Many sketchlings

[SpaceJelly]

Hello everyone, I've lurked about here for some time and have finally decided to get posting. Here is a selection of drawings and sketches done in Illustrator.

I'm really wanting to improve so comments and crits are very welcome.

[SpaceJelly]

some more

[SpaceJelly]

and more

[SpaceJelly]

Here are a couple from tonight, playing with ideas. Going to re-draw the chicken freak, do the pose/anatomy properly and hopefully do a detailed render in Illustrator.

[FourTonMantis]

good start man! just keep going.

[SpaceJelly]

Thanks very much. I intend to keep at it.

[SpaceJelly]

Hello again folks! I know it's been a while since I last posted here but I promise that I haven't been slacking off. I want to get posting on here more and get more feedback as I've been pretty much limiting myself recently.

Anway my art has changed a fair bit during my absence so I'm going to post some of my more recent sketches and WIPs here. I've decided to venture back into digital painting and it's really helped improve my art as well as trying to draw every day.

Thanks for stopping by and having a look and I'll be aiming to post every Sunday or so (it's one of the few days I have spare) and ustilise this site more as I want to get better. Way better.

[NickyBeats]

last post is a big step up in progress! the digital stuff especially, but i do love the traditional sketches a lot!! you have a very cool style developing!! keep it up!

[luthertaylor]

wowww!! It's always astonishing seeing someone develop their style over a period of time.
definitely climbing the ladder! keep going

[Clur]

Hey, thanks for your helpful comment in my sketchbook, I really appreciate it.

I love your digital stuff! It's got a lot of solidity to it, and yet it's very fluid. You make great use of contrasting colours, too.

[SpaceJelly]

NickyBeats - Thanks a bunch, especially the site you showed me. The BF finds it interesting too but for totally different reasons I'm glad you like my traditional stuff, pencil will always remain my favourite medium.

Luthertaylor - Thanks for the encouragement! Hopefully we'll both be on our way to the top.

Clur - Happy to help. It's not often I'm able to dish out the advice so it's nice to give someone a helping hand. I'm finally getting to grips with digital painting, happy you approve.

Hopefully I'm gonna get some moe sketches uploaded tonight. There should be some more figure studies from the Michael Hampton book and soom toony doodles.

[kevin_]

great style! dont stop posting!

[SpaceJelly]

Thank you Kevin and I will.

Here's some more drawings from the last week or so. This week I discovered that my new super duper cheap sketch pad is super duper cheap because it's super duper crap. The paper has this spongey texture that kind of just disintegrates as soon as my pencil goes near it. Ah well lesson learned. Also posting stuff on here helps me spot my errors, which is good.

I want to get into doing more scenes and enviros ad was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to get started. I'm really not sure where to begin. I really need to get drawing from life too and I hoping to scrape some cash together to go to life drawing classes sadly I'm a bit skint at the moment.

[Clur]

My sketchbook does that too, it sucks.

But your pencil drawings are looking really good though! Especially those figure studies, you've got a great handle on the basic shapes and volumes. I think the next step would be to do some bigger, more detailed ones.

As for scenes, I don't as many as I ought so my advice probably isn't the best but I'll give it a shot. I usually start with a vague idea of the feelings I want to convey: in one piece I'm currently working I wanted a prairie scene with a hopeful sort of longing. From there I try to figure what sort of composition and elements would work best for that. In this case it was a long vertical format with more sky than ground visible, big clouds, a solitary figure, high value colours, and soft organic shapes.

Basically I think if you get your concept sorted out right from the start, everything will flow from there.

Or you could maybe try a madlibs sort of approach, write down a bunch of different locations and emotions - 1930s interior, distant asteriod, ruined Egyptian temple, happy, lonely, frightening - and just match them up at random and draw whatever you end up with.

I hope that made some sense!

[SpaceJelly]

As for scenes, I don't as many as I ought so my advice probably isn't the best but I'll give it a shot. I usually start with a vague idea of the feelings I want to convey: in one piece I'm currently working I wanted a prairie scene with a hopeful sort of longing. From there I try to figure what sort of composition and elements would work best for that. In this case it was a long vertical format with more sky than ground visible, big clouds, a solitary figure, high value colours, and soft organic shapes.

Basically I think if you get your concept sorted out right from the start, everything will flow from there.

Or you could maybe try a madlibs sort of approach, write down a bunch of different locations and emotions - 1930s interior, distant asteriod, ruined Egyptian temple, happy, lonely, frightening - and just match them up at random and draw whatever you end up with.

I hope that made some sense!

Yes it makes perfect sense. I'll definatley try it out. For the time being I'm going right back to basics starting with perspective and build it up from there. I'm also going to try and improve my observation skills and draw stuff from life. I'm lucky in the respect that I live in a rural area with plenty of nice scenery to draw. I started by drawing my own living room, which I'll post in my next batch. Though this has made me realise how damn wonky my house is!

[SpaceJelly]

Here's this weeks updates

I finished up 'Bunny Bomb'



I did a quick vector of 'Funkzilla'. I'm working on a more complete piece at the moment, trying to work out the composition. Will post when I have the final sketch up.



