Fipse´s irregularities - Fresh from the grave ... 05.8.09

[Fipse]

Here we are again - me and the dreaded virtual sketchbook. I began a new "real" sketchbook and though this could be a good start to post again. Anyway I hope that I can keep this up-to-date and running and won´t have such a big break due to overwork and rut ...

Here´s stuff to start with, I try at the moment to get a better and more controlled grip on colours with more or less success.











Hope you have fun ...

Fipse

[Robolus]

Fipse? Wow, Fipse is that you? Your best stuff so far.

[endregan]

hey fipse long time no see!

lots of improvement since I have seen last. What has been up ? You disappeared for a while there!

[zou]

hi

i seen some of your post several times before,
the first and second works has a very attractive style line and color (especiall the face of the woman)
when i look at this sword and her arm (at the right) i don't feel it weird to see cow-boy like girl with those things: how did u achieved that ???!!
same things with the second one

good luck

[jkior]

I agree with ^ . . . I think the color harmony in the first one is definately the best - very nice image. Looks like you're at a good stage to pursue color too; I really can't find much to crit in terms of anatomy, proportion, or perspective in your figures. . .the poses could probably be a little more dynamic, with better awareness of the center of gravity (I'm thinking of #3 here) but I know that's not really what you're concentrating on here. In terms of color study, I'm sure you've seen fredflickstone's incredible color demos and tutorials around this site. His ability to convey the concepts is (in my opinion) completely unmatched - definately check them out again if you haven't read them for a while.

A big part of using color is to avoid oversaturating everything - you did quite well in the top one and also the third one, but the fourth and fifth seem oversaturated throughout - it'll make the color seem muddy and uninteresting, compared to a single area of high saturation surrounded by low saturation. Color's _hard_ but very fun, keep it up!

[Fipse]

Hi and thanks for the nice comments!

I´ve been overworked and quite in a rut the past few month but I´m stable now . I even hope I can post more or less regular in the next time - whatever this means in my case.

Robolus
Hi Robbie, long time no see! In fact I don´t think I´m any better than before - I just took my time with some of the drawings and didn´t rush them.

Endregan
You see why I disappeared up there. I hope the rut is over - I´m just waiting for my vacation and get into gear again

zou
I tried to give the armour and weapon a victorian style, mainly in the decoration. I think this helped a bit to give an overall coherent picture.

jkior
My boring poses are really a problem for me, somehow I´m alway stuck in historical illustration where there´s the need to show most of the figure. I should take a look at Ron Lemens stuff again, I´ve done mostly anatomical studies in the past and colours are really diffcult for me. I tend - as you have seen - to oversaturate, partly it´s a problem with my monitor that is quite bright. But I surely will have an eye on it.

Thanks again

Fipse

:edit: lowered the saturation of the saxon a bit - on my monitor it´s nearly grey - so I hope the figure is more readable now.

[Fipse]

Here we are again with some updates. Pictures from my last lifedrawing session (man, do I have to practise) and the first environment I did for years ...





Fipse

[Odds]

hey fipse... cool stuff in here. keep working on your anatomy, as everyone should.
also... try making your lines more flowing and smooth. try to do some blind contours (where you put your hand on the paper and not look at it... then you try to draw something you see). that helped me a bit. keep up the good work.

[Dan.v.D.]

those lifedrawings are not bad fipse.
just try to shade cleaner and smoother.
after all you shade to define forms and not to texturize the figure.
maybe do some head-only studies next time. the head is like the most important part of any drawing and also one of the hardest so some extensive practice in that field will never harm ones art.

keep it up!

[Fipse]

Found some time to draw again. This will be my last post before I go for 2 weeks on holiday where I´m hopefully able to make further studies.

odds
Point taken, will have a look at it. Thanks for commenting!

Dan.v.D
I know that I´m sometimes to hasty with my shading. With this session we haven´t had good lighting that made my shades even more insecure. I normally tend to do more on the heads but have neglected it this time. Anyway I think, too, that a portrait session would be a good thing.

Here´s the wip and the colouring of a drawing that I recently made for the DSG "Cthulhu noble" Didn´t finish it in time but found some time again this evening. This time a quite monochromatic approach.





