My little sketch thread

[Twelve]

Hi and welcome. I now feel it is time to start a sketch thread to gain advice and criticism. Through this I hope to learn and develop my drawing and digital painting.

Witihin thread I want to develop an understanding of values and form along with anatomy and use of traditional media. Pencils, ink and markers are my favourite so I will go with those.

[Twelve]

Ok so here's my start. Some images from the past few days. Please leave criticism, advice or anything you have got that can help me improve.

[Konstruktion]

Try work on yer stuff longer, endurance before speed. You probably know the rest, draw.

[Twelve]

Konstruktion - Thank you for such a quick reply and your given advice.

How long would one expect to spend on a single drawing for study? One, two or 3 hours? Or more maybe? Here's something from imagination. I quite like the idea and look of this character.

[Twelve]

Another figure drawing from reference last night. This is about an hour. Lots of changes were made, erasing redrawing etc.. I left it when I started to feel tired. More soon....

[Konstruktion]

How much time you spend on each study is not for me to decide, depending on what kind of study it is you should spend different amount of times on each. Maybe 20 quickies, a couple of long ones. If you're studying values and light it sure could be good to work on it for a couple of hours, really trying to see what it is you're drawing. Like this last one, finnish it, spend more time on it, get ride of all lines and try work only with value

[Twelve]

Hey man, Thanks for stopping by again For warm ups I just scribble, get the hand moving you know. Then sketch from life or reference, I tend to just go with it until I feel I'm losing concentration, then move onto something else. I decided to set up a still life last night and started that. I want to finish it, but my light source is different right now. So I'll come back to it later this evening. My schedule is pretty wired, trying to get as much in as I can.

Thanks Konstruktion I appreciate it.

[Karein]

Hey Daemien, Thanks for stopping by.
Konstruktion is right, there is really no set limit on how long you work on a piece. It's basically done when it feels done. It's good to do warm up, and also vary in a few longer studies. It will help you out in the long run. Also don't just put them aside and leve the works for good when you loose concentration, you really should just go back even to look at them. Some of them will inspire you to work on them more

All I can say is keep them up, and make sure to get all your anatomy studies and such in Check out Andrew Loomis and George Bridman. You will be able to find their E-books somewhere on this site (Can't remember where though lol)

Good luck, and keep working hard!

[Artangela]

Hey Daemien! Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook You have very delicate hatching here, nice. I think we need to work on the same thing though of staying more loose and less detailed with our sketches in the beginning. Keep it up though, more more more!

[Twelve]

Karein - Thanks for your suggestions I appreciate it. I have Both Loomis and Bridgeman. I'm also waiting on Dynamic Anatomy from Hogarth I ordered from Play.com today. I find it hard to get stuck into drawing from books, but I will give it a whirl. I also always look through what I have done through the day and usually think 'I should have done more'. Which spurs me on to do so. Thank you.

Artangela - You're right, staying loose in the initial stages are key. I try do that, but it all comes with practice I guess. Thank you for visiting

Today I thought I'd should go with studying some hands from Hogarth.

[Sigma_6]

The hands are pretty good but one of them above this looks like it has some kind of cleavage for knuckles. I have Bridgeman and am borrowing Hogarth. Which do you prefer? Bridgeman seems less exagerrated and has a more classical style to me.

[armando]

Value and form. What you're showing with value is the general direction that a surface faces into the light, and also where it faces in relation to the viewer. Mentler has a great quote that goes something like, "We don't depict light and shade, we use light and shade to depict." What that means is that there is a figure with gesture, gesture is the meaning of the pose, the meaning of the form, it's emotional content: there is a difference in feeling between a person going to hug someone, and a person going to punch someone. This action occurs in space, part of the meaning of forms comes from their locations in space, and where they are pointing, we show these relationships with value. Form and action come first, then they get depicted with light and shade.
One of the first challenges we first face is going dark enough with our shadows, http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1240499878. Go darker. There isn't much more to say than that, since everyone instinctively understands the difference between light and dark, we see in the light, we can't see in the dark. Look at any dark you put down and ask yourself if you were in a room that had that much light in it could you see where you were going, if you could still see in there then it's too light. Use a brush pen, ink, black marker, black crayon, whatever's in shadow just make it black, screw the fact that you can still see stuff in those shadows. This will make you aware of shape, and the fact that you need to make the drawing either mostly light, or mostly dark, never make anything half dark and half light. Put most of your effort working on value, don't bother with texture since there are so many ways to do it, and it's worthless if you're values are all over the place.
The values on here kind of work, http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1240499835 You're generally using frontal lighting, what faces us faces the light so it's white, what faces away from us is dark. The calf and the top of the leg follow this pattern, but the bottom of the foot which faces us contradicts it and is dark when it should be light. The top of the hand should be dark. Look at that whole picture and ask yourself what is pointing to us and what is pointing away. There are five general directions, up, down, left, right, forward. It's about looking for generalities, we can say one part of the surface mostly points towards us, and some part mostly points somewhere away from us, this is difficult to do on something like the lower leg since it's so round.
A study should take as long as it takes to find it's solution. If you're goal is to draw a figure that looks like it's in light, then the study is done when that effect is achieved. Stopping before you find the solution teaches nothing.

