Jacks' work- before and through final year of uni!

[Jessibelle]

those animations are awesome! so adorable

your figures have a pretty gorgeous flow and sense of gesture (: they lack structure and believablity though - although im sure the structure of man course will help with that in the meantime, it'll help to look at loomis skeletons and villpu's method for combining structure and gesture, if you havent already. also, watch your pencil lines, they're looking a little messy.

i can see you're working hard, which is by far the biggest requirement - i can't wait to see how far it's gonna take you

[MightyApplejacks]

Uploading now or never!! 0____0

I'll do it in bits so that I won't put it off completely. Newer stuff first, the skeleton part of the Structure of Man course:










From the initial few lessons:






Oh erk, sorry about the hugeness on those first bunch of pics.. I kept using the default when fiddling in Muro. I'll try to trim that down in future D:

Then the rest of the boring stuff lol (stuff I did last month but kept forgetting to upload-

*Still safety saving for the moment, will upload the rest in a minute!











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[MightyApplejacks]

Huh... It won't let me show those other attachments D: I'm using the correct code and everything!

Let me do it again lol:

[MightyApplejacks]

Must, must update more. I'm clearing out photos on a day/two-daily basis, so this might get me off my butt when it comes to uploading.
I forgot to upload some older stuff, so here it is D8 Studies from Riven Phoenix and attempts to apply it to gesture.





Since I've had a bit of a gap between lessons, I repeated the lessons to get myself up to scratch, on good old pencil and paper. Now I'll resolve to work on abandoning those old formulas and memorise this thing for this next update .3.



Edit: One more for the night:

[Me,Myself & Me again]

Dont give up! Your definatly getting better.

From a freindly fellow Devoner

[MightyApplejacks]

Dont give up! Your definatly getting better.

From a freindly fellow Devoner

Thank you very much! I won't, don't worry about that

Devon.. Plymouth? You by any chance attending Plymouth uni? I'm going there in a couple of months. Can't wait!

Will update soon enough! Just need to keep in check with the lessons. Recently been tidying my harddrive and flat, I believe it'll do me and my work ethic worlds of good...

[MightyApplejacks]

So I've roughly come to the end of the skull lessons (should have got here sooner, but oh well! I'll learn, I really will).
Unfortunately I seem to be messing up when translating it to the 'bigger toolkit', so that'll need some work in the future.

Here we go with the sketches and stuff:






Other things I did (fun etc):








Next update: smooth out the toolkit work from all angles- neater on bigger paper- plus the main body toolkit. Also update next Sunday, damnit! With a lot more stuff than I've got here.
Do more Pixellovely studies but by drawing the toolkit on top, including the skull, with close observation.
If I remember to do these things, I could probably pat myself on the back a little bit... <_<

Until next time!

[glaudarien]

Lookin ggood, your definitly improving. But keep an eye on those lines - i find it useful to ghost the lines first a few times before actually drawing on the page, so that you're more confident at where you are placing your stroke, instead of lots of little sketchy lines. You did good on that dinosaur though, just gotta keep it up

You keep meantioning 'toolkit' i assume you mean the skeleton / guides?
I used pixelovely too, it's a great little tool, what speed are you using? Perhaps moving up to about 5 mins per pose and then slowly moving downwards would be better for you - since then yo uwill have ,more time to obvserve the shape of the pose more accurately instead of trying to rush the full pose into a 30-60 second timeslot which unless you understand the form very well can mean that your not really taking much in.

Thats what i think anyway, goodluck

[MightyApplejacks]

Nice to hear from you again! You think the dinosaur 'smoothing' approach was better? I tended to do a lot of 'connecting lines' sometimes, but now I tend to 'emphasise lines' way too effin' much by going over them TT^TT Maybe the former was less messy now that you mention it. (I think I'd been praised on my 'bold lines' a fair bit in college D8 Old habits die hard, lawl)

Ah, the pixellovely thing's been grating on me for a while since I keep finding the least efficient ways to use it- starting fast and then easing in to longer poses. It's the way that my life drawing tutor taught us in uni.. the other way around sounds a lot more productive! (Boy do I feel silly xD; )

Yeah, the toolkit is the skeleton guide or rather the skeleton-building guide (except now I don't have to keep referencing a Loomis one).
I'll use the five minutes one from now on, it seems to work better for me than the quicker ones.

