MUST improve

[LtPlissken]

The figures are getting there, getting better and look more convincing, I especially like when you
implement some breasts here and there. But I like them a bit more here than there. Also this
lined paper can make confusion after in your career. It will not make problem at this current
moment, but after somewhere in the bright future. You for example will get a blank paper with
no lines, and you will feel a bit strange, you will feel like a stranger lost. You will feel like a
magical insane dwarf in the depths of an enchanted dark woods, left without his Chinese low
budget flashlight. In whichever way we look at the perspective and the whole scenario, you are
getting better and sure improvements has been established. Every sketch means much.
I wish you a happy new year and all the possible best and prittiest in this world.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Working so hard man, damn! You're gonna be so good if you keep up the effort. Maybe in the summer I'll be able to catch up with all the stuff you're doing.

[Lyraina]

I'll jump right in on the lined paper bandwagon, just get some cheap copy paper for now,
it doesn't have to be a expensive sketchbook or anything.

It's good to see you pushing on with your studies, drawing a lot is the way to go!
Also, try to fill your paper. Either by drawing bigger (which never is a bad idea), or arranging more sketches on one sheet;
this way you will learn how to arrange things and get a feeling for composition on the way. (Also, less time spent scanning!)

Your anatomy drawings, as well as the drawings of your hands, are really coming along.
I see improvement! Keep it up, you are on the right track. You also seem to get more confident with your drawing,
which is good as well. Remember, clean and confident lines are better than chicken scratching. This will come with time and practice.

Keep up the hard work And happy (belated) 2013!

[ozark]

Your advice on using negative space to draw really opened my eyes. Guess I came here to thank you for it. As for your goal on getting into Sheridan's Animation Program all I can say is make drawing an everyday thing. The more you practice on a daily basis the better your chances will be on getting into school. I'd recommend you seriously start studying anatomy from Bridgman and Michael Hampton. Attend a life drawing class. Draw objects. Don't worry about color yet. You remind me of myself 3 years ago when I got so inspired by James Jean I decided to get a sketchbook and draw. It's been a journey ever since. When I look back at that stuff I feel a sense of progress. What I'm getting at is that we all gotta start somewhere. Keep on grinding, dude.

[Arteast]

Great stuff man! been a while since i checked out your book but it looks like your still killing it with all these studies and practice of the fundamentals! Something i really need to do ic an tell in your last couple of post's of much your understanding of form is paying off! Well at this rate your gonna win the race so i better get back to drawing keep it coming Kamikazel33t!

[Black Spot]

Another thing I want to consider is what you upload. Just upload the stuff where you think you've learnt something and advanced. It makes it easier for people to see what direction you want to go. Every single doodle clutters it up; we all doodle.

[kamikazel33t]

Hey guys I really wanted to apologize for my not updating for more than a month(>_< feel ashamed for not replying to each of your comments personally). The thing is I was working on my portfolio and I was stuck with a decision on whether or not to upload my portfolio work to my sketchbook especially how I was spending more time on one piece more than anything else and was afraid that if I uploaded it another applicant could possibly try and snatch my work off the net. Anywho, I've been following the advices of all you good lot of people and did not stop drawing like a maniac I got 1k sheets of A3's during new year and burnt through a good lot em currently they are all nice white blank spaces. I did not upload all of my drawings and clearly it's hard to try and organize all the drawings I did overally since I did a lot more than what was posted but since the sheets are not binded a lot of the paper is scattered all over the place.

The life drawing part is killing me because I am doing it from photo and because of the conservative laws in the country I live in apparently life drawing classes are non-existent and sadly I would be able to study the three dimensional form of the model all to well and that is causing me tons and tons of frustration especially because I have a small laptop monitor to draw from HNGGG.

