Mykro's SB-Use it or lose it! Starting over...

[Mykro]

Well, let me start off by saying I have been a looong time CA lurker, and I used to post in the DSG wayyyy back when. I love what this site has become, and a lot of the changes here as well as in my own life have become a catalyst for me to pick back up on my artistic progress. I am 29, live in Nebraska, and have been pretty out of commision for a few years. I only have a couple years of education in art school, but have been drawing since the 4th grade. I suppose I'll explain more later, but right now its time to post some images and get this education restarted. I am throwing myself in full force, creating assignments and exercises as I would in a class, as well as participating in Chow and such around here. I am hoping to find a good home in this community.

[Mykro]

Oh, and if someone could explain how to put a thumbnail on this thread that would be great.

[wanglavender]

i dont like the pics of gorilla lol i like the sketch at first and second one

[Mykro]

OK, so I figured I'd get this outta my system-this is most of what I've done in the past year or so. I was pretty out of it for a lot of this, but a few shining pieces came through. A couple of these are from Thea Wolfe's Ween Coloring Book, some are unfinished. There's a decent amount of nudity, but I cut all the really hardcore stuff (a shame in some cases) Crits and such are welcome, but what I'd really like to hear is which exercises I should be doing. I'm trying to build a new path. Right now I'm doing gestures on posemaniacs-digitally, because I need to get my wacom hand more steady.

[Mykro]

OK, here's the rest-A lot of women, I know. A couple promo posters I did for a bar I was cooking at. Here's the ween coloring book pics i was talking about and my own portrait of Gener. Some faerie studies, self portrait, slug from atmosphere and various other poop

[Mykro]

ok, I have started doing some new copywork from sarah simblet's anatomy for the artist, and I got a few more gestures off posemaniacs-what a great site

[Lav]

hai! got some cool stuff going on
about the thumbnail thingy, it's basicly the first attachment you have uploaded, and you cant organise the sequence after it's uploaded (so usually people leave the first post open just to upload the thumbnail they want) I hope this is an answer to your question.
And about not uploading some content, i don't think there's any harm if you would do so if you have the nsfw tag up, which you do

You sometimes use a lot of different painting styles, some of it look really great but then others look beneath your potential, i like it more when you give a sharp look to your paint instead of what you for example did to the 10th girl in post nr 4

Keep up the good work, i hope you stay motivated

[Mykro]

Thanks to Jaro on this one, for inspiring the idea of using sceencaps and for hookin me up with an awesome site.

[GETBUCK]

nice i love porn
haha
yeah i have to agree with Lav
some of your pieces look soo great and than others rather blurry and yeh
id try to do something different i mean most of your pieces look like normal photos so id try to put something in them from me
that gives way more character and live to your pic
but hey i dont realy know im such a crappy artist

[Mykro]

Ok, a ew new things here-Some quick random studies from ref, randis' face tutorial, and a colored piece that I'm stuck on-I need some suggestions on how to fix the girl in the blue dress. Also, I'm trying to put together a curriculum for myself to pump my skills back up. I'm about to start doing some loomis studies, and I'm trying some different brushes. Suggestions?

[Jaro]

Hey mate, good to hear that the website was some help to you.

Just looking over your recent posts, I think you need to pay closer attention to your tonal transitions. Take the time to carefully go into certain areas with a brush with soft edges to achieve some smoother blending of your brush strokes. When you're drawing something like a young womans face, you want the skin to appear smooth. Any areas of the face that should appear smooth but which are broken up by your brushstrokes, will make the skin look rough or wrinkled.

I've done a very quick edit to one of your portaits to show you what I mean, I hope you don't mind.



As you can see, I haven't so much done a paintover as I have simply selectively blended the brushstrokes that were already there.

I would recommend that you do most of your painting with a regular round brush with the hardness set to about 80% and opacity set to pen pressure (flow off). It's soft enough so that blending is easy if you press lightly but not so soft that you can't achieve crisp edges where you need them. Colour picking is really handy for when you're blending, but it's important to bring in totally new colours from you colour pallette to keep the image feeling fresh.

Nice work on that screencap study. I think that some areas on their shirts might need some softening, otherwise you attention to detail is excellent. You can tell that you took your time with it which is good. I really think that if you keep going with those you'll see some significant improvement!

Ok, time for me to shut up.

[Mykro]

OK, been workin on all kinds of stuff, here's a fix on my steve zissou screencap, a landscape study, and some sketches from national geographic. Thanks yet again to Jaro, for the brush advice. Now I'm trying to wrap my head around some idiot apathy landscape demos, using his and M@'s custom brush sets, and doing the workshops from the Jan Imagine FX. And keep doing studies from Loomis' figure drawing book-digitally. Maybe I should look for a job too...

[Mykro]

OK, a bunch of random stuff. One Loomis drawing, different studies. I got the Jan Imagine FX and tried my hand at a few things there, notably getting into DAZ3D, which I did some basis models for the Zach and the Doombots Chow round, but I didn't finish in time. It was good, been a long time since I've worked with poser or anything 3d, so I'm getting reaquainted. Daz has so many free models and stuff, I may be busy with that for a bit. I've also got my wips for the kitsune chow, which I'm hoping to finish on time, hopefully get close tonight.
And...I'm starting to feel like I'm talking to myself. I suppose I'll go give some more props and crits, get some attention. If anyone's listening, thanks.

[Lav]

i'm listening! haha is that nibru i see?
nice studies man, hope you finish the chow in time, keep it up!

