Nate's Sketchbook

[TechLoveAffair]

Hey guys, I've been lurking for awhile now around the sketchbooks and decided I need to start my own. Hoping to get some real progress in heeya! Though I'm way busy right now what with finals, might be awhile til next update

Anyway, on to the art!(I'm a beginner, tear em apart!)

Starting with some older stuff, been in kind of an art block lately...


It's a bird, it's a plane, it's THE MASTOID!



Just messin around in this one, put in some skintone for practice, but it looks off somehow:



Referenced from Joseph Sheppard's Realistic Figure Drawing. The face bothered me like crazy so I erased it and threw in some construction lines. I was focusing on body anatomy anyway so it's all good:




A whole page of uninspired sketchin ended in this study of my hand. Desperately trying to work on my line quality, and threw in some colors for critique'n:




No references but myself. Below the belt is guesswork:




Whipped out some random medical style anatomy book and got this down. I have no patience for refined shading :




Me, stickin my lip out like an idiot. Turned to look through a mirror behind me:





Reffed from my face, couldn't get the fist quite right:




Graaar! Last one, from my face again:




That's all for now guys! Rip em to shreds!

[jkior]

dude you're definitely on the right track with anatomy studies and construction. . .keep at it! Also you might check out the loomis books. . .they're excellent for constructive anatomy of the figure. . .they'll really help a lot. hmmm. . .can't really crit the color too well because I'm new myself but you might think about value as you're doing your color studies. . .just to get that sense of light wrapping around form that isn't really there now. . .it'll make the studies much more powerful if the whole figure is affected by light (i.e., one side is lighter generally than the other, top is lighter than the bottom) instead of just the internal details being shaded 'independantly'. . .but great man!

[TechLoveAffair]

Thanks for the kindness jkior! I'll have to get some patience and improve on that stuff. Expect more colorin soon!

In the meantime here's some more oldish stuff straight off the thinktank. And I really mean it, my house gets hectic and my little bathroom's the only place I can concentrate sometimes

Amother Sheppard study. My mom's got a Hogarth book around here somewhere but I can't find it anywhere:



A few more for crit. I have a feeling the arms on the guy with a sword are too short.



Impatient with the shading again :p



Any CCs or quick drawovers would be greatly appreciated!


Dang, sorry about the sizes, image hosting stinks. Anyone got good sites? I use PhotoBucket right now.

[Ryn]

I think your best plan would be to slow it down. Everything looks fairly rushed. Slowing down helps you take in more information, and the practices will pay off a lot more.

Try not to 'pet' in your lines. Just carefully calculate each line you need, and don't stroke it over 10 times. This is hard to adjust to but will be a big plus.

Just keep on practicing. Goodluck.

[aweshux]

Yea like Ryn said , your work does seem rushed. But thats not bad for your level.
I like how you are trying to understand the anatomy in your hand drawing. A good sign that you are intuitive and that does come in handy down the road.
Hold back on the shading for now if you can and just concentrate on line quality.

Find that Hogarth book if you can ! That boosted my structure levels tremendously. Keep on .
_shux

[TechLoveAffair]

Thanks for the crits guys! Ryn, I'll try to get them lines in good shape; aweshux, that Hogarth book's got legs or something cause I saw it a few days ago and now it ain't anywhere. I'm getting a boatload of other books(Bridgman, Goldfinger and the like) for Christmas though so I ain't too worried about it

More sketches in the works!

[TechLoveAffair]

Ah, sketching anatomy studies feels like such a chore right now, so I decided to do some color work instead. I got lost in some techno and droned out this guy to the beat Really proud of this one but now that I look at him critically he seems a bit soft, and those base lines really hamper the effect of the color, but I guess I gotta learn to put em on a different layer

The FATMAN yall. Bout an hour and a half(maybe, I lost track of time somewhere in there):




C+C always appreciated!

More on the way!

EDIT: Oh and props to killing.people for the photoshop tut thread! Badass

[TechLoveAffair]

Not much this time around, busy with Christmas and the family and stuff.

Got out my new Goldfinger and toiled on this one for about an hour and a half:



After I got back from the swimmin hole I had too much energy, so all I came up with was these two crazy cats:




C+C appreciated! More in the works as always!

[TechLoveAffair]

Tried to go slower on this next batch. Didn't quite get there on the second one



My pen exploded and I got ink all over the floor from airdrumming to Tool


Did this awhile ago, is the face sitting on the skull right? I have a feeling the skull donor had a horrible overbite, so probably not... Anyway, paintovers appreciated:



More in the works guys!

[glikster]

hey, dude... don't leave your SB by the wayside... I wanna see some more studies!

[T-Raktor]

Nice herem but try more studies. They are a good thing to do.

[TechLoveAffair]

Hey guys, life's been... Busy around here, to say the least. Art kinda had to take a bit of a backseat to some family issues and a little loss of steam came in, but I think that's all been sorted out now. Anyway, onto the art. Tear em to pieces as always

This one's kind of old:


Let my and go loose for this one, probably gonna add feet sometime and color it:


Spent too much time on this guy and he didn't turn out too pretty:


Here are a bunch of value studies, took far too long to do. Thinking of adopting Bumskee's cool blending technique. Though I gotta say I like the big study of red on blue at the bottom:







Some oldish Vanderpoel studies, a bit tough to pencil-sketch his work but I tried on these ones for a good hour each, trying to stay as true to the original as I can:



Here's a Peck study I did today, took me thirty minutes and the teeth drove me crazy(just about stabbed holes in the paper trying to get the right lines down there) but I sure feel the improvement:


Eat em up, I gots the drive back and I wanna get the juice flowin again! More on the way, if I can ever get to bed that is

*Aw dang, Photobucket downsized some of these Oh well.

