LM - Scratches in the dark

[Little-Maiden]

Scans from my SB.

I really am loving portrait drawing.

I do feel split though in my approach to learning.

Should I vary? or try to get "good" at one part and then move systematically though the various other parts.
Like

Portraits, Hands, Figure, etc etc.

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So 5 portraits.

The two small ones are quick 15-20min works

The larger 2 are 40-50mins and the last one on the list is a 1 or 2 hour work.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Little Maiden I can see the progress. I also totally understand how you feel about your learning. With so much to learn it is difficult to know what to always do and for how long. My advice is that the moment you tire of doing a study of something move on to a new area. This way you don't lose your passion and you can always revisit the previous studies you were doing any time you like, and don't forget it is most important to do at least half an hour drawing from life, any object will do, everyday. Hope that helps.

[Little-Maiden]

Busy Busy Bee I have been but despite the consistent daily drawing I'm not being consistent with daily posts!

Gonna ease my way in again.

So here are some spoons from today and some riley heads and spheres!

[ashess]

spoon! nice ^^
good job on those gestures btw. you should totally join the spartan camp; it would be nice to have you in a study group again.

here's my 2 cents on methods of study: I think variaty both in subject as in materials is important. also you could try different methods of working.
it seems to bm you are a really hard worker; you usually build up your subject systematically. try some different approaches. like negative space drawing, or blind contour.
haha. well, I think it's good advice. too bad I dont seem to follow it myself. hope to see you soon!

[Little-Maiden]

@ashess - thanks, Ill probably rejoin the study group again soon, once I get myself a proper chair to draw in lol.
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This portrait took about 3hrs maybe 4hrs im not sure >.<. Done from imagination with very little ref used. Next is just some pencil sketching and some torso studies.

[Little-Maiden]

Update for the past two days:

-Some figure quick sketches and two extended (30 to 45min) sketches.

-A still Life of tomatoes which I really frustrated me. Don't have traditional paints to do proper traditional style still life so i use digital ugh I don't know how people manage to get super refined drawings done with a tablet. :/

-A WIP portrait. Originally meant to be a 1 hour deal on the usual boring skin tone, but I decided to extend it and changed her palette to a green/red/purplish. I'll complete it by next post hopefully. So far its taken 3-4 hours in between changing her palette and frustratingly correcting her symmetry (I hate head on portraits 3/4 is so much easier to get away with bad symmetry imho.)

-And last is a bunch of spheres I did to study glow effects and how to apply em in PS.

Hooray.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Little Maiden I think you are being a bit hard on yourself. Portrait and still life of the tomatoes look good, cool effect with the glowing spheres. Try to remember that art is a life time of learning so although something is difficult today it will get easier as you further your understanding.

[ashess]

Hey lm! On my phone so no real time to chat; but just saw your post; the spartan camp is still roaring:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=229760
Hope to See you there!

[Little-Maiden]

Well heres what I have of the previous portrait thingy, Tbh I spent alot of time just trying out the rendering of the tattoo- Painting tattoos to look realistic is a tough challenge. Had fun though.

Some other crap I did. Most of the past two days was spent on the portrait which all in all must amount to something like 6 hours- most of which was spent looking and trying to emulate polynesian tattoo designs and...failing

[Little-Maiden]

Life study from the past 2 days, all from photoref ofc since I have no access to models (I'm lucky if family members want to hold a pose for longer than 5 minutes) Due to the graphite, I had to auto-tone in PS to get them to read better at the expense of overall quality I think.

[Little-Maiden]

update, sigh i wish I could update daily, but im too lazy to scan all the pencil work I do everyday *le sigh*

oh well update dump.

Some figures, a watch and a WIP of a desert with a woman walking.

[Little-Maiden]

Been away from internet for a week but I did keep drawing on paper I had with me along with 50 pictures saved from Drawing Script and other places.

All these started out as 30-60sec gestures which I timed myself, then added another 4-5 mins. So you could say these are "5 minute gestures"?

50 in total plus a more extended study at the end of around 45mins.

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Truly working in traditional graphite is a pain. Especially when my range goes from 2B to HB. Ah well I guess if I can't do it in pencil another medium won't make a difference. God I hate some of these oh well no pain no gain.
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[Little-Maiden]

some portrait studies and gestures

[Marian Rowling]

Well done Little Maiden these are looking good. I think now what you might want to think about are soft and hard, or lost and found edges. Like on the bridge of Penguins nose this is too hard and needs to be blend to a soft/lost edge. Hope that helps.

