Clockodile's Sketch Book

[clockodile]

Hey there!

I've been meaning to make a sketchbook thread on here for some time, so I'm going to start off with some recent pictures and sketch work from the last week or two to show where I'm at. With the exception of a rather lackluster GCSE Art course nearly a decade a ago, I have no formal art education, but in the last six months or so I've decided to kick it up a notch and focus on improvement.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm here to get better, so concrit is welcomed and encouraged.






Some head sketches done in pen.



Life sketches. The first two are done in charcoal, and the second pair in pencil - the second shoe is a redesign done from imagination based on the first.



Deconstructed figures, done from photos, masters drawings/paintings, and imagination. I did about 75 of these (25 of each), but I'm not prepared to flood this page or waste time scanning the lot, so I just did a broad mixture.



Mini-photostudies done to have a look at how light and colour behave at different times of day.



Quick study, mainly to focus on skin tone.



And to finish up for now, lighting studies done by reusing the same self-portrait sketch - the shading was done hopping between observation and photo-reference.

[clockodile]

OK, so here are some more quick landscape studies. I'm gradually working through different lighting conditions through the day, so here are some morning and midday ones.




Some boxing gesture sketches.




Self protrait, and the second one uses the first as a reference to alter it from imagination. I don't think I am going to change to round glasses any time soon, haha.




Portrait study. Thinking about how skin tones work again -how greyer tones are there and how different colours occur in the face.



And finishing up with a quick character portrait from imagination.

[clockodile]

Decided to do a bit of a brush up on basic drawing skills over the weekend! Besides continuing some colour studies.

Character portrait from imagination. Mainly thinking about the colour that can be worked into skintones here.




Some fun action gestures, I started off on boxing again, but moved onto the sumos. Working with the strong movement of the throws was a particular highlight of the week.




A few of the 50 odd head constructions done this week. The first two images/25 heads are from photo reference, the second two/25 heads from imagination.




Some 120 second head sketches.




Life drawings. Mainly focusing on drawing through forms and thinking about cylinders in the first 4; I took some bottles from the bathroom and drew them at a few angles. The last one is a quick charcoal value study of some toned boxes and a white ball. Scanning it really made me realise how wonky my lines are.




100% Opacity Study (A Street in Venice - Sargent) Trying to do this was way harder than expected. I will have to try doing these again.




A few more colour studies - sorry my notes are stuck on the last one, I made a mistake with the layers. Up to late afternoon, dusk and nighttime scenes here; I think I will do a couple more to fill any gaps in shade/weather and move on.

[V3T]

I am surprised no one has commented here yet o_O
I really like the direction you are going with your work =]
Your paintings come out very nice but I noticed your traditional drawings come out a little flat. I am in no position to crit you, as I am not close to where you are at but perhaps a few construction studies could help, I would recommend having a look at Nathan Fawkes work and see how he builds it up.
Thanks for helping me out by the way, highly appreciated.

[clockodile]

I am surprised no one has commented here yet o_O
I really like the direction you are going with your work =]
Your paintings come out very nice but I noticed your traditional drawings come out a little flat. I am in no position to crit you, as I am not close to where you are at but perhaps a few construction studies could help, I would recommend having a look at Nathan Fawkes work and see how he builds it up.
Thanks for helping me out by the way, highly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your input! My traditional skills are embarrassingly weak, especially with charcoal. I looked up Nathan Fowkes, and I recognise some of his commercial work, particularly the El Dorado environments. The charcoal studies he does are new to me though; it is very inspiring to so see such confident strokes. I've made a note to put some time into having a more concentrated look at them.

---

A bit disappointed with the last few days' haul. Maybe I'll put the tablet aside for a day and get some meaty mileage with a pad of paper.


Warm up gestures for a picture below. Planning out some poses.



Outfit design, messing with doing a ref sheet since my loose sketch for this was horrifying.



A couple of character outfit designs. Trying to think of ways to keep a theme for two very different outfits on the same guy. Not wholly satisfied with the poses; the stiffness kills them.



Anatomy practise. Fun, fun, fun. I love drawing torsos. Working on memorising muscle connection points, as well as general reaction to movement and trying out different angles. These are some of 25 photo studies; I will be doing 25 from imagination soon, and possibly some old master studies.



Some really unflattering thumbnails. I intend of redrawing some bigger and doing some environments.



Rock life study. Sort of stepping up from the cubes, I went for a dark-medium-pale combo so I could see light working on different surface values.



And some painting mini studies. Moving on to have a look at different forms of interior lighting.

[lionheartGFX]

daaamn im digging the effort in figure construction and perspective, i think you might want to do some costume studies as well i use www.thesartorialist.com for that but there are alot of similar webs that can help you understand how clothes behave and how the folds wrap in the body, the pinches and stretches are whats important this imply movement or rotation and can help a figure read better, keep it up man!!

[clockodile]

daaamn im digging the effort in figure construction and perspective, i think you might want to do some costume studies as well i use www.thesartorialist.com for that but there are alot of similar webs that can help you understand how clothes behave and how the folds wrap in the body, the pinches and stretches are whats important this imply movement or rotation and can help a figure read better, keep it up man!!

Thank you! It has been quite a while since I have done any studying on costumes. The Satorialist is really good, they have a huge archive to dive into. In the past I've found there are some decent tumblr blogs via google for more specific stuff too. I will make sure to keep the pinches and stretching in mind when I draw next.

