Godrifle's Sketchbook

**godrifle** · February 20th, 2006, 09:56 PM

Hi everyone. My name's Michael, I'm 18. I've been drawing for 2 years and I plan to do it for the rest of my life, thanks for looking.

**Sickbrush** · February 20th, 2006, 10:06 PM

the sketch's pretty good, except for some problems with the arms .. keep'em comin, we gotta see more in order to get "the big picture"
cheers

**godrifle** · February 21st, 2006, 03:16 AM

this next one's done in life drawing class with watercolors.

**OleOlsen** · February 21st, 2006, 03:47 AM

hi michael. maybe you could post a little larger scaled images. i can't see that much on these thumbs.

so far it looks ok, reminds me of my earlier drawings.

edit: haha i just found out that i have to click on those images. hehe....
i really like that watercolor, but maybe you shouldn't have give her that mangaface?

**godrifle** · February 21st, 2006, 03:49 AM

Try clicking on the thumbnails, I'll move to a different image host later.

**pogy366** · February 21st, 2006, 09:32 AM

Michael - really nice start to the sketchbook. Welcome to #14!

**jlward** · February 21st, 2006, 05:49 PM

Hey Michael, I like your use of watercolor. That's a hard medium to master. The linework could be better, but that will come with practice. Keep going!

**Sickbrush** · February 21st, 2006, 05:54 PM

well.. it's good for a lifedrawing.. you almost got all the proportions right yet still you should do some pure anatomy studies.. try out some of rebecca kimmel's examples, they're really helpful to all levels.

**staylor** · February 21st, 2006, 06:39 PM

Good start so far! You've probably heard this before, but anatomy studies will really help your art. Can't wait to see more once you have a better hosting service!

**rodrigo!** · February 22nd, 2006, 06:52 AM

heyman good to see some life drawing! im glad

i would suggest to always look for the 2 most important masses- ribcage and waist when drawing figures! i think that would help a lot. altho this is my opiinon, id also suggest to draw the model in your life drawings, and not stylise it with anime faces...if you draw more real life faces chances are it will end up making your anime stuff better.
still youre doing well for only 2 years of drawing! youre journeys just started

**godrifle** · February 22nd, 2006, 10:18 PM

Deunan Knute, Appleseed

Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell

Slayer, thanks for recommending Kimmel, I just looked her up and she's already got a lot of tutorials online for me to feed on
Rodrigo, I do draw a lot of real faces, it's just the woman was really ugly... More ribcage, more waist...gotcha
Thanks for the suggestions/comments everyone.

**Inkfish** · February 23rd, 2006, 04:42 AM

Hey there!

Those anime pictures look good. If you want to push them further you could clean em up in photoshop and add some shading to them.

If you want to improve in understanding the form, i'd suggest some life studies. I know it doesn't seem to relate to comic style that well, but trust me it helps a ton when drawing your own stuff. Comic characters are simplified from reality, but still follow (kinda) the same principles.

Hope that makes any sense, i'm kinda tired right now

**rodrigo!** · February 23rd, 2006, 07:27 AM

inkfish has made some good points! Id like to add when drawing robots, to draw all their parts into 3D shapes, like spheres, cylinders and boxes, it will help tp draw complex shapes in perspective...
also watch the width and size of your figures, in the bottom one her thighs are as thick as the torso which kind of looks odd. just be wary of how the parts of your figures look in relation to each other..but the more life drawing you do the more youll see this in action , so just keep working

**pogy366** · February 23rd, 2006, 10:30 AM

... good work. No argument here about the life drawing suggestion. i think that by having that strong foundation in life drawing and anatomy, it leads into the dynamic form. i've drawn figures before in some kind of "animated" pose and no matter what i did, it was just flat because i lack understanding what the form actually looks like while in motion.

You have the right track there, now it's a matter of refining it to include mass and motion.

Did i just ramble???

Keep 'em coming brother!

**godrifle** · February 25th, 2006, 04:09 AM

Here's a bunch of drawings I did last year, about two months of work.

**godrifle** · February 25th, 2006, 04:10 AM

And that's all about two months of my work.. after that I kinda worked on stuff I'm really not going to show here... got back to doing it though.

Next, stuff I'm still working on at the same time, but just for progress sake.

Here's some done with photoshop (uh oh watch out minors)

Thanks for viewing.

