Zarkizon's Sketchbook

[Zarkizon]

Hello everyone.

I joined CA because I heard that it was a great place to get feedback on artwork. I would like to be better at drawing in general, but I really want to learn how to draw cartoons. I do not plan on becoming a professional artist, however, I consider myself a very passionate hobbyist. I highly encourage comments and critiques so that I may know where I need to improve.

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My Favorite Artists:
"Blotch" (Tess "Kenket" Garmen & Teagan Gavet)
Chuck Jones
Don Bluth
Glen Keane

[Zarkizon]

A 15-minute sketch of my dog.

[blazingdimensions]

i like your pencil style, loose but also detailed, a great start to a sketchbook thread, if you have time come check mine out in my signature. btw try starting out with longer drawings first to learn the form of things and to get better at rendering and such, cool stuff either way.

[Zarkizon]

It doesn't look like it, but I spent about an hour sketching this plastic figurine of this alligator character.

[PaintMyBrain]

Hey m8. I see you are kind of new here. I just wanted to say welcome and that I hope you will get a lot of good feedback to improve your skills. I will do whatever I can even though I'm no expert.

It's a good start with your charcoal drawings. It's great that you draw from life aswell (which is very hard I beleive). If I should say something right now I would tell you to try and get a little more contrast in your drawings. the dog has alittle black spot but all images look better if you have something really light (white) and something really dark (black or very dark blue perhaps) and some dirrefent valures inbetween. Try and push the pencil harder at one line or some spots where it is as darkest or take a softer one (6B) or something. I hope u get what I mean.

Just trying to help out. Otherwise just keep drawing and I'll come back to help with whatever I can do. cheers

/PMB

[dierat]

I think it helps to go in at the very end with a sharp soft pencil (4 or 6B) and emphasize some of the darkest areas of the image and help define some of the forms a bit. That will really boost the contrast and help the object feel more 3-dimensional. It might also be in your best interest to start with some simpler objects so you can really push the drawing as far as you can without spending too long on it. Keep up the good work!

[Zarkizon]

Here is an unfinished sketch I made of my backpack. I did not have anything other than generic No. 2 pencils while drawing this, but I tried my hardest at the time to work in the value.

[Zarkizon]

i like your pencil style, loose but also detailed, a great start to a sketchbook thread, if you have time come check mine out in my signature. btw try starting out with longer drawings first to learn the form of things and to get better at rendering and such, cool stuff either way.

Hey m8. I see you are kind of new here. I just wanted to say welcome and that I hope you will get a lot of good feedback to improve your skills. I will do whatever I can even though I'm no expert.

It's a good start with your charcoal drawings. It's great that you draw from life aswell (which is very hard I beleive). If I should say something right now I would tell you to try and get a little more contrast in your drawings. the dog has alittle black spot but all images look better if you have something really light (white) and something really dark (black or very dark blue perhaps) and some dirrefent valures inbetween. Try and push the pencil harder at one line or some spots where it is as darkest or take a softer one (6B) or something. I hope u get what I mean.

Just trying to help out. Otherwise just keep drawing and I'll come back to help with whatever I can do. cheers

/PMB

I think it helps to go in at the very end with a sharp soft pencil (4 or 6B) and emphasize some of the darkest areas of the image and help define some of the forms a bit. That will really boost the contrast and help the object feel more 3-dimensional. It might also be in your best interest to start with some simpler objects so you can really push the drawing as far as you can without spending too long on it. Keep up the good work!

Thank you all for your feedback. I have tried to address all of your comments in this latest drawing. For example, I spent approximately ten hours on this drawing, and although I currently do not have any darker pencils, I did make sure that I was getting the darkest possible values out of it.

Here is the drawing, a rendering of my foot.

[Zarkizon]

I started another drawing tonight, I spent about four hours on it. I left it unfinished because I don't like how I worked in the negative space—you can see all the strokes I made with the pencil. I was hoping that I could get some feedback on this entire drawing, and also, how I can work in the ground more easily.

Also, this is just something I noticed... I am not sure why I can't render my drawings to look hyper-realistic; whenever I attempt to draw anything that way, it comes out kind of sketchy-looking.

[JFierce]

Life studies are the way to go.
Heading in the right direction.

Though, I wouldn't worry about rendering things and making it take forever. 4-10 hours for a hand or foot is good as long as you learn from it and area really observing and taking it in and trying to understand things. You can learn things from intense long studies but just as much from quick studies as well as long as your focusing.



The important thing either way is to just crank them out. Draw from your head, draw from observation, just draw.



Edit: Don't worry about your backgrounds. Things don't have to be perfect and crammed full of stuff. I see pages of amazing artists just do a bunch of hands. They just cram hands, or feet on a page. They're practicing not trying to make an amazing completely finished work of art.

[Zarkizon]

Life studies are the way to go.
Heading in the right direction.

