AnthonyV's sketchbook

[Black Spot]

Very good still life, even if some of the objects are slightly off. They look solid and real. This is what you need to do to your heads and bodies more - see them as objects instead of people.

[AnthonyV]

Life still... I rage quit every time I touch charcoal. I got to go outside for a breath of fresh air.... I'm probably being childish, but next time I'll try digitally painting a still life, because digital is the medium I like to do tonal art in.

Also doodles to get me thinking about the non-technical side of illustration.
Creativity fail

[Asatira]

Your still life is very good. Again, a pretty good job with rendering forms. I'm going to guess the apple is incomplete, so won't comment about the sharp cut-off of the shadow. Still got to work on the circles, tend to point your ends a bit.

I think the creative pieces are fine for sketches, but they do strike me as flat. If I recall correctly, you've said once that flat-look was your "style", it still has to look like things are interacting and curving. Maybe, if you choose to come back to some of them for a more finished version, you'll work on a few things. First, work on decreasing the choppy lines, or at least make the short strokes smooth into each other better. A smooth line helps improve the quality of a piece more than anything; gives an impression of confidence (which may be one of the reasons people like inked pieces so much). Second, just kinda work on form, or sense of overlap. Even in a flat piece, you can get the feeling of overlap and roundness.

[AnthonyV]

@To ummmm... a little bit of everyone
Thanks for your help! Your comments always float in the back of my head.

I didn't say the flat-look was my style, I said I intentionally drew the figures narrow.

I know I draw flat sketches, but I can't stop until I get better at drawing.

The last sketches were studies done for the creative and narrative aspects of illustration. The point was to step away from the technical details (anatomy, form, line quality) and focus on the ideas.

hungry~~~~ I'll try to make better illustrations today....

[KT]

So by narrative, I'm assuming you mean composition too? I only know a bit about composition though. I do like the sketches, I think I'm getting the narrative in a few of them.

[Asatira]

Ah, my mistake. I mis-remembered and I apologize. Forget it. And my early stuff was pretty flat, too. I think everyone starts out drawing flat stuff.

[AnthonyV]

@KT I wasn't thinking about composition, but I do need to work on that too (alongside other things lol)

More doodles without reference, I'm drawing blanks (no pun intended)....
I think its time to learn to draw more things that I like (aside from teenage girl anatomy >.>)

...or not...... idk what to do =.= maybe I should just focus on anatomy since there's a bajillion books on it uuuugggggghhhhh zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.zzz....zz..tired

the second to last drawing is a beach scene, except the water is air that lets you fly

[Reutte]

Doodles are always fun. And it's worth having fun sometimes too, otherwise art just gets boring. XD The tone you have in your lamp up there is beautiful, especially on the clip attached to the desk.

[Asatira]

Doodling can be helpful, it keeps the creativity flowing. If you're drawing blanks, then try drawing something else. Yes, study anatomy, but also look into other things. Consider problem areas outside of anatomy. Problems drawing clothing? Do some drapery studies and draw clothed people, preferably live but photos are fine. Having a problem coming up with clothing, look at fashion history and movies. Want to learn how to draw a vehicle? You get where I'm going. Refill your creativity well with new input.

[KT]

Maybe you should think of what you really want to improve like basic shape or line control. I tend to go at everything and loose focus sometimes, but at least your sketches are of subject matter that you are interested in.

[AnthonyV]

Self Portrait

[Asatira]

[KT]

Good self portrait. It looks like your rendering has improved since your last one.

[AnthonyV]

@PPL Thank You

Here's another self-portrait

I never intend on adding tone for self portaits, as I think learning construction first is more important at my level. But it's hard to draw the inside of my outlines without tone.... I figured I'd add tone at the last second, but didn't realize how much of a time commitment it needed. So I rushed it this time (and didn't finish the hair, ears, and glasses :C ) but zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz good night zzzzzzzzzzz

[KT]

Another nice one. The glasses look a bit off but that may be the way your wearing them. It's good that your trying to focus on construction in the beginning, I wish that I did that more often.

[AnthonyV]

I wish I could post more than this but work + studying = zzzzzz
So here's a Yoshitaka Amano mastercocpy.
P.S. He's my favorite

[Black Spot]

Now take what you applied to your SP and do the same to the above picture. When you've learnt form, you'll know what to leave out as it isn't important like Yoshitaka Amano.

[AnthonyV]

Welp I dilly dallied my day away
I'm not sure what to draw tomorrow. I think its time to watch one of my portrait dvds :/ idk

Master-Doodle-Copy-Study-Thing with ink

[AnthonyV]

Junk
Still Life, head doodles, Geister mastercopy-ish

[Asatira]

Still life is pretty good. You've got rim lighting and it looks like you have the details of the spoon/stick-thing down very well. Only weaknesses I want to point out are the sides (but the original could be handmade, so probably don't have straight sides) and the eraser marks in the inside shadow. Were you doing reflected light in that shadow? If so, not bad; those can be really tricky to capture.

I think your heads from imagination are getting more solid. For some reason, I like the boy in the middle-bottom.

[KT]

Yeah, I think the reflected light is captured well and your lines are improving. Your construction also looks more improved on your sketches, though it could be applied more in your master studies that your doing.

[AnthonyV]

Life Drawings

[Asatira]

Looks pretty good. You're working on the overall form right now, and your lines are more focused. You have the general lines, very planar, but for the time you have that's a very good start; but most important in my mind is they are more confident and focused. I also like how you applied the poses to something from imagination.

[AnthonyV]

Mastercopy from another favorite
:C This is the best digital record I can make of it because I don't have a scanner sorry

[KT]

If your having trouble doing close up shots with your camera, check to see if you have a macro photography setting on it, it might help. The study looks good though the head may be a bit off.

[AnthonyV]

More mastercopies-ish

[KT]

Good stuff. Just keep working on general shape and alignment of features on the face.

[Asatira]

Nice stuff. I would suggest, if you're looking to learn from manga artists, try doing full figures or more of the figure. See how they're using body language and conveying action. Faces: conveying emotion, not just pretty faces.

[Reutte]

I swear I've seen that girl from your mastercopy but I can't put my finger on it. I want to say Panties and Stockings but... Anyways, I like all your life drawings and it's good to see that you're doing different poses of the animals/people. The range of tone you had in the cup is beautiful. I've noticed that with your drawing of mastercopies is that your lines are smoother as opposed to your life drawings which are a bit choppy. You could always consider working with ellipses to try and help smooth them out but not loose the motion of the pose.

And when it comes to anime/manga expression, I've always been blown away by the crazy expressions of One Piece. I don't know if you read it but Oda does some incredible stuff.

[AnthonyV]

I've been lazy about scanning =.= but here's the best two
Thanks everyone
@KT will do

@Asatira Yep, you're right. I'm planning on slowly ease into emotive heads (after I have the proportions down), so I did 2 open-mouth ones.
I'm on the fence about studying bodies right now because I'm rarely able to draw the figure from life right now.

@Reutte
Thanks, I like illustrators more than animators so I used Ishikei faces faaaaaaavorite
My mastercopies take about 3 hours and my life drawings take from 1-20 minutes. And when I'm life drawing I'm usually holding a cramped-small pad with my fingers, squatting insects (zoo), swiveling around little kids (zoo) and other peoples heads (figure drawing).