Update (02/04/2011)

[AlstonInk]

Welcome to my sketchbook.

[AlstonInk]

Ok, here are my first attempts and digital drawing/painting, (using PSCS3).

[Muz]

Wow man you have been busy!

Those photo referenced images are excelent.

With your scanning, try and leave the scanning settings default, then use levels and curves in photoshop to fix it up. Another thing that helps is duplicating the layer putting it on multiply and putting on a slight blur.

With the quick sketches, noone wants to see everything, we just want to see your best stuff. It can be a bit annoying to scroll through a whole nights worth of life drawings. (kinda like photographers take thousands of photos but only a small percentage will see the light of day.)

Keep it up man!

[phiq]

A nice start Leonard. I agree with Muz; the photo references are nice. As for crits...

- I think you're a bit hesitant in laying down colour. My approach is to "be not afraid" and slam the stuff down, nice and "thick", haha. Photoshop gives off a weird, off-putting transparent effect if you are a bit partial to its powers of opacity, so just slam it on. It's digital art after all; you can cheap-shot clean it up easily!
- Never ever use blurry brushes! That is what I say anyway. I always use a weirdly shaped, hard-edged brush with at least the slightest bit of texture. That's the way I avoid the horrible digital art fuzziness that plagues most digital work these days...
- Loosen up on your life drawing. Hold your pencil like like a big paint brush... but then draw a figure. If you hold your pencil like you would for writing, then you will have much less feel for the flow of a figure. But if you hold it differently, you will use more of your arm... and I'm not sure how it works, but you get a different kind of control for drawing, that in my experience simply works.

I hope that helps...!

[AlstonInk]

Cheers guys!

Muz - Noted. It took me all of Sunday to get my shit together for my sketchbook and it never dawned on me not to post everything! (And I'm one of those guys who gets annoyed with that very thing.)

phiq - Good advice. With those first lot of digi studies I did feel as though I was treading on eggs shells. Don't know how you picked up on that though, I thought I was doing ok With the life drawing sketches I do exactly that, hold the pencil loosely, (like a wand). I do have the habbit of hardening up the lines afterwards, maybe that's where I'm going wrong. I think the scans also let me down, they look shocking!

Here's what I've been working on, in between learning PuppetShop.

[phiq]

Johny Depp! You're definitely showing a strength in proportions and likeness, but still I can see you're hesitant in your colour application. Do you use layers much? You can always leave your linework and colourwork on different layers and delete the colours if they don't work out. I'm not trying to claw at your back or anything but once you get in the habit of chucking the colours down without hesitation you will enter the next level (+10 Dexterity!). I must admit it was a challenge getting there though; I only managed it sometime last year myself.

[SpaXe]

Aha, I go back home and go on a family trip and THEN you have a sketch book thread. Awesome man, I'm really loving those environmental studies and the people. I think for what you just started, you're already doing better than when I started on digital painting. So keep at it and play with the tools as you feel more comfortable, I'm sure you'll find your own methods soon enough!

[AlstonInk]

Small update. Another study...

[AlstonInk]

It's been a tough week. Only getting to draw after work is difficult. You only get a couple of hours and it's hard when you're feeling unmotivated. I'm finding myself constantly doing little studies, (should start doing more from imagination). Here's what's on offer...

[phiq]

Some nice studies going along here Leonard! So far you are nailing some tones; eventually you will be able to work in more hues (it's bloody hard) as well as transcend the linework completely. Anyway, just forget about those things because one day you'll be doing them and you wouldn't have noticed, haha. Really good man!

[AlstonInk]

Another small update. First up is another study, yeah! As always, crit your hearts out...


After some tutoring from my good friend Muz on Saturday, here's the beginning of my first attempt at a random character design. This one's yours Muz, thanks for the advice. I'll obviously keep you all updated as it progresses;


Muz, here's those character sheets I did, very basic. Ready, steady, crit!




Laters

[Muz]

Woo perspective . It really does help to ground out the character and make it appear more solid, so well done with that.

Your work is getting stronger with each post man, keep it up.

EDIT: you updated when i was posting.

Those things are really cool man! Really creative. Im impressed. mind if i show my team mates? Just keep in mind if you were going to actually model from the crab one you would need multiple views and some shots of the details so that the modeller knows how it is supposed to work. Nothing worse than a modeller working away from your concept.

[LtPlissken]

You are doing very good paintings and drawings with your tablet.

[phiq]

Great update! I think your figure work is gaining momentum.

[AlstonInk]

Muz - cheers man, you made my day.

Phiq - same deal, thanks for the encouragement

LtPlissken - thanks for stopping by and taking the time to crit, much appreciated. I'll stop by your sketchbook as soon as I can, promise!

So this update is made up of scans from my physical SB. First up are 5 min sketch of some guys that were at Monday nights life drawing class, two very interesting characters.
Oh, and we found out that the life drawing class will no longer run as of 4 weeks from now. Will just have to find another one...



Then these are from the actual life drawing model.



CheersAttachment 736424

[AlstonInk]

I feel like flying off the hook, but I won't. More study...

[AlstonInk]

Ah, nice and quiet in here. Again very boring, this is all I've
managed to get out this week. Struggled with this study, took
me a lot longer than normal. It was both fun and frustrating.


This here is a mixed media piece on canvas. Before moving to Brisbane
I was part of a Saturday morning art workshop. Was a lot of fun. Someone
who was visiting the art galleries there wanted it and offered to buy it, SOLD!

[Muz]

Cool character shizz, i didnt see that last sat!

Also the enviros are looking VERY strong. Keep it up.

[AlstonInk]

Just some practice...



Ha, obviously used reference for this one, and honestly never intended to use it
fully, but I did! I know I need a lot more practice to draw convincingly from imagination, oh well...

[phiq]

Tyler Durden! Noice.

[vincentgordon]

nice sketchbook mate. I don't have any Critz as such but I do like the quality and quantity of work you have done.

[AlstonInk]

More practice. Here's an idea of my curent work flow.
Don't know if I'll finish, getting bored with it.

[AlstonInk]

Just some more practice.

[phiq]

Good stuff Leonard! The still life is great

[poetry man]

Hey great start! I like the way that you find form in your images, drawing quickly and lightly is the way to go!!

[fantasyartist]

Great figure studies! Try to get the saturation of the colors more accurately. Sometimes you miss on that and it makes the paintings look muddy.

[AlstonInk]

phiq - thanks for the encouragement!
poetry man - thank you!
fantasyartist - yeah, agreed.

Ok, ended up going back and finishing this one, basically started from scratch. Trying to be a lot less hesitant! About 2hrs worth.


And another study and basic process. Approx 1.5hrs. This was my first attempt at not using any opacity or flow control, just solid colour.
, , ,

Random character from imagination.

[NewGuy22]

I love your values...I just keep looking at them over and over...the scribbles are great. Keep up the continuous work. =)

[AlstonInk]

Managed to do these fairly quickly. Wanted to put the anatomy studies to the test, but just as I uploaded the pic I saw some mistakes! GO figure...

[phiq]

Whoa dude... DUDE! The speed at which you are progressing is phenomenal! That last post is brilliant; I like the weirdness of the designs, the clean lines and simplicity of it all. I have one non-crit crit though...

...if I were you, I'd be adamant about injecting something personal into every design; that way things would come out a bit less predictable, ie, original, ie, not gleaned so much from typical CA.org/game art.

The Hammer Time guy is cool, haha