-

Been a bit too long since my last update. Following V3T's advice, I worked on some charcoal studies

Another lighting study - again, just looking at how the window light works.




Artist study - Portrait of Alfred Pavlouch Nurok by Serov. Drawing done in some kind of odd, waxy china pencil. Quite good for discouraging myself from going into fiddly details too early.




Decided to look at and sketch some cabins for inspiration.




Reiterated thumbs from my last post.




Upper-torso muscle studies from imagination.




OK, here come the charcoal studies, posted in order. I started off messing with drawing a ball from life, trying to get a feel for bigger strokes and just generally experimenting - here are a few of the neater ones.




Charcoal photostudy. Really struggled to push the values further this first time.




Artist Study - Portrait of Vladimir Vladimirkovich by Serov



ANOTHER artist study (I guess I was compensating for not doing many recently) of A Spanish Woman by Sargeant



And a self portrait




Finishing up with a cabin drawn from imagination

[clockodile]

Here's another building design, along with a couple of other sketches I've been playing with.






Some clothed figure gestures, which I had a lot of fun with, and messed about with ballpoints and a tried a couple of different pencils.




Basketball gestures! I am sure I did more but it appears a dog ate my homework.




Colour studies from old paintings:

Done from The Charging Chasseur by Géricault


Done from Rubens Peale by Rembrandt Peale - I picked this mostly because it had a lot of 'green' in, which is a colour area I have real trouble with.



Annnnd the ever persistent light studies. Going through cool window light, warm tungsten light, warm candle light and cool fluorescent light.




Photostudies for anatomy again - working down to the lower torso. Showing a few of the 25 I did, and I'll probably have a bunch done from imagination for my next post.




Not going to scan in any more of these because they're boring, but I have been having a go at some of Peter Hans sketching exercises. Largely because I'm trying to break a HORRIBLE habit of drawing inwards all the time. It restricts my stroke length, so I intend on breaking the habit. It is much easier to do these inking exercises now my shoulder blades have stabilised a bit.




Annnnnnd finishing up with some more charcoal studies, all done from life - a t-rex toy, self portrait, and ball of rumpled up paper.

[clockodile]

Been very busy this week, so I've focused on doing lots of sketching.


Here's another light study.




Some of the muscle studies done from imagination I did to go with the ones in the last post.




Fighting gesture sketches. Had a lot of fun experimenting here.




Clothing studies, hunting down folds heheh.




Clothing gesture sketches.




And to finish up, the sketches I did on a quick trip to the Natural History Museum. I figured I'd drop in since I was travelling past it. Wish I could have spent longer in there.

[Rostas]

Some nice stuff you got here. The studies are great , the poses are nice. Keep working on them. Also you have a knack for color, and it shows because of the difference of color/non-colored drawings, like those done with the pencil.

Anyways , good luck , wanted to give you a hello .

[kingkostas]

nice studies mate, keep them up!!!

[clockodile]

Some nice stuff you got here. The studies are great , the poses are nice. Keep working on them. Also you have a knack for color, and it shows because of the difference of color/non-colored drawings, like those done with the pencil.

Anyways , good luck , wanted to give you a hello .

Thank you for dropping by! Yes, when I started using charcoal and pencil more, I really noticed the (embarrassing) disparity between those works and the digital stuff. So I'm trying to do more of that.

nice studies mate, keep them up!!!

Thank you, will do!


Phew, what a week. I am already more than halfway through another batch of anatomy studies; I'll probably post them up next.


Charcoal study from photo




Charcoal drapery from life




Pencil drapery study from one of Leonardo da Vinci's sketches.




Pencil still life of a leaf in a glass.




Reading Faust right now. I cannot deny that I freaking adore Mephistopheles.



Gestures studies for some breakdancing and fencing.



Clothing gesture studies. AKA Fun with capes!



Clothing and folds study. Getting the hang of thinking about different folds I think now.




Artist study of Sargent - Conventry Patmore




And finishing up with a quickie photostudy.

[Rostas]

Great studies , the last batch. And also Sargent . I like how you incorporated the ways of cloth folding together and indentified them by the way they fold. That's a pretty neat thing. I might try that someday.

[vayne108]

Wow, nice work, definitely for someone without any formal training. Your are already doing the right like things (Gestures, life drawing, etc...) for improvement. One thing I do notice though is occasionally your faces lea towards being a litte wide to the rest of the facial proportions.

....and oh thanks for stopping by my SB !

[clockodile]

Great studies , the last batch. And also Sargent . I like how you incorporated the ways of cloth folding together and indentified them by the way they fold. That's a pretty neat thing. I might try that someday.

Thank you! I find it is helpful to annotate my studies sometimes.

Wow, nice work, definitely for someone without any formal training. Your are already doing the right like things (Gestures, life drawing, etc...) for improvement. One thing I do notice though is occasionally your faces lea towards being a litte wide to the rest of the facial proportions.

....and oh thanks for stopping by my SB !

Thank you for the crit! I'll try to keep an eye on that problem from now on, I'm noticing it a lot now you mention it.

More studies this week. Been pretty busy recently.

Serov sketch study



Sargent sketch study




Couple of life and a portrait study. Portrait study came out pretty bad, but compared to a couple of others I did, I guess it can be shared.




Leg studies from photo reference




Leg studies from imagination




Final run of fabric studies for now. Just having a hack at some more draped outfits since earlier studies were deficient.




Lions




Boxing gestures



Portrait of Mephisto inspired by Faust - partly what the sketches last week were leading to.