One Nice Day

[seungy]

haha man... I started from the first page and ended up here... the improvement has been addictive! Keep up the good work

Your sketchbook is actually quite inspiring. i.e. it inspires you to improve!

Never give up and keep going at it yo!

[Xeon_OND]

Strange that you think of that while looking at the trees in Chinese Garden since... I stay around that area :p

LOL, I stay around the Chinese Garden area too! The mass of trees around Chinese Garden (especially that big patch of field there) are the prettiest. In the morning, in contrast to the office hour rush, they look so clam, serene and majestic.

Your rendering skills are soo much greater! And it's not just about finishing something, you're showing a much greater sensitivity to precision and value scale. Excellent work! Try some more self portraits from the mirror!

Hello Tas! It's been some time! I can still handle subjects that have one base color, but anything like 2 base colors or 3 would totally throw me off-balance, like what happened to me today, when I try to render my messenger bag with the creases and folds; it was overwhelming like fuck, and it shows that I seriously need more work in this regard. I'm still trying to come up with a "procedure" to rendering values, since my steps are kinda haphazard and random now.

@ Seungy: Yes Sir! Thanks Sir!

[JR McGee]

one year of solid dedication. just showin respect.

i cant lie the first page humored me lol. but man ur skill with rendering craps on mine. ur line control has gotten so much better.

ur doing great thinking in forms and building from there. jus make sure u keep in mind that u can apply all that to portraits, and life studies too.

i feel like u prolly know more than me now lol just seeing ur studies. im doing my own studying of the human body myself.

i think i might check out the Vilppu thread u got goin on.

[Kamber Parrk]

Your fruit and furniture are lookin' scary good.

('spose I should go draw me some "towers o' doom. . .")

[Xeon_OND]

one year of solid dedication. just showin respect.
i cant lie the first page humored me lol. but man ur skill with rendering craps on mine. ur line control has gotten so much better.
ur doing great thinking in forms and building from there. jus make sure u keep in mind that u can apply all that to portraits, and life studies too.

i feel like u prolly know more than me now lol just seeing ur studies. im doing my own studying of the human body myself.

i think i might check out the Vilppu thread u got goin on.

Welcome by, McGee Jr! LOL, you're kidding me, right? Obviously no way in hell can I be better than you in any aspect. I saw your SB and your rendering of the arms all look so much more solid and believable than mine, for example. Your portraits and digital painting simply blows the fish out of the oceans. I'm still struggling to draw, and drawing even simple objects from life are always hard for me.

I've just subscribed to your SB. Btw, what approach are you mainly using for your figure drawing? Loomis? Bridgman?

Your fruit and furniture are lookin' scary good.
('spose I should go draw me some "towers o' doom. . .")

Thanks for your comments, but good-looking rendering does not always equate to good drawings. I could have done better but my technical skills suck me down. One day when I can render subjects exactly like a grayscale photo, then I'm good.

Oh yeah, speaking of which...where's your Towers of Doom? LOL

[JR McGee]

Welcome by, McGee Jr! LOL, you're kidding me, right? Obviously no way in hell can I be better than you in any aspect. I saw your SB and your rendering of the arms all look so much more solid and believable than mine, for example. Your portraits and digital painting simply blows the fish out of the oceans. I'm still struggling to draw, and drawing even simple objects from life are always hard for me.

I've just subscribed to your SB. Btw, what approach are you mainly using for your figure drawing? Loomis? Bridgman?

thanks. lol. dude im just now trying to figure out how control my line better and render wit graphite. we'll have to push each other then in this area.

Man honestly i think im more influenced by Frank Reily when it comes to figure drawing. while i did do loomis and bridgeman studies i found loomis to be too....structured and stiff. I fell in LOVE wit bridgeman tho. any figure drawing or drawing from head often finds some influence of him along wit Reillys way of figure drawing.I like Bridgmens concept of wedges and how different muscles/masses connect.

but right now i'm somewhat committing to learning the human body/skeleton. so most stuff starts with 1-3 gesture strokes, then a quick simple skeleton frame then build on it wit simple geometric forms. then thinking of planes i'd shade. after that ur just fine tuning for the most part.

heres a nice link if u havent come across it....

http://www.dhfa.net/Artiststatement2.html

sorry for long post....i hardly talk on this forum. lol

[PaintMyBrain]

hey. wow i looked through this whole page and from top to bottom there is some serious improvements. The portraits are really good but the last one looks increadable!
keep it up!

