An edit? Can't be! (05 Jul 2008)

**dogfood** · April 29th, 2005, 12:55 PM

I've finally decided to get a repository for some of the sorry scribblings I wake up to find I've done. I actually get a lot more time to comment than draw. This is due to the fact that I can take a few miuntes during my breaks at work (whipping the sketchbook out for an hour is frowned upon), whereas I only have a couple nights a week and the odd hour in an airport to draw. Though I did just find out that I can draw in the plane when the conditions are right, which is cool.

Anyway, I'm finding it tough to see my mistakes, so if anyone could tell me where things could be better and get me set straight, I'd really appreciate it.

Oh, you may see stuff you've seen before, or some other older works. It's mainly filler, like tissue in the bra or a potato in the drawers (the front, mind you). There may also be bits that are repaints for folks. They are all original works by me, but I apologize to the artists whose concepts are reflected whose names I cannot recall.
Stuff for friends' City of Heroes chracters:

This is from Rick Hershey's first Illustration Activity thread

This was another take on another CA artist's chracter

This was inspried by another CA artist

**dogfood** · April 29th, 2005, 01:04 PM

A few more...

Random Roman (no ref):

Ah, the lovely trackball...

A total rework of hylandr2's butterfly girl

Confusion, contradiciton and feral from Meta's weekly design bout

Container, animal, and broken from the same thread

A couple poses illustrating a point I was trying to make

A cyborg axe warrior from Rick Hershey's Illustration Activity thread

**dogfood** · April 29th, 2005, 01:09 PM

Here's some older stuff, which hasn't been posted before.
Only tangentally from the movie (meaning no ref)

No ref, but I was inspired by Step into Liquid

**dogfood** · April 29th, 2005, 01:15 PM

This was a work-up for a TD challenge

This one hurt just drawing it

I never posted it, but was inspired by the Wolf and Little Red Riding hood by digitalgannon

Not my muscle, but a study, nonetheless

Random musketeer

I'm gone until Tuesday.

**MarkHarchar** · April 29th, 2005, 01:50 PM

Dogfood,
I'm not sure why your art annoys you. Just to let you know, you help inspire me being another of the non-professional artist on this forum. I am in the same boat as far as I can post more often then draw considering I'm in front of the computer all day. Of course, it did disturb me a bit that you mentioned you draw while you are flying. You the piliot right? Hmmm...Gotta love technology.

Maybe I can help with this tidbit. Your sketches probably annoy you because you have an image in your head of what you want something to look like. You get it out on paper (or computer) which is better than I do most times. You must not feel like you are capturing what is in your head. As an excercise, take a pic that you don't like and try to compare it to what you are picturing in your head. Keep re-working it (a light box would help) until you get it to a point where you can say "close enough" at least and see what happens. If you don't ever get there, you are probably just a tortured artist that will continue to put out stuff that you hate, but other people, like myself, enjoy.

The thought isn't scientific and maybe others will laugh at my stupidity, but I just blew the load it that one. Its all I got.

By the way, your butterfly girl looks much better than what I came up with...

**dogfood** · April 29th, 2005, 02:30 PM

Thanks, hylandr2
No, when I draw, I'm a passenger (I'm doing the passenger thing for another 16 months, then back to flying).

I guess I'm OK with my stuff until about 12-24 hours later (and not all of it turns my stomach). Good idea, though. Thanks for taking this thread's virginity.

**Sems** · April 30th, 2005, 02:32 AM

hehe, there where a few of these I really liked but scrolling down and finding a guy holding his groin with a shocked look on his face made me giggle, not enough people draw pictures like these

**Pootle** · April 30th, 2005, 09:27 AM

Hi Dogfood

I've just started on the Sketchbook support lite in your group. So thought I'd just drop in and say Hey and have a go at some crits.

Honestly struggling to find some crit for you as I think your sketches are great. You have a really personal style without being self-consciously stylised.

A couple of things for you, they may not be right so please take with a pinch of salt... Blue fury's ear looks a little low, some of your feet seem a little small - you also seem to avoid feet a lot?

Your sketches IMHO are better than your colour stuff, they seem to lose their 'feel' somehow, except the boat...

I am almost never satisfied with my own work either, the way I figure once you are 'outside' it (after couple days etc) you see it differently and learn from it, not liking maybe means you've learned from it? I agree with hylandr2 about fixing it though, I've tried this (though with ref. stuff) and its very rewarding when I actually get there!

I guess it's a blessing (it will always drive you to better things) and a curse (can be very discouraging).

**dogfood** · May 3rd, 2005, 08:20 AM

Sems - Thanks. That one actually snuck up on me, so I really enjoyed it a lot, too.

