Andrew Sonea -22/5/2013

[Dile_]

Getting on le skype soon'ish?

[Umbravita]

Wow. Just... wow. Wish I had crit but I'm too busy gawking at your ability, ha! Post more soon.

[bpic]

Heya! Wanted to stop by and take a look. I gotta say its hard for me to come up with a whole lot to critique because in a lot of ways I feel you have more skill than me.. However what stands out to me is (as was mentioned above) your work from ref/life is stronger than the work from your mind. I know you already know this, but I think one way to help build stronger stuff from your mind is to (as I have seen you do with some portraits) thoroughly construct your references but don't copy. Above you even referenced that you feel you are becoming a copy machine or printer or something.

Also do a lot of sketches focusing especially on larger shapes, and then the nuances which go over top of the larger shapes which are used to help really sell the idea of what you are trying to convey. I have seen El Coro post about this in a couple of threads as well (that is to focus on large shapes/gestures, and nuances). He is talking more I think about mileage and learning to come up with stuff worth rendering, but I think the same applies to painting as well. In some of your paintings I see a lot of noodling around trying to search and I think it would help you to know what your trying to show, get the big shapes and ideas in and then use nuances to refine things and bring them to a more specific state. Also make sure that your values stick to your planes (an idea that I read from daniel chavez' thread awhile back, here is the link http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...123713&page=29. He pretty much says everything in there that I am trying to say, except better. Ill be back! Sorry for the wall of text. Maybe others can help too? These things I am telling you are problems I continue to have so I feel I cant say much.

[bpic]

post 852 by the way, in that link I gave you. I still look at it every now and then when I get lost.

I guess one more piece of advice would be to do what you want always and just try to push it while learning. I have been struggling over the past six months because I got so concerned with what others have been doing. What they study, what subjects they paint, etc. In reality though the times in my life I have made progress are when I never questioned myself and just kept going. I just did what I wanted to do and when I saw something wasnt looking right then I got on the internet or went outside to study and improve. Looking forward to some more posts!

[Andrew Sonea]

Thanks everyone for your comments and support! I'll reply next time as right now I feel like shit and don't wanna have sub-par replies to you guys.





Yeah, got my wisdom teeth out. Maybe I'll go into it more next time I post, but here is a quick (>1 hour) self portrait where I painted how I feel (exaggerated the swelling a bit). I hope it's not too dark on other screens...and yes, that is blood/saliva drooling from my mouth. It would collect in big puddles on my tablet as I painted...

[lancer_idenoure]

haha yeah man getting your wisdom teeth out sucks. hope you feel better soon.

hopefully ill have my dragon wip up tomorrow. yours is looking awesome! values are reading really well. just wanna echo what someone else said and point out that neck. couple other little things: torso anatomy looks very human and the pose looks slightly cramped with the legs tucked in like that. the flame and the tail also draw the eye out of the image a bit. you've got more than a week left, you might wanna try experimenting with extending the canvas or just playing around with the comp.

good stuff man, this is definitely a step forward

[Pixie Trick]

Lol, gotta love how you can't tell if you're drooling or not when you're all frozen up. The nice thing though is that it'll heal up quick if you avoid getting it infected.

I'm really liking the dragon image composition and colour wise. I think maybe getting some sort of scale in there would be nice, and the angle of the head seems a bit odd to me. You're seeing the body from basicly bottom up, but the head is directly on the side. That's making the head seem as though its at human height, but at the same time, the rest of the image, mostly the horizon, is saying its massive. So if the head were at where it is now, it would actually be tilted close to horizontal in relationship to the body. So, pretending your dragon magically transformed into a duck, the pose would be roughly like this (I mean very, very roughly): link. Hopefully that is a bit clearer than what I think it is. Oh, and if you haven't already seen it, I suggest looking up Greame Base's book, "The Discovery of Dragons". Its a good read and pages and pages of dragons.

[lancer_idenoure]

Deadline is tomorrow, andrew!!!

Just reminding yooouuu!!!!

Hope you feel better!!

That is all.

[Andrew Sonea]

Lance: Good crits, I tried to implement them a bit. I only worked on it tonight (so last minute!) so didn't want to make too many major changes, but I did extend the canvas a bit.

Pixie: Thanks! As I said to Lance, I'm not so keen on major changes this late in the game in regards to the dragon. I sort of see what you're saying with the head, but to be honest I kind of like it how it is. I feel like a blind noob defending himself "it's meant to be like that"...but yeah, I kind of like it haha.

Lance (again): Thanks man! I'm trying to finish it in time D: By the way, yours looks soooo much better than mine haha, way to make me feel bad about my entry!







So...between some serious art depression, wisdom teeth, and a new job as a line cook, I haven't done ANY art for over a week! I want to finish my entry though, so I spent a bit of time tonight on it. I can't believe I spent like two hours and the changes aren't even noticeable (except foreground guys). I found out last minute that I've got work tomorrow again (been working past few days), so that means I will have to some serious rushing to finish my entry in time for the deadline. I really need to grab some ref for the armour and poses too...and I'm feeling the composition is getting cramped, but am not sure how to resolve it.

[Andrew Sonea]

Just dropping off the final version of that painting...

[Andrew Sonea]

A nice and quick Sargent study, trying to focus on brushwork and planes.

[skMOP]

Dude the wisdom teeth SP is fucking hardcore!! Can't wait to get mine out so I can do a SP too haha. Er well not really since I guess it'll hurt a lot.

