Character designs, sketches, still-life, etc.

**Shortydiva** · April 6th, 2007, 04:01 PM

It's about time I start a sketchbook thread after being on this site for several months now. I hope I will see progress through my images, but it won't happen unless you point out what needs work and what I can do to be better.

As you can see, I need to do more still-life drawings.
The character on the right is supposed to be 15, but I can't even make people look their age. And I used my hands for reference, though it looks bad in the image.

Preppy character. Used hands for reference, but still ended up looking bad.

From the looks of these, I need to focus on anatomy, how to draw finger placements, and hands in general. Only then will it put less strain on me. So you can be as harsh as you'd like because right now my progress is SLOW!!

**Envisor** · April 6th, 2007, 04:18 PM

Welcome to the boards man. I think the hands look pretty good in that piece. But I gotta agree, she looks a little older than 15. Youve got a good imagination. Try doing figure and anatomy studies every day, along with life drawing and stuff from your imagination. Keep up the good work and youll be improving.

**Shortydiva** · April 6th, 2007, 04:35 PM

Envisor - Ehh, thanks, but I don't think the hands are even good in my pieces as of yet, because each time I draw them I struggle with how to make them look "normal". I'll make sure I try focusing more on anatomy and still-life (man I hate doing still-life!!)

**Envisor** · April 6th, 2007, 05:11 PM

You know, when you have a problem with something, youve got to go out and try your hardest to make it right, keep drawing it and soon enough it wont be a problem anymore. Ive had trouble with legs, hands, faces, but I went and drew pages of them each day in order to make them the best thing that I could draw.

**Shortydiva** · May 4th, 2007, 03:18 PM

Shoot, been in a really terrible art slump lately, but I've got some sketches to dump for crits.

More still life and the faceless skeleton was practice on "lively" positions and lying on a mushroom, though it doesn't look like it. I don't like it when my drawings are always looking static instead of alive and out there, so it was a bit of practice. I need to do more observations in this area.

Did this when I was goofing off, so the shoulders are WAY too close, throwing his chest way off. I was bored and tried to color with colored pencils after a long break from them, but as you can see, it's not too exciting. And the black smudges on his face are words on the front of the paper. I need to work a whole lot more on facial expressions too since his smirk isn't too convincing.

**nilaffle** · May 4th, 2007, 04:20 PM

Hey, nice to see you're posting again.

Well you've already given yourself the best advice - draw more! I know how slumps are, they're quite annoying, but you know what you want to study more of and that's the first step. Some figure studies would be especially awesome to see, then branch out to hands, feet and faces. Your hands are already looking pretty good btw.

Looking forward to more work from you!

**Grimey** · May 11th, 2007, 01:19 PM

of course study anatomy.
but then also study perspective. perspective will also help you with drawing the body.
think about how and why things connect the way they do on the body as you draw. always draw from reference.
when doing foreshortening on the body, imagine the part as a shape in space, it will be easier to draw in perspective than an organic shape.

**Vigilandus** · May 12th, 2007, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by stonercurly

always draw from reference.

Well not always.. but I know what you mean. Good points.
As for being able to memorize shapes in 3D better: apply shading.

Good luck. *subscribed*

**alesoun** · May 12th, 2007, 07:03 PM

I sympathise with you about problems drawing hands, but that last coloured pencil head and shoulders doesn't look static to me....

**nuki** · May 13th, 2007, 12:30 PM

You seem to concentrate on getting a clear, smooth line too much. That way, you loose the flow of your strokes, and kill much emotion...not to mention the extra time it takes. Try to make longer, faster lines instead. I'd recommend to make loose (referenced) sketches/studies to get rid of the stiffness, and boost your line-safety.
Apart from that, I don't see any problems here. You got a good basic understanding of proportion and anatomy, and the hands are pretty good all ready. Just keep drawing and you'll get into it

-regards, nookeh

**Shortydiva** · June 4th, 2007, 03:53 PM

Man, I'm such a huge slacker. Been a month since I've updated this journal and not much to show since I'm elsewhere goofing off on other forums, playing games, giving many critiques in critique center, etc...

