turtlecracker's sketchbook

[turtlecracker]

New member here. Hi. -waves-

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember, but I didn't start to work on anatomy or anything like that until 2007, when I realised that I wasn't making any progress, and that I was stuck using a really bad style that didn't make it any easier for me. So when I heard about this forum, I had to check it out. It's taken a while for me to build up courage to post here, though.

(Edited to put up a new thumbnail for the thread.)

[turtlecracker]

Some stick figure sketches made with the aid of Loomis' Figure drawing book.




Doodle of a character I'm working on. I'm trying to figure out how to portray a person at different ages (He's supposed to be fourteen or fifteen years old to the left, and around twenty to the right.) and still make it so that people can recognise him.

[Kfeeras]

WELCOME TO CA!!

I read someone on the forum suggested to start learning anatomy first with basic shapes and proportions and gesture, than the skeleton and then the muscles. just one way to do it. i think the important thing is to actually do it somehow ;-) i used lesson videos by riven phoenix when they were for free at alienthink.com.
i found bridgman very helpful. and also hogarth and bammes. just google the names if you don't know em yet.
if yu need motivation just go to youtube and look for the vids by digitalbobert, very great.

and most important: keep up ;-)

cheers

[remmy]

Great start, Check my signature for AMAZING RESOURCES!!!!

I like sharing

[fantasyartist]

Nice start. The proportions of your figures are looking good already. Try to give them more form by pushing the values a little bit. Don't get lazy on parts like the hands and feet ( I still do that from time to time). They need as much if not more care as the other bodyparts. I really like the female character in the last sketch. You may want to add some darker tones to add more interest to the sketch. Be sure to draw more of those basic volumes like you did in your first post. It will really pay off once you start mastering them. Keep it up!

[Sir_E_Pent]

Beautiful anatomy studies. You will be great. Later

[turtlecracker]

Oh wow, I didnt' expect to see people posting in here so soon. 8D

Kfeeras: Thank you very much. I've heard about those people and their books, and as soon as I can afford them, I plan to buy them. I'll check out digitalbobert, you made me curious.

remmy: Oh, thank you for the resources. I really appreciate it, especially those medical anatomy pictures.

fantasyartist: I know I didn't focus on the hands or feet in those first ones. Hands and feet make me nervous, because it's so easy to make them look bad. But I know that I need to work a lot with them, just because of that.
Use darker tones, got it. =D I got a bit careful with them on those sketches, because I didn't know how many layers of graphite the paper could hold.

sinusanimus: Thanks for stopping by and taking your time to comment. ^^

[Brun]

its good that u have embrassed the basics, they will help u verry much in the end, great stuff

ciao

[turtlecracker]

I'm starting to think that this paper might not be good to use with pencils. It might be too cheap.



My left hand and foot, a mobile pocket and a random eye and nose.


Drawn at a bus stop. I still need more practice at drawing people on the move.

[turtlecracker]

It's been way too long since I've posted. /= It's about time I started working on sketches now.
The first two are drawings from life made while waiting for the bus. I still feel too uncomfortable to draw people from the front.

[turtlecracker]

Long time and very few sketches and drawings made. D= Must keep my resolution for the new year.
Some gesture sketches and a character sketch where I tried to focus on making the pose look somewhat relaxed.

[theUNKNOWNsketcher]

Keep drawing! Thats great progress you've made! Cheers

[turtlecracker]

[Joey-b]

nice work, i love the teapot for some reason

[Smarty]

thecat looks so evil! nice. keep working on gestures and anatomy and some things are sure likely to click. I think thats still your main concern so just keep it up!

[turtlecracker]

I don't understand why I find it so difficult to draw from life. Is it that I just don't understand what it is I'm looking at?

[turtlecracker]

Inspired by sketchbooks here, I start my venture into life drawing...

Self portrait, by looking into a mirror. The right side looks more like me, than the left for some reason.


My ear, also with help of a mirror.

[Hayabusa]

hey nice stuff!

posemaniacs looks like a great resource ive never even heard of, thanks for putting it out there

keep up

[turtlecracker]

My left foot and my cat sitting on the backrest of the couch.

[turtlecracker]

Holy hell, I'm too lazy...
Some quick gesture drawings.


And a little thing I made up a while ago.

[turtlecracker]

Trying my hand at watercolors for the first time since... 7th grade, I think.


Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing yet.

[turtlecracker]

After a long while of offline-time with serious computer problems, I return, ashamed that I'm not working as hard as I should.




Trying out some more watercolor. I still have no clue what I'm doing with them.

[Swampdigger]

You've got some nice stuff here. Keep on doing things from life, it's a good direction to go. I think the reason that drawing from life is harder than from pictures is mainly because in a photos the subject has been flattened for you. It's one step closing to being a drawing. Whereas from life, foreshortening and stuff like that is a bit harder to see accurately. Plus it's just plain harder when you draw stuff that moves.

Good luck. Have fun. And keep drawing.

[turtlecracker]

Drawn both from photos and from looking in a mirror.

[turtlecracker]

Goodness. I'm ashamed to say that I had completely forgotten about this sketchbook. A year and a half has gone by since I last posted, and I've been pretty stagnant, due to laziness and other things happening.

I was briefly thinking of just starting up a new sketchbook, but then I figured that that would be silly since I had barely started this one anyway. So I'll continue on. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep posting at least weekly from now on.

Well, I have been taking some short art classes, and started getting used to material I hadn't tried out before, but life drawing has been suffering, and I know that it shows. Anyway, time to get back in the saddle, and actually put some work into this. After all, that was the point of joining this community in the first place.
So, because I suck, I start off not with actual life drawings, but with some two-minute sketches off references from pixelovely.com's gesture tool which contains photos from Marcus J. Ranum, Dan Tular, Lee, and probably others that didn't come up while I was drawing.

[Naidy]

Really good start so far, nice detail in your studies.
So keep up the good work!

[turtlecracker]

Some more two-minute sketches, as well as a couple of 1, 3, and 5 minute studies of the same image (stole the idea from Asatira's sketchbook).
After that, I got hold of Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Hands. I'm going to raid the library next time I'm in town to see if they have any other books there.
It was actually pretty difficult to try to follow along with the image and not just copy what I saw. But it was really fun. Almost like a zen-exercise somewhere in the middle.

[turtlecracker]

Just some Hogarth studies from yesterday and today. I've ordered a couple of Bridgman books, and I hope they'll arrive this week. I'm looking forward to that.
I feel bad that I haven't been posting much in other sketchbooks, but I think it's hard to comment on other people's work, since I don't really know what to comment on most of the time.

[Surion]

Awesome studies! They're paying off!
Don't forget to do some imaginative drawing though, doing studies is one thing, applying them is another (I myself have a lot of trouble with applying at the moment).
Anyways love your sketchbook so far, keep it up!

[turtlecracker]

Surion: Thanks! Yeah, I haven't had much imagination to draw from recently, so doing studies and quick gestures have been pretty good. =]

So, some more Hogarth studies, and some one- and two-minute sketches.