Chronicles of a Game Art Student

**freda** · August 2nd, 2009, 06:55 PM

Hello.. I'm an 18yr old game art student. I'm a rising sophomore in college and last year was my first ever being serious about any sort of drawing education. I'm not that good but I've always had a bit of natural talent and I'd never taken classes. Last year I decided I wanted to get serious and hopefully make a career out of it. I've taken one intro to drawing class and 2 4-day figure drawing classes.

I used to do a lot of self-taught digital stuff, mostly graphic design & drawing with the pen tool. Since I started drawing, I've been working mostly with graphite, but I enjoy charcoal and would love to learn pen/ink. I've never done digital (or for that matter, traditional) painting before. I am currently saving up for a tablet.

I'm hoping this sketchbook will keep me motivated to do a few sketches a day, I have a LOT to work/improve on.

First post just to create the sketchbook, sketch dump incoming (once I figure out how to get them all to be the right size lol)
Oh, and this was a 15-minute portrait from life. The front view game out badly because the model was staring at me the whole time and it freaked me out LOL

**Aluvay** · August 2nd, 2009, 07:00 PM

Looks good, keep it up/ lets see more.

**freda** · August 2nd, 2009, 07:16 PM

Most of these are from life, either a model, a mirror, or my boyfriend. A few are from photo refs but I took liberties with them, and umm... they're all recent.

A lot of them there are parts I really like, and parts that are really off. (for example, the portrait of my boyfriend with absolutely tiny lips haha)

As you probably can tell, I hate hair. Will be forcing myself to do some studies on the subject soon. :|

Props to anyone who can recognize the guy third from last. XD doubt anyone will, though.

The last pic is my concept for this week's COW, but I'm not going to make it into anything more and I'm an amateur, so I didn't post it there.

**freda** · August 2nd, 2009, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Aluvay

Looks good, keep it up/ lets see more.

Thanks

You caught me before I made my sketch dump haha.

**freda** · August 3rd, 2009, 05:20 AM

Yesterday/today's sketches.

First page is a sketch of my hedgehog, Dr. Gordon Freeman without his quills lol. If anyone ever wants hedgehog ref pics, shoot me a PM.

I was praticing gesture when I got bored and started drawing 1 minute faces. Obviously not going for anatomical correctness, just having some fun with expressions.

Last is my concept for "Alien love at first sight". Posted in the DSG thread but it wasn't good enough quality and got image linked. Got embarrassed/discouraged and deleted it, but put it up here instead. Concept is cute (imo) and it could be good with digital painting but alas, no tablet yet. The blobby-translucency isn't something I can get across with graphite yet. In case my sketch is too shite & you can't tell, it's an alien blob pining over jello lol

**freda** · August 5th, 2009, 11:33 PM

Not done much drawing in the last 2 days.. been busy playing Mothership Zeta & Secret of Monkey Island
3 quick studies (the one on the right was just supposed to be my nose from a weird angle, looked weird so i had to add lips, which I failed at shading/drawing)

**jackpot_anjr90** · August 6th, 2009, 01:03 AM

Good start! I think you should do a lot more anatomy/gesture studies. What's your technique for rendering? It looks like you smudge your lines to get the shading...but regardless I think you should consider crosshatching and making your lines follow the form. I see great potential in here though! I like the eye in that last update

But keep up the hard work!

**freda** · August 6th, 2009, 02:11 AM

Thanks! I hate hatching/crosshatching so I avoid it as much as possible (this is probably because of a really stupid assignment my drawing professor gave me) I really just do a lot of smudging/erasing to get shading, because I learned with charcoal and sort of brought that over to graphite. And yeah, I do have a LOT of work to do with anatomy/gesture.. I've got a week-long life drawing/anatomy class next week, so I'm pretty excited.

(am I allowed to post without artwork? I'm not trying to bump my sketchbook, just reply >_<)

**freda** · August 6th, 2009, 04:56 PM

Kind of a mediocre update today. I went to the dermatologist today & my hands really hurt so drawing is kind of hard.

I got my tablet today.... I think it will be a very good investment. Attached my first ever (unfinished) digital painting

It would technically be a WIP but I stopped working on it, and just decided to post it. It looks TERRIBLE (as in, a 5 yr old could have done better) but I was just familiarzing myself with Sketchup & my tablet. I tried a bunch of different things in one image, which is why some of it is soft lines and some hard, etc. etc. XD I had a lot of fun but look forward to making works I'm not ashamed of.

**Jaytea** · August 6th, 2009, 05:09 PM

hey freda~

...
first, you write a lot |D

secondly welcome to CA and hope you keep posting at this rate. You'll be a professional in no time!

it's good that you know what you need; confident/contrast of light and heavy lines are good. I keep handing out this post, but these exercises are really good for getting confident line, practice every day before drawing blablabla there's no such thing as an overdose when it comes to art

I would also like to agree with anjr; when working with pencil try crosshatching/hatching, or at least rub back and forth enough to make a solid tone. Smudging looks messy and is something you should keep to mediums beside graphite. You have more control over value if you shade without smudging as well.

it's always neat to see a new artist ready to bud. Keep it up, I'm looking forward to great things. :]

**freda** · August 7th, 2009, 12:19 AM

Thanks for the words Jaytea. Sorry I talk so much lol! I'll look into the exercises

As much as it pains me to think about it, I definitely will try to start hatching/crosshatching.

