Sectra's Book o' Sketches

[S3CTR4]

I guess this will be my informal greeting to all you CA heads out there. I've been on the deviantART scene for a while now, but spent much of the last 3-4 years lurking on cghub and conceptART. Only recently have I met someone with mad talent that's pushed me to start up my own sketchbook for some much needed feedback: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2713230

In the meantime take a gander & feel free to say what's on your mind. I'm backtracking a bit and posting this newest work from my freshman year at RMCAD, but my hope is they'll be some signs of progression through the post, as I'm currently getting into the first half of my Junior year. I'll try and keep this updated week-by-week...promise.

Thanks in advance!! Hope to ignite some dialogue with new members (ie: myself) and more seasoned individuals alike

-Dylan




Self portrait. Final assignment for Drawing 2. Illustrate yourself as an indigenous person. The video that went with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99BYGxqNzZs


Some quick referenced figure sketches from last year.


This piece was part of a larger collaborative project between myself and Jay Miller. Started somewhere around 2008 as a way to experiment with imaginative settings based off musical qeues. The final edit can be seen here: http://warinmysky.deviantart.com/art...5358173?q=&qo=


Another scene I did from the Dead Flag Blues project


Old sketch. Trying to understand perspective from a low vantage point. Took me another 2 years before I started to understand properly




Part of Drawing 1 freshman year. 13 chairs assignment.


This was supposed to be 1/3 of a larger finished project from Drawing 1. Invented bug creature rendered in line, simplified forms, and final drawing. I was too impatient to mess with the former 2 steps, and went straight into the final. Suffered a bit because of my attitude as well. Let a...well, close friend of mine draw a heart on the shell. I kept it. I shouldn't have.


Wrapped & Unwrapped assignment from Drawing 2. Unfinished (obviously). Pencil on 18x24 Canson pastel paper


Pastels on 18x24 Canson. Occularium study.


Humanities 2 was a class designed for killing creativity and providing ample time to sketch fellow students.






Initial sketches for a celebrity characature.


Final piece. Chalk pastel wash, colored pencil fro detail, sealed and glazed in oil for final effect.


Profile sketch for a maquette that never made it to completion.


Messing around in Alchemy. No ref.


Referenced


Acrylic abomination that I was reluctant to post. Archibaldo study.


First ever attempt at oils. 8x10


4.5x10


5.25x10


3x4


10x8


10x8


16x24 from photo: Colorado Sunrise


Can't remember dimensions. Little bit bigger than 8x10. From photo


8x10


10x8


Final piece from Life Drawing 2. Ink wash, charcoal, and white conte'


Final sketch for clayboard assignment on fears.




Mono-print. Questlove


2 minutes


5 minutes


10 minutes


10 minutes


10 minutes


1 minute


2 minutes


2 minutes


20 minutes


First day animal anatomy class. Snow Leopard and jaguar


Lioness and Asiatic Black bear



African Wild Dog and some birds from the estuary


Grizzly and Asiatic Black


Rhino/Tapir


Mongolian Wild Horse and Camel


Ox thingies


Mountain goat thing, ugly zebra and a peacock that was hiding off the path.


Had a really fun behind the scenes sort of tour at the Denver Museum of Natural History and got to sketch out all sorts of neat animal skeletons. Sea Lion and Leopard


Beaver/Rock Hyrax


Titanotheres (drew the wrong back right leg thinking it was part of the model I was looking at, instead of the one behind it. oops)


Nice day sketching at Starbucks with a few friends from class. Still trying to focus too hard on the rendering instead of the initial gesture. I need to blind-contour a hell of lot more often.





My anthropology teacher say's "whatnotz" WAY too much. But it's cool because he makes up for it with his drinking stories.


Character study on my anthropology notes for my editorial illustration project.

Final Piece

[bpic]

lol i wish i had mad talent. And are you kidding?! those environment studies are insane man! So is that chair rendering. Did you learn some of that from Barry's landscape class? Nice digiportrait too, seems like we have a nice healthy set of studies at RMCAD so its going to be fun watching these pages fill with more and more sick shit. Keep up the good work man and keep posting .

