How's my progress?

[Veshkau]

Great progress. Really liking the faces especially - You've really got a knack for capturing likeness

[BenjaminJL92]

Veshkau:Thanks for stopping by man, love your work!

Anyway yeah, sorry for the lack of updates, been bombarded with college work and generally just life, I have an operation on Wednesday for Achalasia, which I've been suffering from for a while now, not nice but after that I will really push out some more work to post on here.

Just some portraits of my friends working for my final project, trying to draw the viewer in by inviting them into the world of a fine art student, I made some custom brushes from materials from our studio which I will be using later this week if I'm well enough! but yeah enough chatter, hope to post more frequently.

Completed portrait of Sam, A2 charcoal paper crop.


Portrait of Anna in progress, A1 charcoal paper crop.

[BenjaminJL92]

Finally completed the portrait of Anna, converted this to monochrome in PS so the tones are more distinctive.

[BenjaminJL92]

Another quick update, almost finished my 3rd of 4 A1 portraits for my final project.

[BenjaminJL92]

Just a small digital paint over of the original graphite drawing.

[Fullmetal-Animator]

These portraits are coming along nicely. Really love how realistic the tonal values are. The grungy background on the last one is a nice touch as well.

[Rustveld]

wow, your pencils have greatly improved since the last time I dropped by!
Awesome portraits, keep it up!

[Fiskepudding]

I really enjoyed looking through these pages. Looks like you're pretty good at drawing from observation. Keep at it

[BenjaminJL92]

Fiskepudding:Thanks man!
Rustveld:Nice to see you stopped by again, I appreciate the kind words.
Fullmetal-Animator:Cheers, yeah it turned out pretty well, I've just been experimenting lately.

So yeah, more college project work, I have one week left and then I'm free to doodle and draw to my hearts content.
I had to use a variety of mediums to create some experiments for this section of my project, this painting took around 2 hours in oil on board
with some fine liner pens which was photographed and then began a digital paint over which took around another 3 hours.

[Ludic]

Cool stuff man, faces are really getting good

[BenjaminJL92]

Ludic: Thanks man! love your work.

Here is another completed painting, as you can see it's cropped from the original drawing, I felt like I cheated with this one because I used the colour picker from the reference photograph I took a lot, I need to hurry up and get back to my studies over the summer and eye ball it!

[Capt Surge]

Your pencil drawings are amazing dude I want to see more of them ^_^

[kevin_]

id say you have definitely made progress from page 1 even though it hasn't been that long. your proportions and values are looking better, keep it up!

[BenjaminJL92]

Capt Surge: Cheers! There will be more on the way soon
kevin_: Thanks man, yeah I also see improvement in some places. I need to work on colour from observation only I think, and anatomy, and everything else hah.

My final portrait piece for my project, I might experiment with this more with the grunge doodle I did previously for this one.
It looks to similar on this page now so hopefully I can get back to more studies and anatomy drawings, along with my own imaginative work!

[BenjaminJL92]

I can finally get back to creating on my own time now while I find a new job! Completed a study of Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad for the season premiere,
I've almost completed the non colour reference image as well, but I've just uploaded the final version of the colour reffed one.
Through an analysis I think I need to;
Darken the shadows and use cooler, less saturated colours
Lighten the highlights and mid-tones.
I also looked at some tutorials for space environments,
I really want to get into Sci-fi illustration and concepts I think.
Also an old image I captured of the Orion Nebula through my telescope in January.

[BenjaminJL92]

Studies, approx 3 hours each.
Really getting better with my colours now, but I've gotten sloppy in my sketchbook!
Really need to practice traditionally more often.

[BenjaminJL92]

I've recently got back into my pencils again, going to study from life more and anatomy over the next couple of weeks.
But for now, some studies of Gus from BB and a little Project I'm working on titled 'Broda'
Barney from HIMYM referred himself as Broda so I put my own little twist on it.

[Widdershins]

Wow, loving these!

[jinny]

Your portraits are killer! I love the line quality of your sketches, and your digital stuff is great too. Can't wait for more.

[Kapri]

I can see improvement from page one till now. The "portrait of Sam" from #62 has an awesome composition. All the shapes are different and the big horizontal shape just makes this a treat.

Cheers! Keep it up.

[wolfnooM]

You are better then a year ago (well almost), your portraits are very nice too.

[wolfnooM]

Agh my english is very bad, excuse my lack of understanding, with "almost" I was trying to say, almost a year, your first post was in Octuber 2011. And thx for your comment ^^

[BenjaminJL92]

Widdershins: Thanks! Hopefully I can keep on top of my studies.
jinny: Cheers not much to post today but possibly next week.
Kapri: Thank you, I also like the composition in the portrait of Sam as well, I think I need to study composition more though, definitely a weak spot for me
Noomwolf:Hey don't worry it was my fault, I completely misunderstood at the time, I think it was because it was at 3-4am hah, thanks again man.

Just a quick hour study of Henry James, by John Singer Sargent.
I normally despise using charcoal but blocking in basic shapes really gives an impression of 3 dimensionality.

[BenjaminJL92]

Really starting to enjoy charcoal at the moment, I used to despise using it but I'm getting used to it.
I also added some digital brushes over the charcoal study.
Plus a 2 hour colour study, I feel I'm becoming much more confident with my colour choices lately, hopefully that will persist.

[RaphaelLuebke]

nice studies! as a total astrophysics-fan i especially love the galaxies

[BenjaminJL92]

xbert: Thanks man! Yeah I can't wait for Winter,
I'll try and capture some more images regarding the Astrophotography work, cheers for checking out my SB.

Working on a self portrait using a technique from Ctrl+Paint,
there was a scene in Breaking Bad which reminded me of an old dream I had once,
the colours in the scene were perfect so hopefully I will actually finish this soon.

[BenjaminJL92]

More studies in charcoal, I'm almost down to 75 minutes each sketch, much quicker than 3 hours. Sherlock and Rachael from Blade Runner.

[Psychobuddy]

Nice portraits man, maybe try some other stuff, figures or enviros or whatever. Either way man, great work.

[BenjaminJL92]

Psychobuddy: Thanks man! Yeah I'm definitely going to have to try and mix my studies up a bit and produce a variety.

Ah glad to be back! I'm unhappy about certain settings and updates to the forums though, especially the attachment uploads, I guess I'll have to get used to it. But yeah here is a 45 minute still life with a digital edit (I'm doing many more of these so I'll try and upload more over the week), a Self Portrait (90 minutes) and a value study of Jesse Pinkman (3 hours).

[BenjaminJL92]

Working on some experiments while I'm getting Uni work done. Trying to mix digital painting with drawing so I'm going to paint the left half of this in colour and add some effects, hopefully it turns out how I see it in my head. Moriarty from Sherlock.