Nilaffle - I haven't really taken any figure study classes yet, but hopefully after the summer I can find a course which lets me go deep into this area. I definitely need to since my stuff is still...bleh.

Stonercurly - I'm being more observant nowadays, and I'm definitely sticking to reference a bit more instead of doing pitiful guesswork. And the advice about imaging the shape in space helps. CGing Foreshortening is usually one of my challenges I need to overcome (and in terms of drawing).

Vigilandus - Sounds like a good idea. So far, I've been keeping an eye out on shapes and textures, so hopefully this might also help me.

Alesoun - YES, why must the ends of limbs be so hard on us??!!? They need to be nicer! :happy:
Actually the static I was talking about was the image of the anatomy man resting quietly resting on a mushroom. I think I need to put a larger gap between the drawing and description to not confuse you guys.

And trust me, if you saw most of my dynamic drawings,you'd see they LAUGH at me instead of being dynamic and out there. More practice on action for me...

Nuki - Hmm...I'm not sure if it's right to point this out on me but usually if I sketch something out, my scanner will make the sketch look extra grainy and gritty, so I have to go over the sketch again to darken the lines, but you're right though. I guess I don't like weird scribbly lines that go all over the place to make a person, but I'll do it, so hopefully the stiffness will lessen. Hands pretty good and ready? Haha, so NOT true. I need more painful work on them. I know I need to get to work now, but man I need to STOP BEING SO LAZY!!!! GAHH!!!!

Thank you so much for the comments, guys. I'm not a big updater, so here's what I have so far. Since my computer that has the scanner is suffering a massive virus by not letting one of my drives show up (with my works

I hope they're not erased by the stupid virus ), I only have the laptop to draw on, so here's what I've got. If I would've known my computer woulda gone nuts I would've uploaded my sketches a little earlier.

I thought it'd be good to try painting the bananas beside me via tablet completely. Any advice is more than welcome as always.

Here's the first image I put in the critique center back in March:

It was a request art of a person's character and a shapeshifting father of the girl currently taking the form of a Zora. I got a couple of helpful critiques on this, and one person was nice enough to do a paintover for it, making the contrast stand out much more since this one lacked many different levels of lights and darks.

I used the person's paintover as a reference because it looked better than the original. Since that thread has slid off, I'll put it here to show my progress. This image is so much worse than the person's paintover, which I liked so much more :happy:

Changed a couple of things around, especially the water since pond/river water is NOT blue and illuminating as such (and because first time I tried using brown I thought "no, it won't even turn out right since I can't do it"). The tree leaves look like clay, so I'm working on them too. This image is incomplete, and I'm open to any crits anyone has so I can surprise him with a better-looking image.

Sketch of a person's character I'm doing.

Thanks guys, and please continue giving critiques.

**Saera** · June 7th, 2007, 04:02 AM

Re your digital painting that you've already altered quite a bit.. I think you can push the contrasts in the foreground a bit more. The creature in the water has a very high contrast right now; dark blue shadows and white highlights, whereas the figure right before him/her/it lacks dark shadows despite the dark clothing. Think atmospheric perspective - things get more blended in with the background the further away the are. You can put some more details into the trees that are closer to you and let the trees farther away get even more sunken into the field and sky. The water is looking a lot better with the new colours introduced.

The blue girl sketch is really nice, good proportions!

I dont know if this might help with your hand problem - but it's how I learned to draw them properly. Break them down into simple geometrical shapes, use your own to see exactly how to place them and then go from there.
See the quick example I drew.

I'll be checking out your progress.

**Shortydiva** · June 11th, 2007, 12:58 PM

Saera - Wow, thank you for pointing out the girl's shadows not being dark enough. Didn't catch that. Yeah, I need to work more on contrast since I'm not top-notch on them (found a quick link that gave nice examples of contrast in art) as of yet.

Thank you for the help. Saved the hand examples onto my computer just in case I need a simplified version of a hand to draw.

**ShiroNami** · July 19th, 2007, 01:25 PM

I really respect the amount of sketches that are drawn from life. Life drawing can seem boring and tedious but is one of the things that will help you grow artistically the most. The fact that you are willing to keep at it shows your willingness to grow.

Besides that all I have to say You should put more contrast into your pictures and use harder brushes when coloring.