Pootle - Thanks for the insight. I really appreciate it. While I don't rage around the room, tearing my stuff apart with my teeth, ala rabid, er, poodle, there's just something that I can't seem to see. I've kept from posting a lot of my stuff to see if I could work through it (and because none of my posts seem to inpsire much comment), but with the SSG, I thought it was a good way to share some knowledge and feeling. Though perhaps we are SSG(L)-1, a new class of vessel, pride of the fleet.

More stuff tomorrow morning...

**vigostar** · May 3rd, 2005, 10:57 AM

wow, man.. your artaork is really coming along nicely... Great improvements... We gotta do that battle soon....!

**mert_yavasca** · May 3rd, 2005, 12:41 PM

your sketches are great.

**dogfood** · May 3rd, 2005, 02:50 PM

vigo - you bet, man!

Mert - Thanks!

Ya know, Pootle, I hadn't really thought about the feet too much before. I guess I just get lazy once I get there unless the feet put some emotion into the peace. I can't stand avoiding areas in the figure where I'm weak, so I think I need to work on feet. You are spot on about the ear on Blue Fury, too.

A couple quick paint practice pieces

If you flip this one horizontally, it is skewed like you read about

Working on extreme angles an perspective with two figures

A sad swordswoman (the foreshortening in the arms is not working, making them just short)

Some face work (no ref)

Hand studies

Regular and new extreme faces

**dogfood** · May 4th, 2005, 08:48 AM

The other cyborg axeman was out of sequence as here is a work-up for that

Here are some random sketches from the airport (the axe guy wasn't actually at the airport, he was in the parking lot)

Another guy and a horse-dragon, inspired by MikeCorrio's Dragon thread

A random face

A homing dragon

Not really from reference, but I saw two people with similar features and drew these a couple hours later (on the plane), more archetypes than real people

Working on figure balance and a couple more archetypes

**S.C. Watson** · May 7th, 2005, 05:49 PM

can I have Dogfood with *every meal*

Mmm-mmm! GOOD STUFF!

punk didn't tell me he had a thread....

**dogfood** · May 7th, 2005, 06:07 PM

Thanks, brother. I was going to ask Seraph to put us in the same group, but since I come to your site so much, it wouldn't mean much...

Here's some practice with different brushes (need to find some good oil brushes for Painter 8)

An odd, random guy

Balance, balance

Here's an hour wasted in the LAX Delta concourse (I was about 3/4 done when I noticed his right eye was f'd up). From USAToday

Another Dragon inspired by MC's Dragon thread:

**S.C. Watson** · May 7th, 2005, 11:02 PM

Man, love that one of Willis. Even tho his eye is wankered, still looks good

**Pootle** · May 8th, 2005, 05:59 PM

Yay, you've been busy...

Those face studies are cool. Specially the 2 architypes, it's great when you just see something like that and just have to draw it...

Great with the dynamic poses too.

(desperately seaches for some crit) looks like you are losing some line quality on your balance studies, and the first one seems kind of static/backwards, the others look like they are part of a sequence of movement, the implied movement is awesome.

Homing dragon's back legs are a bit odd/don't read too well. Random sword guy is great; composition, dynamic, tension, intension...are you going to colour him?

**Majofo** · May 8th, 2005, 06:07 PM

Love the Bruce Willis pic..my only crit for that one is to add more tone...getting a full tonal range has been a problem of mine and as I have been working at it I am starting to see when an image does not have the full value range...so unless you wanted the pic to have that washed out BRIGHT kind of look then I would add more tone to it...
Other wise though it looks awesome..it really looks like Bruce Willis..

~Matt

**Aberrant** · May 10th, 2005, 08:13 PM

Nice work dog! Your ear placement might be off by just a bit in a lot of these... some of them it seems a bit low and some placement and angle seems wierd.

**dogfood** · May 11th, 2005, 07:51 AM

Shane - Thanks, brother

Pootle - Thanks, man. You know, I think I lose a lot of line quality when I sketch in Painter. I hadn't noticed it before you mentioned it, but maybe I should make some modifications to the pencil tool... As far as coloring the sword guy, as soon as I posted him, I noticed just how large his melon is and he turned me off a bit. I do need to work on my painting skills, though.

Majofo - I agree. I had to really crank up the contrast in order to show the darks, but in the original, I needed to do so, as well. Thanks for the comments.

Aberrant - Thanks for dropping by, mon ami. You know, I do have problems with ear placement. I have a mini struggle before just giving in and putting it where ever. No one has been able to give me a general trend before, though (and I'm generally blind to so much I do). Thanks, man.