[CaptainInsano]

you're making great progress, especially with your recent posts. i think you're on a roll. just keep it up man.

[TechLoveAffair]

Just this little guy. Photobucket shrank it for no good reason... I'll try to get a bigger version in here later. In the meantime, if anyone can read my little notes, do I have anything wrong?

Reffed from my own arm, the sketch is a little smaller than actual size:

[TechLoveAffair]

*Arg! These are all so small... Well, most of them... Can anyone help me with photobucket? They're under the filesize limit, but they keep shrinking. Any ideas how I can get em bigger?


Take it! I let my hand go for most of these, trying to balance out control and flow, I think I'm gettin the hang of it.

The guy at the bottom's eye really made me mad, I ended up just erasing it all in the end :

Ignore the lyrics on the next two, just some inspiration music:


Anyone know how to draw a human/snake face from the side?

Creepy box:

Old Vanderpoel pelvis:



I made some really cool arm studies before I drew this and they sapped me of my patience. Now I can't find the studies Horrible anatomy here:

A toughie:


Mutilate em guys!

*Arg! These are all so small... Well, most of them... Can anyone help me with photobucket? They're under the filesize limit, any ideas how I can get em bigger?

[TechLoveAffair]

Need... Crits... Starving...

Here's this guy, took about an hour to paint over an old drawing and about a half hour to color. Not done yet at all, I need some painting tips:

[mbetteker]

You seem motivated! Thats all u need to have, just keep it up. Work on using lineweights to define the shape more. Ex: Put dark line on opposite side of where the light is coming from. Dont be afraid to go dark either, all of your sketches are very light and every line is the same color. Start adding lineweights and you will see a large improvement right away, imagine you are shading but without the shading. Good luck!

[TechLoveAffair]

*Arg, it's so small! Again! I'm gonna bust some heads at photobucket HQ!

Thanks mbetteker! I'll keep that in mind And thanks to ParkerD from about three weeks ago

Here's a little something I worked on for about two hours today. It's definitely a WIP but I really don't know how to add more detailed colors; they always come out muddy and I never have any idea what I'm doing I'd appreciate some tips:

The idea is that the suit takes over her body more and more every time she puts it on; though it grants her supernatural powers, it slowly steals her humanity.

[TechLoveAffair]

Man, Rammstein's good drawing music.

Used a Bic pen for these. Photobucket shrank them again. So much detail lost... Oh well, you get the idea here. All from my head except the last one; took about three hours total:



Tried my hand at the 'guys melting together' thing I see around here so much:

Reffed my arm and some of my living room:


Oh man! That last one is so small! That took so long to do! I'll try to get a bigger one in, I'm really proud of it. Ayway, bring on the crits! I can take em!

EDIT: Gotta do more gesture drawings too!

[Bear65]

nice to see the progression. your mark making is getting better, keep expermenting with how u make your lines and you'll see improvement in your drawing quality. and of course keep doing the anatomy and lifedrawing, you're on your way.

[TechLoveAffair]

Thanks Bear65, definitely gonna keep it up

Here's some more for ya! As always, do your worst!


Photobucket shrank this next one It's one of my main characters, so to speak. His name's Jam and here he's covered in blood after a battle:


More in progress!

[TechLoveAffair]

Stuff from a few days ago, forgot to upload. All from my head with minor references in places, gonna get some of them life drawings in soon:




This one's supposed to be waist-deep in a wall, I couldn't get the abs quite right:


Send me the crits guys! Tear em apart!

[TechLoveAffair]

Bump

Been doing a lot of pencil studies lately, but I moved cross-country with my dad and had to leave my scanner. I did just get Illustrator 8 though, so I'm flexin my tablet arm again. About fifteen minutes, just to warm up to vectors:


More for crit soon!

[TechLoveAffair]

Started a really silly thread in the Lounge and this picture came out of it. Still trying to get a handle on line quality with my tablet:



I really have been doing more productive things, but there's still no scanner or digital camera around to put anything up with I tried using my webcam but the thing sucks too much to get a good image.

More pencil studies to do! Later!

EDIT: Found a few more things... But Photobucket's giving me hell right now. Soon as I can get them up I will!

[Listing]

You have some nice expressions up there. Keep with the anatomy. To improve your line quality do some loose observational drawings in pencil or pen - to improve general confidence (I'm having to do this too). Good work.

[TechLoveAffair]

Thanks for the tip Listing, I'll try that

Scanner still not here. I did this study awhile ago. I had it all together in a nice scrollable image, but Photobucket forced me to chop it up and shrink it, some details lost, same ol same ol. Any crit and especially paintovers appreciated on this one:

black=bone(just placing it inside the body right now), green=muscle, red=fat pads, etc. Gotta learn the head muscles. All from memory:




Still doing a lot with pencil, hope I can get it all up soon!

Happy, uh, 5th of July guys!

EDIT: I got a quarter-inch thick pencil dump waitin here already!

[TechLoveAffair]

Two today, gonna try to update more often:



I think I've got over a hundred pencil pages for this month. Goin for two hundred next month!

Color crits?

[Cup of Joe]

Good improvement! Since you asked for color crits, I'll start with that. Number one digital problem, Your using tiny brushes. Start bigbigbig. Same goes for traditional medium, block in big shapes first. Mainly, just practice. Blending is easier if you start big too. As for your traditional stuff, just keep it up! Your doing all the right things. Just remember the basics, proportions, form, etc. Keep at it, I'll try and be back for the big dump!

[TechLoveAffair]

Thanks Cop of Joe! Not too long until I get that scanner and dump it all!

[TechLoveAffair]

Went down to Google Video and sketched some gestures of the videos 'street ninja' and 'matrix mouse.' Pretty sweet stuff. Really bad quality, you can't see much, but it's just outlines anyway








This guy, pen:



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