Zelaron's art rampage! | Big batch! | Updated March 28!

[Zelaron]

Scroll down for the newest stuff!


Hey gals and guys, I had just planned to introduce myself as a new member here on CA, but as it turns out, I've had this account around for a while for some unbeknown reason (as far as my short-lived memory extends, anyway). Well, better not let it go to waste.

My name is Christian (Chris is fine, really), and I recently started a fine arts' school (post-HS, pre-college) in Sweden. The school in question has fairly heavy emphasis on traditional sculpting, painting and graphic printing. Painting and drawing are of great interest to me, although I feel I lack mileage, especially in the latter. Short story, I'm going to stay as active as possible in this very sketchbook thread to gain the experience and hopefully insight from your constructive criticism that I need to improve greatly.

Hmm, goals are always nice too. One of my main goals is to gain artistic freedom to create anything I like from imagination. I believe studies are the best path toward that goal, so expect a lot of them, including but not by any bloody means limited to: Human anatomy, animal anatomy, lighting, master copies, rendering techniques, matte paintings, still lives, life drawings, blahblah.

Just be warned that:
* My Internet connection sucks.
* My school is by tradition trying to "brainwash" its students "toward the abstract".
* I'm stubborn and forgetful.
* The pencil is my nemesis.
* I'm not making my artworks to please anyone. They're merely for mileage, improvement and fun.

Be sure to offer (harsh) constructive criticism for my images, I won't weep or ever give up, promise. 8)

Enough keyboard wear, time for a selection of images from the past couple of months (old in the top):

Edit: Look a couple of posts down instead for the excessive spam, I compressed the images quite a bit this time around.

[Zelaron]

Some new stuff, more coming soon. Be sure to leave critique!

[Dstudio]

Best to just post in picys in the forum, it's a lot easier to crit

Well from what I have seen so far, you have a good understanding of hands and your skin study sheet from the link you have to click on seems to work well...

R

[Zord]

Hey Zelaron, and welcome to the sketchbook section! That's a good start on the sketchbook, but I have to agree with Dstudio in that you might want to have the images where we don't have to click a link to see them. It's always good to have goals too, you are on the right track with the studies. With the help of CA and hardwork you'll see progress in no time. Keep it up man!

[Zelaron]

Thanks Dstudio and Zord, I took the liberty of recompressing all images into a lower jpeg quality for roughly one third the original size. It's roughly a 3.6 mb download now. Again, old in the top, new in the bottom:

[Zelaron]

Whoop de do, too many images for one post. Be sure to critique, I want to become the master drawer of the seven multiverses! (A lot of paintings in the beginning, I know, I hardly found my older drawings worth saving at all, although they're probably in a big pile someplace):









More images to come soon! My computer decided to die on me last night, calling for a Windows XP reinstall. Seems like I lost the driver CD for my Canon CanoScan LiDE 50 scanner, I hope I can find them online, hmm.

[Zelaron]

New stuff! Take me apart already!

Life, two Bridgman copies:


Master (?) copy:


Rendering practice from ref:


Doodles, ignore the giant, skewed head:



I took the liberty to photograph some recent oil paintings too:





Inspired by Craig Mullins, my choice of colors:


Finally, a sucky mouse doodle from imagination. Bleeh! I guess too much Wacom reliance for digital work isn't good though; I just can't seem to control the strokes well enough with the mouse.


Gonna study some Loomis now, hum de dum.

[revender]

Hi Zelaron, you have a wide variety of skills going for you. Both traditional and digital painting and drawing, all look promising. Nothing I can really "tear a part" or be harsh with. Like you said, they're studies, and in which case they're quite suitable.

I like the copter matte painting, it's a seamless transition between painting and photo.

The hands are great, you have a nice controlled shading method.

The nude figure paintings are nice. You know what you're doing, not letting yourself be bogged down with tiny details, but capturing what's important with large precise brush strokes. Nice, nice.

and... that's all I can thing to say, keep at it.

Oh, what school do you go to?

[Zelaron]

Hmm, I couldn't reach the boards last night.

revender, thanks! I think I may have used the shading method too often recently, so I guess I'll experiment a bit with other ones. Expect a horde of messy drawings coming up soon. Either that, or a pile of master copies / plagiarism to learn more about how others work.

Anyway, the school's name is "Lunnevads folkhögskola" (Lunnevad folk high school). They teach you a fair bit of traditional techniques, but they're extremely geared toward fine arts. I guess I haven't grown too fond of displaying toilets and chairs with attached bike wheels on art exhibitions just yet. Getting into an illustration college in the future is definitely one of my goals, along with the main one (at the moment) of being able to draw anything from imagination. I'm very far from the latter, but maybe if I study and work hard for a few more years...

