Fiskepudding's Sketchbook - Trying to suck less :)

[Fiskepudding]

Greeting everyone!
My name is Odin. I come from Norway, I'm 18 years old, and my high school education is as good as done. I've been on this site mainly to keep track of my friends' sketchbooks that you can check out here

Having such talented friends and seeing them improve in real time like that, it's hard not to get inspired.
Therefore I wanted to try to get better at drawing myself.
I tried to start with studying some Andrew Loomis books, but I was too unhappy with my results and my motivation quickly ebbed out, and I did nothing to improve for a long time.

Earlier this year I got a new surge of inspiration and decided that it was time to try again.
I started out with the Looms book "Fun With a Pencil" under the presumption that it was easier than the other books, and that the concepts and methods presented in that book would prepare me for the ones in the more advanced Loomis books.
I also decided that when I was done with that book I would start a sketchbook here and maybe be more active on the forums.
I finally finished that book yesterday, (yeah I used way too much time :/ ) so here I am.

First of, I made a shitty paintover of a really old and shitty digital sketch. At least its better than the original haha.

Original:


Now for some really messy scans... Does anyone have some tips for getting better scans?

Some Vilppu and Loomis proportion studies:



Skull sketches from life:


First three assignements from Concept Art 101 as well a some random crap that turned out worse that usual for some reason :



Critique and tips are VERY WELCOME!
Thanks in advance and see you tomorrow (hopefully)

[Fiskepudding]

Blehh I didn't do enough studies today. Got too sidetracked doing other stuff. Gotta work harder!

First some gesture studies from vilppu:




15 15-sec gestures and 10 30-sec gestures from this site:





Continuing Loomis proportion studies:


Here's another paintover of an old thing. I gave up on this because I realized it was gonna suck just as hard as the original:


Original (done in 15 minutes):


Half-done sketch for a daily sketch group thing:


I'm having a hard time finishing paintings... I think I'll just study more for now...

[kevlar jens]

Sweeeet stuff, pudding!

I especially enjoy seeing those paintovers. They really show how much you've progressed. Cool designs too!

Keep it up

[Fiskepudding]

@ kevlar jens: Why thank you kind sir. Sadly I had no time for a paintover like that today.

Not done so much today as I would like... oh well. I won't have to to draw very much in the next couple of days. I'll try to squeeze in a skull sketch and a self-portrait every day. It should be fine if I use no more than 15 mins on each..

Loomis and stuff:



Derp pooptraits and stuff:



And then I derped myself (that doesn't look like me at all). Pretending to be able to draw + pretending to be able to choose colors from life = this:

My brushwork is horrible too :I gotta work on that...

Critique and tips (any) are appreciated.

[Fiskepudding]

I said i was gonna do it, so here's a self-portrat (at least an attempt) and a skull sketch. Also two 60-sec gestures because There was space left on the page.



And here's something that I forgot to upload yesterday. It's for Sinix's design lab. I think this was slapped together in 20 minutes or so hehe.

[Fiskepudding]

Today I tried to focus on tones rather than outlines. I really like the result, especially on the self portrait. I was actually wearing sunglasses. I wanted to try to draw it, not too lazy to draw eyes haha.

[telohs]

Hey man, looks like you're improving, neat.

Before you're doing color studies from life I believe it would be a wise choice to just do some value studies in gray scale. Also you're brushwork could use some refinement, think about how the objects are formed and all that stuff. Also, maybe it would look better if you just used a standard round brush set to pressure sensitivity on both opacity and flow?
But that's just personal preference, I like that setting at least, easy to blend stuff.

[Fiskepudding]

@ telohs: Thanks man I think it's a bit early to talk about improvement yet though haha. Yeah I guess I should try values before color, thanks for the tip :> About the brush, that is actually the one I use

Maybe not as good as yesterday, but I'm still learning!

I think I keep drawing my head too tall or the eyes too high?

[kevlar jens]

On the subject of digital painting, I like to remove opacity and flow from the equation, and just paint with solid values. When painting with opacity set to pen-pressure, I often end up with a mushy mess. Though when having to pick every value, instead of relying on going blending so much, I think through it a lot more. Give it a shot.

Anyways, cool stuff. The counterweight dragon is neat hehe

[telohs]

loomis loomis loomis loomis!