My name is Blue Canary, one note spelled L-I-T-E

**Senira** · August 14th, 2008, 09:31 PM

After a review from one of my professors, I realized how much further I need to go before I can even hope to compete in the job market. My goals are clearer, now, and I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

I figure a new start needs a new sketchbook, so here I go. My old one can be found here, for the curious.

I'm starting off with an old CHOW entry I decided to revisit. It's Diamond, from CHOW #104, Four Brothers.

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**Senira** · August 15th, 2008, 04:21 PM

Here's my latest WIP for the Diamond pic. I'll have some studies to post a little later today as well.

**Senira** · August 17th, 2008, 06:31 PM

My professor suggested that to loosen up my poses I should pick a good anatomy book and do some studies from it. For lack of better books at the moment, I've chosen Burne Hogarth's Drawing Dynamic Hands. I'll start doing studies from a proper anatomy book when I return home to my collection.

Day 1

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Day 2

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Day 3

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And here's the latest WIP for the Diamond image.
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**Reject-D** · August 17th, 2008, 06:36 PM

hey good job keep it up

**Senira** · August 18th, 2008, 07:48 PM

Here's my Hogarth page for the day. I've only been doing these since Friday and already I realize how horrible I am at judging negative space. It's something I'll work on while doing these studies.

I also decided to do some light shape constructions before I start copying the page. Doing straight contours didn't seem like it would be that helpful to me since I'm trying to get a better sense of form.

I may add a Diamond WIP later, depending on time.

**Reject-D** · August 19th, 2008, 07:35 PM

nice you can never stop doing studdies.. keep it up dont stop now thanks for also stopping by my sb!

**Senira** · August 19th, 2008, 08:21 PM

reject-D Thanks for the encouragement!

Hogarth for the day and a colored version of a lineart I grabbed from the coloring book thread; I forgot what page it was on, otherwise I'd tell you the artist's name. I'm trying to learn how to do the painterly stroke in Photostop thing that so many folks on CA are great at. I know I could just switch to Painter, but I don't want to tie myself to one software package, especially one that's not as standard in the industry.

For this first attempt I tried to use big strokes and no blending. The color was applied entirely with color and overlay layers.

If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them.

**akiro** · August 19th, 2008, 08:36 PM

that you for the advice!!
and WOW your anatomy is AMAZING!!
i really need to practice that....anyway
GREAT JOB!!

**Radio24** · August 19th, 2008, 09:47 PM

nice painting sketches, and nice definite lines on the hogarth studies.
I find your illustrations comical

**Peetaer** · August 20th, 2008, 10:05 PM

why'd you start over? your last sketchbook looks awesome. anyways, the stuff you've got here are awesome. the hogarth studies are some of the cleanest i've seen on here. totally sick! the dude with the horns and the big eye is coming along nicely (do you plan on adding more is it just a doodle?).

fuck yeah, i can't wait to see more of your work.

**Demo** · August 20th, 2008, 10:21 PM

wow i really like ur stuff iv heard talk of an older sketch book and im dissapointed that i missed it but new beginnings are always fun. mabey if you did some reeally short 10- 30 sec gesture drawings would loosen your style but not that i think u necissarly need it but keep the studies up.

**Senira** · August 23rd, 2008, 04:11 PM

akiro--Thanks!

Radio24--I've decided that I prefer a bit of levity in my work vs. doing dark fantasy/sci-fi stuff. But I'm going to try and do both, since my job will certainly call for it.

Peetar--I've had my old SB thread for a while, and I updated it infrequently. I figured it was time for a fresh start. As for the horn guy, he isn't mine. I got him from the the Coloring Book thread.

Demo--Thanks! I really need to get more life drawing in; I'll be leaving school soon so I have to find some sessions to join at home. Gestures really do help you loosen up your poses.

Here's what I've been working on the last few days. The scanners at school are out and my camera isn't that fabulous, so I haven't been able to scan my dailies. I'll see if I can do so tonight.

A Diamond update.

I hated the folds on his shirt before, so I tried fixing them. They look less suck-ish, but I feel like they're still wrong. On the other hand, I don't want to put much detail into them, because I want his face and cloak to be the focal points of the image. I have so much trouble painting crisp cotton folds, and painting white fabric in general. Does anyone have any tips for this?

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Here are some assignments from the Peer Project thread. They are, in order, assignment#1 (four spheres of diff. materials and lighting) assignment#2 (a b/w sphere with a colored replica of it) and a little side experiment I did for #2 involving the reflection of color onto shiny surfaces. Shiny things give me a HUGE amount of trouble, metal particularly, so I want to focus on that for a while.

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**FleetFox** · August 23rd, 2008, 04:35 PM

Love the illustrations and the poses

**Hauxe** · August 23rd, 2008, 04:44 PM

IT's great to see someone with a lighter style. All of those warriors and assassin babes can get tiring after awhile. Your anatomy sketches are looking pretty solid. Keep it up. I'm sure you'll be ready for the job market in no time.

**Senira** · August 25th, 2008, 07:52 PM

fleetfox Thanks!

alleluia Thanks!

I saw someone in one of the other threads doing skin-textured ball studies. I decided to give it a go, with bleh results.

I think I've learned something, though. The balls I did look very desaturated and murky in comparison to the examples I saw in a tutorial. I think that the skin only goes into gray shades in darkness; otherwise, there's always a touch of color in the shadows. To counter that, though, you'd have to make the skin more saturated, and I'd always thought that the skin had to be in the 30-40% saturation range to make it seem natural.

