MUST improve

[kamikazel33t]

@Umbravita I did just as you said and learnt a lot more thank you

Value study today, not sure if I should scrap it and rework a new one or just keep working on the same thing. I need to sort of calibrate my workflow from working big to small because while I understood major values should be placed first then working to specifics but finding a sort pacing I guess comes with experience so I have to keep pushing these kinds of studies out.

[Umbravita]

Keep working on it. Keep adjusting, tinkering, until you're sick of it, even after you get sick of it. You'll learn a lot about fine rendering that way, about detail, and it'll teach you patience.

[I STRaY I]

Terrific studies, and more so inspirational improvement from page one. Keep working hard, you show great potential to learn and advance! On this most recent value study, maybe it's me that misses the point, if so forgive me. But maybe you were just aiming for the local values, and if so you should be able to offer more of the studies. But you did miss some values that better indicate the form of the Helix, Lobe and Tragus just for example. I guess you just miss some of the more finer values and at that point I suppose you'd just be pushing it further towards a more finished render. But in doing so, you would be working your observation more. Which is a good thing too. So keep at it, and don't sell yourself short on the study. I understand the study of values and the importance. But you could have been able to do 10 of these then at that quality I'd think, maybe it'd be pushing it, but thats the idea I guess. Otherwise, take this one to a finish. And also, take it as a grain of salt, as I too am just learning these sorts of things, and how to study and apply them moving forward. But in all great work, keep grinding to your goals!

[V3T]

You're improving buddy! Keep banging those studies out and you'll be great in no time.

[LtPlissken]

No one should hide things away from you, no one should disguise the jam jar, someone
should tell openly that you have improved and that your salty weekends has turned into sweet
blossomy sweat pants. In all the positive manner, soft version pulverized sparkles appearing
from under your drawing hood, which can be seen of course far away from the neighborhood.
You are cracking the values down, nicely but surely, every step you take is another crack you
break. Even when you lay down the big values, then you go for the smaller ones and for the
details. Go for the details like a lion tears a hole through his victim’s tails. Even if someone
hid the sun or the moon from you today, it doesn’t mean that you will not find it tomorrow,
or after tomorrow. I see that you have the willpower and mindset to kill again. In an artistic
way, you will conquer miles and miles of swimming pool surface. After that phase you will
dive deep under, your engine will slow a bit down, and you will understand why are you
laying on the ground. You will analyze the material and substance of the salty water, you
will realize why the old masters, didn’t used toothpicks while they had goat sticks. Your
portfolio that you created is outstanding, and it will make your armor to be stronger,
you will be ready to roll on the steamy blacktop. Success is ahead, your hands are ready
to grab, you just keep your eyes open, forget about the tension for now.

[Black Spot]

Keep working at it, don't scrap it. It's the best way to learn even if you do muck it up; either way, it'll give you an added push for the next on

[xKotu]

I'll try to give you as detailed a critique as I can for your portfolio:

Character: While you are on the right track with the simplicity of your character, he's a little bit dull to be honest. One good advice I heard when designing a character is that it should be easily recognizable, to the point that other people with different drawing styles could still draw it and people will know what it is. Take for example the basic Disney characters, Meg is thin and has Greek attire and her hair resembles a Greek vase. Another would be to improve the strength of your silhouette. It's silly, but what I went off of was Pokemon examples. They had the whole "whos that pokemon?!" thing and their designs were so strong people could guess based on the silhouette. If you black out your character, I wouldn't be able to guess a whole lot about your character. Just a thought. :d

Character Pose: Try to learn about the line of action more. Your poses have a good thought behind it but you can push it further if you have a stronger line of action.

Character Expression: You need to play around with the stretch and squash of your characters face more. It seems like the features are a bit too crammed onto the face and it seems very off. You should also make them a bit more dynamic, different angles and such. It's good to be overly dramatic with your expressions too.

Storyboard: John seems pretty spot on. I would recommend you keep the angle of your "camera" consistent though. I was told last year to think as if in a movie. There's always like..a line that they record from, flipping back and forth over that line disrupts the continuity. In specific, I'm talking about how it starts with the table in front of him and then panel 3 shows the table behind it and it's a bit disconcerting. The fourth panel could be a lot more interesting if the pose was changed. John seems very stiff as he runs. I think it would've been funnier if you showed it with John running towards the camera with a look of horror and you can see the robot over his shoulder attacking him.

Objects: Clarify the story a bit more. The judges shouldn't have to guess what happened to the objects. I'm guessing someone got frustrated and attacked it with their pencil. xD Also, pay very close attention to the requirements. It asks for a sphere, cone, cube, and cylinder. It is incredibly important that you follow the requirements. If a company wanted to hire you to animate a squirrel for them and you animated a rat, it shows you can't follow instructions very well.

