Finally......Someday!

[I STRaY I]

I'm trying to be better. Sometimes I'm trying to try to be better. Sometimes I just waste time for the sake of wasteful experimentation.

[I STRaY I]

Still life

[Freshfool]

Good start i like the texture on that girls costume and the glass bottle is pretty cool too, one thing i think you should work on is anatomy because that girls arm is throwing me off just study some Loomis or Bridgemen anyone works and that should help you a lot when drawing/constructing a character keep it up!

[I STRaY I]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I too see the arm being janked a bit now that it's done. Actually never really knew what to do with that sucker from the start. Bad planning, but lesson learned. Thanks for the suggestions and taking the time to check my stuff out!

[I STRaY I]

Here's a self portrait I just finished. Almost got it in in 24 hours, but atleast it's in. I might actually do more with this. So maybe it's a WIP.

[lionheartGFX]

nice start, very VERY nice start i must say, the fact that you treat drawing as a muscle and rely on progression is the way to go man, ALWAYS go from simple to complex, after all no one can run before they walk, you are already very good with form and seems you have a good eye, i would encourage you to make your process more efficent more intuitive so you can think only on the story of the drawing, ofcourse its still to early for that but its nice to know your end goals anyways i like looking at such ahrd working people, keep doing more stills! some artist argue that thats the way you make sound progress in your sketching abilty and yourn ability to draw what you SEE not what you THINK you see (to me the most important thing for an artist)

keep at it and good luck!

[I STRaY I]

nice start, very VERY nice start i must say, the fact that you treat drawing as a muscle and rely on progression is the way to go man, ALWAYS go from simple to complex, after all no one can run before they walk, you are already very good with form and seems you have a good eye, i would encourage you to make your process more efficent more intuitive so you can think only on the story of the drawing, ofcourse its still to early for that but its nice to know your end goals anyways i like looking at such ahrd working people, keep doing more stills! some artist argue that thats the way you make sound progress in your sketching abilty and yourn ability to draw what you SEE not what you THINK you see (to me the most important thing for an artist)
keep at it and good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement. Drawing in B&W is my favorite thing to do. If I could, I would only do it, but there's so much to learn. It's easy to venture sometimes. But yes stills are valuable to me now. I'm really struggling with my perspective, and they kind of help me. Thanks again, and it's I who is driven by artists like you who seriously grind!

[eroquii]

Awesome awesome start to your sketchbook. I think you have a lot of potential man! You're certainly way ahead of me in any case haha. Keep at it and you'll be great in no time. =) I don't really have much to add in terms of critiques. One thing though, if you plan on studying anatomy, I would suggest skimming through Bammes' and Hampton's books. I really dig the way they break down the human body. Anyway, I'm definitely gunna be checking this sketchbook a lot in the future. Keep at it!

[I STRaY I]

@ eroquii Thanks for the feedback, as well as the suggestions. I do certainly need to pickup some reading material. Loomis, Bammes & Hampton. Most likely in that order, but for now. I'll just keep grinding. I think it'll make a dent as well. Thanks again

Here's today's piece. Did a photo reference side by side. But I very much wish it were from life. I like the model, but thats usually the case. Anyways. Reference link is below. I'll most likely paint this at some point, if not soon. I think chin could use some work too, as well as some cleanup and or other. Peace!

Reference:http://media.picfor.me/001177D9/5-be...tist_large.jpg

[MeteorCat]

Looks like a good start or a good continuation. There are too many small strokes on the womans blouse, if you ask me. You can also see these hairy lines on her face where the light hits. I know it's tough I still have this problem myself just trying working with a bigger brush, going from the large picture to the small details a.k.a. hierarchy.

Keep it up!

[I STRaY I]

Looks like a good start or a good continuation. There are too many small strokes on the womans blouse, if you ask me. You can also see these hairy lines on her face where the light hits. I know it's tough I still have this problem myself just trying working with a bigger brush, going from the large picture to the small details a.k.a. hierarchy.

Keep it up!

Yeah both, a continuation of something I tried to start before and a beginning to the digital medium. Anyways, thanks for the feedback. I think you are right on about the small brush strokes. I don't mean to be offering up excuses, but I think its a combination of me working zoomed out all the time and rarely going into see, and then posting it here and it's alot larger then I expected. Also, it could just be a bad habit I developed, or a product of in experience. I find it easier to form things with small strokes. Kind of like I would with a pencil. And I'm more concerned right now with starting and finishing daily, until today i didn't really want to take on anything overnight. In my experience it allows for me to ditch it. And I just want to move right now. But I've already began to consider your suggestions because I know it's right. And thanks so much for taking the time to offer it! Appreciated.