Fipse

[Fipse]

Here I am again ... haven´t drawn as much as I wanted in my holiday but at least did some studies and stuff and had some fun with my good ole quill-pen.

Some anatomy-studies after Bammes:



And some black and white sketches I made. The one with the boat was made in situ.





I hope I can send my irregularities a bit more regular in the next time.

Fipse

[Fipse]

O.k. haven´t posted for a while and in fact I haven´t done anything worthwile in the artsy department. A lotof time went into this project:



Had to do the costume and pedantic as I am this took some time. Here´s now a WIP for a new project I´m working on atm. I´m illustrating for next years Battle of Hastings Reenactment the different types of norman warriors and started with norman archers.



Fipse

[Fipse]

O.k. found some time to colour my last sketch. Not everything worked out the way I wanted it but my "Customer" is happy. The figures are based on the Bayeux Tapestry of about 1070 AD with some additional research of mine. For illustrations of this kind I need often more time for research than for the actual drawing. Thanks especially Cookiedough for some tips in IRC. They have to be on a white background because they will be cut out for the publications and on the website - the shadow is jsut added for CA.



Fipse

[Fipse]

Had some time to work more regularly (aka I´m ill at home) and could do another basic drawign for my norman "army". This time light infantry (arriere ban).



Fipse

[Fipse]

Further ago with the normans. This time arriere ban, the mass of abled men acting as light and medium infantry.



I see the problems with the right foot of the left figure now and the face of the right one is a bit marionette-like ...

Anyway atm I´m to tired to change it.

Fipse

[endregan]

your characters have come a ways since I last saw.

Your linework is improving, getting more confident in your strokes, good.

I like the picture of you as Robin Hood! Yeah!!!

[Fipse]

O.k. gain normans - I think when I´ve finished this stuff I will draw a dozen scantily clad women just to compensate. This drawing gave me quite a lot problems and I´m not 100% contend with it. Anyway I will start to colour it and hope I can fix the problems as I go over it.

@ Endregan
Hehe, never saw myself as Robin Hood. My archery is supposedly much to bad for it and this costume is about 400 - 500 years to early for Mr. Sherwood Forest .



Fipse

[Fipse]

O.k. slowly this is getting a bit boring but I still have another pair of norman figures to do. Finally I finished the sergens, heavy, professional fighters. I really fear the next picture where I have to do two fully mailclad Miles (Heavy warrior) ... Maybe I should change to SF-Illustration. Anyway I think it will be good to get away from this colouring style and try a more realistical one.

I still don´t get why the Jpegs seem to be more saturated than the original PS-colouring ...

Fipse

[Fipse]

O.k., I just want to show I´m still living. Here´s the last of my norman pieces, two heavy fighters (Miles). Now it´s time for the Thunderdome!



Fipse

[hurricane]

i think the feet are to aligned to match or something.... now they practically spoon eachother if you look at the feet.

great pictures though!

more !


cheers

[Aquila]

you'r grasp of lighting and form is really good - your color work is nicely done too. the one that jumped out at me the most is your cthulu noble. it seems that this one has more of a dramatic lighting than the rest of your finished work. I realize that it's probably because the other ones aren't scenes, just character layouts. not sure, but everything looks great. your handle on human anatomy looks pretty solid, what about animal/creature anatomy? if you are/will become as good with that as you are with humans, i cant wait to see you start to play with that feild. keep up the good work!

later

[dCepT]

Hey, Fipse! Been a while! Your latest stuff looks good! I think the characters would look better if ya notched up the contrast a bit, though. Some variation in skintone would also improve it a lot. Just my two cents

I'm diggin' on the obvious research you've done for these, though! I totally buy into their outfits.

More!

peace

d-C

[Fipse]

Hi and thanks for the nice comments!

@ Hurricane
Mhm, you´re right about the feet. Didn´t realize it during the drawing. But standing in a shieldwall is in my experience a snuggly affair so the spooning comparison is right .

