. Remember, the oldest content will be at the bottom of the page or the next pages.


The very first thing I'll post is 3D, sorry!. It's a model I did in Zbrush a couple months ago (I did a lot of other stuff before that, but all 3D stuff for a game project at school, and I don't have the models around anymore):



I used a bit of reference from an anatomy book. I don't remember much about this, but it took me about 4 hours to get until this:



I also have a turntable video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YnkwmVg_o4

[Mik2121]

Now let's skip some couple months of stuff that didn't really help me a bit, and 3d stuff for school, plus some trip to Switzerland and Spain (my homeland), and we are back into September, when I purchased my Bridgman book off Amazon (600 JPY, about $6). Great stuff, I always bring it along with me, even when I don't need it!.



This is an sketch based off one of the drawings from the book. When I made it (with pencil), it was way too tall because of how I was sitting while doing it (listening to the teacher, way apart from the paper, and not looking at the paper from the top, but almost the side. It ended up like those signals and stuff you can see in the streets that are meant to look OK if you view them from your car .

I also made these two next to a few other, but they are almost the same level so I didn't bother scanning them:



With reference from the book as well (very same poses). Horrible referencing work on my part, though, because I got them some ridiculously short legs!. But I fixed that in newer sketches.

[Mik2121]

Now jump into the end of September (28th) and I did this thing with Zbrush in a couple hours:



I was all happy and whatnot and decided to post it on my blog. Good thing, because the next morning I woke up and decided to check my blog to see if I got some comments (got 0, nice!) and when I looked at the picture I was in shock, thinking how I really needed to fix that thing. So I opened ZBrush and fixed some things, so it ended up looking something like this:



It still has some things to fix, he also needs eyes, etc.. but I left the model in one of my 'to finish' folders to get it done at just another time.

[Mik2121]

Another sketch. This time based off the Bridgman style but without references. By the time I scanned this, I didn't fix it, but in the actual paper the guy now has hips!. Seriously, human bodies are one of the things I have more issues with.

[Mik2121]

Next up is this monster. The name is Cocopedra (stonehead). My brother made it up when he was 14 years old (I was 10 by then). We were playing Dungeons and Dragons and he created this monster, and he made some drawing to represent it visually, but it was quite.. well.. quite the funny drawing, I guess. Anyway, my brother ended up doing techie things and I ended up drawing, so I guess if someone had to remake the little monster, that was me. I made a few silhouettes and sent them to my brother, and he picked up one of them. I kept drawing on top of it and it ended up looking like this:

[Mik2121]

This is my entry for this week's C.O.W:



Concept: Moon Ink Driller

One of the thousand of monsters that lives in the undergrounds of the Moon, the Moon Ink Driller uses his ink to color all his surroundings in black and then change his skin to camouflage in the black environment. It can also spray the enemies with the ink for defense as well as use the sticky ink to capture the prays.

[Mik2121]

Alright, with this post I'll be up to date!.


This is a drawing I did yesterday. Now, I know some of this stuff should go on the 'FINISHED!' board, but I thought it would be nice to have everything here as well. Plus, it's not like this is an actual illustration, but rather a concept sketch for a creature.



I used some references from a book called 'The Skillful Huntsman'. I also used references (off my memory, not actual visual references) from Star Wars and the aliens living in Tattoine.
Now, this is for some personal project I've been thinking about for quite a long time now. It's some sort of mix between a futuristic world ala Star Wars, but happening in a desert world (as in, an actual desert, not that there isn't people). The main location is sort of a more futuristic India, but still with many of the old buildings, ghats, riverside buildings, etc..
I also want to give it some sort of melancholic feeling, like the one you would get after listening to The Strangler's song 'Golden Brown' (which seems to be located in a place that resembles India, a lot, though it might be some other Arabian location).


Today I did some more sketches for other animals showing up in the very same world:



And then took one of them and started to give it some volume. I'm still not done, but just for posting purposes I sort of created an scene, gave it color and lots of sharpen more and uploaded to my blog:



Now I'm still stuck with this buddy. The original image size is around 3000x2000 72dpi. I'm still stuck with the shape of the stomach as well as the face. Also the seat area seems to going to fall down on the left side (right side in the pic) so I need to fix that too. I will add some details as well (bags and whatnot) and decoration.

