eek's sketchbook

[ErikHolfelder]

Workin on mah drawins.

Back in time, the old sketchbook.

[bharat]

cool jesture ....!

[ErikHolfelder]

original first post

To start off, some gesture drawings. These are observed from posemaniacs. This is where we started in my figure drawing class I believe, so I'll start here again as well. They are from today.

second post
bharat Thanks.

Alrighty,

Started the day off with some mass gestures. I like doing these a bit. Then a contour self portait and a continuous contour self portrait. Going on the use of the head in these, I went ahead and did a few head studies.

That's all for today. Been inspired by Avatar, gonna do some more drawin.

[ErikHolfelder]

Back again,

I think from here on out I'm just gonna show my favorite page of gestures if any at all. They get old pretty quick. I'll post them periodically to show some progress.

So here some gestures, spheres, and working on the skull a bit.

Skulls are epic.

[~KJK~]

When doing those gesture studies, you should keep simplicity in your mind! The fewer lines the better! Keep that up, and merry xmas!

[jordyskateboardy]

Hey man. I love those posemaniacs doodles. Theyre pretty awesome. Though I suggest you do some with lines as well help you see past just form and sillhouete it's good to learn about forcefull lines as well. With form it's way harder to convey what you're seeing. At least when you're doing quick studies. Takes a lot longer to get it right.
Work a bit on your blending as well. it looks a bit smudged and muddy in those ball studies. Just use a round brush with hardness set to like 30 or something to really smoothen it and use some strokes of 90 on top of that as well as some speckled brush or whatever to get rid of the digital feel. Skulls are looking great btw. Kipitup.

[ErikHolfelder]

Thanks Parsakoira and jordyskateboardy.

I started working on your advice and was able to get a few pages of gestures out on this busy day. I was trying to go for simplicity with the scribble gestures there. It definitely puts things in a new light.

The final image is the best stuff I could get trying to do shapes and forms at 45 seconds. I definitely need to work on those. A great idea jordyskateboardy.

Will work on the balls again soon as well.

[ErikHolfelder]

Alrighty,

Got some more form gestures. Feeling better about them today. I did 60 seconds this time and was finally gettin a bit of the hang of it. Still need much more practice though.

Then a few cloth studies. Cloth confuses me.

I've also got assignment 5 from Concept Art 101 here where I added African elements to the headphones I drew.

[ErikHolfelder]

It's been a couple months. I've been drawing, but haven't been posting. Posting seems to be a good tool on and off to really dive into a period of more intensive study in between working on applying new knowledge. Here's a few studies and some little doodles; I'll probably be posting some more soonish.

[bubblesaw]

i like post number 7 a lot keep going

[Saraiva]

good start for your sketchbook man! I would love to see some anatomy studies here =) Some more pencils too!

[ErikHolfelder]

Still going, just varied where/when I post things. Here are a few value/color studies from the past couple weeks. When I try to go into more detail, I end up muting it. I haven't been able to finesse the detail yet...more attempts soon.

(color study is the same painting at different sizes)

[DSmith]

Hey there!

Nice amount of gestures,awesome!The studies are going great too,a lot of improvement so keep it up!

[ErikHolfelder]

Thanks for stopping by Dsmith, alternative and bubblesaw.

Here's some hand studies I did for the spartan camp. Figured I'd get them in here too. I'm working on some feet for this week's spartan camp.

[Wilko]

Great stuff so far. Your first digital painting attempts (the apple) show a lot of promise! Very rich colours and values - keep it up. As already said, you can't go wrong with some anatomy studies and life drawing.

[ErikHolfelder]

@Wilko
Thanks for the input, I'll definitely focus on some detailed anatomy and life drawing soon.

So here's some feet for Spartan Camp this week, a dsg, and a skeleton study. I've never really done much specifically with feet before, so I decided to try and get a feel for them with some quick sketches and rough shapes. The dsg is better than any of my previous attempts, but I've still got a long way to go before it's even decent; this means more life drawing, study, etc. The skeleton was a really good exercise. I need to get under the skin and focus on anatomy again, so this is a good first step. I tried writing some notes about proportions and things to make the information stick better.

Thanks for crits and all that.

[ErikHolfelder]

Gettin into some anatomy. I'm focusing on the arm right now. Most of these are reffed from Loomis or Schider. I also am trying out the peer project vol 2 exercises. It's kind of humbling...I haven't used pencil in a while, but still my rendering of these spheres is kind of lacking. Need to study more!

[ErikHolfelder]

Ok, more anatomy. I switched to legs (tired of arms). I left these unaltered, raw from the scanner. I wanted to show what they look like without increasing contrast, etc. I think typically a little bit of increase is ok because it gets grayed out in the scanning process.

The onions were hard. I'm finally getting a little bit more control with the pencils again, but these were really hard. I can see differences in contrast on the real onion, but I can't translate it to the paper like it's overall too dark or something, so I can't get the variation I need.