Here's what I started today. Anatomy study! Pretty important to learn, and I think it's a bit off, which isn't good. I decided to paint it too, so I think thats what I'm seeing thats mostly off right now. The arms aren't intended to be resting the same, and when flipping it makes a ridiculous motion, so that makes it harder for me to observe issues. But I'll keep at it tomorrow and see if I can finish it up.

[I STRaY I]

Started as anatomy study, posterior view.

[DpttArt]

ty on the reply b4, i really like the boot and old style glass bottle, gives me a sailor type feeling maybe fisherman and has a bit of a acrylic
painting feeling to it as well.

[I STRaY I]

Thanks DpttArt! It was my pleasure as well!
Having been visiting many sketches, I've noticed alot of people doing 15 and 30 sec poses. I wasn't aware of posemaniacs until yesterday. So I decided to make it a point to work on these daily. They're actually pretty fun. Some of the poses the site throws at you are like WTF? It took me 30 seconds sometimes just to figure out what the heck I was looking at and from where. But anyways, I need to work on them big time, I think they'de really help my line strokes. I have huge scratchy hair lines when I sketch. So here's those: I won't bother to post them daily, maybe weekly or monthly just to chart progress.

I also continued to work on this muscle guy I started. I regret not having planned better, because I find myself trying to do things on the fly, and it's time consuming. So I'll finish the adjustments I made to the garment and carry on to whatever comes next. There's so much I could be doing to be caught up here with this one. But I wasn't feeling the pants, so I tried to create kind of a Spartan skirt thing. Not greatly designed, and sloppy now while I sort it out. But I feel like it's atleast better practice then some pants. Looks a little more cool?! As for the guy, I have much to learn on color. I feel like maybe he's too orange, and is also too saturated, or something. Having said that, I wouldn't really know where else to go with it. I honestly am happy with it, but if I knew better I would see whats wrong. Mostly, the reference I'm using is indoors and right under a light, so it's kind of difficult for me. Anyways, hopefully one more day on it. Here's this:

[I STRaY I]

Today the sun came out, for like the first time in awhile. And being as though it feels as if my eyes have burnt out of my head from staring at a monitor for so long this week. I thought I'd break the sketchbook out, and go draw something outside. So I did a 1.5 hour landscape from my surrounding, then had at some vampire type dogs from my imagination. Wanted to add one more hanging, but just couldn't get to it.

[I STRaY I]

Started this last night.

[I STRaY I]

Still working on this. Naturally, it frightens me.

[I STRaY I]

So I received all these godly Loomis books this week, and will begin working from them. I very much want to be an artist not bound to reference. And most of the digital stuff I've been working on this week has been reference heavy. I do intend to do most of my Loomis studies in the ol sketchbook because I just feel like it's more valuable to me to learn it and practice it that way primarily. I will eventually do the same studies with the tablet too. But, the bummer is I hate to scan stuff, so I do it maybe a few times a week. So anyways, here I have some sketches I did from imagination over the week, as well as some of the first head/face stuff I did from Loomis. Nothing awesome, but is the meat and potatoes type stuff to what I hope to be able to accomplish later.

[I STRaY I]

More pencil today. I truly do enjoy it more. Did an hour class setup at pixelovely, and some work from Loomis Heads and Hands book I cracked into. Pretty fun, these gestures, I enjoy doing them. Will have a go with the tablet tomorrow.

[I STRaY I]

It's amazing really. So after yesterday and working with pencil. I almost feared working digital today. Drawing with it has been extremely difficult for me. So today I kind of slowed the hell down and tried to figure out why. I thought mostly it was just the lack of eye tracking to pencil tip,etc. But I quickly realized that often my hand hurts tremendously from using it after a few hours, and I realized that although I had gone through pen pressure and brush tip stuff in Photoshop which I mostly gathered from some video tuts. I never really considered that I was having to press so hard to get action I wanted, so I went into actual Wacom settings and monkeyed around with pressure and almost immediately was able to get better results. So I think this will really help me mimic what I've come accustomed to with a pencil. At least, thats what I'll be aiming to find. No way I'm satisfied yet. But closer to an understanding. Mostly, am just able to be more loose and comfortable. I feel like a tool for having overlooked it all this time. Really, in all I need to slow way down. I simply need to look at fundamentals and shelve the idea that I need to be banging out nice polished works. Because I'm just not there yet. Anyways, today did some blending stuff, light & skin tones. And I had been seeing some screencap studies from others, and thought they looked real fun, so even though I'm not really ready to be considering these sorts of exercises, I got my feet wet. From Robin hood, with cap. I really missed colors, but tried. Fuckin backgrounds too, they'll be the death of me. Anyways, 1.5 hours, eesh should look better. Flubbed the date on it too?derp Attachment 1697652

[Silverkeeper]

Love your studies dude!! keep practicing i want to see more stuff from you

[RyanRyan]

Keep on keeping on bruh

[vatteh]

Great stuff here man. It looks like you're doing all the right studies. You just need time and you'll definitely see improvement.

