Matt's Sketchbook

**matt22113** · January 16th, 2011, 04:30 PM

Drawing from life year 2. I’ve been drawing since about 2007. The first few years were really just doodling until last year. I’m mainly doing this as a hobby, I’m currently living on disability with no way of being able to come off it any time soon, so I draw a lot on the days I feel up to it.

Since my first few years were doodling I’m currently only able to doodle portraits of monster type things. I’m currently trying to take a few steps backwards and slow it down and learn to break things down into shapes to start off a drawing. (I developed some bad habits before finding this board.)

So what I’m currently going to be focusing on this year is drawing from life a lot. Mainly portraits, skulls, skeletons, pose maniac gesture drawings, and hands, and also doodling to apply all of this. I’m also working with a book called “drawing comics the marvel way” which goes over the stick figure and block figure. I’m trying to stick with this and not go over board, just slowing it down and taking it one step at a time.

Mainly I’m trying to get all the angles down that I can think of with the block figure and drawing from life, and then I’ll start zooming in on the muscles once I have a good understanding of how the body moves.

I’ve also bought a Bridgman book. And I’m planning on getting his book on drawing hands.

My end goal is currently to develop my own style; I’m going for a psychedelic comic book style.

CRITUQUES ARE APPREACIATE

THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO HELP

**matt22113** · January 17th, 2011, 03:15 PM

New stuff. A bit rushed on the shading and line work. I started studying from bridgemens life drawing book today, a lot of stuff to take in!

**Ludic** · January 17th, 2011, 03:23 PM

Hey matt, Good progress so far, what you might want to try for your pencils is to put more effort into the hatching/shading, it looks sort of randomly placed at the moment.

**matt22113** · January 17th, 2011, 03:48 PM

hey thanks for the advice i'll try that.

**matt22113** · February 9th, 2011, 11:48 AM

I've begun branching out a little trying to drawing soldiers and stuff from the dome.

I've also done some more studies, and i'm putting more effort into the shading.

i'm working in the section of the bridgemen book where he talks about rythm. Trying to figure out the best I can how to make good rythm in my figures.

I also need a ton of work on anatomy! but i'll get there one step at a time!

**deadlyhamster** · February 9th, 2011, 05:16 PM

your shading in your second post is better than the first post so good work. But I think you are shading it to fast. If you just work a bit slower on each drawing it will be better.

**HAJiME** · February 9th, 2011, 05:26 PM

Nice start! Good doodling. There's already an improvement between first and second post.

I get the impression you make very short marks with the pencil/pen. It's giving your drawings a very scruffy, jaggered and static look. You might want to try some line drawing exercises and loosening up so your lines are longer and flowing. It'll do wonders.

Good luck, keep it up.

**matt22113** · February 9th, 2011, 05:27 PM

Hey thanks deadlyhamster for the advice! I looked at your sketchbook thats some crazy shading you have there!

Yeah I guess I'll do some line drawing stuff.

Thanks to the both of you for heping me!

**matt22113** · February 16th, 2011, 02:32 PM

More studies, life drawing and one doodle. I'm still having a problem with my line work, i'm not sure how to shade too. I've been doing pose manicas to try and loosen up my wrist.

Also I did the bearded guy with a mechical 9 hb pencil the other two i did with graphite pencils which is new to me and much harder trying to learn how to shade with so many different pencils. The mechincal penicl drawings seems to come out darker, partly because i'm afraid i'll ruin the picture if i go any darker with the graphite pencils because i really don'y know how to use them properly.

Thanks to any who help!

**matt22113** · June 10th, 2011, 02:46 PM

I haven't updated in a while so heres what i've been up to.

I finished the bridgemen life drawing book, and I started to do some digital painting. I think i'm going to go back to my original plan and stick with doing pencil studies and taking it slow. ( kinda got excited after studying from bridgemen.)

I've been recomended by some board members on here to get the anatomy down as a hole and start off not stylizing but drawing realisticly. I'm planning on drawing from life as much as possible for the remainder of the year.

I need to get better at graphite drawing then i'm moving on to charcoal and i'm also going to work on my gesture line quality some more. My shading really needs to improve, i'm going to try and do more detail work in the future.

This is just a small amount of the stuff I have done since my last post:

**matt22113** · July 4th, 2011, 02:29 PM

getting more busy with the studies

I'm taking a drawing class now, the teacher showed me better techinques with the shading, i still need to work on it though.

I'm planning on getting a bigger sketchbook for the future.

I'm trying to memorize the human bodies anatomy.