This was inspired by Panda's angel thread. I tried to really lengthen the neck, but could have made the hands even bigger. Boy, I tried to show his left footed was lifted at teh heel, but it just doesn't come across.

This one was from a shootout challenge with Xpose

S.J. Bennighof had an interesting multi-charatcter pose that I wanted to delve in and this is the work-up

And here's the real sketch (I wasn't true to the feel or conceptual elements of his)

Here's a costume study for Rick Hershey's challenge. Making a soldier-inspired costume and a firefighter inspired one that's still sexy was quite a challenge (which I'm not sure I met).

Here's a continuation, as well as a random girl (no ref)

A pose, a face almost from ref (he walked around a lot in the airport), a woman who was reading, a random face, and the bottom guy was an interesting character at the airport (which I had to finish long after he left).

**vigostar** · May 11th, 2005, 10:51 AM

hey man that last drawing of the dude in the hat is like WOW!!!! keep up the great work!

**S.C. Watson** · May 11th, 2005, 11:11 AM

Hey pup-doggish.

Thought I recognized that grouping from SJ's stuff. Cool that the two of you are working on the comp. Makes me feel... warm and fuzzy or something...

I *really* like the angel. But loose the mecha-boots. I understand the juxtiposition but I think the picture would be oh so much more without them.

But that's just me.

Cheers bro,
~S

**dogfood** · May 11th, 2005, 01:01 PM

Hey, Shane, actually, I just stole SJ's idea (and poorly); I just wanted to see the challenges he was facing. I agree with you regarding the angel. I just seem to do so little in the way of costuming and the original was in full body armor, so I felt compelled to do something, but it just doesn't fit (his left one, especially, really sucks).

Thanks, Vigo! That guy was pretty weird. I couldn't figure out how to show his headphones without making them too obvious, as they were the slim version; but they were on top of his black cap. He was an airline employee and it just wasn't that cold out. He plopped down in the gate area and started reading.

**dogfood** · May 13th, 2005, 12:37 PM

OK, let's see... the upper left was a guy eating, the upper right was from imagination, as are all the rest with the exception of the bottom one, which was a girl sleeping (the only one that would stay still for more than 10 seconds).

The upper one: my feet! The lower was a guy who moved too quick and an imaginary guy yelling at him for moving.

All from imagination, the top one was a focus on motion, the woman on character, the lower right figure on perspective, the lower left on dramatic angle, the face on characterisation, and the string on the right on different poses.

This was an idea that popped in my head and looked much better there. The face came out particularly disappointing.

**dogfood** · May 13th, 2005, 12:45 PM

This is my bar scene, made famous by the Marko v. JtJ not-quite-a-thunderdome.

**Aberrant** · May 16th, 2005, 02:12 AM

Good stuff, head studies from life is something I should do way more of. THe bar scene looks a little unbalanced in that everyone is looking to the right except for a few, and one of those even has her body facing to the right. Maybe that's not so bad but where the wall comes up in the middle BG makes the environment look closed to the right and open to the left... so it's like everyone is in a corner facing a wall. Theres not much variety with the characters too. It's got potential though, if you fleshed out the characters right with more details and balanced it a bit.

**dogfood** · May 16th, 2005, 07:56 AM

Thanks. The bar scene kind of evolved on its own (which is pretty bad, I know). My original plans were for three guys at the bar, one of whom was checking out a girl facing away from him (so he could just revel in the stare) and a guy and girl eyeing each other across the scene (but not obvious, so it would be something you discover). I tried to put some variety in the patrons, but I knew I wouldn't do well, as the bars I've mainly inhabited over the last several years (months in between, I must admit) have fairly homogeneous clientele (here I was thinking more college bar). For the flow, I tried to use the three standing figures and vertical bar to deflect some of the movement and actually make the butt and tattoo of the far right girl its own entity, so that it would be facing back to the starer. I think that the wall and window should probably moved after your comment; perhaps put the door out of scene to the left.

Thanks for the comments. There are so many things that I just don't end up seeing.

I hate not posting something, so here's an aborted space cowboy:

and a random face, who was going to be in a baggy sweatsuit with loads of bling-bling, but I lost the motivation

**dogfood** · May 19th, 2005, 01:28 PM

Here is some painting practice

And some creature design along with painting practice.

Startin' to get lonely in here...

**jayne** · May 19th, 2005, 01:44 PM

great work

you really like faces don't you? i gotta work on that more ^ ^

**corky13** · May 19th, 2005, 02:20 PM

Attention= Watching Dogfoods stuff and listening to metal might result into uncontrolable headbanging and drawing stuff ya never drawn before !

great work dogfood