Lee's Sketchbook

[Sam I Am]

(I mainly put the NSFW tag in the thread just to be safe, and for future reference. The one bit of nudity here is pretty tame.)
Hi, there. Well, this is where I'll be posting my sketches (which, as of late, I draw daily). I'll post as often as I can. Feel free to tell me what you think! In fact, please do. I'm a beginner; I have a lot to learn, and any advice at all is helpful.

I'll start with a few drawings of closeups of eyes, which I've been drawing a lot of lately. I'll put them in order by the time I drew them. These were all drawn in the last few days, with a pen. The only one I didn't use a photo reference for is the third one. If you have any advice on eyelashes and eyebrows, I'd love to hear it..
(in my opinion, the least craptastic of all of these is the fourth one.. I'm going to try to make more like that from now on.)





This picture is my first attempt at drawing a woman, or any person, for that matter. Drawn from a photo reference, in pencil. It didn't turn out quite how I hoped; I should have used a much different pose, especially for my first try.. Again, any constructive criticism is welcome.

I redid that foot (the one that's not pointed) about twenty times, and I just could not get it right! It's supposed to be flat on the ground, but I can't get it to look that way. Any advice?

Well, that's all for now. I'll post more as I go along..

- Lee

[WRappiii]

hey there, Lee. Welcome to CA!

I jump right in with some critiques... the eyebrows for those eyes are too close to the eyes and bit too small as well. The last eye is definitely with its subtle highlights and rounder appearance.
As for the figure, the legs a little short and the arms too skinny. The neck is pretty long, too. But for a first attempt it is excellent and all these things will come with practice!

[Sam I Am]

@WRappiii- I was wondering about the arms, but I hadn't considered the legs or neck. Looking at it now, I can see that you're right. I plan on redrawing this figure soon; I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Thanks for the help!

[DSiwek]

Welcome to CA! I'm pretty new here too.

The figures pretty good for a first try I like your choice of a more dramatic pose. I'm not an expert by any means, but I find when I'm working on figures, it helps to just take your time and really study the reference. Sometimes I'll put something out of sight for a while and come back to it later to see it with a bit of a fresher perspective.

Definitely keep at it!

[littlebones]

Hey there Lee, welcome! For your first try, that's pretty good! Look for instructions/books by Bridgman, Loomis and Vilppu, who seem to be the darlings of ConceptArt for a reason. You can even find Loomis' books for free right here! I would recommend you take a look at his proportional figures, they're the very first thing he covers.

Also practice drawing simple shapes like cubes and spheres. Everything can basically be made up of basic shapes, even the human body, so a good understanding of how they work at their most basic level will help you in constructing more difficult and complicated things in the future. Other than that, keep drawing! Draw from life as much as you can, and remember to take time and be patient with your artwork. If you start learning that patience now, it will greatly benefit you in the long run.

Good luck, have fun!

[Sam I Am]

Thanks for the welcomes, guys.

@DSiwek- Thanks, I like the pose, too. Hmm, that's interesting. I'll be sure to study the reference carefully.

@littlebones- I've heard of Bridgman and Loomis, but never Vilppu. I'll have to look him up. And thanks for the link; it looks good, and I've been meaning to check out Loomis. I'll try breaking things down into simpler shapes, and I'll definitely keep drawing from life. Thanks for the advice!

[Sam I Am]

Alright, guys, as of this post, that NSFW tag is for real.

This is another figure, my second attempt. I drew it today, in pencil, from a photo reference. I really do like how this one turned out, though the hands and feet could use some work.

(Sorry it's so dark.. In order for the pictures I scan to even show up, I have to adjust the contrast and brightness, and I'm still figuring out the right settings.)
Any constructive criticism is welcome, as always.

That's all I've done today, so far, but I might post some hand/feet studies later..

[Sam I Am]

Here's another figure. This one turned out...meh. I'm not sure what I think of this one. It definitely needs work, but I don't think it's horrible.

I used a reference, but I strayed from it a little. Changed the position a bit and what not. Any criticism is more than welcome.

[Sam I Am]

Good news, guys; I'm working on proportions!
I used the link to Loomis's book (thanks again, it's very good) and am currently reading through it.

I tried to copy the diagram of female proportions.. The results are, er, less than great.

..Yeah, I'm redoing that later. It's not too bad, though.

I also tried a sketch based on perspective; I wanted to see if I could get it right, using the vanishing point and all. The sketch itself is nothing great, but I think the perspective is decent.


I'm working on some hand studies right now, and they'll be up some time today or tomorrow. I'm also going to work on male proportions, but I'm not sure when I'll have that up.