[S3CTR4]

@ bpic - Thank you sir!! Now I just need to make time for personal, imaginative work. Something that is sorely lacking from this sketchbook I'm afraid Good thing I have someone to bounce ideas and inspiration off of now. Haha. Lets set this shit on FIYA!!

[S3CTR4]

First update on a character design for a collaborative project between myself and: warinmysky

She's waaaayyy too stiff right now, and there used to be a justified reason, but time constraints are killing me so I'll try and loosen her up in the final render. Should have her painted in full by tomorrow. Story to follow......

[bpic]

Hey main.

It is a little bit stiff, even depending on the story. The details of the costume are a great feature of the drawings and I feel like it could be an interesting character, I especially am interested to know more about what your buddy and yourself are doing! *sticks his nose in* One final thought.. on the front view I would try to fix the perspective of the pelive and torso. I feel like the center line is slightly off, which isn't so apparent on the back view. Try to nail the drawing as best you can before moving in to digital, it's good practice and can save a lot of frustration (advice I need to follow more myself). Good job though, the whole project seems like really good practical application of what were learning.

[S3CTR4]

Thanks mane!!

I agree with everything you just said. And it's hard to get a feel for her persona when the initial sketch is unfinished. But I need this to be done by tomorrow, so the pencil will have to wait. Looking back on this now, and knowing the mechanical arm is getting nixed, I'm going to have to tweak her posture and (her) left arm placement so she comes off with more attitude, rather than stagnant.

Initially, she was designed with artificial appendages fashioned together with scraps. But that started clashing with her uniform. Still have a ways to go, but it's been a LONG time since I've done problem solving with the digital, and that's going to save me the little time I have to get this chick finished. I'll post a bit more back story once she's completed

[Tom Fenton]

epic stuff clicked on all the links aswell great information and story basis to all finalized images. I think in a hole you have inspired my day of studying and hope that i can collab with you and maybe some of your friends in the future as for critisism, well... cant really see what your doing thats wrong so far but il let u know in further posts

[S3CTR4]

@ Tom - Hey! I'm glad I could inspire another artist on here for a change. It's usually the other way around for me So much talent in here. I'd be more than happy to crit. your work if you're looking for some feedback.

[bpic]

WTB some art!

[S3CTR4]

Ahhh!! Almost there. Just wish I had a faster method to rendering instead of laboring over every little bit, because none of those long hours show right now. Still a big ole' mess of value.

[bpic]

HEY MAN.

It looks pretty sweet. I think you can and should think about your five tones and push them a little bit more. Keep lights light and darks dark or if your in more of a diffused lighting situation just make sure to keep your value relationships apparent enough to turn form in space. I guess what im saying is to up the contrast. A good method of character design I have seen is to start with a black silhouette and build up from there, as if pulling the figure out of shadow. Speaking of silhouette, I think your character's has a nice, interesting feel to it and the layout you chose has a nice graphic feel to it. Good job!

[S3CTR4]

I agree. I have until Monday now to finalize this chick, and I think more than anything I just need a day off from looking at it. Come back fresh. I had trouble figure out what kind of lighting to use because I assumed front lighting would feature most everything about her, body, clothing, weapons, etc. But it felt fake, so I started pushing cast shadows across the figure to suggest form that way instead. We'll see.

Silhouette still looks a bit stiff, especially on the back side. I think that was my problem from the beginning because I stayed so close to the linework from my sketchbook, i left no room for experimentation. Next character I think i'm going to approach this completely digital and push some value around until I find something more organic and less robotic :/ You the man, B!!

[S3CTR4]

Almost there!! Big thanks to BPIC and Steve for the help with contrast and limb placement. I just have to add a few more nodes, complete the scars, fix the gun, and finish the shoes. Thanks for looking, all!!

