It's a trap!

[Satu]

Hmm lets try this again cause I don't really know where my yesterdays posting went since I can't see it anywhere (at least not right now) Anyways here's a screenwhot study and a fairly quick photostudy. I'm embarrassed to put them here cause they're really awful But the truth is if I wouldn't post crappy works here I wouldn't have anything to post lol.

Oh and thank you very much, Thomas!

[Ville_S]

Awesome! I'm so glad to see that you have been producing studies regularly.
Regarding yiur latest photo studies there is absolutely no reason to be embarassed. They look great. In the landscape I think you managed to capture the hues really well, but I think you should look into saturation a bit more carefully. Always rememember the effects of atmospheric perspective. Very important when it comes to landscapes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspective
In your speedpainting the mountains are the farthest visible object yet the saturation seems about equal to foreground object.

The portrait one looks nice too. Quite difficult one color wise I think. There's loads of very pale subtle colors. The reference pic has a bluish hue to it with some pale reds in lips and nose and brow.

You might find it useful after finishing a study to check the colors with the colorpicker. It's great way to study colors as it shows where one has gone wrong. I have had several heureka moments by doing just that.

Keep on working!

[Satu]

Thank you Ville for your useful crit and encouragement! I know in theory (a little bit at least) the effects of atmospheric perspective, but somehow I tend to forget it/don't see it so well while doing photo studies. Should study it more more more! Allthough I don't want to rush to color studies yet but somehow doing something different for a change, like enviros is really relaxing. Also it sounds a very good idea to use the colorpicker after finishing a study! Gotta try that.

So here's some Loomis studies and still-life study (don't worry, maybe some day my still-life studies will have again some other object than a skull, lol. What, you say an obsession? noo.)

Oh my god I'm seriously thinking of starting to play Age of Conan again. So if it happens so that I start pleying it, please could someone just slap me on the face if my updates will cease to exist/decreases considerably because of that?!

[ismo]

Games are bad mmm'kay. When I started Mass Effect 2 last year I probably didn't do any drawing for couple months. Though, you can sometimes get inspired from playing quality games, so I guess it's a double edged sword.

Anyways, nice updates. Loomis rocks.

[thebluepuppy]

i love the topics of art that you chose to do. keep up the good work!

[Satu]

thebluepuppy: Thanks! I shall!

ismo: Thanks I agree about games being bad, hehe. But then again maybe its only natural to do some things together with my husband too, when mostly our evenings go by him playing something and me drawing next to him
Annd no sign of addiction here yet! I actually missed one day's updates (I've been trying to update every other day now), but that was because of me being sick, not because of Age of Conan. I swear!

I'm actually more worried when the Skyrim arrives, because that is a game that I have truly been waiting for since the Oblivion. But when it comes I will try to find time to both the game and drawing. I mean.. it can't be that impossible.. really.. it can't..?

Anyways here's some more Loomis studies and some random photo-study. I hate being so sick you can't do a thing without some place starting to ache. And it seems to me that when I'm sick I get even more critical about my own works and even more depressed when I don't get things right

[Satu]

Couple of still-life studies and some random stuff from ref.

[dierat]

Wow, great anatomy studies; you seem really dedicated to learning the human form. When studying portraits, pay special attention to the placement of the eyes, especially in 3-quarter views. In some of your previous photo studies, you seemed to be placing one eye a little far out (like in the Denzel study in post #78).

For color studies, I highly recommend continuing with colored still life studies. Photography doesn't always capture color accurately, and the saturation often becomes distorted when editing the contrast. You could also work the painting up monochromatically, then add your color on top using layers set to color mode.

When working in color, remember to pay attention to the color of the highlights and shadows on the subject; they will be desaturated but not black/white. Think about color temperature - is it a warm color I'm looking at, or a cool color? What is the temperature of the light falling on the object, and how does that affect the color of the object itself? In the still life in post #75, the whole painting feels very desaturated but shadows especially appear to be almost black. Be stingy with pure black and white paint; if you use them at all, do so with restraint. And remember that not all shadows are cool; if light bounces off of a warm surface onto the shadow of another object, it will create a warm shadow (this is especially true with light bouncing off of one skin surface onto the shaded side of another skin surface. for example, the underside of the jaw tends to be very warm due to light bouncing up from the chest).

Btw the oil painting of the red house looks great; very subtle color variation on the roof and in the shadow.

Oh and I made myself a goal to be really good when I'm thirty. So I have three years to practise very very hard!

Oh man, I feel the same way. I guess we'd better get cracking'! pld:

[ismo]

Hey, Satu. Figures are looking very confident. You've picked out a lot of things from those anatomy studies already. I came across these two great videos from Feng Zhu about studying on the tutorial forum, thought they might interest you too. I had seen 'em before, but for some reason didn't try any of those exercises afterwards. I'll have to correct that mistake cause they make so much sense now.

video 1

video 2

Oh man, I feel the same way. I guess we'd better get cracking'! pld:

So I'm not the only one giving myself age 30 deadline. I've got only 3½ years left and that sure has made me pick up the speed lately.

