Etui's sketchbook, very much seeking critique

**etui** · June 7th, 2011, 06:53 AM

Hello there! I'm etui, and I recently decided that I was going to start focusing on color and the fundamentals of art, after years of struggling with anatomically incorrect cartoon drawings.

Here's the first batch from the past three weeks. Please offer critiques, if you can. I absolutely thrive off the stuff. [heck, I only decided to start this because I was worried about bothering the other forum

]

**pixel cheetah** · June 7th, 2011, 07:06 AM

Good start. Keep it up. Be more precise.

**etui** · June 7th, 2011, 08:01 AM

@pixel cheetah:
Thank you very much! And yeah, gotta work on that.

More arts that I was gonna post before getting distracted.

EDIT: put some clownpaint on the Joker one and ended up liking it better C:

The pencil sharpener was a really quick thing I did from life, but it was amazing to see how many colors and details I could pick up. I didn't get anywhere near nailing all of them, but it was interesting.

That's often the difference between drawing from life and a photo. With life, you're frustrated that you can't capture everything you see. With a photo you're struggling to do the most with what you can.

The beach and the eagle are totally referenced from photos, and I didn't like them because they looked kinda cold and textureless and vector-like... even though I think I got the colors right. The advice I got was to work with edges [which I didn't event think about!] and try to focus on adding more details.

I'd really like to get away from the vector look though, to a more painterly feel.

**etui** · June 8th, 2011, 07:09 AM

Some sketches from this evening. About a month ago I was really trying to force myself to draw in that Disney animal style, and got insaneeely jealous of the artists who could pull it off so naturally.

Finally I got very frustrated and very bored of trying to chase a style, and now I've just dumped the whole thing out the window in favour of drawing my own way. It's very liberating. =]

**pixel cheetah** · June 8th, 2011, 07:47 AM

The eagle and the palm beach is simply awesome. IMO there is no need for more details (or textures), just work on the edges. Here is a quick edge tutorial by Elwell:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51913

**wooden mango** · June 8th, 2011, 01:03 PM

Very nice stuff so far. I really love the peacock, such beautiful colours!

**Richi** · June 9th, 2011, 12:40 PM

I'm not an expert but I like what I see here.

**Jansi** · June 9th, 2011, 01:24 PM

Hi there!

Love the freshness of both colour and tone in all of your pictures - really happy, bright stuff! I think you can really colour. The problem, when it does appear, lies with the drawing, as is particularly evident from the black and white lady - you took no time to do a proper drawing and hence she is a little wonky.

Really great start to the sketchbook!

Best wishes,

Ana

**fi-V-e** · June 9th, 2011, 05:27 PM

Etui, this is great stuff! I think with a few underlying principles of technique and more form practice, you'd really be blowing stuff out of the water -- not that that analogy makes sense

I'm really impressed that you pull of that vector look. It's not easy! You've got a great sense of what colors can go where. The weakest sketches would be the top two dogs on the right b/c of a lack of color depth. But that eagle and the apple / orange are ridiculously cool.

Judging from what I see of your style here, I think the more realistic / painterly approach would easily be a technique thing for you. Start using less saturated midtones and be careful not to shift saturations / tones too quickly on similar planes. You can get the idea if you drop your brush opacity to something like 15% - 30%. What I like to do is paint a midtone and then paint the next color I want to gradiate toward. I eyedrop the midtone, and then paint at the edge of the shadow so you start to get a mix. Then I'll eyedrop that mix and paint it on both sides, some strokes in the midtone, some in the shadow. And I'll just keep pushing and pulling with looooots of eyedropping until I snag a really smooth blend.

Do you work with soft brushes at all? They're kinda neat because you can get harder edges by making the brush continually smaller. This gives you a lot of control over your edges.

Hope that's somewhere near helpful :-) Judging from your skill, I bet you've already heard all of that, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

**etui** · June 10th, 2011, 02:46 AM

pixel cheetah: Thank you! I actually fiddled around with manipulating the edges in different ways, and it made a huge difference with depth. Can't believe I never thought about edges until recently

wooden mango: Thank you! The peacock was a lot of fun for me. =]

Richi: I'm glad to hear it

Jansi: Thank you! You're right on the ball with that one, I was really eager to get started, so my drawing looked sort of..er..interesting, lets say. Just goes to show that shading doesn't magically fix problems.

fi-V-e: Thank you so much for this. I'm going to try blending like that, by eye dropping the colors until there's a transition, it looks wonderful on your stuff! I only use the hardest brush because I was trying to stay away from the really airbrushed, vague look, but I think I overshot in that quest. haha. This is very helpful, and I appreciate it.

And nowww some quick doodles from the past hour or two:

**etui** · June 10th, 2011, 10:23 PM

Emilie Autumn..Cel shading is more fun after learning a bit more about color

**Flame_Unquenchable** · June 11th, 2011, 12:40 AM

You have a great handle on color there, I think one thing with the portrait though is that you need to take a little more time and get the proportions right. The face is a little square and a bit too short, but with animal anatomy and enviros you're looking stellar.

**vineris** · June 11th, 2011, 02:22 AM

Hey, good start to a sketchbook! I like your colour studies, I definitely think you have an eye for colour. I think that last pic could use some tweaking of the composition. Some of the girl's hair forms a tangent with the frame, I think you should either crop it or extend it and I think her arm would do better going straight down or bent back a bit.

**Alex Eh** · June 11th, 2011, 05:28 AM

Love the guy, maybe girl in #10. Your lines are awesome, they are way ahead of your painting skills I find, so keep working on them!

**DvrJeroen** · June 11th, 2011, 06:19 AM

Your color studies are amazing! the lineart is very good too.
keep posting! (:

**CrownLullaby** · June 11th, 2011, 11:47 AM

I lovelovelove your use of colours. I wish I had an eye for that as good as yours. Looking lovely!

**AckermannPhilip** · June 11th, 2011, 02:04 PM

Thanks for commenting my SB!

Your colors are awesome! This makes me think, that you have done your homework concerning color theroy? Be more careful with your linework and just work a bit cleaner.
The eagle is incredible! Very cool!

**fi-V-e** · June 12th, 2011, 12:48 AM

i love Capt. Rainbowpants and the portrait! Someone else said it and i think it was right; your anatomy may need a little more work. But wow it looks like you've got some good instincts

Also, i may have overstated the opacity thing. Definitely try it, but dont lose your color vibration. I just did a pic inspired by your hard edges but used a sampled paintbrush with hue set to 4% jitter and it seemed to work well. Youre right that the airbrush look isnt good. i need to be careful of that. Last note: the apple / orange / beach images literally make me feel happy

**dracken** · June 16th, 2011, 11:42 AM

Good stuff here and while a bit "cartoony" I think it looks very good. You saw my sketchbook so you know I have no experience with color, however maybe using different brushes could help give more texture to your work.

This book looked really helpful about more advanced color/ texture stuff

Also I really like your value study of the girl in the very first post. I believe more stuff like that could really help push your art. Now, post more art