Tom Cardin's Sketchbook

[TomCardin]

Welcome to my sketchbook. More recent work is at the end...but you're welcome to view my progress over the years.

My goal is to improve my 2D digital painting abilities with the help of this fine community of artists.

Please view and enjoy and comment lots!

[TomCardin]

A racehorse I did to familiarize myself with the forms involved. This is a scanned in sketch that I worked up in photoshop.

[TomCardin]

Somehow it got into my head to draw a sexy frog version of my wife's Everquest 2 character. Again I started with a scanned in sketch and took it a long ways further than I originally intended in photoshop...it was about then that I realized how much fun I was having with digital painting...and how much I have to learn still.

[TomCardin]

Thank you Haxxxor. I agree, my reference for the racehorse was a very small image which I sketched up quickly...I slacked off and lost focus on what I wanted to do. I am finding constraints to work under which are helping me maintain focus and dig deeper into subject.

[TomCardin]

I took what I learned from painting my sexy frog and went right to work on a huge piece. But I put a color constraint on myself because I wanted to keep it more serious. I am not sure if I succeeded in doing more than making things washed out. I have trouble with color and its something I wanted to focus on here.

[TomCardin]

This is a piece I haven't finished yet...I began it while working on my spacegirl painting. There are a lot of things that bother me about this amazon and I am still not sure where to take it. I tried to learn more about drawing and painting hair with this piece.

[Haxxxor]

the last one is good, i like the values on the horese but often you have a lack in anatomy and value... do some studies

greez

[crazyace31]

I like your overall gesture poses, they have good weight and movement. your overlaping on the figure needs some work. try breaking the figure into the basic shapes with a two point perspective on them. it will help out with maintaining volume and porportion as the figure moves from foreground and background.

Thanks for the crit in my sketchbook.

my sketchbook http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...=1#post1147944

[TomCardin]

Thank you for the crit, and for visiting my sketchbook.

Thats a good idea, I goobered up my spacegirls right arm where her torso is overlapping it. I can still see all the joints in my earlier versions but I lost something later on in the process.

New sketch I just started: 10 minutes into it and I can already see where I am having perspective trouble with the mech's far leg...I will concentrate on fixing this as I work this piece up.

[AztcFireFlower]

Thanks for the comments in my SB. Good start to your sketchbook. Improvement is a lifelong pursuit for sure. Solidity comes from understanding. Life drawing is always a good basis for that road.
And any book by Loomis; Figure work will strengthen by leaps and bounds.

There is a dragon thread somewhere in here as well, that I think is still going strong. Since the theme is of interest to you, should post some work in there.

[JERI]

What crazyace31 said.

Also, I get the impression that you attempt to have light and shadows diffusing into each other in a uniform gradient most of the time, even with strong light sources (as in the spaceman pic). Light doesn't work that all the time, and I think you may find it useful to try and go with discrete/sharp highlights sometimes. You might also try to use some other colors to portray volume instead of black/grey.

Hope that's relevant.

[TomCardin]

AztcFireFlower: Thank you, I agree wholeheartedly. I am on the hunt for more Loomis books. Also gotta hunt around for that dragon thread.

Jeri: Thats exactly what I am looking for! Yes I really want to develop my coloring and lighting skills. I am learning a lot just browsing through here but any pointing in the right direction is much appreciated.

Here's a quick update of my little red mech, gotta get some more christmas shopping done so this is all I have time for for now.

[AztcFireFlower]

I dug it up for you. Enjoy!
Dragonz Iz Here

[TomCardin]

Woo Hoo! Thank you AztcFireFlower! I am beginning work on a dragon painting right now.

I finished up my Mech painting first...or at least got it much further along. Trying to do a lot with reflected light and colors on this one.

[armando]

I have no idea why your thumbnail isn't showing up. Maybe it's too big? On mine I used a 100X100 thumbnail, so try that. Work on lighting the basic forms, check out Scott Robertsons lighting DVDs here thegnomonworkshop.com

[Kronos]

Thanks a lot for commenting in my sketchbook! and good to see you starting an SB of your own, you certainly have a grasp on pencil drawing, particularly rendering, perhaps some more work on overall form and anatomy will be helpful... loomis is fantastic, however i have to say i prefer bridgeman (well in my limited experience with both), he kindof simplifies the figure into basic planes which also helps a LOT when it comes to lighting characters...

"Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life" i can't completely vouch for this book as i only ordered it the other day, but its a compilation of all his books and its cheap as on amazon for 350 pages or so (over 1000 illustrations)

it seems in a lot of your work you don't really have a specific light source. just as a study you should try doing something in pure black and white with solid shadows kinda like sin city stuff.... and keep one specific light source and direction in mind, this can make things a lot more dramatic and will also make you think of the form.

and i know sometimes just drawing from your head can be more fun, but drawing from reference will help you learn MUCH better, particularly from life (ie life drawing) but photos are good too.

one more thing you could work on is your flesh tones, they are very washed out and yellowy at the moment. possibly move more towards orangish tones, experiment! and most of all HAVE FUN!

hope this helps, keep up the cool work,

[TomCardin]

Thanks for the advice! I thought it was a good idea to do a figure study from reference...so between playing with some christmas goodies, cleaning house and going out to the movies to see "Night at the Museum" I put my nose to the screen and made this study:

Found a reference I liked - I highly recommend CharacterDesigns.com for photo references, I have seen several other artists here use them.