[Satu]

dierat: Thanks for stopping by! Haha yeah I know the placement of the eyes has always been kind of huge problem for me. Been kind of avoiding studying it (don't know why though), but you kind of inspired me to start studying more faces. I've started reading Maughan's "The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the head" and I really love that book! I feel like I've already learned bunch of new stuff from it. And not only from portraits but also of values. Also thanks for the great tips concerning the colors! Your comment is really much appreciated. And glad you liked the oil painting.

Ismo: Thanks for those videos! They had really cool tips for studying. Think I gotta try that skeleton-stuff, hehe. The book mentioned above also has some cool stuff about the chiaroscuro technique that concentrates on values in drawings rather than in lines. Anyways gotta definitely check more of those videos!

dierat & Ismo: Haha yeah nearing 30 has surely given a new motivation to this stuff

Hungh, been so busy in drawing that I haven't had time to update. So here's first some quicker gestures. Been kind of feeling that my figures have been somewhat stiff lately so I've been trying to loosen up a bit. Also some skulls, gesture-head thingies, and gesture-head thingies with facial features (?). From photo ref. Mainly been trying to concentrate on the placement of the facial features. Allso look, its me eyes! (Drawn from photo taken by me, yey.) Some more eye studies coming later.

[carakhan]

Really nice studies! Like the gestures, I see what you mean, I definitely need more of those Really like the simple hair studies though, the face shapes are confident and consistent and it all flows nicely.
Hahah the age 30 thing never occurred to me, but wow, I'm only 4 years away myself!

[dierat]

Nice studies, especially the skulls. To answer your question from my sb, most of my studies are done from Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton. It focuses on breaking down each section of the figure into simple 3d shapes that can be used to construct the figure from memory. It's very good. Here's another page where you can buy the book; it has more images from inside as well.

Oh and btw, I forgot to mention this last time, but watch your ellipses - the perspective on the candle holder (?) in post #127 appears distorted. It looks like either the ellipse marking the base is too wide or the ones up top are too narrow. Right now it looks like the stem is bending in space to make that perspective work.

[Satu]

carakhan: Hey thanks again! Trying to keep the studies coming Haha well you'd better be prepared for that freaky-eyed slime-dripping monster! You don't want to know what happens to artists who meet him unprepared..

dierat: Thanks for dropping by again! I know I'm still such a lousy at perspective, especially what it comes to ellipses. Need a lot more practise with it. And ooh what a cool-looking book, thanks for linking it! I have to have that! *stares the book with a mad glittery gaze in her eyes and drool dripping down her face".

Well not so many updates here past weekend, eh. Well let's just say things the way they are. Umm I was partying and didn't have time to update So nothing much this time. Some anatomy and couple of quick, messy still-life studies. The landscape has been actually made earlier this summer (it was also bigger but somehow I managed to accidentally crop it). These studies are actually done with my new phone, Samsung galaxy SII and a sketchbook mobile. Just wanted to try what it is like to draw and it is pretty neat. Allthough drawing with finger is somewhat hard so hoping to find somekind of pen for that. Anyways, time to get back to hard-core studying.

[Satu]

Loomis studies and some eye studies. I will try to do some imagination stuff tomorrow and hopefully find the time to make some still-life studies too. Well now I'm off to play some L.A. Noire.

[Satu]

Blaah, I feel like everything I've done these couple of days have just turned out to be total crap. Is it possible I'm actually getting worse?!
Well anyways here are some anatomy stuff mostly and some still-life. Just wanted to try still-life with a colors for a change..

[henri]

Trust me, you are getting better, and trust me you will be hitting your head against the wall many, many more times in the future.

I'd recommend doing more personal work and really applying all the stuff you've learned recently, plus it'll make you pay attention to composition, perspective and all that.

[Satu]

Thanks for stopping by henri, and thanks for your encouraging words! I've hit my head against the wall so many times, that I've kind of gotten used to these momentary periods of depression. Now I just force myself to keep on drawing even when I don't feel like it and even if it feels like I'm learning nothing. You are absolutely right, I should do more personal stuff. Soo here's something from imagination.

Well not really pleased with the head but hey positively thinking, I've done worse! There's something really fishy with the eyes. Also the values suck, it's just too dark overall. After I finished the painting, I tried the auto contrast to see what it would had looked like if I would had made the values less dark Anyways it was fun to do. Commets and crits are welcome as always!

Oh and I hope you guys don't get frustrated to my momentary whining every now and then. Just kind of feel like letting it all out sometimes helps me to carry on.

[dierat]

I think the portrait looks great. For some crits - the neck is too wide, the ear looks too small and a little too high, and the lighting is rather confusing. The highlight on the nose suggests the light is coming from the front and above, but the highlight on the eyes is on the top right, and then you have a rim lighting on the left side. Also, keep in mind that highlights that follow the 2-d shape of an object (as opposed to the 3-d volume of the object) flattens the image. Just something to keep in mind!

