The capricious sketch-book of Taven (constructive criticism welcomed)

[Muscari]

thanks for the comments over at my SB.

as for your work, i see you do have clear ideas, just need some more practice with construction of the human form and perspective.
as for perspective issue, you can check the environment mentoring forum, where you can get some excersizes on 1,2 & 3 point perspective. personally, i like to use sketchup to construct objects that are a bit too difficult for me to create on my own, plus, it's free software.

on human figure, as it's been said, using reference goes a long way. personally i refer to posemaniacs.com if i ever get a doubt, or just random image searchs on google

[KingElvis]

just like xissburg say. amen brother
keep it going, youre working hard, thats good!

[Taven]

Thanks for all the comments, guys. Why am I still not around yet? Well, I'm still swamped with homework, and the free time I do have seems to be going into my writing.

Mr-roi - Thanks for the advice, I've never heard the bit about loosening up my wrist before, so I'll be sure to try that. I certainly know I should do more anatomy studies, and I try to draw what I see when using reference, though sometimes I have more sucess then other times.

Xissburg - It's good to know you can see improvement! I need to use more references, but typically it depends on either how lazy I am, or what materials I have on hand. If I don't specifically mention using a reference for a piece, then I probably didn't. I'll see if I can do more studies and use more reference.

Muscari - Hey, thanks for visiting. Yeah, Sketchup is recommended by a lot of people, it's supposed to be a great program. I'll have to look into it further. I know about posemaniacs, but haven't used it much. Generally if I'm online, I get distracted by many other things, and get less art done. I do have a sketchbook that's made entirely of references, cut out from magazines and the like. I'm always working on expanding it. Also, thanks for the perspective advice.

KingElvis - Thanks for stopping by, and the words of encouragement.


Sadly, no new drawings, but I do have some things I've been working on coloring. A few quick notes on them:

1. The one with a person in it is just a sketch for clothes. Thus, the background is quick, and does suck. I know that the quality could be improved by going over the inking again, as some of it has colored pencil over it and it makes it less strong. Any constructive criticism you have on the design or other aspects of rendering are certainly very welcome!

2. In the math-themed space drawing, the lower left hand corner looks very pale and washed out. To some extent that is true in the real image, but my scanner also drained a lot of the color from it. Suggestions on where to go with the color scheme from there are welcomed!

3. The flying bird also has a color washout issue, and yes, I know that the white clouds in the top of the picture look suspiciously like flat floating cottonballs. Otherwise, have at it with the constructive criticism.

[Taven]

Does anyone know any good things to do to get the hang of this thing? I just got it today, and it's fun to play with, but as you can see I have a looong way to go. xD

[Taven]

Heya, thought I'd give another update -- The stuff's a little old, but interesting anyways. There's actually come Photography in this bunch, believe it or not! I've been inspired by the fall colors. Also, you might notice my sketches have little title thingies attached to the pictures now. This will be a continuing practice, and I'm actually updating my older posts to reflect this. I didn't use references for any of these, mostly because my creative efforts have been going into creative writing and also re-writing my notes way back from Reverie - Which I will be posting when I have them all sorted out.

As always, constructive criticism welcomed!

--Taven

[Taven]

Here's some more stuff. As you can tell, the pictures are older, but the tablet sketch thingy I worked on today. It's only been colored on the computer, the original sketch I scanned in and traced. I'm using Art Rage (the free version), and yes, the shading is crap right now.

[Rafal Dorsz]

Taven, It's good to see You drawing so much. But You really have to hit the pause button for those fantasy drawings for now, I think and do loads of studies. Your works are pretty flat at the moment. I suggest tons of still lifes from life. I know these are believed to be boring, but they're not. You just have to choose something interesting. Start simple though, a bowl of fruits is a good place to start I think. Learn about shading, about volume, about mass, 3D shapes. And anatomy in the meantime.
I'm trying to be helpful, not harsh, so sorry if the above sounds wrong or sth.
Keep drawing!

[Taven]

Gildorek - Nope, I think you're exactly right. I will get around to doing these things, but right now I'm not even actually drawing that much, so most of my drawings have been from my head. I do know that in order to get better I need to draw from life, and I want to make time for that, so never fear. I'll certainly take your comment into consideration. Thanks for dropping by!

[Kaileighblue]

For the tablet. I actually suggest flash games. It helps with the hand eye-coordination and it's fun. This one's a killer http://www.kongregate.com/games/polymerrabbit/frantic-2 Other than that it's like any other new tool. Use it a lot to learn it's nuances.

