Fear and Learning in ConceptArt (Updated not-so-daily!)

**keeptime** · July 15th, 2012, 08:52 PM

Hey all,
A year ago I signed up and posted some stuff in a sketchbook. Then I looked around the website a bit, got scared at the realization that my skill level is a lot lower than most of the regulars around here, and took off with my tail between my legs.

Well, I'm back. I'm still scared, but I'm back. And I want to learn, draw, and experiment more.

I'm entering first year university for studio art this September (2012). I want to get the most out of my classes as possible, and I know a lot of that lies in myself. Anyways, enough jabber. Here's some work from the last week.

**keeptime** · July 16th, 2012, 07:59 PM

I bought a small sketchbook so I can draw on the bus. Let me know if I should scan sketches like these or if it's okay if I just take pictures.

Something's bothering me about the jawline but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

**Dr Charbonneau** · September 28th, 2012, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by keeptime

I bought a small sketchbook so I can draw on the bus. Let me know if I should scan sketches like these or if it's okay if I just take pictures.

Something's bothering me about the jawline but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

The jawline can be a booger in that pose. My suggestion? Nail down the head and hands before going after the full Monty. You have a good start on proportion, but, for example, the ring finger gives the woman the appearance of a deformity. As artists we can be kind. If she has a deformity, we can correct it as a compliment to an otherwise pretty face.
Look up Bertram Chandler "Redezvous on a lost World." The cover has a similar difficulty. As of this point, work on penumbra.

Does that help?

**njc6425** · July 16th, 2012, 08:24 PM

Hey

Ive just started my own sketchbook for the exact same reasons goodluck!! I like the skull and the environment piece

real sense of depth. With that jaw line, with the way her head is id image the right side of the jawline to go up rather than down, and for there to be a gap between the neck lines and jaw lines (drawn lines). Because its such an extreme angle. Just my 2 cents

**AbsorbenGhost** · July 16th, 2012, 08:29 PM

how do i show my avatar in the main forum thread?Mine is blank,help please?

**keeptime** · July 17th, 2012, 04:08 PM

Thanks for the feedback, njc.

Started another environment piece. I learned how to adjust my Photoshop brush to be more pressure-sensitive and it's made things quite a bit easier. I wanted to start a new one because I don't think my first one is very solid compositionally, and now that I sort of have the idea of how to scale values there's no reason I shouldn't try to step it up. Forests are so much harder than mountains! Still working on this one, about two and a half hours in. Right now it reminds me of the old school Pokemon openings for Gameboy.

**Jacky-Boy** · July 17th, 2012, 07:14 PM

I like the new environment, composition is much better. I can imagine this looking awesome with some parallax movement on the layers.
Also welcome back to CA

**keeptime** · July 17th, 2012, 07:32 PM

Thanks Jacky-Boy! I'm unfamiliar with the term parallax movement. Do you mind explaining it a bit?

**TinyBird** · July 18th, 2012, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by keeptime

I'm unfamiliar with the term parallax movement. Do you mind explaining it a bit?

Have you played Angry Birds?

In that gameplay video, when the camera moves, you can see that the background islands move in different speed than the midground red rocks.
Basically it just means that there's parallax layers (frontground of the sea bottom, midground of the rocky islands, background with the tree-islands/clouds, etc) and they move at different rates, the things in the horizon move slower than the things in the frontground and so on.
Same effect can be seen while driving/on a train, the bushes that are nearest to you zoom past very fast but the things far in horizon move a lot less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

**keeptime** · July 18th, 2012, 04:43 PM

Oh yeah, this. We actually talked about it quite a bit in a psychology course I took because we had to understand how the brain perceives visual cues (including but not limited to: light, texture, line, perspective...who would have thought a psychology course would help so much with art?). Who knows, maybe I'll see if I can pull this off when it's finished.

Scrapped A LOT of stuff. All the pondside bushes, the pond lighting, and pretty much all of the grass in the foreground. None of it was doing it for me. Only spent about an hour and a half on this today and I don't feel like I made much progress. Somehow I don't feel like the pond and the bushes beside it are reading very well. Maybe too many midtones? Also I'm struggling with making the pond look like a still pond, rather than a body of water with a current to it.

Drew some raccoons today to prepare for the little guy in the painting. Got lazy with the fur for the one on the left and now it looks like he has some lion/porcupine genes in him.

**keeptime** · July 18th, 2012, 07:25 PM

At my dad's place for the rest of the week. Here is a page of sketches I did maybe about a month or two ago. The first two are from images of Christina Applegate back in her Kelly Bundy days. I'm not really a fan of the big one. I think I went overboard on the shading in her face which is making her look very old, and turning her into a brunette was pretty dumb. The other two images are just from the figure drawing tool over at pixelovely. Not sure how much time was spent on these. They were all done with a regular ballpoint pen.

**keeptime** · July 19th, 2012, 11:48 PM

Did more art reading than art creating today. I was out on the town and tried to draw some strangers but I just couldn't seem to get it. One of those days, I suppose. The dog skull was quickly referenced off the internet. I wanted to just get the main contours down and then shaded it on my own, hence why the lighting is pretty bad.

**keeptime** · July 20th, 2012, 01:47 PM

I don't feel like I understand anything.

**keeptime** · July 21st, 2012, 06:14 PM

Picked away a bit more at the forest piece. I ran into a weird Photoshop issue today where I couldn't see my layers unless I was at a 25, 50, or 100% zoom level, so I couldn't do as much I would have liked to. Fixed up the branch and the trunk in the foreground, and fixed up the forest in the back a little. I still feel like I'm missing something due to inexperience, but I'm not even sure what exactly that would be. Details, maybe?

