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

[Taven]

Okay, here's an update. Actually, the stuff isn't terribly recent (I still have to hunt down my digital camera), but it's what little stuff I did do over the summer.























I actually finished coloring the portrait of Deno (the warrior with the dragon on the background), but I haven't gotten a decent picture of it yet.

[Taven]

Here's some scans from my new combo scanner/printer, adjusted slightly to try and capture closer to the actual color.

[Taven]

Nothing terribly exciting this time around, unless you count the cartoon with the, uh, quirky sort of humor. Most of the sketches are quick and underpar, but I'd welcome suggestions on how to improve the one of the guy with the head.

[Taven]

Only a few quick sketches today.

[Rafal Dorsz]

Hey, man, thanks for your huge reply in my thread! I'm sorry I can't offer as much at the monent, but I'll surely check back again later, when I have more time. I looked through Your sketchbook though, and I like the huge amount of work you do. It'll surely pay off. In fack I can already see improvement in your lines, colors and shading.
I know you have your head full of ideas, and it's good. I always have trouble finding inspiration. What's hurting your work the most at the moment is the anatomy, I think. You really need to do studies. I know drawing warriors is fun, doing anatomy studies may seem less so, but at leas get a photo reference of a model in the pose you want your warrior to be in.
I think You mentioned you find it awkward asking people to pose so you can draw them. Well, try with people who know that you draw. Your friends/family/girlfriend. And you have your own body to study from. Do tons of drawings of your hands, feet, legs, your head from a mirror. Also you can make pictures of yourself in whatever pose you need, and then use that photo as a reference for your designs.
Keep working, but concentrate more on studies now. Let us see some pages filled with gestures and figure drawings.

Ok, that's it for now. I hope it wasn't too harsh, I tried to be helpful. I'll check again later

[Taven]

Hey, not too harsh at all. Completely true, actually. Sort of like reminding someone that while dessert is yummy, they really do need to eat their vegitables.

I'll see what I can do on the anatomy front. Thanks for the feedback, it's always helpful.

[kingkostas]

hey mate very nice ideas in these updates.
Of course you have to keep working on anatomy because they seem to lack it.
Just focus in anatomy for some time.It may be tiring and boring but you will be able to present your ideas better.Btw there is improvement, they look more solid
Keep up mate !!!

[Taven]

Okay, so apparently a post of mine didn't go through. Weird.

Anyways, thanks for all the comments. One thing that would be helpful is pointing out specific things in sketches/works that need to be adjusted anatomically. Somethings are obvious and I know, but others I might not see, and I think that would be helpful.

Here are a few quick sketches.

[kingkostas]

Ok. For example here in the heads there are proportion problems(eyes far away,eyes close to each other,all in 1 plane(that makes it flat face in front),the womans nose in each of the little sketches is pushed in, throw it out.
Second and third womans portrait have wrong base/wrong skull system,1st one seems more real.
Now about execution, dont describe things but learn how they appear due to light/shadow relations
How to make some training?
Build an object using only light and shadow areas.No hard lines and such, and i will post an image on some understandings in my SB about contrast,that will help you in this kind of thing
Look your final picture the male body.Between the torso and the left arm you have made something very interesting,you also gave depth with this shadow.Again there is the mistake of desribing things.If you desribe them someway i prefer the way you did it inside the left arm on this last male upper body.
Keep up no matter what,you are doing great!!!
See ya mate

[Taven]

Great advice, thanks.

This is really just a quick post to say I plan to do a dump on Monday. Lots of proverbal vegitables!

[Rafal Dorsz]

Hey again.
It's good to see You're doing some studies. I think the main source of your mistakes in those studies is that while they are drawn using probably a photo as a reference, you do not yet have the understanding of the shapes (3D) you're drawing. Take the heads for example. It looks like you drew them as 2D outlines of the actual 3D objects. I think You should learn to bring out shapes more (and drawing still lifes from life is a great way to practice that!) and learn to understand the structure of the object you want to draw (in case of heads google "planes of the head" or "asaro head" images and try to >understand< that)
Hm, I hope it's helpful.
See you around and good luck

[Taven]

Kingkostas - Thanks for the advice. I'll see if I can't work building things sheerly by light and shadow into my studies, without lines.

Gildorek - Yes, I am using a photo reference. I'll see if I can google that and work on the shapes/structure I'm drawing more. I still haven't gotten any "live models," mostly because I can hardly get in a nice conversation with someone, nevermind actually spending time. College seems to be busy, or maybe I'm just not connecting all the loose ends yet.


Anyways, not as much stuff as I'd hoped to have, but somethings for you at least. Some of it is really bad, but eh, I'll get better, right?

