Superbacon1's Sketchbook

[Superbacon1]

Hey guys.

I'm an art student (Bachelor of Visual Arts) and I'm looking at getting into illustration/concept art. I'm pretty unhappy with my skill level at the moment so I thought I'd come here and get sorted out! Please critique the hell out of my work


Some of my most recent work:













Images from early May 2012 onwards:

[LuckyCharm]

Very nice stuff! Would love to see some more "finished"(rendered) pictures

[Superbacon1]

Very nice stuff! Would love to see some more "finished"(rendered) pictures

Thanks!


I began a piece yesterday evening. I went through my photos looking for something interesting. I found a shot I took a couple of years ago of a tree - nothing amazing.

Did a couple of sketches, thought about how I could add fantasy or sci-fi elements to the image.

I then did a Photoshop sketch using a seperate photo as a colour reference.


Today I picked it up again and did some drawings from this photoshop sketch, looking at different perspectives and some basic compositional ideas.


Hopefully more progress tomorrow!

[Superbacon1]

Some figure studies!

[Superbacon1]

Speed paint!

A lighting reference would have been great for the towers and a reference for the aerial perspective would have been great too. Next time I'll work alongside some photos and see whether I can paint quickly while colour checking against photos.

I'm starting to loosen up and let myself be less of a digital painting purist; I'm allowing myself to use blending layers and many, many layers, texture brushes (both standard and custom brushes made by others) and some blur filters and whatnot when I need them.

[Superbacon1]

Development from the previous concept sketches

[Superbacon1]

Haven't had time to update this in a bit; hopefully with my workload slacking off a bit over the next few weeks I'll be able to put up some more images.

A quick speed paint I did today after writing some visual break-downs of Theo Prins' work. I'm trying to stay loose throughout the image process instead of refining every stroke and trying to get everything 'clean'.

[lionheartGFX]

your enviroments seem to be coming along really well, i really would recommend you reading a little loomis to improve structure and studying form youre on the right track! keep drawing and you will definetely get better

[Superbacon1]

A quick 2 hour painting from this morning

Trying to keep things loose

[Superbacon1]

Nearly finished this one

Printing at 40cm wide for coursework

[Superbacon1]

Decided to get back into doing colour studies to try and get my tonal skills up to scratch


Any constructive criticisms would be great =D

[SmallPoly]

Hi Superbacon1,

Some of your images show good color use and understanding of perspective, though there are some inconsistencies.

It looks to me like you need more practice with atmospheric perspective, control over your tonal range, lighting, and rendering in general. Might help some of that to do some still life paintings.

Check out this thread, for some ways to attack the still life stuff:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=107217

[knut-]

Nice enviro concepts man.
Keep working on values, lines and sharp edges and you will see great improvement.
You have great potential, seeing sketches like the one on #9 post.
Keep up!

[Superbacon1]

Thanks guys!

And thanks Poly for the link; it's brilliant!



Just a quickish colour test for a piece I'm working on

[Superbacon1]

Many many distractions; took the night off

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

Good crisp values on the environment studies. Also keep at the pencil sketches, that's the really important area to develop. Keep drawing 'til you die!

I see some Miyazaki influence in there, but i think we're all guilty of that!

Keep at it, looking good.

[Superbacon1]

Thanks, Dutchman. Definately a bit of Miyazaki; it's hard not to grab a handful of two!

And thanks everybody for the comments this far; you're telling me all the things I need to know to get my work to the level I want it to be at.



A WIP concept painting for my sister's birthday;

[Drex]

Smashing work! You have a firm grasp on color and atmospheric effects that I'm quite jealous of -- great if you want to get into concept art.

One thing I notice looking at all of your paintings is that the compositions are all quite similar; there's one large focal point off to the side in an otherwise wide open setting. It's not necessarily a bad thing to use a similar design a few times over, but it can get monotonous if someone is looking at all of your paintings one after another. I had a similar problem in class and my teacher gave me the great example of imagining they're all going to be in a gallery together -- will people feel like they're having deja vu from one scene to the next? Perhaps you should try some more complicated scenes with multiple elements overlapping each other? Something that looks busier? The way I got (am getting rather) around it is by going out and sketching scenes in neighborhoods.