[Taven]

Here's some quick sketches. I may do a few more yet today, too, we'll see.

[kingkostas]

hello mate.I like the studies and i wanna agree with gildorek. Btw i loved the photos.Maybe study some of them but no actually for now focus in anatomy and getting values in greyscale (maybe desaturate them and make study)

Btw you said if i can tell you something about the tablet, well myself i just got my first tablet at january so i dont have that much experience than some old tablet users.I work in photoshop CS2.I dont use any of the expression keys just because i dont feel like i need to lol.I use space to move around and my arm to alt.I am left-handed btw
If you want to know something particular tell me
Keep going mate

[Taven]

Kaileighblue - Thanks for the advice! I looked up the game, but couldn't figure out how to play it without actually signing up, so didn't use it. However, I appreciate the suggestion all the same. I'm getting the hang of it just drawing objects around my room, so that's a good thing. Thanks, and feel free to stop by again!

Kingkostas - I did another still life, as you can see, and then the two faces are both from photo reference, drawn using the pencil feature on Art Rage. The first face looks terrible, in my opinion, because it really doesn't resemble the original person very much at all. The second face I'm much happier with, although the jawline isn't angular enough and his ear lobe looks funny.

[Taven]

Okay, so the majority of this is crap, but I thought I should do an update anyways. No, the woman in studded leather in not a dominatrix, she is very fully clothed.

[Taven]

And now for something completely different...
That's right, more photography. I had fun with my camera, since I finally got new batteries. Enjoy.

[Taven]

I redid the previous armor concept, because I disliked the X of chainmail across the chest. This one has only shading to represent the chainmail, which is slightly less interesting, but here it is.

[Taven]

I am unhappy with my current drawing skill level. I think I have an inability to draw well using a tablet, because all my angels are constantly wrong, although this could just be that I am drawing people, and I'm not very good at them to begin with. However, I do feel that if I was using my sketch book with references, it would be much better. I haven't had a ton of time for art lately, being busy with school (and admittedly spending my scant freetime else where, like socializing with friends), but I feel that my art is sub-par for someone of my age. I'm 18 and a freshman in college, for those of you wondering. I know the only answer is to practice, practice, practice, but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere (though admittedly I am not practicing nearly enough.) If anything, I feel like I'm regressing in my artistic ability.

Here's some sketches and such.









Here's the angle the head actually SHOULD be at:
(Yes, I'll probably redo it later)

[JailHouseRock2]

Cool stuff, keeeeeeep drawing man, this stuff's really getting better, diggin' the photos too!

Keep posting man!
cheers,
matt

[kingkostas]

hello mate.First i see propotions mistakes but probably thats because you step into details in the first place.When you start a head or something get the basic shape and start doing guides(construction guides) until you have the exact positioning.As you will keep up this your eye will become keener and you will need less and less guides.
I like the fact that you started working with values but gain all this will be easier when you understand the body.Body is organic all the others are more geometrical.

Keep up

[Taven]

Thank you both for the support, I appreciate it.

I'll adress advice in my next update, which should be in the next few days, when I get enough stuff to have ut be worh going the effort of posting it all up.

--Taven

[Writerof]

I'm still alive!!! and kicking hard, where are youre studiesss!!!

One piece of advice. First of all, study the big picture, not the fine details. If you do you will find yourself lost in the drawing. Do a bit of gesture drawings. That helpt me alot! Draw form fisrt, then details!

Greetz,

writero

[Taven]

Thanks for the advice! I'll adress it more individually later. I just wanted to say that I'm still alive and kicking, and that as soon as I'm not swamped with work, updates will be fourthcoming.

--Taven

[Taven]

So, I'm off of anatomy for the time being, but rest assured, will be back to my anatomical studies. The current collection of art is because I feel that I can do a better job with some of the composition (if not coloring or actual rendering...) of certain MTG (Magic: The Gathering) cards. The main one you'll see being repeated is the Keeper of the Nine Gales, and if you click on that link, you can see the actual official art to compare it to my version.

In other notes, I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep tonight, because my tablet is missing, and I have no idea where it is.

--Taven

[Rafal Dorsz]

Study, man! study, study, study! Do more drawings from life :> I know I sound like a broken record repeating like that, but just do it! I won't stop until I you post sketchbook pages filled with figures from reference
Also, about your current pencil works (anatomy aside), practice shading (haha, and guess what, draw still lifes from life to improve that ) and values. Right now imo you do too much random scribbling. Take a look at the owl's (or whatever that bird is) head: you could have spent more time on those feathers, and not just scribble to make it all gray. Take your time with your strokes, speed will come with confidence, and confidence will come with time. Also, about your hand drawn keeper, notice how those lines that meant to be feathers on its body are all the same, making the entire creature look flat. Create texture through shading, and, once again : take your time, do not rush.


