Miscellaneous Debris - Facing the Facts

**Cryptorchild** · December 3rd, 2006, 01:20 AM

Hokay, so at the behest of That fat kid I am beginning my CA sketchbook thread!
For starters here are some Wacom sketches I have done with The Gimp. I just started using my tablet for its intended purpose and Im still getting the hang of it, but yeah...
I don't have a scanner so I can't show anything from my actual sketchbook just yet, but at least I have the wacom stuff.

This one is my final for painting, it isn't done yet though... so I thought it might merit a spot in the sketchbook thread.

**Cryptorchild** · December 4th, 2006, 01:18 AM

Here is a quick self portrait, thinking about doing a bunch of these for a project. Of course Ill spend more time on those. Good excuse to practice with the tablet!

--Update--

Ok here's one I spent some more time on...

**Cryptorchild** · December 5th, 2006, 04:05 PM

Alright, so I have the rest of today tomorrow and most of Thursday to do self portraits!

Thanks a lot for the crit Andrew. Not trying to bale here, but The Gimp crashed and I lost all this work... it was 1 a.m. and I wanted to get to bed but I also wanted to finish that. So I rushed it, and so now we have a good example of what not to do! ;-) Anyway, I've found the Wacom is very good at picking up on my jitters with the pen. This jitteriness might be several things, but Im working on cutting it down. I have been messing with how I hold the tablet (if at all). On this one I stood and held the tablet in my left hand which helped. I was thinking about how in life drawing I can stand back and get that whole arm extension in, which is a big help... emulating that is tough however. As for this latest one in terms of technique I tried harder to be more deliberate in my mark making. I also made use of the eraser in this one which I haven't really been doing.

So here is the latest installment, with many more to come I hope...

**asoir** · December 5th, 2006, 04:26 PM

keep at it, look at the proportions, flip the image upside down and you can see what i mean.
peace

**Seedling** · December 5th, 2006, 04:42 PM

Hi Cryptorchild,
Self portraits are a great way to practice.

With PhotoShop or similar progams, try thinking of it as painting instead of drawing. You don't need to start on a white background, and you don't need to be restricted by making marks with a tiny dot.

If you are looking for sketchbook ideas, you might be interested in the link in my sig called "Concept Art 101". Cheers!

**Cryptorchild** · December 5th, 2006, 05:01 PM

Hey asoir and Seedling. Thanks for the replies! asoir, I flipped it over and yeah, I can see what you mean for sure. Proportion is not one of my strong points, that will be something I pay closer attention to on the next installment.

Seedling, I have given thought to what you said about the dot... at the moment I'm comfortable with the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle here. The different brushes in The Gimp aren't to spectacular though, I try to stick with the blurred circle. However, I will try some other ones that seem promising. I think I'm gonna look around to see if there are any available for download as well. Oh, I have also already looked at your concept thread, I found it very interesting! Maybe I'll follow through it over break when I won't have anything drawing based on my plate.

Anyway the replies are in themselves a boost, which is nice to find that someone is taking an interest.

----------
Alright, I tried my best to take into account what you have all said. I went and checked up on some other Wacom threads and read through them, which was a bit of a help. I also found a link to 1100 Gimp brushes! (All free of course) I experimented with those for a while and I like a lot of them, however it is not possible to change the sizes on them so I went back to using the fuzzy circle for this one. I did change up the sizes I was using this time too. I also feel that my proportions are much better in this portrait as well. I have all of the layers represented here so people can comment on any or all of them!

This was my base before I moved on to add value:

Here is just the layer with value:

And here they are together!

---------
Alright one more edit, then Im off to bed...

I didn't do any value on this one, but I think I've at least got a good ground to work from.

---------
Here is today's attempt; I tried a bit of a different approach when adding value this time. I think it looks cartoony though, and Im not sure if it is because of lack of detail in both line and value or if I didn't nail the proportions very well...

**Cryptorchild** · December 8th, 2006, 12:56 AM

Well my final was today; I was bold and went first. The presentation went well, my idea was to show how I have made some progress with the tablet over the past few weeks. Pretty much everyone else did a cop out project that had nothing to do with drawing. That fat kid did a phenominal still life vanitas drawing though, which was refreshing amongst so much dross. But now its time to learn psych and CS before the exams next week!

**Cryptorchild** · December 11th, 2006, 03:18 AM

After having done an abysmal drawing of a penguin the other day on a friends wall board I decided to draw ^that^. And I was tired of studying

Some things have come up recently that I'd like to get some input on: My brother wants me to do UI design for him and is sending me this book: Designing Interfaces. Has anyone read this? Any other recommendations?
I also met a guy who wants me to do something similar but in a more serious environment! I'm really intimidated by this because I haven't done anything really serious in this regard. Once again, any suggestions, ideas, anything? I'd be making UI's, layouts, color schemes and some other stuff for some really crazy project (that I sadly don't have a lot of details on).

**Cryptorchild** · February 10th, 2007, 01:57 AM

So I haven't put anything up for a few months... heres some new stuff...

