My first sketchbook...

[Istmin52]

Here is a work in progress of the holiday card so far.

[Ana Caspão]

Nice work, keep doing those gesture/value studies more often to really see excelent improvement in your works!

[Istmin52]

Here is more progress on the holiday card. Painting something that is black is pretty freakin hard.

[Istmin52]

I feel like this is finished. I'm not sure what else I should do to this but overall, I like how it came out. I really struggled painting the penguins but they turned out good. At least in my opinion anyway. I'm curious to know what others think.

[Istmin52]

I did a quick 30 minute painting of my flashlight. I need to get better at painting black objects.

[Istmin52]

After getting some useful feedback after posting this at the critique center and WIP showcase, I made some changes to it and reposted it. I think it looks better now. I'm still waiting to get feedback after reposting the changes on there. I'm curious to know what others think viewing my sketchbook as well.

Thanks for looking.

[MrFrenik]

Hey, thanks for stopping by my SB. To answer your question, I really don't update or draw nearly as much as I should. I've heard people say that you should spend somewhere around 10,000 hours to master a subject, and at the rate I'm going, I'm lucky to be 50 before that, ha. Your paintings and drawings obviously show that you have a good grasp on form and perspective, which is great. For your renderings, focusing on hard and soft edges as well as different, specific conditions of light and how it reacts with certain materials will help to sell them even more. Keep it up.

[Istmin52]

Thanks MrFrenik. I'm in the process of doing that.

I did some 30 minute paintings and some 30 sec gesture drawings from posemaniacs. In the process of starting a new illustration. I'll be putting thumbnails of that up soon.

[Zen-Fehr]

Hey!
Just wanted to stop in and say thanks for the comment. I'm pretty awful at crit myself, but you've got some pretty cool stuff in here. It'd be nice to see a little more work involving composition (there's some here and there, but from what I saw most of it is in studies?). Your figures are absolutely getting better. They still seem kind of stylized, but the studies are looking nice-- I liked how the colors were coming out in post 397. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to tell you that skeletal structure exercise on spiderman looks pretty boss. ;l

[Istmin52]

Thanks for commenting Zen-Fehr.

I decided to do some figure gestures from imagination today. It was a lot tougher than I thought. I have a vague idea of a pose I want to draw sometimes but it's so vague that I can't see it clearly. It can takes me a while until I can finally draw the pose correctly. If anyone has any advice on how to improve this, please let me know. Unless it's just something I need to keep doing until it gets easier. I find it difficult thinking of forms in 3-dimensions. This is something I notice is a weakness of mine. I don't always know how something will look from a different point of view and it takes a lot of trial and error until it looks right.

[Istmin52]

Did some figure drawings from observation this morning.

[Istmin52]

I haven't been posting in a while because my laptop has been having problems. Last weekend I found out my hard drive was dying so now I need it replaced. Hopefully, it'll get fixed before the end of the week. I've been doing some digital drawing while I'm at work on my free time. I've also been doing lots of drawing in my sketchbook but you'll probably never see it because it's too much to scan and would waste more time I could be drawing.

Here's a work in progress of something I might want to use as my twitter header.

[Istmin52]

At last, my laptop is finally fixed. I'm so glad I don't have to buy a new computer. I don't think I could afford it.

These are just some doodles I've been doing ever since I got my laptop back.

[JoeS]

Hey, cheers for dropping by. I see you do a lot of painting from life which is good, but try to be more deliberate in your strokes, right now it seems like you're making very timid strokes with a small brush. Try switching the 'other dynamics' settings off and paint that way by blocking in the colour and value opaquely. Its very hard not having the opacity settings to blend with, but its a great exercise and looking at your paintings I feel you can benefit a lot from it. Keep drawing

[Istmin52]

Thanks for the tip JoeS. I'll have to try that.

I decided to work on a twitter header and this what I have so far. I didn't realize it was going to be so time consuming to do but it's getting there.

[Istmin52]

I did some drawing on my way home last night on the train. I wish there were more people to draw but I ended up drawing some of the interior and I tried doing a self portrait through the reflection of the window.

[Istmin52]

Here's something I've been working on for fun. I will finish this soon I hope.

[Istmin52]

I've been doing some still life paintings lately. Going back to basics by studying basic shapes. I've been doing still life paintings different recently. I'm really beginning to understand why objects look the way they do in certain lighting situations. I've been learning a lot by doing them. More to come soon.

[Istmin52]

I know it's a little late but I decided to do an illustration for valentines day. Doing this started out as just sketching but it was a lot more time consuming than I thought. At one point I completely redrew everything I worked on yesterday because I wasn't satisfied with the poses they were in. I did some quick gestures the second time around which I should have done the first time.

I'm about ready to paint this but drawing this was such a bitch. Especially drawing roses. They are not fun to draw and tedious as hell.

[Istmin52]

Here is a work in progress of the painting. I'm curious to know your thoughts.

[Joe777k7]

Even Dino's have Valentines day hahaha Thanks alot for stopping by my sketchbook. Keep the updates coming! Looking good

[Lyraina]

Oh, that valentine dinosaurs are cute! Maybe a slightly more contrasting color for the background would have helped to distinguish the red one better, but it is lovely nontheless!

The still lifes look great, keep doing them - they are definitely a valuable practice.

Keep it up!

[Istmin52]

Thanks guys for the comments! I def need to keep working the background.

Here is some more progress. I've been really conscious about my edges because in the past, they've been too blurry everywhere. Almost finished with this one. I want to add the texture to the dinosaurs also.

[Istmin52]

I think this is finished. I might make some final adjustments tomorrow but I've been working on this too long in my opinion. I've had other obligations too which took some time away and really had to force myself to finish. Otherwise it would never get done. I'm curious to know anyone's thoughts and opinions on it.

For my next illustration, I'm definitely going to include more of an environment. I think subconsciously I keep avoiding it but it's something I need to face.

[Lyraina]

It came out very nice, I like it! The flowers are cute, the tiny bit of green adds a bit of color variation/contrast, which is a good thing. Maybe you could have indicated the left arm of the violet dinosaur, would give her a bit more additional depth.
Good idea to include an environment in your next painting, that's another great skill to practice!
Keep going

[Joe777k7]

Woo!! Keep going!!! Looking good the Dino's are

[Istmin52]

Thanks Joe777k7 and Lyraina for the comments.

To be honest, I've been busy redoing my web design portfolio so that has been taking up my time. It's going slower than I thought but I need to redesign some of my older work because I don't feel that it's strong enough.

I took your suggestion Lyraina and added the other arms to the dinosaurs. It does look better now.

I also started this sketch last night. My mom was watching fashion star and I got inspired by what the designers were doing. I was trying some things out to see where the outfit goes. Still working on this one. I've also been doing some thumbnails for another illustration that will have more of a background to it. I'll post those when they are ready.

[Istmin52]

I know I haven't posted in a while but I have been keeping busy. New illustrations are emerging and I've been thumb-nailing a lot more and coming up with illustration ideas. In the meantime, this is the front of a mother's day card I made for my mom.