Finally a few sketches of some dudes. They're a race of fellas from my comic's world.

Oh well, to more.

[Aresa]

Good stuff here! Your gestures really improved from your first post. Keep going with those anatomy studies and life drawings, too. Great start!

[JawaEater]

I think i need to do more of what you are doing haha. Those hand drawings are great! Keep it up.

[ErikHolfelder]

Thanks guys your words mean a lot.

Aresa
Will do, thanks for stopping by.

JawaEater
Thanks man. Yep it definitely teaches you a lot.

---

Alrighty, one more for now. I want to post this so that I'm not sitting on anything thinking, "OK, I have a pic for tomorrow's sb, so I can slack off." I'm not sure how long I spent on it. (from ref btw) I'm definitely more comfortable with digital at this point, but glad to be getting back to pencils too.

Might even have some more later tonight...

[ErikHolfelder]

Alrighty, here's today so far. I was trying to do some costume studies from a book about the 20th century. I was trying to do them sort of gesture-ish, but I'm not too pleased with the result. Plus the composition on at least one of them is unpleasant.

Also a couple pages of anatomy study, I'm starting to get a better idea about how the arm is constructed. Then just a silhouette I was playing with. Silhouettes are really captivating to me, I want to play with them more in the future.

I may do an environment study or something tonight as well. See ya.

[ErikHolfelder]

Today's loot so far. Some silhouettes from reference and some Loomis studies (loving his books). I'm also a little embarrassed to post this, but here is an attempt at a landscape painted from a photograph. I don't know much about color and other stuff, so it's pretty lacking, but that's what this sb is for right? Maybe I'll get some tips and improve.

Catch ya later.

[ErikHolfelder]

Two more for today. I want to unload them to be fresh for tomorrow. The arms are from imagination; I was testing to see what I had learned from studying the arm anatomy. The second thing is a self portrait done in about 1.5 hours. I think it basically looks like me (!!), so I'm fairly happy with it as a study.

Gotta keep movin.

[Flaskpost]

good studies! that self portrait is great!
the construction looks solid, i just think you should push the values further. even more darker darks, and brighter brights. : )
will give it more sense of form!

[ErikHolfelder]

Heyo.

Flaskpost Thanks for stopping in, it means a lot. I'll definitely try to push the values a bit more on my next attempt.

---

Studies felt a little meh today, but arms are still getting easier to put together. The second image is some quick constructions based on Loomis. They're not great, but I can see the potential.

I was debating posting this study...but I figure it's best to put it out there and possibly get feedback on how to do that better. It's of a plastic container with leftover grime from some paint, but it just kinda looks weird. I suppose just putting more time into it might help, in this state I spent about 1.5 hours just fussing with it. I know the grimey texture would take a while by hand, but it just felt like a mess...anyway, any tips are appreciated.

Then just a little sketch. I like the potential from the idea. African traveler with prosthetic leg on a quest with his trusty robot Ezbello...I was having trouble adding detail to his costume (need to study more costumes), so I added a robot.

Well, on to more study.

[Clean3d]

Nice posemaniac studies! They aren't easy. The foot studies are cool too. You seem to be tackling some of the hard stuff!

[Marlee.]

Hey, you seem to be covering a really broad range of stuff in your studies here - you'll improve fast if you keep going at this pace It looks good, but I've never done posemaniac studies like that before, with all the lines/silhouettes ~ I should try some, but I think you should tackle more (like that one page) with less lines and more forms. They are really helpful.

[ErikHolfelder]

Hi,

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Clean3d Hey thanks, glad you like!

Marlee. Definitely! I'm out of practice with those, but I did some today since you suggested it. Mass gestures are a lot of fun.

---

Sooo, Here are some mass gestures and a shadows study. I'm kind of out of practice with the mass gestures. I was totally screwing the proportions. The study was pretty dang hard too, I guess it is a large chunk of the body. I'll try to focus on a smaller chunk next time. I kept getting too small with the brush and just messing it up, so I decided to stop. It's hard to figure out when to get smaller or stay large..I try to stay as large as possible. Also, I tried to push the value range further than the self portrait.

Might have some anatomy studies later.

[ErikHolfelder]

Study, study, study. Golden Boy is a good source of inspiration.

Today I've got some more anatomy, some costume/character sketches from ref, and an apple study. The character sketches were pretty quick, just trying to capture the character of the image. The study...is better than the last pencil studies I think. Next time I'm going to spend like twice as long as feels right, because I think I could push these further. Pencil is a challenge!

Any suggestions of things to try, etc. are welcome. Soon I'm going to do some thumbnails to work on composition, try to get out and sketch real people/places, and do another self portrait probably. I'm trying to hit all the areas I need to. I definitely need to get some concept pieces going too, which is what the thumbs may be for.

Also the disproportional boobs on the last post will haunt me forever....