Jarrad's Sketchbook

[Jarrad]

kvetch: thanks! I find that too is a problem with me, but also just stopping before the entire piece or whatever it is seems finished. maybe i'll stop at about 70% when there is actually much more "clean up" work for me to do.

ivan4oto: Thank you very much. That is quite encouraging to hear. sometimes it becomes hard when the negative voices in my head become loud, but rare are those times so it isn't a huge deal. I'll come stop by your sb later and check it out!




me thinks that I should be more careful in the drawing portion so that things aren't placed as crazy and noticed way later on. oh well, maybe next time!
"self" portrait in a mirror

[Kvetch]

Hey, good stuff. A little bit uneven in the ears and eyes, but the cheekbones, mouth and forehead structure read really well. It might be a good time to do some eye studies, you seem to have a kind of 'generic' eye that you use over and over. Remember the eye is quite asymmetrical, the highest point on the top lid is usually on the nose side, and the lowest point on the bottom lid on the ear side.

[Jarrad]

Kvetch: Yes man yes! lets fix my trashy eyes by studying eyes. EYE STUDY TIME! actually i read this about an hour ago so I've already started.

stuffs from today. drew skull man with the charcoals, then painted him, then gave up, then painted fruit'n'veg, then other stuff

[GrayPersona]

hey nice sb you have here, one thing I noticed is that your edges and shapes are very indistinct.
try implementing what you learn from those cast studies and drawing exactly what you see,without giving yourself to much room
for unnecessary lines.

[Jarrad]

GrayPersona: Thanks so much for the advice. ohhh yeah my stuff could be so much clearer!.. one day it will be slightly less muddy!!!



here is something that i'm working on. ellipse hell! also reflective things are crazy as well.
jarrad out

[Kvetch]

Cool stuff. Oh how I hate ellipses. Completely impossible. The charcoal skull and the still lifes are great. Getting stuff to look reflective with pencil/charcoal must be a nightmare... That bowl looks really solid.

[Jarrad]

Kvetch: I know right!? Kim jung-gi owns them pretty hard though! Today was a failure.. thats all I can think about . Time to get back on the saddle though!




A.D.D. still life studies and some Paul Bonner studies.. MAN i feel like I learned a ton about edges in a very cooool way from studying his sketches.. Gonna do more studies of peoples I likes for suuuure.

[hallowtreez]

hey man your off to an awesome start. i started drawing at the end of 2011 so its been like a year and some months and in the begining i didnt study shit lol only recently did i pick up learning anatomy, perspective and such so ur doing great. i love the troll/goblin heads you recently did :o

[MrFrenik]

Ooo, I love the goblin heads; the forms are really solid. Getting better, man, keep it up!

[GrayPersona]

those last studies are great,especially that bowl,keep drawing!

[ivan4oto]

I really like the values in that self portrait and the drapery study. Oh and as MrFrenik said the goblin heads look really nice !

[Kvetch]

Heh, the Bonner studies are great. Love this guy: http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1361777321
Made me think of the midgets in phantasm :o
Are the eye-sockets a bit small on your skull model?

[Jarrad]

hallowtreez: Thanks man. You are doing very well yourself! Only one way to get better!

Mrfrenik: Hey MrF! I thought maybe you were pissed at me for giving you lame feedback or something.. nice to "see" you again.. and thanks! I'll be coming 'round your book soon!

GrayPersona: Thank you very much! I shall certainly keep on drawing!

ivan4oto: Thanks!

Kvetch: Hahahahaha that's hilariously awesome. Jesus! you are right about the skull. I felt that there was something off about it ever since I bought that skeleton.. Well I knew that the rest of its proportions were rather lousy.. I only paid $70 for the entire skeleton.. you get what you pay for.. I should really stop studying that one and get a decent one perhaps.

still life, photostudy of that guy everyone probably knows, bonner study sketch, and a part of a daarken painting sketch.. maybe that last one was a bit too rushed -_-

[Kvetch]

Haha, that skull may not be 100% anatomically accurate...
The drapery study is great, and the values on the axe guy are really tight.

[Jarrad]

Kvetch: Lol. no mo studies from that dude until I get a propa one.
Thank you sir!


fruit still life. maybe i should eat them now.

[Kvetch]

Looking good. I think maybe you're getting a little too desaturated in the shadows, or over-saturating light areas? I'm not sure, it feels a bit like the light and shadows are a different colour/material. I think you were really successful simplifying things, everything feels solid apart from the shadow/light colour relationship, although I don't understand this well enough to say for sure...
I was trying to find a really good skull, they're so expensive real ones are mega-bucks. Might have to go grave-robbing... There can't exactly be a shortage of human skulls in the world :/

[Jarrad]

Kvetch: Ooo I think you are very much right about dem shadows! I didn't notice that before. Thanks!
LOL! Grave robbing. You be careful now y'here! I think anatomy tools has good ones for $40 or so, but they are quite small. There is also that site that sells all sorts of skulls, but they are uber expensive.

studies from the past couple of days. I've been doing lots of Comp studies, though they are almost all on newsprint and these last 4 were the only digital ones I tried. These 4 were imagination, then I took my favourite and worked on it a bit more.

