.:: Still Goin' ::.

[TFsean]

Really love this sketchbook! Your anatomical studies are really great and I can see the pay off in your work

[Vritra]

Your linework is strong. I like the figure studies that you're doing, especially the ones on post #587.

On this image, it that Peta Todd up there? She's gorgeous.

[HunterKiller_]

Flaskpost: Thanks bud. I totally forgot about the mirror trick, when I was processing the pics in PS I flipped... and it was terribad.

p sage: Thanks for your encouraging words, much appreciated.

TFsean: Thanks dude.

Vritra: I didn't know who she was 'til now. Amazing indeed.

Moar BSG | Moar Peta Todd


Some scribbles for alternative costumes for some certain characters


Research


Continued WIP, not much progress | Another reworking of old piece

[HunterKiller_]

Tiny bit more work on this one


Research!

[HunterKiller_]

A colleague kindly offered to give me some pointers on the swordswoman piece from above.
What I got back was much more than I had anticipated, and by the evidence here you can see that I was taken to school.

I've compiled his critiques to post here, for whomever it may help. (Apologies for spelling and grammar mistakes)

[rumpenstiltzkin]

nice updates, the armored guys and swords looks great, and also thanks for sharing the last one!

[HunterKiller_]

rumpenstiltzkin: Thanks dude.

Some gestures, been forgetting to do these.


Still life from today, should also be doing more of these.
Done from photo, don't have facilities to have such a nice setup, unfortunately.
Reading J. Gurney's 'Colour and Light', thought I should start practising painting with set palettes rather than arbitrarily choosing colours as I usually do.
Reflections on the polished wood were pretty damn tricky, didn't end up getting the hang of them.

[Pigeonkill]

I think the reflect came out nice on the wood grain. The fruit I think seems a bit too waxy make look less organic and more plastic looking.

I like the detail armor sketches, practical. Nothing crazy like War of Warcraft, though that's fun at times.

[Flaskpost]

fuckin sweet studies dude. a good general rule for standing figures is to place the head right above the middle point between the legs, to achieve balance.
for the girl with the sword, i think a more dynamic pose would suit her well, try to overstate the curves and the gesture more. references of ballet dances and chinese martial arts might help. crouching tiger, hidden dragon etc.

[HunterKiller_]

Pigeonkill: Cheers bud. Maybe after rendering three hard objects and leaving the orange last was a bad idea, haha.

Flaskpost: Thanks mate. Ballet and dancer reference is a good idea, that is the kind of action I'm going for. Haven't made too much progress since last time, still undecided about the finished look...

Experimentation


Combination!

[Flaskpost]

good shit man! very nice experiment.
her elbow looks weirdly bent due to the curve of the padding imo

[Vritra]

Great stuff, I like the cell-shaded finish the best in the last update. The still life looks great too, but as has been pointed out, the fruit looks a little 'plastic'.

Your pencil work looks strong, and that can only be a good thing. If you can draw well, the rest of the skillset will catch up with time.

My only crit is that the character poses rarely go with the design. The design plus the body language is suppose to tell a story, right? Anyway, good luck, and keep up the great work.

[LastGen]

Awesome pencil skills, your progress really motivates me!

Could you tell me where you take your Leg Refs from? I've seen these leg studies from #595 a couple of times.

[HunterKiller_]

Flaskpost: Thanks man, yeah I drew the arm wrong.

Vritra: Cheers man, which characters would you say in particular? I know the last one doesn't work but that's a study from a playboy pin-up, hehe.

LastGen: Thanks, Don't remember exactly where they were from, I just hord reference images. You could try characterdesign.com, and there's always google.

Skin tone studies. Quite a challenge, really regretting not having taken this seriously before.

[HunterKiller_]

Still make snail like progress on this one. I'm satisfied with the overall drawing, now I must finish it before it drives me mad.
This is the rough palette, critiques would be a treat, although I probably won't change the line art at this stage,
already wasted way too much time on that.

[HunterKiller_]

Some character doodles which I might further refine.