**keeptime** · July 23rd, 2012, 12:44 AM

Almost forgot to update for today. Worked through a bit of Loomis yesterday and today. Trying to get the mannequin down. Then I did a bit of chest anatomy study today. Nothing special.

**keeptime** · July 23rd, 2012, 07:43 PM

I don't feel like I draw solely for the sake of drawing and having fun very often lately. I tried to do something today without worrying too much about the technique behind it just to unwind a little.

**keeptime** · July 24th, 2012, 12:48 AM

Spent fifteen minutes waiting for an improv show that's happening tomorrow. At least I got some drawing done.

First car was done by looking at one on the street. Was just trying to get the general shapes down. The second one was done on the bus. Not sure why I threw in a second vanishing point there. Afterwards I worked a little bit on trying to understand Loomis' mannequin. I don't really like any of them except for the one from above.

When I first joined these forums and started doing daily sketches, I always thought "Oh, I'm just having an off day. I can draw better than this". Now I'm starting to realize I don't understand forms nearly as well as I thought I did. At least I have something to work on now.

**keeptime** · July 25th, 2012, 09:42 PM

Was at a friend's place all day yesterday and today so I didn't get much done. A user on DeviantART requested that I do a critique of his work. A lot of it was lighting issues so I'm not sure if I was in the right position to help, but I did a paintover of his piece anyways and told him to take it with a grain of salt. Then I did some digital figure drawing but because of the heat it was pretty hard to hold onto my tablet pen and I ended up accidently closing my session. I think I still need a lot of work on conveying form quickly. I find myself struggling a lot with the shorter time limits in figure/gesture drawing.

**O_ranger** · July 25th, 2012, 11:37 PM

Hi Keeptime! i know it's very intimidating to see everyone else's work but i think many artists have that stage where things just don't draw out the way it is in your head but do not fret

! keep at it.

I can see some improvement since your first post. Something that help me was to do studies but also do drawings that i'm interested in to keep it fun. There are many technical things that can be said but i think the best thing for you right now is just to draw a lot! Really take your time on your drawings and get it right, speed will come with practice. Don't give up!

**Dahlium** · July 26th, 2012, 01:16 AM

Hi!
I think you got a good start.

The best advice I can give really is to draw from life.
Is the girl in #2 from imagination? If not, maybe we can help you better if you show us the ref

**kat-ari** · July 26th, 2012, 01:50 AM

Your from imagination drawings have a great sense of charm to them

One thing I've noted, your gesture drawings seem to be turning out best when you include the line of action. That might really help you with getting the form down in the quicker 30 second gestures, too.

**keeptime** · July 26th, 2012, 02:45 PM

Thanks a ton everyone! You're all so kind and encouraging. Dahlium, the girl in #2 is from imagination.

I picked away a little bit more at the environment piece, this time fleshing out the raccoon. Fur is tricky as hell. I think it still needs a lot of work.

Edit: Ugh, just noticed how weird and pixelated the raccoon looks at this size. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

**keeptime** · July 26th, 2012, 06:55 PM

Watching Stick It!, one of my favourite guilty pleasures. Some absolutely fantastic cinematography for a movie that disguises itself as a chick flick. Paused a few times to sketch a bit. Not sure how much time was spent on any of these. I can provide references if anyone wants to see them.

The inked piece is something I forgot I did a few nights ago from imagination. Not particularly proud of it.

I probably should have realized that green sharpie would bleed through a few pages.

**elcalvin** · July 26th, 2012, 10:42 PM

it's really irritating when u can't draw what u want to ~~
i am also trying to do some color study n it's really irritating when it don't come up as u expected XD
i think u are at same stage @.@ right ? XD
We will pass this hard time XP

* read your first comment *
lol same with me XP i made 1 account year back but i got scared of the lvl of other artists @.@
but now i have return @.@ n no matter how bad my drawing is i will still post X3

**keeptime** · July 27th, 2012, 01:30 AM

And now for something completely different!

Gave pixel art a shot tonight for the first time ever because I wanted to make my own icon for DA. Should have listened to those tutorials that said don't save pixel art as a .gif in MS Paint! Oh well. It doesn't read as well as I'd like it in the proper icon size (or does it? This monitor is old as hell and sometimes I struggle just making out text), but I'm happy with the larger result. I didn't try any anti-aliasing since the whole process confuses me, haha.

Edit: Bah, forgot to add some shading to the white belly. I had to completely recolour everything after the MS Paint .gif disaster and I must have missed it on the second pass.

**keeptime** · July 29th, 2012, 05:38 PM

Just because I didn't upload anything doesn't mean I didn't draw! Did some bus drawing, figure work, a very crappy sketch of the city I'm moving to, and a swimmer from imagination. The city sketch was done just with the intention of relaxation, so not much attention was paid to perspective or anything.

I think I may need to start studying legs.

**keeptime** · July 31st, 2012, 11:52 PM

I've been wasting an obnoxious amount of hours a day playing Cities In Motion and my art is taking a toll. My foot, a 10 minute figure, and some mannequins done before bed. I need to stop being so sloppy with my mannequins; they're making my sketchbook look awful instead of just bad.

**Pete Hidalgo** · August 1st, 2012, 01:04 AM

Nice book. I really like the purple paint. The progression on it is very good.

**keeptime** · August 1st, 2012, 10:32 AM

Thanks!

Some more mannequins and my CD player. I'm really struggling with simplifying the body. I feel like I understand it in theory but somehow it doesn't come together when I draw. Maybe I should do more figure drawings instead of always trying to figure it out via imagination.

I'm also fully aware the proportions on the full body are really bad.