An overture

[LordLouis]

Heya,

After a while on CA (mainly reading) I decided to open my own scetchbook thread- not just for critique but also I think it's a way of becoming a bit more confident in posting my stuff online so that I can learn from.

I have started with Loomis this summer, and from then on been a bit more artistic than the years before. Most of my stuff here is anatomy studies, but I am aiming at that changing over a time. Hence, my "overture".

[LordLouis]

//Posts #1 and #2 merged so that I can change the sketchbook thumbnail easier. All pictures are still the same though!

[LordLouis]

And here something I did to learn the head anatomy.
I had done a couple of head anatomy scetches and needed some reference to real heads, so I picked a magazine lying around and tried to make out their shapes.

Was kind of fun

[LordLouis]

...and finally some stuff I tried in Photoshop, Wacom Intuos3.
Hope you enjoy

[devastacio]

Good work mate and welcome to CA Sketchbooks. I really find your anatomy studies are useful. Keep up the good work.

if you're not already aware of 'posemaniacs' try it out.here goes the link. will help you out a lot in figure drawing.

http://www.posemaniacs.com/?pagename=thirtysecond

Also try this small utility when your going for color harmonies. It may help.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Well im sure more experienced artists will visit your thread and provide feedback when necessary. so Best of luck and keep posting.

[LordLouis]

Good work mate and welcome to CA Sketchbooks. I really find your anatomy studies are useful. Keep up the good work.

if you're not already aware of 'posemaniacs' try it out.here goes the link. will help you out a lot in figure drawing.

http://www.posemaniacs.com/?pagename=thirtysecond

Also try this small utility when your going for color harmonies. It may help.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Well im sure more experienced artists will visit your thread and provide feedback when necessary. so Best of luck and keep posting.

Hey devastacio, Thank you very much for your quick reply!
Yeah I knew posemaniacs, but I don't really use it for anatomy studies, as it is online and I study with pencil, paper and book
But I think it's very helpful when creating own stuff yeah, absolutely.

I am currently doing bridgman, over and over again. I felt that I had figured Loomis' sticks out quite well, but even when I apply bridgman's muscle structures, it looked flat because it kind of "dressed" the sticks ith muscles, and I want to try to draw from the inside out instead.

Will probably update tonight, depending how far I get.

Cheers

[LordLouis]

@JavierP: Oh I didn't feel undermined or anything, I just wanted to double-check whether you think I am copying, because I find it hard to judge my own progress. I love that mantra of yours! As long as you don't do it in public, it'll probably just fine :p I went on trying with pens today. Thank you for your response, thank you very much.

@NiaLain: Thank you for the encouragment! Yeah I see what you mean, I wasn't sure about the entire life drawing thing and just set it on 1/2 minutes. Did 10minutes today.

@Cannibalcarnivale: Thank you very much! I understand I am avoiding the light and shadow subject, for the simple reason that I don't quite know how to tackle it. Any book suggestions? I suppose still life with strong light would make a good start. Thank you!

And now, update for the first 4 hours of drawing today. I need a break, otherwise I will eat lead or bite my desk.
1: Warm up. Combined it with more stillife sketching from the desk.
2: Figure studies, 10 mins.
3+4: Wohey! Figure studies with pen. My god that was intimidating. Bad, bad memories of bad bad drawing. Also, I seem to fall in some sort of comic-face-style everytime I use a pen. How I hate it!
5: I drew some of my family members in Loomis style, checking how much I remember. Pretty solid memory on the circles so far, I will try to advance to page 31, which covers the comic head -> real head transition.

[LordLouis]

Last update for today.

I thought I'd do something which is not a study, and thought I could build on the goblins I had posted (page 1). I spent forever on this. It's not a composition, it just happens to be two Gobbos, one male one female. I spent twice as much on the female, because I found it so hard to apply a female curved body on skinny muscular goblins.