I did a self portrait of sorts to use as an avatar. A very accurate rendition if you ask me




Annnnnnnd to practice my painting I did some 30 minuit studies. I'm used to working from scanned drawings and I want to get better at drawing/painting straight into photoshop, so I did these. Not very good but they are a start.

[luthertaylor]

Fantastic updates spacejelly, for your quick studies, if it's primarily for the use of practicing your rendering and observational skills I would perhaps spend a tad longer on them. focus on doing them to the point where if you squint at the image and your study, they should resemble each other.
a good way of seeing value and learning it is to take coloured images and try and paint them in grayscale without actually turning the image into grayscale. keep up the hard work I subscribed to your thread but wasn't notified of your updates
--------
scratch that, it seemed I didn't subscribe D: i will perform hara kiri for you! lol

[Clur]

Bunny Bomb looks fantastic! I love how you subtly repeated the blue of the lit match in Bunny's eyes.

For your entirely digital things, I sometimes find it works better for me to block things in with pure shapes and colour rather than using lines, makes it easier to focus on the painting! They look good though, hope to see more!

[James Thomas]

amazing work dude, inspriational

[SpaceJelly]

Thanks for the tips guys, greatly appreciated. I've been keeping them in mind this week when I've been working.

OK, some digital bits n pieces. I've been doing some landscapy stuff from photos on Morguefile as I've not had chance to get out as it's been pissing it down with rain. Been working on a few personal paintings too.

1. A random put colour down and see what happens painting. I don't often work this way and it felt kinda liberating. No sure what it is (!) I think it's trees or something and my partner thinks it looks like muscle mass. Either way it was a hoot to paint.



2. Some craptastic studies. I've always been rubbish at enviros, so I'm practicing them once or twice a week. Getting there very slowly.



3. A slightly better study from tonight with photo ref included. I'm happier with this one.



4. and a painting that I've been working on from a sketch.



I've also been doing some observational drawings from life (random stuff from about the house) and I'll get posting them when I have time to scan them in.

Thanks for looking folks and happy painting.

[miezis]

That's a nice looking snitch there
It looks like you can do some quite humorous characters. "Bunny bomb" made me smile!

[Psychobuddy]

Great work so far, just keep studying and doing your own pieces. You're Hampton studies look good.

[Clur]

I love your third environment study, you did a good job capturing the flow and colour of the rock. Are you going to continue with it?

And that first painting! Beautiful. The movement is really hypnotic.( For the record, I think it looks like a kelp forest.)

[SpaceJelly]

Thanks Clur! I think I will carry on with the enviro piece as it's kind of restful to paint and I found it chilled me out after a day at work. I'm interested to see how far I can take it. I'm kind of drawn to the more abstract enviro photos for some reason but studying them seems to be really helping my colour and composition skills.

The abstract thingy does look like a kelp forrest, especially the flow. Hmmmm.

Thanks for the feedback

edit -

sorry guys I missed the other two coments due to my stupid browser not loading properly. Thanks for the encouragement, I'll keep plugging away until I get better at painting. I like to do humerous, characterful pictures most of all. I blame a childhood OD'ing on cartoons Warner Bros have a lot to anwser for.

[luthertaylor]

THIS!!!! VIBRANT!!! love!
lol for your enviros buddy Practice them in grayscale. first change the ref itself into grayscale so you only have to worry about catching the depth and tones. afterwards when you start smashing them like a pro, change the images back up into colour and then try and focus on translating coloured images into grayscale from your own perception. If you don't of it already there is a technique where you can squint and you will see the general value in ANYTHING.
also as well for environments focus on aspects that make an enviroment like trees. isolate them and smash out studies on them.
I really want to get back into environs myself but focusing from now until end of september on humans and our fashion.
anyway keep it up bud and thanks for stopping by

[SpaceJelly]

Thanks Luther, I'll bear those tips in mind. I've recently started doing the greyscale study thing after a suggestion on another forum (the snail was done like this) but I've only done a couple so your tip about squinting should really help. Tree studies etc sounds like a great idea too. I'll have to squeeze some of those in too. I'm kind of practicing everything at once at the moment with each day of the week devoted to a different subject. My main focus is still people and anatomy though as this is where I want to improve the most. I'm not gonna quit on enviros though! It's just a case of finding enough time to fit it in

Thanks again for the tips

[kidult]

Some really cool characters!

[LoudLikeNature]

Some of your paints are really funny and interesting. I like 'em.
I'd like to say you should work on your colors. Some of your color choices are abit muddled and take down the tone of your works a couple of notches. Try to have more changes in saturation and lightness.

Btw, that smoking rabbit was amazing

[SpaceJelly]

Some of your paints are really funny and interesting. I like 'em.
I'd like to say you should work on your colors. Some of your color choices are abit muddled and take down the tone of your works a couple of notches. Try to have more changes in saturation and lightness.

Btw, that smoking rabbit was amazing

Thanks for pointing that out. Are there any particular pieces that jump out as particularly bad in this area? That might help me figure out where I'm going wrong.

[Zenith_]

Great use of line and colour here! Your sketchbook has a graphic feel to it.

Keep 'em coming!