[benu]

Hey Taven!
The faces in your last post are a big improvement to the previous ones; the proportions are looking much better. The features of the man are a little bit off, but only slightly; the eyes, mouth and nose are tilted at a different angle than the head and the eyes are not on the same level. And I wouldn't draw such a dark outline around the lips. Have you used photo references for them? I'd suggest that you draw some self portraits and/or some friends or family, drawing from life from 3-dimensional things is very different.

It's good that you are studying anatomy, and I can see you're getting better at it. The guy in the 4th. picture of your last post is looking quite good. The shoulders of all the women are much too wide; try getting the proportions down with some simplified shapes. The last guy's spine is too far on the right and the shoulderblades seem too large. It might help you to copy skeletons and muscles from a good anatomy book (like Bammes-"Die Gestalt des Menschen"). The forms of the body are often much clearer on those drawings than on photos.

[Taven]

Benu - Hey Benu! Thanks on the faces, they don't feel better, but they are better then non-ref. faces, which is mostly what I do. I have a horrible habit of in "fun" (meaning non-study) art, just using little to know references. Yes, these were from photo references, except the two pictures that say "no ref," of the women. I may have to do self-portraits, getting live models to sit still/have time will be a challange. I'll try and see about that Bamme book, too.

Well, we'll see if I can keep up with all the great advice I've been getting, hopefully I'll have some interesting sketches for y'all later today.

--Taven

[kingkostas]

hello mate.While you keep doing the studies try to make less rough pencilwork.A rough line can break the form.
Keep studying anatomy and actually keep understanding it.
For example start shaping up your anatomy.Look your body and see how you can shape it up.But this will have stages.First you will understand the main masses then the minors.
Also you have to check each part and its relation to the other.
Dont stand in muscles approach,but more in function and proportions.If you remember a paintover i did for one of your characters,i have there a system for legs.Try to do some similar approach in your own way,but that will obey the laws of nature.
Keep up working hard!!!

[Taven]

Kingkostas - Argh, me matey! (No, I don't know why I said that)

I'll try to add that to the getting longer "List of advice to follow" I do appreciate the advice, it's just a ton to keep in mind!


Here's some sketches. They look like crap now, but looked way better when I actually finished them. Unless obvious or otherwise noted, they are from real live (and moving, despite their best intentions) people.

One guy is drawn at a funny angle because of how the paper was positioned. If you look at it slanted, it looks way better. >.>

[Taven]

I'm beginning to feel irritates with just how very much I suck with faces. I know, I know, practice makes perfect, but in the meantime it's suspiciously close to torture. Yes, yes, I need to use references. No, I didn't use any other reference for these next few (excluding the old one shown in the post above) except for the previous sketches I did.

[kingkostas]

its just that you have to learn what lies underneath first(after that its the thing i told you about describing things instead of drawing light and shadow to depict them).If you can make a perfect skull(ok i dont mean every single bone part,but the overall),then some proportion system from loomis or later yours.
Do this till you learn and you will be good in no time.
Dont worry doing a lot of things.Just focus on particular things,for example heads for now.
Start reading and watching only heads till you understand them.
I am sure you will master it fast
Keep going

[Taven]

Okay, so I haven't sketched any anatomy lately. I'm taking a short breather before I get back into it. Mostly, I've been doing non-serious sketching, and (oddly enough) giving people constructive criticism on Deviant Art. However, all my works can be found here, as I don't actually put anything up on Deviant Art.

So here's some laid back sort of sketches, except maybe the forest/cathedral one, which is the most "serious" because I used references. I sort of enjoyed messing around with the textures/patterns in it. If it was to be more then a sketch, I'd go back and make some of my lines less wobbly, and better, but for now it's a sketch. I'm thinking it might make a decent black/white inkwork, though.

[kingkostas]

Nice studies here.The creatures are looking flat, and i really wanna see you give volume in your later works as you will keep improving.As i say in one of my little old sketches,you have to think you are a 3d scanner.
If for the start its hard to think of an object as 3d then approach it on an other way.How? Lets say i wanna make something organic(like a creature or something organic anyway) then the real life or photo object i should see, must be non-strict form(like a cube or something), so i pick up my mouse.If i sketch the overal shape of my mouse,i produce a nice semi rounded form that can maybe become a creature's torso or head or whatever.
Here i did a quick "creature" having in mind a simple 3d shape for the begining,then added some 'dunno' organic parts and make it a quick render.If you can make your works look 3d then they will become more delicious
see ya mate,keep up!!!

[Taven]

I've been kept pretty busy lately with homework and the like, but here's a sketch from today. I really liked how her braid turned out, I think it has a realistic feel to it. I think her head seems sort of small, and her eyes are funny. I think I have issues with eyes.