I don't like it, but that's what I have to offer so far regarding my skills.
I think her stance could be improved, and her legs certainly (skinnier). Also, I don't like their dead eyes and lack of facial expression. I erased a hundred times, but I just don't have what it takes yet. I will probably take this to the CC forum, and photoshop it further.

[LordLouis]

update.
to explain the last picture: I have first drawn the Goblins in World-of-Warcraft style (1+2), then tried two different stances with references (3+4), and finally tried something without reference (5+6).

cheers

[devastacio]

Hey i like the last study man. Good work!.

Andrew Loomis' books and Bridgman's are the most popular here. Anyways i got this book off amazon some time back and seems like its cool but havnt tried out yet. You may wanna giv it a try. its called "Human Anatomy for Artists-Eliot Goldfinger".

keep posting mate. Good luck.

[LordLouis]

Hey i like the last study man. Good work!.

Andrew Loomis' books and Bridgman's are the most popular here. Anyways i got this book off amazon some time back and seems like its cool but havnt tried out yet. You may wanna giv it a try. its called "Human Anatomy for Artists-Eliot Goldfinger".

keep posting mate. Good luck.

Hey, thank you again
I checked Eliot Goldfinger out, but it's just too expensive- I am not studying anything art-related, so I have to keep the costs down a bit. I am however waiting for
Burne HogarthDynamic - Figure Drawing
George B. Bridgman - Heads, Features and Faces
hopefully will arrive at some point next week!

At the moment I am trying to think of what to do next.. surely keeping with Bridgman would probably the best advise, but here and there an own project to prevent getting too bored with anatomy study... might think about it.

[LordLouis]

Update, small one.
1st picture: started leg studies, Bridgman.
2nd: I bought a blank journal and started sketching. The sketchbooks here have been very inspirational to me and I feel more ocnfident in showing my crappy stuff, I hope that training and studying anatomy will change that.

To keep on with sketches, I started the 100 theme challenge on deviantart.
1. introduction
2. love
3. light
4. dark
5. seeking solace
TBC

[LordLouis]

let's face it.
Book of Bridgeman studies about heads and faces; finishing with an attempt on a self portrait (headset picture).

I am not sure whether "life studies" refers to learn via life OR photo, or just viewing real people. The latter is making it quite hard for me; as it's always awkward sitting in a room with people, drawing them at the same time! :s

[ranunkel]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook!
You are of to good start with this sketchbook. Your anatomy studies are great!
I like the idea of drawing the plans of the head on photos! I will try that myself.
Keep up the good work!

[saltfox]

So many studies, I'm jealous :p Your hand studies are excellent!

[brentos8]

Rockin studies man! Thanks for stoppoing by my sb.

Just keep working the imagination stuff, the more you work the easier they will become, and just remmember the basic drawing principles your studying with bridgeman and Loomis when your drawing form imagination= Rythm, Form/mass, perspective, line(in that order really)

I know what you mean about drawing people in public, can be awkward, I usally try and get into some figure drawing classes. It can be very helpfull to draw form life.

Just keep pushing yourself if you want to improve, see ya..

[Kode]

Awesome studies so far, I really do like the hands studies and the recent face ones too. I also checked out the books you mentioned earlier and will probably buy them, they seem really helpfull!

[LordLouis]

Hey there I am again, I have been very inactive lately due to a massive overload of essays and university work! I didn't see the comments


Thank you very much for your reassuring comments, I always find that doing studies is so dull compared to the people that try to improve by drawing what they like, but I just found that after years of frustration, I will hail Hogarth and Loomis as my personal Mohammed, Jesus and whatnot, and really get down to the proper stuff!
Kode, I can only recommend the books. What I cannot recommend however is the Drawing with the right side of the brain book, at least for me it was more a scientific study to read rather than helping with my process.