[asa]

great sketchbook
great studies
I also like your concepts very much, lots of creativity here
I will keep an eye around

[monstertree]

really nice studies man, I like what you're doing in this sketchbook!

[Izene]

Great SB! I love your sketch man!

[Ricardo Robles]

Hi Hunter,
great amount of good studies! also like your approach on the last 3 characters, very cool. If you still want some suggestions on the dagger/sword girl, there are some: I like the pose, lighting etc. but the equipment and armor parts looks very generic, I think i´ve see this approach a lot of times.. don´t take it wrong please. I´d try to put something different in her armor, maybe full amored arms with gauntlets, but still keeping her dangerous. Maybe a single strange shoulderpad, who knows.. I´m suggesting this to you cause seems you put a lot of hope in that image, and I just want to help making it a bit more interesting. (Maybe this wasn´t a design exercise, and you just wanted to practice poses or rendering)
Thank you very much for your visits, and keep killing it.

[BludHund]

Heya man, this is the ghost of Bludhund haunting your sketchbook

Kidding, not dead, sorry I've been stupidly busy lately.

---

The tutorial you compiled from your friend 'Karl's critiques is PHENOMENAL.
Everyone should read that, some really critical fundamentals in there.

---

November 20th post: every good drawing starts with a good gesture .

Very masterful color and texture in the still life. You seem to have achieved
a very high technical level with rich, bright, saturated, local color (as in your
nude painting studies later, and you swordswoman painting).

I would now try experimenting with some saturation / color scheme / lighting
variations for mood. The current mood is rich, smooth, pleasant, balanced,
upbeat...but there are other moods of course.

---

December 12th post: seems the saturation was lost severely, maybe try a
different blending mode. Unless that's what you were aiming for. She looks
rather pale.

---

On the swordswoman...you changed her left (forward) foot, from the sketches.
A subtle difference, but it really strongly alters her balance. You also moved her
right (sword hand) elbow up...always kind of and awkward position, different from
what you had in your initial sketches. In fact you wrote 'wrong' next to this option
where you were diagramming the flow of the pose.

My illustration teacher in college hammered me on this once: the energy and character
of the pose in your thumbnails should be faithfully reflected in the finished piece,
especially if you are working in a sign-off process with a client or art director.

If you decide to make a change, in the midst of working up the painting, I really
recommend sketching it out in a thumbnail first, to make sure it still 'works', before
you get deep into rendering.

Of course I'm guilty of violating this guideline, myself, oh well...

---

Love the character sketches.

Keep moving, man, great momentum great work, very slick.

[HunterKiller_]

asa:Thanks for dropping in, man!

monstertree: Cheers.

Izene: Thanks.

Ricardo Robles: Thanks for dropping in man. I really appreciate your critiques. Inadvertently, I did end up putting a lot effort into this drawing. This is without a doubt the longest I've ever spent on a single picture.
It may not have been successful, but I did learn a lot in the process... which is good I suppose.

What your critique made me aware of is that I was on auto-pilot during the design. I had just followed clichéd medieval conventions... when there was no limitation for such a thing, only my subconscious mental cage.
I'm really fascinated by the concept of low-tech equipment that have hints of hi-tech elements, so that is what I will now do.

BludHund: Even your ghost has good critiques!
Yeah, that Karl is a beast.
Totally right about the color moods. Bright/saturated is something I try to get away from... but somehow always end up there... As I said to Ricardo, I often drift subconsciously to certain designs/techniques, usually not even something that I enjoy for care for, perhaps it's an over-exposure to certain artworks.

As for the swordswoman, there are a few factors here, hopefully I can explain clearly.
Firstly, you're right about the arm, I've fallen into a trap that had already been made clear, however, I think the error isn't in the elbow being raised, but the angle of the forearm, which creates a 'fly-swatted' pose.
The second part of the problem is that when Karl made the critiques, he wasn't aware that she is holding a rapier in that hand so his pose works a little differently.

