Chris' Book of Doodles and Things

**chriskot** · December 25th, 2008, 04:21 AM

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here's a few fast attempts at coming up with a good skin texture and a very quick & messy yet seasonally relevant scene (EDIT: Slightly better now). As you can see, I really need to work more on drawing landscapes.

**chriskot** · January 13th, 2009, 02:37 AM

Started something new at school. It was originally going to be more elaborate, but I got bored. I haven't flown a kite in such a long time...

**chriskot** · January 20th, 2009, 10:44 PM

Today I just felt like doing something colourful and geometric, so I quickly produced these two abstract buildings in simple 2-point perspective. Fun stuff.

**chriskot** · January 22nd, 2009, 11:41 PM

So I wanted to draw a nose. I've discovered that I really like drawing noses for some reason. Then that turned out well so I drew a mouth to go with it. I figured I might as well draw an entire face, but...

**Legacy Flame** · January 23rd, 2009, 12:52 AM

I really like your sketches and drawings. Your aliens are quite imaginative and that wooden tank was just awesome. Keep up the cool stuff, i'll be subscribing to keep an eye on ya.

**chriskot** · February 12th, 2009, 12:31 PM

Legacy Flame: Thanks a lot!

Yesterday it was wet and muddy, so I decided to draw a similar environment during my break at school. It ended up boring though, so I added a worm/monster-tentacle-thing bursting out of the dirt because it seemed like the right thing to do. I'm pretty happy with the result.

I'll probably have something else to upload later today.

**AustenFM** · February 12th, 2009, 12:39 PM

Hey there! This sketchbook has a lot of potential. I love your creativity on those massive pencil doodle pages, your digital stuff is coming along well too.

I'd love to see more traditional work though, maybe work on your darker tones more, everything seems a little too soft and light because of it. Cant wait to see what more you do!

**chriskot** · February 12th, 2009, 11:59 PM

@AustenFM: Thanks! Honestly, most of my work is pencil, but my scanner is hooked up to a REALLY slow computer and I'm too lazy to scan stuff in more than once every month or two. I have a few traditional pictures that I would like to add sometime soon though. I agree about the tone thing. I'll work on that.

Here's another picture I did earlier. Some filter-feeding creature, based very loosely on something I saw in a dream once. The eyes were an afterthought, hence the improperly shaped shadow.

**chriskot** · March 2nd, 2009, 02:01 AM

I've been doing a few more hand studies and a few quick portraits. I'll get them scanned in soon. For now, more digital.

Here are three really quick tests from playing around with "Colors!" on my iPod Touch. 5-10 minutes each. It's been a long time since I've fingerpainted like that. I've also included a piece of pixel art of some sort of monstrous amalgamation. It's about as old as this sketchbook and I never really considered it finished, but it's definitely one of the best pieces of pixel art I've produced to date, so it's going in.

**chriskot** · March 24th, 2009, 01:40 AM

Final exams coming up soon. LOTS of studying to do. Can't spend too much time drawing, but here's a couple of things I did recently.

- A quick skull to try out a new colouring method.
- A stylized fish. Don't think I've ever tried anything like that in PS before. Fun stuff.

I also did an attempted portrait of Ogreboy for one of the most entertaining threads in the Lounge. That picture is here. I'm part-way through a half-dozen or so other portraits, but they could all use a bit more work before they go up.

**chriskot** · March 25th, 2009, 01:09 AM

A couple more PS doodles. A few mechanical pieces and something a bit... fleshier.

**chriskot** · April 3rd, 2009, 12:36 AM

Here's more:

-A quick snowman done in a few minutes with Colors! on my iPod. Those stick arms were really hard to draw on such a small screen with my fingers. Took me several tries.

-A little landscape from a side-scrolling video game perspective. I'll probably expand on it by sticking in a few plants and things like that. The mountains should probably be a bit higher up, but this was a fun picture to draw. Video game mock-ups usually are.

I did another portrait for the "Draw From 'What Does Everyone Look Like?' Thread". A quick sketch of Corky13, done at school, pencil on graph paper. I think this may be one of the best portraits I've drawn so far.

**SMILEFACE** · April 6th, 2009, 10:14 PM

you have a great eye dor disign an a way cool imagination thanks for my an all the other picks you've posted in the DFWELL thread look'n forward to see'n some more ...o an madd perspective skills an the cheer me up thread stuff priceless'

**HugeHarHar** · April 7th, 2009, 04:48 PM

Just checking back up in here man and the pixel art a few posts up is damn sweet. I'd love to see some more.

**chriskot** · April 17th, 2009, 05:51 AM

Thanks guys!

(@HugeHarHar: I'm working on another piece of pixel art right now and it will probably be done by the next time I update.)

NEW STUFF:

1) A portrait of Grandmassa Mr. Spect done in pencil.

2) A portrait of Nrx done with Alchemy.

