Inkthyosaur's sketchbook

[Inkthyosaur]

Hello,

I'm a 30 year old bloke from the UK. I haven't really drawn seriously for about a decade now. I figured it was about time to stop wasting my talents and actually out the effort in to get good.

Here's a few bits and bobs I've done lately. Really still just finding my feet with this stuff right now and trying to learn. Two are right out the old brain pan, one is a copy of a Frazetta.

Cheers

[Inkthyosaur]

Something i'm working on for a friends band. A ways to go yet. (Mainly cause i really need to figure out how to draw a guitar.)

Any feedback welcome.

[Dave the Savage]

Really nice digital technique, definetly would've been a shame not to do anyhting with it! And the Frazetta one shows some good use of ink as well.

[Inkthyosaur]

I originally painted this in colour between Painter & PS. But frankly it came out pretty garish.

Dropped it all to B&W in PS then went back and used overlay layers to recolour it. Came out much better on that pass.

wolverine

[Inkthyosaur]

Hulk vs wolverine, frolicking in the snow.

Corel Painter plus Photoshop. Took waaaay longer than it should have, as per usual. Every piece I do is a huge learning curve as I grapple with learning the tools themselves plus anatomy, value, colour, perspective and so on.

[Inkthyosaur]

Quick and dirty sketches done in Sketchbook Pro

[Inkthyosaur]

A bunch of sketches from my actual sketchbook

[Inkthyosaur]

Quick PS character

[Inkthyosaur]

Super low angle sketch from Drive.

[Inkthyosaur]

[Inkthyosaur]

Something I'm working on, portrait of a guy at work who's retiring in a few weeks. Any crits or tips welcome though, I did his face on a different layer before getting into the body but Ive ended up with two different value ranges and Im struggling to reconcile them without repainting massive areas.

[Inkthyosaur]

Coloured version

[Inkthyosaur]

Self portrait. Still needs some final tidying up here and there.

[palladium]

I can't believe only one other person has commented on here yet. Sorry for that dude. Most of the time, you have to comment on lots of other sketchbooks to get feedback. Last post looks real nice, anyone ever told you you look like Chester Bennington from Linkin Park. lol Really dig that Hulk Vs Wolverine piece. Keep pushing yourself with each piece, only way to learn faster. Anyways keep posting.

[jakubvavrik]

Hey man, it is obvious you have some experience with pencil under your belt . That frazetta study is really good and sharp - quality you should try to apply to your color paintings. I think they are too blurry and surely will benefit from more acurate edge control. Look here for some guidance and keep practicing!

[Inkthyosaur]

Thanks mate, that link was useful. Will get working on the edge control.

[Rotor]

Hi man, thanks for dropping by my SB.
I think you have established good knowledge already. The matter now comes to honing your craft to a keen edge.

A few rules of thumb for digital stuff ( and remember, there are no rules, just your own consideration).
When starting a digital painting, use big, preferably hard, brushes to establish a solid base for you to work on. People usually also work from a neutral colour as to get a broader value range. I tend to start from a dark base as I feel it's more comfortable to gradually add light.
Avoid going into too much detail at the early stages as you want your piece to feel consistent, work it over in phases.
Absolute black and white should be used with good cause (take heed now as I may type out of my ass on this one, I'm no professor but the point stands I think, so bear with me). Black means there is a place in your painting where light absolutely can not get to, no information for the eye to gather, something that can be rarely observed because of ambient factors. Absolute black is dead and flat.
White, naturally, is the polar opposite but also terribly flat. Generally, I'd try and establish the lightest light of your piece at an early stage. The lightest light is the colour of the canvas you're painting on, theoretically. (editorial note, the 'lightest light in your painting' relates to traditional painting, provided you would work on a white canvas so disregard it. I may get a bit too enthusiastic trying to explaing things sometimes. )
I could go on with this but I think you get the point already, sorry for the ramble.

I did these overpaints for you, hope you don't mind and find them useful.




The general things I'm trying to underline are:
Form and structure, how you convey something as an object in three dimensional space.
Anatomy. Internet is full of reference if a pose has you wondering.
Value structure, think of your objects in terms of fields of value and planes at first, simplify.
Light. How does it react to different materials, from different angles?
Contrast, relating to values. Where do you want the focus?
Focus and composition. Where do you want the viewers eye to go?
Composition. Rule of thirds etc. It is good to do thumbnails before starting a piece so that you can figure out a striking composition.
All this you can observe and study around you.

I love the subject matter of your stuff. Undead warriors are always cool in my book and the classic take on Wolverine brought back some childhood memories.
Keep it up man, looking good so far.

[lupre]

very nice stuff here. you can really spot some talent here. i love the post #8
greets

[Inkthyosaur]

Cheers for taking the time to do the overpaints. Skeleton dude definitely looks a lot less flat, although he's coming out kind of surprised looking with the tweaked helmet. That was definitely a piece where I didn't get the composition & basic anatomy right before plowing into it, and it shows.

[Spudonkey]

some good work here!

think you may need a little work on some perspective though, one of my weaknesses also

[Inkthyosaur]

quick werewolf sketch

[Inkthyosaur]

Joker sketch 45 mins - now time to do some actual studies and stop mucking about.

[Inkthyosaur]

Right, couldn't do joker without Batman, now going to do some actual studies.

[AliSaid]

Thanks for your amazing advice! Your sketchbooks awesome - In terms of feedback, Rotor really hit it on the head, flipping the image while you're painting is a habit i picked up which is extremely invaluable - errors and mistakes really pop up when flipped. Lastly batman's left arm-shoulder (one he's using to lean on) really stands out as anatomically incorrect, the arm doesn't sit right with the shoulder-chest, try posing like that and you'll know what i mean.

Your portraits are friggin sweet, you'll get there in no time, we both will!

[Inkthyosaur]

Study from National Geographic. Tried some new brushes out.

[Aaron_Radney]

Hey. Glad to see you're pushing to improve your talent. Always awesome. I'd like to add more but the overpaintings did a lot of it for me.

The things I might add are that you shouldn't be afraid to refine your edges. Clipping masks are your best friends there.
Really focus on your anatomy (it's kind of a cop out crit but everyone needs to work on it constantly). If you can see if the artist guild in your city has open figure drawing classes. Many do and if you just type in "your town" artist guild it probably won't be hard to find them.

Have you tried any lighting studies? Looking at how light falls on different objects, seeing what it does to them.

If I have one suggestion it's not to get so focused on digital you lose touch with your inking. It seems really strong and expressive and I hope you don't stop working to improve with it as well.

[Inkthyosaur]

morning Sketches - 2 in an attempt to do something more like a pencil sketch, one just mucking about with brushes

[BlackDelphin]

Good sketches, I really like what you did with the brushes in this last one.
The first two have a solid sketch effect to them. Nice and clean as well.

More, more!

[Inkthyosaur]

Forgot to say, most of the dinosaur one was blocked out using a custom brush made of the head of the previous monster sketch. Just trying out some ways of getting a lot of texture down on the page right from the off and then building out from that.

[Inkthyosaur]

Some thumbs from my pocket sketchbook.