A Fox's Journey (Snowfox's Sketchbook)

**Snowfox** · May 11th, 2012, 03:56 AM

Hello everyone,

I'm an aspiring concept artist currently studying in the West Coast, just beginning to paint digitally after deciding to go back to university. Some of these are for my classes and others just personal work as I progress + some older pieces. Some feedback is appreciated, thank you.

This first posts are rough concepts for a class. I still need a better sense of color/composition in the market scene, will rework it as I go.

**Snowfox** · May 11th, 2012, 07:09 AM

More concept doodles for class

**Snowfox** · May 11th, 2012, 01:55 PM

Another quick sketch finished just now, some other older traditional sketches I have on my fb.

**Snowfox** · May 13th, 2012, 12:50 AM

Resized the first piece I'd posted for better viewing and put up a few more pieces I've done including Zbrush/Maya sculpts. Will do more sketches after finals

**Guardian G.I.** · May 16th, 2012, 06:04 PM

Your pencil works and that 3d model look very, very good, as well as your digital paintings (they look a little bit too blurry to me, though).
I'm looking forward to see more of your work!

**spiritvanished** · May 16th, 2012, 06:10 PM

Nice Sketchbook (: My suggestion would be to try out some different colors.

**Logan Turner** · May 16th, 2012, 07:00 PM

I really dig your character stuff, the flow of the fabric in that character design is really nice!

I my opinion the environments need quite a bit more work,
But yeah the character stuff is awesome!

**Snowfox** · May 16th, 2012, 11:00 PM

Thank you all so much, I appreciate the input. I am just starting with digital painting and environment/character concepting so I need all the tips I can get

**ruuhkis** · May 17th, 2012, 06:43 AM

Hey Snowfox, welcome to CA

I think the character painting and the eye studies are the strongest ones on this page. I really like her pose. Perhaps there should be some reflected light bouncing off the shadow side of the eye studies.

I would suggest trying to be as efficient and precise as possible when you paint. Choose a color, choose where to place it, and paint it in. Try to blend colors as little as possible. Make bold statements! When there's a transition between light and shade, paint the transition with separate colors in an opaque manner instead of choosing two extremes and blending them together (this kind of blending very often leads to the choice of wrong colors, anyway). When you're this precise about painting, I think it's much easier to see where the mistakes lie and where you need improvement.

Keep your areas of light and shadow clearly separated, and be clear about the direction of light. Perhaps this quote from Craig Mullins will help a bit, as it certainly helped me:

"Decide what is in light and what is in shadow and don't mix them up. Think like a comic artist. Two values, but if they are well thought out and designed and drawn they can look totally real. Think like that, but instead of making the light white and the shadow black, make the light a 7 and the shadow a 3. Then go ahead and use 5-10 in the light and 1-3 in the shadow to pull out sub forms. DO NOT use 1-5 in any part of the light, or use 5-10 in any areas of the dark. Keep you edges a little softer in the shadows, a little sharper in the light, you are done. (0 is black, 10 is white) Deciding what is in shadow and light for a particular object is pretty hard in words. I will leave that up to you and that is 99 percent of the struggle."

Maybe you know all this already, but it's such an essential thing to keep in mind that a reminder will never hurt.

You should definitely check out Scott Robertson's DVDs (http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/sto...tte-Surfaces-1) where he teaches how to understand values better.

Your character concept could really be pushed further by being more clear about where the light is coming from. Right now there seem to be pretty random areas of lighter value that aren't consistent with any one light source. Some planes of her cape that are facing upwards are receiving light, whereas the top of her head is receiving none. This makes the form very hard to read. Always stay true to a chosen source of light. Also, remember to introduce some reflected light into the shadow areas, so the form becomes readable there as well. You can also include clear cast-shadows to make the direction of light even more visible. Being clear about your values makes everything, including environment concepts and colored work, look way, way better.

Looking forward to seeing more from you!

**Snowfox** · May 18th, 2012, 02:31 AM

Wow, that is a very helpful and thorough critique ruuh, I love it. And no, as I'm still fairly new to painting it's something I really should master. Thanks for the help and inspiration!

Also, I updated this but I think maybe I'm going all over with it. Still WIP and working on it. I'm using a Cintiq 12ux and needing some way to calibrate it but it seems the colors are still off.

**JustinBeckett** · May 18th, 2012, 02:35 AM

Good start, keep on going!!

**Snowfox** · May 18th, 2012, 09:58 PM

Updated

**Mignon** · June 26th, 2012, 09:02 AM

wow, very nice sketchbook! looks very promising!I like your enviromnent concepts, and your sketches too, I'll keep in touch ;D

**GEB** · June 26th, 2012, 09:11 AM

Hey welcome to CA! I think with your paintings you should start with cleaner lines and silhouettes and work on depth and composition with value studies. You can always add in colour and soften lines but I think it's harder to start soft and smudgey then try to clean it up. Add in atmosphere by fading things cack as you go along. But start with something lose until you find nice shapes.