MeTaL-Mikes's Sketchbook

**staticpen** · January 14th, 2009, 03:09 PM

hey! Those charcoal bits are pretty good, man, especially the add copy. What sort of charcoal are you using? Techniques for getting line clarity and things of that nature vary depending on the sort of charcoal you have.

But that painting, dude, that's pretty rad. I had no idea you had real paint laying around. And you're so good at it! More, please?

**MeTaL-Mike** · January 14th, 2009, 04:15 PM

My57 - I know i fucked her up. noticed to late and was too lazy to fix it

staticpen - thanks man. i'm like using the cheapest out there. I got some thin charcoal sticks i bought like a million years ago on a holiday in Czech rebublic. no brand on them so....
Further until now i was using a charcoal pencil from DERWENT. i have them i three grades. light, medium and dark. i was using the medium until now with the czech sticks for the very dark places. I also have a peal off charcoal pencil "Prang" is the brand on it...i have a bunch of this stuff, laying around for years. I thought i would be time to experiment some more this year with different mediums and make some (kinda) finished work

i started tiding up the creature concept. I hope i'll be able to finish her up tomorrow as i'm sick all week so i have time for some more drawing than usual

**staticpen** · January 16th, 2009, 03:10 PM

Looks good, mike. The brush work on the less finished areas actually looks like real paint... I like that semi-finished look though, so that's just me.

About charcoal - it sounds like you've got a bunch of charcoal pencils and some compressed charcoal sticks. I'm not too schooled on all the brands, but I don't know if they matter that much anyway. I use a bunch of old vine charcoal sticks from my uncle's drawer. haha, they've got to be like 30 years old. They work fine though.
But what I was getting at was not precisely the brand, but the type. Vine handles differently than compressed, than pencils, etc. Are your Czech sticks rectangular and super dark? I don't want to just spew out a bunch of stuff you already know about charcoal, but I don't get online very often, so just in case, I'll write stuff while I'm here: for all types of charcoal, sanding the tips with sandpaper is a good idea to get more options with your line. You can also make thin lines by drawing with vine charcoal on its side. Not broadside, obviously (:p) but with the stick moving long-ways.

Looking forward to my next visit!

**PeNcIl ReBeLlIoN** · January 16th, 2009, 06:55 PM

Nice stuff here man, some of those charcoal ones are really on the money. Not much advise I can give, cos you're giving everything a go by the looks of things

Thanks for droppin by

**MeTaL-Mike** · January 18th, 2009, 09:44 AM

staticpen - Thanks for the info dude. i didn't know that. Like i said i want to experiment sore with different stuff so any tips or info is very welcome

PeNcIl ReBeLlIoN - Thanks a lot appreciate it.

Ok. so i've been working on the creatre thing some more. I think it became kind of cool.

**revenebo** · January 18th, 2009, 10:22 AM

Awesome improvement both in digital stuff and sketches!!! Keep up!

**MeTaL-Mike** · January 19th, 2009, 05:19 PM

revenebo - THX dude

quick update

**staticpen** · January 19th, 2009, 05:36 PM

Ah, great job on the octopus lady, dude! The lighting came out really well, and I like that you didn't overdo the texture in the background. Good show of taste, sir. It's often what we don't draw that makes the difference, hey?
And again, the landscape hatching is just super neat. ;D Awesome job.

**Mischeviouslittleelf** · January 19th, 2009, 05:46 PM

Hey Mike. Good stuff going on in here, but there is still room for improvement. I was gonna do this the easy way, and tell you you're doing good, but instead I am gonna bust your balls and say that there is plenty to be done here. You need more anatomy studies, that is what you are weakest at, and also I think some colours would do your digi stuff a world of good. Keep it in mind at least

-E

**MeTaL-Mike** · January 21st, 2009, 04:24 PM

staticpen - thanks man

Mischeviouslittleelf - Thanks. That's the kind of crits i need

Ok so i started doing gestures again. Have to work on those. so here's some sketches and a painting i just finished. hope you like it.

**Zergaloth** · January 21st, 2009, 11:28 PM

digging up the old porn folder, are we?
anyway, still some work on those gestures. try making it four pages instead of just two. i'll try and keep up with you.

something wrong with the perspective on the fruit-basket. we see too much of the upper side to be seeing that much of the side. very good job on the colors of the fruit though - especially on the mandarin.

