Noah's little sketchbook (03.29)

[PieMonster]

Loving the recent stuff here man, the atmosphere in these two especially stand out to me.
Really looking forward to seeing more stuff!

[Noah Bradley]

Shadow Stalker: Thanks! It was fun to play around with grayscale work. Nice change of pace.

Trixtar: You bet--always more videos. Working on a pretty sweet project that'll be coming out in the next few weeks, actually...

PieMonster: Thanks, man.

Painted this little thing during a livestream today:

[knut-]

Reaaally nice enviros man, you seem to know what you're doing!
They really have a mood somehow.
Keep rocking

[Noah Bradley]

knut: Thanks!

Quick little doodle:

[marcocasalvieri]

Hey Noah, huge fan of your works here, it's very inspirational seeing the progress you've made in the last few years. Your last doodle is nice, I like the perspective.

well anyway, there are few things that I'd like to ask you (I'm 18 \ I want to be an environment concept artist just like you \ how can I do that \ etc - you know, that boring stuff that people ask all the time), do you mind if I send you an email one of these days?

[Noah Bradley]

marcocasalvieri: Thanks so much! You're welcome to send an email but no promises on a quick reply. I've swamped with work at the moment and my inbox is overflowing.

Quick 2 hour elf painting I did today from some reference:

[Valyavande]

There's so much fun browsing through this sketchbook and see all those wonderful environments! I'm amazed how different they are, you seem to have a great imagination. And i wonder how you can call the painting in #422 a little thing =) I love it how the rocks in the background are vanishing and though the birds were great idea to make that part of picture more interesting again.
Looking at the elven girl, I like the rendering very much. Great feel of depth is going on. Only thing that really bothers me about her, is her head or the top of it. i would say it's too much and the form looks kind of distorted. But I like it how you did the hair there

[Izene]

#426 is amazing! Great depth!

[Noah Bradley]

Valyavande: Thanks! Good tips on that piece--realized a lot of the mistakes after I had finished it. One of the problems with working on something under such a tight timeline.

Izene: Thanks!

Quick still life done on livestream today:

[Ccs]

I saw that livestream in progress! Great stuff. The onion is really dominating the piece cause of it's interesting texture. I'm surprised there aren't more folds to show where the objects are weighing down the cloth though. The bullet feels like it might not be on solid ground and is about to roll toward the viewer. Not sure if you were going for that, although it gives it a Cezanne feel.

I really like the painting of the elf lady.

[tehmeh]

badass, man

[Lane.]

I enjoyed the livestream Noah, nice work!

[I-Bomb]

Your enviroment sketches and still life paintings are very inspiring it makes me more determined to improve

[pfloyd]

You are my hero, literally. Your progress from the beginning to end of this thread is the most inspiring thing on this website I've seen so far. Also, you do exactly what i want to do eventually. I especially like #422. keep posting please.

...also, i emailed you at your gmail account before i found you here with something i did. just so you know.

[Noah Bradley]

Ccs: Thanks. And yeah, I was surprised thing weren't folding the cloth much either, but it was a pretty hard surface underneath that cloth. So I don't know.

tehmeh: Thanks man.

Lane: Thanks for watching!

udonhead: Thanks. You can do it!

pfloyd: Thanks a lot! Sorry if I haven't responded to your email--I've been getting a lot of folks emailing me their work lately and I just don't have time to respond right now. Glad I can help to inspire, though!

Wanted to paint a hot chick, so here we are:

[Noah Bradley]

Quick study from memory:

[Andrew Sonea]

Hey Noah, just wanted to leave a little critique here. I noticed that there is a great difference between your landscapes (awesome!) and your portraits (can use some work).

I did a little paintover to explain some of what I feel would improve your latest portrait. Here are some changes I made:
-The transition from light to shadow is too sudden on the forehead causing it to look like a sudden major plane change
-The brow is placed too high. This leads to a surprised expression, or a botox looks that is unnatural
-The eyes need to be set into the head more; a stronger shadow between the eye and eyebrow near the nose helps, as well as a bit of a shadow underneath the eye near the nose.
- Watch the cast shadow over the face from the hair. Cast shadows can tell a lot of information about a form, but it can also kill all form you have rendered out...pay close attention to its shape so it reinforces the forms instead of flattening them.
-You make noses rather bulbous and very large. Making it smaller and defining the planes on it makes a huge difference.
-The far eye was looking a bit squinty. I opened it up a bit more, removed the highlight and softened its edges. Usually it is a good idea to downplay eyes in the shadowed areas.
-Don't forget the shadow on the far corner of the mouth! (although this is a really small thing and isn't always visible, it helps in this case to make the mouth look like it is in the proper perspective)
-I made a VERY small adjustment to the jawline as it was a bit pointed before.
-HAIR--this is a big one. It is very easy to overdo hair and draw in all the strands and get a straw-like look. You were starting to get a bit of that look, so just taking a soft brush lightly over it softens it up again and makes it looks nice and hair-like. Don't forget also that hair is rarely perfectly aligned and ordered. Adding a few strands that have strayed randomly and cut across the rest of the hair or face really helps sell the whole idea of hair.

[Star Eater]

The next time someone makes a random comment online about one of my pieces I'm gonna make a thread about it. In fact, I think we should have a forum section called Stuff People Online Said About My Work That I Thought Was Kinda Weird.

After looking through this sketchbook, my penis miraculously grew 2 inches!! I have a 3 inch penis now.

[Noah Bradley]

Quick plein air study from earlier today:

[tastenkasten]

Wow, I love your figure paintings.. the colours are wonderful.

[Kapri]

That last plein air study really rocks (no pun intended, lol). Do you live in an area with allot of nature? I'm currently reading Jack Hamm's "Drawing Scenery" in preperation of a trip to mount Olympus in Greece. Want to study plein air drawing there and maybe even try some color sketches on the iPad.

I also like the portrait from #426 allot. Very subtle and nice expression. Minor crit: her left cheekbone seems a bit pointy.

Cheers and also: thanks for the awesome youtube vids!

[Noah Bradley]

tastenkasten: Thanks! Need to do some more figure painting... it's been too long.

Kapri: Thanks man. And yeah, I do live in quite the scenic place--Virginia is gorgeous. I've also been traveling a fair bit lately, so I've had an excess of amazing sights.

Was in an airport yesterday for a while, so did a quick sketch of this guy:



And just because:

[No Name]

Like your stuff Noah, also saw some of your stuff from facebook, your a really great photographer too.

[Noah Bradley]

No Name: Thanks!

Little figure drawing:

[Noah Bradley]

Thing I did on livestream today. Considering taking it to a finish... we'll see.

[Mila]

It seems I haven't been here for too long already! Nice updates Noah.

[Noah Bradley]

Mila: Thanks!

[Lyraina]

Thank you for sharing all this paintings and studies - it is so awesome to see the
progress, very inspiring! I don't know how often I looked through your sketchbook
for inspiration and motivation. Thank you
(Also for the videos and such!)

[Noah Bradley]

Lyraina: Thanks! Always love to hear that this stuff is helping others.

Master study I did today:

[Mila]

I really like the master study! The brushstrokes are pleasing to look at