Rev needs to draw more. Posting daily!

[Revidescent]

dessinateurimpulsif - Thank you!

Pavel Sokov - Thanks, man!

I finally got the giant Drew Struzan artbook I've been lusting after for ages (after finding it marked down to $35 from the difficult-to-justify $90) and oh my god, I love this book. Seriously, it might be my new favourite art book, the thing is massive and everything in it is wonderful and I just kind of love Drew Struzan. (Who doesn't?)

Anyhow, that, uh, may have influenced this study. A little.

[REF]

[Revidescent]

Go go 15-minute colour studies.

Today's theme is apparently "rocks, except when it's not rocks".

[Whirly]

Love the last portrait Rev! Your edges are getting more interesting. May I ask where you get your reference for the environment studies?

[PeopleEveryday]

I really like the use of lines on the Drew Struzan influenced portrait. I'm not sure why I'm particularly drawn to it, but it creates a nice focal point in the eyes.

Anyways, great stuff as usual! I always get a handy idea or two for some study stuff to do on my own when I visit.

[Revidescent]

Whirly - Thanks! I've got a few comments about edges lately, so I've been trying to keep an eye on them. =) I feel bad that I'm too lazy to link ref for the 15-minute enviros, but they generally come from either this giant image dump folder, or National Geographic.

PeopleEveryday - Thanks! Helps that the ref photo is so lovely, really intense eyes. Glad I can provide ideas!


Two days of stuff! Some trace/ref/imagination heads. These always take like 3 times as long as I think they're going to. All ref from here.



A couple of 40-minute Frazetta studies, mostly as study for a Frazetta-inspired piece I want to do, but SHOULDN'T do because there's stuff I owe people. ...Yup. Ref from here.

[Chips]

Hell yeah! Frazetta studies!
Loving the work, keep it up!

[Revidescent]

Chips - Thank you! I don't know why I've never studied Frazetta before, I feel like I learned a massive amount just from those two small studies.

One of those days where I've done a bunch of stuff and I don't like most of it enough to post.

Here's a few sartorialist studies, though.

[kjylee]

Wow, your portraits are intense! Great job capturing the shadows and lights!

[ezekrialase]

nice updates, and great job on the last portrait! Keep up the hard work

[Revidescent]

kjylee - Thank you! Focusing on portraits a lot lately. =)

ezekrialase - Thanks a lot!

Figure study WIP! I wanted to do this in one session, but spent too long noodling around with the face (which is still super wrong). Still messing around with style a bit, idk.

[REF]

[kevin_]

great updates on studies and practices, last wip is coming out great!

[Whirly]

Thanks for the links, its exactly what I need!! The Frazetta studies and great! You should do more and try to do a painting using a similar palate as the colours looks really cool. Looking forward to the finished figure painting.

[V3T]

Great updates! Keep up the hard work! ^^

[marowak]

Your works are unbelieveable... love all of them... I would really like to give you some feedback but It seems like I'm like a 100 years behind You in terms of skill.... so I'll just say : keep pushing

[Revidescent]

kevin_ - Thank you, hopefully the final looks good too!

Whirly - Glad to help! I did the studies because I'm hoping to do a painting loosely referencing Frazetta, so I wanted to get a feel for his compositions and colours. I don't know if I have time to do it now or not, there are other things I'm really supposed to be working on....

V3T - Thanks, I will!

marowak - Thanks a lot, always pushing, and don't sell yourself short - looking at your latest SB post, you've made a lot of progress, keep going!


WOW IT HAS BEEN HARD TO KEEP UP WITH ART, I AM VERY VERY BUSY WITH DESIGN WORK. Also everything going on with CA right now is seriously giving me anxiety attacks. (My feelings - it sucks, there's definitely shady stuff happening, I'm glad Brad got paid, and I don't blame all the people who're leaving. But I also love this forum, which is made up almost entirely of people who had nothing to do with what's going on, and I sincerely hope the board as a whole can survive, and do so with some integrity intact. I really don't want to lose this place; there's nowhere else like it. If you have somehow missed all the drama and have no idea what I'm talking about, uh, check the Lounge. Yeah.)

I also haven't commented back on anybody else's sketchbook in forever and a half, and I apologize for that; I barely even have time to draw at the moment.


Finished the figure study:

[REF]


...then I spent an hour or so messing around with it, taking it in a character sort of direction. The sad part is that this came out better than most of the crap in my portfolio. I guess the moral of the story is I really, really need to start shooting better reference, because apparently working from good reference makes for good illustration. I AM SHOCKED no I'm not.

[Rustveld]

Awesome update, studies are looking great as always! I love how you transformed your recent study into a character, it does indeed show the importance of reference.
Keep it up!

[Whirly]

Well jeez I wasn't excepting you to turn her into a character. It came out awesome!

[ecki]

Really interesting how you turned that study from ref into something really expressive with a very strong character.

This is so inspiring, I think that I will do something like that soon It looks so fun!

[Revidescent]

Rustveld - Thank you! Yeah, good ref makes such a huge difference. I always shoot ref for final illustrations, but half the time is spent compensating for the shortcomings of ref with poor lighting, people of completely different body types than the characters, so on and so forth. This just goes to show what a difference it makes working from a proper basis.

