Idiomatic sketch chaos

**Idiomatic** · January 7th, 2005, 10:47 PM

Hello! Before I post anything, I have a confession to make. . . I'm a working artist, and though I draw every day and practice every night, I've never developed a loose and creative sketch habit of my own. And I've never ever tried to draw seriously in ballpoint pen before. Now I'm trying to do both at the same time, so please be kind

Here are this week's meager efforts. This is sketch chaos, because I don't really know what I want to do yet, or how to do it, and whenever I get uncomfortable on the page I turn the sketchbook around for a better angle. If something doesn't make sense, try looking at it sideways, or upside-down. . . or it never made sense to begin with.

I'm going to try to only post original material here and keep the studies where they belong (at the source), but some of my inspirations might show through. And photo imagery will definitely show up here from time to time - rendering in pen is an interesting challenge for me.

Advice is welcome! I beg for it!

**hurricane** · January 7th, 2005, 11:08 PM

nice pictures but my good they are heavy for the eye, dont know where tolook so i chose not to look

forced my self to look at each shape, but its to chaotic...

keep on posting man !

cheers !

**SirRon** · January 8th, 2005, 03:07 AM

Ever tried a brush pen? Was a real challenge for me because it laid the ink down so thick. Layil does a great job with her brush pen.

Very nice work. Though I don't think I'm at a place to really give you any good advice

Looking forward to see more.

**Idiomatic** · January 8th, 2005, 01:38 PM

Here's last night's effort. I tried to keep the chaos down a bit - fewer, larger pictures and a single orientation.

Thanks for the feedback, Hurricane. Hopefully this will be an easier read!

I have played around with a brush pen, SirRon, but only for blind contours. I don't think I have enough of an understanding of this process yet to make a real go of it. Thanks for the feedback, and don't talk yourself down! We're all artists here, and everyone's got an eye for what they do and do not like. . .

Thanks!

**IanE** · January 8th, 2005, 01:45 PM

Whoa... I'm glad you can rotate the monitor with certain graphics cards. I really don't have any critiques for you, one becuase I'm just starting, and two because you're obviously at a very high level of talent and skill.

The last post was much easier on my brain! I especially like the girl in the water and the guy with his eyes closed. Good stuff! I'd like to see more.

**ClocktowerArtworks** · January 8th, 2005, 01:49 PM

hey...love the sketchbook. It's good to see such a solid understanding of anatomy and motion. Love the style and your concepts are looking good. I'd love to see a website if you've got one.

until then, i'd really appreciate any criticisms you'd like to make about my sketchbook. i know it's not necessarily cool to out your sketchbook on someone else's thread, so if it bothers you, i'll edit this post. thanks.

keep rockin' on the sketch thread.

**Idiomatic** · January 8th, 2005, 08:43 PM

Just a quickie for this afternoon, I try to take it a little easier on the weekends. . . I pulled the line art for this girl out of last night's sketches and did some rough color work suitable to the style. I didn't bother to clean up the line art, and I think the face and hair need more contrast . . . but it's a sketch, right?

PS - Thanks for the comments, Ian and Clocktower! I really appreciate it.

**IanE** · January 8th, 2005, 09:10 PM

Line art there or not, that looks amazing for a rough color job! Can't wait to see you actually FINISH something!

**hurricane** · January 8th, 2005, 09:12 PM

great stuff, and alot easier to read

great stuff !!

cheers !

**Idiomatic** · January 10th, 2005, 12:54 AM

Another lite effort for the weekend - spent too much time in the studies sketchbook and not enough in this one.

I'm not far enough into this habit for the ideas to just roll out, it seems, so here's part of guy (his arm's too long), some sort of squat robot thing, and a few pea people I draw when I'm drawing a blank.

Thanks again for the kind words, guys!

**mentler** · January 10th, 2005, 10:27 PM

Very interesting beginning ~~~ more please!

**Idiomatic** · January 11th, 2005, 01:22 PM

Thanks Mentler! Here you go!

Just a few doodles from last night. I couldn't think of anything super-inventive to draw so I pulled down an old motorcycle book and sketched out some engine parts - I'm pretty weak on this material creatively, so hopefully some of it will stick. And then I ended up with Ms. Motormouth here. Not completely satisfied - I'm still flying by the seat of my pants on ball-point pen rendering; it's both liberating and frustrating to not be able to erase, and my defiency in hatching is pretty clear. But it was fun!

**van** · January 11th, 2005, 01:26 PM

Dayum. These are freakin nice. Im gonna love this sketchbook. Keep going.

**IanE** · January 11th, 2005, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by van

Dayum. These are freakin nice. Im gonna love this sketchbook. Keep going.

