Zesiul's Sketchbook: Improve

[Nele Klumpe]

The still lifes look pretty good already! Also your colours seem to be pretty nice already. As you asked what to study further, I'd suggest faces. Study the structure, the planes of the face. Also pay attention to your edges. In the pinup studies they look pretty nice, but in your faces it seems like you're concentrating too much on the contours of each feature. Try to blend them more together. As weird as it sounds, but keeping the contours of the eyes and mouth soft makes them look a lot more realistic.
Keep up the hard work!

[Zesiul]

Dec. 11 2011
MMA Torso Reference (2hours for both)

[Zesiul]

Dec. 12 2011
MMA Torso Reference (2 hours)

[peterwhite]

Good use of tones in your work.

[Zesiul]

[luigi marchione]

Your works so expressive, I love it. Keep up the great work.

[Zesiul]

Dec. 13 2011
MMA Torso References (2 hours)

[Zesiul]

WIP
Sword in stone

[Samszym]

Dude that looks a heck of a lot better now, nice work! Got some crits and suggestion for ye if you don't mind. Mostly suggestions. Keep in mind I could be totally wrong about everything.
Most of this is based on the idea of "I only care about the sword and kinda the castle". Based on this theme the white space past the trees, the building to the right, and the hard edges in the background are just distractions, and if there's no reason to keep them then don't bother. The design of the castle isn't varying enough, to really sell the idea that it's so far away you need to suggest tons of buildings of all shapes, and that tower thing might look cool towering over everything. Since it's so far away you might want to blur the edges a bit. Actually go ahead and blur everything in reverse order of importance, the sword should have the sharpest edge. Huh...that was just short of a pun. Okay next for this scene to work that sword is gonna be on a huge cliff face, you can't even let the viewer begin to think those bushes are just a meter away from the sword. Make it obvious with a big contrast in value. in the paintover I made the cliff light and the shrubs dark, but I think according to this light it should have been the other way around.

I also cropped it up and messed with stuff in the paintover. It of course looks kinda dumb and has a thousand flaws of its own that I can't see, I'm just making some suggestions. What I did was crop the right side enough for the sword to fall in the 66% line of the image to follow the rule of thirds. Then I expanded the left tree to make it do the same. I think making the tree bigger lends the scene some more depth and in the process I also deleted the bright spaces beyond the trees, and this also leaves the exact size of the castle town ambiguous. Might be 5 times as wide what we're seeing, it's up to our imagination. This may make it hard to tell they're trees though...I softened the castle town's edges and varied up its design a bit, also deleted the buildings on the left. If those are important to your narrative then make them look more important. Everything in your composition has to be there for a reason. Why do we need to see a blocky house thing and some squares of land?
Wow I got kinda carried away haha, hope you don't mind. Well good luck on this man!

[Zesiul]

Dec. 14 2011
MMA Torso References (1.75 hours)


Female study, done 4 times for shape understanding.


@AvisNocturna
Thanks! Great advice, I'll study more into faces real soon
@rumpenstiltzkin
Yeah I totally agree, I need more face practice.
@TCrow
Thanks!
@Parsakoira
Thanks!
@La-Fairy
I use the soft brush when I first apply the colors so it's really no big deal. But thanks!
@BlasteR
Hmm, I hadn't thought about drapery, maybe I'll do some more after the new year.
@peterhurman
I'm taking that as a compliment! So thanks!
@Luigi marchione
Thanks! I don't feel all that expressive, but it's nice that you think so!
@Vertical
Thanks for the crit, it was a nice different look at it. I'll post the final next week.

[Zesiul]

Super late night study to a extra busy day.
Dec. 15 2011
MMA Torso References (1hour 15 min)

[KrispyKream]

Great start with the still lifes and pinups!
Work on making sharper contrasts on your paintings,crispier linework, and mood
The breaking bad pic is awesome, you nailed the look of the character, but when you continue on your work take your time with it, its much better to have one solid painting then 6 unfinished ones that leave you empty

keep going

[Zesiul]

Dec. 16 2011
MMA Torso References (1.5 hours)


Week 5 is over, I want week 6 to be all about me polishing up what I've yet to really get into. So lots of just figure studies lots more line work, and a couple finished illustrations hopefully.

[Zesiul]

Dec. 19 2011
David Sculpture still life

[nevermindjoker]

thank you for your encouragement on my sketchbook page!!! the MMA refs was like what I saw on Mr. Delicious sketched long time ago and it is really a good studies for anatomy and movement (poses IDK) well, I want to see more!!! and definitely a good piece at the right time ... cheers!

[-D_art-]

great work! love the line studies on the previous page and the fighters on post 32# and 33#

[Zesiul]

New sketches for the sword and the stone illustration

Trying to figure which one to go with.

[Zesiul]

[qlotzan]

nice study i like it. The skin's study with figures done in the right way

keep it up my friend

qlotzan

[Zesiul]

I guess I'll just call this done. I need to move on.

[Rustveld]

Thanks for dropping by my sb. I see some great studies in here!
Your colors are looking good, your values on a few pieces could use some work. The sword and stone pieces for example could use more dark tones I think, having the biggest value range on the focal point. I've noticed that a lot of people somewhat ignore the face when doing body studies, I would suggest working on the faces as well. Keep it up!

[Zesiul]

TORSO DAY

[Zesiul]

[diana6echo]

I like those last pose-studies keep it up!^^

[dblock]

Those are some cool studies. Try to see if you could do some from life.

[Aydinal]

Wow-ee, look at those studies- keep up the good work!

[Alrap]

Great studies man, keep it up...

[Zesiul]

Really crazy busy day full of stress and headaches. This was all I got done. Tomorrows another day~


@KrispyKream
Yeah I definitely don't have many full illustrations now, but I will. Just trying to study up on anatomy for now. Thanks for the encouraging words.
@nevermindjoker
Thanks! I'll sure keep up the studies!
@-D_art-
Thanks!
@Qlotzan
Thanks!
@Rustveld
Yeah I've tried to do some more value studies, I'm slowly getting somewhere, thanks! Face studies coming in the foreseeable future.
@diana6echo
Thanks!
@dblock
Thanks! I will probably later on. Right now I have a pretty setup schedule.
@Aydinal
Thanks!
@Alrap
Thanks!

[Zesiul]

All I had time for today, Happy New Year!

[Zesiul]