Vil's sketchbook

[Vilhelmina]

Hey guys!
I've been drawing and painting (primarily digitally) for nearly nine years now. But it's been a little mechanical lately - I haven't felt like I've improved as much as I used to, and I keep repeating the same patterns, making similar artistic (uncreative!) choices and BLAH.

NO MORE!

This ends now. Now is when I go back to basics: perspective, form, anatomy, colour theory... here I come!

/Vil

Edit
I've attached the most recent piece I've been working on (on March 4th) - it's a character portrait from imagination. Still a WIP so the hair etc is quite rough, but it serves as a good ref of my starting point.

[Vilhelmina]

These are some environment thumbnails I did really quickly (around 10 minutes ea). They are all for a concept art class I'm taking - I'm going to choose one to go forward with and paint in full colour, so if you guys have any favourite out of these feel free to let me know.

[Blazin0Glory]

I think you should paint the top right one. Are you currently in art school?

[Xelar]

Welcome to CA, Vil!

I can' really say too much based on what you've been posting but I browsed your gallery on DA a bit and there's a couple of things I feel like mentioning.
While the anatomy in your paintings is quite good, you play it very safe.
You use the same angles for faces again and again. I often do the same but you need to break out of it. Also, try to give your figures more character! You shouldn't rely on making everyone generically pretty.
Another thing is that you use too much black in your paintings. A good example of that would be "Devaena for Jalil". One side is almost completely black, the other light peach. Also, the lightning on the face does not match what is indicated in the background.
Dodging the black will also help you to achieve less "dirty" looking colors(the same goes for white, even though I might sound strange).
Try to use saturated colors at 10-20 value instead. You can also use a color balance/curves adjustment layer to help you.
Using dodge/burn is also detrimental to the quality of the colors, so don't use.

Please don't feel discouraged by what I said! The way you paint reminds me so much of what I used to do so I can relate 100%!
These are some of the things that really helped me improve the aesthetic of my work.

Keep up the good work!

[Vilhelmina]

I think you should paint the top right one. Are you currently in art school?

That's my personal favourite as well. (:
And I'm not in art school really, just taking a few college level classes. My full time major is MD/PhD.

Edit: Also typed up a reply to Xelar's post above, it's still being moderated however (didn't realize that could happen here) so bear with me. In my impatience I may have posted it twice...

[Vilhelmina]

Welcome to CA, Vil!

I can' really say too much based on what you've been posting but I browsed your gallery on DA a bit and there's a couple of things I feel like mentioning.
While the anatomy in your paintings is quite good, you play it very safe.
You use the same angles for faces again and again. I often do the same but you need to break out of it. Also, try to give your figures more character! You shouldn't rely on making everyone generically pretty.
Another thing is that you use too much black in your paintings. A good example of that would be "Devaena for Jalil". One side is almost completely black, the other light peach. Also, the lightning on the face does not match what is indicated in the background.
Dodging the black will also help you to achieve less "dirty" looking colors(the same goes for white, even though I might sound strange).
Try to use saturated colors at 10-20 value instead. You can also use a color balance/curves adjustment layer to help you.
Using dodge/burn is also detrimental to the quality of the colors, so don't use.

Please don't feel discouraged by what I said! The way you paint reminds me so much of what I used to do so I can relate 100%!
These are some of the things that really helped me improve the aesthetic of my work.

Keep up the good work!

Why on earth would I be feeling discouraged? It's a pleasure to receive this well thought through comments in what's only the first page of my thread here! So first off: Thank you for taking the time to look at my art and give me this feedback!

I know right, I am so much in my comfort zone that it's not even funny anymore. Hence why I'm here - I'm going to try to break out of it as best I can (which will probably have to be little by little - but that's far better than nothing).

About the colours - I do see what you mean in that particular piece, and I can see a more instances when I've exaggerated the blackness. I don't actually use the dodge/burn tools at all, but maybe an overdone addition/multiply layer can have similar effects? If so I'll try to stay away from that as well.

I have to ask though, what type of value do you mean when you say "saturated colors at 10-20 value"?

Once again, thank you for your feedback! I'll see you around!

[Vilhelmina]

These are some quick sketches from tonight. The first set were allowed between 30 s-1 min each. The last one had a time limit of 5 min 45 s.

References from http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

[Vilhelmina]

More gesture and figure drawings, these are from tonight.

First batch took 1 min each, second two took 5 min 45 s, last one took 11 min 30 s.

[PontusEuxinus]

You´re doing great with the color studies. Slowly getting better, so keep up your pace : )

[Vilhelmina]

Thanks Pontus! Yeah the more I do this the more I feel like I need to do it - so definitely going to make an effort to keep it up!

These are from today, still using the same figure / gesture drawing tool. The first two are the six minute ones, the last one is eleven minutes. Incidentally the first one also appeared yesterday (these are selected randomly by the site), but I think I did it a lot better today!

[Vilhelmina]

Today's work.

Ten and eleven minutes, respectively. Both were drawn from refs found at pixelovely.

[Vilhelmina]

More figure drawings! Again, the first two had a 6 minute time limit, the last one was allowed 11 minutes and 30 seconds.