Animation, Illustration and a QUEST for Improvement!

[Meaisín]

Hello everyone! Starting a new sketchbook for the sake of my new course, and a developing mindset.

I'm one month into starting an Animation Production course at Arts University College Bournemouth [AUCB - Formerly AIB]. It's very exciting, and I seem to be so busy! I can't wait to see the improvement in my drawings and work on some great projects. But I have an extremely long way to go; and that's also exciting, I just have to enjoy the ride. I'm spoilt for choice as to where to spend my time; Old masters, life drawing, anatomy, bones, muscles, gesture, animals, Life, books, conceptart, the list goes on... worrying, but it will spur me on!

I'm very eager about getting further into digital art as well. Within the last two weeks I've been trying to for the first time with a digital character portrait painting class - Some results soon I hope!

That's why I'm here - Some extra impulse to continue, a great place to meet friends, share ideas, and take critiques and grow. So, I hope you see something you enjoy, and if you don't, make it clear! But seriously, I appreciate any views, advice, comments and critiques.
Thanks! See you guys soon!


P.S. Excuse the poor uploads, not using a scanner atm, just a camera, with some 'autocorrect'; hopefully it's acceptable. Here is the nasty old sketchbook - (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=149460).
Done quite a lot in just a month, so to give a taste of where I am, I thought I'd just upload a few sketchbook pages done so far; some artist studies, drawing trips, life drawing, anatomy etc.

[Meaisín]

Various work so far

[Nemome]

Yeah this is good!
Go on like that!
The studies with muscles and skeleton is really good.
You drawed so clear

Do you use copics? On marker paper oder on normal paper in your sketchbook?

Silwynar

[Meaisín]

Silwynar - Thanks for the encouragement, I'm hoping those anatomical studies will come in really useful and add to my work from life and my head. Yes, they were Copics. I used them straight into my sketchbook, so of course they bleed and go through the page. However, I find this can produce a really interesting effect on the reverse side of the page - 2 for 1

Update - Frontal musculature anatomical study from yesterday... took an age... ugh, my back is feeling that one. Probably too careful, and too much time spent, but I'm hoping it adds some life to my other figures.
Life drawing today as well - a whole day of various timescales, mixed media and surfaces, so I've just uploaded a few of the images. Everything would probably be a bit much. I tried a few different techniques here, but I'm not too happy with most of the outcomes. Some of the painting was good fun, but I find my line still seems a bit 'flat' or clumsy sometimes. Not good for an animator!

Anyway, thanks for advice/exercises/views/comments/crits!

[Meaisín]

Update - Just a few studies of Michelangelo's work. I hope to do more, gain a bit more movement and believable 'form' in my characters. Can't stand when my line seems flat or dead. Need energy, fluidity, looseness... I think.

Also a WIP - I have been trying Digital Painting for the first time with a digital character portrait painting class each week. We were advised to bring in our own sketches last week, and seeing as a self-portrait I did in June was all I had in my book, I thought, why not?! Tis new, and sometimes difficult trying to work out what to do next, but it's very exciting, a satisfying challenge. Have uploaded it with and without the 'lines' layer. And I can't wait to get back to this piece, I welcome any tips/advice/critique!

Thanks all!

[Meaisín]

Update - Drawing trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London today. A few hands on the coach, most of the time spent in the sculpture corridor, and a little time on some Japanese armour. (Please excuse the 'auto-corrected' photograph quality.)

Cheers

[Bendragon]

Hahaha! I know that life model! Shes been there for agggeeeeessssssss! Im sure everyone from our course past, present and future drew her hehe. Looking good dude! Glad to hear you are enjoying yourself.
Good to see you delving into digital paint too, the more you practice the better you get so make sure you get loads of them down. And as the tutors may have told you, get a load of studies done. They are a massive help! Keep it up man, have fun and say "Hi" to everyone for me.

[Lyno]

Hi Francisck . Cool you're also starting with digital painting, good luck. It's a long road, but you'll get there for sure if you just keep going and don't give up. What I see now is that you're brushwork is too soft. Try working with a hard edged brush, but with a opacity set to pen-pressure.
I got started with this thread. Start doing some fruit and try to blend those colors with the hard edged brush. Just like the example of bumskee.

Good luck and have fun !