[Rhubix]

No lined paper huray!! - your creepy alien monsters are looking very voluminous - good stuff. Also love the bridgeman - he's my favorite anatomist for sure. I love those clunky designs because they translate to cartooning so-so well.
Also- Glen Keane is my hero! I love that guys work- especially Tarzan. I'm pretty sure he is a sorcerer but I'm going to keep drawing until I can do what he does!!
Keep up all the hard work!!

The thing is I was working on my portfolio and I was stuck with a decision on whether or not to upload my portfolio work to my sketchbook especially how I was spending more time on one piece more than anything else and was afraid that if I uploaded it another applicant could possibly try and snatch my work off the net

This I wouldn't worry about. Most of the problems recruiters have is with people paying someone to create a portfolio for them - rather than grabbing things off the internet.
Also, the resolution of things sized for the forum is quite low - so would print very poorly. It's far better to get critics of your portfolio work (there's a forum for that ) so you can strengthen stuff as much as possible before submission.

Happy sketching!

[kamikazel33t]

@Rhubix It's a relief that it won't really be a big issue to upload the stuff I am doing for a portfolio, now hopefully I can get some critiques around . I really like Glen Keane's work as well and coincidentally Tarzan was also one of my favorite works especially Aladdin as well , I think he may be a sorcerer as well because looking at his notes on some of his sketches he says that he has to Believe he is sculpting a 3D object to do it and to me I consider that sorcery . What I like about bridgeman is that his clunky forms makes it a lot easier to memorize although generally I refer more to Hampton because he explains the process a lot more simply. Anyway happy sketching to you too!

Here is some of my portfolio stuff I did not do much except for rough work and planning . I've only uploaded the completed stuff or relatively completed stuff(character rot, hands, expression sheet). I feel like I have to redo rotation for the third time >_< and not continue the second attempt. I am kind of torn in two, I Felt for the first rotation(the completed one), I might have drawn it way to small especially since it is supposed to be placed on separate pieces of paper and the second reason would be that I botched the 3/4 view and that I felt his face may have been way too flat and finally the third reason is that I've noticed that most of the high scoring portfolio char rotations have the characters posed asymmetrically in the sheets. The second one I am not about continuing it or not because he is noticeably off-center in both front and side. I was also pretty confused about foot positioning.

[Kvetch]

Hey, keep it up you're making good progress. Your sense of proportion has improved so much over the last couple of pages. Might be a good idea to try really taking your time on a few drawings, a seriously slow study (ie several hours just setting down landmarks and proportions before you even start drawing) every now and then can help build up your accuracy a great deal.

[Beartankmaster]

good to see you back man . you could try drawing from casts or assembling some sort of mannikin to draw from life maybe. not as good as a model but a lot of students have done casts drawings as a kind of substitute or foundation for figure drawing

[kikindaface]

you're not drawing enough dude , just go haaaaaaaard !!!!!! keep it up !!

[kamikazel33t]

@kvetch thanks mate, I am really considering going for a longer study but I sometimes feel a little intimidated on how to approach but that is no excuse so I am going to look into a more disciplined form of measuring since normally I try to feel the proportions.

@Dichotomy Sadly, where I live art is seriously unappreciated and there really is no art stores except for those book stores which sell very expensive art supplies. I guess I am going to tackle drawing people over at my school a lot more.

@kikindaface Hey Kickindaface! I really have to thank you for the kikindaass, I was really slipping and started to realize this after I found that at the end of the day I did not really have as much drawings.

There aren't many sketches going on but I tried to hammer in knowledge of drawing the arms an legs and try to force my self to complete figure studies even though things are going the way I wanted to. I just try to erase and do it again. I felt I learnt how to block in the arms more easily yet I am still trying to wrap my head around memorizing the muscle group so next up maybe to try and find photo reference and seek out those shapes and that would probably drill it into my head more easily.

[Rhubix]

Hi kamikazel
I scrawled all over a couple of your drawings. The overriding theme is that your pieces are untidy, and often unfinished. Remember that you're competing against people who may have a prior education in arts. In my starting class, about 50% had been to art college before, and 3-4 came from highschools with an intensive arts program. I was the only one that hadn't had an art class before. (and it showed! I had to put in twice as many hours to keep up with everyone.)

