Help Me Get Better

[vatteh]

Hey all!

I've been peeping around this site for about 6 months now and I think I've finally gotten the courage to post my sketches. Right now I'm a student studying Computer Science and drawing has kind of become a way to spend some free time. Maybe if I'm lucky this can become more than just a hobby.

I expect to do mainly studies from books like Loomis and Hogarth. Also some master copies now and then.

[vatteh]

I just decided to add to this thread some master copies I did back in January. I'm already starting to cringe looking at these so I appended the original for better critiques. The first one was Portrait de Gabrielle by Bouguereau. The second is Pavonia by Leighton.

I also added some more portraits done from photos found online. If you guys want I can append originals to these too.

[vatteh]

For today I got 2 portraits I did from reference and 2 mostly from memory. The first two I got from Deviant Art with their links here (Durarara Orihara Izaya and New Old).

The next one was mostly from memory with a few pics from a Google search of "baseball swings" and the last one was completely done from memory. I know I need help, especially on the last one so critiques would be awesome.

[vatteh]

I got a few still life and portraits I did the other day. The first one was referenced from a Deviant Art again, the next two were from observation, and the last one was from memory.

[vatteh]

Here I got a portrait from a reference and one from memory. I know on the first one I started to zoom in too early, making me lose sight of the picture at a whole. This is one of my bad habits and I'm paying much more attention to it now. Critiques are welcome.

[vatteh]

I tried a photo study and a master copy the other day. Here's the link to the original photo. Here I tried to pick my own color palette instead of just using the eye dropper. Tell me what you guys think.

[Magic Man]

Ah, of the same ilk, I'm a CS and business school graduate as well, managed to become a concept artist though so all good =)

From your art, looks like your well on your way, pop over to my SB some time, it's in my sig.

Main things I notice are that your colours are quite good, your tonal work needs a bit of extra study, and your proportion is quite decent as well. Do you have a structured plan of what you want to improve on?

Cheers, Darren

[vatteh]

Magic Man
Wow, that's pretty awesome. How were you able to make it into the field of concept art after graduating? I have to admit, that would be pretty ideal if I can make the same path, but there's no way I'm switching majors now, I'm too far in (only two semesters left).

I've mainly been focusing on portraits and figure drawing, but I'm starting to move on to my own illustrations. Thanks for my first reply to this sketchbook, Ill make sure to return the favor and take a look at yours.

[vatteh]

Again I just got some photo refs. I'm now noticing that I spend too much time on this area and I've now decided to start aiming for more sketches mainly from imagination. I think I've held off this topic due to fear of me just having a lack of creativity, but I got to start somewhere.

But for now, three from photo reference 1,2 and 4 hours respectively. I really pushed it on the last one and did it only in black and white to focus on tonal values. Tell me what you guys think.

[spark_zero]

There were few things in porportions that caught my eye:

In post nr. 5 one eye seems to be a little too small - but maybe the person is like that, though i doubt that the difference between the eyes is that big irl.. In the post 9 the second girl, her chin looks a little messed up, and lips little too small ( i mean the mouth should be a little bigger overal) also the nose seems to be a little too big. (but it might seem that way because of the small mouth.. maybe it's really fine) .. anyways, check those things from your references. Try to do some studies about the ear also, in some paintings the ear seems to be a little too unconfident - though i know the focus in portrait drawing isn't really on the ear..

Otherwise, those things are looking great. If you have a chance, try to draw/paint faces from life (it's usually more helpful than from a flat photo).. maybe you could torture your family members, or take a class where you could draw some (i should follow those suggestions myself lol) .. and if you get bored from drawing normal portraits, find a really retarded reference.. with a silly face or something, that should bring more fun into the game, if you'll get bored in the future.

Keep posting!

[vatteh]

spark zero

I have to say I agree with all that you've pointed to, especially on post 9 with the lips being too small. Maybe I should move up and start drawing from life; it seems about time.

[vatteh]

I know I promised to do more stuff from imagination, in fact for a few hours yesterday I did do some figure drawing. But the challenge was a little more than I expected and I couldn't come up with anything worth critiquing.

But today I spent about 4.5 hours on a photo study and decided to share this instead hoping to find more mistakes.

[Zorcron]

i'd love to see more loose compositional work as well as some just coffee shop,bus, park sketches observing the world around you, looks like you have got a pretty organized way of going
about your portraits. lets break that up with some new mediums and challenges, you learn best when outside your comfort zone

keep up the hard work, looking forward to more soon !

[vatteh]

That's a good idea Zorcron. In fact I got a few digital sketches that I can post but I figured they weren't polished enough to show on here. Ill make sure to put those up too.