Good luck... and study!

Edit: And sharpen your pencil (or use a mechanical one). Your drawings will look cleaner.

[Taven]

It's been a very long time since I last posted.

I haven't been doing as much art on my own time as I would like, but I am taking two art courses this semester. One is Basic Drawing, which is the basis for all future courses, and the other is Art and Technology.



There's no shading in this, because the assignment was entirely about line and form, as well as the weight of line.




Again, only minimal shading here, still mostly line work. Emphasis on using sketches of non-biomorphic shapes in the inital drawing to help shape the final drawing. Apologies for the photo quality, I'm casting shadows on the work (like most of the ones from my drawing class).




The idea of this one was supposed to be a lack of line but rather light and shadow defining everything. I think it's decent, but you should have seen some of the other drawings in the class. On one of them, someone did such a superb job of shading, it looked like it was taken out of a 3D imaging program.




This is a sheet study, done with cross-hatching. The photograph is not the best quality, but you can see enough of the idea, I hope.


For these next few, I'm going showing the various drafts of a project we had to do in Illustrator. We had to make an "Alphabet page" that taught something. My fact was that a group of crows isn't called a flock, but a murder.








The following is from another school project. We had a visiting artist, and got to screen-print our Illustrator designed art onto "flags." I have more photographs, but not readily on hand. There's also a few stuck up in my phone, which I'm not sure I'll ever get out.




The following are Magic: The Gathering cards that I altered the art on. In most of the images you can see the original unaltered cards side by side with the altered cards. Essentially, I'm only painting over the boarders. I literally used a toothpick for these.








This is something that I've been working on the past few days, just for fun. It's based off a photograph, but is not traced. Essentially I'm turning a normal person into a Drow Elf. This is my first time messing around with Photoshop CS3, although I also used the free version of ArtRage for this. It's not yet finished.




As always, constructive criticism is welcome.

[Taven]

I'm still working on that Drow portrait. Yesterday I did some work with the lips, and exparamented with different colors. I like lip versions #1 and #4 the best, but I haven't decided on a final version next. My next steps with the project will probably be to either work on the small portion of clothing you would see, or to go back and further revise the hair.

[Taven]

Here's the progress on the drow portrait. I'll probably end up redoing the robes, unless I want to keep her as flat as a washboard. I'm messing around with a few different shirts to see if I can't give her more of a chest, but then the fall of the robes has to change. We'll see, anyways.

As always, constructive criticism welcomed.

[Taven]

My original reference picture is only a headshot, so I had to get another and splice them together to get more of the shoulders and the like. Now the robes are falling more naturally, as you can see, and she's got something of a chest (although the framing mostly cuts it off). And yes, I know the black line drawings marking her chest look ridiculous. They're just marks for me and will be covered up with a shirt in due course.

[Writerof]

Dear Taven,

Firstly, I'm still alive! Secondly.. Erhm... Do some STUDIES! Loomis is still a very good option!!! Secondly, I would learn how to use a pencil first before I went digital. Take out you're sketchbook and study (Draw) the world! Learn the humble (But vicious) Cube, sphere and Line.

Draw not from you're wrist but from you're arm.

If you have these down to a second nature (This can take a while ) Then take on the difficult shapes!

Dont worry about ugly drawings, everybody makes them. It is the mistakes that we learn from, not from our successes.

Now go and study and may you're art be fruitful!

Greets and salutations,

Writero (Who still hasnt updated his sketchbook... )

[Taven]

So it's been a very long time since I've posted, but I am still doing art. Last spring, I was in a figure drawing course, which was fun. I don't have a ton of pictures from that, but I have one or two sketches from it I'll put up. The dwarf warrior I did sometime during January, and the color version I am working on now. I did it with the smudge tool (I really need to figure out how to use brushes properly). I also had a Photoshop question, so if you're smart, you can click here and help me out.

[Taven]

I've been trying to get into the habit of using my Concept Art Sketchbook again. When I went to Concept's Art "Reverie" in 2009, I was a mere Senior in Highschool. It was an amazing experience, and I got to meet Jason Manley. He told me that to be an artist, it's something that you do all the time. Whenever you have a break, whenever you have time, you practice art. It's the thing that you focus on and want.