These are my paintings from last semester:

And some stuff from my sketchbook:

And this is a work in progress, the painting is based off of a model I had to make for class, I still have to finish off the right section and most of the center. There is also the matter of a background, which I have not yet decided upon:

**Cryptorchild** · February 20th, 2007, 07:48 PM

Well here is some recent stuff out o the sketch book...

Crit is tomorrow for my painting (disaster has ensued, I hope I was able to bring it up to a decent level... I'll post the final painting as soon as I have a decent pic!)

**Cryptorchild** · March 4th, 2007, 04:54 PM

Ok here are some sketchbook updates, as well as the current painting Im working on. I am working from life, but I have a photo of it here as well.

That Fat Kid - You're right I do need to draw more, that last self portrait I did really pulled me in.

**Cryptorchild** · March 7th, 2007, 10:28 PM

Quick update:

Sorry about the photo quality (phone cam, plus glare :'( ). Looking better? Any advice for bringing the glass out? I ordered up some smaller brushes so I could get the smaller reflections better, just waiting on those to arrive.
Basically though, this is part 1 of a 3 part assignment which goes from detail to abstract.

BTW I realize it looks pretty heavy handed at the moment, it's still in a state of flux...

I plan on throwing up some more sketches tomorrow or the next day.

Stay tuned!

**Cryptorchild** · March 10th, 2007, 09:21 PM

So I haven't been able to scan any sketchbook pages. This is because I don't own a scanner, and I'm technically not allowed in the art buildings lab! I'm not paying an $50 fee, so its either sneek in or buy a scanner.

Anyway, I thought I'd post progress on my painting:

This is a slightly better pic than last time. I got some new brushes to help w/ the details. Tomorrow I plan on hitting the bottom and top of the background some more, that sheen on the velvet is proving to be difficult to tackle.

**Cryptorchild** · April 20th, 2007, 04:32 AM

Ok, big update... thats about it.

This first one was from life, of my brother. The hands were just... meh.

These are a few exercises from the Right Brain book.

Some from life, the head is from memory (I was on a train for a long time)

More life.

From life.

This is some underwater aquarium deal. The plant stuff was giving me a hard time.

The drawing on the bottom right is photo ref, I'm using it for my final painting.

I'm pretty pleased with this page. If you can see I did a lame silhouette that turned out really well as a shadow for the face I did.

More stuff from life.

Top left face is from a photo ref, that isn't finished yet.

And this is all from life, that's a bike on the left.

And these last 3 are from my last painting project, the goal was to move from a "real" representation to an abstract in 3 panels. These are oil on Masonite panel by the way.

This is my final for this semester, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it. As of right now the goal is to get the white filled in, from there I'll go back and clean it up some. After that, I should still have time to do more with it. This is a 3'x5' canvas.

Post Script
It's getting toward the end of the semester, and it looks like we're getting an Ultimate Sketchbook Challenge together! Thanks to That Fat Kid, and Guggenmaneuver for the idea. I'll post up some stuff from that once it happens.

**dmitri** · April 20th, 2007, 05:10 AM

The three paintings look nice. The first real glass is maybe a bit tangent-ish with the bottom of the canvas (just touching it), but I wouldn't know if that's a real problem. The middle one is my favorite, sort of feels like the glass is actually transforming in front of my eyes.

Try to avoid outlining lips (esp. in the 16th picture, the photo reffed one), it tends to have a weird, separating effect.

**Cryptorchild** · April 29th, 2007, 07:06 AM

Just did this with the tablet, because I can't sleep. Obviously unfinished. The Gimp is really lacking in brushes, I just used the fuzzy circle. There is a photoshop brush converter, can anyone point me towards a link to some more painterly brushes? I tried to do this more like a painting than a drawing as well. Otherwise there is an update on my final for class, it's due in a few days.

dmitri - Thanks for the reply, I totally see what you mean about the lips!

**Cryptorchild** · June 1st, 2007, 05:49 AM

I finally finished my moleskine off, so I got a new one which is smaller. Otherwise, here's what I've been doing for a while.

And I just realized I didn't crop most of these... sorry.

These are from the new smaller sketchbook:

I went back to an older sketchbook (8 1/2 x 11) to finish it out:

Crits are welcome, thanks!

**Cryptorchild** · November 5th, 2007, 01:58 AM

Here's an update. I've been starting to do a little imagination stuff. I also threw in the photos from my studio. Those are pointers that I made out of Masonite that I have placed in the landscape.

**Cryptorchild** · November 19th, 2007, 02:26 AM

A few new things. That is all.

**Cryptorchild** · February 10th, 2008, 05:19 PM

Been a while, here is some new stuff.

**Cryptorchild** · March 18th, 2008, 02:31 AM

And yet another load.

**iamgale** · March 18th, 2008, 03:56 AM

you life studies are cool, esp all the portraits. hehe its a great way to get used to the human face. i especially like the glass and hand painting! keep it up! ^^