Simple Sketchbook

[xKotu]

Allo! I'm xKotu. owo

I made a promise to myself that when the new concept art was finally up, I would finally get some lady balls and make a sketchbook. So...here goes!

Background info:
I applied to Sheridan this past year for their animation program and didn't get in - honestly no surprise since I've never really had any formal teaching. It's been a few months since the rejection and looking back I feel like I was crazy to apply with the portfolio that I had. xD ( http://jouchellemiranda.wordpress.co.../application1/ if anyone actually wants to see it...)

After that I did a few minor art lessons here and there but I'm now enrolled for a back up course in a different field and there's not a lot of time to do real lessons any more because of conflicting schedules so...I'm going to try - and actually TRY - to improve this year on my own.

I would love any feedback or critique anyone wants to throw my way. I want to improve and I think this is a good way to do so. ^^

[xKotu]

First life drawing session - EVER. I thought I did pretty good even though I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be focusing on when I drew. x:


If I remember correctly, this was either a 15 minute or half hour pose during my second drawing session. I was trying this new technique that one of my teachers told me about with the whole carving it out.


Another 15 minute (?) I believe.


Focused on shapes and the whole light/shadow thing.


Still life drawing of stuffed animals. I was focusing more on getting a 3D feel out of it along with making the texture seem realistic. Of course, I didn't finish it. xD

[kevin_]

sorry you got rejected and starting an sb is a very good way to improve but you have to put in the time too. anyways keep posting!

[InCOUM]

Hi there!

Not too many works to have a better idea about your work, but for what i see i would recommend you to be more careful with the light source in your drawing.. i cant see from where the light came from in your models !

Hope it helps you a little bit!
Keep posting!!!

Regards,



- Claud

[Mindinart]

Hello there!

Glad to hear that you decided to continue art and start a sketchbook here.
If you're still interested in animation stuff, Richard Williams The animator's survival kit (book & dvd) was one
that my teacher really praised and I found the book very useful to understand the basics of animation.
I'm not animator myself, but did one basic course.

Also there are a lot of figure and gesture drawing tools in the vast space of internet, for example posemaniacs.com
which you might already heard of.

I'd love to see some more anatomy studies, the start is very promising. Good luck and keep on going!

[xKotu]

Wow I wasn't really expecting to get responses so quickly. xD
Thanks everyone for their comments. ^^

Thanks Kevin. Going to try to squeeze in as much time for art as I can. >_<

I'll try to work on that Claude. :]

I'll see if I can find that kit some time. I actually have a site like posemaniacs that I found a week or so back. ^^ I'll post up some of my sketches from there in a sec.

EDIT:

Scratch that. The forums hate me right now. Tried three different times to upload after adjusting all of the files and it just keeps coming up wonky and straight up refuses to upload properly. :s I'll try it tomorrow. :3

[xKotu]

WOO I got it to work! Here's a few drawings that have kind of built up over the last few weeks or so. :3


I found some video tutorial on how to draw a spiral staircase and...that was really confusing to do. owo But I have a better understanding of it now so I plan on trying it again some time without having a video paused at every step. xD


Simple room study. The room drawing component on my portfolio was one of my weakest points so I'm trying to work on it. x:



More life drawing. This was from an art pose site thing. I know I should be drawing from life versus photos, but since I'm not doing an art class any more I can't go to their life drawing sessions on the weekend. >_> Gotta find a new place to go so until then, I'm stuck with this. :s


More life drawing.


I stuck this one in because I liked the hand drawing. Gotta work on that too. :3


More life drawing, but quicker poses I believe.


Another hand drawing, trying to figure out how to best approach showing the structure and stuff. :s


Quick ballerina drawings. Not very fond of them but I started with this before finding the art pose website so eh.


Anatomy studyish. Also uncertain if I'm approaching this properly. :I


This was a quick exercise I did that ended up looking pretty good in my opinion. xD Sorry that they're overlapping a bit, I didn't actually expect to work on it like I had.


Character design for a teen cartooning class that I took. I'll show the final product in my next post hopefully.


The teacher in the cartooning class handed out some photocopies that had interesting poses so I drew the first two poses the way that it had instructed me to and then doodled the one on the very bottom from my own imagination. :]

[xKotu]

Quick update. :]


Drew a scooter from reference.


Attempted to modify it with a more futuristic style.


Final result of my cartooning class. This is a title page for a mini cartoon design "Scrap Metal Hero." c:

[xKotu]

I finally finished my second portfolio attempt for Sheridan. I'm going to upload it now for critiques and do it in segments since I keep getting errors when I try to upload it altogether. Critiques and comments are appreciated!

[xKotu]

Life Drawings







Animal Drawings

[xKotu]

Hand Drawings

[xKotu]

Character



























That's all for today. Everything else seems to be acting up on me so I'll fix that later. :I

[xKotu]

Storyboard



Object Drawings





Room Drawings





Personal Artwork

[xKotu]

Hmmm, figuring out the whole pic resizing better. Here's some photos of the animals that I didn't put into my portfolio.











Two random sketches I did for my friends. One wanted herself drawn as Tinkerbell and that was my end result.



Just a quick 15 minute sketch after class. It turned out alright, I guess.




Comments and critiques are always welcome.

[xKotu]

Small update.