I was about to post some similar comments on the dragon piece but I think Pixie and lancer said a lot of it already. If you don't mind me adding a few suggestions:

On the composition, and obviously this is a pretty big change but maybe just for future reference, having the dragon head turned into the picture (like the lower left corner or something) instead of out would help keep the viewer inside. Plus it would give more interaction with the figures and the dragon. And just to nitpick the guy in the foreground's sword looks a little too thick and blunt to be of any use, I think it may have something to do with the proportions of it?

Don't let work get you down too much!

[wla91]

Really good work man, your studies and drawings look gorgeous!

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Andrew, hope you are doing ok health wise. I really like the dragon piece, I think the colour palette you've used really adds to it. Good job.

[Andrew Sonea]

skMOP: Thanks dude! You make a good point about the dragon's head...it does look a bit off in relation to the soldiers, but that's a reflection of my adding them as an afterthought.

wla91: Thanks!

Marian: Thanks I'm basically back to normal with my teeth...I can finally eat again haha!





Nothing new to show from today since I worked all day and only did a couple of anatomy sketches during break. Instead, here are some life drawings from last night. Not super happy with them--I definitely have gotten rusty by not going for a while. I feel like they are weaker than what I was doing before

First one is a 90 second pose, the second is a 20 minute pose, and the others are all 30 minutes.

[Andrew Sonea]

A quick update for the sake of updates...

I have some collabs I'm working on now with a friend of mine, and should post them in a week or two or whenever they're done. They are off to good starts, so be prepared

[eclip-se]

I saw a gold and found gems inside, another masterpiece sketchbook 5*

[kevin_]

cool stuff, really like this last post!

[kikindaface]

i really dig the last study dude ! all the hard work is paying off now ! it's been a while i didn't come to CA, and it's good to see that some peoples are still here, with great improvments ! keep it up !

[jNeumann]

Hey Andrew, I remember I started updating at about the time you and Ryanoir started up. I'm back at it, glad to see you're still updating consistently! Everything looks awesome man.

[Andrew Sonea]

eclip-se: Thanks! I'm honoured you think my work is 5 star worthy

kevin_: Thanks!

kikindaface: Yeah I haven't seen you around in a while. Glad you're back though

jNeumann: Woah another old face here Looking back at your sketchbook is cool, I remember commenting on it way back when.





Okay, so those collabs I'm working on are taking longer than anticipated... and using up most of the little spare time I do have. But they are nearing completion. Maybe they can be posted in like a week or so?

In the mean time, here are some random pencil studies from Seven Samurai and a coworker, life drawings (done with this weird "oil pencil" thing, which I love the feeling of) and pen pages from a trip I made to the Museum of Natural History with a friend of mine from school who came into town to see me I've got a lot of other sketchbook pages I've done, but I'm not very confident in them so won't be posting them (I think I've got like several entire sketchbooks I've never posted).

[Andrew Sonea]

aklsjf;lksjad;lfkjsalfkdj I need sleep. I'm working long hours and then painting instead of sleeping...fun stuff. Uhm, here's some crappy doodads. A character for the Team Challenge that reminded me how bad I am at design, and a random landscape from my head that was just me relaxing and screwing around with colour and brushes. The result isn't great, but whatever. I did want to do some studies but I am too braindead right now to do any.

[Shadow Stalker]

Dude, knocking it out of the park! That centaur is unfreakin' real!

[lancer_idenoure]

last post is goooood

[Andrew Sonea]

Shadow Stalker: Thanks! I'm not very comfortable with my character designs so it's nice to hear that you like it I don't think it's really the direction my team is going towards now in the Team Challenge, but it was fun nonetheless.

Lance: Sheesh you make me feel silly! I post up what I think is crap and you love it lol Thanks for the compliment though



So I've been chatting with Dile_ a lot, and he every so often mentions some exercise that would be good for me. I've been writing them down, and plan on working through them when I have some spare time. One of the things he suggested was a colour study of Jeremy Lipking using 100% opacity on my brushes...well I painted a Lipking but I didn't use the 100% opacity thing (I'll do that soon, I promise!).

I mostly was trying to get textured brushes to become a part of my painting process throughout the creation rather than some flat textures thrown on top of a full painting done with a round brush. I'm starting to get a feel of textured brushes I think, but I did find myself "licking" the painting a lot near the end. The result is nothing compared to the original, but I feel like I learned a thing or two working on it so that's good. I didn't realize how much of a god Lipking is at edges, subtlety and simplification until I started painting this--it's some really fine work on his part.

Oh and I recorded some steps because some people like seeing that stuff.

[wla91]

Awesome updates man, that last proccess looks great, also love those pen and pencil works, keep it up!

[Mane]

some strong and confident line work in here dude.

[Andrew Sonea]

wla91: Thanks I don't do enough traditional drawing these days...

Mane: Really? I never thought I was good at line--thanks anyhow though.






So instead of getting some sleep like I should have (I've been working suuuper long days at work this past week), I decided to have a coffee and paint though the night. I feel like I'll regret this. Uhm, I don't even know what this thing is. I made it a really big file for some reason, so if I want I can actually render seriously, but I dunno if I'll bother with this one. I feel like I lost something from the initial stages (maybe even earlier than what I've posted) when I began to render and added colour. Ah well, sometimes it's fun to paint nonsense like this. I had fun at least.

[Andrew Sonea]

So I decided for some reason to render it out...at this size you can barely even tell though D:

Oh, and today I did a plein air oil for the first time in a long time. I'll try to photograph it soon to post up.

[sipher]

really like the shadows and subtle tones in this last one, very nice work