Room Drawings: Perspective seems skewed. Plus some of your lines curve inwards all over the place which gives it a wonky feel. It said not to use a ruler but that was mainly so there would be more life in your lines. I used a length of newsprint folded in half to do my first light lines everywhere and then went over it free hand so there would be more energy in the drawing. Also the person in the room feels...weird. o-o Like, something about their head doesn't feel like it's full enough. Hand feels more dinosaur than human. Also your lines need to be pushed to create a better sense of depth. Same advice with the second drawing.

Hand: I like your hand, it's pretty good. Maybe a more creative pose though? Your wrist feels a bit weird though. Might want to look at that. :I

Life Drawings: Wayyy too scratchy of lines. Looks very messy and shows a lack of confidence. Don't skimp out on the hands and feet. Your best one out of them all is the one with the girl on the stool looking over her shoulder. You should improve the foot though as it doesn't feel like her heel is coming out towards the viewer which it should.

Animals: Fairly good, again, line quality.

Uhmmm I don't think I missed anything. Hope that helps!

[Umbravita]

Where's the crapton of sketchbook pages you promised? Aww, did you let the uploader win? Don't let the uploader win!

[kamikazel33t]

@Umbravita I've been doing just that
@I STRaY I Your words are to kind and I really do feel like I could've done 10 of those instead of one :0. I am going to work on picking up the pace, no more excuses.
@V3t Thanks m8.
@LtPlissken I am so very happy your back and more active on your sketchbook as well . I always enjoy your posts and they always have these words of wisdom in em. Again thank you
@Blackspot Thanks for the input as always , I've tried to mess around with it more and learnt a lot.
@xKotuThanks for the advice, I started to see all these things and was like "Doh!" well I take everything into consideration for the next folio.

Well, for those who do not know. I got rejected from the college I was applying to but I got over it quickly, I am going to take a gap year, practice even more and re-apply. I've realized lately that my sketches are getting so scattered and I find myself putting like one tiny drawing on a page and then moving onto the next(I guess it has something to do with me disliking that drawing and then moving on to a next page because I don't even want to see it. Anyway I decided to set myself a goal to post up a full sketchbook page MINIMUM a day here on CA while it is not asking for much it's better than nothing and I guess it will stop me from being lazy to post and what not. so anyway here is what I've done so far and in no particular order.

[kamikazel33t]

Sketches for today, I had more but I can't seem to find them. If I find them I guess it's more for tomorrow.

[iven]

I remember you studied the neck and head quite well on page 4.
NOW use this knowledge when ever you draw a head, add at least
a neck and shoulder to it. USE the anatomy practice in your own
work. I like the ear study very much!

[nickbernstein]

really like the value studies and the recent stuff.

[kamikazel33t]

@Iven Good catch on that one, now that you say this I realized I could have gotten more practice with the connection of the sternocleidomastoid muscle to the skull and clavicles as well as figuring out the T-overlaps between the neck cylinder, the sterno muscles and the traps.

@nickbernstein Why, thank you

Well this is something I managed to scan yesterday although I currently now don't have access to the scanner for a few days so expect a bit of down time with the uploads or.... perhaps I could just work digitally a little more for the couple of days where I don't have a scanner and take advantage of it.

[LtPlissken]

You’ve turned the conquering machine on, once again. Lines got much better,
your lines are getting much better. Anthony Hopkins is starting to stare to the eyes
of the death as he is proud about your improvements. I like the way you have started
to realize the eyes and it’s real depth and dimension, putting on the glasses was not
an easy mission. I lost a string when you went away for a shorter time, but you reminded
me now that there are hard invincible warrior souls out there, like yours is. Keep
on dashing the overfried pancakes.

[kamikazel33t]

@LtPliskken Complacency is the womb of mediocrity, this whole forum was originated on that foundation . I am glad to be back updating on the forum and you are a really good friend. We are doing what we love right now, and this journey is just to further accommodate this so it's a simple matter of continuing to do what we love . Just don't get complacent , I dropped my rate in drawing because of that and now I am learning from that mistake like anything we do in art.

Well Here is my life story a long with some ranting and what not which I have done in a reply to another guys sketchbook in where we were having a nice discussion with other sketchbookers , so I thought it would be rather interesting to put up here on my sketchbook for the sake of discussion I guess and perhaps so that you guys may know more about me.

I stray I, sorry for not commenting in your sketchbook earlier. You've got some really nice stuff in here and whatever you do just keep pushing forward and think positive as well as confident! I really love the plein air painting it just comes to show what you can do with practice, hard work and effort, with time you'll be able to do much more!