I could be wrong, though. Anyone have any advice?

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EDIT: Added a color study I did today. I used a screenshot from the batman movie.
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**Eon** · August 26th, 2008, 02:38 AM

Nice anatomy studies! I like how you're analysing hogarth and not just copying him (lesson I'll have to apply myself). And yeah, lighter stuff is refreshing.

**kingkostas** · August 26th, 2008, 03:54 AM

Its nice that you made a remake to an old character(i mean the old chow), and the progress is obvious i think.I also took a quick look at your old sketchbook and it seemed to be going really good(anyway its not bad to start a new one, i also had an old sketchbook)
Keep up all your studies, and try to understand how anatomy works not only how it seems to be.You are very good so keep up

Thnx for stopping by my sketchbook

**Nele Ooms** · August 26th, 2008, 12:22 PM

Your anatomy -and colorstudies are amazing!! Nothing else... just great!

**copperfire** · August 27th, 2008, 11:50 AM

WOW!!! You're marks make the lines look so uniform! It really helps create a mood in your images, you also have a VERY nice sense of color!

I'll be waiting for more!!!

**Senira** · August 27th, 2008, 10:48 PM

Eon--Thank you!
Kingkostas--Thanks!
Nele Ooms--Thank you!
Copperfire--Thanks! The line uniformity is due mostly to my painstaking slowness when drawing the lines in the first place.

I'm going to try and put some line weight into my later studies. First I need to learn to stop pressing so hard on my paper.

I'm not gonna lie, I started slacking on the Hogarth studies. I could use finals as an excuse, but I won't. If I start missing studies for a good reason, then I'll start missing them for bad ones.

So, that said, I'm getting back on track. I decided to try doing a few studies in pen so that I'd stop being so fiddly with my lines.

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Here's what was SUPPOSED to be a speedpainting; it ended up taking me about two hours because I changed my mind so much about what to put in the background. The vague trees that are in there now were pretty much me giving up on the background entirely.

I wanted to experiment with "spotlight" style lighting, as the sun would have when shining through the canopy. I suppose I should have dappled it with shadows for more realism; it's something I'll have to toy with in another study.

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**softocean** · August 31st, 2008, 01:09 AM

I like your mixture of hard and soft angles in the Hogarth studies. It looks like you occassionally incorporate this style into your characters.. Maybe you can push it into your environments as well?

My sketchbook is here

**thrilafrommanila** · August 31st, 2008, 01:15 AM

i like this sb. especially all the anatomy, it's very interesting.

i'd love to see even more

**kingkostas** · August 31st, 2008, 10:25 AM

Nice works.I think you need some more contrast in your last piece(enviroment)
Keep up

**SpitSega** · August 31st, 2008, 10:46 AM

Nice sketchbook. I love your style, your characters are nicely fluid. Keep up the good work.

**Senira** · September 4th, 2008, 07:01 PM

softocean--Thanks for the tip! I'm going to start doing more "top of my head" background studies, just to get a feel for them. I feel seriously crippled on the backgrounds front, so it's a problem I need to solve.

thrilafrommanila-- Thank you!
kingkostas--Thank you!
SpitSega-- Thank you!

I've been having a horrible time with the Smuggler Chow from last week. I had it in mind to try echoing Pascal Campion's style, but I ended up with several variations of a horrible mess. I decided to ditch that one for now and focus on personal works. I still want to try my hand at a looser, lighter style however, since I've taken an interest in children's book illustration.

Here were some of my (many) failed versions of the smuggler. I actually kind of like the second one, mostly because Painter's bamboo pen turned out to be so much fun.

**andyhunt** · September 4th, 2008, 07:07 PM

very nice style! regardless of how cartoony and simplified your images are, they have a good sense of depth and form. That can be a really hard thing to pull off.

**reneeisorym** · September 5th, 2008, 05:18 PM

Thanks for posting on my sketchbook (I've been working and not posting here ... I'm updating things soon)
I really like your anatomy studies. Your hands/fingers are a bit off but the muscles and arm poses are absolutely great.
I love the first guy. I just want to pinch his cheeks! (Although he looks like he might not appreciate that!)

**Senira** · September 6th, 2008, 03:48 PM

andyhunt--Thanks!
reneeisorym--Thanks! Yeah, I'm thinking about skipping ahead in the book a bit so that I can get more hand studies in. Hands and feet are a big weakness for me.

Here's a WIP of my latest image. I began this for the Divine Prophecy thing in the challenge section. My idea was that these mice find the container holding some prophetic thing or the other and listen to it in awe, not realizing that one member of their party is plotting their demise.

I'm trying to come up with a color/value scheme that leads the eye from the girl, to the mouse behind the chalice, to the sneaky looking mouse on the left, then down to the cockroach hanging onto the table. I flipped the image as an experiment; I'm not sure if I like the composition better this way or not.

**kingkostas** · September 7th, 2008, 04:54 AM

Really nice composition

.I would like to see it finished
see ya

**Senira** · September 10th, 2008, 06:18 PM

kingkostas--Thanks!

Here's my latest WIP for the prophecy image. I fiddled with the composition more, and I'm a bit happier with that. I'm not sure if I like how the lighting is turning out, however. I'm going to start a thread over in the WIP section and see if I can get some thoughts on the matter.