@ Aquila
Yeah, the norman pictures are for a kitguide to show people how to dress porperly in an upcoming reenactment event so they needed more of an accurate picture than dramatic lighting. Animals and creatures are one of my weak spots. I´m so interested in humans that I often lose sight of other sujets.

@ Dcept
I decided to use no dramatic lighting and no ambiente lighting that would fake the colours. I think that´s (and my ignorance) lead to the weak contrasts.
Research for medieval costumes is fortunately now not so difficult for me - I´ve got just to reach behind me at my bookshelfs .

Thank again

Fipse

[Fipse]

Barely alive but still sometimes drawing ... first quite ill for some time and now working hell ... anyway here´s some proof of life.

My Entry for the "Last man standing"-Thunderdome with the topic demon prince or princess. I took of course the princess ...




Here are some pics I did during Hyvers mini-workshop in Brussels, that was a lot o fun. I didn´t draw much beside the model sutff because I was too busy talking and partying (and waving metal around), anyway here are some results.

Here are some pics I took from the workshop

The Conceptart thread about the worksho

Lifedrawings with pastel chalks (or whatever it is I´m using):




My first try with charcoal:


More lifedrawings with pencil and coloured pencils:






1 minute gestures:


Further lifedrawings:



Further 1 minute gestures:


And to the end 2 minutes poses:


At least an ornament from the chinese pavillion and my entry for our mini-TD warmachine


Fipse

[endregan]

haha good to hear your alive buddy.

even close to death keep on drawin!

[Fipse]

Hi, having survived crunchtime for this time I hope I can draw more in the next time. At least I could manage somehow to finish my piece for the second round of Thunderdome "Last man standing". To show a bit more than the finished piece I think I tell a bit about my approach to a more complex drawing.

1. Normally I don´t do many sketches before I start drawing. I mostly have the idea and the composition in my head and try directly to put it down on paper. Anyway because this was a more complex topic I decided to make a bit more work. First I did a fast thumbnail to nail my idea down, a vast junkyard-town in an postapocalyptic setting. everything is very vague and hasty until I start the "real" drawing.



2. I decided to change the perspective of the focal point - the fighting pair. I love designing costumes so I wanted to show more of them. The dark lines I stressed so I can go into the next stage.



3. With layout-paper I traced the main lines of the sketch and refined the forms, changed the gesture and was happy enough to call it o.k. for the main drawing. The dark lines I transmitted with graphite paper to the final drawing paper.



4. Now we come to the fun part - the final drawing. The transmitted lines I erased so there are just faint lines. I redrew them and did the basic drawing with a non-repro blue pencil and accomplished the drawing with a HB 0.5 technical pencil. The drawing I scanned in for the colouring. The whole drawing has been made in A3 (29,7 x 42 cm).



5. I applied the basic colours (or in this case values) with Photoshop on the drawing to establish a direction.



6. Now I just refine the rendering in the usual ways, tweaking and detailign in PS. Voilá - you´ve got a piece to get your ass beaten in Thunderdome. For your information I added a detail in the size I actually painted the stuff in.






Hope I can post more stuff later on.

Fipse

[Fipse]

Just to show I´m still alive here are some sketches from the last time. Unfortunately my scanner is short for his stay in the happy scanning grounds so the overall quality isn´t as good as I want it to be. Most of the following stuff is from the Prague workshop, just the first one is one of my lifedrawings I unusually made in my sketchbook. With the crappy scanner I have I decided to not scan all my lifedrawing stuff at the moment (who´s interested in nude women anyway ...).

Life drawing


Did this on the flight to Prague


Prague Degenesis assignment - didn´t get to show it


Game Character Design assignment - had the idea of an insectoid game


More lifedrawings


I didn´t draw as much as the last time and spent more time listening and watching to grab some knowlege and suck out the usual unsuspecting brain.

Anyway I´ll see how I will survive the next oncoming crunch - maybe I even get to drawing at home once again ...

Fipse

[Nike]

Hi Fipse!

It was really nice to meet you in Prague!

Awesome sketches, thanks for sharing!

[hurricane]

was an honour to meet you again fipse, great drawings and ideas !

cheers !!

[van]

Just all around fantastic work, Fipse. keep updatin!