Lach's Black dog

[lach-land]

Thought I'd start a sketchbook- well its only been 4 years or something since I signed up here


.
Time for the great leap forward,

I often wonder what might have happened if I had gone to art school.
Never mind...
in nature beautiful and strange things evolve in isolation...
got the strange
just need the beautiful.

[lach-land]

I'll start with drawings from Aussiecon4, which I did sitting at my table
a2 pencils from aussiecon

[lach-land]

I love my pencil

[lach-land]

Fun with ugly

[badass]

awesome stuff.

try to post smaller images though.


very nice pencil sketches!

[lach-land]

Thanks badass

yes they're a bit big-
I sort of save out versions on my hdd and forget how big they are....
until i see them posted-

cheers

added a smaller image of an attack robot and 2 self propelled guns.
The idea with the self propelled gun is that-in computer games they(player character) always have these gigantic weapons
how to carry and wield them feasibly?
Answer give the gun its own propulsion to support it- the operator "drives" the gun.
So at right theres a operators pod attached to the gun, and bottom is an infantry one

[lach-land]

couple of older blue pencils.

[Windmaker]

Pretty cool! Love the storytelling in your images! Really nice work!
Only thing I can critique is that your poses are a bit stiff looking at times. But that's nothing some gesture drawing can't fix.
Looking forward to more updates!

[lach-land]

my post chow event idea for night

Thanks windmaker

Hmmm I guess in this selection there's a few stiff poses

- stiff poses isn't usually a problem,

usually if I'm just thinking about the design they tend to be in a kinda modeling pose-
like this night one,

but if I do any drawing I'll keep your comment in mind

[lach-land]

Tonight,
15 and 40 mins
might go further on the griffon idea one

[Mikko Voipio]

Such an awesome sketchbook you've got here. I really like the monster designs and how you pose them. That is something that I'm really struggling with. This page is my favorite so far. Will have to keep my eye on you in the future.

[A_Knight's_Art]

Awesome sketchbook, and you've got a wide range of neat drawings. I'll keep an eye or two on you Really inspiring!

[lach-land]

thanks placeboast and mikko,
looks like you guys are progressing quickly.

I ought to do more studies,

but then I think I also ought to have fun and work on the creative side-

as it says in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:-

one moment in annihilation's waste
one moment, the well of life to taste,
the stars are setting and the caravan
starts for the dawn of nothing- oh make haste,



actually I'll try and illustrate that verse

in the meantime- a quick morning sketch before doing work

[Jamie Romoser]

whats up lach your sketchbooks looking sweet man
I'm in the same position as you not goin to art school
dont let that get you down just work 10 times harder then people that are
dig your pencil work the most
keep it up looking forward to seeing more
-Jamie

[lach-land]

Cheers OmertA,

crikey you've got tonne of posts there,



I think the things to remember are.

1 Things are fresh at the source (ie nature, working ideas out from first principles, deriving ideas from whats around you- your truth as it were)

2 Brilliant people might render better but there is no monopoly on ideas

3 and as Mr Manley says- you don't need anyone's permission

(or need their approval for that matter- if you draw because you must).

4 Understand there is an entire industry revolving around and in maintaining artist's insecurity.
So control the fear- instead channel the joy.

[ArtDisaster]

dude...you're awesome :o !!!!

what can i do more than giving you 5 stars

[lach-land]

Bit of a newbie regarding stars- and thanking in posts.
Not sure about the online ettiquette...
apologies to everyone in advance.

but *double crikey whiskers* artdisaster thanks for that.

I can see you like horses in your blog,-
I love them too, and I can say that nothing beats actually looking at a real one just after having stared at the various anatomy books- things that take fair bit of cross referencing to see are there- "plain as the nose on your face".
But doing the study first is good so you know what you are looking for.

Fortunately I can just walk down the property and see one-
Unfortunately they're ugly horses as far as horses go.

