Act One Scene One

[PrimaryVIVID]

Hey everyone.

My name is Justin. I'm a 21 year old sophomore at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. I'm majoring in Graphic design and just recently declared my minor as illustration. I never really drew as a kid (I always wanted to learn, but always became frustrated) and my first real artistic experience came in my early teens with Photoshop. I became really proficient with Photoshop, but never really grasped traditional techniques like form, value and perspective, so I felt my work sort of suffered.

Seeing the works of old masters like Caravaggio, Ruebens, and Durer really inspired me to learn to draw. So, just recently I've taken a hiatus from digital work to hone my drawing ability. I'm hoping that this will improve my design and prepare me for starting a minor in unfamiliar territory.

I'm really interested in improving myself, and extremely eager to hear any hints more seasoned artists may have. So please, critique away.

[PrimaryVIVID]

I'm currently on break from school, and I've been spending most of my free time drawing, so expect a at least a drawing a day from me for a little while.

Here's a skull I was working on, the reference was from a photograph. I've yet to finish it, but figured I'd toss it out there anyway.

Second is a another one from photo reference, Really trying to show an oozing, goopy texture. It was supposed to say "Castle" but my moleskine was too small, so I settled for case D:

[PrimaryVIVID]

Some stuff from today.

3 master copies, all from Peter Paul Rueben drawings
2 pages of gestures

I'm trying to understand this whole value thing; to make my stuff look more three dimensional. I read a tutorial on here about line quality and tried to apply it to my later master copies, it helped a bit, but I'm still not getting it completely. I'm gonna keep at it though.

I also need to work on my heavy handedness; I have this habit of loosely running over a line several times, which makes my lines too dark too quickly I think.

The gestures are 60 and 90 second gestures from posemaniacs. I'm really bad at gestures, so I've been practicing them recently. I've improved a lot, but I'm still not where I want to be. I think it's the line quality as well, my initial lines are too dark, so when I go over to emphasize something, I've kind of already exhausted my entire value range.

[ZenitYerkes]

those studies look REALLY good!

If you want some advice, try Andrew Loomis', Glenn Vilppu's or George Bridgman's books. Those three are very good at the basics and can be found at any library.

*cough**cough**cough*

Keep drawing!

[PrimaryVIVID]

Thanks for the info. I grabbed most of those a while ago, but haven't gotten to read too much of them.

No update yesterday, but with good reason! Started a new drawing, of Laocoon. I asked some advice from a friend and he told me to focus more on line weight and reflective light, aaand thats what I did. I also used the Bargues measuring tutorial thats in the tutorial section, which REALLY helped out my sighting and measuring. I really see what people are talking about when people say the block in is the most important stage of a drawing.

I still think my lines are too dark, but focusing on the reflective light really adds to the three-dimensionality of the image. This is about 15-16 hours of work so far, I'd say.

[ArteJuan]

great studies man, keep em comming!

[PrimaryVIVID]

Thanks a lot, Juan!

Only one again today. I'm really dead set on finishing this before I go back to school in January. So I'll mostly be posting progress shots and possibly some type studies from a project I'm doing a bit later. Let me know what you think!

[DeadManDancing]

As everyone already said - u have very good studies.

I didn't read every answer u got (it's late in Germany and now I'll go to sleep :-P ) so i might double this one to the dark line problem.
I guess I kinda had/still have this problem. But I avoided it just by concentrating and focusing on the important parts, that give the whatever-u-are-drawing the form. So it might help if u really think about what line u run over more than once. Im sure you won't have to think about it any longer after you did this a while.

But despite this I really like your dark lines. At least on the sketches u have shown us

[PrimaryVIVID]

I worked on the Laocoon some more, but I'm sure everyones tired of seeing a bit more hair day by day, so I'll wait until sunday or so to show some real progress. I'll probably be finished with his face and beard by then, meaning all thats left is his facial features, which terrifies me. Hopefully I'll learn as much as I did so far on that particular portion of the drawing.

In the meantime, here are some quick doodles. A lotus, my friend Susan, and some more slime from a while ago.

[GETBUCK]

wow at first i tought thats a witch than i saw its just your friend Susan
you seem to be such a patient guy . respect
aaanndd i want to see some more cant realy get a grip on yr style yet

[DeadManDancing]

Not bad your doodles although the second one looks weird to me. Don't know exactly what it is but I think the nose kinda disturbs me. But it's just a doodle and I'm barely able to sketch a nose so I should just shut up.

Don't stop going on Can't wait to see the finished Laocoon.

[PrimaryVIVID]

I'm not dead! Just in school, very busy, but I'm getting a lot of work done, and Life Drawing is teaching me a whole lot. Here are a few things from my sketchbook so far, I'll have much more to dump once next week when I'm off!

[Istmin52]

I can totally relate to you by having trouble with your values. Before I went to art college, my work looked pretty flat and it wasn't until someone told me about midtones. It was a completely new experience for me. I think getting your midtones down is really important. I would suggest watching Jason Manleys video stream about color theory. He does talk about value in there as well. I would def take a drawing class since you are still in college and hopefully you'll have a good teacher that explains light and shadow to you. Def keep doing value studies. Maybe try doing value studies of some simple objects first like a square or a circle. I know it's boring but it might help. Also, doing some anatomy studies would help you understand more when you are drawing the figure. I would do lots of skeleton studies. They can even be gestural and draw them from different angles. Def keep up the work.

[PrimaryVIVID]

My current Life Drawing Professor is very good, his name is James Langley (http://www.langleyart.com/), he's taught me a lot about composition and how to approach a drawing, simplifying forms, etc. He gave me some advice as to how to get more accurate values to show three-dimensionality, but I've yet to really get a grasp on how to make it work for me.

Manleys composition video was fantastic, looks like I'll have to bite the bullet again and buy his color theory one haha.

[PrimaryVIVID]

A few new pages, to show I'm still alive.

[Lav]

very cool pages you have so far are the last 2 done with watercolour?

[PrimaryVIVID]

Yeah, watercolor & gouache.

[PrimaryVIVID]

Here's the drawing for a flyer I made for a project I made for school. Sumi-ink with brush and nib. I'll post the final piece with text and what not when I turn it in.