Also, I like the vegetable platter still life. I think the contrast is a little low on that one as well (mostly on the vegetables themselves which have a very low value range) so maybe you should try to focus specifically on your value range in future pieces.

Keep up the good work!

[Satu]

Thanks again dierat! One can always count on such a good crits from you. So yeah I came to the conclusion that I need a lot more value studies. I also need to study the facial features more and especially their location on face. I decided that from now on I try to focus on studying mostly one thing per day instead of studying little bit of this and little bit of that. Might be better to concentrate on one thing at a time. So here's some anatomy studies made yesterday and today. I suddenly got this weird urge to study anatomy. So gotta take most out of it and study it while it lasts lol.

[liquidjack]

Ah anatomy.... nice practice work in your book so far. A trick I used to do is look at bodybuilders (mostly women because the male examples away from the old greats are just ridiculous). Because of the very low body fat they have, I discover what muscle is what and see it being put into dynamic motion. Helped me alot with making anatomy practice applicable to artwork.

[henri]

I agree with Dierat, the lighting is a bit odd.

First thing after getting the drawing down should be deciding the location of the lightsource and blocking in the unlit area either with value or with lines. You could also try to work with just 5 values, 3 in the light and 2 in the shadow. Doing studies with simplified values really helped me when I was starting out. A good rule to remember is that the lightest dark (an area not lit) should never be lighter than the the darkest light.

Here's a quick paintover I did while waiting for a pizza. I used the liquify tool to push the face and neck back, brightened the planes facing the light and made the darks darker. Judging from the shadow of the nose, the main light source was from top left. I also softened the edges of the lips, darkened the eyeballs (they really aren't that white in real life) and tweaked the eyelids a bit.

Hopefully some of this was useful. Keep drawing!

edit: Jeez, 2 replies while I was typing this! :|

[Satu]

liquidjack: Hey thanks a bunch! Very nice trick indeed. I've been kind of thinking of where could I find good practise material for my studies and that sounds like a very good idea! Gotta start hunting some muscle(wo)men after I've learned more basic stuff of muscles.

henri: Wow awesome paintover! I appreciate a lot that you got the time to do that, thanks a lot! It is also a first paintover anyone has ever made me.. sigh, I'm getting all sobby and emotional here The lightning makes a lot more sense in it. And thanks for the tips also. I just realised that I should also study the facial planes more.

Soo I started to do these still-life studies where I set only one light source and starting to do studies with basic shapes. Most of my still-life studies are made on light coming from this and that window and sometimes from a lamp also so it can be rather confusing. I'm gonna learn these bloody values! Here are couple of first studies and some.. erm.. bones.

[in2eternity]

Good studies! From Loomis are my favourites, keep practice!!!

[Satu]

in2eternity: Thanks! I will!

Here are some screenshot studies and still-life study.

[shambok]

Lovely updates ... keep up the hard work!

[Satu]

Thank you very much, shambok! I will try to keep practising very hard.

So yesterday my husband asked me why do I always mock my own works. I kind of do that sometimes, don't I? Well since it propably doesn't look very nice to the viewer, I shall hereby try to reduce it (and concentrate on the positive sides of my learning process) . ..But just give me some time..

Here's some anatomy. I've been thinking that it could be possible to learn to draw realistic skeleton from memory. Until this day when I realised the existence of backbone's vertebras (is that even a correct word in english?). Oh man. Well I'm still trying to learn the skeleton as much as possible and after that try to do some skeleton gestures. We'll see what happens, lol.
And after that no more boring skeleton updates here. Oh wait after that it'll be many many boring muscle updates, muahhahaa

[Satu]

Loomis, faces from magazines, and value studies with some weirdness.

[Satu]

Oil still-life study and couple of photo studies with ref pics. The photos are from portrait-photos.org. There are some really cool photos to practise portraits. On the first one I tried to decide five different values beforehand and make it with them but didn't really work out like that. Got carried away. On the next one it worked out better. So maybe I'm finally starting to learn something (or then it was just a luck lol). I need still a loot more value studies but I think I'm starting to get the hold on locating eyes correctly Still fighting to get the resemblance correct with the ref also, lol.

[Satu]

Some faces from magazine again and some terrible photostudy. Ref photo is again from portrait-photos.org I'm not pleased with it at all, blaah. I was way lost with the values on this one and it was also one of those drawings that you just end up overdoing even though you don't have idea what you are actually doing. And the more you do the more screwed up it becomes. Well off to more practise it is.. I think tomorrow smells like anatomy day..

[Satu]

So I started going to nude model drawing classes once in a week again after the summer break, cool! We have the same model every time, but it is better than nothing! Here's some stuff from there. It feels soo different to draw croquis from alive model than from posemaniacs for example lol. Well hoping my anatomy studies will eventually some day start to pay off. I also started doing this cast foot afterwards in my drawing lessons (once a week also, after the model drawing). Hope to finish it some day. Also did some anatomy yesterday. Gosh why do I always have to write such a long chitter-chatters here by the way. I really don't talk this much in real life. Gotta learn to update with shorter texts..