Tc's Sketchbook (now with updates!)

[hitnrun]

your work is a mixed bag here - in some places you kind of miss the mark, with more unrefined work, and in other ares you absolutely nail it - I think the Megan Fox portrait is pretty nice.

The Sarah Michelle Gellar look-a-like - get rid of the giant M shade that goes around her nostrils and through the bridge of her nose. Make the eyes a tad bit narrower, and make them less white - they're too bright right now. Also, give those eye lashes some life (vary the strokes up a bit - eyelashes on top should be longer, eye lashes on the bottom usually not as long, not as pronounced) and there is always a line to define the top of the upper eyelid. Also, add some shading to the iris and the pupil. It'll make your work look MUCH more natural.

Your pencil works aren't bad either - I can't really tell if it's your style, or if you're having trouble with portraiture.. Quite frankly I think it's the latter option because your shading seems well done - you just get the features and spacing a little wonky. Likeness = achieved though, so well done!

[cricketts801]

Great work!

[tomcat]

your work is a mixed bag here - in some places you kind of miss the mark, with more unrefined work, and in other ares you absolutely nail it - I think the Megan Fox portrait is pretty nice.

The Sarah Michelle Gellar look-a-like - get rid of the giant M shade that goes around her nostrils and through the bridge of her nose. Make the eyes a tad bit narrower, and make them less white - they're too bright right now. Also, give those eye lashes some life (vary the strokes up a bit - eyelashes on top should be longer, eye lashes on the bottom usually not as long, not as pronounced) and there is always a line to define the top of the upper eyelid. Also, add some shading to the iris and the pupil. It'll make your work look MUCH more natural.

Your pencil works aren't bad either - I can't really tell if it's your style, or if you're having trouble with portraiture.. Quite frankly I think it's the latter option because your shading seems well done - you just get the features and spacing a little wonky. Likeness = achieved though, so well done!

Thanks for the comments, I'm really new to digital painting so it's still a learning curve for me, likewise portraits and figure drawing, gimme a car or a plane and I never miss though. Going to take a good while for me to get used to working digitaly and also to improve in the areas where I suck, I need to get back in to the swing of it as I have't done much drawing or painting in the last ten years.

[tomcat]

Sp of Tony Stark, not overly pleased with it as I think he's come out looking rather angrier than the original picture, think I'll call it done though.

[tomcat]

Started another one today, it's a picture of a young actress out of Cloverfield, it's a WIP but any crits are more than welcome..

[tomcat]

Some sketches and other studies from last week, appologies for the quality of the photos they where taken on my phone.

[Stpete]

Really cool traditional art keep up the good work!

[tomcat]

Thanks for stopping by, I want dearly to do some more digital work but I just can't come up with any decent ideas, think I've hit a dead spot for inspiration.

I've just gone back through my sketchbook, damn I need to pull my finger out, there's sod all in here...

[mirapakai]

Nice stuff. Thanks for sharing. lot of people already gave you good suggestions so I'll refrain from touching every area that you can improve and one suggestion that helped me when I was learning digital art. Your palette seems dull when it comes to digital portraits. I am guessing that it might be because your are using muddy colors for darker shades & picking intermediate colors from painting it self by averaging them using some other blending tool. To avoid this, my suggestion is mix your colors ahead of your time and paint a small palette on your painting and pick colors from it. it should give you the kind of glow you would expect in a portrait shot with good post processing. and dont be afraid to replace some dull colors from original reference and use some bright colors like red and orange in portraits as you will be pleasantly surprised with end results. all the best.

[tomcat]

Thanks for the comments, I know that drawing faces in general is a big weak point for me so I'm trying to get better at it, pallete wise I do usually just pick from the reference so I suppose that's where I'm going wrong photo's aren't the best way of learning but until September they're my only option.

[tomcat]

Did a little more work on this today, corrected a little miss alignment in the nose and mouth and worked on the eyes.

[tomcat]

Gonna call this done.

[tomcat]

Started on this tonight, not sure where I'm going with it yet..

[tomcat]

Hello!, wow didn't realise I'd been away that long, I had serious computer problems and it's taken me this long to get it back into something useable, now got a 1T HD and a 250 SSD so storage wont be a problem any more,lol. Not really been able to paint much recently but here's somthing I'm working on at present.







This is still a work in progress but I hope to have it done over the weekend, no reference was used for this (apart for maybe the sword).

[hitnrun]

I made a few notes on the digital work you just did. Stuff I think could use a bit of a fix up. Your work is getting better by the post too - keep posting!

Edit: The head placement on the shoulders also implies a 3/4's view.

[tomcat]

Thanks for the crits, the pic at this point is still a ways off yet, hence the skin, hair etc still being just grey. I had a feeling the hands where a little small but I wasn't sure so thanks for pointing that out. I've not used any reference for the woman so this is why the anatomy is slightly off, I will try and correct is as I go, here's where I got upto last night...

[tomcat]

Getting there now.

[tomcat]

Barring and more problems I'm gonna call this one done..

[mirapakai]

Wow that is really good. you are a good learner. I like how it turned out. I got one suggestion. Try blending using smaller strokes of intermediate colors instead of airbrush or blur tool. even when you use those tools use them with a small radius may be 5 to 10 pixels at the max. that way you can improve the quality. of course it involves much more effort than air brush or other blending tools ;p.

[tomcat]

Thanks!, I'm more practised at using an airbrush (Yes a real one) so that is still how I paint, I like to get a realistic feel to my paintings rather than a painterly one.

[tomcat]

Seem to have plenty of time on my hands at the minute so I should be doing plenty of sketching over the next few days...

Here's a couple I did yesterday and today..

[kjylee]

I love those recent sketches! Nice detail!

[Cabbage Caterpillar]

Very nice portraits. Good likeness, I can really tell who's who!

[tomcat]

Oh...it's been a while since I posted anything in here, it took me a while to find my own sketchbook,lol.. Should have some updates in the next few days. I started a Games Art degree course in September so that's why I've not been doing much on here.