[Kamber Parrk]

Thanks for your comments, but good-looking rendering does not always equate to good drawings. I could have done better but my technical skills suck me down. One day when I can render subjects exactly like a grayscale photo, then I'm good.

Oh yeah, speaking of which...where's your Towers of Doom? LOL

Heh! Printers crank out 256 shades of gray! You'll never get there with the 8 or 9 values you can get out of graphite and charcoal.

That's OK though, photos lack the spiritual input of their makers. Study up on your Miyamoto Musashi. Let the soul speak through the implement.

Workin' the towers this evenin'. ETA? Later tonight or sometime tomorrow!

[Xeon_OND]

@ PaintMyBrain: Keep up the hard work! Your SB is always active, which is a good thing. Your Ironman is starting to look cool!

Man honestly i think im more influenced by Frank Reily when it comes to figure drawing. while i did do loomis and bridgeman studies i found loomis to be too....structured and stiff. I fell in LOVE wit bridgeman tho. any figure drawing or drawing from head often finds some influence of him along wit Reillys way of figure drawing.I like Bridgmens concept of wedges and how different muscles/masses connect.

LOL, I've heard of the Reily method, but unfortunately, I find the lines and theory behind it to be weird and bizzare, so I never tried it. I just realized that regardless of which style we do, it's best to cross-reference it with other sources (for e.g: reading Loomis, Hamm and Bridgeman when your main source is Sheldon / Vilppu, so that you can have info and knowledge from different perspectives etc. More info is never bad ).

Heh! Printers crank out 256 shades of gray! You'll never get there with the 8 or 9 values you can get out of graphite and charcoal. Workin' the towers this evenin'. ETA? Later tonight or sometime tomorrow!

LOL, I used to think that humans can never produce drawings that look like photos, but after seeing how some photo-realist and hyper-realist artists can achieve that, I changed my mind. Probably a good example is JD Hilberry's book, in which he demos how to draw stuff that looks exactly the same as a gray-scale photo.

--------------UPDATE------------------
Didn't really do a lot of actual drawing from life these 2 weeks, but more of finished drawings, exercises and figure studies.

Here they go:

Drawing of my white messenger bag. I thought I was on a roll, and attempted this complex subject, but ended up biting off more than I can chew. :roll: The number of tones and folds on the bag overwhelmed me and I gave up halfway. I'll definitely attempt this as part of my weekly finished drawing in the near future. The cover of the bag was left unshaded, and I tried doing some line variation instead:









Constructional drawing of a 4-seater swing near my home. Wished I could have one of these in my flat, but its too large:





Fast contour sketch of the styrofoam bird, and continuous line sketch of my fan. Body of the bird is kinda too long!



Experimenting with different strokes for doing textures. My marks vocabulary is non-existent. The ellipses of the F-Clamp looks somewhat better this time after I blocked in the 5 ellipses with a tapered cone and rotated the paper before I draw the ellipses.



Currently going into the study of human proportions based on the 8-head model. I now overlay the rhythm studies with 8 balls to indicate the 8 different parts:





We finally get a real model for our anatomy drawing class!
The session starts with a number of 2 min poses (haven't felt this sort of intense excitement for a long, long time). Haven't really got into the studying of gesture drawing yet. Probably will do that in a month's or two's time. I drew based on my half-baked knowledge, and ended up with half-assed crap. LOL :




Drawing of the torso. Total time for each torso is 30 mins.
The little sketch at the bottom was done by my teacher to show me the correct way to construct the torso when seen from the back (the model was bending over). Mine is kinda too long.



Drawing of a tree in front of my home using scribbled lines. Total crap.
I intend to draw a couple of trees every weekend. During the Prime Minister's speech yesterday on TV, I shuddered and cringed when I hear him talking of building 22,000+ apartments and flats over the next few years. More buildings = less of Nature!


Finished piece of the week: water bottle, A5 sketchbook, library receipt (it's there somewhere! ) and pencil case. Mainly HB and some 5B in the darker areas. Initial shading was done using hatching / cross-hatching. I rarely use finger smudging, but the surface of the water bottle and pencil case was so smooth, I felt I had to, and I did.
Pencil case was greatly simplified as the details and folds of the latex was too complicated to render out every single tone.

I'm glad I learnt something from this 6-hour ***t: planes really help a lot in the interpretation of complex objects (especially drapery-type objects), for they aid in helping to interpret where the light is coming from, and how the form curves and turns. I'll try to make use of planes in future work whenever I can:


I've always been a great fan of artists who can produce drawings in the Photo-realism and Hyper-realism style, but recently, I've started to ponder the purpose of trying to achieving such styles, because a drawing that looks exactly like a gray-scale photo lacks emotion and looks anonymous. Now only do I understand why the majority of the great artists do not lust for photo-realism, for by drawing in their own unique style, their drawings have a human-touch, identifiable flavor to them.

