Vezarez's sketchbook

[Vezarez]

Hi. So I'm a 19 year old lad from Ireland looking to better himself when it comes to art. I've browsed this site for years but in recent months I've started taking my art more seriously, and I hope to one day work as an illustrator, or even concept artist, so I figured starting a sketchbook here would be a good way to motivate myself and get some critique, and hopefully learn from the awesome talent here.

I apologize for some crappy pics but my scanner hates me and refuses to work, so I gotta make do with what I've got

[Vezarez]

Been working digitally these past few months, so here's some progress pics.

The further down you go the more recent they are, with the top one of the bluey green face being one of my first digi paints, and the barn at the end being a painting I did yesterday.

[Vezarez]

Various sketchbook pages

[JesseM]

Wow..you are doing some supercool things graphically and you have a great sense for color.

Unfortunately, how flat your drawings look detracts from the effect. Not in that you shouldn't mix graphic flat areas into your work, but the "rendered" areas look flat. Try to get away from working from photos and draw from life more; draw yourself is need be. Do a full-out rendered drawing with a value range from pure white to pure black to test yourself. If you're drawing in a grey sea, that's a warning sign.

But very exciting images, keep it up! :)

edit: Oh, and welcome to CA!

[Vezarez]

Thanks very much!

Yeah you're definitely right about things looking too flat. I'll try to push for some greater contrast bewteen my light and dark tones.

In the meantime here's a wee photo study I did earlier today

[Vezarez]

Some doodles I did today in my sketchbook. The first 2 are from life; a quickish self portrait and a study of a weirdly shaped shiny black bottle of cologne, then some crappy gestures. I threw in an old digi paint as well because why not? And damn my scanner, it always brightens my images.

[JDBI]

I like your use of textures in the digital paintings.
The self portrait is looking more 3 dimensional than the previous pencil sketches but it still feels a bit flat because of the harsh lighting. Next time add some mid tones to show the transition from light to shadow.

[Vezarez]

Thanks! My light source for the self portrait sketch was a rather bright lamp shining on one side of my face, so that's why the light is very strong, but I see what you mean about the midtones. I'll keep at it!

[bobtail]

Nice start ! I really like your style, and how you use colour. As JDBI said your values are looking better already - keep it up!!

[Vezarez]

@bobtail: Thanks very much

Kinda busy today, so here's some Loomis studies I managed to get done this morning:

[Vezarez]

Got a fountain pen the other day so just been messing around with that.

[Vezarez]

A pretty abstract painting and a wee sketch (sorry for the shitty pic)

[Vezarez]

Woo more sketchbook doodles. With the hand studies, half are bridgman studies and the other half are ref'd from my own hand/imagination.

[Vezarez]

Just found this scan of a drawing I did ages ago of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I must have been 16-17 when I did this. Looks like I didn't finish poor Butch.

[Vezarez]

Here's a quickish study from a TV show (Utopia). Although looking at it now there's a lot of things I wanna go fix.

[Vezarez]

Quick sketch (maybe 15 mins?) just playing with some new brushes. Not happy with this one but may as well post it.

[Vezarez]

Still need to work on dem values.

[Vezarez]

Silly little portraits of my girlfriend and myself. Definitely feel like my sense of values is getting better. There's some subtle shading in there that you can't really see due to my scanner butchering the brightness though. And my gf's lips look like that because she's duckfacing

[corza334]

Very cool style in here!! Love it and look forward to more posts :>

[Mewball]

Really loving all the portraits so far. The colored one in the OP is really vibrant!

[Vezarez]

@corza334

@Mewball

Thanks for the kind words!



Pretty busy with other stuff lately but I'll try post whenever I'm able. Here's some quick colour speedies I did from imagination.

EDIT: Dammit I keep forgetting to turn of f.lux (which is this program that dims your screen a faint orange colour) whenever I paint and my colours always end up being slightly off

[Vezarez]

Sorry for the absolutely terrible photo, but it's too wide to put in my scanner. Just a watercolour landscape, still gotta add details. And I know you can't really see much since the photos so crappy, but better to show some progress than none at all

[Vezarez]

Playing around with colours and foreshortening.

[Vezarez]

Been away from home all week so getting back into the swing of drawing. Started with some head construction since I struggle with drawing faces at more dynamic angles. Wasn't really feeling it today so they're pretty bad, I almost feel like I've taken a step backwards, but maybe that's just the sleep deprivation Mostly from imagination based on the Loomis method, with some direct Loomis studies and a couple Bridgmans thrown in too.

[Vezarez]

Trying to draw more dynamic gestures from imagination. All are from imagination except for the 3 figures in the top left of the second scanned page.

[Vezarez]

Tried doing a floating city sorta thing. Don't really like where it's going though so I'm not going to finish it.

[donalfall]

Lots of hard work put in! Good man yourself.

[Vezarez]

Thank you donalfall

More head sketches. All from imagination except for that one labelled ref'd.

[Vezarez]

Late night sketch. This ones a bit meh but just gotta keep pushing myself to do more.

[Vezarez]

Self portrait I did this morning. This one was frustrating to say the least (DAMN THOSE EYES). This was my first time doing a portrait entirely in photoshop, I still feel like I have much more control with pencil and paper than I do with a tablet, but practise makes perfect I suppose.