I know I am only seventeen and have not experienced as much as you guys have but I would also like to throw in my two cents since I as well feel like I am in the same boat even though things may sound more immature and stuff. When I started high school, I was in a dark place. A lot of personal stuff happened to me and all I was doing was brooding and dwelling on such a thing, I had also felt pressured by the need to satisfy other people's expectations and had to follow paths I did not want to cross. I was completely lost. During my 10th year art class I was practically the worst in class since I only started to draw the year before and before that I was just doodling A LOT, other students used to insult my artwork behind my back but I still continued either way not because of what everyone else though but because I liked to draw and nothing else later in the year I somehow managed to exceed a lot of my peers in skill perhaps because I was drawing more frequently than them and it did not occur to them that drawing was about pencil mileage and hard work(although I was drawing more frequently than my peers I still was not really drawing THAT much and it was mostly from imagination so I did not improve as much as I would have liked because back then I was not thinking about improving and it was more of a means to express myself.). The next year, I had a breakdown and was not doing as well in high school so I had to move and my new high school did not have an arts program whatsoever and during that time I was being pressured to pursue an average career, you know get good grades go to a decent university and get myself a good job that pays well, during that year I totally stagnated although I was always drawing on my notebooks and stuff, I also noticed I could not even draw the human figure too well(Infact most of my knowledge of art that time came from my highschool teacher and stuff I figured out myself) so I looked up online on good books for drawing figures and found Loomis's figure drawing book and during that time I was not too aware about the need to draw from life to improve so I was just randomly copying some of Loomis's drawings from time to time and trying to figure it out through imaginative drawings. During my Senior year(The present year which I just yesterday graduated from! ), I realized that I can't just keep being pressured by expectations or any external obstacles and that the only way that I am truly happy is when I draw and create. It was during this time I seriously looked into Sheridan's program requirements and decided to pursue a profession in arts and it was also the year I discovered concept art(oh the joy!), I was looking through MindCandyMan's sketchbook as well as many other sketchbook's with inspiring amounts of improvements and it was then I realized that if I really put in the hours and work really hard I could make a living out of this and it made me extremely happy so I kept chugging away working for hours and hours and without realizing it I've made strides(I guess?) in my improvement as an artist, when I applied to Sheridan, I disappointingly did not get in and they did not even bother to send me my score sheet but after this experience I've learned the very important lesson of hard work and that if you stay positive, you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it just be stubborn! So here I am at the beginning of my journey xD, moving to Canada with little money to my name and plan to continue chugging away at it and re-apply to Sheridan again, Oh the joy and drama of pursuing an arts career xD.

Anyway What I really wanted to conclude and say in the end is that right now you are doing what you love and the reason why you would try to get paid for what you do is to continue doing more of it. So enjoy the times you are drawing now and just try to take it into a positive light, in art you are drawing now enjoying yourself and perhaps down along the road you could land a career in it so you could end up doing more of it . There really is no end to the journey and it is the journey you are suppose to be enjoying and it is never really about trying to reach the end of it since lets say you are going to be pro you still are going to keep studying, still be doing lifedrawing, still be learning the fundamentals, and still going to improve!

For my sketchbook update, well, I had guests in the house for the past week so I had to change rooms and my sketches got mixed up as I moved rooms so now the old ones are cluttered with the new ones and some of the new ones I can't even find because of that, I am also such a scatter brain so my sketches are all over the place so here are the ones I could find.

There is also the last image which I just wanted to keep for memories sake preserved in this sketchbook, a school friend of mine who is really supportive of my pursuit I guess you can say drew my future in a humorous twist about how I will end up successful xD. He is also very interested in filming and VFX although he plans on going for the stable career, you can check out his youtube channel here, he has some really awesome stuff and I believe if he sets his mind to it he could probably pursue it as a career with enough support .

Anyway, here is to doing what we love!

[V3T]

Lots! of drawing progress here. Keep up the hard work!

[Papu]

Nice progression since you started : ) Your lines look prettt damn good. Keep this up : P

[Rhubix]

Simple shapes is the way to go - I had a cartooning teacher that made us draw circles for 20 minuets every class, and cubes. his opinion was, if you can't draw a nice circle you're pretty much jacked haha.
Love bridgeman- I eat that stuff up.
Just keep at it and you'll get there .

[V3T]

Dayum, all them studies! Keep working hard and show us some paintings soon!

[diamandis]

Keep drawing! Don't do the thing where you're abandoning a sketchbook page just because you don't like what you've got already. Fill that sucker up. If you're worried about showing it on CA, then don't show it. But still, draw. You need to be putting pencil/pen to paper more if you want to eventually get into Sheridan.

Random tip: I can't tell if you're doing this already, but when you're learning some random anatomy / construction topic from a book and copying the author's drawings, don't just stop there. Go find picture references relevant to what you've been learning and apply those concepts you're studying, then do drawings from imagination based on those same concepts. Repetition is key.

