Cthogua's Book of Sketching, now with 10% more nudity

[wheezy]

I'm liking your lunch paints James. I sketch at lunch myself most of the time, must be nice to work where there is a Wacom handy lol. Hope all is well for you in R-Town.

[Cthogua]

Wheezy: Thanks for swingin by my little corner of CA here. Unfortunately it seems like lately something always gets in my way during lunch and I don't get to paint So I haven't done as much lately as I probably should've. In fact it'd been a few weeks I think since I looked at my sketchbook and there were some things I had totally forgotten I even did!

Monotony: I've been on a bit of a value kick lately...trying to improve my sort of internal mental understanding of form and also how to render it properly. Hence the lack of color stuff. I recently watched parts 2 and 3 of Scott Robertsons Rendering Matte Surfaces DVD series and I have to say it was amazingly helpful. Its funny how you can know something and yet still not apply it properly in your work, then just having it explained in a different way, or seeing someone implement it in their own work, then the key turns and the door opens. Glad you like Ubbosathla I'm pretty happy with it as well, and definitely not the last multi-eyeballed, tentaclely thing I draw.

Morning weirdo head...

[Cthogua]

Todays lunch doodle, just a bunch of random faces, trying to get better at the 3/4 and get a better understanding of the turning upper cheek, eye, and brow on the far side...its a toughie...then I tossed some value, and a texture over it for fun

[Cthogua]

Another dumb head

[Cthogua]

A Sunday night doodle

[Cthogua]

Mr Toad, fresh from being scolded about his wild ride.

[Cthogua]

Random Head o'the Day
...need to work on my noses and mouths

[Cthogua]

Gettin kinda lonely in here

Anyway, a Saturday morning doodle...tree sentience

[max1975]

That last one's very creepy, a neat idea and I love the rendering. The forehead seems flat--like it's a stone tablet that's been carved, but still has the form of a tablet. I'm not sure if this is actually a criticism, given that I've never seen this creature before and maybe it just has a flat forehead. The forms carved into it are nicely 3D.

I very much like your interpretation of the torso here: http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1208239822 . The head/neck is maybe too wide though.

I'm also a fan of the recent spaceships--very original designs that are nonetheless quite spaceshippy.

http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1207572172 is just awesome. I'd love to see it finished.

[Cthogua]

Yeah, Max1975 the overall face did come out flatter than I would've liked honestly. I think it has a lot to do with not properly defining the volume of the head first, before moving on to all the little carved forms inside it...definitely an issue of mine I'm trying to get better with. I'm glad you, otherwise, liked it and the others you mentioned though! The spaceships are kind of a new thing for me. Although I've always been a fan of John Berkey and Richard Powers...that kind of sci-fi imagery that leaves parts of it up to the viewers imagination to figure out. Anyway, here's today's lunchtime doodle. Probably 'bout 45 min's on this one. The body is totally bunk, and basically just something I threw in as a place holder when I realized my lunch was running out and my AD approacheth. I may come back to this one to get a better figure in there.

[Cthogua]

WIP from this evening

[Cthogua]

kept workin on it...will probably continue to

[Cthogua]

and a wee bit more before bed

[Cthogua]

Today's morning and lunch paint...prolly 'bout an hour and a half total...still gonna add something in the top right corner...I was thinking of doing a shattered moon or something Frazzeta-esque. While I was painting this I noticed a huge flock of crows or grackles in a woods across from our building. A bunch of them took flight and turned into this undulating, living rope of birds in the sky...pretty neato. Thank you bird gods.

[Cthogua]

Painted this in about half an hour before bed last night...Adrift...gonna add something to the upper section, not sure what yet though.

[Cthogua]

An update on the Crow pic

[Cthogua]

And a follow up on that "adrift" piece...this time I called it Cyril and the Midnight Sun.

[oalexis]

i like how that crow pic is coming along. nice rendering on the feathers. This latest one needs more hard edges to bring the focus forward onto the character more i think

[carnal]

love to love Lovecraft, those insect people could almost dub right into the story "wispers in the darkness"
mark me inspired

[Cthogua]

Hey guys!
Thanks for swinging by...I have stars now!

Oalexis Glad you like the Crow pic...I've been thinking of adding some kind of art nouveauish graphic element at the bottom there...maybe some throny briers with a rose or some other red flower on it. Good eye on the new piece...it was like 2am when I posted that, and now that I look, I think I over did the misty highlight coming off his forehead and it kinda killed the edges around his head.

Carnal You got me there man, Lovecraft and his accomplices (Clark Ashton Smith, R.E. Howard, August Derlith to name a few) are a huge inspiration for me, and have been for a long time. Gibbering cosmic madness? check Cults bent on human sacrifice? check Endless journeys through the Dream Lands? Double check...

[Kurjuus]

I officialy declare this book of thee awesome
and that is can be justified already just by the expressions your fantasy images have.

Fthagn!

[Cthogua]

Kurjuus Thanks for awesome declaration of awesome!

Saturday afternoon amongst the dream lands. Painted en plein air as my airship drifted lazily above the stygian lands of the Nihlphagi and past the feared Plateaus of Leng.

[Cthogua]

Fallout 3 has caused a major hit in my freetime productivity lately. However I did finally rip myself away from my pip boy as I started to feel the painting jones. It's funny how if I don't paint or draw for a couple of days I seem to convince myself that I'm not that good at it, and that all my previous successes were non-repeatable flukes...and that's usually reinforced by a couple of bad mood doodling sessions where I just repeat myself over and over....anyway..so its nice to sit down and randomly have something I like atleast parts of come out

The Coldness...This one still needs work..the composition is unbalanced and there needs to be more details on the central piece. Either way, here is it's current state.

[wookiedabo]

thats some cool lighting on that last piece, dont really know what it is but it's lit interestingly...

[Cthogua]

Thanks Wook! Yeah I don't really know what it is either :-P Kind of fantastic structure of some sort was really as far as I thought it through. Everyone seems to think it's a ship, and I'm cool with that, so if I continue to work on it I'll prolly work in that direction.

A lunch doodle from today. It was funny to me at first, but as my painting time came to an end I actually ended up feeling sorry for the little fishy...maybe he'll have some revenge of some sort in a later lunch dood.

[Cthogua]

Todays lunch doodle, Inspired by an idea my coworker Wassermelone had about a town/civilization built atop the middle part of a partially destroyed dam. Here's my 45 minute stab at the idea.

[Cthogua]

A slip of the wrist...

[wassermelone]

Your values have gotten a lot a lot better.

One thing to note, is that the nice modeling you have on the face and head is kind of missing on the rest of the body. So you have a very believable form contrasted on top of a flattish body.

Very nice though! You shame me with your lunch time productivity!

[wookiedabo]

that waterfall thing is kickass, awesome stuff. take that further. The last one is just nasty.... in a good way.

[Cthogua]

Caterpillar WTP for this weeks ChoW