jigje 1st Attempts

[snootchy]

hi thanks so much for the kind words!!! Wow just on this page alone i see vast improvements, so great job on that! I think others are correct in that you do want to push your values some more but gradually push them. To get a good drawing it takes time, and just like in a painting you want to reserve your darkest darks and lightest lights to really pop forms. The same goes for pencils or any medium i think for that matter. So I think what would help is to think in terms of layers.

For example, this one in post 14 is excellent. I think this sketch is your best in terms of proportion and initial block on of values but it's only the start, and the values can be pushed much more by working up the tones gradually. Also I think this post has excellent hatching because the hatching goes in the same direction which i think is a great for laying a flat value across, definitely keep with that technique and eventually you'll start to experiment with cross hatch and hatching along the forms to better translate plane changes that occur in the face.

Keep up the good work!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[SMILEFACE]

the mix of strong confident lines an yer awsome value shading is really POP'N this last one OFF THE PAGE!

[Jamesy]

The last sp turned out really well! I think the areas around the shirt collar could be brought out more as it seems like a flat transition from neck to shirt. Other than that, just keep doing these because there's already great improvement in such little time!

[Liz Edwards]

Wow, huge improvement already, I'm impressed! Your latest one is excellent. Just keep doing what you're doing I look forward to seeing how you go

[jigje]

Hala - Thanks for the encouragement Jersey girl. Come on with the portraits.

Snootchy – Brother, it’s advice like this that makes CA sooooo fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to patiently explain. I get the layers thing now. I’ve started to do like a 1st pass, 2nd pass and so on. I can’t thank you enough for helping me.

Grandmassa Mr. Spect – It’s always grand to get a kind word from the most supportive dude on CA. Your comments make my day brother.

Jamesy – Thanks Jamesy. Yeah, the collar never got the attention it deserved. I got lazy or impatient or something. I’ve gotta learn to stick with an image ‘till it’s done properly. Thanks mate. Look forward to more from your cool ‘book.

Liz – Thank you for saying nice things. I LOVE your book. Everyone should go there now. Liz Edwards. Great character studies and your portraits are phenomenal, not just well executed but also imaginative and beautiful. Oh and I just saw your first oil. Well done Miss Diverse.

I look like I'm chewing a wasp in this one. I just pulled a face for something different. It's so hard to maintain a face in a mirror for a sketch.

[Liz Edwards]

Aww thank you! :3

This new portrait is great - you seem to be really getting the hang of shading, and keeping the subject interesting is always good All I can suggest is to keep going - push your next portraits further, try more dramatic lighting, maybe try to construct a drawing using no lines, simply shadow (a soft pencil and a putty rubber is great for this). Above all, keep it up and keep posting

[snootchy]

no prob anytime, very nice update, i can tell your going to get this quickly, my only crit is smoother transitions from the planes on the face because when you look at a face under normal lighting there aren't super hard edges (unless you have some dramatic lighting) and this is the idea which i think you did execute well with the 1st pass 2nd pass but just a tad bit smoother build up of the tones; i agree with liz's comment about trying exercises where your just looking at value changes and laying down blocks of value, almost like blocking in colors in a painting; an exercise you can try is to squint your eyes so little light enters your cornea and you only see blobs of values so that your not getting a full range of values but just 3 or 4 and block it in; this would be a good quick warm up to see if you're final drawing matches up with the values you had in this exercise

keep up the solid work!!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[DKHutcheson]

I really love that last one. Made me laugh. Good grief you improve quickly.

Can't wait to see more.

[SMILEFACE]

your EXPRSSION IS PRICLESS LOL'D sssssssssoooo COOL!

[zou]

You dangerous Freak !

improving so fast, you elephant man.

keep on that way, just do what you're doing

[Thor's Hammer]

Hey, thank you for the comment on my sketchbook man. I just checked yours out, and wow, vast and fast on the improvements. I wish I could move as quickly. Damn impressive. Keep at it. And share some of that motivation with me. Awesome work.

