☂paperX's SB☂ Updated: 15/MAY [Life drawing and doodles SKETCHDUMP]

**paperX** · March 3rd, 2007, 08:17 AM

OldNoobie: thanks man

asoir: you're right i should really draw out the foot regardless, but i was thinking of stick something in from of them at the time (as u can see below) so i didn't really think about it much

Sopor+Aeternus: thanks! will do

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alright i totally did not complete all the tasks i set yesterday,

will try harder

things i have finished: some of my chow, some bridgmans (not much tho and its a bit late here for me to scan so ill combine it with the next update), and a self-portait. that means i did NOT complete the joseph sheppard study and some doodles

sorry

anyways here's what i plan to do tomorrow:

Goals:
1. Finish CHOW
2.self portrait
3.joseph sheppard study
4.some bridgmans if i have time

note i might be going out with my family tomorrow so CHOW will probably take the most priority (o god i making excuses already, NOT a good start

)

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on to the updates!

1.CHOW sketch
2.did some colour tests, thats all for today
3.self portrait (pretty crappy in terms of like-ness (EDIT: VERY crappy actually, now that i look at it...

) , and even more so in terms of rendering

) sorry guys kinda rushed this one

**Helzon** · March 3rd, 2007, 07:35 PM

Hey man, just wanted to return the favor and thank you for the kind posts on my SB.
I like the fact that you're perservering and that some of those female figure studies were coming together quite nicely.
The SP is a bit rough in the render department..but in terms of actually getting volumes to work together you did pretty damn well.
Before ripping into color work...might be helpful to stay tonal for a bit till you get the hang of them then push onto color. But those are just my two rotten coppers.
Keep up the good work man.
Cheers!

**Lee W** · March 3rd, 2007, 11:51 PM

nice portrait attempt

Though you rushed it, spending a little more time to smooth out the rendering, it would be a nice piece.

I applaud you for having daily goals but it would take a lot of discipline.

**Brendan N** · March 4th, 2007, 02:21 AM

Hey, thanks a bunch for the continued support in my sb man, much appreciated.

Once again you are making great progress, and half of the reason is that you are so open to critique - kudos man. I really like where this book is going.

Give some attention to your linework. Line is arguably the most powerful element of composition. Ideally, you never want to go over the same line twice, you want to keep it clean instead of making it hairy. A good excercise (courtesy of liam.c) is to put your pencil down and start drawing with line, but to not lift it up again! This will make you think more about your line and yields cleaner, more lively results. Try it out, it's a great exercise for practicing line.

Hope that helps some, keep up the awesomeness mate.
ciao!

- d.

**Kronos** · March 4th, 2007, 08:56 AM

hey dude, good to see you are trying to push yourself

, its hard sometimes but just make sure whenever you draw that you are enjoying it! also, setting daily goals is a great idea and posting them here kind of gives you more of an incentive to actually achieve them, but that being said, don't rush your work! take your time, perhaps instead of making the goals lots of drawing make it so many hours a day or something, and don't worry about getting things finished as long as you put in the effort you said you would you will come out way better off.

anyway, on to some critiques, the one of your dad is nice, proportions seem very good and i like his hand. Brendan's advise is really good, giving more attention to your line work would greatly improve your stuff, and definitely do some of those exercises he mentioned.... bah, that wasn't a critique...

onto the critique, the bridgeman arm looks awesome, and some of the torso's here are really nice. But, make sure you do your construction when you are doing figures from your head (and even when they aren't from your head) and think of the basic shapes, just like in the bridgemen arm piece. i know it sound like a noobish thing to say, but its easy to forget, so i was just reminding you

.
on the CHOW, the comp looks good, it could be more dynamic, but i don't think it necessarily needs to be. the perspectives are not quite lining up for me, the whale/shark is like its above us and we are looking straight up and the CHOW himself is straight onto us? i think it would be damn cool if you continued with the perspective of the shark and had a real low angle looking up at the CHOW, but that would be pretty tricky

. with the colours its hard to say because obviously its just in the beginning stages, but seeing as its underwater, i think you should go with a more muted colour pallet of blues and then bring out some of the golds and purples later on when you want to make the CHOW pop??? but i dunno, thats just one way to go about it.