[S3CTR4]

I have a terribly obnoxious habit of avoiding the human face when it comes to life drawing. Which is a shame, because we have some pretty unique models that work with us every week. At any rate, here's a few pages from today's class. I'm going to approach these more structurally from now on, (ie: Bridgeman-esque) but Trinity is too much fun to play with her curves.

[brenthollowell]

great variety in your work! epic graphite work, awesome gestures, and i love the oils. bravo and keep em coming!

[bpic]

Hey man,

Character design is looking good and I bet you learned a ton from it. Keep truckin'! Some nice trinity drawings going for ya too. I think you'll be good for sure with the figure if you go through bridgmans stuff like you were saying. Plus it will carry over to everything else. Keep posting! See ya friday.

[S3CTR4]

It's been too long since my last update. I've been getting in the habit of collecting for over a period of time and then just piling on a huge art dump a few weeks later. Not the greatest method for getting regular feedback, but hey, it's a start.

Just finished up my first semester in junior year at RMCAD. Graduating exactly one year from now, and I have entirely too much to do for my portfolio before that time comes. Staying active on these boards along with DA and CGhub is what will make or break my inspiration, and luckily, you all provide plenty

A few sketches from the last couple weeks of animal anatomy.











A two page spread of simple composition studies focused on environments





Some digi. color studies to keep me sane during finals week. 1.75 - 2.25 hour each. Reference taken from various friends off Facebook. Video time lapse can be seen ::HERE::







Final sketch for animal anatomy class. Hated the final colors I added for the critique, and the painting was rushed in the last two days. I like the sketch enough to re-visit this later though, so just the lineart for now



This was my final piece for Conceptual Illustration this semester. The article I chose was about companies copyrighting and patenting individuals genetic code for profit. I only had a week for the turn around on this piece and ended up (as usual) putting it off for the last two days.

Initially, my idea was a simple padlock design with a double helix as the locking crossbar. But I wanted to push the technology further and create a mock-up prompt of what real prop design would be for a production studio. So I started adding LCD screens, lights and biometric scanning during the orthographic phase. Derek gave me the idea to make the keyboard a projection, which I loved, but still don't think I managed to get that feel quite right.

I thought the metal would be pretty easy to paint, but having never painted galvanized steel before, it was definitely challenging at first. I threw a scratched/brushed metal texture on top of my value study, and then glazed in color before doing an over-paint for the final sheen. Not exactly perfect, but it was a great personal learning experience.



And the initial sketches that went with it from the start



Still not happy with the way this is turning out. An editorial Illustration for my conceptual class. The article was on....well, you get the idea.

I need to work more on the liquid puddles. I started getting very lazy near the end and thought I'd upload it prematurely just to see what you guys think.

I'm also having huge issue with printing and color matching. I don't have my own large scale printer at home, so running back and forth between my house and Office Depot. is becoming a huge chore. On top of that, this image seems to only display properly on certain monitors, and extremely dark/high contrast on others. I've messed with the curves/levels/contrast more times than I can count, and I just can't seem to get it right.

Colormatching for print...the only downside to digital painting I've found so far....



Until next time....

[S3CTR4]

Just a couple pages from the zoo yesterday. That Asiatic black bear was too fucking awesome. He was like sleeping in that tree for over a half hour while we walked back and fourth between the grizzlies and the primates.

And the Silverback looked like he was uber hung over. His hand was on this giant plastic trashcan just sitting there in the middle of the exhibit.





Waiting in the doctors office for my brother.



And I'm posting this for two reasons:
1) I like the idea (a large ancient spacecraft has crash landed and gauged a canyon on the surface of this planet, while nature/man just grew/built around it
2) I was getting frustrated with color the other night and this piece of trash is the result. I'm vowing right now, to never post anything this inconsistent ever again. Blue and brown? C'mon. That needs to be blues, reds, oranges, purples, and yellows. And the highlights on those rock faces are straight color picked from the brights of the sky. Way too high value.