[sleep]

thanks for the kind words bro, i just stopped by to say ur doing the riigight shizzle. i did tons of self portraits a few years back and i reckon it helped me a shit load, its an easy way to get your observational skills up to scratch, remember to just keep it up. latest one is getting there with the shading, its got a good range of values, but remember not everything has the same range of values.


lets say......... 1 is very white and 10 is very dark
under daylight, a dark hooded top may be 6 at its lightest point and 10 at its darkest point.
a white t-shirt, would be 1 at its lightest point and maybe 7 at its darkest point. these are just examples but u get the idea. in the last drawing u did, your skin and the hood above all had the same lightest value and darkest value so it didnt look dynamic.


its just a quick adjustment of brightness and contrast in photoshop but u should get the gist. remember that surrounding a light shape (face) with a dark shape (hoody) makes the shape in the middle pop out. vice versa.

another thing to get u working on line quality and economy would be to some self portraits in ONE LINE. do not take ur pencil off the page at any cost, it doesnt matter if it looks scribbly at first... the more u do it the mroe confident ur lines will get. kinda like this http://nickpatton.files.wordpress.co...ne_drawing.jpg the aim should be to 'keep moving forward' , not going back over lines youve just done . keep workin

peace out

[jigje]

Liz – Thanks for your support. I’m trying to think of interesting self-portrait subjects….um…imperial officer complete with storm troopers, no taken already…..um…..zombie scene, no, taken…cyborg with glowing eyes, damn, taken!!! You've done allll the classics. Haha. A drawing with no lines sounds like a fun challenge. I tried it a little in post # 14 and #17 and I really enjoyed it. With my new education in values I’ll do a few more now but with NO lines at all.

Snootchy – Coool Snootch. Smoother build up, loose the hard edges, laying in blocks of value. I’m really keen to try this. I feel intuitively that it will be of real benefit. I was half way through the drawing in this post when I saw your advice so I started to make an effort to smooth it out more than it was but next image will be better. Thank you for taking the time, thank you, thank you.

DKHutcheson – Hey Daphne. Not a day goes by that I don’t look forward to seeing another SP from you. You are breaking my heart by not posting one.

Granmassa Mr Spect – Hey Granny, I don’t remember where it was on CA but I saw your post where your heart stopped and then came good again. I occasionally burst out laughing now, kinda randomly when that scene pops into my head. People think I’m strange and it’s your fault man.

Zou – No-one has ever called me a freaky elephant man as a compliment before but I liked it and lol’d a lot. Hey, I enjoyed your sketchbook very much and thanks for the encouraging words.

Thors Hammer – I say your name with an echo effect in my head. THORSSSSS HAMMERRRRR. You have real problems my friend. Your images are obviously from the mind of a complete sicko and I mean that in the nicest way. Keep up the great, imaginative work. Ill see you around.

Sleep – Dude if you can’t be bothered helping me, just say so. Haha. I couldn’t believe the effort you went to in order to give me your good advice. I can’t thank you enough. I really got what you said and it has helped me to understand a little bit more about values.
I suspect I may be value blind. It is a rare condition, I may be the first, but I’m sure that with your help, as with the help I’ve received from everyone, this horrible, horrible condition may be treated and brought under control. Thanks heaps brother and your sketchbook is outstanding.

I was excited to do this one but I don’t think I pulled it off. I don’t really understand perspective or foreshortening so I cheated and made the gunman emerge from the gloom to hide him a bit. I think the pistol needs to be foreshortened as well, a bigger barrel or smaller handle. For the gunman I ripped off the Watchmen movie poster with The Comedian in a simular pose and dressed him different. Oh, and the gun is from a photo reference.

Sorry for the epic post BUT CA EXCITES MEEEE. Sorry, I follow the Granmassa around CA so I tend to start yelling.

[SMILEFACE]

I JUST STARTED LAUGHF'N HELLA LOUD an its like 4 in the morn'n so i hope i didnt wake my niebers.. neibours..wait ...theres a g in thier ...neighbors(spell checker?) sidetracked this pic (wispers)ROCKS! an you can use yer self for ref to learn foreshorting it counts as a self portait .. i think???