Any suggestions on how should I do his face? I first thought about doing it sort of like a seal (forgot the name of the actual animal that lives in the oceans and has two fangs, sorry! English isn't my mother tongue).
The only problem is, seals are quite ugly, so I might just do some sort of elephant-esque animal. I also checked on what animals are around India that are used for transportation and only found camels (not fitting this one) and elephants in some areas. So I might go with an alien version of the elephants.






Alright, I'm done with the updates!. I'm sorry for posting so much stuff, and I will keep posting actual SKETCHES and stuff around here!. I'm really sorry for bumping my thread 8 times with new stuff in less than an hour, but I thought it would be better to have each content separated on different posts.
Now I'm going to sleep, good night everybody!.

Good studies, and 3d models!!

Hey! Thanks a lot!. I hope I can see you around here some other time! I will work more on my studies and post more stuff!. Now, seriously, good night...

[andres333]

Good studies, and 3d models!!

[Mik2121]

Just got done with a rough sketch for a monster for my school game project.



I have yet to decide how to do the face...

[Mik2121]

Alright, I got back from school and I started an sketch for the head of the creature I posted yesterday. I'm not sure if the Attachment is working correctly, but let's hope it is..

I also have to fix the 'helmet' think on the creature because as of right now it looks just incredibly tacky.

[haste]

keep it up man, those silhouettes are reading really well

[Mik2121]

Still having problems with the goddamn face!.

I will probably add some sort of decoration around the face to hide his ugliness.

[Mik2121]

I just deleted a long explanation about why this following drawing sucks, but I think no explanation works!. So anyway, here is a reference drawing done with some pencils I had around and a paper, and using a reference photo.

I set myself a time limit (40 minutes) and had to redraw it, but I'm leaving this just like that so I can compare to other drawings I do other days, and see if I improve (I better improve, I've set the bar incredibly low with this one!)

[CecelyV]

I like your Ghat's Desert Mount creature, it's an interesting concept. It seems to suit the desert and its role as a mount, yet it doesn't look like it has any arms and is still balanced.

Your silhouettes are also reading well. Keep it up! And I wouldn't worry or apologize for the lulls in posting--life happens and everyone gets busy. The more you post, it seems, the more comments you get, but the important thing is that you draw as much as you can. If you don't draw everyday, all the comments in the world won't help any.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work ^_^

[Mik2121]

Thanks for the comment, CelcelyV!.

I'm working on getting more silhouettes for creatures and objects, and then drawing them on my spare time!.
I also got myself this nice sketchbook.. it's actually so 'cool' looking I feel bad doing bad drawings on it!. But hey.. I guess I have to start with the 'bad' drawings so one day I can have nice stuff there, right?.
I have decided to do one environment at least every two days, but hopefully on a daily basis. I will start by using reference from photos to get a hold of how to draw certain buildings, rivers, mountains, etc.. and then apply that to my own stuff while also practicing on perspective and other elements. I'm also trying to do human sketches every now and then. But I'm a bit busy with my school projects and.. well, I definitely need to manage my time better! (-working on this, really).

I hope I keep a steady rhythm on my updates, and see you around here every now and then!!.

Again, thanks for your comments (and thanks everyone else as well, of course!).

And now, to sleep.. (class tomorrow, yay!)

[Mik2121]

Today I'm a bit busy with one game stage I need to finish it by Friday.

The stage itself has to be 7000-8000 polygons, up to 5 textures!... And only one of them can be 1024, the rest 256x or 128x...

I started it today and I have tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday to finish.. wish me luck!.

Here is an screenshot of the stage. As of right now it might be a bit hard to tell apart. The game is this kind of cute game (definitely NOT my style, but I get a bit of money and practice, so yeah..) with anime-like 3d characters that my teacher is doing. Hence the simple painted textures... (but I bet he will say something about the ground, so I have prepared 10 different versions for that one, hahah).

So yeah, because of that, just today I'm not posting a background, but tomorrow I will get something done (today I spent a bit of time researching some pics so tomorrow I can just go and paint, without needing to search for reference photos).





EDIT - Ahhh.. screw it. I just feel so bad with myself about skipping on my second day of environment sketching that I'm going to buy something to eat now and get back and do a 40min sketch. I'll be done by around 2:20AM (GMT+9 here) or so, so I'll sleep right after posting it here!.