[S3CTR4]

Some sketches from the Zoo yesterday. Completely packed with kids. Completely forgot it was Labor Day. Completely...









And I finally got around to doing some QUICK value studies based off the thumbnails comps. in my sketchbook. These were so fun to do, and I'll definitely be approaching enviro's like this in the future:





Thanks for checkin' guys!! Peace

[S3CTR4]

Quick update from today.

First Life Painting class I've taken and were starting off with some pretty traditional casts. Never used this technique before of sealing off the drawing with fixatif, slopping on a light wash of Payne's Gray, and then rubbing out the lighter planes. It's awesome. I have fairly distinct 3-4 values by adding a small wash with minimal effort. Fun stuff. Hoping to have this finished next week during class.

[S3CTR4]

Update:

[bpic]

Hey DOOOOOOOOOOD. Digging the landscapes and environments. I check your page a lot im just too lazy to sign in half the time. Keep posting I wouldn't mind seeing what your up to in other classes and im psyched as hell to start this little project we been planning. TTYL

[BenjaminL]

Awesome SB! I really gotta get to work on those enviros.

[S3CTR4]

@ bpic - absolutely. i'm just grateful we have the group of us ready and willing to get started on something that's bigger that the individual. good to hear you'll be keeping your SB more up-to-date. I need to be doing the same.

@ benjaminL - thankx! they're fun for sure i'll have to check out what you make once you post some!

[S3CTR4]

Trying to stay somewhat up to date with my work for you guys.

Final cast painting of moses. Not entirely happy with how his beard came out. I'm gonna blame it on the 30 feet of space between me and his face that i had to paint from each day.


Cast drawing in vigne charcoal. Fun stuff.


Smaller sketch for a larger study we're supposed to be working on this week. Not happy with how i handled the face. I feel like i suggested too much detail in the eyes, noes and mouth and it just went downhill after that.


Underpainting for a Van Dyke master copy.


Some muscle/skull studies.



Some weapon silhouettes for a story I began and have to put on hold for a while.


The beginnings of the first establishing shot for that same story.


And some sketches from humanities class last week while we plowed through more something something about the rising something consumerism, blah.


Thanks for checking!!

[a la bapsi]

I really like the care you put in your moses cast painting. Keep em coming!

[AustenFM]

Cool body of work in here so far, i really admire the amount of studies you've been doing, i can already note improvement from the first post to this last one. Very promising stuff, i'm looking forward to seeing more!

[S3CTR4]

@ bapsi - Thanks! Still not quite finished with it. Been working on and off every other week or so trying to get through other projects. Hopefully this update shows a bit more progress then just the under painting.

@ Austen - Glad you enjoy it. I think the studies are really helping my progression, but they need to be coupled with more imaginative work to show a better application of knowledge. I'm starting to build up a collection of sketches and pieces that I haven't released yet, but it should be a hefty art dump when I do.

Just a few updates. A further along master copy. I'm still avoiding the hands and keys, and the darks in the background over his shoulder are too busy. But all in good time.



And a piece from life painting this week. Moving onto a double primary pallet rather than this dead pallet we used for the master copy. I'm still getting used to the vibrancy of the colors, which is strange because this is virtually the same double primary we used in landscape painting, and I remember it being easier to neutralize the hues in a plein air setting then in studio working with skin tones. Ah well. Next week will be better I hope. Maybe I'll get around to indicating fingers and toes, and not make super long arms on the next pose, haha.



Thanks for looking guys! Until next time

[bpic]

hey dood,

I like your paintings. For the master copy, it looks like in some areas your values are out of place, specifically for example on his lower hand at the thumb. Pay very close attention to value in light and value in shadow and try to make each stroke say something in the painting, this will avoid mudiness and will help with clarity. As for the figure, same crit and just keep hacking away at learning structure and proportion. Getting better all the time man! keep posting.

[Aveh]

You're doing some awesome shit yo.

No idea why but seeing other people bust their ass always puts me in the mood to follow suit. Gunna keep watchin and hopefully absorb some of that motivation