[Twelve]

Sigma Thanks for stopping by. I do prefer Hogarth as it is more dynamic but I do know some of the hand gestures in that book are not physically correct as I cant do them with my own hands. I will take a look at Bridgeman.

Armando Thank you so much for taking the time to put this up for me. That's been one hell of an eye opener and a good kick.

[SteFlack]

Nice start, the hands look really good. I need to make a note to look at Hogarth sometime.

[rossipoo]

Great Studies dude, Keep it up

[Eiki]

Hey,

those hand studies rock!

They are much stronger and more self-confident than the earlier studies, and you can push your line even further!

As armando said: you should have the heart to go darker! Just my opinion Then your studies can rock even more

[Twelve]

Thanks guys.

It's been a while since I uploaded last, but I really want to keep up with this. Just got my bridgeman book so expect some studies from that. In the mean time, here's some junk...

[Karein]

Hey Daemien, keep those studies coming

Don't be afraid to push your darks more in your images, It will help brake up the images, stop them from looking flat. Keep an eye on your proportions as well.

I rather like the shape that is put across in the first digital piece in your last post, love the fluid hair lines, keep it up

[derbz]

Your studies of hands are excellent, well done, I hate drawing hands and feet, always end up cacking them up royally

[Twelve]

Karein - Thank you. I'm trying to do as much study as I can, which unfortunatly is not enough. College work is insane atm, but slowly coming to an end due to it being nearly the end of year. In the summer hols I hope to hit down hard with it.

derbz - Thanks for your comment and stopping by

Here's a design I have put into an illustrative piece. This is a college assignment where we had a brief to design a survival pod, of all the possible things, lol This is still unfinished as I want to include a little text about its background and how its power system works.

Would greatfully appreciate any constructive crit or comments. Thanks

[Zorcron]

loving the studys you have got , would love to see some finished color compositional studys too keep up the good work!

[Konstruktion]

Yo post #17 is looking good for sure. Get "Drawing on the right side of the brain" or whatever it's called, really good,especially for learning to see negative spaces etc. Check out www.scribd.com , they have loads of good stuff there.

[Twelve]

Hi, been away for sometime due to College studies. Had alot of work to do, but I am now pretty much all clear. I have finished and passed all my work except one assignment that starts tomorrow,

We have a summer project to undertake and I decided to use that to really try and nail some figure studies. I have 14 weeks. So, from now I'm concentrating on anatomy and we'll see how much we can improve in that time.

Go >>>>>>>>>>>> Some embarrassing Bridgman studies. I find it hard because his lines are so loose and precise. Yup practice.

[Twelve]

Ok, we have just started our last assignment of my first year and we have to study "natural forms" but unfortunatly not figures/anatomy or animals. So trees and plants, etc.. This is going to be fun So here's my first bunch ( ignore the keys )

Personally I dont like my sketches, but practice and time and more practice, right?

[Twelve]

Here's a little something from last night before I went to sleep. Thanks.

[corza334]

Studies getting better.. can't help butn otice you don't draw the mouths, study some =]

[Twelve]

corza334 - Thanks Facial features? I guess I should start looking into that. Thanks for visiting

One before I go to work. Didn't seem to go so well. But meh.....onward

[JakeG]

Nice object studies, makes me want to try some.

[Twelve]

JakeG - Thanks for your comment and stopping by. They're good to do as it really gets you looking. Hopefully it wont be long before I can hold out long enough to do a full still life.

Here's some embarrassing doodles......

[Twelve]

....and here's one I did before bed last night. Why is it that I feel my drawings are better when done at night?