Adien's book - updated 03/17/07

[adien]

Wow... been a long time since I have posted anything... Haven't really improved much since last time I don't think, in fact, haven't drawn all that much in the last 6 months.

Started joining the Vancouver Sketch group couple weeks ago (here ). Those peeps are great! Thanks to those I've met so far... Spartan, Rubygenesis, Warhead82, Tak, Goflamesgo, Mr Frost, happy to have met you all, and you can bet I'll be showing up on a regular basis! (If i missed anyone, gimme a kick next sunday ) Any Vancouver artists out there, you should pop in, it's a great group, and I've learned alot already.

anyways, here's some drawings I did out of a The Flash comic. First page is a over a few days, second page was started at the sketch group on Nov. 7, then worked on more that night... umm.. might tackle it again for the head and hands, maybe not





peace

Don

I've attached this image to show next to my thread in the forum list.

[adien]

Ok, yea, I don't post very often... I have been drawing though. I'm usually just too busy to scan. Happened to scan this to get advice from someone tho, so thought I'd throw it up here too.

No reference, started off as just a doodle really. lots of anatomy problems. He used to have a face, but then I moved his head and neck and haven't got around to drawing it back in. His right forearm is incorrectly placed I think.. which is why he doesn't have a right hand.

working on hand studies right now, then will move on to faces. I'm finding these to be my biggest problems right now.. then back to full figure studies.

[leonard_davi]

Cool sketchs, I just don't understand that the flash with holes in all body ... but that is really cool , I will go to vancouver next year it's possible join new menbers on the group? .. keep working.. hugs

[adien]

Thanks Leonard. That sketch was actually of the anti-Flash, I think they are ports to plug in tubes etc, but I forget exactly.

Anyways, I'm starting to be able to pull off the odd sketch of a persons body without ref, but I can't draw heads or hands at all.

Here's a sketch page of loomis studies. I started drawing the man's head, got frustrated and bored, so gave him a body. erased the face so much I actually erased a hole in the paper haha. I think I messed up his right (our left) shoulder. his head is a total failure imo

Girls face sorta happened around the eye, outta my head, so pretty happy about that I guess. That eye and the one below are studies from loomis.

The line down the middle of the page is the seam of the book.

[adien]

.

another doodle... no ref, was trying to work out how to draw a hand with no ref, got bored and frustrated and gave the hand a body haha. :-D




Does anyone have any suggestions for books that teach how to draw hands? I have Drawing Dynamic Hands by Burne Hogarth, and it's a great book, just feels like it's jumping past the basics..

Thanks for looking!

[Steel Buddha]

You've got some good stuff going on, I'm weak on the same ares too. But as references for human form go, including hands, I would suggest Bridgmans complete guide to drawing from life. Only one critique, In the head studies drawing, the guy's left pec should meet up at the bottom of the shoulder muscle and the top of the bicep.

[adien]

Yea, I have that book, haven't look at it in awhile though, I should go through it again.

And your right about the bicep/armpit. I need to study armpits, I'm just guessing right now when I don't use a ref.

[chyo]

Hi Adien,
I think u got quite a good idea on the anatomy. try to draw from life, and get some references too. with reference, u can see the details more clearly, and when u learn from there, u can draw without ref and still get a pretty good stuff (it's quite a tough stage tho) more practise will cure that

[adien]

Thanks for the advice chyo

Here are some bridgeman studies. After filling (ok, they're not really full) these two pages, turned the page to do some hand studies, but couldn't get started. Not sure what it is, but usually when I draw something I can find sort of a natural feeling starting place... except with hands I can't seem to ever find that natural starting place. Most of my hand studies are total failures, and I tend to find it impossible to get correct looking proportions. Anyone have any advice to help me get past this problem?

[jcgaughan]

Good job on the studies

As far as the hands go, I've found it easier to use my own as reference than looking at Loomis or Bridgeman. I suppose it just feels more natural starting off. Plus u can get any hand motion you want :p . But I dunno, I'm still learning as well Just keep drawing and you'll keep improving!

[adien]

Yay! I finally bought a Wacom. Today I went out and picked up a 6x8 Wacom Intuos3, hooked it up, and started playing around.

