THEMike's sketchbook

[THEMike]

Hello everyone, I'm Mike and I'm slowly working towards becoming good enough an artist to possibly get a job. I'll post some of the stuff I've done over the years (much of it consisting of my Dungeons and Dragons Characters) and I'll keep it updated as I work. All comments and critiques are welcome.

NEW STUFF ON THE LAST POST

Here's a few of my sketches from highschool

[THEMike]

Some more recent stuff from 4 to 2 years ago. That was the period when I was first intriduced to photoshop and I started coloring some of my drawings. I must say that I still feel somewhat awkward about painting and coloring, mostly because I've worked much more on improving my drawing skills and I have very little experience with colors.

[THEMike]

Some stuff from last year (there's a little nudity at the end)

[THEMike]

And finally my newest works

[THEMike]

here's a sketch im working..the ManBearPig! Those who've watched South Park know what I'm talking about

[THEMike]

The first of a series of movie studies I'm gonna be making. THis was intended to be a one, one-and-a-half hour study but ended up taking me something over 2 hours.

[THEMike]

Second one and last for today. I would really appreciate some c&c.

[THEMike]

The ManBearPig, finished.

[THEMike]

Today's movie painting took a lot longer than I expected. Doing one of these every day is gonna be tougher than I thought.

[THEMike]

Another one. As always, critique is welcome.

[Mr. Corlan]

Hi Mike,
I don't want to throw you off your groove here, so feel free to ignore this. I feel like it would be more worth your time to copy paintings instead of movie stills. Film is such a completely different medium. They have thousands of images to get something across, while a painter has to convey everything in one image. But if you're going to do it, try to think about how it works as an image more and not just copy. Watch your values especially. In your last one everything's basically black except the face and the blurred lights and it's just not very interesting.

Just my thoughts . . .

[THEMike]

Mr. Corlan, thanks a lot for the interest. My choice of movie stills was more or less random and to an extent because they were readily available and were easier to find for me than good quality photographs which I originally intended to do. You make a good point though, so I'll try something different.

As for the immediate future, it's exams period so I won't be doing much, if anything for a while, but I'm thinking of trying to explore some traditional mediums as well in the summer. We'll see.

[THEMike]

After a few months without touching a pencil or tablet, I'm back to sketching, at least. Here's my (rather hasty) interpretation of a couple characters invented by two friends.

[THEMike]

a little color test for another project I'm working on. First time I use colors like that but I like how it looks and it's pretty easy.

[Jessibelle]

nice sketchbook your sketches are looking great, some good concepts... more studies would help communicate them better though. try still lives, in line and in greyscale to help your values... anatomy studies are always helpful too and when you're working in colour, try not to use black to show shadow as this kills the colour and makes it look flat.
looking forward to seeing you improve! welcome to CA!

[THEMike]

Thanks a lot Jesibell for checking it out. I'll try to update this thread more often and hopefully improving each time

[bish0p2004]

Nice sketchbook you have here. While I don't share the same idea on working from movie stills as Mr. Corlan (I think they are a challenge), I see his point about copying master works instead and it's something I should do more of as well.

Anyways, I think your movie still practices are great...a little rough around the edges, but good nonetheless.

Also, you seem to have a good grasp on anatomy, and I think doing some more studies (as Jessibelle mentioned) would take you even further; that is of course, if you aren't already doing them.

Awesome work so far.

[THEMike]

Thanks you for coming here bish0p2004. Copying masters is something I am definitely going to start doing at some point. Meanwhile, I found a book my prof told me to get: "The Natural Way to Draw" by Kimon Nikolaides and started working on the first exercise... I am supposed to draw my hands (or other body parts eventually) without lifting the pencil from the paper and without looking at what I am doing either (so practically my eyes fill follow the outline of my hands and the drawing hand will have to follow the movement of the eyes. I am allowed to lift the pencil and look at the drawing only briefly to know where to place details inside the form, like creases of the skin and other details... then I have to repeat the process but this time draw with my left hand... it's tough

well, here are the results for day one. I've marked the ones I did with the left hand with an L

[THEMike]

This is maybe the most complete work I've done so far.

[THEMike]

A small attempt at drawing a basic head without reference.

[THEMike]

My fantasified self portrait for CHOW 260 which I was unfortunately unable to finish.