Jazz' Junk Draw' (Practice Enviro update, Aug 6, 2011)

[kelly x]

getting so much more fluid and looking great, work on some faces they are starting to look really good Jazz W. Just stopping by to cheer for you!!! The fast poses are working so well for you and these will boost all of your work! Kelly X is a fan of you!

[funfetus]

Nice work, Jazz. You're getting a lot of information in on those short poses. That's hard to do. Your proportions are good -- time to start thinking about (dun dun DUN) construction! When you get a chance, that blog post I linked should be really useful. By the way, I just started going to a life drawing session again, and I'm gonna post a few drawings myself.
The "dark skinned guy" is pretty good, too. The major things sticking out to me are that his eyes are a bit too wide, and his neck gets a lot too wide.

Keep it up, Jazz!

[Jazz]

kelly x, thank yoooouu!! You so made my evening with the cheer! I'll get working on faces, yeah...I haven't touched them in so long, I'm surprised that one I worked on turned out good. That must mean I'm remembering some good lessons on making the face! ^__^

funfetus, thank you so much!! Wow, yay for proportions! All those times I was frustrated with them, I'm so glad they're working out! I'll definitely take a look at that blog link you sent! I'm thinking it'll be a great read! And...ack!! I think I need to practice the head and NECK, too! o_O I'm rough with the neck--it's hard to measure how big it "looks" in proportion to the head.

Downtime approaches...I WILL have my raspberry dumplings. ^___^

[alesoun]

*steals the raspberry dumplings*
No greedy calories for you, young lady, til we get a finished piece!

I know you can do it
*dances about with tantalising raspberry dumplings*

[Jazz]

Nooooooo!!! Oh funga, foiled again. ;_; I WILL have that finished piece!!! *drools after raspberry dumplings* It's all I have left!!! Oh and...hee hee!! Thank you for the encouragement, alesoun! :3

[alesoun]

I'll throw in an apple crumble.... 'tis the season to be calorific.... and I make a mean apple crumble!

[Jazz]

Small sketches from work. Not feeling too great. These aren't in order.

[DigitallyDumbfounded]

Haha, baby Bowser?
Sweet. Your characters have a lot of expression and your proportions are getting better.
I like the variety of characters.
Keep it up!

[Jazz]

Hee hee hee!! XD A whacked out version of him!! I love Bowser!! I made a pic of his "brother", my fan character Shocker in there somewhere, too!

Awwww, thank you, DD! I see it, there's a difference most definitely! I'm so glad I'm getting better after all the whining I did!!

EDIT: Well, since I posted something up in another thread, I'll just update with a few doodles I've done lately.

Forgot this one existed! I sketched from a surfing magazine.


When I was mad yesterday, I just did these lines. Not for practice, but sometimes you gotta make those hard corners and FEEL the emotion.


I borrowed a Dita Von Teese book from the library, and absently sketched from the cover part. I wasn't accurate, and I found that because I hold my sketchbook on a certain angle, distant elements look longer in height and bigger. I do like that I was looser with lines!

[DigitallyDumbfounded]

Uh, that pinup is looking sexy. I love the legs. Just watch out, her torso is sctually a bit too big. But I do know that problem somewhat. I'm mainly working on a3 pages and it's vital to try and look at them at the right angle.
But the lnes on her legs are delicious.
And that abstract piece actually has some noce motion. I tend to start my compositions a little like that, something like a gesture for the whole page.

[Jazz]

Oh, thank you, DD!! Some parts of her look strange, especially when I tried between freehand and outlining...hard to draw with a green pen. Hee hee! I'll watch myself with the next drawings! Oh, thanks about that other piece!! It's unintentional abstraction...perhaps I should do that more often while my emotions are swimming!

Oops...nothing right now. >_< I spent all week working on a school newspaper picture, but I forgot to scan it last night. SHOOT, now I can't show it to anyone. I'll have to see if the people like it. o_o It's as simple as I could get. Har...

[Jazz]

I had quite a week last week, what with a deadline looming plus my gums aching. Here's what I had to do to progress on that school newspaper thing. Keep in mind the skip: I sort of lost my head for a while, and so I just couldn't DO it. I'm certain many know what that's like, and then when the muse comes there's a day or two left to put it all together!!

How could I neglect my best friend, who totally HELPED me finish my piece?? Her eyes were there and her awesome creativity...I couldn't have finished without her!!! Awesome girl... -_-

First I made some idea sketches of what the scene could look like. When I picked one, I zeroed in on the characters and how they'll pose, where the speech bubbles should be, etc. And...I drew a cat that was in the "Cheer Me Up" section.




























Oh!! There ARE some other October 2 ones! On the Friday deadline I didn't get a chance to scan the finished product. So I just gave it to the people and went to a grand opening!!

People were playing music and standing around...