BTW, you've seen the Sheridan Portfolio Tips blog, right?

[kamikazel33t]

@V3t Thanks m8, but considering the factors of time and quality versus the number of pages and how many sketches I put in a page it's actually nothing at all, infact I am sad to say I've been really slacking. I really hope to do another painting soon!

@Papu Thank you, to be honest I hate my lines the most xD, I guess that is why perhaps maybe it got much better .

@Rhubix Yep! I started to realize that myself and this also goes with anatomy as well and anything that requires you to draw connected and simple forms because if you can't draw a single simple form like a sphere correctly, you will end up having the entire construction fall apart and look sloppy.

@diamandis You are absolutely right, I should not forget my major goal. Your post has been a big eye opener. Honestly this whole month I feel that all I've been doing were just scribbles and that I guess I got bored with the circumstance I am studying in but I guess it's just an excuse. I'll do my best to get right back on track!

What the hell have I been doing these past four days 0_0, every sketch I did for the past days were just mere scribbles like just random cylinders, drawing ellipses over and over as well as some sloppy drawings of a figure. Honestly, I am a bit frustrated with myself lately and I guess it has to do with there being a lot of personal stuff on my mind now. I honestly did not try to post much on CA now because well everything I see is rather embarrassing, sloppily done and looks totally carless! I also have to mention things are feeling real dull with my studies in regards to things like me getting tired of all those repeated reference pictures which keeping coming up over and over again for the gestures and I guess with regards to having quite a repetitive study routine. In the end though these are all excuses and I am trying my best to ignore em any way here are these few and waste of good paper sketches I did :/.(note: I did not run out of paper again it's just that I had some free time at school and no sketching paper but this does show signs of backward progress )

/rant

[Rhubix]

I wouldn't call it going backwards- I would call it standard. for me, personal art is really effected by mood and circumstance. I can go to work- crack out a bazillion frames of animation - then I go home and I stair at my cintiq until my eyes bleed and I have nothing to show for it but a pile of chocolate wrappers.

When you're in a rutt - do the cubes and spheres, just give them a bit of love. They do help if you consider perspective while you're doing it, think about your lines a bit.

Still, there will be days when everything goes to pot. This is a page from my SB last week - not for any reason, I have nothing to complain about in my life right now just couldn't find that spark. As long as you keep getting back on the horse or picking up the pencil - that's all that counts.

[kamikazel33t]

Rhubix, thank you so much for cheering me up as well as for the professional and helpful advice you always give!

Here are some sketches I did today after posting this update.

[Lyraina]

Sorry to hear you got rejected - but you already prove being able to learn very well on your own, so in the gap year you are going to improve a ton on your own! I'm really impressed by the progress you made from page 1, and how hard you work. Your lines are really getting confident.
It is okay though to take a break now and then - or to just sketch a bit without updating/uploading/showing anyone. No need to feel bad for that, nobody can produce only great work all the time. Allow yourself to recharge now and then.
Also, here is a nice graph I really like, unfortunately I don't know the source anymore.

[kamikazel33t]

I actually had a look at that graph and have to thank you because I had a good long though of it and came up with this conclusion as well, Time is factored into the graph by you continuing to draw or perhaps dictated by how much so the fastest way to move through it is to keep drawing or draw even more! So thank you Lyraina!

Some more sketches and stoof. I tried to do a portrait AND MAN DID I SCREW IT UP but to take it into a positive light I learnt how the cheeks react to a smile and I guess I continued to figure stuff out with the expression sketches from reference. I really had a tough time when doing expressions with pouting lips or expressions with contracting lips rather than stretching so I guess it is something to look into.

[Dignation]

Great progress, check out Basic Perspective Form Drawing The Techniques of Scott Robertson. Its a really good dvd to help sketching form in perspective. Try pushing the form in the faces more to give them more dimension.
Great work!

[kamikazel33t]

Thanks Dignation! I actually knew about that DVD, problem is I am always so hesitant to start doing intense perspective and stuff and its a good thing you reminded me because I really need to improve my room drawings for the portfolio and intense perspective is a good way to start because I really am noticing how terrible my perspective is when I start drawing forms and stuff .

Stuff for today, I was using a really crappy pencil for one of the hand sketches and I got so fustrated I started to scribble because I got mad when it randomly collects led and then I get that residue all over the paper or it gives me a really dark line where I don't want to >_<. I guess pencil quality does count a little. One thing I need to watch out for is trying to fit the fingers all on one palm and the spacing between it, I am still trying to develop a way and thinking about how to do so right now I am stuck on gesturing the fingers as one and trying to divide it but sometimes I either end up with uneven space or end up having to squish a finger and stuff.