Almaghest's sketchbook - updated Oct 29th

[almaghest]

Hi. I'm fairly new here. I stumbled upon this place purely by luck and have been lurking around the last few days. I would have started a sketchbook a bit earlier, but I wasn't in possession of a functioning scanner until today.

Anyway, I've always enjoyed doodling and such but only just started taking drawing seriously (as I've realized animation might be a field I'd like to go into). Right now I'm focusing on getting a more solid understanding of anatomy. I've been doing a few Loomis studies and some things out of Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists. Any suggestions on other books is greatly appreciated.

All of these are from the past few days. There are a lot more (I've filled over a third of this sketchbook I bought about two weeks ago), but obviously scanning that many would be a horrible pain.

(It occurred to me some of these are kind of hard to see, especially if your monitor isn't very good. I may go back and play with the contrast tomorrow.)

Studies from Anatomy: A Guide for Artists









Loomis studies. I must have mild ADD or something; I got bored and decided to color a bit.





Some other things I did when bored of anatomy stuff. Both from reference.


This originally had a head and hands but both turned out poorly. I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I started gobbing lead around it. Ah well.

[sly's hand]

It is good to see another person interested in animation. The studies are coming along nice, cant wait to see some more orriginal works, keep at it and have fun. Oh I dont know if you have messed around with it, but there is a very, VERY, simpleistic animator called pivot, and another that is more like a black and white postit pad called easytoon, both are free both are simple. I like easytoon.

Cheers,
sly

[almaghest]

Thanks for stopping by, Sly. I'll have to check out those programs. I've heard of Easytoon but haven't bothered looking at it yet. I was really trying to get a more solid understanding of anatomy before I started dabbling with animation.



A few sketches from Civardi's books. After the first I started going back over them in 6B so they'd show up in scans.




I thought the crosshatching looked a bit odd on this one, so I started smudging it and messed it up more. Oh well!

[sly's hand]

No biggie keep working at your own pace, you have a decent start, so go sketch and be happy.

sly

[fractured1]

Heya! Thought I would drop by your book and take a peek. Nice start. I like your pencil work. It seems to be pretty tight and well controlled. Perhaps try loosening up a bit. I find that helps me when i am trying to "feel" the form I am working on.
The only other thing I would say is that you might want to try pushing your contrast a bit. Alittle more dark in the right places will add a bit of weight to your forms. I hope that makes sense.
I am just a newb myself so, take that with a grain of salt. As to your anatomy book question; I find I have a real liking for Albinus. Great break down of anatomy. And the plates in that book have some of the most insane line work on earth.
It is from Dover books. Keep at it! : )

[almaghest]

I decided to try that loosening up and pushing the contrast here, I think I got a bit carried away.


This one turned out a bit better.


And something cartoony I did while bored and watching TV. Probably less than 5 minutes total. (Can you guess what was on?)

[almaghest]

It's seriously been ages since I touched this, but yeah. Oh well!

I'm currently trying to get together 10 decent pieces to use for my application to SCAD (trying to get in for Fall 07). I pretty much have planned out everything I'm going to do, but I've yet to get off my lazy butt and do any of it.

Anyway, right now I'm working on this portrait of some random woman. It's graphite on 8x11in paper. I think I've spent about two hours on it so far. I'm pretty pleased with how it's coming along, considering I almost never have the patience for this sort of thing.

[almaghest]

Finished the portrait I was working on. I ended up blocking in the background in Painter because



Also, a few figures I've done for a "figure collage" I'm doing to use as one of my portfolio pieces...