3) The monster attached below. It's still a work in progress. Even though it started off as a spur-of-the-moment pencil doodle, I'm going to try and actually put some effort into this one before I call it finished. Ever since I did the picture I've been using as my avatar, I've had an affinity for occasionally drawing creatures with similarly square teeth. The values aren't done yet, but I spent five minutes throwing in some colour and he ended up reminding me of Slimer from Ghostbusters. Those colours probably aren't actually staying. It was just a little experiment.

**chriskot** · April 23rd, 2009, 02:51 PM

Alright, I was wrong. No pixel art this time. Next time.

I just finished up a quick self-portrait in Alchemy which is at least a million times better than any of my previous attempts. Here it is. I was having a bit of a bad hair day in the reference pic. I'm beginning to really like Alchemy. It's simpler and easier to work with a mouse than Photoshop, while still being way more versatile than MS Paint and not requiring me to scan stuff in like traditional media.

**chriskot** · April 24th, 2009, 09:41 PM

Pixel art still coming. I just didn't expect to be updating this often.

Here's a portrait of a friend of mine in the same style as the SP above. Not quite as good a likeness, but I think it's decent.

I'm also still working on the singing monster from a couple of posts up.

**NakedZergling** · April 24th, 2009, 10:00 PM

i"m a fan. you're stuff is really fun to look at.

**Legacy Flame** · April 30th, 2009, 01:06 AM

Cool looking portraits. Alchemy indeed is a neat program.

**chriskot** · May 9th, 2009, 09:31 PM

Thanks!

I seem to have been slacking a bit with finishing up that new pixel art, so here's a sampling of some of my better pixel work over the past few years, along with a couple of my better animations.

***A QUESTION***
After hearing that the CA downloads are probably ending soon, I downloaded Whit Brachna's video on the topic of Photoshop masks. $5 very well spent. I don't have a whole lot of money to throw around, but I'm thinking about downloading one or two more videos. I just can't decide which one(s). My main choices:

Andrew Jones' thumbnail demo is something that seems like it would be fun to watch and I feel that I could benefit from, despite the fact that I don't own Painter or ZBrush.

I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of perspective, but Carl Dobsky's perspective video would teach me at least a few things that I still haven't learned, such as how far apart to set the vanishing points in two-point perspective.

Whit Brachna's other videos would definitely teach me a lot about drawing environments, but (to me) that seems like a lower priority at this point because they aren't something I usually focus on. Plus, I would then have to figure out which one of those videos to get.

Finally, El Coro's 3D for Pre-Visualization demo seems useful. I don't own 3DS Max, but I figure that I know enough about Blender 3D to use that instead.

Anyone have any ideas which one(s) I should go for? I would especially appreciate input from people who've already viewed one or more of these. Thanks.

**chriskot** · May 11th, 2009, 02:44 AM

A couple more things. The quick mountainscape is my first attempt at applying my new knowledge of how to use masks. The 8 monsters are just some more quick Alchemy doodles. None of them feel particularly original to me, but I think I'm getting better with that program (even if it isn't really built for this sort of thing).

**JailHouseRock2** · May 11th, 2009, 03:45 AM

Nicccce progress man, your digis are looking very smoth

And I'm afride I can't help with the MB downloads, never had enough cash to buy any

Keep at it mate,
matt

**chriskot** · May 13th, 2009, 01:55 AM

Thanks Matt!

Here's some microscopica that I put together yesterday. I know that the thing in the middle is missing a bit of anatomy, but I wasn't feeling daring enough to try and draw an endoplasmic reticulum with a mouse.

**SHAP00PI** · May 13th, 2009, 02:26 AM

great sb man, i like your illustrative style, real fresh

keep it up!!

**chriskot** · May 21st, 2009, 12:05 AM

Thanks!

Today's post: a slight update to the singing thing, as well as a new W.I.P.

**chriskot** · May 26th, 2009, 02:31 AM

Here's another Alchemy portrait. This one is of Hari Gopinathan, for The Official - Draw From "What Does Everyone Look Like?" Thread.

**chriskot** · May 31st, 2009, 05:18 AM

Another W.D.E.L.L. portrait. This one is of AsaB.

**chriskot** · June 5th, 2009, 12:58 AM

'Nother portrait. Jake Kobrin this time.

Also, eyes. Specifically, those belonging to lefran and Hari Gopinathan. I was experimenting with White-Out and Black Sharpie on corrugated cardboard.

**chriskot** · June 8th, 2009, 01:07 AM

I'm trying to get back into a bit of 3D modelling with Blender. This is the result of my attempt to follow a "realistic grass" tutorial, then retouch it in Photoshop to add a bit of mood (mostly fog, since I couldn't get it to directly render fog over that many particles of grass without crashing the program).

**Legacy Flame** · June 11th, 2009, 10:54 PM

Nice grass, where did you find the tutorial? Im on my way to learn to use Blender aswell, since I lack Maya and 3D Max which I know how to use from my college classes.