Pencil Shavings

[Zweit]

Second whack at a sketchbook thread... Tear me up please. Or don't. Whatever you feel like doing is A-OK with me.

[monotony]

woah strong start, man. your creature sheets are really cool especially fond of the starspawn no2. figuredrawings look pretty slick, too.
yup nothing to complain, haha. maybe you could show some more colored works as well. but yeah, that's it. keep sharing!

[Vigilandus]

Study more: faces (entire heads), jaws (teeth, cause I just see a lot of triangles). Keep it up on the figures!

Faces, because they're stylized, and could very well get more attractive (which is better), if you practice more on those. Realistic.

Keep going, post more, get busy!

Oh, and I really like some of your creatures.

[Brun]

dude those first creature dezigns are damn hot, great poses too, your human faces could use some more work/input tho.

keep it up, really cool stuff here

[Rolo]

Strong strong start! hahaha.. one thing to crit is the toes of the foot.. XD I they don't look exactly like toes!! ;D

[mAkAm]

nice creatures! keep them coming. also keep up the anatomy studies.

[ReviseTheMethod]

Excellent start, mate! =)
It's obvious that you've got a great imagination, so just keep working your anatomy and technical skills and I'm sure to see great work from you
I really dig the concepts at the beginning of your post :o The trees are ace!

[Zweit]

monotony: Thanks, I'll hopefully start painting more in the next few weeks. I'm still very unsure of myself when it comes to color so I tend to retreat back to my pencil comfort-zone whenever I get the chance.

Vigilandus: Advice I can live with! You wouldn't know it by looking at this thread so far but faces are actually my favorite thing to draw. I'll try to do some self portraits soon, and I'll focus on the model's face next time I'm in for figure drawing.

Thanks to everyone for your comments; helps a lot with motivation. :p

New sketches at the top here, older ones farther down:

[Leo Ki]

SSG motivational incursion ......... ...........

Man, your work is kickass, what can I crit?...
...Mmmh, yes! Your characters tend to look sleepy dreamy.
Maybe this is intentional, but I'd like to see more tension and dynamics.
A picture attracts the attention more when an intention can be read on it.

And, color?

[Psychotime]

I'm speechless.

[dierat]

Hey Zweit Great sketchbook so far. I'm eager to see you posting more and filling up this new sketchbook of yours. I'd also like to see your colored works or studies. Do you consider pencil drawing your forté? I really enjoy the gentle confidence in your graphite sketches, especially the figure studies.

I agree with Leo that your images often feel somewhat static from last of tension. I particularly feel that some of these drawings could be more energetic if their muscles were reflecting their actions. Sometimes your characters' legs don't seem to be supporting the character for lack muscular flexation.

Great work; keep posting

[Zweit]

Leo: Thanks, I'll try and keep that in mind.

Psychotime: Thanks.

dierat: Yeah, part of the problem is that I rarely move past the thumbnail stage with these, so they're in a perpetual state of 'standing around'. And yeah pencil falls into my 'comfy zone'; I've always had something of an aversion to more complex media. I was the guy in class that would rather play it safe with the simplest tools possible rather than than fool around with new gadgets. (it's a curse, I think. I even have the same problem with modeling. Can't even texture stuff in Zbrush! )

I'm working on a little game project with a buddy of mine at the moment; he does the programming and all the number stuff, I do the art. The ones below the next sketch are for that. They're pretty rough but they sort of help convey the look that I want for it.

[Mr.Juicy]

Those creatures/plants at the begining kicks some serious ass.
Waitin for more works to give some stars (can't decide how much)

So keep rockin' dude!!!

[Volchiha]

Whoa! I am blown away! I am envious of your imagination and ability to make something so very interesting. Very original!

I can definitely see you know your theory - the shading is believable, lighting realistic, and your monster characters can seem real. Keep it up!

You definitely have great groundwork in drawing people too, I can see your stylization progression is fluid and appears natural, so I have no reason to assume that the proportion or anatomy isn't right, since it seems to be the style you are going for and works well.

I have not seen any other work aside from what you have here, so all I can say is - try to apply your colour more gradually, look at the way it is mixed. Your tonal variation is great, so work from there, even if it's just an overlay for now.

Go forth and draw! As SSG buddies, I shall be keeping my eye on you!

[marcoferrigno]

absolutely brilliant stuff, love the cuthulu works, there quite inspiring. very nice figure studies aswell.

as for the comic style drawings, there are some good ones and some bad ones, i think they look better when coloured, that one with the guy on the little portable console made me laugh (in a good way)

[Leo Ki]

Hey, looks like it will be a funny game. Is it in Flash or similar?
Will you make all the animations? (pixel? vector? 3D?)
The little thumbnails are a little errr little but I can feel some of the atmosphere.
Color should help them a lot.
Who's that redhead girl? What's her mission?