[Introspection]

Wow, pushing the values really made a huge difference! Looking great.

[AsaB]

Hey there, fantastic work!

Leaps of improvement already from your first post! Persistance like that is so motivating, makes me wanna go draw Which I probably will now!

As others have said, it's mainly about pushing those values right now, seems to be your biggest issue. But you're well on your way!

[Jamesy]

The last two sp are great, haha! You look like you have a trick in store for that gunmen like McGiver or somethin. I think the foreshortening/perspective looks okay for not knowing too much about it. Sometimes it's just a matter of asking yourself if it look right or not!

[danlambert]

You stuff is really coming along man, rendering gets better and better with each one and your drawings look more confident. That last one makes me think that you would be good at caricatures; not exactly sure why!
Keep up the good work, Peace!


Oh, and that drawing of you with the hood up reminds me a lot of the film Special. If you haven't seen it I recommend it.

[jigje]

Im about to go into lockdown for a 2 week meditation retreat and I will have no internet access and really no drawing time. I thank all that helped me with advice and support over the last month. I don’t want you all to think Im not keen to draw, Im more interested in improving now than I ever have been but I do this retreat every year and it’s so awesome I don’t want to miss it. I just posted on the “What does everyone look like” thread, you are all fantastic. Thank you.

[hala]

i saw the one with the gun in the international portrait month's thread, and it made me giggle

Enjoy your retreat man! we wait for u to come back

[My57]

hey!!! i see some steady improvement.

I would have to say you need to watch out for proportion in your portraits (more practise makes you better at it so just keep going). It may also help you if you do other faces other then yourself, it will also keep drawing more interesting and fresh.

[Lotet]

some lines here n there feels kinda "woinky". like ur trying to put more curves in there then u need. other then that I think ur doing great, just keep updating n dont give up!

[jigje]

GMS - Thanks for the foreshortening tip Granmassa. Sounds simple when you say it. I saw you skating on your live channel man, you are the one that RROOOOCCKKS!!

Introspection - Thank you for looking.

Asa B - thanks for the kind words Asa. Love your book.

Jamesy - thanks Jamsey. It was the Mcgyver kinda thing I was going for.

Dan - Good on ya Dan. The film special isnt available in Aus. IMBD said UK only I think. Thanks for stopping by man.

Hala - So great to see you over here at the SP's. Your kind words were MUCH appreciated.

My57 - I'd love to do other faces and other subjects all together. I've got a bad habit of trying to do everything at once so I've tried to be disciplined by sticking with SP's. I'll do that until I see some real improvement. At the moment, this is all I have time for as well. Thanks for looking.

Lotet - I know my lines are woinky. I feel like I can't even control the pencil at a basic level. The line is always too straight or too curvey and never like I see it on my face!!. Thanks for your words, I won't give up.

Not happy with this, it's all over the place. I truly haven't drawn for over two weeks so give us a post or two to get my eye in again. Thanks guys.

[shamandalie]

Wow, there's improvement here! I like the one with the hood! Nice lighting, and sleep did show a good point there.
NOW MOARRRRRR

[hala]

That last one looks great! looks more confident than the past ones, great job!!!

[Taneli]

Absolutely sick progress, keep it coming!

[KarylGilbertson]

Ooh, I like that last one. Lots of contrast and drama, me likey! Keep it up dude!

And thanks for being part of my epic 10 page sketchbook

[DKHutcheson]

How was your trip? : >

The last one is fine, you're getting better at contrast. And it's got a great mood.

[jigje]

Shamandalie, Hala, Taneli, Ook, Dafne - Thanks to all for your encouragement.

I need to say that my nose is definitely crooked and my ears are wierdly different on each side - I just looked back through my Moleskin and looked in the mirror to check it!!

[jigje]

Not finished but it was fighting me all the way. Ill let it rest for a bit.