I love it! It provides so much freedom! One of my biggest problems with drawing was being afraid of ruining what I've already drawn, and not being able to fix it (this happens to me almost everytime I draw). With a tablet, I can get a drawing to a basic idea, throw down a new layer, and start experimenting without fear. I love it!

To show you what I mean, here's a basic sketch I did with NO reference. A separate layer was used to experiment with different wing shapes.




Then I changed the above base drawing to a faded red color, and drew over it on a new layer to get this (haven't really done any detail on the wings yet):



(I know her hand is missing.. I tried and tried to block in a dainty little hand, but gave up after a half hour or so.. by far the most time spent on any single element of the drawing, and not even successful )

I'm pretty happy with it overall, especially since I didn't use a reference. Drawing something like this on paper would be impossible for me, because it would be insanely messy by the time I got to this stage, and look extremely muddy. an good example of that would be the sword fighter earlier in this thread.

Yay!

[adien]

quick ninja doodle with new intuos3.



wow.. now that I look at it here, i messed up his arms pretty good... haha

[adien]

This was a request.. no reference, learned alot doing this, although I don't think I like it.



/edit ugh.. went to sleep, looked at this again, can't believe I missed so many proportion issues.. /edit

/edit2 sorta fixed, on to the next drawing! /edit2

[adien]

my first time ever painting, trying to remember what little I've read about light... (just the pants for now. )

[adien]

.
second time painting ever.. value study (from ref) using intuos3 in PS. I messed up her nose a bit.. I wanted to keep going, but I need to sleep. Might come back to it tho




Soo.. things to work on.. widen the nose a bit.. learn how to blend.. paint in the direction of the contour of the face, not against (ie the side of the nose).. hmm think the mouth is off a bit too, not sure if it looks like it's attached to the face.

[nikia]

hmm think the mouth is off a bit too, not sure if it looks like it's attached to the face.

Yep the mouth is a bit small, but widen the nostril wings before you fix the mouth. Also don't forget the shorten the screen right eyebrow, and it wouldn't hurt to define the screen left eye a bit more. I'm also thinking the screen left eye is a bit too large, and it's slightly lower than the screen right one. You're getting there though, the wacom made a huge difference.

[van]

Nice start! Are you using digital to paint?

[armando]

If your still looking for a good anatomy book check out "Figure Drawing" by R.G. Hatton. It was suggested to me by another member and I'm very impressed with it. You should do some life studies, doesn't really matter what you draw, but pick a specific thing to work on: You could concentrate on foreshortening, or rendering, round things or angular things, you could draw shiny things or dull things and whatever else. My favorite drawing in here is the angel because it has the cleanest lines and most action and tension, because she's stepping off a cliff and because of the hanging hair and dress. Become aware of how contour lines are 3 dimensional, and your lines will automatically start to clean themselves up because it'll be like your moving your pencil along those actual contours.

[adien]

armando - I'll definitely check out that book. I have to confess I've done little life drawing, copying everything from 2D. I'm planning to take a figure drawing class this fall, money permitting, that uses live models. Hopefully that will be a good start. Thanks for the advice!

van - Thanks dude! yep it's digital, all done in Photoshop. Never used real paint, and this is my first time using digital. trying to get greyscale down right now, color confuses me yet. I'm starting to look at color theory books though.

nikia - thanks for the crits! tried to do most of them when I continued with this one.

Well, I think this one has gone as far as I'm going to take it. I stopped looking at the ref as soon as I had the basic values down, so it doesn't look even close to the original. It was a fun first painting, and my first real attempt to keep a light source in mind at the same time. Learned alot I think. I'm sure I'll wake up in the morning and hate it, I usually do.

[armando]

I really had to nitpick to find these: The eye on the left of the picture looks a little dark and the cheek going into the shadow too: diagonally down from the eye on the right there's a dark circular smudge. Other than that it looks fine to me(ear missing on purpose?)

[adien]

hey armando

yea, that eye is still a bit dark.. I played with giving her an ear, but I really like it without, and the couple half-hearted attempts I made to give her one looked out of place (mostly because I didn't block in an ear before darkening the area I think).