Thank you very much for the feedback! By ghosting the lines, do you mean drawing them rough and rubbing them out gently so they're very soft?

[glaudarien]

Thanks, you too! Starting to find the time to come back to CA more now

When you first start out, bolder sketchier lines can appear much better becuase they look quite dynamic, but the problem is that they can easily look very messy and unproffessional - unless done very well, and of course depending on the context. If you draw with smoother, more fluent lines it gives your drawing more of a professional look as you will appear to be more confident with your drawing abilities rather than just scribbling loads of lines until you get something that works. It also allows you to focus fully on what you are trying to represent because you only have 1 or two lines to communicate it. If you want to re-introduce the 'boldness' into these drawings you can alter line weight, for example making shadowed areas or heavier areas have thicker lines, so that the line of the drawing isn't the exact same thickness at all times - look at some comic book line art and you should understand what i mean by this.

Hmm well in terms of a workflow it would make more sence to start off with a couple of gesture drawings to get the pose and the energy of the pose before moving onto the more detailed final image. However when your practicing, i find that its easier to draw the gesture when you actually understand the forms so starting off with the longer studies first can give you that understanding, otherwise you end up with odd scribbles - that are gestures but don't help you understand much about the pose / figure. - But of course this all depends on the person drawing, find out what works best for you and do that When doing the 5 min studies it can be helpful to do a very quick and rough gesture first and then build it up, so that you are able to visualise the full pose before adding details etc. also this way you get the best of both worlds.

You're welcome urm, no what i mean by Ghosting is hovering your pencil above the paper (not touching) and mimic the line that you would draw, without actually making any marks, so that when you are more confident that this line is what you want you can touch the paper and make the mark of the line - it can just help your hand to loosen up and make you more confident with the line before committing to it.

BTW did you say you are comming to Plymouth uni? I'm currently studying at the college of art there,

[MightyApplejacks]

Me too! I really need to get back here more, because my output is a lot better when I do regularly...
That's two people from here who're in Plymouth in some way or other. Got to meet up or something, heh.

Anyway I did a few more things today:



Hope that's starting to work out a little bit! I've had a few stray ones, but hopefully I can keep that under control this next week. Looking at trying to upload daily now...
Sorry about the camera quality being a bit fuzzy, darnit I thought it was better than this!

Thanks for the tips dude! I'll keep them in mind for future reference

[glaudarien]

We'are actually doing a sketchgroup type thing each week during term time, so you're welcome to join us once your down in september

[MightyApplejacks]

We'are actually doing a sketchgroup type thing each week during term time, so you're welcome to join us once your down in september

Neat, I'm in That sounds great!

I saw that they did one here too, but I don't know about the details of it for recent.. it was an age old thread D8

[glaudarien]

Awesome, it's just a casual get together with some sketching involved, since theres not much of a focus for it on our course... i'll let you know when we are doing out next meetup.. how would be best to contact you?

[MightyApplejacks]

Awesome, it's just a casual get together with some sketching involved, since theres not much of a focus for it on our course... i'll let you know when we are doing out next meetup.. how would be best to contact you?

Skype/MSNMessengers' probably best- do you have either of those? I'll PM you my handles

[MightyApplejacks]

A mix of sketches at a cafe (plus a somewhat perfunctory attempt at blind contour... ahem), and Pixellovely 5min gestures. Late start this morning and been out a lot, but still the night is young 8D; (need some computer downtime so uploading now. May add to this before bed).





Resolution is up to max on the camera, and I'm manually resizing to 500px width. Hopefully that'll solve the fuzziness issue ;;

Last ones!




Read a little more into blind contour, it seems to have it's benefits especially as a warm up, so that should be great for a routine. Should start the day with those. Later!

[MightyApplejacks]

</jasongriffith>

Ahem, since I neglected to yesterday I upped the ante on the SoM lessons- six (edit: seven) in all. Plus a chair with a weaved pattern on it while I was out (which I smudged... argh! TT^TT), and a majorly-failed attempt at blind-contouring a fan. Yeahhh, just no XD

[MightyApplejacks]

This morning's and early afternoon's work (four lessons), plus a little late afternoon sketching while outdoors from imagination. I was a lot rougher there because I was just slapping it down xD;; Hope it's not a total mess.