I've just been having lots of fun with my tablet today. Here's a WIP of Rorschach from Watchmen, I pretty much copied the profile from the novel, and drew over that sketch/looked at a couple views of Rorschach to get the masked pic. You can tell because the hat looks like crap. I had a lot of fun and I love Dave Gibbons style.

**freda** · August 11th, 2009, 06:19 PM

So it's been a few days.. I decided to take the weekend off from drawing due to stress + having an all-day life drawing class all week.

So it's been 2 days in my anatomy/life drawing class now (only 3 left

) and I've loved it. We're being taught through a mixture of Hale's lecture series and my teacher's own advice. The first day we focused on the skeleton, we had to do contour drawings and fit the skeleton inside. Of course I chose a difficult angle, but I think they came out alright.

The second attachment is a collection of 20-minute poses from today. We were supposed to focus on the muscles but I was just trying to get everything in the right place. I have an issue with my figures looking like they're falling over, because things don't line up right. Sorry these look so terrible, I tried to get better contrast and it made them all weird. They look much better in person.

(sorry for all the writing!)

**freda** · August 28th, 2009, 03:37 PM

Well I've been extremely busy since my class ended, school's finally started back up and I haven't had much time for drawing. My SD card got corrupted so I can't upload any other drawings I did from the life drawing class, but who cares?

Today was my first 3D Modeling class (and I found out my professor is on CA.. yikes). Never touched a 3D modeling program before in my life but Z-brush was amazing and I had a lot of fun fooling around while the professor was doing demos and just explaining the program. Looks rather crappy, but ... I thought it was a pretty big milestone since I have nowhere to go but up. (hopefully)

**freda** · August 29th, 2009, 09:24 PM

Having tons of fun with Z-brush. Second model, 25 minute quickie.

Inspired by the Protoss.

**JakehC** · September 1st, 2009, 03:16 PM

Your modeling is amazing!

**freda** · September 1st, 2009, 11:40 PM

Thanks so much! I've literally been doing it for.. uh XD this is day 5 now. Still don't really know how to use the program for anything more than just sculpting off of one object.

3D Model/sketch of the day... my goal was to make a hydralisk-esque guy, but I can't figure out how I would make the jaws. Maybe that's a model for another day.

**willdraw4food** · September 2nd, 2009, 05:29 AM

Originally Posted by freda

Thanks so much! I've literally been doing it for.. uh XD this is day 5 now. Still don't really know how to use the program for anything more than just sculpting off of one object.

3D Model/sketch of the day... my goal was to make a hydralisk-esque guy, but I can't figure out how I would make the jaws. Maybe that's a model for another day.

I love your models. Very inspiring. More head studies would be good! For figure drawings, perhaps you should concentrate on getting the force of the figure right, and not be too focus on the little details like muscles and all. I recommend reading Force Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, it really breathes life into figure drawings. Otherwise, keep up the good work

**freda** · September 8th, 2009, 08:56 PM

Been doing a little sketching but nothing worth uploading. Still been working on my model pretty much every spare moment I get. The change in quality from what I had in my last post is HUGE. (i guess that's what hours of fiddling + and really good help from professor does)- I'm starting to be happy with it. Any crits/comments would be appreciated, as I will soon be at the stage where I need to start doing some detail work, add the horns, etc. etc.

**freda** · September 17th, 2009, 11:41 PM

Have been extremely busy doing a bunch of stuff lately. Update on the bust- reworked the face completely and will be adding details tonight (has to be ready for UV mapping by tomorrow).
Also, 2 quick sketches I did that I decided to randomly color. There is apparently no light source in either

(less so in the boy)

**freda** · September 23rd, 2009, 01:10 AM

Been really busy lately. I got kind of bored with my model so I decided to just go all-out and add a body. I spent about an hour blocking out the shapes with Zspheres and below is what I got. Haven't looked at any reference yet so lots of stuff is off. Her legs will unfold when I pose, although I didn't add armature so I may have to start over.

Also sketched my boyfriend for 20-30 mins tonight, these 2 were my favorite.

**freda** · October 4th, 2009, 11:38 AM

I feel so bad about neglecting my sketchbook, but the truth is that I've been neglecting my art studies too! I got 2 new anatomy books and will be joining a newly created life drawing workshop at my school.. so hopefully I will get back to drawing soon. I've been working on making a prototype for a game in Flash and another in XNA, modeling/painting my succubus, and making a machinima in second life (gross).

Here's my update: 2nd test render of my succubus head, I decided to put the body on hold for now. Also, a quick Zspheres creature I did.

**freda** · October 31st, 2009, 12:24 AM

oh gosh been a while since i updated. attached is the final (sort of) render of my model, and also my first assignment for digital painting (still a wip). we had to take a b&w pic and free-hand the black shapes, its coming out okay so far