heng on the train

**ah.heng** · May 22nd, 2006, 08:03 AM

i spend over 2 hours on the train everyday, might as well make it useful. also in part inspired by tensai's great sketches of people in the trains.

i switched a train and lost my sitting space. the rest were all done while standing up and doing some kind of balancing art.

this last lady spotted me drawing her and i think she started posing for me. she kept really still the entire while. it started getting cramp on my right so i switched to my left hand to draw. it later got too cramped to continue.

2b pencil on a 5x7.5" notebook.

note to self: tear pages out before scanning.

**Tigermilk** · May 22nd, 2006, 09:34 AM

hey, man these look nice. I can see you've just started drawing 'bit more, no?
You're on the very best way to progress! Drawing from life gives you a different view of how things work, a better one.

Very good practise!
Planning on becomming a conceptartist or such?

Keep it up, post more!

**P E N Ricklund** · May 22nd, 2006, 04:50 PM

Oh, you switched from you right to you left while drawing? Wow.
It's good training to draw from life *making note, draw more from life*
Draw more tomorrow and post here. Give us a daily dose and make it into a habbit

Hugs!

**ah.heng** · May 23rd, 2006, 07:02 AM

tigermilk - i'm not really sure yet. for the time being i just want to be a content creator. i'd like for my stuff to be made into anime, games, toys.

pencilator - you can usually tell which hand i'm using by which side of the paper the drawing's on :p

i couldn't really get into the mood today. i drew, but somehow wasn't able to focus on the drawing part. my whole mind's been wandering the entire day. might be falling sick :|

**P E N Ricklund** · May 23rd, 2006, 12:21 PM

No I can't tell, you only post one stand alone page at the time

**faux pas** · May 23rd, 2006, 01:34 PM

Nice use of time. Very economical

**Eskay** · May 24th, 2006, 04:04 PM

Hey, I'm part of SSG XXV

nice facial sketches, must be a good place to do that on a train - lots of people with natural expressions to pick from.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68669

thats the link to my sketchbook btw!

**ah.heng** · May 25th, 2006, 05:11 PM

wasn't very productive today.

i've noticed some improvements in my observation skills, but the drawings seem to be getting worse by the day. i wonder if i'm doing something wrong. i think i need to sit down and do a proper portrait with all the right proportions.

**Nixon** · May 25th, 2006, 05:13 PM

it's great that you can have that time on the train to sketch. check out some head anatomy reference, it will help you build the masses and planes of the head better.

Keep it up!

**Master 25 Days** · May 26th, 2006, 01:13 AM

hey, good start here man. Try to map out you head before you put the features on to get more structure. Pay attention to proportion and placement. Try to think as simple as possible.

**Eskay** · May 26th, 2006, 03:45 AM

I heard a quote once, "experience is just a list of all the mistakes we've made - and remembered." So don't worry about sketches you're not totally pleased with, practice is still practice!

**tensai** · May 26th, 2006, 04:04 AM

Originally Posted by ah.heng

i spend over 2 hours on the train everyday, might as well make it useful. also in part inspired by tensai's great sketches of people in the trains.

i hope that includes the ride home. it can be a bitch to draw standing up, but its still better than trying to sleep standing.

i wouldnt worry to much about how they come out. just observe; look, hold, draw, look hold draw. when your doing stuff from ref later on you will only be that much better. keep it up man. you will learn if you do, sometimes more, sometimes less or you're just keeping on the same level. but thats still better than getting rusty by not doing anything.

maybe see you around some time.

**mQe** · May 26th, 2006, 05:05 AM

I don't think it's getting worse really.
I guess you need to forget what you learned as a kid and draw exactly what you see. Don't think "ok theres an eye here" and then draw an eye there, instead think "theres a shape/line that goes like this" then draw the shape/line. Forget what you're drawing and think of the shape/line.

Keep it up!

**faux pas** · May 26th, 2006, 09:30 PM

Hey, drawing is always preferable to no drawing

Cant wait to see what you can do with a proper portriat.

**Absolute** · May 26th, 2006, 09:57 PM

That's pretty good, especially since it was done on a train

**ah.heng** · May 29th, 2006, 01:51 PM

my last day at work and i left my sketchbook in the office, please hurt me.

well since i no longer have a job, i don't have any reason to take trains anymore . but i liked the practise, so i'll probably find a place to sit down everyday to observe and draw people. maybe this time i'll move on to more than just faces.

i was also greatly inspired by sparth's sketches, and i'm thinking of trying something similar, once i find a way to man handle a 9x12. maybe i'll just start from drawing around the neighbourhood. i'm also going to begin practising more still life and chinese calligraphy. oh how great it is to have free time.

nixon - i intend to, i bought this great book called 'human anatomy for artists' by andras szunyoghy and will be practising off it everyday.

tensai - yup, the 2 hour journey includes the ride back, i'd go crazy being cramped in a moving box for 2 hours

pld: . looking back at it, i kind like drawing while standing, more freedom to move about compared to the cramped seats, and a larger pool of targets to pick from

mQe - thanks, i'll try to think that way.

absolute - thanks.