[Architaylor]

hey man,
Thought I would check out your sb and reply at the same time Yeah its good for exactly that really, nailing the exaggerated forms in your head so that when it comes to drawing you can tone it down a bit I use bridgman a lot especially his book called "human machine" or something, it shows how the body moves, so useful for animation I've used vilpuu a fair bit mainly for gesture stuff
Ah thats cool I was so close to doing the computer animation and visualisation course at Bournemouth, got an offer but just decided to go for Glamorgan instead yeah same I had never had life drawing classes before so its a bit of a shock tbh Yeah it will be interesting to track how we develop as animators Nice to meet you too

As for the art, some really nice stuff here I can already see some big improvments from the first updates keep it up theres huge potential here!

[p sage]

Hi Francisck

Good work in here.

When you do studies from anatomy books, do so while thinking about what you're seeing. It's a little exercise in addition to seeing the lines and shapes... you have to sort of try to "digest" with your eyes and mind, so to speak, what you're seeing.

And when you do those studies, try to be very, very accurate with the measurements. As your understanding builds, those measurements will kind of make themselves... but getting the measurements right will teach you something about the anatomy as well.

[Meaisín]

Hello again all!

Bendragon - Thanks dude, I will do. Looking at some John Singer Sargent drawings atm. Great stuff.

Lyno - Thanks for the advice and the link, I'll be sure to take a further look at that thread. Still working on the portrait

Architaylor - Thanks a lot for the comment. I also considered the 3D animation course next door, but was far more inclined to the Arts University Animation Production course. Great so far !

p sage - Cheers for the good advice, I will digest till I burst! I think it's helping already. Good luck with your ongoing studies!

It's been too long, I know. Been so busy, and without a scanner, but I know this is no place for excuses. At least I've been busy and will be uploading a lot more from now on.
Here is some older stuff from the start of the course firstly - I'm scanning work atm. This stuff dates between 1st October - 9th November. Mixed medias, themes, exercises, mostly life drawing, mostly pretty awful, but hey, improvement is the name of the game here!
Newer stuff will be on its way soon as I now have a scanner for my smaller sketchbook.

Thanks for views/comments.

[Meaisín]

Hello again. Far too long since last upload I know. Work on my course is keeping me incredibly busy. However, I am drawing everyday, which is wonderful, even if a lot of my time is spent drawing the same sack, drop . It seems to take a long time sometimes to scan, resize, upload, but I really want to keep this sketchbook going and try to really improve. So I know it's unrealistic for me to try and get everything on, but seeing as I have to scan a lot of images for my assessment I'd like to put some here. I will keep updating! Will aim to show all sorts - successes and failures, so I can work on my weaknesses!

To start, here are some older scans I compiled - work from 16th Nov. through to 24th Nov. - life drawing - gesture (line of action / Vilppu focus) - skeletons (seeing through the model) - facial feature studies - and doodles

Hope to update soon/regularly here with more recent stuff like my self portrait thread! Thanks, Bye!

[Meaisín]

Ahoy-hoy! Another month has almost passed...

First term is over - exciting times. Busy of course, but going through an assessment period as well, so I have a lot of work scanned.

I thought I would give an image dump of some of the work from the past few months. Stuff here ranges from 7th October to 1st January so everything after this should be fresher, New Year material. Various media/studies/subjects here, some of the dates are on the images. Resized to a suitable scale I hope - screen fitting.

I'm grateful for any views and especially commentary.
Most importantly, I may have the physical copies, but this thread is about documenting any of my progression or advancement. I'd like to be able to look back and
Have finally started trying some Digital in my Self Portaits thread.

All the best!

[Edit: RRARGH!! 'Manage attachments' just decided to crash and take IE with it when I was about 30 images in... *sigh*... will do this in 2 posts...]

[Meaisín]

The Rest...

[JakehC]

I see many great improvements in your sketchbook. keep working hard!

[Meaisín]

lolbbq - Thank you for the kind words, I'll do my best!

Studying a ballet dancer, and contemporary dance - very powerful poses. I find dancers to be an incredible resource and very inspirational for life drawing and general 'ways of seeing'. Their whole bodies are pushed to the limit of physical expression and I see monsters/stories/heroes/power in their movement etc. Great stuff!

Also some people sketches and some Bridgman and Loomis studies. Hopefully learnt summit'. I drew without guidelines, then wanted to add the annotations/lines afterwards for completeness and to see how I did. Never sure whether to aim to speed up and cover more 'book' ground, or carefully reproduce and learn the lines/proportions more.

