Hermchens sketchbook

[Hermchen]

I want my own sketchbook. So here I start...

C&C are are most welcome!

My first four pages...

Some with foto ref. some outa me mind.


[page 1]



[page 2]



[page 3]



[page 4]

[Hermchen]

page 5 to 7


[page 5]



[page 6]



[page 7]

[Iiori]

These are great, I really can't see anything wrong with them. so Im sorry I can't give to much crit.

Sehr gut.

[sic1]

Nice figures,your shading is very effective! Post more

[jester]

Hi Hermchen, long time no see!

Good to have you filling your own sketchbook, too!

Great stuff BTW!

Jester

[Hermchen]

Thank you for the comments!

I was hoping you could give me some real criticism, too

@Jester It's true, I didn't attend Concepart.org for some time or not frequently enough. That is because of some new things in my life I am getting used to. I worked at a small design company as a trainee. In Sebtember I'll start studying design in Cologne at it's university of applied science. I'm really looking forward to that! But soon I'll have some holidays, all arranged for drawing BTW, what the heck is the Middle Class? How can I become a member?

Now here comes the next page. The woman on the left and the man on the top are drawn from real life within 5 minutes at a railway station. The athlete is drawn with fotoref.. Took about 13 minutes.
[page 8]

[jester]

Hi Hermchen,

hmnmmn real criticism? Difficult! Your pics are really good IMO. Therefore you should try to get on to the next level and start "real pictures", i.e. with a topic/theme, fore- middle and background. You do the same as I in just putting on paper what interests your eye and mind but a concept artist should be able to create whole scenes, environments and so on.

You could also try color (oil, acrylics, watercolor...).

The middle class was brought to life by I.was.ink, MindCandyman and myself some time in January/February. We were annoyed that we were neither noobs nor pros and wanted to get assignments from the pros. Which we didn't get, naturally. So we decided to form a middle class and give the tasks and crits to ourselves.

Anybody who seriously wants to learn to draw is welcome. We only ask for persistency and giving constructive crits. Just check out the Middle Class sub-thread - it's all in there (Lots to read...)

My congrats to you being accepted by the FH Cologne! This was my dream 20 years ago... what the hell, I did something different, earned quite a lot of money and have my own one-woman-company now (why cry over spilled milk?) But I love drawing in my spare time and I am very happy that I really improved over the past 3 years - much because of CA!

Carry on!

Jester

[Hermchen]

@Jester Thank you Jester. Nice reply. I will certainly check the middle class thread. Perhaps I want to join you. We'll see. What kind of one-woman-company is that you have, if it's not too personal?

Here is page 9 - page 11, all from life



[page 9]


[page 10]


[page 11]

[jester]

Hi Hermchen, no, it's not too personal. I'm a marketing consulter for small and medium enterprises (SME, in Germany called KMU). In case you are interested or know someone who needs professional external marketing services, go to Rat & Tat Marketing. This is shameless selfmarketing, too

Great life studies. I'll stop working in about half an hour and do some drawings, too!

Have a nice weekend.

Jester

[Hermchen]

no ref.

[page 12]


[page 13]


[page 14]

[Hermchen]

This guy is an archer who lives near by the sea. Mainly on the shore. His armor is mostly out of shells. He can hide his head in the breast plate like a turtle, still able to fire arrows.

[page 15]


[page 16]

[Hermchen]

[page 17]


[page 18]

[Erik Hageman]

nice sketches. i have the hardest time sketching from photos. i would recommend 2 things.

use the side of your pencil to shade in value, not just a little of the tip or the point, use the whole thing and drag it around to create broader, richer vlaues. good value will carry a sketch farther than good line work.

also your line work is nice, interesting and varied. but i would suggest using it more to define form than to outline things, use it more sparingly to define where things overlap, change direction, etc not merely to contain the shading.

a teacher of mine had us draw only with value for a whole semester. no line. it was hard as shit but eventually it worked and much more convincingly and faster than starting with lots of lines.

i use lines to come up with concepts, but value for life drawing.

[jester]

Erik, Hermchen's Style of shading is similar to what is usually taught in Germany. I found that many teachers asked me not to do values with the side of the pencil as described by you. Don't ask me why, though, when I see Kevin Cheng's class demos I can't see what should be wrong with using that method. Probably it's just a very "academic" point of view. I like using that method, too, because it's fast and comes quite naturally. Hmm, I should stop ranting...

Jester

[killing.people]

hermy:
you know you are insane. what are you sketching for? practice is for mortals. :p

[Hermchen]

@killing.people: Uh, ah. Thanks for the flattering! I'm not insane. I'm just trying to use the time sitting in a train or at a station for art. OK, I could imagine really brave concepts within this times, but that is something I have to work on: beeing brave. Sketching people or stones or whatever shows me, that everything is possible, and that there are millions of shapes that haven't been drawn at all. Once I thought, that it could be possible to know all the human architechture and from that, create every human I could imagine, then I found myself drawing stereotypes because I wasn't brave enough to imagine.

@Erik Hageman and Jester: I know about all this, and you can belive me when I say, I see in values and their forms, overlaps and I try to develope my sight for planes.
I mostly start laying down the values, but I know about my problem with outlines. I will practice using them more wisely.
Most of the sketches are done within 10 minutes or less, so I don't care if they are that rich of values. Look at Kevin Cheng's class demos and you will see, that 4 values can take a sketch far enough for it beeing a sketch.
Once someone on this board told me my style (he referred to a self portrait) was very german and I couldn't find out why. Now I think I know why -> because of the lines!?! It's true that my teachers said, use a sharp pencil's tip and don't smudge! They told me otherwise the drawing would look dirty. I don't smudge, but when I use the side of the pencil sometimes it becomes like smudging and the image does look dirty. So I think every kind of technique can be used, if it's used wisely and with the knowlegde of where it will lead you.

[TheBlasianOne]

i like the sea archer design. nice original idea

[Hermchen]

@killing.people: I thought again about what you wrote. You really made me wake up a bit. I mean on the one hand it could have been just flattering, but on the other hand why should you flatter me? It made me gain selfconfidence, really. And thats why I tried for a more finished kind of art at the Magic Cards Redesign thread.
Finally, I want to say thank you. I appreciate. :waves:

[Hermchen]

Another page. Hallelujah...

[page 19]

[endregan]

welcome to the daily sketch crew. you surpass me and i really like your imagination. any artist cant go without it !!

[endregan]

i like all of these and especially the first one its great gJ!

[buffaloe]

wow, very imaginative creatures there! I love the depth in the first piece... nice job!

[Hermchen]

Thanx guys.

[Hermchen]

[Hermchen]

[jester]

Hermchen, that monster looks great! Righ-click-safe-to-disk

Jester

[Hermchen]

[Robolus]

The last two monsters are REALLY GOOD! Wow!:thumb:

[Hermchen]

[Fipse]

The last one - the gnome with the sword - is really great. It shows you´re developing a unique style. Keep on with the good work!

Fipse