SP looks good in terms of proportions, and lighting is pretty good, you just need to work on your strokes, BIGGER BRUSH

don't be afraid of using a softer edge brush too but just to blend, try not to draw with it, and if you do use it make sure you keep the edges you want sharp to stay sharp.

anyway man, thanks a lot for the constant replies in my SB, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to know a few people keep coming back

**paperX** · March 5th, 2007, 08:11 AM

Helzon: thanks for the advice man its greatly appreciated

you're right about the progression process of my digi pieces, as u may have seen in this sketchbook i've been doing pencil studies for quite a bit recently, so my digi work is pretty rusty (and they were pretty bad to begin with

) I'll try to do more activities such as CHOW in the future to work on it

thanks again for dropping in

OldNoobie: you're totally right man, rendering and discipline are definitely two of the things i need to work one

Brendan N: thanks for the nice comment

i'll definitely be sure to work on my line quality!

Kronos: wow thanks for the big C&C there, MUCHO appreciated

, I didn't really have time to fix the "whale/shark thing" at the time by the time i read your crits but I'll work on my perspective in the future

and hey, it makes me happy to see u visit my crappy sb too

----------------------------
alright i've been REALLY busy these couple of days (family stuff and packing)

so im putting the setting a goal system off for now. I'm leaving for China on Thursday, so probably wont have time to do much art as i have to prepare for my trip. I'll try to do some sketching in the airports and while on the plane and stuff to make a post when i come back (not sure how yet since i dunno if i'll have access to a scanner

)

Here's the final for my CHOW entry, not really satisfied with it but hey i managed to squeeze enough time in to finish it, so thats a good thing

PS: one quick really n00b question....why does the colours on my art look sorta faded/less saturated outside of photoshop? is it because its not in CMYK mode?

**Lee W** · March 5th, 2007, 10:57 AM

nice use of colors

though in my opinion, the background could be darker. Also, the diver's suit should follow the form of the body to give a sense of form and bulk. eg. the thigh area looks flat because the bands of the suit is too straight and doesn't follow the curves of the leg to give a sense of it wrapping around the leg.

**bunny** · March 5th, 2007, 02:22 PM

Holy shit. you've made some awsome progress here.

About image saturation - chances are it's the compression and image goes through when converting from a .psd file to a .jpg. It happens. Usually I up the saturation/contrast just a little bit before saving. Maybe try saving at a higher quality? 'Tis just my guess, though.

I'll be back with a more in-depth comment. I'm at school and my teacher is giving me that look... be back in a few hours.

Keep it up man!

**paperX** · March 6th, 2007, 12:13 AM

OldNoobie: I'm not trying to make excuses but the background area WAS indeed darker...i dont know why after i uploaded it to CA the colours turned out less saturated

but you're definitely right about the thigh area....I'll keep that in mind in the future

bunny: BUNNY!!! long time no chat!

your new updates in your sb is great! about the colour issue, the problem that im having isn't colour quality loss through saving from psd to jpeg, the colours look fine as jpeg on photoshop, only AFTER i upload them onto conceptart/internet that the colours look different

I'll try to take a screenshot show you what i mean, i saved this as .png which for some reason doesn't have this problem

the on the left is what shows up on CA, the one on the right is what i see on Photoshop (same file)

I hope someone can help me understand whats going on

**bunny** · March 6th, 2007, 01:00 AM

That's... really weird.
Shit.
You might wanna put this issue up in the photoshop forum or something, I'm sure someone more internet-savvy can help you there.

Ahh okay. Critiques n' comments

Your digitals are evolving nicely. What used to be a muddied mess of colours is turning into some really solid work - awsome job man. I also like how you're experimenting with different brushes to produce different effects.

But that can kinda backfire. *I* think (this may be a personal taste thing, but ahm gonna say it anyway! just you stop me!) that the shark/ray behind your chow is textured a little bit too much. I think it wouldve worked best as a smooth figure, with minimal details (enough for the viewer to know what it is... kinda. I mean the mystery of it is part of the piece rite?) - maybe put a lightsource behind it to make it 'pop out' - or better get, give it phosphorescent features. A lot of deep sea creatures glow in some way or another.

It's also kind of hard to decipher what the orbs your CHOW is holding are, and what's inside them.

ALLL THAT ASIDE, great job you. I love the colours, and that you can use yellow and purple without making your character look flamboyant or easter-ey

... You're really evolving fast.

Also - your anatomy studies are doing great as well. Just keep working on those faces, try different angles and different facial expressions. It's quite the bitch at first, but you get used to it and in the end it pays off

Hope you have a good time in the Middle Kingdom my friend. Don't catch any diseases! Is your family from China?