I started by drawing the underlying skeleton:

Finished by painting my lights and darks on top of the skeleton layer

This was good practice for me, felt good. Definitely going to do more.

[oma]

heej > nice to see the process shot's off your work.

i can learn a lot from it.

and that last one did you handled well. but one question do you allway's start with some skeleton's first if you draw a gesture ?

[TomCardin]

Thanks Oma,

No, I don't usually start with a skeleton...Years ago when I had a real life drawing course in college I remember doing it as one of our exercises. Also I was given a paintover in the critique thread with a skeleton to show the anatomy issues on my painting. So I thought I would go back to that. I think it helped me a lot with my proportions and form.

It was also very helpful with this reference pic to understand how her ribs were showing and the contours of her hips as well as the alignment of her head. Even though I had a reference pic that showed me everything I needed to see, drawing a skeleton within the form helped force my hand to stick to what I was seeing.

[TomCardin]

I think I have finished this latest nude study. Here I have added color, not sampling from my reference but just using my own eye. I used several layers, colorizing my greyscale image and using it as a multiply layer then going in underneath and adding cool and warm areas to the shadows.

I am very happy with the results but at the same time uncomfortable because it appears so realistic to me. It's beyond me why that makes me uncomfortable.

[Fishspawn]

Improvement on that last peice is fantastic. Definately go for that style when drawing from your head. Use skeletons/simplified shapes to knock in accurate values and proportions like that in drawings from your imagination and you're set. Keep doing what you're doing if you want photorealism. If you want realism you'll have to draw from life a lot more and figure out how to set a focus, as well as show balance and energy. The stuff i was going to say has already been voiced very well by AztcFireFlower, Jeri, and Kronos, so listen to them well! Keep it up, i can't wait to see your progress.

[TomCardin]

Thank you Fishspawn!

Yup I learned a lot going back to my anatomy studies and less relying on my own mind for pin-up style figures. I am just a bit put off by being a copy machine, but thats my own demon to face. More anatomy to come!

But first I am going back to my dragon painting. I started this after reading the dragon thread...then found out I couldn't post to the dragon thread, I guess its closed. So its going here instead. These are the several stages of progress I have gone through so far, still a long way to go to final.

[TomCardin]

Another update on my dragon painting..."greeting the sun". Next is enlarging it and adding detail to the dragon which is still very plain.

[anubis713]

Hey! I love the last dragon on here!
A couple of the ladies are a bit off proportion wise.
But everything looks great!
Keep it up!

Great imagination too!

[Cold]

Hey Tom, nice reference and studied drawing you did there. My favourite execution of you so far, of the other are good too.

And welcome to 07

[saturniaus]

I really like your frog lady picture.

[Kronos]

hey man, incredible improvements! well done indeed! the nude is rendered very well but you say you're feeling uncomfortable? i don't know, but is it perhaps because you want to get a more painterly look? i think working on that would be really cool. its kindof a hard thing to work on, but try and see if you can get lots of information down with few gestural marks rather than the intense rendering you've been doing, not that there is anything wrong at all with what you've been doing, its great, but variety is NICE!

[SEspider]

Well done.
You have a nice style of your own. There's a lot of great art here.Well Done. ^_^

Going through them, I've noticed something. The dedatils seem kinda flat in a way. Don't get me wrong. It's clear that the images have depth, but small suttle details are missing.
Look at them closely and you'll see that some have no wrinkles or creases where there should be. Take yur frong drawing/coloring. There are bends in her pose, but at those joints the skin should have a few small winkles. remember, every creature has fat in it. even skinny ones like frogs.
Even your cool thumbnail painting looks a little odd without winkles in her bathing suit or skin.
You don't always have to draw these details in your art. Usurally shading/or coloring can add these little details.

As I said earlier, Very nice job. can't wait to see more.

[TomCardin]

Anubis713 - Thank you! I am really liking where this dragon is going as well, I should have a new update of it soon.

Cold - Thank you! I think I surprised myself with that piece. I was going to stop at the greyscale version in the previous post but I knuckled under and took it the rest of the way.

Saturniaus - Thank you! That was one of my first digital painting pieces and I learned a lot about what not to do on it...hehe.

Kronos - Glad you like it too! I would love to get a more painterly look to my work...what made me uncomfortable about this piece was just feeling like a copy machine. I was very focused throughout the work and happy with being able to maintain that state but the end result feels dry, though it was what I was aiming for. All reasons why I want to improve my digital painting abilities and that study gave me a nice kick in the pants.

SEspider - Thanks! I do need to work on clothing and wrinkles, I believe I will tackle a clothed figure for my next study.

Thanks everyone for checking out my sketchbook! I am thrilled! I just finished work on this week's COW...The final version is posted on the COW #72 thread, here I am posting a couple of the progressions I took:

[SEspider]

Very Beautiful and Unique.