Well, expect me to stay active in this thread, hopefully every day, even if I tend to have bad art days every now and then. Critique my work a lot, too.

I really, really need to learn more anatomy, so, I decided to study the head a bit more:

Some Loomis copies as promised:




Employing the ball drawing method on references:


Some drawings from imagination:


Hum de dum. Perspective got a bit funky. I should really do more of these, and practice harder on capturing larger shapes and forms quickly:


So long for now.

[Zelaron]

I have a slight bit of myopia, making distant objects become blurry, which is annoying. My vision should actually become better as I grow older (other than the fact that my eyes will let less light in), but for now, I'm thinking about picking up some glasses.

Anyway, here's today's batch. If you've got an opinion or know something I really need to improve (other than my vision), speak up.

[Zelaron]

Ugh, my computer decided to die on me. I had the chance to try Windows XP 64, but it refused to let me install a majority of the drivers. I had to revert back to an older OS, and now I'm without scanner drivers again.

Anyway, some quick studies from ref, about 30 minutes (25-35) each, trying to get better at getting the large shapes and the important things down quickly. Gotta do a bunch of these from life as well. Critique please (oldest at the top, newest at the bottom):

[Zelaron]

New stuff. I should start posting daily, but I'm too lazy to scan so often. Make me.

Oh, and criticize please.

Doodle:




From life:










From ref:

[Zelaron]

Four days since last update? Oh man, guess I should start scanning stuff more often. Having a working Internet connection in the first place kind of helps too. Bah, deabilitated typing capacity, trying to eat ice cream with my left hand. I guess doing so with my mouth instead would speed things up.

Sketches, doodles, studies, blah, crit please:







Wonkiest feet of 2006:

[Zelaron]

New stuff from today:



Buncha' blind contours:












Scary:


Urh, studies:




Zel out!

[Eva]

i like all those headstudys /feet and hands you did , i can see alot of improvement in your work :3 keep it up buddy

[Zelaron]

Eva: Thanks, I really like your work.

Some recent stuff, mostly studies from ref/life. Bomb away with critique if you feel like it:

[Zelaron]

Anyone else having trouble accessing the site? Anyway, new artwork dump.


Some Bridgman studies:






Marker experiments (mostly from life):
















Experiments gone horribly awry:






Quick sketches from Spooge ref:



Yup, that's all for now. Crit please.

[Recursive_End]

Interesting shading. Try and be more patient doing it. Bring closer the lines.
That's all i can say for the moment, your already studying anatomy, so i'll let you progress first

[T-Raktor]

Nice work here. I like the way u render your drawings, and i really like the 2 burning tanks. That somke is really great. Did u made it yourself?

[Zelaron]

Recursive_End: Thanks for the input! I'll experiment more with shading. I think trying to mimic other's techniques e.g. by doing master copies may help a tad on that front.

T-Raktor: Thanks! If the burning-oil-fields-with-helicopter thing is what you're referring to, then it's a matte painting, only one in the bunch so far.

I'll look at your stuff and leave some feedback later guys, I have some serious Internet connectivity issues right now. More time for practicing drawing, I suppose.

Quick update of master studies.


Rembrandt copy:




Original (after someone scanned it, anyway):




Proud-Hon Study:

[Zelaron]

Ouch, busy week, lots of fun model painting though. I haven't been able to photograph the oil paintings yet though, I'll see what I can do later.


Some new stuff:





(Yeah, this is what happens to my handwriting when I'm more concerned with other things, glaring into the wall (at objects) in this case.)










(All-day pose, if you're wondering):




A couple of poses from imagination:




Crit away, I promise I'll leave feedback on your sketchbooks too (assuming that you have one. )

[T-Raktor]

Sweet updates man Like the studies.

[Zelaron]

ARGH! My hard drive decided to die on me, effectively killing off all my recent digital work. I wasn't too happy with it anyway, but I lost lots of inspiring artworks as well. I should have a backup of some of the older things someplace, but I guess moving on isn't too bad, anyway.

As for new artworks, I guess I'm limited to what I didn't lose this time, some non-digital pencil work. (Mainly ref studies and doodles this time. I'm starting to like how my imaginary mountains are coming out; the mountain structure finally seems to start carrying over to my pencil work. But what do I know?)

[Zelaron]

I have to replenish my lost digital artwork stock a bit, so here's a new matte painting from today:




Original photograph:

[Zelaron]

Long time no see guys! I've been busy, plus that Oblivion managed to hog the weekend. Ouch. Good thing my computer sucks so I can't really enjoy the graphics. Oh well.

Big batch this time (sort of), mostly stuff from imagination, some from life. Two or three of the characters are referenced from photos if I remember correctly:







Two unfinished PS sketches:







More!

[glikster]

woowee, some very nice stuff in here! keep posting!