SPACE CHIMP. Archive 2007 <Back to fundamentals> Life drawing Aug 8

[Costau D]

Welcome!

Crits and comments are appreciated.

[Cold Revolver]

I believe you should grab a copy of Dynamic anatomy by burne hogarth and study from that, but every artist should agree that there is no substitute from a real life model, Try to schedule some time in for a life drawing class, sometimes you can find them in your local area for cheap!

On your enviroments the perspective is kinda off, I sugest you work with basic shapes in perspective and lay down your line of perspective, try using a ruler to get thoe nice clean edges, the onle person who i know that can draw a perfect straight line is feng zhu, lol are you up to his skill? Hmmm... Also maybe you can render your enviroments alot more as in light and shadow to give it alot more depth. Right now there black and white and I cannot tell whats what. Your character is coming along just study man and you will get there. Hope I helped.

[Costau D]

Cold Revolver: Thanks man. Yeah your right I need to do more studies, and take advantage of that life drawing open session at my school. I'll be starting my studies tommorow. Studying hogarth i think will have to wait for me, because to me it seems like every character he draws is always flexing. I got an old copy of Loomis, and Bridgemans Human Machine and life drawing so I'll start from there first. Also Vilppu.

And, you are very right about my enironment. One thing I really want to get good at is drawing environments and man made structures and machines. So I'll go back to the basics as you mentioned. The following pictures though were done before I even posted this, but I didnt have them to post yet. The next ones I do I'll take greater care in the initial laydown.

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Alright then, heres a quick update. Just colored environments for now. My next
posts will include studies. Please take the time to crit. Like I said, I know it's more tmpting to click on the five star threads so if your in this one I appreciate your time.

These pictures kind of leave me feeling like a little kid. The structures are so basic, and I couldnt think of anything more...thoughtful. Plus the use of colored pencil, marker, and white ink (something I'm not use too) did not really help. It was a requirement to use real media, and I never took the time to learn to paint with acrylics, watercolor, or oils. So I guess that tells me something.

[Zoroko]

I think you got some interesting things going on here. I would suggest for your character turnarounds that you draw horizontal lines through the figure (and through details like the eyes and mouth) so you can match up the different views together pretty easily.

Your quick sketchwork is really nice and expressive, and I like the environment you give off in some of your space drawings. Interesting choice of colors, but for the last piece I would say that the black outerspace background is really flat looking in comparison to the ship. Though the red half planet dosen't read to the eyes as being round. I think you should try and add more depth with your pieces with darker shadows and possibly opening up to using more colors in your works.

[Costau D]

Zoroko: Hey Zoroko thanks for the advice. Yeah, the space was bothering me as well. I couldnt figure out how to give it depth. Especially with the materials i had to use, made it very difficult. Thank you for the compliments. I'll be working harder with my renders.

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Ok. Small update. A quick sketch (10 minutes or so).

[Costau D]

*sigh*. Havent been able to motivate myself this week. Just a quickie. I was having fun creating it, and thought it would be funny.

But, it's one of those moments when you look at your work 15 minutes later, you sit down, stare at the screen and then for some reason your fist goes through the monitor. You wake up out of a daze on top of the kitchen sink and find that you just killed your two cats with your neighbors rake. You begin to realise that this was all because you read a horribly corny joke.

Please GOD give me some WIT!

[Don-key]

hey bro i really like the design of the robot and givin that its a quickie id say you did really well. just the hands need a bit more attention next time but im sure you know that
you said yourself that you know you need to study more anatomy so you know what you need and now its just a matter of doing it. keep plugin away even when motivation lacks (happens to all of us).
story boards are looking good too...easy to follow
my advice would be to try get more contrast in your pencil work (in particular the character design) and study the face, get hogarth and loomis books and study how the face is broken into simple planes. this can add alot of depth and form to your faces giving them a real 3d look.
good start man like i said keep em coming, you'll have fun here!
MORE MORE MORE!!!

[Costau D]

A small update. Took the environments a couple posts up, and enhanced them a bit and experiemented with the saturation. More to come.

[Dile_]

Nice sketchbook man

[Costau D]

Alright some quick stuff.

[Costau D]

Did a few sketches today. I was not very motivated with todays stuff. Need to go back to the drawing board, and get my skills up. It's not fun when you are limiting your ideas due to ability. pld:

Don-Key: Thank you for the advice man. And, very nice sketchbook.

Dile_: Same to you, and thanks for the reply.






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[Sepulverture]

Hey man, nice perspective studies. Do more of them! Also, I know you've got some nice papers and pencils man, put 'em to use and do a good drawn out study.

[Costau D]

"Look bender. A cute and cuddly baby tapir." -Ship

[Fishspawn]

Good stuff in here. Really like the quick alien sketches. Colored stuff is all too saturated. Look closely around you and you'll notice that what you see as red is usually darker and much less saturated than the red you're using to color. Would like to see more life drawing. Keep up the good work.

[Costau D]

Fishspawn: Hey man thanks for the advice. Haha, too saturated? Yeah, I agree. Color is a huge problem at the moment. My original colors were said to be too desaturated. I'm gonna start off slow and work on my values and monochromatic paintings more. Values are still a problem.


More Helmet designs I did for a friend of mine (Sepulverture). Other than that, I have to appologise to the people who have already told me what I need to concentrate on. I know I havent been doing what you recommended, school work is piling up at the moment. I am just updating this and sketching as often as I can to show I'm still determined.

Oh.

RAZ!! Quit looking at my sketchbook and go start one NOW!