Today, I lost my mind again, trying to do some copy sketches from a book. Since I couldn't, I made a crap "newdity" type of drawing. I did try fixing up MOST of the issues, but I've been out-of-sorts, as Mom describes. So I didn't care after awhile.

[Jazz]

I tried another page from that Dita book. Messed it up, especially with that red line...but I did get some of her dress down.

[Jazz]

Gee, it's lonely in here! Well, I'll show you what I did today:

Upon kelly_x's suggestion, I did more work on Dita and her dress! Yay!! I left the legs alone, but worked on her lower face, some hair, her shoulders and breasts, and of course, the dress!


I worked on my big weakness: Clothes!! ...I was way too slow. This shouldn't take me hours, but I was occupied with other stuff, too! But even if I wasn't, it would've taken me way too long. Why am I so slow? ;_; They're kinda stiff cuz I'm not even sure how to get the essence of clothes.




Another weakness: butts! But that's fine, I just needed to remind myself how the male figure looked. I think you can tell which ones are references and which are my imagination...but three are mine alone. XD Poor guys! I don't even know what I was trying in the bottom-ish right.

[Jazz]

Last attempt at the Dita pic:



I had to take back the book. Now she doesn't quite look like Dita, but there are more details...more little white ink touches.

[chaosrocks]

your anatomy gets better and better, the dita drawing is kinda fun, but don't agonize over it. when you are sketching you might want to try to use fewer lines and draw them slower adn more deliberately. less frantic adn scratchy. I do that too its a hard habit to break. hehe I draw clothes for a living....

I just got the absolutely coolest reference book, the big Taschen history of lingerie..it is soooo totally fun... goddess Ilove period underwear.

I do notice on your facial proportions you have a tendency to make the eyes too wide, too big, and too high in the head. you might want to just check that placement every time you make a face. because it's pretty consistant. Its more childlike but even in children the features are fairly small on the globe of the skull.
keep[ drawing
hehe do those cards, a great opportunity to practice composition....

[Jazz]

Thanks, chaos!! Oh, I'm done with Dita...at least THAT one. Problem I've been having is that sometimes I need to go over the lines so many times at first. Worse is when I use one eye then the other (my eyes don't work together, unfortunately), and I mess up. So I'm trying to practice making those smooooth lines you mention!! It's hard.

I suck with undersketching right now. But I should've looked closer at the blue pencil. Couldn't even erase it! Bah!

Tee-hee, period undies. :3 Might just be interesting to read.

Hmmm, I seem to have caught a strange habit with the eyes. I can't seem to get them right. First I was working with making the eye look more like a real eye and not a creepy doll one...now I gotta try to get the width right! LOL! Crap!

Guess I'll try more Loomis studies. Hopefully the rest of the face is doing okay. Bah!! XD

Yes, the cards WILL help me with that composition stuff! Hee hee!

[Jazz]

I've worked on more than this over the week or so, I just haven't been able to scan anything else yet. I'll try it this weekend.

But I've been practicing, doing what I can, hating every minute of SOME days because my roller coaster has been sloping downward these past days.

I finished the Dita picture, as best I can. I messed up on some parts, so if I go any further, it'll be totally ruined. I used some skinnier brushes and dabbed white ink around. Totally messed up around her; now there's an ugly yellow "aura". I guess that means the ink is old...or the paper is more blue, iunno...


This isn't a DRAWING, but I used my hands and carved my first pumpkin! ^_^ Or my first good looking one. Hee hee! I see my hands aren't as shaky as they used to be, and I'm not as scared to risk my fingers with a little blade. Hooray!! This much closer to DRIVING!! ...I'll hold my breath.

[Jazz]

Ahhhhh!! Now I got to put up my stuff! To tell the truth, I feel like all I'm filled with are outlines. Sheesh!! But there's some colouring I'm supposed to do, and I can't just DO it like I feel!!

These are from the weeks that I forgot to put anything up.

A still life!! ...I sometimes manage one every several months, but I want to do more stuff. But for more...vast scenery...


Practice on someone's character yet again! I can't get it right!


I tried at least to practice St. Alia (of the Knife) faces. There are more below! I just like drawing little kid faces. XD


Woman face practice; then man face practice. I need more man practice.




...Don't ask. XD I do like the gestures...






When I got my teeth moved, I was droolly and stuff. I'm surprised I felt up to doing that!


Ummmm...failed attempt of a self-portrait from imagination. I can safely say that does NOT look like me. So it's not me!! O_O


Some sphere shading practice!


Tone practice...VERY hard going from dark to light; not that light-to-dark was easy.


I was happy that day, and drew a funny contoured shape...in which a freaky worm-headed guy howled out a happy tune through. Yet, right from the heart.

[Sorknes]

Your fluid ones with stylized movement are really great, and there's a lot of improvement on both the faces and the body here, keep going!

Some more work on the build up of a head would probably help you out with the eyes thing though? The ones you did earlier of that was pretty good.