[eroquii]

Good studies so far! I'm seeing some real potential here man. As for critique, the head in the screen cap study seems a bit off. I feel like the eyes might be facing a different direction. For the figure drawing, try to think of the gesture rather than the contour of the figures. Some things you might want to keep in mind when doing the studies are the story, weight/balance, movement, and proportion. Once you get the gestures you'll want to work on the construction. I hope this helps! Keep pushing bro.

[lionheartGFX]

hey man alot of effort in here its so awesome to see! im looking at your quick figures and i see that you dont have a really good way to do a gesture, try looking up some methods, i recommend hamtpons and mattesis, you can check hamtpon here www.figuredrawing.info keep it up you sure are working hard!

[I STRaY I]

Dang, My SB got blown up. tits!
@Silverkeeper,thanks, hit you up already in your SB!
@RyanRyan, thanks man for sure! I most certainly intend to.
@Vatteh, Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to share some encouragement, much appreciated! If there's one thing I have, it's time.(I Hope)
@Eroquii & LionheartGFX Thanks for coming back guys. I appreciate your time to share your feedback. It's quite valued as I know both of you are warriors. I've been trying to make the best effort I can, and am pleased you guys can see it. As for the 30 sec figures, kind of a story there. I've only done those a few times before, way back in the days of yor. And again just recently. Anyways, I had this instructor in a brief class attempt who told me to just keep my eye on the model and my pencil on the paper. Just to capture the movement. I'm not sure how much he knew, I most certainly didn't stick around to find out. But yes, I need to improve there badly. All timed activities are very hard for me, because I've developed my own ass backwards way of doing things, and am paying for it. It's either accuracy and a ton of hours, or an hour or so and no accuracy. I've just started going through Loomis, and his methods are kind of sticking with me. But I'm trying to develop proper technique. But it's proving hard. I appreciate the recommendations and will add them to the study list, which is thankfully very long!

Today I kind of hit a wall. Case of Mondays, I wanted to come up with some poses for some Photoshop tutorials I want to do this week, and really tried today to brainstorm and actually sketch out some options, rather then just going for one predetermined pose. Almost every time I do this, I come up with some lame static pose. So I wanted to try and use some S curves or twists or "swooshy lines" I struggled mostly, and ended up becoming distracted with learning how to make a .gif. Just so I could display the whole process. And how long it really takes me right now, and how much time I'm wasting. Because it does concern me. Anyways, not awesome by any means, but I was active, I'm actually content with the pose, should have finished it, but I'm an idiot today. Funny as it is, I wanted to choose another pose there, but just couldn't wrap my head around it. So I ended up with the most static, likely boring one of them all, and I'm not sure what to do with the one arm, cain thingy? It's always one friggin arm for me. Maybe another time. Okay.

[smrrfette]

Dat Tali'Zorah,
Yeah, definitely some great studies here! Really digging your anatomy! ¬¬ I see a bright future ahead of you, really do.

[ecki]

Nice sketchbook bro!

I really like the way you're studying, with a lot of quick gesture drawings and also some very in-depth anatomy studies.
I'd suggest that you try to get more confidence into your linework. Try to get rid of those chicken-scratchy type off lines.
I like the values in your paintings, but you're working a little to saturated (which is easily corrected).

Just keep it coming, you're doing great!

[I STRaY I]

@Ecki Right you are, my scratch lines are a joke. It may not show now or tomorrow, but I am trying to work with more confident and longer strokes. It's a challenge for sure. Also, yes my total painting ability needs tons more practice, but I intend to get it. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, I'll get some education and a better grasp. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it and your feedback, solid!

Here's an hour still life I did today, as well as this sketch I'm working on. It's mostly a personal piece, aimed to apply everything I've been studying. (Don't they all?) But I'm just working on it maybe an hour at a time or something. I don't want to get trapped by it. If you see something broken, I'd love the crit as I work on it.

[I STRaY I]

Some totally exciting Loomis studies today. This stuff is actually pretty valuable, eyes and lips next!