[Little-Maiden]

Heh thanks Marian, yeah I should have worked on Penguin's nose alot more but i'm happy you recognised it anyways!

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At start is a self-portrait I did with a crappy pic I took with a camera. I really do not like working in graphite. Especially with the limited number of tones I can bring out. : / Oh well make do wth what I have.

Also 50 x 5-10-15-30-60 minute studies. I haven't ordered it into time but I think its easy to see which ones were extended studies and which ones weren't

[rem92]

Looking good buddy, i like the color studies, i would like to see a fully rendered figure though, see if you can mix all the skills together

[Little-Maiden]

@Rem92

yeah I've been meaning to get around to fully rendered bodies, but I just love faces so much more, guess cause im more comfortable with portraiture than figure drawing.

Well heres a portrait I started to render, it was based on one of the sketches I did whilst thinking for the Dyad ChoW. Never got to hand it in or complete it, but I did like the drawing so Im gonna try and finish it. + other crap.

[ashess]

Awesomish! Giving you 4 starries.
I dont really get what your saying about portrait vs full pose. I like these full posed analogues a lot better then the smooth facee. They seem more real to me
Btw, just noticed your location.. how does that work?

[bbwolf]

I really like the amount of studies you do. I can see a big improvment from the middle of your SB (where I started) to the end. Especially with your portraits. Happy that you love portraits. I personally hate them, as I suck at it. I really need to work on that. As for your studies from reference pics, mine got MUCH-o better once I started lying down grids over the refs and my target layers. Eventually I got good enough to no need them anymore, even thou I occasionally still use them to get better results or train my eye to look closer. One of my teachers once told me: "It is not important how you got to your result, as long as it looks good."
And some of the best professionals I know still use grids for numerous things. Just saying. Keep it up.

[Little-Maiden]

Update.

Did more work on the Dyad above, as well as a few shitty portraits and cube drawings for spartan camp.

[Little-Maiden]

Update, 2x 1 hour photostudies (I think it was 1 hour maybe more maybe less)

[Little-Maiden]

update, for the past 5 days. Christ I really should do daily updates, since I draw daily- I just hate scanning! but I have to stick with pencil and paper atm over the tablet.

Any tips for speeding up the process with pencil would be greatly appreciated.

So:

Some observational/contour drawings of objects I found around the house.

Some figure drawings

and a very quick photostudy in PS of a Demsa Dancer.

I didn't modify any of the sketches in PS this time, so the graphite ones are a bit hard to see maybe.

[Little-Maiden]

mass dump from the past week or so.

contour gestures, usual 5-10 min poses, and my very first sheet of animal (canines) studies! hooray! Finally got around to doing it!

Bridgman, and a photostudy of a very well-known picture from Nat Geo.

The main stuff at the end of the post.

[Little-Maiden]

my warmup sheets. uploading now since Ill upload more finished stuff later, closer to midnight

largely 60second-2min gestures with a mix of contour gestures and quick colour gestures (something new i tried after reading a recent IFX issue.) They're really not easy to do!

[Little-Maiden]

update:
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1. enviro temps
2. warmup sheets: 60 sec gestures (human/cat/dog/horses), colour gestures
3. 1 hour piece from imagination

crits are obviously welcome

Added some more:

1. 30 minute photostudy of a smiling East Asian boy (mongolian I think)
2. Some more 60 sec gestures (this time of reptiles)

[Aragah]

nice studies man! keep going

[Little-Maiden]

update, gestures, colour gestures, and a 90-120 minute photostudy

[Little-Maiden]

update, quick speed enviro and a turnaround study done for Spartan camp 204 optional.

[criticalchap]

Would you say that you have some difficulty with hair? Your method of rendering hair in digital work highly resembles the way mine did when I started off. It seems like you're using very few single hued brush strokes to determine where the random clumps of strands are heading, when it helps the realism if you divide the hair into locks and begin working in differing hues from there. Brushing over these over and over again will produce a pretty realistic effect. I've found that more, rather less, is more when it comes to producing some pleasing hair.

[AdrianNagorski]

Epic thread!!!!! There is a lot of hard work, passion and drive represented here.
I would suggest maybe studying skeletal structures and muscles structures i
think you got gestures down, some of your digital paintings are top class.
I'm gonna give you 5 stars! Keep it up!