Though, I wouldn't worry about rendering things and making it take forever. 4-10 hours for a hand or foot is good as long as you learn from it and area really observing and taking it in and trying to understand things. You can learn things from intense long studies but just as much from quick studies as well as long as your focusing.



The important thing either way is to just crank them out. Draw from your head, draw from observation, just draw.



Edit: Don't worry about your backgrounds. Things don't have to be perfect and crammed full of stuff. I see pages of amazing artists just do a bunch of hands. They just cram hands, or feet on a page. They're practicing not trying to make an amazing completely finished work of art.

What am I learning from drawing so many heads, hands, feet, etc.? Is it the actual form of those parts, or what?

Here is a page I made consisting of hand drawings:

[Umbravita]

Practice makes perfect, man. Don't worry that your drawings aren't perfect. Do your best with each drawing you have in front of you and strive to learn, above all, and you'll find your work improves.

Agreed with the others on contrast and value. Pay special attention to how dark or how light something is, and the subtle variations in tone. Black and white photos are good references for that kind of exercise.

[Zarkizon]

More quick studies and other stuff...

[Zarkizon]

More quick hand studies...

[Zarkizon]

A sketch of my glasses, and some drawings of expressive faces.

[Zarkizon]

How do I do a quick study? Anyone? I have no idea what I'm even doing, all these quick studies look like crap. When I do these tiny quick studies they look terrible in comparison to the stuff I spend hours on. What am I learning from quick studies exactly? I'm afraid I'm going to develop some bad habit of making crap drawings if I keep making these.

[Zarkizon]

Here are more quick studies of my hands...

Also, are quick studies really better for learning how to draw; for example, hands? Won't I have a tendency to make them stylized with the contour? I feel like these drawings are pretty weak.

[Zarkizon]

Here's a self portrait I drew...

[Zarkizon]

I had a very hard time drawing this...

Random Question: What do you think of my line quality in all of the things I've posted so far? Should I be concerned with it?

[Zarkizon]

Here are some drawings of goats. I didn't have any goats around me, so I used some online references instead.

[LukasA]

Don't keep telling yourself that your art is crap!

[Zarkizon]

Working from an online reference photo again...

[Zarkizon]

I did a quick drawing of the lion reference I was using. I'm trying to better understand line quality. I have no idea if I am doing this right or not...

[Zarkizon]

I did some more sketches, using an online reference photo and some other things.

[Zephyrion]

quick studies are good, and your studies have improved by leap and bounds! You are learning a lot. I can't wait to see you get even better!
I like the solidity of the rhino

[JFierce]

Haha since you mentioned having difficulty with still lifes. That's a good thing. If you can clearly see something where you can say "I really can't do this well" then take that as a sign to practice that. Especially still lifes since that's pure observation. Which is probably the more important trait when starting out.

Using photos isn't a bad thing. It's just that when your starting out it won't teach you nearly as much. A photo is an already 2D image that the camera did a lot of the work and often loses a ton of details. It can't take the place of observing things in a 3D space in front of you and grasping things a photo can't give. It's about drawing what you see, not what you think you see which is what everyone does starting out.


There's nothing wrong with drawing things for fun from photos. If you want to draw a lion then find a photo of one and draw them. Just try to throw in some actual life drawings. But like I said above just draw. Don't worry about with every picture "am I getting better?". It's often hard to judge your own progress. If your like me I always thought "God I don't feel like I'm getting any better". Then I see drawings of mine from even a year ago and think "Holy shit I did actually get better". Even when I wasn't doing a lot of studies, and just drew a lot.





Oh yeah forgot to add the link in my earlier post.
But people suggest Andrew Loomis Books, Bridgman.

But in all honesty if you want a good author to read through I'd look through Villpu's book
It's written for animators but everyone uses it because it's amazing.

It's free on google books to read too. So why not right?


http://books.google.com/books?id=-1s...epage&q&f=true

[Ghast]

careful on the hands. Think of them (as well as everything you draw) as 3d shapes rather then outline. You're clearly starting to understand them more though! Its an admiral trait to jump right into some of the more difficult areas that people often struggle with right away without hesitation! May we all be as straight forward in tackling our problem areas.

[Newman101]

You should not keep telling yourself that your art is crap or doubt why you do studies. If art is what you want to do you can never do enough studies. Even when you've gotten forms down pat its still good to do them just to keep some perspective.

As for your question about your lines, all I can say is your lines are by no means bad. Keep up your work and your lines can do nothing but improve. You've got a good starting point. Just keep at it. The only way you can fail is if you give up.

Also, I think many of us have those days where you look at what your doing and question it. Its just a matter of pushing through those moments because weather or not you can see it you are improving.

[Zarkizon]

Thank you for all of the replies! I will take into consideration of what you all said.

Also, I discovered that my scanner actually scans things in and they appear much lighter than they really are physically—so I have to do some digital adjusting to match it just right.

Worked from an online reference photo again and drew some other things.

[Zarkizon]

Here is an unfinished sketch of a tree.