Blu Dragons Sketchbook

**blu_dragon** · October 14th, 2009, 10:30 PM

Hey! After viewing this forum for a couple of months, I finally decided (and had the guts) to post some of my sketches.
Im always looking to improve and learn new things, currently in a 3D program, I always thought that traditional art would aid and help alot in the digital area.

Anyways, heres some old digital paintings I did a while back of faces and people

**majortom** · October 14th, 2009, 11:17 PM

Hey there! Good start to your SB, I am especially liking the caricatures (mainly the bald fella third from last). But a lot of them are getting that blurry, smudgy look. Make sure to use harder brushes and avoid the smudge tool if you are using it. Good start though, I really would like to see more

**blu_dragon** · October 15th, 2009, 09:56 AM

hey thanks! And yea now that you mention it, they do look alot blurry, I guess you can say its the brush i used, the standard one (Am really new to the digital painting and havnt touched on the brushes as yet)
But ill be sure to experiment!

**blu_dragon** · October 15th, 2009, 10:06 AM

Heres a character Im working on for a class. Havnt come up with a name or back story as of yet, but can anyone guess which comic book super hero fan he is?

**gmc9987** · October 15th, 2009, 10:20 AM

Nice start! I want to see more!

You can get rid of the blurriness if you go into the brush tip shape options and set the hardness to 100%. That should help with the blurriness. Those faces look pretty good so far, though. Faces are tough but you seem to have a pretty good grasp on how all the features are put together, which is something I still struggle with.

**blu_dragon** · October 16th, 2009, 08:26 PM

hey thanks! Faces are always something I love to draw and study the different features. And thanks for that tip, Ill keep that in mind

Heres a couple from my sketchbook, some are pure studies, and the rest I was just messing around with. Hmm...my scanner seems to be a bit to faint when scanning these drawings, I guess I would have to adjust the levels in photoshop for next time.

Crits are always welcome!
More to come

**blu_dragon** · October 16th, 2009, 09:12 PM

Heres a few rough poses for my character originally posted above. Hes a super fan/nerd of Thor and lives for/dreams of/does everything in his will to mimic his super hero idol

these are really rough, original poses were takin from a class and we had to put our character into those poses.

**blu_dragon** · October 17th, 2009, 10:39 AM

More Heads!

**blu_dragon** · October 18th, 2009, 10:17 PM

been messin around w/ zbrush....this program is amazingg....i still have alot to learn w/ the tools and features, and anatomy in general lol...here is a head bust i came up with, the eyes were the hardest to put in the details, but nonetheless, good experience...........I enjoy drawing heads so i figured, why not sculpt a head bust?

**extremeillustrator** · October 18th, 2009, 10:32 PM

your drawings are good but initial faces looks flat, they lack solidity of form. i like your gestures most. keep it up.

MY SKETCHBOOK
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=171543

**blu_dragon** · October 18th, 2009, 10:40 PM

Skullssss.....
My 1st actual ZB model....done with a tutorial by Jason Welch...great resourse for tuts if anyone wants to learn zbrush

**blu_dragon** · October 18th, 2009, 10:42 PM

@extremeillustrator...thanks! and yes i totally agree with you on that....form is always something i struggle with, i guess the more practice the better!

**blu_dragon** · October 18th, 2009, 11:04 PM

Heres another Z-WIP i found! Done a few weeks back, I found a tutorial on rendering w/ zdepth and depth of field in photoshop and thought id try it on this alian lookin dude I did...just experiementing!

**blu_dragon** · October 19th, 2009, 09:19 PM

Ive been lookin at the Godfred Bammes book lately....the anatomy is amazzingg in that book, unfortunatly, I happened to find the German version (download that is)....but anywho heres some studies

**blu_dragon** · October 20th, 2009, 11:37 PM

More from ze sketchbook

**blu_dragon** · October 21st, 2009, 06:57 PM

Just doin some gestures and learnig from the book of G. Bridgeman.....really quick sketches

**blu_dragon** · January 3rd, 2010, 12:46 PM

Hey guys! First of all, let me wish everone here at conceptart a Happy New Year, and possibly more to come

Been a while since my last post, I've been really busy with school projects and 3D stuff (since I mainly want to focus on 3D and become a character artist, spending the time learning the ins and outs of zbrush)

But one of my new years resolutions is to do more traditional drawing as well as study light and shadow and go to life drawing more often! As that will defintily aid me in becoming a better 3D artist.

So from now on, I plan on posting more drawings from my sketchbook and digital paintings or ideas for new characters that i can persue in 3D....

Heres 2 head studies using zbrush's new quicksketch feature. The brushes are very cool (i used the pen brushes as they give a very soft feel to the canvas) and edited the lights and shadows in PS.

**Izer** · January 3rd, 2010, 02:24 PM

Happy new year to ya, it's really good that you want to work on your 2d even though you study 3d, i admire that. Your head sketches are coming along nicely and it looks like Bridgeman is helping out, and i'll have to check out Godfred Bammes even though i can't read German. Great 3d faces too, oh and that little character is cool. Keep it up.

**blu_dragon** · January 3rd, 2010, 08:54 PM

Thanks Izer for your kind words! And yea, even though the book is in German, his anatomy drawings are great to study from.
And im really glad you liked the little Thor fan, here's the final poses I used for him that I posted earlier. The scanner wasnt too good on this one, but oh well

I also made a small animation for him, as he is swinging his hammer away, check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5QN6VRkJNQ

**Traveler** · January 12th, 2010, 01:09 AM

Keep up the good work. I suggest you focus a little more on getting clean strokes with your line work. Clean = confident. Almost always a clean, confident line, even though imperfectly placed, will look better than a perfectly placed scratchy line. Unless, of course, you're trying for a scratchy style of sorts.

The other suggestion I have is that you throw a touch of texture of some sort onto your digital portraits in the future. Makes a huge difference and should only take a minute or two once you find a brush/brush setting that works.

**blu_dragon** · January 27th, 2010, 10:09 PM

Hey great advice man! I admire your sketchbook alot and it gives me some ideas for 3d.

Here's a study of light and darks. As well as some of the sketches Ive been doing in Zbrush. None of them are finished, they are just studies of facial features and so on....

**Ian Barker** · January 27th, 2010, 10:42 PM

you have some good things going in here! zbrush is a great way to help learn anatomy and form. just make sure you're deliberately thinking about form when you use the pencil.

**Zorcron** · January 27th, 2010, 10:44 PM

insane 3d work really diggin it

for your pencil work i really want to see a lot more from life
coffee shop / landscape

still life is good too for longer studies obviously its a lot more controlled

i think some longer charcoal still life study would be good
before you move in with color

my 2 cents

keep it real, keep up the good fight and im looking forward to more soon !

**blu_dragon** · January 29th, 2010, 10:33 PM

Hey thanks for the feedback!
I would love to do longer still life studies with charcoal, as I havnt really touched up on color properley as of yet. However, my main focus is in 3D, and creating a demo reel takes up most of my time. Dont get me wrong, theres nothing more important than practicing drawing, as I will still be doing that every now and then....

Heres are 2 sculpt head bust that I entered for a contest on CGChannel. I used alot of 2D elements in the first one, to paint his textures, and retouch up on the overall image, but the sculpt was done in zbrush.

**Lav** · February 8th, 2010, 02:39 AM

great portraits and 3D stuff! The animation for your cartoony character is looking good so far as well, you seem to have a good understanding on how to animate like that