I still hope to achieve my dream of producing photo-realistic drawings some day when I'm an old man (maybe 85 yrs old? ), though it's no longer high on my priority list for now.

As usual, NEGATIVE FEEDBACK is GREATLY APPRECIATED. I am forever grateful to anyone who provides negative feedback!

Good day,
Xeon

[Diarum]

man, your rendering is getting so good lol really point out how lazy I have been. Still no digi stuff? The last page looks good, I think If you want it to get it to be more realistic you need more shades. like the bad its all the same tone, with the exceptions the intentional light and dark spots. Thats about all I can think about at this moment. I am sure I will think of more later.

Gosh I knew this would happen. 85 I think not, I think at this rate maybe next couple of years easy

[Falchion]

That's some pretty gorram good stuff you've got there.

[krysjez]

Think the shading on the bottle could use some darks to define the ridges more clearly. But maybe you have a silver bottle.

[Xeon_OND]

Think the shading on the bottle could use some darks to define the ridges more clearly. But maybe you have a silver bottle.

Thanks krysjez! LOL, nah, it's not a silver bottle, but a plastic transparent one. Trying to render transparent stuff is a challenge for me.

[Xeon_OND]

Went to a short talk on the Singapore illustration scene last week, where the speaker gave us a very brief introduction of what illustration is, the history of illustration in Singapore, as well as showing us what she did as an illustrator, the workflow, and also some tips on making contracts, client negotiation and whatnot.

Most importantly, one of the speakers burst my bubble by telling us : In Singapore, there's no such thing as a full-time, employed illustrator. Meaning, if you want to be an illustrator in Singapore, you need to be self-employed and then seek out contracts and jobs (OK, to be fair, there's a handful of illustrators hired by companies in Singapore but it's very very rare and few between).

Sounds exciting, because you don't need to work under a boss and you have somewhat more freedom in your workflow, but it also means it's gonna be a much, much harder dream-chase for me now. The worst thing is : given the competition around in such a cramped market, it's even scarier to think about how I'm even gonna land a single contract in future. :roll:

I prefer not to think so much about that for now, and concentrate on improving my crappy drawing skills, which suck to no end.

After graduation, I'll work as a full-time cleaner, collecting dirty plates and washing dishes in hawker centers in the day and continue to draw and learn more about illustration at night. It should take me several more decades before I can even qualify as an illustrator. Half a century, maybe?
I hope some cleaning company will employ me.

The talk gave me a strong reality check, and I'm utterly grateful for that, and now I know how far away from my dream I am. Have to work even harder and no more farking around.

And...the drawings, as usual:

Below 4 drawings are part of our class assignment, using mathematical calculation + perspective rules to create an indoor environment where you choose the furniture you want to put in. I really hate the mathematical nature of this drawing. Curse it all; mathematical drawings will rot in hell! *face-palms*





Below drawings are 1-min poses done 2 weeks ago. Half-assed the gestures again:






Drawings of a male model. I will definitely be posting more of such crappy figure drawings in the months and years to come, until one day when I get better with construction and anatomy. Super-long torso! *double face-palms*




Passed by a construction site at night and picked up 2 granite rocks and took them home to study them, by dividing their body into major planes and using directional lines to indicate the different planes. In terms of rock and landscape drawing, Marlee owns me big time:



Tracings from books:











Study and memorization of the major landmarks on the human form, namely hairline, eye line, nose base, mouth base, chin base, pit of neck, sternum, navel, pubic arch, great trochanter, bottom of knee, shin, talus, feet, back of cranium, beginning of neck, 7th vertebrae, acroniom process...list goes on:






At around the time of below drawing, I believed I have managed to come up with a set of procedures work for me during the gesture drawing process so that at least, the lines don't go all over the paper like in above previous gestures. The biggest problem now is that my gestures still look kinda stiff! :roll:

Below gestures are all done from online photos and some from books:
























School assignment: Drawing of Bras Basah Complex. I'll clean up the lines and start the shading next week or so:


School assignment: 2nd drawing of Bras Basah Complex, this time at the 4th storey, I think. The lines of the building and porch area are crooked, and I intend to re-draw this again.


Sketch of my wooden model house for the weekly finished drawing self-assigned project. The lines became too dirty and dark and I had to trace this over with a light box.