Commentary welcome.

[kingkostas]

Hello mate .This one have some nice qualities on it, but you still have to go away from describing the elements of the face.For example for the mouth you only need the dark areas in the middle and in the edges, like on some cartoons or anime if you have spotted it there.The lines over the mouth make the face look strange,and old(in age),so it will be better to remove these lines,unless you want her to look like an older woman.
The hair look really good and shows that you worked them a lot
Keep up !!!

[Taven]

Kingkostas - I agree, I do have a ways to go on ym faces. I'll see if I can't do another face (or redo that one) following your suggestions. Thanks on the hair! I think that braid turned out really well.

But, no faces today, just a spider and odd creature. I'm using a mechanical pencil for these, and that makes the lines alot more precise. With the face in my previous post, I used a highly sharpened "normal" pencil in areas like the braid.

The spider I had an excellent photo reference for, which you can see here. The photo is (c) Stephen Paul Forshaw, or Thricelight on Deviant Art, and was used for sketch reference with his permisson. I highly recommend browsing through his gallery, he has some amazing photography there.

[kingkostas]

Nice mate great study. And now i can sense your creature as a 3d object inside space.Nice detailing in the feather.
Thats the spirit!!!keep going like that

[Taven]

kingkostas - Thanks for the encouragement! I think the difference is that I was taking more time to shade and consider light, as well as using finer lines. I hope to be able some work of that type work to put up soon, but we'll see.

Nothing really exciting for an update, mostly just quick sketches.

[Taven]

Okay, so my technique with pencil, where I press very hard and get into all the nooks and crannies of the paper, is called burnishing. Now, the thing about burnishing is that after awhile a milky film will form over the image. One of my older images was really having that problem, so I decided to exparament with it. Normally, you use some sort of fixtive immediately after drawing, but I didn't because when I made this piece, I didn't know such things were an issue.

I don't like the results, because of how much it darkened up the white, and in the scan you can't tell much of a final difference, although in reality the black is much darker then at first. I rubbed a thin layer of vasoiline over the image, which is what you see in the second one. The third is where I tried rubbing the excess off, and that didn't go so well. In the second, you can see how fingerprints really showed.

Edited to add further comparison images.

[kingkostas]

Nice studies of different costumes and such.Great meaning in the last one.Now the good is that you experimented with different media.Other than that choose the tool that aid you in your works and master it.
keep going

[Taven]

Kingkostas - I'll see what I can do about messing around in different media, thanks for the encouragement.

I will be scarce the next week, there is a major test worth 1/3 of my class grade at the end of next week.

I haven't been up to very much lately. Here's an update on that one work. The coat is from Kingdom Hearts, Org. 13 member coat. I claim rights only to the art, not the character nor the universe.

[mr-roi]

Hey... Cool art.

Mmm, first off I have to say your art looks very static, most of the time. Try to loosen your wrist up a bit while drawing and making lots of scribbles. This will help generate shapes more fitting the object. Moreover, try doing studies of human anatomy and such before drawing from imagination, you'll see it'll be a lot easier to draw from your imagination afterwards. Umm... While drawing from refs, try do make your mind blank, and draw what you actually see, not what you think you see. Perspective is tricky, if you don't manage that it's a gazzilion times trickier, though.

Don't get me wrong, by the way, draw from your imagination, just do it loosely, you'll see how much funner art gets, lol.

Well, that's it for now.

[xissburg]

I can see you evolve throughout the pages, which is a proof that practicing and studying is the way to become a master.

I'm not sure if you're actually using references but at this stage you really must do extensive use of references, because they teach you a lot. Of course its also a good thing to draw things from your mind sometimes, to put your full creativity to work, but also use references in this case. If you draw without references, I dont think you'll learn much, or anything at all, because you are drawing using what you already know, you aren't absorbing anything new.

Then, my advices are, study anatomy extensively, as many ones already told you. And also another good practice is drawing from pictures. Grab lots of photos of faces for example and draw one by one. During this analyze the differences among the several kinds of faces and so on. This will for sure make you draw more realistic faces (even without any kind of reference).

But how you should study anatomy? This may not be a simple question for an artist. I don't think you should just grab an anatomy book and draw every picture of it several times. Its also important to read it and understand how the things work. How muscles work, bones...Wikipedia has several articles of each part of the body, with pictures, explaining how they work and so on. Also, observe your own body, its an interesting experience to perform everyday, when you get naked before the bath for example .

I've been doing this for several years now, and If I compare my old works with my current works, there's a huge difference, which shows that anyone who wants to be good at doing something, must study and practice that thing. I'm sure this is also true to any other artist here. And there's no end, there's ALWAYS something to improve.