**Master 25 Days** · May 31st, 2006, 01:07 AM

hey! when did I become Sparth?

**ah.heng** · May 31st, 2006, 10:40 AM

oops :p

this sparth

**Lake** · June 1st, 2006, 12:29 PM

WhatUP, heng? you're MIA! what's with that?!

you said you were going to start doing some studies -
a lot of people start with the muscles, thinking "oh, if I start with muscles I've drawn what's underneath the skin."

while this is technically true, it helps even more to do bone structure studies. They give a better sense of proportion (imo) and show where the muscles connect to each other and to the skeleton. check my or dcept's sketchbooks to see what I mean. Or mentler. mentler knows what he's talking about.

I have my stuff scanned btw, it's just not loaded yet.

**ah.heng** · June 1st, 2006, 01:04 PM

yeah i'm doing some bone studies now. but nothing really worthy of being shown i think.
i'm kinda being overwhelmed by all the information i've read the past few days, especially the wrist bones and the muslces around the arm. i'm still trying to absorb all of it.

**entdroid** · June 1st, 2006, 01:39 PM

I think you have a very nice start here, some of this faces are really expressive.
Studies are definetely useful, but be warned: the more you learn, the more you become aware of how much you still don't know. It's worth it, though

**Craig Houghton** · June 1st, 2006, 07:52 PM

It's great to see that you've been committing yourself to drawing during the commute. It's a time when many just do nothing or relax, so it's to your credit that you instead spend the time building your skills. In addition to this sort of study, I recommend that you devote more time to all sorts of other subjects. You might be doing this already, but nonetheless, still life and landscape studies will help you develop a strong sense of value and proportion while allowing you to work on a subject that doesn't move and change shape the entire time.

Humans are, for me at least, the most rewarding subject, but they are also the most difficult to master -- you may find it harder to get a handle on some of the fundamentals this way. Simpler subjects often make difficult lessons easier to digest. For example, if you first grasp the hills and valleys of a crumpled cloth, it will be easer to apply that lesson to the planes of the face. It's important to begin by training your brain to see the world in terms of form, light, shadow, shade, and relationships.

That being said, train sketches are a great way to observe and capture expression/character, and you do indeed do that. They all have their own individual nature, and that's great to see. Well done.

-Craig

**ah.heng** · June 5th, 2006, 07:09 AM

I LIVE!!!

thanks for the very kind words craig

did a lot of drawings today, wanted to do more but when i did #13, the girl beside me started to talk to me, then everyone started looking at me

anyway i tried to draw people that were talking/smiling today, something a little more expressive. it was harder, as i had to rely on a lot of memory and imagination, but it was much more fun.

**Craig Houghton** · June 5th, 2006, 01:39 PM

Lookin good. I think there's a marked improvement in this batch -- I see more confidence already. The 3/4 views seem to cause you the most trouble. I recommend practicing some construction lines with these using whatever technique you prefer. Also, depending on how thin the paper is, sometimes you can hold the page up and look at your drawing from the other side of the paper/page. When you do this, you'll find that your eye can more easily catch any placement problems (i.e. misplaced features etc). This can also be accomplished by looking at your work using a mirror. I do this with my own stuff constantly. Often, you can only see your work with 'fresh' eyes when looking at it reversed. On the train you can try looking through the other side of the page or, if you have to, hold it up to the light and look.

Keep it up!

Craig

**Lake** · June 5th, 2006, 08:31 PM

very expressive. looks like you're having some trouble with facial structure - you need to do some skull and muscle studies. I suggest bridgman and anatomy for the artist - very good books.

**entdroid** · June 5th, 2006, 10:50 PM

You have nice expressions here, but I think you have to be more careful with face features placement, maybe you should try some contruction lines before refining, you know, mark the center line of the face and the placement of the eyes, nose, mouth...
Keep working, you're definetely improving!

cheers,
entdroid

**ah.heng** · June 8th, 2006, 02:38 AM

was testing and practising some brushes, and decided to try whether it was possible to recreate the feel of a chinese painting.

**entdroid** · June 8th, 2006, 11:51 AM

I really like the last addition!
The right part looks a bit messy and less subtle than the rest of it, but it's got a great feeling going on, very expressive!
Keep it up!
entdroid

**Craig Houghton** · June 10th, 2006, 12:47 AM

I think the composition might be a bit off balance, but I'm loving the style. Keep it up.

-Craig

**ah.heng** · June 13th, 2006, 04:47 PM

just to prove i'm still alive.

some friends and i have formed an illustration group, we call ourselves JKYRD, which means junkyard. we've been working on putting up the webpage for quite a while but never got around to doing it due to work and procastination. but we've put our foot down and will complete, or at least get a working version of the website up within this week. this image is the concept image of the splash page, the composition is wrong and we'll be changing it but that's the rough idea of how it looks like. we're creating an apocalytic world and will be showcasing it through the website.