Finished drawing for last week, and corrected some bits of perspective in the original sketch. The ellipses of the circular water-mill thing was very difficult to get it right and it still looks somewhat off:


Finished drawing for this week: Small basket. Tonal values shouldn't be so dark, and the front face of the basket should be slightly shorter.
I admit I kinda lost patience with the actual criss-crossing of the wooden strips and any-oh-how roughly drew them in. Shouldn't have darkened the black gaps so much, and now it looks flat. Now, I remember my teacher always said something like, "Don't use black in your shading" or something similar.


My current goal is to improve on my gestures, I really want more flow and action in them, then I'll tackle PoseManiacs.

The world draws with you,
Xeon

[Diarum]

Well Until you get better at anatomy it will be really hard to get a job Lol. Man I can't even get a normal job lol. And my moms gonna kick me out if I don't get one. Scary stuff. Keep it up dude do some actually do some anatomy studies instead of just poses

[Kamber Parrk]

That gesture stuff is interesting. It's more structured than the Nicolaidian stuff that I end up doing.

If you're worried about stiffness, maybe skim through Nicolaides on gesture?

Probably said it before, but if they're not making you do it at school, you should really get some vine charcoal and charcoal paper to play with to help your value studies. It's easier to work than graphite, but it is rather messy!

[You can get a lot of cheap dramatic effect with somewhat less effort!]

[Xeon_OND]

Well Until you get better at anatomy it will be really hard to get a job Lol. Man I can't even get a normal job lol. And my moms gonna kick me out if I don't get one. Scary stuff.

LOL, if only it were that easy! I mean, if just getting better at anatomy will land me a job, then everyone will get a job!

I only discovered a few months ago, to my utter and absolute shock and horror, that getting a job as an illustrator means more than just technical drawing skills : you need to be good at composition, story-telling and all other non-technical skills. In fact, to be a good illustrator, your technical drawing skills don't even have to be that top-notch.

Your mom was just scaring you, I guess. I mean, if you get kicked out, where are you gonna stay? And....which sane parent would want to have their kids sleeping on the streets?

That gesture stuff is interesting. It's more structured than the Nicolaidian stuff that I end up doing.

Remember : any time you crave for the "stuff" I told you about several times previously, just drop me a PM. It will do you wonders.

If you're worried about stiffness, maybe skim through Nicolaides on gesture?

I've read Nicolaides' gesture chapter before but it seems his kind of gesture is very different from Vilppu's style.
In his book, Sheldon says that if you want to make loose drawings, your understanding of anatomy must be good. I guess I'll wait till the anatomy part and then with practice, my gestures will be a lot looser (hopefully). Vilppu and Sheldon did some gestures with very long flowy lines that just seems to make the figure swirl on the paper itself!

Probably said it before, but if they're not making you do it at school, you should really get some vine charcoal and charcoal paper to play with to help your value studies. It's easier to work than graphite, but it is rather messy!

But I hate charcoal, just like the way I dislike oil painting and anything dirty! LOL, I guess maybe in future and I can buy large enough paper and charcoal sticks and pencils.

Good day!
Xeon

[Pierce9]

Your drive is humbling. The technical skills you're developing are going to take you a long way, just don't forget to exercise your creativity as well. Go to museums, read books or get out of the city for a bit.

Also, I meant to mention something about your tree when you had it in the Art Discussion forum. It looks like you jumped in right away with the texture, but start thinking of the masses of the canopy. They'll each have their own shadow shapes and form so get that down and then hit some areas with the texture.

[TASmith]

You're getting better! More still lifes!!!

[raminafshari]

lots of studies , you are working hard , well done

[Whirly]

Hey Xeon_OND,

Im inspired by the dedication and really jelouse at the speed of improvement! Keep going mate! Im not even close!

[Xeon_OND]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Your drive is humbling. The technical skills you're developing are going to take you a long way, just don't forget to exercise your creativity as well. Go to museums, read books or get out of the city for a bit.

LOL, I've started doing a couple of quick-and-dirty-and-fast satirical sketches every week or so, and they're fun! I'll be posting those in my next update. I love satire!

Also, I meant to mention something about your tree when you had it in the Art Discussion forum. It looks like you jumped in right away with the texture, but start thinking of the masses of the canopy. They'll each have their own shadow shapes and form so get that down and then hit some areas with the texture.

Regarding the tree, my process when I drew it was :

Step 1: Draw the branches
Step 2: Sketch in very loosely the major blobs of shapes of the clusters of leaves
Step 3: Use the scribble-line to do the texture
Step 4: Use the side of the pencil to very very lightly shade in the shadows on the tree

Not sure if this is the correct way to draw texture. I've always been wondering whether texture should be done first before laying tone on top of it, or tone should be done first then layer texture on top, or do you guys do them both at the same time? Thanks!