[Zweit]

Volchiha: Wow, thanks! I'll keep that hue advice in mind.

Leo Ki: Yeah I've been working so small lately I'm starting to forget how everybody else perceives it. Animations will be fairly crude in the game so I should be able to handle them; I'm going for a distinctly 16-bit feel for the gameplay, with more detailed character portraits for the dialog elements. That girl I posted earlier represents the player character as she'd appear when interacting with an NPC. Sorry that I couldn't make it more apparent in the post but it's hard to give a proper rundown of everything when the forum organizes everything like it does.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I've got a lot of projects up in the air right now, though they're not terribly interesting to anybody but me. Sprite making has been eating up most of my time, as I'm sort of figuring out how to do it as I go. These are the WIP's I've got so far. (And they're magnified about 300%).

The warthog is another project I'm trying to balance (my resume says I'm a modeler...). I've been working on it on and off for a month or two, so if I ever go for a long period without updating this thread, you'll know why.

I got a handful of life drawings too, though they're not really worth a damn. I don't know why but I've been having a really difficult time getting into the sessions I've been attending. My mind keeps wandering off. The model was odd, too. I think he was a part-time magician because between poses he did some magic tricks.

[Leo Ki]

So, this will be pixel art. For having tried some I know it's difficult to do.
The girl's profile looks a bit funny but the icons are overall quite cute.
And the warthog is rather scary, you captured the fierce strength of it.
The shading in your life drawings is subtle, but there are some places
where you seem to lose patience and botch it a bit.
And I dig the humorous extra drawings in them

[wheezy]

Great work the the pencil Zweit! I am new to the SSG and wanted to check in on ya. I am going around and subscribing to everyone's thread so I can keep up with updates. Keep it up, loving the creatures and characters.

[wilkerson]

Really nice sketchbook, good stuff all around. The lifedrawings are solid, good sense of volume.
I'm loving the creatures, especially the big shark-man in this one:
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1224402084
looking forward to more stuff.

[Zweit]

Leo: Yeah, that's putting it mildly. I haven't been to a life drawing session in a few weeks, though, so the next time one rolls around I might be able to focus more.

wilkerson and wheezy: thanks and welcome to the group.


Monsters today! The first one's a bunch of sketches for NPC's and enemies, the second is a portrait that'd pop up during talky bits.

The third is Baphomet, pagan idol and typical stand-in for generic demons. I like looking at descriptions of monsters from mythology and/or religious texts and trying to imagine how they might look (or choose to look). Baphomet's one of the easier ones, really. Most descriptions are very specific that it's hermaphroditic, so I hope I don't weird anybody out too much. (never drawn demon wang before)

[Munin Raven]

Love the Cthulhu designs and all your little critters. Those figure studies up there are top notch too.

[Leo Ki]

Hehe, cute pixel art again, especially the firetoad and the hexapus
Good that you found the way to resize without resampling so we can see the actual pixels.
The guurb is hard to parse out but maybe I lack the cultural background.

Fantastic job on the bonebear in big, especially the head/neck and bones.
The left hand/arm (our right) is a step behind the rest in anatomy and rendering quality,
which gets noticed a bit too much because it's on the foreground.

It's a kind of zombie baphomet you made! ^^
What's happening to his/her neck?

[Zweit]

Leo: you're absolutely right about his hand. I gave a second whack at the whole thing and tightened up a few other areas. I'm still not sure about the hand, but I think it's a bit better than it was.

Munin Raven: Thank you, creatures are a favorite way to pass the time and stretch the old imagination. (as you can see I enjoy skulls and spikes a little too much. I'm sure I'll get over that eventually...)

[Danuh]

Very nice pencil sketches *w* Monster monster monster
Try getting inspiration from real animals out there for your creatures. If you keep relying solely on imagination everything starts looking alike.

Badass sketches, though. Keep up the good work :>

[gmags]

Hey Zweit, these r really cool concepts u have here!! That game looks to be real fun to play with!! Keep the eyecandy comin bro!!

[Mr.Juicy]

Pixel zombie is very cool and last monster is awesome for sure. Keep us updated!!!

[Slav]

haha! love the pig with the turret mount. XD

[Volchiha]

Great updates! #24 looks awesome, I'm really loving the shading.
The Baphomet one is my favorite, I love the gritty style, though your lines are a little scratchy/rushed.

[dierat]

Hey, great work dude, I love the sprites. For a crit, I think your colored paintings can use a lot more color variation. You seem to be approaching color in a rather monochromatic fashion based on local color. It looks almost like you painted a greyscale img and then laid flat blocks of color on top in a Color layer. Even adding soft hints of color into your shadows, highlights, and reflections with add greatly to the sense of volume in your images.