The Unconvincing World of Witcrack

[DStraX]

Thanks for stopping by my SB again You've come a long way along sins last time i checked on you.

however in the hobo painting, try to get rid of all the white of the background as early as possible. You could start with coloring the hole canvas first, to get away from the white

[Ludic]

The hobo's looking pretty great!

Although he needs cast shadows! One under his cap and one for his body and so on.
Keep bounce lightning in mind when you do 'em.

[witcrack]

Ludic and Dstrax: thanks for your support mates. But I just lost my mood on that Hobo painting. I'll finish it though, no worries, and i'll keep your advises in mind when I do.

For now, i'm participating for this week's CHOW *crossing fingers*


And I think I'm gonna rework this next after the CHOW, the original sketch is quite old, maybe from 4 years ago (I was just going through my backup DVDs and... hmmm... good find! )... but I'll have to change the running figure, i think.


Enviro study:

[witcrack]

a quick drop

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... soo smudgy, ... ... and the original only looked worse

[witcrack]

CHOW progress...

[bbwolf]

I think the CHOW entry is comming along nice. I like the mood and the setting. I am thinking of doing something
for that too. But I find it hard to put a good spin on it. Sometimes I think one should not peek at the other ppls
entries in the WIP thread.

The Landscape of horns is looking good too. Fav of mine on this page.

[ilmenhin]

Love your CHOW progress! Your storytelling in your latest pieces is getting much stronger. Love that pencil enviro too; I think the smudge adds to the mysterious mood of the environment. You could perhaps do more smudges around the foreground and we wouldn't have known you didn't mean to smudge.

[witcrack]

wolf: Thank you and yeah, I often felt that way too. But you know, one idea can evolve to very different things. After all, that's what those weekly activities are all about. Not saying that it's easy though

ilmenhin: Thank you. About the smudges... to be honest, I got very discouraged when I looked at it irl. But yeah, I think what you said might do the trick

Sadly, I didn't finish the last week's CHOW.... and I'm trying to participate again this week, but I think I might not get any further than this:



here's some sketches, one from life and another one (the tortoise) was using photo reference:



messy messy messy ....

[witcrack]

Portrait study in ink from "the official-draw from..." thread:


Random imagined sketches:


I am currently reading "Drawing Scenery - Landscape and Seascape" by Jack Hamm and expecting some enviros for the next update

[witcrack]

A character sketch. Quite random, but might be related to that character I did for CHOW couple months ago:


His name is Lox and he said he's a German (I know nothing about Germany)



P.S. and this week's CHOW is "god of small things" .... Damn. I reaaaaally want to do it. Must finish the job first. Faster. *crossing fingers*

[bbwolf]

that character sketch is really cool!!!

[witcrack]

wolf: thanks mate!

Faceless creature for DSG:


feels a bit too low key don't you think?

[bbwolf]

that´s pretty good looking. Forgive me, but, it looks a bit like a locomoted dick. I like the angle and the general execution of the pic thou. I would argue the point that it is not faceless, but has a featureless face apart from the mouth. Royal nitpicker here

[Luckers]

I'm loving your Chow work. Maaaannn it's been ages since I last visited your Sketchbook.
You've gotten a lot better! Take that from me!

[witcrack]

wolf: Well, no apology needed. I do want it to look something like that, the initial idea was zombified sperm! something to scare some boys, when they feel like going to the bathroom in the middle of the night About the face thing, yeah it got me confused actually.... I think faces always forming mysteriously by our imagination whenever we see a thing heading to a direction? more easily if it has head.

luckers: Thanks man! Thanks for dropping by here again and for your support You had major improvements too, there in your sketchbook.

---

Here's a day at a zoo. I feel I should have been more productive, given the time (all day!) You know how you panicking when the subject you draw is about to move? I got that a lot back there. Pardon the scrappiness, but here goes:

[witcrack]

Some random sketches:

[Rotor]

Dude!
I really like what you've been cooking up lately. Only thing is I'd like to see something really polished from you. Something you can call done.

keep rocking man!

[witcrack]

Rotor: Hello again Rotor! Thanks man. Yeah, I've been thinking about that myself. As I said in your SB, gathering the knowledge is one thing, applying it to your works is another thing (not entirely perhaps, but definitely another ). So, I think I'm going to do Rackham study and then copy it. Won't be My original piece, but at least I will learn something.

Here's another update, the coffee and that argonian portrait is from couple of days ago, I forgot to post. Well, look how random I am this time around!








^ that's me, lighting a cigarette... yeah, I'm from the Nineties

to be continued ...

[witcrack]

I tried some pastel, not much success I think. Soo powdery and the colour is rather dull, is it the nature of soft pastels? Anyone had experience with it? I used Reeves', fyi, it's a student grade, perhaps that's the problem?




Randomness continues :



A Rackham study:

will continue studying this one, but for now..