It's a bit muddy in places for sure, blotches and brush strokes out of place. I didn't really start paying attention to contour and placement with my brush strokes until later in the painting, and I haven't tested many brushes and settings yet for blending purposes. All stuff to think about for the next one.

[adien]

Here's a few things I've been working on.. the portrait and the woman running are unfinished.. the man on the chair is done as far as I'll go on it. current frustrations.. can't seem to get the chest quite right on men or women (when not using a ref). only the portrait is from reference.

[Cobi]

Hi Adien, thought I'd check your stuff out.. and I have to say I really like your style.. you have just enough detail to know what's going on while leaving a little to the imagination.

I do have to agree with you on the chests, though. The woman's chest looks fine to me, but the man in the chair.. his head looks a little too big, and from his booty to his knee looks a little too short. i love the portraits, though.. and i do love grey scale! keep it up =)

[adien]

yea, I'd noticed afterwards that the man's head was too big. If i ever go back to that one I might fix it, although I find the other 2 images more interesting. I intend to finish those ones.

Thanks for the crits and for dropping by!

[adien]

my apartment building shut off the power for a few hours tonight due to "mandatory electrical vault inspection and maintenance" (whatever that is), so I grabbed my sketch book and hung out at a coffee shop nearby for awhile. trying to work out action poses, and keep them from looking stiff. Not sure if I succeeded. no reference....

I'm finding that while most of the time I can work out approx how legs would be attached to the torso, I'm not always able to work out how the arms would look. I'll have to do some more studies of torsos with arms and hands(!!) attached.

[nikia]

I guess that wacom has really helped you out. These are really good. Nice clean sketches. Not stiff at all. Very Cool!

Now get to work on those hands!

[adien]

here are some of the stuff I've done since I last posted. Not alot I know..


This one is the latest page done tonight. I'm getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to draw faces. I can paint them if they are big, detailed, and I take 10 hours to do it, but I can't draw them, and especially not small and simplified yet. Here is me struggling with faces (from loomis) on the left side of the page, and then doodling (no ref) on the right side whenever I needed a few minutes break from faces.



Here is the page I did at the sketch group on Sunday. I did more talking that drawing. I do that alot. (dragon doodle in the bottom left is idle copying from the cover of a TSR art book)



Here is a "robot" (if you can call it that) and I took the dragon head from the page above and gave him a body with my tablet. Loosely based the body off a cool water dragon I remember from an old nintendo game called Gemfire (I still love that game, although haven't seen/played it in 10 years):



Here is an eye study I did with the tablet a little while ago:




peace

Don

[adien]

spent about 3 hours drawing today.. 2 hours struggling with faces again. Mostly erasing alot. managed to get holes in the paper from the eraser in places. I dunno, something's just not clicking. I tried drawing planes of the face a few times, then I tried to think in planes when placing the features etc.. I realised that drawing a nose is now probably my strongest point though (not saying much), and the mouth, chin and jaw are the weakest (erase erase erase). the newer stuff is at the bottom of the page.



After about 2 hours of that, I gave up and switched to drawing the body. 1 no ref, and then 3 from Hogarth. This was like pure bliss compared to the previous two hours. Things just flowed, I spent very little time on each of them. The 2 bottom ones were 5 minutes, the back study was 15.. woman cross-legged was 10 minutes. I didn't worry about hands or anything much, as I was mostly letting off steam.

[adien]

.
A couple pages from the last few days... Loomis, Hogarth and some 2 minutes doodles from looking at Fellah's Sketchbook (you rock Fellah )

I seem to have gone back to pencil for awhile.. Getting the tablet opened my eyes to a new way of drawing and painting, and for awhile it was great, but it also broke my fear of making a mess, and screwing a drawing up, so now I've fallen back in love with pencil. I love my tablet, but it will always be there. As usual, I spent the least time on the Hogarth studies.. those just seem to flow now

[Fellah.]

Thanks man, means a lot
There is so much to learn from Loomis and Hogarth, so its the right way, man. Keep working those studies! Its looking good! Thanks again dude!