Anyway. More stuff to come.

Helmet designs were about 6 minutes each.





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[Costau D]

Reworking my storyboards. These are just roughs rightnow, and there is more to go. Sorry for the quality, couldnt keep my camera still, even for the life of me.






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[Costau D]

Need to get to bed.

[Sepulverture]

Hey dude. good studies, keep 'em up and you'll see vast improvement in your work. I'd recommend you to do more perspective stuff. Do the basic boxes in perspective, and do some still life's. Do some quick ones, like 20 minutes or so, then some more drawn out ones, like hour long ones. Good to see you using your imagination more. Don't get discouraged dude, the more you draw the better your work will be, even if you can't see it for yourself right away.

[Costau D]

Sepulverture Will do man. Thanks for the advice. That will be one of my goals this weekend. I'm still trying to get in the habit of drawing consistently everyday. Rightnow, my attention span only goes for about an hour until I lose concentration...gotta work on that lol.


Just getting these out of the way.

[J.Mac]

Lugh - hey thanks for the comments. I figure i can return the gesture First of i like where you are heading in this sketchbook it is really expressive and has some good emotional value to it. !but i am not here to give ass pats heh...

Crits & Comments
(this is to help you, not offend you so please don't take it the wrong way)

1. your sketches are good and the way you build your ideas is fine, it just seems you don't really understand perspective to a good degree as well as form. It looks more like you are copying what you have seen. A good way that i learned perspective was

1. Selfportraits
2. Doing hardcore perspective practice & reading about it
3. more observation drawings

Doing those quick little perspective sketches in your book is alright, but in order to really start and understand perspective you are going to want to do it on a large piece of paper and plot out using a straight edge to get it to look correct. If you want i can show you some of my old practices i did to get a better understanding.

2. When it comes to form building and architecture, it all goes back to perspective and whether you understand it or not. Besides that it is rather simple b/c everything and i mean everything can be broken down into

• cube
• cylinder
• sphere

Everything you see is just a modified version. You just need to learn to see things more simplified at first for when you are starting a drawing.

Also study architecture learn about it, even just a little will help you out. Plus reference never hurts, just don't rely on it. A personal note about reference for me i prefer to never use someone else's art they have made as reference, i would rather use a photo so i can interpret it the way i want to, not how someone has already interpreted it. Does that make sense?

3. Take the time to enjoy what you are doing, but also take the time to practice your tools to do what you enjoy. It is the same reason an athlete will work out, if they do they will preform better. I know that is a general analogy but i just want to get the point across. Spend the time to do a thorough value study of a cube in perfect perspective with a single light source, take the time to do a self portrait with full value and so on. Doing all these once in awhile will help you understand and grow.

4. Ok this is my last thought for you right now. It is good to draw a lot but don't neglect life go out and watch a Film, read a book, play a video game, go for a walk and people watch. It is good to take time to reflect and see what else is going on. I have some friends who are so uptight about being the best and getting good, that they miss out in having fun and enjoying life. Plus the more you experience the more you can put into your work. Just have fun!

I hope this helps you, if you need examples of what i am talking about please feel free to ask. Take care!

-Jesse

[Mika.K]

Wow! Alot of updates here also. I can see you've really started making alot of stuff lately.

Keep drawing--

Oh by the way will we see some more 3d models soon here also? Or animation? Like the way you had some stuff in the past sketcbook.

[Costau D]

J.MAC: Hey man. Thanks so much for the advice. I already contacted you about the studies. I'm going to be working on the things you mentioned from now on.

Mika: Thanks man. I'll be putting 3d stuff up only when i feel it's ready and finished. Not very many people like looking at blocked in and unfinished meshes.

This is the last of small updates. This is crunch week so I've been mostly revising my script for the project, and working on more storyboards. Gotta ge tback to work...




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[asoir]

an hour attention span? pff, lucky, i end up drawn out in minutes...
nice progress, keep working that paper!

[Costau D]

Been busy. But I got this sketch in tonight. My rendition of King Triton

[Sepulverture]

Hey cole. didn't even know you had been posting in your sketchbook lately. Neat sketches, the biggest things that stand out to me are proportions and contrast. The shapes in your sketches here aren't very readable since they all use close to the same level of contrast. We gotta work on some facial studies, and self portraits together for our next sketch session man.

Edit: Also just wanted to add that the pose is interesting, but the stiffness of the arms kills it. Like the face on that sucker.

[Costau D]

Some more sketches before the day is out. Trying to get back into things. Let me see if I can keep this up daily...

I'm kind of drained of anything creative at the moment.

[Sepulverture]

hey dude, good work on that self portrait! On the self portrait the biggest thing that jumps out at me is just that you didn't really adhere to your proportions when doing it. Rendering is pretty good though dude, and the shapes are all nice and readable. I'd say it's a step forward. When you do your little concept sketches, one thing I'd like to point out is that you need to focus more on the shapes to begin with. I see a lot of lines and detail in there, but they aren't really defining any shapes perse. Good work though dude, keep it up and you will start seeing the improvement for yourself.

[markey2d]

try and draw more from life as you will start seeing a really big improvement.

[Costau D]

I'm a bit chaotic at the moment with my studies.

[Costau D]

Some redone storyboards. No story here that will make sense, it's just the better drawn ones.

The bad news. I presented it to the teachers, and they really couldnt understand the story. I got caught up with it to the point a person can only understand what's really going on if they read the script. It's a 2 minute peice so key information was lacking. Now, I need to rework the story.

Here's some old storyboard that revamped from the previous posts.