**staticpen** · January 23rd, 2009, 01:56 PM

Haha, it's true, some of those poses look like they come from rather provocative references. XD I actually think most of your gesture drawings look better than your more finished figures. I think what could be happening is something that I have to fight against myself, and that's focusing on the details more than the structure. If you get the structure wrong, no amount of details are going to make your drawing prettier. It helps to make a conscious effort to literally sit back and take a look at the drawing as a whole from time to time, to make sure your relationships are in order. Always be comparing the angle and length of one line to those that are around it.The painting is snappy, dude! Great job. Zerg here is right, though, the top of the pot is not in perspective with the cylinder underneath. That sort of thing can be really tough... I just spent nearly a whole page drawing the same chair over and over last night trying to get the legs aligned with the seat! But what I think makes this painting sail despite the perspective issue is your value distribution, man. Your values are pretty good, which is very difficult to do when working in color.
Keep it up!

**MeTaL-Mike** · January 25th, 2009, 03:06 PM

Zergaloth - yeah. i've got many, many pictures of some very lovely ladies that i've collected during my journeys on the internet. I try to have some males in there as well but i find them less interesting

the perspective is being thrown off by the bottom side of the pot. The composition was looked at from above but i fucked up the lower part.

staticpen - i mainly have them from porn websites so they may be a bit provocative. Sorry if that offends you buddy....not the intention here. I do agree about those quick drawings being better then most of the drawings i try to spend more time one. it's really difficult to keep the whole picture in mind. hope to improve on that.

here's some more gestures, not much really.

**staticpen** · January 25th, 2009, 05:55 PM

Don't worry, I'm not bothered by the drawings. I do notice that you draw at a lot of different sizes on the page. Doing all this life drawing these days, I really started paying attention to the scale of the figure as a means to be quick about the sketch. A quick sketch that's bigger than the amount of time you have before the person moves means it looks sloppier, where as if the person is being really still and you've started a tiny drawing, all of the details get muddied because you have too many of them. I guess that's a really confusing way to say that I found out that I have a 'sweet spot' when it comes to figure size, where I can get a good and clean gesture without it being either sloppy or boring. The line lengths just come naturally. You might try experimenting with specific sizes when copying figures and see if a particular scale suits your habits best.
Anyway, I'm only saying this because the sizes of the figures at the top left of page 2 and the top of page 4 seem to work really well for you. You hit the proportions really well and your poses seem like they transferred really well from the reference.

Have a good one!

**Defiled** · January 25th, 2009, 06:24 PM

you are on a roll with those figure gestures.

check out Jeremy Lipking if you don't know him, and Richard Schmidt's color pallet. Your oil painting with sky rocket while your drawing abilities are doing the same. Alla Prima is the best painting book ever invented.

I dunno if thats over-told advice on here or not, don't mind me if it is.

**staticpen** · January 26th, 2009, 02:48 PM

It's true, Lipking and Schmidt are beasts... I also have a friend who recently bought Alla Prima (by Schmidt) and is very happy with it. So here's two (if in a disjointed fashion) who recommend the book! :p

**My57** · January 26th, 2009, 08:09 PM

hey nice figure study, look nice and have a pretty good pose ^_^

**VirgL** · January 26th, 2009, 08:22 PM

really nice charcoal on page 10, and your figures are pretty nice, keep working man !

**MeTaL-Mike** · January 27th, 2009, 05:08 PM

staticpen - you're right about that. something to think about when drawing

Defiled - thanks. I know these two artists. Schmidt is one of my favorites. He's portrait painting are fucking amazing. Will buy that book too but it's kind of expensive right now.
My57 - Thanks
WhiteC - thanks, will try to do more of these.

I think i need to try out some different kinds of paper as well. I've been using these sheets i got from somebody but somehow it's difficult to erase from them. anyway, here's another charcoal drawing, totally not happy about the hair. we'll do better next time.

**staticpen** · January 29th, 2009, 02:20 PM

Nice charcoal, man. It's true, the hair is a bit funky, and the shoulder on the left appears wider than the other because of the lack of an edge and the angle the line stating her outer arm is taking on the way up. But the value gradation you made at the bottom of the image is really well done, and I like the scratching down there as well.

Have a good one!

