Immortal's Sketchybook

[Immortal]

Evenin' fellas...work sucked but it makes money. Had hiccups and a headache through most of it which drains your energy faster than leaving your lights, radio, and radar detector on in your car (even though I don't use a radar detector...I'm a safe driver hehe). Speaking of cars...

rob-ot: Thanks man. My celebrity is a burgundy, rusted 1989(same year as I was born...kinda weird) and has been in my family's possesion for about...six years...I'm not sure. My oldest brother drove it for a while until last year I got it around this time, when I got my driver's license. Oh yeah, hehe, and just for kicks I have exactly 222,737.5 miles as of tonight (4/13/06) and she's still runnin' smooth. Busted an alternator (it was time for it to be replaced anyways, every 5 years my dad says) around october and had to replace a rusted gas filter...oil filter..not sure which...some kind of filter. That bucket o' bolts has drained my money this past fall but now I'm just rakin' money, atleast that's what it feels like.

ANYWAYS...lol...sorry to get a tad off subject...since I had to work and didn't have time to do some art at home and all that, I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out this number which I haven't displayed...I don't think.

Chewbaca Gettin' Drunk

[Immortal]

Hey guys, FRIDAY!!!! YEAY!!!
Got some sketches, mostly manikans.

[Shinryu]

hey man, keep up with those manikans they are helping and keep doing lots of anatomy and drawing from life, also study the drawings, paintings you enjoy

keep it up

[Immortal]

Something for Easter, it has been a while since I've used water colors...so please don't hurt me.

[mentler]

I am not going to hurt you <> watercolor depends on the paper for much of its success <> in other words if you are not working on a really good watercolor paper you are almost always going to fail <> the luminosity of the paper is very important to watercolor <> the pigments must be trapped on the surface and you have to be able to more washes around <> trying to wc on bond paper is a waste of time! Use dry media.

Even markers benefit from paper that has a little holdout like Graphics layout pads which many pros use for maker drawings.

[Immortal]

Shinryu:Thanks man
mentler:Thanks for the tips, although, I do have a few newb ques.
1. How can I tell the luminosity of the paper?
2. Whatcha mean by "the pigments must be trapped on the surface and you have to be able to more washes around?"
3. What does holdout mean?
I apologize for the quiz, I'm a total watercoloring nub. thanks again!!

ART DUMP!!- 3 Doodle pages: my new art school lessons are teaching about shading and texture and I know thats a big no-no because I should master form before mastering shading, but education persists. Anyways- C&C always welcome

Mainly manikins- some shadage


Shading frenzy begins


More of the same + monster guy

[Smitherines]

All I can say is keep going anatomy studies and apply what you are learning into your other work.

[Matt Smith]

I like where you are headed with your sketches, dont stop the anatomy practices. I think it would help if you do some master copies of drawings to, analyze their pencil marks and try to copy that as well.

[Darktwin]

I like where you are headed with your sketches, dont stop the anatomy practices. I think it would help if you do some master copies of drawings to, analyze their pencil marks and try to copy that as well.

What Matt said would be really good for you, to work from master drawings aswell as drawing from life. Its always good to mix it up, great progress so far, keep up the good work.

[Immortal]

Hey guys, this past weekend I was busy with work. But now I'm free from workage and drawing again.

Matt Smith: Thanks, workin' on master copies
Smitherines: Thanks, I will
Darktwin: Thanks, I'll mix it up some

I was wonderin' where to go to find some skeletons and skulls, because the books I have aren't much help and I'm a poor bloke as it is...I just went to mentler's "Bones..." thread and yeay! I've been looking around at a lot of threads and I see a lot of "learn to draw the skull first and it will help a lot drawing the rest of the head." Sooo that's what I did. Even though I only have two attempts. I'm trying to go for that master copy (good idea Matt) in my sketchbook so I can always refer to it when I'm not glued to these forums.

Without further delayage...

[Idiomatic]

Hey Immortal! Good work - I can see definite progress from the top to bottom of the page!

If you don't mind, I'd like to suggest a few exercises that you might benefit from , based somewhat on suggestions others have made. For one, the best way to approach something you find either tedious, or frustrating, or you just plain feel you suck at, but may be necessary for your growth as an artist is to approach its practice in small increments. For example, if you can grab fifteen minutes a day for observational/life drawing and can maintain it for two weeks, you'll not only see dramatic improvement, but it will be easier to extend what is then a healthy and productive habit to half an hour or an hour or more. Two, I've found that one of (if not the most important) skills necessary in teaching yourself art fundamentals is to develop the communication between your eye and hand - it will improve you ability to draw from life, to draw from reference books or inspirational materials, and ultimately to draw from memory or imagination. Spending those daily fifteen minutes on blind or blind contour drawing initially (looking only at the subject, not at the page), is the simplest and most efficient way to develop this ability, and there's no hit to your confidence by the quality of the results - the results are meant to be 'bad' (or, more constructively put - 'loose'). In fact, you'll be pleasantly when you find that your finished work actually resembles what you intended to draw after all.

Keep it up, man!

