Epiphany - Updated August 23rd 2012

[Sepulverture]

Updates on last page.







More to come, just getting my feet wet. Thanks for visiting my sketchbook.

[Sepulverture]

Started some more formalish anatomy studies (reading loomis` figure drawing for all it`s worth) as well as a bit of shading and line weight practice. more updates asap, didn`t have time to scan more today.

[hp]

you started your sketchbook on my bday, so i feel obligated to comment

i think your shading is too soft, it might be a personal thing but you can try to incorporate diff shading techniques like the practice hatching/etc you did in your second post.

also about doing body studies, i think your method is a bit TOO formulaic...i find that when i try to measure everything out it ends up looking too stiff.

mostly just try sketching a lot looser, and keep posting!

[Sepulverture]

First reply on my notebook, thanks a lot! Also, happy birthday! (late, heh). I will try to update as often as possible, I`ve got another couple pictures to post up, but just have enough time to check threads right now. Thanks again! I will try to work on my soft shading.

[Sepulverture]

A couple of thumbs for some picture ideas I had and my mouse (trying to get into the habit of making thumbs before starting a piece, and trying to draw from life). Both were two minute limited timed. Trying to learn how to draw quicker because right now I am just too damned slow.

[Sepulverture]

Updates 2/12/2006

some doodles for character ideas:





(this next one, she is diving off of a tall building, so it is supposed to look like that)

[Sepulverture]

a timed still life I did last night.



and drawing a kuban helm from photo reference.

[Sepulverture]

first of some hand studies:
(both are of my left hand, i drew them this afternoon)



and a mother earth type of person thing yeah...:

[Nutter]

You have some quite nice pencil shading there, don't worry about drawing quicker at this point, that will come with experience. Hpslashluvr has some good points.

cheers.

[hurricane]

just keep at it !
the work you do shows that you dont have alot of drawing experience so i would recomend you to draw more, draw looser and more from life, i know its boring but if you want to improve this is kind of important (if you dont eat you die eventually hehe)

cheers and i like what you have so far !

[thegreypencil]

Hello there,

Stick to the loomis book dude. Its a great way to start learning figure drawing. I know its really slow when you start constructing your figures, cuz theres so many factors to keep in mind when it comes to proportions.

Thankfully, the more stringent you are with proportions and the more proportionally correct figures you belt out means you will begin to internalize all the necessary criteria for a good figure.

Impatience kills more artists everyday! Or at least I think so. Try and draw 20 of those skeleton frame figures from the loomis book everyday! That worked for me at least!

You have great ideas theres no doubt. Just need to get the mad skillz to get them out as you see em in your head.

Keep at it!

[Sepulverture]

Hey there everyone, I apologize for the lack of recognition for your comments and suggestions. I tried to post some updates and my thanks for your thoughts, but there was some kind of weird database error messege and I couldn`t do anything untill after i got home from work (which was about 2 mintues ago). Anyway.

TheGreyPencil - Thanks for the nudge forward, man. I will bust out as many of those skeleton figures by the end of the week as I can, and post back on friday or saturday if I can. And I have to agree with you that impatience is probably every would be artists bane. Which kills me because I am probably the most impatient person I know, haha.

Hurricane - I have actually been trying to get into the habit of drawing things from life. I read it in so many threads and each time I read it, it kind of hits me how much of an impact life drawing has on your conceptual, and overall skills, so I have made it a point to try to draw at least one thing from life every day, and try to increase the number of life drawings. I am dying to get a model to practice drawing, but my wife won`t do it, she keeps telling me to hire a model (how often is it that your wife tells you to hire a chick to lay naked in front of you so you can draw her? haha). Also, you are absolutely right about my lack of drawing experience. When I was in junior high, I would bust out three or four "finished" drawings every day, and that just burnt me out for a while. If I had kept that pace up, maybe I would suck less.

Nutter - Thanks for the comment about my shading. Since I started drawing again in the past 6 months or so, that has been the primary focus of my efforts, was to improve my shading skills. I`m glad people think it has payed off. And I agree that Hpslashluvr does have some good points, so I have been doing a value scale every day to try to get more familiar with the blacker end of the value spectrum.

Thanks again to everyone who has commented so far, I think it really has helped me make the steps towards getting to the next level.

I drew this today, it is my digital camera and a piece of candy in a clear plastic pyramid i got for V-day.



here are some of the last pictures I drew before I got burnt out and quit drawing in school.





Thanks again to you guys (and girl) for responding and giving me your thoughts. Sorry for the long winded post.

[thegreypencil]

heya!

well just keep at it slowly and steadily. i think the frame of mind when you're drawng is very important. if you ever find yourself thinking about how fast or slow you're going when you're drawing you need to take a time out to clear your thoughts. because ever moment spent worrying about how slow you are, just detracts your concentration from the really important stuff...like proportions and line density and intensity and legitamacy of pose...etc...etc....
what im saying is...theres so much you have to look out for when you're drawing..i dont think you really have the mental resources to spare for worrying!

so...a wise man once said, "dont worry, be happy!"

dig in!

[hp]

i'm about to go to bed, so i can't write much, but i think you should consider maybe not outlining things so much. i know it's your style and it works usually but I think it brings down the sketch of the hands.

good job otherwise, keep updating!