**MeTaL-Mike** · February 1st, 2009, 05:39 AM

staticpen - Thanks man.

Some doodles from last few days. My line work really fucking sucks. In stead of going for "less is more" i always put a lot of useless fucking stuff in there and "NEED" to go over a single line like 20 times. That is really messed up.

**staticpen** · February 2nd, 2009, 03:55 PM

Yeah, it can be tough to get away from drawing that 'sketchy' stuff when you do line work. Something you often see seasoned artists do is wave their pen over the page a few times, visualizing the line they want to make. When they find it, then they put the ink to the paper. It helps to minimize uncertainty in the drawing.

**MeTaL-Mike** · February 4th, 2009, 07:22 AM

staticpen - yeah. have to work on that

here's some more stuff. Also doing the arms tutorial from Imagine fx. It's pretty cool.

**fantasyartist** · February 4th, 2009, 08:22 AM

Hey Mike how are you doing friend? I can see some good progress in your stuff. The line quality is getting better. You have to become more confident with it though. I think the thing that's holding you back is that you're not focusing enough on the construction of your forms. You really need to feel the forms all around. Draw section lines in critical places such as joints to avoid some weird looks. This is very critical for heads. Build up your drawings using simple, solid forms to start with and then build up from there. I don't know if you're familiar with Glenn Vilppu's stuff. Get his manual if you can. It has helped me a great deal in making my drawings feel 3dimensional. Keep up the hard work mate!

**voxmortem** · February 4th, 2009, 08:29 AM

figure and face studies are great, large effort imo and ull profit on it, damn u already are

**Zergaloth** · February 4th, 2009, 08:38 AM

nice work in the last update!
loving the linework and rendering in the most of them. make sure it feels good. you used crosshatching once, but it's really hard to put use that in a correct spot.

also - are you comfortable with the size of your sketchbook? i get the feeling you leave things out or unfinished and your drawings sometimes get really cluttered (which is of course also because of your sketchy lines). it might be liberating to try a bigger sheet of paper. to me it was a really eye-opener how much better some drawings looked because you get the space to work on every detail. a pupil could be more than just a dot, and nostril more than a little speck of black. ah well, you should always pick what you're most comfortable with - but it's not always bad to step outside of the safe zone once in while.

what is the brush you're using in the grinning man painting, second from last in the latest update? i've been looking for something like that.

**MeTaL-Mike** · February 6th, 2009, 03:08 PM

fantasyartist - yeah i'm good man. Looking for a job at the moment. thanks for the tips on Vilppu's manual. I'll see if i can download it somewhere

voxmortem -

Thanks
Zergaloth - I draw in a b5 size sb i think. i just bought a different one cause this one is almost full. the other one is a bit thinner

. The think is that i'm very used to drawing small by now. Even if i take an A4 sheet of paper i'll be drawing small cause i automatically try to put as much different things on one sheet of paper as possible

I'll be experimenting some more , Thanks.

Here's some more stuff.

**polydrawer** · February 6th, 2009, 05:59 PM

nice updates mike
keep doing these studies they're really helping , maybe also try painting some figures and portraits from reference

keep it up

**jedininjaman** · February 6th, 2009, 06:11 PM

gestures look nice
one thing though try to avoid going into "default" drawing mode when you do your character proportions, because a lot of the chicks yo draw without ref look very similar
but ya keep it up man you are improving
-jedi

**Zergaloth** · February 6th, 2009, 09:24 PM

Originally Posted by MeTaL-Mike

The think is that i'm very used to drawing small by now. Even if i take an A4 sheet of paper i'll be drawing small cause i automatically try to put as much different things on one sheet of paper as possible

That's exactly what i meant when i said 'getting out of the safe zone'. I really don't know how it works or if there is an explanation for it - but when you try to draw things bigger, you learn a lot of new things, or turn up with some amazing goodlooking results. it's funny, because my model-drawing teachers gave me the same advice only last week. if you feel like you're stuck, like it's not doing anything for you, just take a bigger sheet of paper once in while. i think the main thing it does, is making the way you draw more loose. your small drawings will benefit from that as well... that's what they told me

nice pose studies in the last update. try to take the things you learn from those and put them into your non-ref work. take out the sharp angles when drawing faces, it's what makes them look so unreal sometimes. there's no sharp angles anywhere on the human body i think.