[Mr_S_14]

I like the XCross I like the way the sun is setting/rising ? right behind the cross, and they way you layed the blood flowing from it. though everything else has depth , I don't see much for the cross, It appears flat(no vanishing point iut doesn't detract from it ,Sometimes I just notice details that don't really matter. keep creating

Not a bad start on your skull studies, however they do appear a bit rushed. It may be due to the reference, so no worries. Keep creating Immortal, you have potential.

~Mr_S_14

[Immortal]

Idiomatic- Thanks man! Starting those tedious excercises with small incriments sounds good to me. I hate doing things like those for hours on end...15 minutes I'll be able to handle.
Mr S 14- Thanks for the C&C. Yeah, I did kinda rush the skull studies and now that I look at it a bit, the cross does seem flat too.

Hey guys, last weeks of school have passed, tests, work, and movies. I'm finally ready to get back into the swing of things, if work and energy permits. Been so buckled down, haven't had much time to draw. My skills seem to be catching the attention of a couple of my friends. I've drawn a picture of someone's girlfriend and now I'm currently working on my friend's prom picture for $20. woooooot!! C&C please ya'll!

Valley of Fog- my first attempt at drawing a picture with fog


(not finished yet) The 20$ Prom Picture w/photo reference-

[Immortal]

Some more goods

Blader

[CGMonkey]

Wow I recognize myself SO MUCH in your drawings.. I started out like this 2 years ago. If you keep at it you will get very far in 2 years, I promise you! Keep rocking dude!

If I knew then what I know now I would've probably done alot of stuff differently, but I guess that's a journey everyone HAS to make

[Immortal]

CgMonkey: Thanks, I'm hoping to stick with it for another 2 years..maybe more
Got some more of what you like...or dont like...or.....whatever

[mentler]

Not a big fan of working from photos <> however when you do work with 5 values <> black white and 3 middles tones <> squint or look at the photo through cheap sunglasses <> start with the darkest shapes then the the next darkest the middle tone the light and the highlights last <> if you get the values and there shapes correct it will look like the photo guaranteed!

Try doing this with the photo and drawing upside down <> great exercise because you only deal with shapes and tones and not preconceived ideas about the subject.

Thanks for your support of my threads

[Immortal]

Holy crap it has been a long time....let's see here...3 months almost without one single post. I think I should do something ya know? Summer sucked and I had to work a lot, but now I got a big savings to work from and school has started. Art school is still going....but going verrrryyyy sllloooowwww...mainly my fault for not doing anything. Hmmmmm...plus I've been playing WoW for about a week straight non-stop (only for food, sleep, and school). I need to get my priorities straight. I do have, however, three things I'd like to share today. Number 1: The final product of the prom picture hehe!



Thing 2: A self-portrait


Thing 3: The colored version of Thing 2

[Immortal]

Today I did something really fast. It is also very...irregular from what I normally do...is that good? I think so.

[Gleeson]

Yo immortal your coming along quick man. One thing i could say is keep those pencils sharp and draw those lines with clarity, it will give you so much more control over tone values and genral detail. Keep up the anatomy studies but try some gestural drawings that may help you break out of some idealising habbits. Your coming along man

[Immortal]

Well kids, it's been a while, agreed? Heh, time to get back to the old desk and sketch pad. I just made a compilation of random sketches/ideas attempting to ignite my creative juices.

[OBX]

awsome to see such enthusiasum. at the stage ur at in ur art work more on ur pen control and making the medium do wat u want than trying to draw things in general. its hard work but to the pros brush or pencil control is second nature. they don't even think about where its going they just know. try and move more from ur elbow rather than ur wrist. and hold the pencil farther down the shaft to get a more looser stroke. just some thoughts. keep at it tho.

[Immortal]

Well, it's been two years!! Yes, I've been busy...sort of. This spring semester, I started my journey towards a degree in Electronic Arts and Animation, BFA. Naturally, I've been producing a large amount of work.


What you see here is only the tip of the iceberg. Actually, I should say it's the prettier side of the iceberg . My professor refers to Matisse, saying that maybe if we made hundreds of drawings, we'll should get at least one right !!

So, what you see here are the few favored works of mine from the first half of the spring 08 semester. These works are exclusively from my Drawing 1 class, where students are introduced to line, value, texture, all those things beginners should master.

Most of my works dealing with line are buried somewhere or just not good at all. I have a few here.

Most of these are done on 18''x24'' Newsprint. There are three on here that are done on some Canson charcoal paper; it won't be that hard to spot those.


Gesture line or searching line study (camera flash glare!)
HB-4B range pencil:


Calligraphic lines studies
Bamboo brush and ink:



Scribble line studies - I have some contour line studies I'll post later
HB-4B range pencil:



Space studies
Compressed charcoal:



Chiaroscuro study
Graphite stick:


Value studies
Graphite stick:



I honestly forget what this was a study of, I believe maybe value again
Black and White Conte Crayon on Yellow Charcoal Paper:


Value studies
Compressed charcoal on Red and Grey Charcoal Paper:

[Immortal]

Hello my fellow CA-nites. It's been a while, but college has been tough recently. Currently, I'm going through a program at my university that will allow me to actually declare an art major. Let me just say that I've been getting about 4 hours of sleep a day for the past two weeks. Art 20 hours a day can be strenuous, but I've managed to find some time to do a few studies and sketches recently.

