High School Woes!

[jimmyjxia]

Hello everyone. My name is Jimmy Xia and my focus is to improve at illustration!

I hope to make your "click" worthwhile!

Thank you!

(Last page for most recent posts)

[jimmyjxia]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME 4/30


Got some more practice up with digital. Testing out some new brushes.

Some physical sketchbook pages as well

(the sad face is not a self portrait. sun wukong taken from cushart as reference)

[jimmyjxia]

Portrait Study. Master Painting. + Other stuff

[Gpozzo]

Nice start! loving the very first one you posted, cool sketchbook pages, the master study came out great, your stuff is really nice man, id like to see some more, keep 'em coming!

[jimmyjxia]

@Gpozzo Thank you very much!

Here is a work in progress of an dragon archer shot.

Critique would be nice. Also suggestions on color?

[jimmyjxia]

Another work in progress titled "Heist"

Mona Lisa was a pain to draw <.<

After browsing through Pkmike, algenpfleger, and Mile's sketchbooks, my ego has been crushed again. They are soo good

[Pete Hidalgo]

Nice book!. Like the use of colors. I do have one question. The one with the tree, Is that a tiny house on a normal tree branch or a HUGE Tree with a normal size house?

[jimmyjxia]

@Pete
Haha I haven't really thought about it. It's probably a normal sized house on a huge tree branch.

Update on the WIP

[jimmyjxia]

Finished the Heist picture. Baaaaah too much time has gone into this... I need to be more efficient.

[p sage]

You're 17 and you draw like this? Holy smokes. Where do I sign up to quit life?

Nah, kidding. You're doing very well. Very impressive works. I particularly like the way you made your heist scene look lit... and the head-theif's face is well done (and well lit!)

Will be watching your book. 5* & sub.

[jimmyjxia]

@p_sage: thank you very much! comments like yours inspire me to do more!

Some quick photo studies and a miniature self portrait

I currently use the pocket moleskine sketchbook. I think I need to get a bigger sketchbook.

[jimmyjxia]

Work in progress

[Will McCraw]

Your pencil work is awesome mate, just keep up your figure drawing, it will not only help build your ability to draw accurately but also build your confidence. Great work so far, keep at it

[DragonL]

great stuff!

[GEB]

Mate you're knocking out some fantastic work already! How old are you? Shiiiiiiiiit... Looking forward to more

[jimmyjxia]

@Will McCraw: Thanks for the advice! Would you recommend doing figure drawing from photography? I currently don't have access to live models.

@DragonL: Thank you!

@GEB: Thanks! I'll try to post more often

[Neyut]

ahh you are kidding me, 17... >__>
orz your work stresses me...
now I think I have to become better ... *motivation flows into me*
yeah so enough, I think your clothed figures look a bit chubby @__@
maybe some more drapery practise would be good to improve ^^

[ShroudStar]

You have some great values, good use of colors, and some incredible faces with the sketches. Really beautiful work and I love your Mona Lisa heist idea! =) I would just say keep it up - obviously your practice is helping you a lot. The sketches and the color exercises seem to be keeping you on your toes.

[Lyraina]

Amazing stuff. I especially like how you handle your colors, and the opaque style of some of your images. Keep it up!

[p sage]

RE: Santa work.

It's a good idea, but not as accomplished as the thief work (which was awesome).

I think the lights/darks are a bit confused in it. A person would think that Santa should be the center of attention... the subject. But he's too low contrast to attract the attention. Instead, the candle on the back wall is very bright, with several dark areas surrounding it.... so it pops forward. The candle is saying "Hey! Look at me! I'm the subject!"

It's a complicated scene, and fairly well drawn. Maybe you'd like to try a different rendering to more fully consider Santa as the subject.

Keep workin!

[jimmyjxia]

@p_sage: I'm glad you're actually coming back to check on my work! I've done some adjustments to the Santa piece to see if I could bring him out more (increase saturation, account for light reflection from paper, dust specks, light glow, etc). At the same time, the ball light still kinda screams "look at me" so I don't know if I did what I wanted to. QQ. (old image here http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...ntaClaus11.png)

[p sage]

It's reading better.

If you squint, you'll notice that the brightest and darkest areas are the things you see first (the candle, the shiny reflection on the floor... the dark window... the light on top of the tree)...

Maybe you should try a different layer where you really knock back that candle light, and then light the front side of Claus' face. Remember that the highest contrast will draw attention first. If you want people to look at Claus, you'll need to either make his features dark and surround him with light or make him lighter and surround him with darker areas. (light figure on a dark ground advances/dark figure on a light ground advances).

But if you knock that candle light way down in a "trial" layer just to try out the new lighting maybe you'll come upon the solution.

I like the way you handled Mrs Claus (or the woman)

[jimmyjxia]

@p_sage: Thank you for all of the advice. It's helping me a ton!

So in this attempt, I try to push out Santa's face forward more (as opposed to letting it shine in the "back")

I've also included a gif that compares the two in a loop.

[Mike Yakovlev]

yeah man, your line work is really solid. Especially in the pencils

[NickyBeats]

wow!!! amazing worrk! very nice lighting! and i love the hatching in your graphite sketch!! very nice works!

[p sage]

Cool. It's starting to work

[jimmyjxia]

Something cartoony for fun, monster "design", and a still life practice.

[kevin_]

help you become a better artist...looks like you are doing pretty damn good on your own! keep it up!

[Kapil]

I'm definitely going to have to keep and eye on this thread! Great work man!

[Psychobuddy]

Awesome work dude, keep cranking this stuff out!