You're getting better! More still lifes!!!

Thanks TAS! Haven't been doing much still lifes ever since I started learning & drawing gestures and stuff, and my observational drawing skills are gonna take a huge beating sooner or later. But I'll be free in the next few weeks to come, so that means more drawing of both gestures and still life.

Hey Xeon_OND,
Im inspired by the dedication and really jelouse at the speed of improvement! Keep going mate! Im not even close!

Nah, my improvement is really slow compared to the a lot of the real drawers here. Just draw from life, think about art even when you're not drawing, observe stuff when you're walking on the streets (be careful, though, because I nearly got knocked down by a car once when doing this).

I believe you're also drawing using the Vilppu / Sheldon / Hampton method? Great! That means one more SB for me to draw knowledge and reference from, in addition to Sir Cam and Dir3kt's sketchbook!

Good day!
Xeon

[Diarum]

Hey dude, lol just noticed but your SB is a 4 star SB congrats bro

[Alejo Calderón]

hi XEON.... Im new here on conceptart.org... what is this all about threads and sketchbooks?

[Diarum]

hi XEON.... Im new here on conceptart.org... what is this all about threads and sketchbooks?

This is a place where you track your progress, and people comment on your work so that you can get better and better.

[Xeon_OND]

Hey dude, lol just noticed but your SB is a 4 star SB congrats bro

Huh, there's actually ratings for SBs too? Didn't know there's such a thing till you mention! But stars don't mean anything, though.

hi XEON.... Im new here on conceptart.org... what is this all about threads and sketchbooks?

Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_threading

The term "Sketchbook" (SB) is a term used at CA.org, where it's basically an "online sketchbook" where you post your shit here to track your progress. By posting your shit in public, you at least have a sense of accountability and it kinds of drive you to draw more.

Good day!
Xeon

[Istmin52]

Your dedication and hard work is really inspiring. I think the problem when you are using value is that there is a lack of value range in your work which makes everything look a bit flat. I would try pushing your values more and use more of your mid values. Your mid values are key in terms of making things look 3 dimensional. Also, when you shade, try shading in the direction of the object. I think you are starting to do that now.

[Xeon_OND]

Your dedication and hard work is really inspiring. I think the problem when you are using value is that there is a lack of value range in your work which makes everything look a bit flat. I would try pushing your values more and use more of your mid values. Your mid values are key in terms of making things look 3 dimensional. Also, when you shade, try shading in the direction of the object. I think you are starting to do that now.

Thanks Istmin! Yeah, I've started shading in the direction of the planes; as for value range, I'm probably influenced by this pencil drawing / shading style whereby the overall object is rendered in mostly light tones (around 0 to 4 value range), with bits of very dark contrasts (value range 8 - 9) in certain selected, small areas for visual excitement.

I'm not sure which other artists shade in that kinda style, but Phil Metzger (author of "The Art of Perspective" and "Pencil Magic") often does his pencil drawings in such a style and I love it a lot!

I also like the works of Robert Schultz a lot. See his shit here:
http://www.schultzdrawings.com/gallery.html

He makes use of lost edges and all his stuff are bathed in light, and I have a good mind to want to shade in that kind of style one day!

Good day,
Xeon

[Marlee.]

Gosh, Xeon, you're really flying I tried to steal your methods and work on some "constructive" still lifes the other day and they KICKED MY BUTT. So, here's a deal for you I'll post more of them if you don't give up on rocks and landscapes! I'm really looking forward to seeing more figure drawings from you, too. That constructive element is going to do loads for you now that you've established a good foundation in it from all these still lifes. You already know you need to watch proportions, so i won't bug you! My advice is to watch the foreshortening. I know its hard but in the third figure you've posted, instead of simply receding from the viewer, the man looks as though he is curving in an odd way.
As for the wooden house, you know the ellipses don't agree with one another, so try drawing a page of freehand, as-close-as-you-can-get-to-perfect cylinders every day, and really think when you're doing it. Draw each axis of each ellipse before you make it and make sure that they agree with one another. I know you're good at this because your constrictive drawings show it! So just put the time into simple excersises and it'll help. (Doing the same thing with boxes will help you too!) For me what works best is to do a few of these "shape" pages and then immediately go on to still life stuff while its still fresh in my head. It helps so, so much!

You're getting better with every post, Xeon Go, go, go!

[Marlee.]

Where's my update???