May do a later night one but I'm doing some of my animation for a collab tonight ^^; so I tried to get some good work down early.

[n1frit]

Hi there! I see u do a lot of studies! Thats Great because it the right way to masters skills! So keep it up dont stop! As advise u can look at Vilppu materials and search in this site "Book of bones" u may use google for it. Cheers!

[Mars.]

You seem to be flying through TSoM so far. Keep it up, for me I got that initial burst and sorta slowed down. How do you feel about the skull now? For me I think this is one of his best taugh area, which is of course why he showcases it, but the rest will work out pretty well with practice.

Also maybe it's just me, but those whole block things were kinda bleh, I guess it teaches you how they are shaped when angled, but I'd rather just say, "hey if I eyeball this it should end up here and this should end up here, lets just fill in the rest now".


Also I replied to your post in my scetchbook, I don't want to sound like I'm putting everything off because honestly there has only been one peice of advice I am rejecting which was the one you replied to. My reply may have sounded negative because I took like 5 minutes typing it out and I don't often proofread my posts, so yeah, I wasn't trying to offend you or tell you that you were wrong.

[MightyApplejacks]

Thanks!

You seem to be flying through TSoM so far. Keep it up, for me I got that initial burst and sorta slowed down. How do you feel about the skull now? For me I think this is one of his best taugh area, which is of course why he showcases it, but the rest will work out pretty well with practice.

It's mostly down-pat! The only thing I have trouble with remembering is making the skull 'fall' at the bottom from the side view (difficult to explain. Sometimes he puts a line down a bit when he makes the circle/ball, or was it pulling the line up? arghcantremember. At one point I got the bottom line of the front view, with the jaw line of the side, seriously screwed up when I attempted an angle xD; (see if you can find it... *shudder*)

Also maybe it's just me, but those whole block things were kinda bleh

Ah, that. To be honest I think it's good that he forces you to do a little '3D construction'. It's something that a lot of people seem to dread, at least those who aren't very particular about their lines and need to be (namely me!)- it's there to let you know drawing is a construction too.

Don't let it get to you though- it'll become second nature if you do a bunch of blocks and attempt different views, it's just a more complicated formula than some of his other ones and might take a bit longer to grasp.
Right now, I'm not certain of how the scapula moves, so we might have to hold on and see how he addresses that.

My reply may have sounded negative because I took like 5 minutes typing it out and I don't often proofread my posts, so yeah, I wasn't trying to offend you or tell you that you were wrong.

That's okay, it's hard to get cues on the Internet sometimes ^^; I think I messed up with how my post was directed too, because my audience changed partway without cue, urk. Sorry for the misunderstanding D:

-------------------

Today's (well, yesterday's) stuff. Two from imagination, a bunch from SoM with a bit of a 'roughie' in between.
yup, I suck at necks right now!





Later!

[MightyApplejacks]

Here's the next batch!







Whew. Those ribcages and spines are damn tricky. 'Sectioning' them is not my strong point. I'll get the hang of them yet xD;

Might do a memory test tomorrow, plus maybe a few lessons. Got a Flash to work on then anyhow ^^; Later!

[MightyApplejacks]

So this was just today's roughs. Damn, I still have some trouble with getting it just right. I could have sworn I had thirteen bones on the chest there (how.. I'm not sure, I even sectioned the spine exactly as he said- eleven times!). Plus not quite got the pelvis quiiite to memory just yet.

I'll review any weak points (chest, pelvis, scapula) before I continue the lessons. xD; ahem

[Marlo]

lots of improvement i see! i really like the blind contour one

[Mars.]

The side view is a little off, the chest cavity is supposed to go out to the nose. Also Riven's example for drawing the front view he makes a mistake and only draws 11 ribs on each side. Be careful of that. The side view and back view were easy because all you had to do was draw out from the spine, however for the front view I found it easier to remember it by looking at the sternum as sorta a spine. The sternum is drawn in 3 seperate pieces, there are two ribs touching the first, one on the very bottom edge of the second, and none touching the third (the point) (easy to remember 4 numbers, 1,2,3 and 4). Then Once you have that down there are three ribs in between the ribs you have drawn, and 4 below them, not including the two hanging ribs.