[Sepulverture]

Thanks for the comments again everyone. Today I haven`t had much time to draw, but I printed out some diagrams of the human muscle structure which I will start practicing hopefully before I go to work tonight (graveyard shifts suck, don`t they?).

HPslashluvr - I will try to work on my outlining from now on, although if you could give me some specific examples of over outlining that would help me out a ton.

TheGreyPencil - I will take your advice about putting the drawing quicker thing out of my head for the time being. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Thanks again.

[Sepulverture]

Here is another anatomy study. I used to same loomis measuring scale of approximately 8 heads for him, but I tried to be less formulaic with it, and just try to get an idea of where certain muscle groups should go to make my characters more believable (even though some of them are less than human). I felt a bit hurried on this one because I drew it mostly at work when I had a few minutes to myself before customers came (I`m a bartender). Today I will draw it again, and probably make it a full page drawing with more detail. Also, I have started to belt out some of those skeletal frames and I will post them when they are presentable.

[Sepulverture]

Wow. It`s been a while, hasn`t it? Sorry I don`t have more to show for my recent lack of posting, no excuses to offer, just lost my steam for a while.

It is all just proportional studies really.

oldest to most recent:

[squidmonk3j]

keep going, you're in the right direction

[Sepulverture]

Thanks, and sorry for the cocoa stains on the second post . I drew another couple proportional things again today, which i will post tomorrow (im trying to avoid the one/two picture posts).

[thegreypencil]

hear the baying of the hounds....woof...woof...howl.....

ill translate it : " WHERE AREM THEM SKELETAL FRAME DRAWINGS YOU PROMISED!!!!! RAWR!!!!!!!"

[Sepulverture]

A few more pictures to put up, more tomorrow.

[thegreypencil]

thats the way dude!

keep at it...go through pagesand pages of those skeletal frames in badass action! you know if you're feeling a lil brain dead after work....fire up an anime and using the pause button on the console, freeze an action frame and draw a skeleton frame in action from the characters on screen. better yet...do it with a real kung fu movie or an action flick.

things to keep in mind are the proportions...which parts terminate at which number of heads...as well as kicking the doubt and impatience out of your head...there are many steps to getting the figure right..now arent you glad you've taken a good few?

HOOYA!!! MORE MORE MORE!!!

[Sepulverture]

You know, I am feeling quite a bit more confident now that I have taken these first few steps. Sorry for the lined paper, it is just easier to use lined paper right now instead of tracing out the lines by hand and wasting good sketch paper (i will save that stuff for when i actually have a sketch in mind). More to come. Trying to loosen up my fellas a bit, how am I doing?

[seansea]

Hey Sepulverture:

You're good with tones and shading. I like the last drawing of the masked/horned warrior. I'm hoping you'll be developing that one more. It's going somewhere cool. Like a lot of people have said, definetly stick with Loomis in regards to figure study. I'm now influenced, so draw I must. Keep posting.

Seansea

[yAdam]

Hey man, you're doing well. Your proportions have gotten better and in general it looks like you've loosened up a little. Keep going with the sketches/studies and you'll see the improvement for yourself in a matter of months, maybe even weeks depending on the amount of time you can do them.

I dont know whether this is good advice, but I think that if you are 'cold' from drawing after years away then just doing anatomy studies may not be helping you as much as you think. If you are doing a study and your eyes and hands aren't 'trained' then you will spend longer rubbing things out and trying to get proportions correct, which means you aren't concentrating on drawing because you can't flow....Once in a while just doodling and concentrating on lines and shapes could help. As well as keeping up these skeletal studies, draw more objects in the same way you did the camera and plant study. All the time you eyes and hands will be improving their communication.......keep going!!

[thegreypencil]

yea i see the flow more figures and try to reference them from photos. its a nutcracker wrackign your brain for poses and keepign your mind out for proportion.

keep your figure strictly to the number of heads you've alotted, the figure on the bottom left, lookin a wee bit stunted cuz its legs arent a full 4 heads length and the upper half of its body is. keep refinin your skeletal frame now

[thegreypencil]

oh yea, i totally second yadam's view about breakign away fromt he monotony of anatomy study and proportions and all that..let yourself og crazy abit sometimes, take your mind off all the doubt and all that crap/

[Sepulverture]

Seansea - Ask and you shall recieve.

Latest progress on him. I stopped drawing him a couple weeks ago in favor of actual studies (i do plan to finish him, although after all the anatomy studies I see some things wrong with him that i plan to fix). Thanks for the compliment about my shading and whatnot. I will post another more updated version of this fellow later.


yAdam - you are absolutely right. From now on I will try to add in one or two just random doodles, if I can. The thought hadn't really occured to me that i may just be not be flowing with my drawing, even with all the studying. Thanks for the pointer.

TheGreyPencil - I think I see what you are saying about the bottom left figure looking a bit stunted. I thought it looked a bit off after i drew the grandpa waiter. Maybei should have extranded his legs so his heels are at the point where his toes are.

Oh, and by the way. I really need to work on my hands and feet

[thegreypencil]

that horned dude concept is just so bad.....as in badass wooo!

anyhoo, yea extend em legs
hands and feet? get a mirror and since it only takes one hand to draw...you can use the other to model wheee!!! plus...a mirrors good for self portraits while you're at it!

keep the drawins coming dude!

[seansea]

whoa.... I'm feelin' the improvements made to the horned guy. Can't wait to see more. In the meantime... keep going!

Seansea