[Superbacon1]

Smashing work! You have a firm grasp on color and atmospheric effects that I'm quite jealous of -- great if you want to get into concept art.

One thing I notice looking at all of your paintings is that the compositions are all quite similar; there's one large focal point off to the side in an otherwise wide open setting. It's not necessarily a bad thing to use a similar design a few times over, but it can get monotonous if someone is looking at all of your paintings one after another. I had a similar problem in class and my teacher gave me the great example of imagining they're all going to be in a gallery together -- will people feel like they're having deja vu from one scene to the next? Perhaps you should try some more complicated scenes with multiple elements overlapping each other? Something that looks busier? The way I got (am getting rather) around it is by going out and sketching scenes in neighborhoods.

Thanks! I've been interested in atmospheric effects since I was young (thinking the rays of light that came down through clouds meant that miracles were happening on the ground below, as at the end of The Sword in The Stone). Colour is something that I feel I don't have great grasp on haha, so thanks for the compliment!

Yeah I tend to shy away from busy compositions with a lot of overlap. It's very intimidating, the thought of how I'll retain a sense of readability with a visually busy scene. I think I need to put the idea of always getting a 'perfect composition' aside for a bit and just focus on what's in the image.


I might get on that sketching idea! I'm hoping to get a decent camera (just a nice quality point-and-shoot) to get reference photos soonish but I'm realising the importance of sketching on-site as well

[Superbacon1]

Finished!

[Superbacon1]

A concept for an upcoming project

And an old man that I painted. Reference picture from Wikipedia Commons

[BlackDelphin]

I really like your environment concepts, they're fun and interesting.
Perhaps try working on composition more. I'm not always sure where to look first,
and i don't find my eyes guided by the elements in the drawing.

[Superbacon1]

I'm still workin' on my compositions xD

Thanks!


A concept

[Noxmoony]

Hey nice drawings man, I really like how your environments are coming along. I especially like the one on the first post where there's a house on top of this robot dog..very nice. And I also like the one on post 20, I like how you handled the lighting over there. Keep going and all the very best!

[Superbacon1]

Hey nice drawings man, I really like how your environments are coming along. I especially like the one on the first post where there's a house on top of this robot dog..very nice. And I also like the one on post 20, I like how you handled the lighting over there. Keep going and all the very best!

Thanks Nox!


I haven't updated in quite awhile. Been working on developing a Flash game. Programming is trickier than I thought it would be.


The first image in this post is an unfinished concept for the game.
The second is a strip from my webcomic. I've been running it for awhile and I thought it was about time I showed you a strip or two!

Any criticism is welcome =D

[Superbacon1]

Hey guys, it's been a while.
I've done a heap of painting since my last update. I'll post the most recent ones now and I'll try to find the time to post more soon!

The first two are photostudies, mainly for tone but also (especially for the cliff painting) for forms and the general structure of the world.

The third painting was a quick speedpaint done without reference. It eventually started to take the form of a lot of those darker and more sinister, often lonely concept art pieces of brown rocky environments with shrouded, sinister buildings. If I knew the names of some of the guys that work in that style I would name them, but I don't so I won't.

The fourth and fifth are a couple more images from my webcomic.


Please critique any or all of them if you feel up to it!

[Staal Sander]

nice work. The painted stuff is comming together pretty nicely!

[Superbacon1]

Thank you =]

I'm wondering; can you guys see the images attached to my previous posts in this thread? They're not showing for me and I'm unsure if this is just a temporary forum-migration issue or just my browser or user account playing up

[Superbacon1]

Did a speedpaint this afternoon and recorded it:


Then came back a few hours later and refined it!

[Superbacon1]

Took a bit longer than I normally would on this one. Pretty happy with it!

I'm also liking this new attachment system. Being able to manually place images in the post makes it way easier to talk about stuff.