[Tim Murphy]

Hey Lee. As littlebones said, you're off to a great start for a beginner, you'll be good in no time. It's good that you're working on hands this early as they take a good deal of time to get used too. Having said that, if you find yourself having trouble with them try to think of them as simple forms, like boxes.

Best of luck!

[Sam I Am]

@Tim Murphy - Thanks! I hope you're right. And thanks for the advice, I'll have to try that.. 'cause hands are never easy.

And here are some foot studies.. They're considerably less nice than the hands, but they aren't too bad.

[Sam I Am]

(I've been having some posting complications because of the spam filter, so updates may or may not be very delayed. We'll see if I have any other problems.. Just a heads up.)

Here are some sketches I made to practice perspective (and proportions, to a lesser extent, on the second one; I tried to draw the mini-figures to scale. Thoughts?)



Here's an attempt at a picture focusing on a face, because I really need to work on faces. Sadly, I never finished it; my computer died while I was drawing it, and I was looking at my reference on a webpage, which I can't find. So, this is as far as I got.


Some hands from imagination:


And, finally, some figures.


Do you have any tips for drawing mouths? That second figure's mouth seems pretty off. :/ On the bright side, I think the eye on that one turned out a lot better than usual. (Sorry the feet aren't shown.. They were hidden in the reference.)

That's it, for now. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!

[Rain Walker]

mmmmm.. i like the smell of a fresh new art journey.. it reminds me of the great old days... dude embrace these days.. dont ever give up.. and know whenever u feel stuck or u hate what u draw... look at all the other Sketchbooks here.. and u will see all the journeys of artists around u.. they all started from zero.. and now they are flying high in the sky of artism .. if thats a word.. !! keep on drawing.. Never give up.. AND DRAWWWWWWW ^_^

[Sam I Am]

@Rain Walker - Thanks! I certainly hope I'll end up as good as some of the artists here, a lot of them are fantastic -- but then, there's no way to get there but practice, right? I'll definitely keep drawing.


So, I stumbled upon a tutorial for shading in digital paintings and, after reading through it, was inspired to give digital painting a shot. So, I opened my Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition (free version of a photoshop-esque product) and drew a few simple ones, just circles.. Of course, I found that drawing a perfect circle with a mouse was rather difficult, so they look more like blobs with shading.
So, without further ado, I present some shaded blobs.



(I was pretty lazy with the floor on that first one, sorry!)

Any comments?

[Sam I Am]

And here is a digitally painted box.

(it has an "M" on it because all I could think of once I saw it was McDonalds.. )

I also decided to draw a field, mainly because I haven't done much involving background/scenery, but also because I wanted to try drawing grass. Results:

[Sam I Am]

God, I really need to start waiting till the end of the day before I update. Okay, this is my last post for the day, I promise.

[Tim Murphy]

For mouths and other facial features, they follow a fairly reliable..."construction" (apologies, I'm tired and can't think of a more appropriate word)... that can be found in Loomis' books, which Littlebones linked above. Specifically you should look in "Figure Drawing for all it's Worth" and "Drawing the head and hands". Those should give you a fairly good starting point on the basic shape of the head and features. Obviously everyone is going to vary from that model in many ways, but it's a good foundation.

Careful with using a mouse for digital work. I'm sure they're ways to minimize the risk, but it is fairly hard on the wrist.

[Sam I Am]

@Tim Murphy - Thanks, I'll look into it. And yeah, I know. I don't have a tablet yet, though, so I'm working with what I've got for the time being. I hope to order a tablet soon; it seems like it would be much easier to work with.

Here's a picture of two boxes, stacked. Made digitally in Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition, no reference.

[Sam I Am]

I found a very fuzzy red hat sitting on the table today, so I decided to try to draw it, to see if I could actually make it look fuzzy. As I went along, I saved each individual step; I figured that recording the way I draw would be a good idea, to help me better see what I'm doing wrong. I'll be posting the steps too, so if you have any comments on anything I'm doing wrong, or even just a different way to do it, please let me know.






(I might draw the same hat in pencil sometime this weekend. We'll see.)

EDIT: The shadow was way too light, so I fixed it.

[Sam I Am]

Alright, here's a face I drew with a photo reference. It actually looks symmetrical! (well, more symmetrical than any other face I've drawn, anyway.)


My attempt to redraw the same face from memory much later didn't turn out quite as well, but at least it's still almost symmetrical.


And here's a female proportions sketch, which I spent very little time on. I'll have to sit down and put real effort into another one some time soon.

[Sam I Am]

I've been working on hands, so here's what I've got:

(I particularly like how that last one turned out, on the bottom.)

I also decided to work on faces, and frankly, I'm pretty proud of this one. It actually isn't half bad. So, here's a young woman from the shoulders up:

Of course, it could be better, I'm sure, but I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out.