[Architaylor]

hey man, havent checked this thread for a while but shit I was blown away with the amount of progress you're making Seems like you do a lot more drawing than on my course which is a shame really I would love to spend that much time doing art we are mostly doing animations here How much of what you do is in the course? Huge progress I was really surprised keep it up man Vanderpoel studies are my favourite

[Meaisín]

Architaylor - Thanks for the comment and for visiting, I'm so eager to make progress! Well, the majority of the on-course drawing was actually done on the Mondays in the first term - our day of life drawing, and some artist studying in the first couple of weeks. Not sure exactly how it will be this term, but a lot of the drawing we do is self-motivated - whether you want to draw during talks/studio hours/going out/book studies, or find other sessions in your own time - it's all encouraged! Some book names are suggested - Vilppu, Gordon etc., but you keep your eyes peeled and search the library really. It's up to each individual as we also spent 3 days of the week animating... plus the weekend... plus the nights... plus... , i know where you're coming from, and would like to do some more on-schedule art as well, but I know those animations need that hard graft/practice. I am always eager to cram in more drawing, need to improve so much, the two practices will surely benefit each other. What's the [art] content/layout like on your course?
I should really buy that Vanderpoel book ...

Some more Bridgman studies - love those sharp lines/shapes/powerful stances. Also some drawing today in studio and in Bournemouth - poor gestures/figures and some people and my hands on the bus. Today's Self Portrait too.

[Meaisín]

Not much today - busy working on a layout, and not a great day overall. Some observational drawing during a lecture/meeting and my disappointing self portrait.

[Meaisín]

More Bridgman studies - slow, but I'm hoping those 'masses' ingrain themselves into my eyes!

Some cafeteria/studio sketches and today's SP.

[Meaisín]

Some Vilppu studying with Posemaniacs and reference. The man seriously knows what he's talking about... He pulls off dynamic figures from a blank sheet with just a brown pencil, some curves and his imagination... Awesome stuff...

[Meaisín]

Study today from a book by Victor Ambrus. Nice book on the human figure, very nice lines, will be looking into him further.

[p sage]

Hi.

You should try and relate the facial features to the face (I think). In this last one, it looks like you could take a dry eraser up to that person and rub their face right off. Try to think about the construction of the head--this will help. Bridgman is a good one to study from when it comes to all stuff about the head.

[Meaisín]

p sage - Useful observations there, thank you. You're right - most of my drawings look flat/eyeballed - that lack of construction means they lack something to unify all the marks. I'll look into this construction more, as I am with facial features now.

Overdue update time! Been busy, doing a lot of drawing - becoming more and more aware of how bad/inexperienced I am. The progression and journey is exciting, and I really look forward to how I can improve, but I really have a long way to go, and the more I draw, the more of my flaws and awful drawings I see, the more I aspire! 'Drawing from my imagination' must be an acquired skill >_<!

A sample of what I've been up to - trying to do a lot of life drawing atm, some Louise Gordon anatomy, starting to look at layouts with my room, and my self portraits are continuing in the other thread with some feature studies.

[ErikStorstein]

Sweeet update! Keep on posting, it's always great to see The linedrawings of your room are quite impressive

[Bendragon]

Heck youve done loads! The only bad thing about that is that its slowing my comp down So try not too dump them all in a single post. Keep remembering to do the fundamentals like anatomy books. Dont just copy them, think whilst you do them too and observe it. It takes a lot of practice to observe so thats why its important to draw observationally all the time. Keep it up!

[Architaylor]

ha I agree with Bendragon! your doing too much art my comp cant handle it Figures are good, I really like the drawings of your laptop/room I would never have the patience for that might be heading down to Bournemouth to see my brother in a few weeks keep up the good work man!

[Meaisín]

Zilrion - Thanks man :]
Bendragon - Thanks, that's valuable advice for any time. Sorry for the mass uploads.
Architaylor - Cheers for the support , hope you had a good time with your bro.

Here is a summer update of some stuff I've been doing recently to resurrect my Sketchbook thread. Some sketchbook content, watercolours and some life drawing.

Thanks for looking

[Meaisín]

Some more life drawings - I'm really enjoying this Red Chalk pencil.

Also some sketches from Trafalgar Square. There is a fantastic exhibition on at the National Portrait Gallery on Philip Alexius de László atm. He has quickly become one of my favourite painters, the quality of his work and the rate at which he worked is just stunning. I very much recommend it to anyone in London - 'til 5th Sept 2010.

[Sonia Leticia]

Sweet studies so far! Just keep on doin what your doin. Oh and cute Laharl in the beginning (I loved Disgaea lol)