All of these were produced using a very small WACOM tablet (I think 4x6") on Photoshop CS3. References for the first four can be found in Joseph Sheppard's Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists - it's a book I had to buy for my drawing class and figured I'd might as well use it.

[Immortal]

Holy Crap! It's been a while, but I went through Art Boot Camp this past summer. I got tons of stuff to upload (including sculptures, I'll put them in their respective forums). For right now, I'll only upload what's in my sketchbook at the time. Expect more later.

PS! I tried to dodge/burn the guy on the horse (5th image). But, he still turned out bad. I think, when I have time, go over his outlines once more with pencil. Eraser smudges have gotten the best of me this time...

If anyone has any other suggestions for getting the best quality out of a sketchbook scan, please do tell. I usually scan mine in at 100 dpi (anything higher is not worth it considering the filesize cap of attachments) and eventually cut down document size to 50-70%. Still before the scan, I go to the histogram and maximize shadows and midtones, which helps give the graph a nice, smooth curve. I usually have a peak near highlights, so I either hide the last peak or keep it just left of the right-slider boundary (highlight side, 255?). Once inside Photoshop, I usually dodge/burn the image till I get it to the point where I think it has the most realistic representation of the real thing...sometimes it doesn't work so well (points to girl's hair on 3rd image). It seems tightly woven textures and crosshatching take some damage with dodging and burning. Higher dpi, I think, would solve that. Then, filesize becomes the issue. Anyways, enough with the technicalities.

[apualani]

Thanks for stopping by my SB. 2 pages down and you can already see the progression. I agree with some of the others here when they say let's see some more stuff from life. It seems to be helping you fix some your anatomical issues in your characters. I really like the screaming guy in post 55. Keep up the posting.

[Immortal]

apualani: Thanks man. I've been busy with school lately so I haven't had much time to keep up with this sketchbook or replying to my subscriptions (like your sketchbook). But, I plan on redeeming myself soon....very soon.

Anyways, so in my beginner's painting class (painting 1), we're learning how to make a glaze painting. Basically, we take specific colors and layer them in a specific way, while keeping them mainly transparent. The effect is awesome and can have some amazing results. Obviously it works better with oil paintings, but I wondered if it could work with Photoshop CS3. So, I tried it. It worked very well. Obviously there are some differences between using oil and using a computer. But, the results are similar.

I will warn you that the following is a relatively crude version of the glazing process. If I really wanted to be precise and accurate, I would've probably used selection tools instead of the brush tool. But, I'm lazy. Also, the green stripe thing in the bottom left corner is my bed sheet. That's right. I used a digital camera.

To start off, I take a value composition. It isn't the best one I've done and certainly isn't painted (it's compressed graphite stick). But, digital media doesn't discriminate and so it will suffice.



The first glaze is a yellow glaze. It's a somewhat bright and saturated yellow. But, the opacity I used for most of these glazes was at 6% (really freaking transparent). I glazed all the areas except where yellow's compliment can be found (purple). Less transparent glaze (10-15% opacity) in areas that have a yellow color. The table cloth, I decided would be blue. It's not purple, so I give a very transparent glaze (like 1%) In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have glazed it.



The second glaze is a blue glaze. It's also a somewhat saturated and bright blue, but blue's tend to overpower in glazing. In that case, I turned down the opacity to 3%. Same as last time, glaze areas where there is no compliment (reds/oranges). In my case, there is no red or orange. I give the table cloth a more intense glazing.



The third glaze is a red glaze. Same old same old, only this red isn't as bright, but similarly saturated. Since there are no reds in my composition, I do not intensify any specific area. But, I decided to leave out the background, so it can be a neutral green.



The fourth glaze is another yellow glaze. For this one, I used a darker yellow and glazed over areas that are neutral and warm (avoiding compliments and cool areas).



The fifth glaze is another blue glaze. For this one, I used a darker blue and glazed areas that are neutral and cool (avoiding reds/oranges, and warm yellows).



The sixth glaze is another red glaze. For this one, I used a very bright and saturated red. Glaze neutral and warm areas, avoiding cool yellows (like the box on the table), cool areas and green. I decided the box on the table would be slightly more neutral than the chair on the floor.



The 7th glaze is a white glaze. Glaze over areas that have become too dark from the previous glazes and include highlights.



The 8th and final glaze includes bringing out local color (the actual color of the composition). Even though I glazed almost every area with its local color in some variation of transparency, it is not necessary to bring out local color in every area of the composition. I brought out the chair on the floor more and gave the table a more saturated blue. The background is slightly greener than it was.



The results:



And yes, it all does matter very much in which order these glazes occur and it also does matter that each glaze is present. See what happens when I color over the value composition with just local color glazes:



Big difference

I hope some of you guys enjoyed that. I definitely have been learning and so I figured I'd share my excitement that it can also be done on the computer

[Seage]

Nice work on the glazing. That was one of my favorite tech and made me hate acylics less, lol. I used to mix it with some other techniques for cool effects. Give it a try.