Things to consider:

Clean your work.
With life drawing your line work is going to be messy and more exploratory but try to clean up smudges and marks unrelated to the drawing.
Get rid of all the doodles, scratches, scrawls and smudges.

On clean cartooning there should be no guide lines. Pay attention to details. If your work is too rough- or dirty, use a clean piece of paper and trace the clean lines. Pay careful attention to overlap and where lines meet.

Do not write dates or descriptions on your work. For example- if the person reviewing your portfolio thinks your character looks confused and you write "Sad" they will consider it poor. If there's nothing written there, they assume they're right - and people like being right.
A date will tell someone if your work is old- or if you crammed it all together the week before the deadline. - both are bad.

Simplify your character where you can - like the belt or pant legs. Clean / finished work is better than complex work that is rough or unfinished.

The three-quarter front view is a mirror to the three quarter back view --- and the front view is a mirror to the back view.
It is much quicker to lightly trace these views and then figure out the reverse details - such as I did. It's faster- and what we do in productions to keep things consistent.

Presentation matters - and is an easy way to make your work look stronger.
Consider the expression sheets - I took about 5 minuets to adjust the levels, clean up some smudges and add a border.

Only include finished pieces. Gestures and quick drawing from life are the only ones that get a bit of freedom on being untidy. Bridgeman studies or the like should be organized and thoughtful.
A solid anatomy study in class will take several hours. Do not spend less time on a portfolio- remember it is their only piece of information to judge you with - maybe you work harder than anyone, maybe your more dedicated and determined. They don't know that. All they get is this set of drawings, so take care with them.

They don't expect you to be a pro - if you were you wouldn't need to go to school. So don't feel like you have to do really complicated work to keep up with some other person.




Meanwhile- Here is a picture I dragged from the arcive, some cartooning I did when I was making my portfolio. I cannot remember if I included it or not- but you're certainl at the same level I was. Just take your time to tidy stuff up




Oh- and you asked what department I work in. I'm a bit of a rover, or a generalist - I started work 6 years ago, while I was still in college. I've worked in a bunch of departments including junior design, where I would clean up the character designers drawings and do the rotations before they were sent to breaking. They get easier once you do 50 or so lol.
I've also worked in prop design, special effects, character animation, and some more technical stuff- like fx composting and character breaking. I hope to do layout too - it's on my to-do list.

OK-I'll shut up now, this is turning into a novel lol!
Happy sketching!

[Wingal]

where are those 75 you promised me, sir?

[Umbravita]

Your stuff inspires me to park my butt in my chair.

You haven't been about lately. Good to see you're working on your portfolio, but I'm worried you might be burning out a bit. Hopefully you're not, though! Post again soon.

[Ghast]

Damn the 2 hands look good. Try and push that level of drawing in all of your studies, it will make distorting them into cartoons that much easier in the long run if you understand how they work in reality. Don't forget that even if you are drawing very stylized characters, they're still human, which means that their features are not just drawn on they will match an underlying anatomy. So try and think about eyes not as shapes or symbols that we have come to associate with said feature, think of them as spheres in sockets with lids covering them, and the mouth as lips covering teeth. Caricature if fine but if you like people like Glen Keane, get to know what makes a face a face down to the muscle and skull first. There will be more life to your distortions. Keep pushing forward!

[iven]

I love your lose lines, and the hands - you are on the right track there.
Some fun exercise if you feel like it, you draw faceexpressions.

Sad, happy, mad,.......etc try to just figure out the silouettes of the faces.
I just discovered that on an old HOW TO DRAW manga,.......oh I should not
mention MANGA in here tstststs,.....I will post my silouettes next time but
when ever I have a scanner in front of me.

Bring these lose lines from your life drawing into your cartoony characters and
they won't look stiff. But good stuff here I hope I have over in my sb.