30 minute pose.



30 minute pose.



Sample of my gestures.

[kamikazel33t]

Quick tip just to help out with your gestures a bit. It'd be great if you get the book off somewhere, it's by Michael Hampton "Figure Drawing Design & Invention".

[xKotu]

Thanks for the tip! I'll look into it next time I swing by my art library.

I'll make an update tomorrow but I'm currently working on making 165 thumbnails as a study and...I don't really get it. >_< if someone could point me in the right direction, that'd be swell. I'll put up what I've got tomorrow. Resizing isn't my friend at night time.

[xKotu]

The thumbnails I was talking about. Not really feeling good about them. :/



Light and shadow studies at my life drawing class last night.

[kamikazel33t]

Thumbs are really just for initially planning certain ideas of landscapes or composition, It could also be used for composition practice as well. It teaches you to look at the basic elements of the piece without getting you too committed. Perhaps when you are done with em you could develop one into a full fleshed out drawing. Oh yeah, you need to post more! Good luck!

[argaelie]

Hi! I see your gestures are a little bit static, so I have a tip for it:
My first drawings were too static, but then I realized that when I started with a quick and loose base the final result was always correct. I started to think in 3d, and stop drawing 3d, because, somehow, I was feeling that those guides were blocking my 3d thinking.
So that was a personal thing, now if you want to try it.. maybe it can help you

Hope This was helpful, keep it up!

[xKotu]

@ kamikazel33t Thanks! I wonder why people do fully rendered thumbnails then. :d

@ argaelie I'll try it out and see what happens. Thanks for the tip!

Update

More thumbnails





Animal Studies











Recent life drawing class

[braineater]

hey there,
very nice sketches so far! i see you're pretty good with strong values and especially perspective
also your character looks pretty individual
my only advice is to keep doing you life drawings
keep posting (:

[xKotu]

@ braineater Thank you! Yeah, my life drawings seem to be my weakest point.

Small update! I sent my portfolio for Capilano in yesterday and it was mainly my Sheridan portfolio + some extras. Here are the extras. ;o Although, after getting rejected from Sheridan and having some critiques on it, I'm not very confident about getting in. Oh whale, still good to try. :3

Extra Life Drawing







People Drawing









Extra Location Drawing



Animal Drawing





I found these today when I went through some of my past work done in art class.

[kamikazel33t]

dayum! Looks like you ain't wasting time, I am still brooding over my rejection which ain't good because the only thing I managed to get done were a few doodles and only a few studies. Keep up the hard work, one thing I have to point out is that you seem to make your figures quite stocky and some of em seem to lack rhythm(although it's catching on though). I think the main issue maybe that you are not approaching it from an analytic stand-point and instead are just drawing out the contours of the figure. Here is a half hour preview DVD of a master class taught by michael hampton, it stresses on the points I am trying to make out.

[xKotu]

@ kamikazel33t Yeaaah, rejection makes me push harder. And c'mon man! I keep checking your SB for updates. :d Also, thanks for the video link! I wish it didn't cut off at that asymmetrical bit cause you mentioned that to me before. :c But that helped a lot! I'm going to study anatomy today and that's a nice push in the right direction.

[xKotu]

A little update. Sorry about the quality and that they're all just sketches. I'm working on improving my process when I draw as everything is coming out a bit stiff in the final product.

Character Idea: Big Oaf


Character Idea 2: Chubbish Character


Gesture Practice - Mainly copying off of "Sketching People by Jeff Mellem." Super great book. ^^


Gesture Practice - Using pixelovely








Character Idea 3: Poor art kid


I made up an art schedule for myself now. Hopefully there will be more consistent updates.

On a completely other note, there is someone called the Phantom Pooper at my college. Someone has been leaving turds on the floor of the men's washroom for the past year. He sounds like a super villain. "DUM DA DA DAAAAH. THE PHATOM POOPER STRIKES AGAIN."

[xKotu]

Study from Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth



Study from Sketching People by Jeff Mellem (Excellent book!)







1st attempt at the CHoW! Secret Agent Sidekick



On another note, Comic Expo is coming up soon. Last year I got a photo with the Weasley twins. This year I'm torn between Eliza Dushku (Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Norman Reedus (Daryl from the Walking Dead). And to get a photo with both would be $120. D: Oh man...

[kamikazel33t]

some of the stuff you studied from the book "sketching people" looks an awful lot like the concepts you would see from "The Vilppu Drawing Manual". Perhaps it be worth checking that book out as well.

[xKotu]

Sorry for no updates recently. Blame finals and the fact that I had to do a drawing test for Capilano. Buuuut on the plus side: I GOT ACCEPTEDDDDDDD. I feel like fireworks should shoot out of my butt, I'm so happy. ^^ Here are the two drawings I did for my drawing test. Basically I had to design a family that ran a gas station by a desert road and the gas station itself. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkk I'm so happy. ^^ Vancouver, here I come. :3







Also, kamikazel33t, I've been looking everywhere and cannot find Vilppu books to save my life. Is there any free pdfs available so I can read it? :/

Anyways: SO HAPPY. ^^

[xKotu]

Sorry about the huge size, I tried resizing it 3 times and...boof. I went 500, 300, 160, and it still keeps looking big. Too fed up with it. But ta dah! ^^