Just to put it in a timeframe; the muscle studies are from Feburary; all but the one onw hich I drew the same study twice, one in Feb/11 and one just yesterday, after having done some real-life tryouts. My sketchbook usually contains the dates

>Usual fail with self portraits.
>I know few people look in my sketchbook, but I just feel like sharing this with whoever happens to comment; I have started with drawing from life (not humans, though) and I must say it is SO EXCITING
For the first time I realize that I train my brain when attempting to make out the perspective and when I sat down at my university to draw what I saw, I found myself absolutely in conflict with what I saw and what I thought was there. Absolutely fascinating how much I had imagined to know: when drawing the sketch in which the two guys are standing next to the pillars on the left side- I looked up and thought: "No way they are THAT big" Oo
I have gotten Loomis out again and try to understand the perspective thing of horizontal lines, vanishing points and whatnot (I am always left confused tbh).

[Trailblazer]

Hey thanks for stopping by my sketchbook, looks like you have a nice thing going on with yours, keep up all the studies its encouraging for people like me doing the same.

[LordLouis]

Hey thanks for stopping by my sketchbook, looks like you have a nice thing going on with yours, keep up all the studies its encouraging for people like me doing the same.

Thank you for the reply
Yeah indeed it is good to see others have got to go through that study phase as well

[LordLouis]

Another two failed self-portaits ~_~

[wooden mango]

Oooh nice studies! I really like the ones at the top of your april 4th post and the sketch of the street/court yard. Kepp up the good work!

[saltfox]

I like the recent self portraits

I found myself absolutely in conflict with what I saw and what I thought was there

If in doubt, I'd recommend always drawing directly what you see

Keep up the great work!

[LordLouis]

@wooden mango: hey thank you for the encouraging words I am ill at the moment so cannot go outside, but will do soon
@saltfox: well you haven't seen me live then
Hehe thanks for the tip

I was wondering whether I had made some progress with my studies, so I attempted an overhaul of something I did 2 years ago. While it looks very different, it is closer to what I had imagined back then

[LordLouis]

YES! YES! YES!

finally! oh my god- finally I can actually SEE some sort of improvement after months of hogarth and bridgman- this piece was inspired by Feng Zhu's video tutorial about zombie knights ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKndZ...eature=related ) and I was so awestruck that I thought- you know what- just try it out. And the best thing: It didnt even took long!!! 2 hours at most! My snorlax one post up, the original was 6 hrs..

I used a ton of references for basically everything (skull, hipbone, spine, armor pieces, organs...)- of course I didnt follow the tutorial or anything, but the idea was what I still had in mind.
Off to more hogarth now!!!!

Please feel free to rip this apart ( i think the head is slightly dislocated to the left), as always helping!

[Mag-Neo]

---Anatomy & figure drawings are very nicely done... keep posting... mate..

[LordLouis]

---Anatomy & figure drawings are very nicely done... keep posting... mate..

Thanks mate, will post some more boring studies shortly!

[alexson]

Great pencil stuff, man. Very nice studies! If you want to get more into painting I'd recommend painting from life i.e. painting still lifes of cups, fruit and whatever you can find. I usually place them on my desk next to my monitor and paint in photoshop. Also if you want to learn values better you can start doing studies from black and white photos. So you can ignore the color and just try to get the values corrent. Values in my opinion is so so important, much more so than color.
Anyway looking forward to seeing more stuff! Keep up the good work!

[tronrobot]

Some great characters and anatomy studies! good work! i see your working hard. keep it up bro.
i think some of the pencil sketches, u cud push your tones a bit more. maybe using a bigger range of lights and darks. just a suggestion. and watch the evil proportions haha. gets me every time'

[LordLouis]

Hey guys, thank you so much for the replies! Woo 3 at once

@alexson: Thank you very much! Yeah I am not going into painting admittedly, I am just incapable of doing things with colours or without lines, gets me lost. On your advice however I have done some stilllife drawing and was shocked to see how incapable I am of drawing an orange right in front of me!

@tronrobot: Yeah I see what you mean there; I only use one pencil for everything, and its a light one because my sketches are always very messy- have to work on that, thanks!

I decided to take part on the COW challenges so that I dont get too bored with the studies I am doing- which has put me off quite a lot recently! Anyway, it's exam time at the moment, so tings don't look too artistic :s