[Jeff Bartzis]

woah. definitely getting better and better from what i see so far(sorry its my first time seeing this sb). you seem to be on the right track so far, so keep on doing what youre doing, and never stop drawing. ever.

[kamikazel33t]

@Rhubix thank you so much for the crit and I am done with my portfolio as well!

@Wingal I was busy working on the portfolio so I was not able to upload

@Umbravita Well go park your ass in the chair then , I am actually not really burnt out. All I was doing was portfolio rough work so it was not really worth uploading though I kinda have to slow down now since I have to catch up with school work

@Ghast Thanks for the comment about those hand studies , it probably seems tight because I did it for the portfolio requirements although I do plan on pushing my studies to that extent as well as doing the suggested facial anatomy studies so that I could learn to cartoon things better.

@iven Thanks, I did notice that the facial expressions I did were quite stiff so I tried to understand how stretch and squash work and I guess the use of silhouettes could make effect of the squash and stretch more interesting. Thanks for the suggestion

@Jeff Bartiz Thanks for the vote of confidence, and I won't drop that pencil .

So after some blood sweat and tears I am finally done with the portfolio so here it is. I have to admit some of the personal artwork is old(rendered stuff) although I did not have anything interesting to place since I was so focused on studying I did not do a finished piece.

[Gthm/death]

Ah smell of improvement. Always refreshing =]

[iven]

I really like the object and room drawings you posted, I hope
my suggestion goes in the right direction - Face expression/ sillouette
of the character.

HEY some how you draw the face kinda funny, it looks like a mask.
Maybe its because you draw this line in particular kinda thick.

Anyway so much stuff here I should do,....grrrrrr,...

[Lyraina]

There is so much improvement already! Your lines are getting better and more confident, and especially the hand+figure studies look great

Good luck to you!

[FractaL64]

Good luck buddy, I'd say your biggest strength is life drawing at this point. Keep on practicing!

[Umbravita]

Man, you've had a lot of improvement. If you have the time, you may want to redraw the older stuff in your portfolio, because it really sticks out like a sore thumb and brings the whole thing down. But your newer stuff is great, you've improved so quickly and so well.

[kamikazel33t]

@Gthm/death Thanks m8 .
@iven Lets see some more from your sketchbook then, shall we?
@lyraina Thanks, I tried.
@fractal64 Same to you mate, I felt I should have studied perspective and have done more imaginative drawings though, I really like those conceptart sketches in your personal artwork they are really cool.
@umbravita Sadly, I already mailed them in although luckily personal artwork counts the lowest and only has creativity graded on it(so hopefully they ease up with looking and the technicalities of the artwork XD).

Gah, schools been a real pain in the ass to catch up with and that forces me to slow down with my artwork .

[Xcarbon]

last post looks really good.. i see that your gaining more and more control over your lines!!
good going!!

[Umbravita]

Alas, school. If it weren't for school I'd draw far more. Shame school matters so much at this stage! Rargh!

Good arms going. Damn, your lines are looking pretty good.

[kamikazel33t]

@XCarbon Thanks, I started to get a feel for how and when to put down my lines as well has get a sense of rhythm with lines
@Umbravita Yeah school gets in the way of my education LOL.

I am not really proud of this but I had finals for the past two weeks and now that I started my spring break I am going to compensate for all of the time lost. Anyway here is the stuff I did today. I have to say today was pretty lazy though I will slowly pick up the pace. I am trying to grasp painting and I am now practicing the fundamentals and here is the stuff I did so far, I also did a head from imagination and tried to paint it and that is when I told myself to take a step back to learn the fundamentals.

[Umbravita]

Try be a bit adventurous! Painting is hard, but learning the fundamentals won't get you anywhere if you don't use them. Find a photo online and paint it digitally -- that'll get you farther, and you'll see which bits of the fundamentals, exactly, you need to work with. It's hard for us to judge your weaknesses if we can't see them.