[lach-land]

An unlikely trio.
Needs a bit more detailing but I need to get to work

[sanakris]

Wow you got a lot going on here! Tons of different ideas poses, monsters, chicks, dudes, animals. I could learn some things from your drawings. Beautiful line work and dynamic drawings.
The only suggest if I dare make one is do some more greyscale work and color. Your knowledge of geyscale will transfer to color so it won't be that huge of a leap if you haven't done so. Other that that you got it all together.
and Keep drawing! Great work so far!

K

[lach-land]

thanks sanakris-
yeah I need to do more colour-
greyscale on computer I do by default currently for the exact reason you said.

In pencil - the drawings I do at these conventions/self pimping opportunities are A2 to A0 sized- so I often don't get to shade them- it'd take too long


Was trying to think of a 'yin-yang' (over at cg hub),
Its a supposed to be two creatures sort fused rhat live as one-etc
but i was bit tired and impatient so they are extra sketchy

the little black and guy with the flashlight- hunts at night and the black creature 'spotlights' and targets for the white, by day the white recharges energy for the black by exposing the black spots on the wings to sunlight.

[Enemy_Within]

Nice work Lach. There's some great creativity going on here with some very interesting character designs! Keep it up.

[Andrew Sonea]

I'm surprised at the general lack of comments here. There are some really strong and interesting things you have. When looking at it though I had two thoughts:

1) The pencils look good, but tonally are all sort of in a middle range. I don't know if this is you not using darker pencils or if it is your scanner killing the values. Either way I would try to get some darker tones in there to really give them a bit more punch.

2) Everything is a sketch. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (I love a good quick sketch as much as any other guy), but it would be nice to see some more finished work mixed in with it.

[lach-land]

Thanks enemy within, I plan to keep it up

Andrew- yeah I plan to add some more finished stuff-
I need a lot more finished stuff but I just seem to jump from one thing to another-
hard to be sure if something is worth spending real time on.

Actually what I'm aiming toward is to develop my sketchy style into a more finished thing- like yoshitako amano or someone like that
- I like the loose and lively thing- and the 'honesty of line'
- the 'humanity' of it- ie you can see its not copied from a squared up photo etc.

we'll see- but yes I do need more finished stuff


-+ I figured its a sketchbook so its alright to be mostly sketches,


with the levels on the pencils it might be a combination of both-


heres an old picture of a gigantosaurus with added crest and a rhoetosaurus which are more finished.
They were the start of practice for doing some proper dinosaur pictures.

[lach-land]

springbrook inspired

[lach-land]

sail finned 'banjo' dinosaur

[lach-land]

Couple of old images

[Eew]

Hey, i like your work, specialy the drawing from 6 october !It made me smile.

[lach-land]

Thanks Eew!
Hey your avatar looks a bit egon schiele in style ,

(I'm a big fan of egon schiele- though the books I have his work don't really captue the vibrancy of some of his colours-judging from the few times I've seen an actual piece of his work in gallery.)


I'm going to try and do some much more impressive finished things- plus I'll be doing a bunch more sketches /designs-

I plan to make it worth stopping by for people,
and try to keep it interesting

[lach-land]

graaaah!

[Istmin52]

You've got some really cool work in here. I especially love your creature designs. You seem to have a lot of knowledge on different animals and dinosaurs which is something I'm trying to get into also. How long did it take you to absorb a bunch of knowledge of drawing different types of animals? I find it hard to remember everything I draw and understand the basic anatomy.

The one thing I would suggest is to work on your anatomy more on humans. You seem to draw faces well but sometimes the bodies are a bit off.

About not going to art school, I actually did go to art school but I found after I graduated that I had to really teach myself a lot more because I realized my foundation skills weren't strong enough. It's been really frustrating. Im not saying I didn't learn anything from going to art college but I wish they focused on my technical stuff like anatomy, and painting. My anatomy was really bad when I graduated. I've basically been teaching myself these days and taking workshops here and there to really help improve my skills and become the type of artist I want to be.

Good luck and keep up the hard work.