**Kronos** · March 6th, 2007, 02:09 AM

hey dude i just thought i would say that the problem your are experiencing with the colours is almost definitely "Colour Settings" at least thats what its called in CS2 i think it might have been called colour management in earlier versions. it's either in the file or edit menu depending on the version. Its a pain in the ass and although i know that it does it, i don't know how to stop it from happening

. there are a whole lot of presets and you can turn it off altogether if you want, but i don't think that actually fixes the problem.

anyway, let me know if you figure it out! i wouldn't worry about it too much though, chances are people will see it differently anyway due to monitor calibrations and such.

are you just going to China for a holiday? or permanent? Should be awesome either way. CHOW turned out nice, although i agree with bunny on the textures of the wale/shark...

keep drawing dude! looking good!

**bhanu** · March 6th, 2007, 02:26 AM

damn dude I missed a lot of updates.the digis are getting better the tonal knowledge is increasing but be careful about not maikin them look muddy. But your linework nees more work . keep with it .Btw thanks for the crits at my sb man. Really appreciate it.

**paperX** · March 6th, 2007, 07:41 AM

bunny: Thanks so much for that massive C&C

yeah my family's Chinese, I came over to New Zealand when i was 8 and haven't gone back there since (well actually i went on a 2 week vacation back 2 years ago but that was a bit short) so im kinda scared myself

Regarding the fish...yeah what u suggested was what i was going to do at the start...but i ran out of time as the chow entries where going to close soon so i had to sorta rush it out....i thought the textures where sorta interesting so i just left it as it was....(note i had 2 hours left and most of the character wasn't even coloured at the time lol...so i kinda forgot about the fishy behind him

)

Also, I do realise that my use of textures are going overboard in some places, im going to try painting a whole piece just with the default brush soon, traditional style...hopefully i can find a better balance between the two

anyways thanks for coming around, keep working hard

Kronos: Hey man thanks so much for reminding me about the colour setting's problem...i looked it up in the photoshop section of CA and it seems a lot of ppl are having issues with this...

Anyhow I explained my trip to China earlier this thread but I'll give you an condensed version

I'm going back to China to study Art in preparation to try and get into the CA atelier (crazy goal i know

)
here are my plans:
march~may: I'll be living in a city called Chengdu and studying with some traditional artists, either as student or intern im not sure what yet.
after may: I'll be travelling to Beijing to join a class set up by the main university of china for art to help n00bs like me get IN to the uni itself (so the same professors from the Uni classes will be teaching)
I'm just going to be studying the basic important stuff - colours, life sketching, oils etc etc

I'll work extra hard in china and hopefully i can improve faster in 2007, I really want to get into the Atelier

anyhow, so much for the condensed version (what a long rant that was)...but yeah, thats my goal for this year basically

bhanu: hey man thanks for stopping by, i agree with what you said about it looking muddy...like i said to bunny I'm gonna try paint a "clean" piece in photoshop soon, have to get rid of my bad habits

------------------------------------

anyways sorry everyone no art updates from me today....i've been trying to pack up for my trip and trying to fix my colour setting problem

and....i think i might have fixed it!!!

I checked my display profile and found out it was called "Colour LCD" which corresponded to an option under colour setting->"working spaces"...I figured that sounds more plausible if they are the same, so after alot of messing around (tried to calibrate my monitor, dunno if its better now or worse

), i think the colours finally looking better now.

Of course, i have no idea what you guys see on your screens so PLEASE forgive me for doing this but it would be great if you see this, reply and tell me if the colours look different (more saturated would be great

) on the second pic (the one saved after i fixed my colour settings)

Thanks in advance

**Kronos** · March 6th, 2007, 07:56 AM

hey man, i'm stalking you now! HAHAHA!

haha

ha

the colours are most definitely different between the two... well the hues are the same actually, but there are darker darks and more saturation all over. actually some of the information is lost in the second due to getting really dark. the blues in the background are way nicer, but yeah parts of the ground are solid black, considering its supposed to be infront of the CHOW that doesn't work so well. but anyway, thats just my monitor... don't get any headaches over this one, like i said before, no matter what you do, different people will always see it slightly different to everyone else.

**paperX** · March 6th, 2007, 08:30 AM

arrrg....i swear.......somebody shoot me...i think never should have questioned about this whole thing from the start...

its like i opened up Pandora's box for myself...