Agreed.

For just doodles those are incredible. Can't wait until you finish something hard!

**Idiomatic** · January 12th, 2005, 12:07 AM

More horsin' around with engine stuff. I'm having a hard time finding a creative sketchy rhythm - I may be tightening up too much too soon, and the ideas really aren't there yet. Does this get easier further into the habit? Maybe I'll try something more scribbly tomorrow. . .

**Isric** · January 12th, 2005, 12:10 AM

you have a very refreshing approach to tech

. this is really good stuff to look at. thanks for posting it.

**Idiomatic** · January 14th, 2005, 10:22 AM

Here are some doodles from last night. More engine stuff, early twenties motorcycle parts to be precise. And I've got katamaris on the brain. . . then I wondered what Katamari Damacy would have been like if Kim Hyung-Tae was the lead designer. . . This was my humble sketch.

Thanks, Isric! I'm really just going back to the source for this stuff. I've never been very good at faking greeble, and decided it was time to learn something about actual technology. The earlier the tech, the better in my opinion

UPDATE - Sorry folks, it seems that something has gone horribly awry with my provider. Hopefully they'll get it sorted soon, please check back later. Pretty please!

**van** · January 14th, 2005, 10:44 AM

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Not a red X! Not in here! Dude, you are probably one of my favorite sketch artists right now. I gotta get a better glimpse. How about posting some process shots. I want to see how you start your sketches initially and how they develop. Pretty please?

**Idiomatic** · February 3rd, 2005, 12:18 AM

Seems I've lost a bit of steam over the past few weeks! Well, work's been super-busy, Mercenaries came out, and I had two Richard Morgan books to read. . . excuses, excuses. . .

I've still had time for anatomical studies, but the after-hours creativity has been suffering. I'm trying to ease back into it with more of the same. More motor stuff, that is, and then another 'motorized' figure. I'm thinking about moving onto guns soon, though; that might actually be more useful at work in the near future . . .

**cburt** · February 3rd, 2005, 12:43 AM

idiomatic, this stuff looks great. your work is very tight and clean which is nice, everything is very well defined and has a good variety of line weights. i love that you are filling your entire pages without wasting any space, it all looks like its flowing naturally, but it'd be nice to see some work utilizing the white space rather than just occupying it...cool stuff though, glad you're working in ballpoint too, its definitely my weapon of choice...you ought to post some of your professional work just to give us a dose of what you do?
i love how you are using the mechanical aspects of the analytical drawings in your concepts as machine like functions..also your patterns are nice in the costumes..
thanks for posting, keep it up
-cburt

**maxetormer** · April 29th, 2005, 10:23 PM

Yep you defenitly are building up a real knack for mechanics,
god! I would like to pick your brain out to learn how to get
such clean lines, thrust me, your ideas are looking dam nice
and solid, and please show us what you do for a living,
Im courious too he he, you just becomed my newest source
for inspiration

**Crow** · April 29th, 2005, 10:32 PM

This is some beautifull stuff. Hope you have the time to post some more stuff.

**Sopor+Aeternus** · June 28th, 2005, 05:04 PM

wah Idiomatic
I never really liked tech, machine stuff. But your work is abselutly stunning!
The clean lines, the great shapes, ideas, desings..

**Idiomatic** · September 14th, 2005, 09:09 PM

Hello again, everybody! Sorry I haven't been around - things have been super-busy at work for the past several months. So I've decided to post some of my speed paintings from reference - I know that technically breaks one of my own rules on original material, but since I can't yet post any of my original work-work, and most of my free time is spent on study and skills improvement, and I'm spending all this money on webhosting. . . well, I just need to post something

These are actually somewhat old, but I'll post up to more recent stuff over time. Thanks for dropping by!

**Idiomatic** · September 15th, 2005, 07:19 PM

Here's a handful more - pretty elementary stuff, working in greyscale with a couple of different tools to try and get a handle on lighting and experiment with texture, et cetera. Each one is about 30 minutes worth of effort, still from reference.

**tuchten** · September 15th, 2005, 08:10 PM

nice work idiomatic!

**Idiomatic** · September 16th, 2005, 08:27 AM

Thanks yall, I really appreciate it! There's plenty more where these came from, and I'm continuing to try to do at least one a day - some are more worthy of posting than others, of course

I think I've been making some good technical progress; my biggest fear at this point in this and my other studies is that I'm pretty confident with reference, but it doesn't seem like much is sticking when I try to strike out creatively. . . Is that something that comes with time and practice, or do I just need to push myself (and perhaps fail continuously)?