Whirly - I've been meaning to do more stuff like that! One of my goals for the year was to not just do mindless studies, but apply and extrapolate more, and I haven't been doing enough of it. D: Thanks!

ecki - Totally, give it a try! It was super fun. =D


I gave in and started on the picture I've been itching to do. I've been really stressed about art lately, and I just need to do something simple and self-indulgent to remember what it feels like to finish something, so I can start making a dent in the other things I ought to be working on. If it comes out well enough for the portfolio, so be it, and if it doesn't, at least I've gotten back into the groove and can make some headway on other projects.

Thus, self-indulgent character piece. She's an old RP character; you can find a few pictures of her elsewhere in this SB, but I've always wanted to do an outright Frazetta homage. The character concept was that, despite having the body of a Barbie doll, in her heart she's this guy, and good luck convincing her otherwise.

[sytrex]

Arrrrr youre really taking on a lot - giving yourself assignments and stuffzz. I think I do too much "mindless studies" lol

[diamandis]

#769 is a pretty composition (the straights of the girl against the curve of the animal, who frames her). I was also gonna say I really like the glossy rendering on the bottom one in #765. I love me some rim lighting. Very nice colors, too. You get a nice range of tones out of that small range of hues.

Hmm ... fishing for something critical to say, so this isn't all ass-pats (I think that's what they call it around here ). Maybe her left boob (her left, not ours) is sticking forward a little too much. The left half of her ribcage as a whole looks like it's sticking out a little more than it should. But if it's based on reference, hey, I could be wrong. I'll often draw something from reference where some element looks awkward in the original pic, but I reproduce it faithfully anyway, feeling a little bit paranoid that others are going to see it and think I drew it wrong.

[Revidescent]

sytrex - Eh, nothing wrong with studies, and looking at your SB, you're doing some fantastic sketching. It just gets to a point where application is important to make sure you're absorbing what you're learning. =)

diamandis - Hey, thanks a bunch, crits are always super appreciated. And yeah, just because something's from reference doesn't mean it's beyond reproach. Even something accurate to reference can look off if what it's based on was awkward to begin with.

Some more of this! Couldn't update yesterday due to FORUM LOCK but that seems to be past despite the persistent giant red text. So.

Edit: Oh wow, Photoshop colour shifted when saving again... holy god that's yellow. I mean, it IS very yellow, and very saturated, but not quite this bad. I'm gonna try to work that out before I post another update...

[Othrandir]

Hey! Wonderful sketchbook so far! The new piece is coming along nicely. I think you need to put in more of the creature's body though, right now the girl is covering him in such a way that it looks almost as if it's floating in the air beside her.Great job either way. Keep it up! :-)

[rumpenstiltzkin]

always great to look through your updates! loving what you did with the study from post #765!

[Revidescent]

Othrandir - Thank you! You're absolutely right, having a hard time figuring out how to get the dinosaur settled on the ground without muddying the silhouette.

rumpenstiltzkin - Thanks, I really need to do more of those. Application! =)

WELL, LOOKS LIKE I FELL OFF THE EARTH AGAIN. First it was CA breaking in the update, and then a lot of work. I wish I could say I'd been painting all this time, but aside from a whole lot of embarrassing stress-induced sketching and poking at that barbarian piece a bit, there was very little art at all. I am disappoint. But as well as a slave to momentum, I'm a creature of milestones, and the beginning of April is as good a time as any to get back to the dailies!

Here's a head study for today. I'm rusty from hardly painting for a couple of weeks, and I think it shows. I'm still trying to get in the habit of using the reference photo as a guide rather than exact matching of camera-distorted colours, going for something a little more dynamic, and that, at least, worked out all right.

On that note, CHECK OUT THIS GUY'S TUTORIAL VIDEOS. They're incredibly inspiring, some of the best tutorials I've seen in a long time. I've used a couple of his brushes here, and was really inspired by his approach to colour.

[REF]




Edit: Messed with it some more, like with the spear woman a few posts back. I want to start doing this more, extrapolating from studies...

[Yemi775]

i'm in no position to give crits but beautiful works and lovely use of colors.

[Revidescent]

Yemi775 - Well, thank you! =)


Yesterday's arting was lifedrawing, which will be scanned when I'm in the same city as my scanner.

Today - apparently Raiders of the Lost Ark is a GORGEOUS movie in black and white. WHO KNEW?

[REF]

[Revidescent]

I was gonna do a few quick colour studies but I just spent way too long on this one instead. I've been super fixated on this one texture brush, I seriously need to tone it down.

Reffed from a friend's travel photo.

[Yemi775]

beautiful as usual. if you don't mind me asking, how did you do those grass?

[MrFrenik]

You're doing wonderfully, Rev. The way I've always felt about ref is that if all the great artists of our past had to use it, what would make me feel so damned special to think I didn't need to? Your recent posts are a good example of how this works well. I'd suggest to use even more reference, if you're not already. When you go into finalizing the character, what references are using for the costumes? The jewelry and makeup? The added lighting? All of this can be referenced to push your designs more. Keep up the good work.