[Mykro]

Manoman. I think I got a little lost in sketchbook land this week-I went through all of Bumskee, randis, alexandr pascenko's, Iridyse's, most of Clochette's, then got lost in the drawfrom what does everyone look like thread. Still waiting for my first issue of Imagine FX to get here, as if there weren't enough to do around here. So, what did I get done?
Some gestures from imagination, a leopard drawing, a sketch of loveandasandwich, and I began a Junkyard Golem for the Chow, oh I'll post my final for last weeks-I made it in!!! Next goal-Get a vote...

[Mykro]

Wow, I have a few new things to post-I took the feminine form class and an trudging through 200 heads-I have about 80 so far-50 from imagination and 30 from ref. I should also post my junkyard golem and my final kitsune, for those that don't watch the chow thread. I gotta get back on there this week. Anyway, much love CA...

[Mykro]

Oh yeah, and these too

[zombifried]

Nice work!
I'm glad to see that you're committed to continuing you're education this way. I'm pretty much doing the same thing here. I also have only a couple years of art education beyond high school.(and the occasional extra-curricular class)
I've been mostly in basic review mode. I'm not following any real structured exercises, but rather taking a second look at the basic elements: I might concentrate on figure proportions/anatomy for a couple of weeks, try to grind through perspective on another, then look at composition for a while.
Online art tutorials are a good place for inspiration for assignments, as is this site.
Good luck!
~Zombifried
zombifried's sketchbook

[Mykro]

Watercolors, yay! Seriously, just finished up with a new conceptual portrait of sage francis as joseph ducreux. The idea being that they're both what scott mccloud would call "formalists", in that they challenge the limits to their art form. On top of that, they both have achieved much of their fame due to the internet. Next, I'm thinking of brother ali as norman rockwell and slug as either tom waits or raymond carver. Just some concepts rollin around. In the meantime, I thought I'd scan in some more of my older watercolors, though some are downright impossible due to my small scanner and the fact that they're painted on illustration board. Ah, well, I'm doing what I can.

[Mykro]

Wow, its been way too long since my last post. Couple stories...I took a graffiti mural gig from craigslist on a whim. They ended up falling through on me, but it got me intro'ed to the wonderful world of spraypaint.
Also, my girlfriend is pregnant! In the funny way that life moves, it forced me to stop smoking in the house. The garage became my smoking lounge, then my spraypaint sketchbook, and now its just growing into a nice little studio for me. We may even finish the walls and put the computer out there, see what happens in the next 6 months or so...
So, I've been all over with my sketches n' stuff. Lots of big stuff on shitty manila colored paper. Getting loose and drawing big.
OK, so some notes on the images:
I hate my Epson stylus cx7450, I think the entire printer industry has become one big scam. I need something cheap with cheap cartridges to print refs and docs, and that's it. Anything more fancy I'll take it to the print shop. So, for a scanner I'm trying to return to my baby, the Canoscan D660U, but I can't get a working program/driver for Vista 64. So, I just shot a bunch of photos of my sketchbook/manila work. Lots of sketching, I've got sketches for the Marie Antoinette and Veteran CHOW. Veteran sketches are all the crazy bushwoman ones. There's snaps of the garage/studio, and stuff.
I also bought a bunch of downloads during the 1/2 off sale! Hooray. Jason Chan Quick Sketch and style exploration, android fine art v1, el coro alla prima portrait, veronique meignaud's stream of con. and greg manchess above the timberline-both parts! The next step will be moving into oils, and I'm so ready. I've been playing with Painter after andrew's demo, did an experiment making patterns and such. lots of good stuff in this dump!
Anything else addressed later.

[Mykro]

OK, now the digital stuff. Since I hate to scan/format for posting, I'm just gonna dump everything from about the last 2 months, get it over with. A lot of unfinished CHOW sketches here, whatever else I found on my hd. Experiments...

[batcustard]

Huge improvement just on this page alone dude: You are kicking so much ass. Your rendering and linework has gotten a lot more deliberate. Started out with hairy lines which are pretty much gone now. Your characters seem to sometimes be a little off balance though. It looks like their weight isn't really evenly distributed on the whole feet. Like they might fall over backward if they stood like that too long.

Anyways again: your kicking ass improvement-wise.

[kosherchai]

My attempt to sketch a human torso with no skin, leaving muscles exposed. Nude of course.

[Lav]

great to see you updating again! keep it up

[Mykro]

Wow, feedback already. Good deal.
Batcustard: I know exactly what you're saying about the balance. That's exactly what I'm working on right now. A lot of that is just getting re-used to drawing full body figures every day. I just now feel like I'm getting to a semi-comfortable point with it again. I think its one of the effects of learning from comics to start with, because they always hover in superhero books-flying at you or just plain flying.
Lav: Good to hear from you! I love your recent updates. The shopping cart kid and the winged skeleton giraffe especially. Your anatomy studies are getting tight too. Thanks for stoppin in.

[Mykro]

My only notation on these really is that they look soo much cooler in person, my camera is not doing them justice.

[Mykro]

OK, I have been heavy on traditional mediums lately. Oil, spray paint and acrylic, and now a mix of watercolor, India ink, prismacolor markers and colored pencils, and white gouache. I need to find a better way to photograph the oils, but until then, here's the 2 pieces I could scan.

[Mykro]

OK, so my first big show is coming up. I tried to scan some of the small oils I did for it, and I took a bunch of photos which I will try to post soon. Til then, here's the scans of the 4 oil panels, and a mixed media piece which will be my classic fantasy pinup entry for the CHOW this week.
The Slug portrait was my first attempt at oil ever. Almost all my oils are owed to watching El Coro's Alla Prima download, and Greg Manchess' Above the Timberline-both parts.

[Mykro]

This is in my recent show.