I've read a couple of articles online and apparently it isn't a good idea to use the monitor profile as your Working Space, and that Adobe RGB is a better choice

im terribly sick and tired of this whole colour settings business and im just gonna follow what you said Kronos...its seriously giving me a major headache

To quote Samuel L Jackson: "I SICK OF THESE MOTHERF**KIN COLOUR SETTINGS ON THIS MOTHERF**KIN PHOTOSHOP!!!"

**Lee W** · March 6th, 2007, 08:30 AM

wow, didn't think the color settings would make such a big difference. The second one is definitely better.

**dan liimatta** · March 6th, 2007, 10:04 PM

the colour setting in photoshop, as you just found out, is a bitch

anyway I usually turn it off.

Anyway good stuff, though I would prefer it if you had shown one of the feet

good studies before that as well, keep it up.

**sketcheth** · March 7th, 2007, 08:21 PM

I see your pain...if it's any consolation at all, it's pretty. I really like your design. So much more colorful than I'd ever have thought to do... Such a great complex design too. The fact that it doesn't look incredibly new looks good too. It's an older vision of high tech. Great work.
Back on the pencils and stuff, good stuff, keep up those studies, you're improving man...very much.
I really love your thumbnails! Fantastic way to easily get your ideas out, just with a three tones. Awesome. I'm doing more of that next time, I'm jealous of how nice these are. Mine would be a mess.

**paperX** · March 9th, 2007, 09:01 PM

OldNoobie: thanks man

dan liimatta: right on the money man....a bitch it is indeed

sketcheth: lol u give me way to much credit....stop trying to make me feel good, i know how much my thumbnails suck

anyways cant wait to oC with ya man

-----------------------------------------

anyways....just a quick update to say that I've arrived in China (No Plane Crashes Hoooo~) i did some studies before i left but i have no idea how to get them uploaded atm...maybe ill try to take a photo or something later

just an update to say that im still alive and well (if anyone cares) but very tired

**bunny** · March 10th, 2007, 02:11 AM

Hey you!
Glad to hear you made it to China safely. I myself am afraid of air travel, have you ever watched LOST? It would suck if that happened.

I'm sorry if I sounded a little harsh in my last critique, I know you were a little stuck for time. Just me bein' nitpicky cause you're getting better and critiques like "PRACTIS UR ANATOMYIES" won't suffice for you anymore

hope you have fun in china!

**bluefruitbowl** · March 10th, 2007, 10:46 AM

Nice work. I really like this page of studies http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1172843236 . Is that Bridgman's? I should probably look into getting that book.
Love the colors in your CHOW, they mesh really well.
Have fun in China!

**Lee W** · March 10th, 2007, 10:51 AM

glad you made it to china in one piece

I'm going to be expecting some serious hard work and studying (maybe I'll learn something)

**dan liimatta** · March 10th, 2007, 09:11 PM

good luck in china, and study hard

**FactorZero** · March 11th, 2007, 03:37 AM

i've seen you posting quite a bit in everyone elses SB so i decided to finally check out yours. some nice stuff going on. i'm gonna keep an eye on you.

**Brendan N** · March 11th, 2007, 11:26 AM

Hey dude, CHOW looks good - don't let your forms get lost in pretty colours and decorative fluff though.

Glad to hear you made it to China in one piece - good luck in your studies and please post some photos. Or at least do some studies of the streets and city, hehe.

keep it up man, and thanks for stopping by my book, doctor Continued Support.
ciao!

- d.

**Longxiang** · March 11th, 2007, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by paperX

anyways....just a quick update to say that I've arrived in China (No Plane Crashes Hoooo~) i did some studies before i left but i have no idea how to get them uploaded atm...maybe ill try to take a photo or something later

just an update to say that im still alive and well (if anyone cares) but very tired

China where? If you're in Beijing maybe we can get a beer or something.

**sketcheth** · March 17th, 2007, 12:11 AM

Hurry aand post some stuff, man!

**Chrisbro** · March 17th, 2007, 12:22 AM

Nce bridgman studies, I find that book human machine to be very helpful.

I don't know what you look like but i thought the self-portrait looked great... but I'm no pro looked better than mine though thats for sure.

Keep it up!!!

**mc2mc2** · March 31st, 2007, 11:32 AM

Hey didn't you say you were gonna update today???..

Just about to finally update my own SB -_-.....

**paperX** · March 31st, 2007, 12:39 PM

hey guys gonna do a spam post sorry....big update coming right up on page 3, better if i keep it concise...hope you guys/gals take a look

PS: i took these with a digital camera at pretty bad lighting so i was forced to up the contrast and stuff to get some of these to even show up properly...sorry, first time updating without a scanner