It might help just to draw a sternum, and attach the ribs. Don't worry about proportions, just draw the general shape, and then lines for the ribs. If you look at my SB you can see how I did this.

Hope this helps.

[MightyApplejacks]

Ah. I'll research the rib thing a bit more to see how it is on paper, it's a little confusing in words Dx I got the impression there were supposed to be seven connected ribs to the sternum..
(Oh wait nevermind, I see your drawing on it. It is six, though in the anatomy book there's the sixth and seventh one which is attached on an extreme angle..)

Thanks for the reminder about the chest cavity I keep screwing that up. It's obvious now, I need to remember to draw the nose lol.

[Rhubix]

I'm always excited to find more animators and cartoonists on CA!
My best advice to you would be to relax your hand when your drawing. It really helped me when someone beat that concept into me.
Currently your lines are quite dark and your work can get muddy really quickly. Also when you draw a little looser you'll see more personality in your work- you can choose when to make your lines stronger for emphasis.
In this image there's a great play of beautiful line weight (wish my roughs looked that good >.<)
Meg from Hercules
Another really useful device is using blue or red pencil and going over it in black
Like this A blue pencil is the animator's best friend!
In the mean time - if your focus is on becoming an animator or cartoonist, remember it's not super important to spend time rendering each individual rib. Think simply at first. once you have a sold control of the basic form of the ribcage and pelvis you can work on refining that form.

One of my favorite artists to reference is Glen Kean- he's the master of cartoons that are grounded in realistic anatomy. His Tarzan stuff is insane

Hope this stuff is helpful- Happy sketching

[Mars.]

Ah. I'll research the rib thing a bit more to see how it is on paper, it's a little confusing in words Dx I got the impression there were supposed to be seven connected ribs to the sternum..
(Oh wait nevermind, I see your drawing on it. It is six, though in the anatomy book there's the sixth and seventh one which is attached on an extreme angle..)

Thanks for the reminder about the chest cavity I keep screwing that up. It's obvious now, I need to remember to draw the nose lol.

Yeah that seventh rib is kinda tricky. Although it attaches to the sternum, it's hard to think of it that way because of, like you said, the extreme angle. Also after the 6th it creates that little branch that the bottom 5 non hanging ribs are attached too.

Also thanks for the corrections.

[MightyApplejacks]

Rhubix: Thank you very much! It's great to hear the perspective of another animator I appreciate it so much!
Also no prob Mars

I think I have colour pencils, but not sure. Wonder if I can get blues separately lol

Right. I slacked a bit, so I'm picking up the pace again. (At least the slacking wasn't for longer than a week this time D8). I may show bits of the animation project I'm involved in later.

These are mostly stuff from imagination - such as that nude and the skeles- and designs/design processes. Also an attempt at making some sort of 'silhouette logo', but just a rough outline really, for a collaboration I'm running at the moment.




The two characters- the seal and the seamine- are characters in one of the story chains in this collab (a Pass-the-flash type deal). It's turned into a rather sad story so far (also those chains on the seamine look -awful-, I apologise..)
The other seal is just me trying to make a 'sleeker' design, and with the fins being more like feet.
The alien with the scarf is a character from a collab I was in a while ago- http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/541401.

Oh, here's something I drew two years ago (which I was proud of back then). Lol, the lines are abysmal xD

What say you I redraw it?

[MightyApplejacks]

So I got myself a bunch of colour pencils in a pack- making good use of the blue/light colours. Hopefully that'll make the ol' lines a bit easier to wrap my head around :B

Cleaned up an anatomy drawing from the other day, drew another skeleton figure from scratch, and did a bunch of stuff for fun.







Yikes, my poses are getting boring. Gesture time again tomorrow! Then I'll mix in the imagination and anatomy.. not necessarily in that order.
Gesture with blue pencil is going to make things a lot.. easier/less messy? <.<;;