Bevin's Sketchbook

[Bevin]

Hi, this is my first post in here, so I'll try to be interesting. I'm hoping to be able to go to the Vancouver Film School for classical animation once I finish up my film degree in a few years, and while I've had roughly ten years of private art lessons and some art classes in high school, I've gone stagnant in the years since then. Before I apply to VFS, I'd like to get better, since I'll still have a lot to learn by the time I get there-- I just don't feel that my art is where it could be at this point in my life.

Since I wandered over here from DA, I'm hoping for critiques that might be useful, and really hoping to be able to stretch myself again. I've never been strong in the areas of perspective and foreshortening, and my anatomy and composition have declined over the years as well. My skill in Photoshop is improving, though not very rapidly-- I learned how to use it for cel shading, and anything I learned was either self-taught or a tip I picked up from a friend of mine over the years, so I have a lot of area to improve there. I also haven't had a lot of real-life painting practice, so the technique is hard for me to apply digitally, though I'm trying to learn how (cel-shading really isn't very gratifying to me anymore).

Also, being as how I'm coming from DA, just about everything I have is fanart in some way-- it's not that I don't have my own ideas or designs, I just didn't feel comfortable posting them there, and so didn't work on them nearly as much. So bear with me as I round out my original artwork collection again.

Enough of my nervous rambling, on with the picture show.

Original Character (in-progress) (note the cel-type shading on most of it)

Another Original (in-progress) (again with the cel-style base)

Moonglow (one of my better PS pieces, though the moon is very blank-looking)

Moondance (probably the most ambitious one to date, though still lots of flaws, esp. with the background)

Commission (a piece I just finished for someone-- they asked for a sort of Disney/anime fusion piece)

[Charles Ratteray]

lovin that last one man- real nice

for the ones above the only thing that was distracting was the overmodeling on the faces of the two women at the top. the line drawings for their faces are super clean - when you applied the colors it seemed to age them to much......unless that was intentional

lovely stuff

blessings

- C

[Bevin]

I hadn't intended to age them, so thanks for pointing that out. I'm still experimenting with PS in terms of a more layered, "painted" look, which is more what I was going for and hadn't gotten to with their clothes-- would the same problem still apply if I finished them so it was more uniform-looking, or is there a fatal flaw with the technique I was using? Again, thanks for the crit.

[Hilbruks]

Your skin is a bit to gray on some of the images . Try using other and darker colors for the shadows. It's difficult to learn, I'm struggling myself, but it's worth looking in to.
The faces and anatomy on your last image is really nice.
You could take a look at Gez Fry's stuff www.gezfry.com or James Jean www.processrecess.com There's alot to learn from studying those guyse. Especially Fry has, on some of the images, a style that looks a bit like what what you're doing.
Good work, keep it up!

[Bevin]

Thanks for the tips and the compliments. And thanks especially for the links, I have them bookmarked now.

This one I did close to a year ago and her foot's completely messed up, but apart from that it's all right. Soemthing about the hair bothers me, though.

[AsaB]

I dig your costume designs, loads of nice stuff there! You also seem to have a way with cloth and fabric, they look realistic in most of your drawings. As with hair, it looks great. These are some nice characters too and fun concepts! I'm no professional myself, but I guess more life drawing would help (when doesn't it?) if you want more realism in your characters. But keep on posting, you've got talent

[Bevin]

Yeah, life drawing seems to be the one thing one can never get away from, doesn't it? Thank you very much for the critique and the compliments, I appreciate both a lot.