Throughout my life, I've had two main loves of art and writing. I think for my professional career, writing is going to win out. However, I still want to be able to create good art. Part of the problem is that I am not backing up this "want" with the work to make it a reality. It's easy to blame school or work, but I think in the end it comes down to what Jason Manley was saying--there's always time in the day that you could be using to work on your art.

The next two weeks are my Spring Break, and I have no excuse of school work getting in the way. My goal is going to be to start actively using my sketchbook and working on my art.

The following art contains some older stuff, and mostly new things. As always, I love any constructive criticism that you can give me. I know I have an awful long way to go before I get good.



This is a continuation of my coloring of Meso the dwarf, an ArmageddonMUD character. As you may notice, I was able to flip his one arm over so that he has two full arms. He also has a lot better coloring for his face then the last time I posted. The coloring process is Photoshop CS4, and I mostly just blend colors together. I am far from a Photoshop expert, so any advice that you guys have is great. However, I'm also unlikely to work on this again until mid-may, as I couldn't figure out how to load CS4 on my new computer, and don't have access to my tablet right now.


The following three pieces of art are my finals from my Printmaking course, which I took Fall 2011. For those of you who don't know, Printmaking involves etching things into a copper plate, or biting certain patterns with acid. All of the ones below are dry point, so no acid was used. You then print the copper plate. Depending on how you print it, you can get different results.











The above art piece is just the opening to my sketchbook, which I've been working on awhile. Ideally I'd like to eventually paint it, and show the light shining through the membrane of the dragon's wing. I may end up altering the face more to get more accurate scales. If you guys know any good scale or lizard references that would be helpful, please let me know!




This is Notre Dame, as sketched from a photograph. There's some issues in size, noticeably that one tower thing I zoomed in on. I'll probably erase and fix it sometime. Due to the small scale, this piece is very challenging, but fun.




These are some sketches of Elrum Irofel, another Armageddon character. I used a model for it, but you can't really tell that that specific model was used. I think that he looks too old, as well, since the character is supposed to be in their twenties or so (?).




This was a class assignment, and you can tell I had a lot of fun with it. The wrinkles as you get further right get less and less accurate, but you can't really tell.




These were concepts for the Time-Assassin themed CHOW. I never ended up finishing or drafting a final piece from them, but I may do so in the future.




I am not very pleased with this sketch, as the linework just looks wrong to me. I think part of it is that he doesn't look like he's turning his head properly. More of an issue, though, is that the armor covering his chest just doesn't look right. Oh well. :/

Mordrek is a character from the world of Raxxon, for which Nephyla over on Deviant Art is the main artist. She has some great works, so if you're interested you should check it out.






More Armageddon characters, this one a set of mages. I don't really like how the snake maw in the background is turning out. It's supposed to be carved from stone. Hopefully it would look better with the proper shading, I need to find some good references for that. The figures are also very small, so it's going to be hard to color them properly. I may do a picture of just the figures blown up. It's times like these I wish my tablet was around.




Sketches from photographs. I think I need to work on faces more.




This is a progression of a drawing meant to display a specific skirt.

tight jade skirt embroidered with black moons

The jade dye on this finely woven cotton skirt appears to be deliberately
uneven, making the color seem to undulate over the wearer's legs in a series
of darker and lighter waves. The skirt is cut to mold itself tightly to
the wearer's legs down to just below the knees, where it softens into
elegant ruffles. The black silk ribbons that lace the skirt up the sides of
the hips trail off into streamers, balancing the line of the embroidered
black silk moons that dance around the bottom ruffles near the wearer's
ankles.

I decided that I didn't like where her hand was, so erased and tried to redefine it (her head also seemed too large). I need to get a friend to model for me so I can accurately get the angles involved, so progress is halted until then.




This is just a quick clothes sketch for a character, Raleris. I drew him when he was much younger and in armor pages back. Hopefully this time I'll get past the concept steps and do a final work.




He's supposed to have various scenes of battle across his chest, but it's too small to really work out.




I feel like her face and pose could both use more work. I did use picture reference, but the pose changes a lot when you add thick clothes. I'll have to find someone to pose in a baggy coat sometime, and work from that.




Finally, this one was drawn from life. The weather was amazing, and it was relaxing to just sit in the park surrounding the tower and draw. I may go back to finish it in person, or I may "cheat" and finish it from my photographs.


Whew, so lots of art. Hopefully there will be lots more to come. I know I have a long way to go as I said before, but nothing gets anywhere without practice.