I posted this in the critique center (along with some previous stages)

I would love to see you guys there and crit

[merl1n]

Hey man, I see you also try to do some traditional stuff. Keep it up. I like your work very much (even though I haven't browsed all pages here yet). Especially some of the creatures are good!

And thank you for checking my thread

[DStraX]

Hey dude, great progress lately! But I keep seeing the background trough your paint..
That makes everything look unfinished. Try filling in the character your painting before you start rendering it

[Rotor]

I'd like to repeat what DStraX said about the background colour.
It's a common thing in digital painting to work from a neutral colour up and down to have a solid form. As your background colour is much lighter than the lightest light of your character, it has a very unsolid(is that even a word? ) look.
I hope you get what I mean.

Keep it up man.

[witcrack]

merl1n: Hey man, I appreciate you came here and checking. Thanks for the nice words
Dstrax and rotor: Thanks guys. Yeah, I know what you mean. I'll try with a more solid background next time.

Here's some sketches dump:

From life:




I used some references from artsyposes.com for these next ones (except for the top-left green haired girl):


Very good sites. Loads of fun poses to study.

Lastly are from imagination:



Until next time

[witcrack]

hey hello anyone
I'm still trying to finish this reptilian man, redrawing it completely and still trying to organize the values:

I'm not finish with this one, you can expect further update. But for now I realize some things I have to study first before continuing, It's dark scenery, reptilians scale, heads, and stuffs like that.

Here are some distractions




This one is a master study. A contemporary one. It's a portrait painting of Boris by David Palumbo. Here's the original

[Dreoilin]

Hi! Been meaning to stop by here for awhile- what a great sketchbook! I really love the sketchbook pages stuff

Nice master study too- I can't quite tell if it's digital or traditional

[Aresa]

Hello, hello! First time visiting your sketchbook and I really like what I'm seeing! Great sketches and studies. I really like the sketches that are based off the zoo. The creature in post #436 is awesome! I love how you handle the colored pencil (pastel?) in that piece. The latest portrait study is great as well. Nice variety of colors in the face. Keep it up and I'll be back for more!

[Angel Intheuk]

Hiya Witcrack Thanks for popping by and for the encouragement, to answer your questions, I always forget everything I've learned and look at earlier work and go...who did that? They knew what they were doing better than me! haha.

Anyway great updates the past coupla pages. The last picture in #419 (the girl drawing) that's really interesting composition, I love it. I don't know if the concept is what I think but it looks like all the strange ideas in her head are manifesting in front of her, the linework is very nice to look at, good use of thick and thins.
#428 Haha love the bird-headed woman, that's a lovely little sketch (though does remind me of Howard the Duck )

The animal drawings from life are really cool, it's a great exercise to practice drawing fast and capturing gestures I used to love drawing my cat (until she got the age where all she did was sleep) but you've captures lots of info on yours, good job. And I know the pastels are unfinished but I really like your use of colour, would like to see more.

Niiice pen sketches and studies in the last posts Great stuff, the girl with the green hair and the naked horned man *blush* stand out, really nice linework.

The last lot of studies are great! You could probably do with spending a liiiittle more time on rendering, blending values and proportions I think it would get you to the 'next level', even though I hate that term, it applies here such as the master study (that's awesome) I love the energy but if you just tightened up his face (nose forehead and the mouth just a little) generally where you want the focus to be, it would be...mega awesome!

Anyhoo good luck with the reptile man, have you thought of doing a maquette to help with the lighting?


Keep going mate and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

[lennon]

lennon: Haha Hello to you too! Thanks for the kind word man. I truly appreciate it Btw, which "hollowed moon"? I can't recall

jajajaja, well technically there may be a hollow man, but there´s also a hollow moon. Since the ship´s engine is off, it surely is going along the orbit of some planet. That means that for the moment it´s a satellite, and since it has place for some kind of circus, I deduce that is hollow, ERGO, it´s a HOLLOW MOON.
Take that witcrack!
Btw, great master study this one over here.

[ilmenhin]

Man, that master study is really rocking it! Your strokes are better but could do with more... flourish? They seem pretty tight at the moment- rather precise for a (what "I assume to be a) speedpaint.

Liking the progress so far- so much diversity you're taking on. Looking forward to more~

[purb36]

wit,

happy new year! long time no see, and that's my fault. i love how your skill with form has improved, keep up with that. it seems like your understanding of light is growing. great. sometimes when you go digital, it seems like you use black a lot. one of the next steps, i think, is working on composition, working on editing your pieces so that they have an order to them of importance. as for pastels, i haven't worked with them much, but the pieces you did seemed like they were overblended? maybe that's why it felt so soft and muted? you might try leaving in more strokes, really working on varying your edges and such. that's something i'm learning to work on and need work on in ALL mediums.

hope it helps, hope you're doing well man, and that 2012 is your best year so far!