[vatteh]

So I promised to start adding some variety and to do that, I got a still life and some loose sketches. The still life turned out mediocre for only 2 hrs of work and the first five sketches of the woman wrapped in cloth were from photo reference. The last few are just random sketches from memory. I figured there wasn't much to critique here, which is why I didn't feel like posting these in the first place. But maybe posting these will be worth while, or in least doing this type of work much more often in my free time.

[vatteh]

So I promised to start adding some variety and to do that, I got a still life and some loose sketches. The still life turned out mediocre for only 2 hrs of work and the first five sketches of the woman wrapped in cloth were from photo reference. The last few are just random sketches from memory. I figured there wasn't much to critique here, which is why I didn't feel like posting these in the first place. But maybe posting these will be worth while, or in least doing this type of work much more often in my free time.

Here is the one from memory

[vatteh]

Here's the Still Life

[vatteh]

And here are the sketches from photo reference. I've been trying to put all of these in one post but the attach manager was acting up.

[vatteh]

I wanted to try something a little out of my comfort zone so I tried to draw a harrier jet using as much photos from a google search I can get. Just getting the correct geometry took me like a day, and today I did most of the painting. Looking at this I can easily see I have a long way to go, since like 95% of the time when I draw, its mostly just heads from a photo reference like you see here. But this was a good exercise and a good start for me to start to switch it up a bit.

[vatteh]

I just got some sketches I did during the past few days. Nothing special. Mostly from reference at characterdesigns.com.

[vatteh]

I wanted to try something different so I explored Anime a little came up with a drawing of Motoko, one of my favorite characters of all time. Overall this took about 2 hrs with the line art taking most of my time. Referenced from google pics.

[cgaddict]

You're off to a great start! I really like your paintings, especially how you handle your values and the generally clean style of them. Keep it up and keep pushing yourself!

[vatteh]

For the past few days I've been exploring dynamic figures and been trying to find a constructive procedure to come around the male and female body. Well, I still need more work but I'm getting there. I also did a master copy of a Sargent piece.

[vatteh]

cgaddict - Thanks for stopping by.

And here's the Master copy.

[Louise Louisa]

Your values are pretty good but I think you could use more colors, especially on the skin. I don't mean that you should use some neon colors or anything, but just have more variety in them so that your portraits will look less cartoony. Let's take that Sargent picture. There are lots of reddish orange and warm yellow, in general several shades of color from greenish yellow to pink on her face, The skin on her neck has a slight touch of light green/yellow, but also a fleshy tone near the shadow. Skin in reality is very multicolored, you can really go wild with them (to some extent ). Life studies are good for learning skin (life studies are good in general, hehe) so maybe you could try painting yourself. At least that's the model you always have around .

Oh, and - it would be good training if you'd list everything you're bad at drawing and do all of it. I've at least learned a lot by doing it! And this is an exercise that can never really be finished, as no one is perfect. Everyone has their weak points. Also, whenever you have the chance, choose drawing from life over using a photo as reference. Cameras tend to mess up the colors a bit.

[Chr. Steam]

Well! Draw more and more, dont stop! =)

[vatteh]

Louise Louisa - Thanks for the advice. Now that I look at the piece, I do see those colors you're talking about. Thanks again, I'll make sure to keep this in mind. I also know I gotta start drawing from life, I always forget to try that.

Chr. Steam - Thanks for stopping by.

Yeah so for this week I did a few photo studies and some stuff mostly from memory. The first two are the photo studies and I got the links here (Taming the Wild 24 and The Sound of Blooming). The rest are just thumbnail studies and proportion practice. I know I got a lot of work ahead of me so any pointers would be very appreciated.

[Strela]

Since you are spending so much time on these paintings you might want to put in more effort at the very beginning in constructing the anatomy. But the more recent ones are looking better and better.

You're starting from a place superior to the starting place of a lot of people who are incredible now. If you want some inspiration look at the work of Mindcandyman on here. And keep at it.

[Twan]

very good work, keep draw more and more and you'll rock in no time

[MacTire]

Nice work vatteh!
I am right in assuming (based on one of your posts) that you use the eydropper to select colours? If so, I would strongly advise against it as I can only imagine that it would let you get lazy when it comes to selecting colours. That being said I think you have indeed tried not using it and I can only suggest that you keep going without it.
Reagrding the work itself, you have some nice portraits here. There is some asymmetry here and there that you need to look out for in future. Take a look at some anatomy books (readily available online) for facial proportion and structure, Loomis' "Drawing the Head and the Hands" is very good. I would also recommend looking at the facial section in Kevin Chen's blog here: http://analyticalfiguresp08.blogspot.com/

Keep up the practice and you'll see results in no time!!