**staylor** · February 25th, 2006, 08:26 PM

Your stuff seems to be improving. One thing that seems consistently off though is the female torsos. The waists seem far too small, a good rule of thumb is that front to back the thickness of the torso doesn't really get larger, unless it's a bodybuilder. Sometimes it seems that they're too small from side to side as well.

Also, boobs don't go beyond the sides of the body, even when they're very large they only stick out a little bit to the sides.

**rodrigo!** · February 26th, 2006, 06:21 AM

i think what would benefit you most is some proportions studies and bone studies.. check that the halfway point is the groin, and that you have the appropriate structures there...i think mainly proportions study will really lift your work...like just check how much head lengths each part of the body is as you lay in the rough lines....keep up the hard work those are a lot of drawings there!

**ah.heng** · February 26th, 2006, 05:05 PM

you seem to be just copying directly from anime/manga illustrations, although that's also a fast way to learn how to draw stuff overall, you will miss out on proper proportions and anatomy as theirs is all distorted.

i myself use some anime art as references for drawings too. i like the way they use their lines to define shapes, but i take it purely as a study. try to integrate it into life drawing. the very least you should learn is the human anatomy.

**moosebumps** · February 26th, 2006, 05:31 PM

allthough the anatomy could be shaped up a bit, i must say you're great with poses!

**godrifle** · February 26th, 2006, 09:25 PM

Note, none of the work in this post is mine.

"Also, boobs don't go beyond the sides of the body, even when they're very large they only stick out a little bit to the sides."- Staylor
In a lot of anime styles, they do. Thanks for reminding, but it's just preference.
Example from a pro- http://www.geocities.jp/iwamitsujp/top/top16/top306.jpg

" The waists seem far too small"- Staylor
As thin as the thighs.
http://www.geocities.jp/iwamitsujp/top/top10/top185.jpg

"check that the halfway point is the groin"- Rodrigo!
I prefer it that way, and most animes make sure that the legs are much longer...
http://www.geocities.jp/iwamitsujp/btop/top083.jpg

"you seem to be just copying directly from anime/manga illustrations"-Ah.Heng
Although some characters are unoriginal and from certain series, everything was not copied, with the exception of three of the drawings in there somewhere

It's not just this artist's preferences to have such proportions, it's pretty standard actually, off the top of my head I know Tenjou Tenge does it.

Thanks for the critiques everyone, this post was kind of awkward in defending myself though, but don't get me wrong, I'm on my second semester of life drawing classes and I can switch back to something more traditional in terms of proportion styles... I just don't prefer it.

**ah.heng** · March 2nd, 2006, 11:50 AM

it's standard for manga. i'm not saying it's wrong for you to lean that way, i myself personally prefer it. i just think that as a beginner, it helps to learn more from life drawings with proper anatomy. even in the japanese animation colleges (at least the 2 that i visited), the lecturers emphasis a lot on life sketching. they say that having it to fall back on, will allow you to have more flexibility in future because as a professional, as an animator, you need to adapt to the styles of various artists, and not just your own.

**staylor** · March 5th, 2006, 01:50 PM

While it is true that manga follows different proportions than actual life, I've still got to recommend at least learning how to do it realistically. The reason manga/anime style is so successful is because the artists have taken reality and broken it down into iconic symbols. To learn the symbols before the reality is, in a sense, putting the cart before the horse.

I'm not saying to stop drawing stylized pictures, just be sure to supplement it with realism. I did a similar thing, except with horribly exaggerated superheroes (it was not a pretty sight) and eventually found that learning anatomy and drawing from life helped me improve them.

**maxetormer** · March 21st, 2006, 02:38 PM

Your proporcions look to off, I like your experimenting but you need to
do some studing of anatomy and basics, you should, and could mix
both your studing and you desire to do manga, but doing manga
without making some thinking will get you nowere, ill post some links
for you later today.

**staylor** · March 26th, 2006, 01:17 AM

Are you going to come back? I want to see what you'll be doing in life drawing class!

I also kinda want to know what it's like, I haven't taken one yet!

**godrifle** · March 26th, 2006, 01:24 PM

Hmm... sorry, take me out of the group.
I'll come back in a year.

**staylor** · April 3rd, 2006, 05:34 PM

Awww, well good luck anyways!

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