[Bowlin]

Keep at those figure drawing studies. At posematics, it might help to draw them at different sizes also. Drawing them very large with bigger marks and more detail takes more time.

[Jazz]

*gasp* Yay, comments!! ;_; *skips* ^___^ Thanks, guys!!

Sorknes, do you mean like the Loomis practice that I've lazily neglected to do? Yeah, I totally need to work on that. As it is, I've been only working from imagination lately. I'd better do refs again because my mind obviously mutates the piece. LOL! Thanks muchly about the movement! I can keep building on that method! ^___^

Bowlin, true about varying the sizes! Thanks!! I've been thinking about that, actually! You read my mind! I'm going to try and draw smaller, quicker gestures from Posemaniacs and other places. I guess I got myself used to those HUGE scaled gestures like some people are used to small ones. o_O

[kelly x]

Jazzy!!! I love this self portrait!! so dark and creepy -- you are anything but dark or creepy!!! But, very cool and I don't know why but this port is rockin' !!!! your friend Kelly x

[Jazz]

Thank you, Kelly!! I really appreciate your comments!! ^__^

---

I pondered this in another post, but again I'm wondering why I feel low as I do about what I'm accomplishing. I mean...it's all a mess these days. My brain is scrambled. So...I did do practices, and I have more to show but I gotta head to church.

For now, what I know is that the third-last pic (Shatare) is hideous, but I'm showing it to explain that this was the moment that I realized I'm in desperate need of some guidance. This is terrible! I was already drawing on a strange angle, sort of a "perspective" angle away from me. No wonder I'm having troubles with head-to-body!! But also, I do need face help and I do need just...something that I possibly lost.

Well, I guess I may never get a mentor, but I really can't seem to figure this crap out by myself yet. o_O At least the gestures are doing good so far! Now to put them in fleshed-out form and make some scenes!





















This was more me feeling strange. My older bro's b-day, younger brother getting wisdom teeth out, me going to find out whether I should bother studying in Texas yet, then stumbling upon an accident where a woman got hit by a dump truck...not long before I arrived, either. I didn't draw HER or anything, just how I felt.

[Jazz]

Here's more stuff! Lots of practice, or at least it felt like it, with the way I was feelin' this week.









I was attempting to make a little something for that CHOW: Goblin Gunslinger. I can't draw a gun though. Pfft. >_< Anyway, I couldn't get it in on time so I'm just trying to get as far as possible.




I actually worked with my pen nibs! ...It's not easy, STILL. Oh, and brush pen. I didn't work with brushes because I just can't ink with brushes. I can't. My hand is way too shaky. I could TRY later though. See if it helps. But now I understand that I've been inking funny all this time, having my nib upside-down and all.

[kelly x]

Jazz, these new fluid lines of yours are going to make you a super star!! I love them more confident, cooler, sketchy and just plain neeto!!!

[dierat]

I really like the second-to-last img, of the standing girl. That clean but still fluid and impromptu look works really well. Perhaps you should consideri sketching in pencil to figure out your forms, then drawing over with pen and erasing your original lines. Not like inking but just doing your first lines in pencil so to avoid unnecessary lines that you don't want to keep. I also like the pencil drawing, third from the top. Keep up the good work!

[Jazz]

Thank you, Kelly! I do love those fluid lines, so I hope I can keep up with them! ^___^ Working this way really helps my hands feel good!

Thanks, dierat!! Yeah, I gotta get back to pencil sketching. I've been out, so I just pull out whatever I have on hand, but I need to figure out how lightly to draw with the pencil before I get back to drawing that way (I used to do it but made such a mess! >_< )

[scottmcd]

You're doing really well - keep at it. My recent favorites are the worm-headed guy singing, the portrait, and the shaded figure work. You're getting really good with the whole volume thing.

Are you able to get to any life drawing? There are high-school students that come to the sessions I attend, but I live near Wash. DC and can find sessions. I think they would help. I also really like the Burne Hogarth books - they've helped me more than Bridgman, though that might reflect more on me than on the books.

If you find yourself having trouble getting a mentor, you might go in with some friends or other CA folks on setting up a private critique blog. You could even take turns setting up assignments or such.

Have fun!

[Jazz]

Hey, Scott! Thanks a bunch for the comments and suggestions! I can't attend figure drawing unless I have enough money. Unfortunately, right now I have to use my money for other stuff. Ah well, maybe later. ^_^

As for the mentoring, I don't actually have pals that are so into sketching stuff. CA pals, that might be a little more likely...a bit. But right now I won't worry myself because I won't be here for a good while. Yay for vacations!

---

Though...now I realize I have no purpose for being around here, that I'm putting stuff up with no set goal. Maybe that's why I don't feel so motivated to show anything. My glass is half-empty with this sketchbook...but I should continue, no matter how futile it seems. -_-

I'll try and get a couple things up that I did, but I didn't do much.