I have just now tried to amend the error by using Karl's arm pose, but I discovered it doesn't really work, because his pose is without the rapier and it works fine there, but when I try the same with the rapier, that arm becomes unreadable and looks awkward, too many things in one place.
I had to come to a compromise by raising the forearm slightly, still leaving a negative space so that it reads while reducing the 'fly-swattedness'.

Your lecturer is right on the money, although I think keeping that elusive quality of the sketch is something we will spend the majority of our life trying to capture, unfortunately.

WOW. Too much talking.

Here's the result. Note-to-self: need extra things on the pants and sandals, and new belt buckle.


Almost done with this duder.

[Pigeonkill]

Poor snakeman. I keep looking at his solemn face, then I see his freakish arms then back to his face then arms again. Good design.

[Flaskpost]

great stuff lately! loving the witch, the cursed and the hunter. looking forward to seeing the progress on those guys!
keep kickin ass dude!

[Vritra]

Really liking the last black and white piece, the way you've tried to capture the veins on his body. Really gives an authentic feel to the whole beefy, steroid-induced inhuman physique. If you can, post a higher resolution next time.

I'm afraid I'm running short on critiques this time around. The only thing I can say is that the female fencer/swordsman would look more dynamic if her torso was turned. You've given her a twist, but real dynamism comes from twisting near the hip region. Does that even make sense? Damn my dirty head.

On the whole, it's a pleasure visiting your sketchbook. Keep the works coming.

[Muz]

ho man! really like the sketches in 616, those shapes are tasty.

[HunterKiller_]

Pigeonkill: Cheers bud.

Flaskpost: Too kind, man.

Vritra: Thanks heaps, man. I totally understand what you're saying. I'm gonna try to fix it, without having to redraw too much. =S

Muz: Cheers man.


Productivity at an all time low right now, nothing to do with Mass Effect of course.

Trying to do some mouse characters, here's the first experiment. Critiques would be mighty appreciated.

[Vritra]

I see you were trying to go with the whole orange/blue complimentary scheme. But it doesn't 'pop' out right now, even with a colour scheme that is so obviously supposed to do that. It may be a temperature problem, I think. For example, with an orange atmosphere, I don't think the blue fur of the mouse will have shadows that turned turned up in saturation.

I'm just trying to grasp at it here, since I can't quite seem to put my finger on what is (slightly) off with the colour selection. The lighting/technique, on the other hand, looks fine.

As for the character, it looks good. Adorable and mousy; also I like the fact that you didn't blow up the head like usual mouse toons. The expression has also been captured well.

Keep updating, would love to see more of these mouses.

[BludHund]

Hmm...between Facebook, Youtube, and here, having not played Mass Effect yet I
now feel like I've missed out on the major cultural event of my generation...oh well.

the little mouse dude looks pretty good.

Only crits I can think of are:

1. the background is a bit distracting
2. some nice dark crevice shadows would probably pop the details and overlapping a bit better
3. maybe a few more textural marks to suggest fur...or at least some fuzzyness in the silhouette

on the monochrome muscle-guy:

Make sure you don't let the details overwhelm the major value scheme and flatten out the form.

Honestly I thought he was pretty well complete already. If anything I think a little heightening of the
contrasts would have put the final touch on it. Just remember to step back and don't get fixated
on the details.

Eagerly awaiting your April update

[HunterKiller_]

Vritra: Thanks alot for your thoughtful input. You would think the complementary colour scheme would be easy but that's how terrible I am at colour.

Bludhund: Firstly, yes you did miss out on a major cultural event of this generation.
Thanks for the crits. Building the overrall form is definitely one of my weaknesses. Nathan Fowkes aptly calls it the 'walnut effect', rendering the parts without a larger coherent volume.

You may not be looking forward to this update, actually...

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've made up my mind about a change in career.
They say that the ultimate art is that of self-expression, and few in history have really understood this. Many would disagree but the likes of Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock had achieved this mastery.
With the following tribute, I declare the journey of a new path. The path towards true greatness.

'BLT'