[GrayPersona]

hey jarrad your pencil studies are great ,I really like the form on those goblins.
maybe do more studies of construction and perspective in tandem with all that observational work.
its important to balance out I think.

[MrFrenik]

Haha, sorry for making you think I was pissed, though I'm not sure what gave that impression. I guess I do have quite a tough demeanor though (beats chest). Anyways, these last few look good, I would just say to start tightening up on your drawings/values. Most thing are looking loose and sketchy, which is great for quick ideas, but for focused studies they could be tighter.

[Jarrad]

Graypersona: Thank you so much for bringing up that point! These last crit you gave about my edges being indistinct had a tremendous impact on me. It got me thinking about edges and clarity of what I'm trying to show all of the time. And this time I agree with you very much... I will get started on more construction stuff!

MrFrenik: No worries. It was most likely just me being me . I think it was maybe one time when I gave you advice and on your next post you didn't say anything about it so I thought maybe I had offended you.. haha.. never know! Once again, great advice. I agree very much with you.

Man! This site has been an amazing help for me. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has dropped by and has given me words of advice.. or words at all. It means so much especially not going to any sort of formal school. The fact that us artists can have a place like this where physical distance isn't relevant is amazing! It always makes me happy to see other people who are passionate and want to succeed and want to grow as artists. Good times!


Following the advice of Mr F.. and my dad. I spent more time on that last refined thumbnail to try to bring more out in it. I'm not sure if I really succeeded. I also realize that I didn't start with a line drawing. Maybe next time i'll consider that

[Jarrad]

plein air digipaint. The sun doesn't stay up for very long

[MrFrenik]

I like the direction of the thumbnail you revised; changing the silhouette of the bridge was a great choice especially. And I'd love to do some outdoor painting with my laptop, but I'm thinking the battery would just crap out before I could do anything worth a damn, ha.

[Jarrad]

MrFrenik: Thanks. I should work on those things more.. like what you are doing! I'm quite impressed with how fast you are progressing. It is inspiring! Plein air painting is reaaaaly fun. When it isn't raining all of the time here I think I'll go outside and do more!



value study in progress. going to apply some of the things that i've learned to some imagination based stuff afterwards!

[MrFrenik]

Jarrad. Bro. This last study is a HUGE leap forward, man. Your blocked in values are great; the forms turned out solid except for a few issues (the screen-left side of the face is a bit shallow and should wrap more) ; expression is killer. Now you need to focus on edges. Make hard observations of shadow terminator edges/reflected lights/gradations across forms. Also texture is a huge part of realistic lighting, so skin pores/cloth/hair. How you light these textures helps to not only describe form but add a huge amount of realism to your painting. And usually you'd save white for extreme points of light, such as specular highlights, and you'd save black for extreme points of shadow, such as ambient occlusion. However if you're trying to paint an image that has either an overexposed or underexposed quality, then of course large amounts of black or white will occur. Keep it up, sir!

[Jarrad]

MrFrenik: Man, thank you so much for the kind words. I feel like everyone is improving so quickly and I'm left in the dust -_-. It is nice to hear that I'm moving somewhere at least. I was paying a lot of attention to the edges, but they still came out lousy. I find edge control to be SOOOO difficult.. gotta work on that lots more! Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it.

here is a quicker still life of that ear in ma room. I painted on some stripes in black acrylic paint to get a larger value range.
also here is a alien head that I did from imagination based off of some thumbnails I did earlier. It seems to have an unintentional penis theme.. hahaha

back to it

[MrFrenik]

For your edges, let photoshop do what it does best, which is make your life easier. Use the 'lock transparent pixels' to keep your blocked silhouette in tact while you paint the forms within it, and use masks to help with sharper edges as well.

[Jarrad]

Mrfrenik: I actually was using lock transparent pixels. i suck though so I'm not surprised that it doesn't look like it.. oh wait.. for teh ear no i didn't. for the other thing yes I did! :3


started another value study
and a anthony jones (pretty sure) study

[MrFrenik]

Overall these last two look good, Jarrad. To push it further you'll just have to be more meticulous with your observations and really try to understand how the forms are turning and where the light is hitting.

[GrayPersona]

those 5 last studies are great,there is real improvement in your edge variety and the way the form reads,the next step is to control your medium better.
ctrl.paint.com has great videos about using temp layers and airbrushing to achieve that really smooth gradation(for example on the girls cheek there are opacity jitter streaks where it should be really smooth).
also you can use the temp layer to delete out what you dont want and get really crisp edges.
I am sure you are aware of this techniques just thought to throw it out there.

[Kvetch]

Hey, those portraits are looking great! Keep 'em coming. With edges in ps, just remember you can re-do an edge as many times as you need to. Change the brush hardness, use smaller value steps, make a selection to paint inside of, scrub it all out and start again, whatever works.