MeTaL-Mikes's Sketchbook

[SEVANS]

Some very cool updates.
Love seeing all the quicker body language/poses studies. Very cool idea.

[Nettle_Mountain]

Do you make all your studies from posemaniacs or from mind or what? you might have told this in your post but in that option i have been bit tired...

anyway looking ghood, any tips or link how to "think" about pose drawing?

[MeTaL-Mike]

SEVANS - Thanks a lot
Nettle_Mountain - i sometimes do stuff from ref and sometimes from imagination. I've used posemaniacs a couple of times before but i usually use pictures i download from the internet. I've setup a gestures reference folder on my computer calles Full Body. every picture i come across on the internet that shows a full body of a chick, dude, animal, alien or whatever i save to that folder and when it comes time to draw some gestures i just open the first one in the folder and draw it. I try to just have a look at the picture and draw the pose as much as possible from my head and use the ref for checking.
Copying the photo won't do you much good (i found after doing a million of these ). Using reference is OK but you have to analyze and thing when drawing. Anyhow, i delete the photo's i've drawn already so i don't do that one again. that way my folder always has new gestures for me.

Do anatomy studies. take some anatomy books and draw from them. learn where the muscles are and how they look like. I still need to do a lot of anatomy studies, it's been a while.

as to drawing from your head. That's difficult. i'm always faced with the fact that i can't seem to come up with nice poses when drawing from imagination. try starting with big shapes. I sometimes start with the head and try to continue from there. sometimes i'll draw an "S" curve and first mark the hips and shoulders with a line. it's always different and therefore very difficult to explain (especially when you're still a news like moi).

I'm experimenting with doing characters and gestures in a different way at the moment. I'm gonna make a video of the process soon so check back soon.

Here's a quick sketch from yesterday. about 10 minutes work or something. Kind of like it so decided to use it as my new avatar.

[Jabo]

Man, those poses on the last page are awesome, hands down. Your level of patience is worthwile. I want some!

[Nettle_Mountain]

Thanks for the reply, your answer was iron itself. Gotta try that method!

[MeTaL-Mike]

Jabo - hahaha, thanks man.
Nettle_Mountain - glad i could help

[Quinn Simoes]

Great updates! really nice to see the anatomy studies.

Quinn

[MeTaL-Mike]

Quinn Simoes- Thanks man.

some quick sketches in PS.

I've been doing some tutorials from the 2D Artist magazine. This is the one about cloth from issue 3 i think it was.




This is from the Tree tutorials from issue 2.





Bought all of those issues for the tutorials but never actually did any of them. so i guess i'll be doing them nog and see what i can learn from them.

Here's some stuff i've been fooling around with.

[MeTaL-Mike]

ok some more stuff i've been doodling around today.







Here are some more gestures and the optional study "Leather"

[MeTaL-Mike]

OK. here's the stuff i produced at the German sketch meet. I tell yah, if you every get the chance to be a part of something like that, don't hesitate!!! it's awesome!!! the people are so amazingly enthousiastic at something like that, really cool. I drew stuff i never did before and didn't even know i knew (for my standards ). check it out.

[MeTaL-Mike]

and some more sketchies i did last week on a biz trip. not much though.

[Jabo]

Man, shows you were really drawing all the time you were there I dig your life drawings, nice strokes, man. Favorite on this page is the b/w jacket study. Keep rocking!

[MeTaL-Mike]

Jabo - thanks man.

here's a quicky from today.

[MeTaL-Mike]

some more stuff.

[MrBobMarley]

Nice sb man. Late reply heheh. I'm liking the gestures....looks like a good exercise for the mind. The mustang says thanks btw haha.

[MeTaL-Mike]

MrBobMarley - cool man, better late than never hope the mustang's driving nice. I'm gonna get me one of those one day too. that is when i win the lottery or rob a bank or something

some more sketches.

[Lakka]

The stylized skull you posted yesterday = really cool.

You're getting better and better, keep up the good and hard work, it certainly will keep paying off

[MeTaL-Mike]

Lakka - Thanks. skulls rock

today's sketches. eyes most from imagination.

[MeTaL-Mike]

some more stuff

[MeTaL-Mike]

and some more

[fantasyartist]

Hey Mike how are you doing? I'm swen from the cgtalk forums. I hope you still remember me. I didn't know you had a sketchbook here mate. Your shading seems to be getting better. Your line quality is still suffering here and there though. Try using longer, gestural lines. Just feel the flow of what your drawing. Try using more curvy lines for the limbs. Those straight lines are making them look really stiff. Maybe look at a book on animation to give more life and character to your characters. The same goes for your brushtrokes. Make them longer and fluid. Pretend that the form is already there and you just have to go with your brush over it to make it visible, really feeling the surface of the form. I'll keep droppin' in here often to check your work so make sure you keep posting! Laters.

[MeTaL-Mike]

Ok here's some more stuff.



Here's something i started yesterday. hopefully i'll finish it

[fantasyartist]

Those last sketches are looking great. I can see a little improvement in the lines already. Bad line quality really kills your drawing. It's like singing a nice song with an ugly voice, so keep working on that.

[hmanafi]

wow,this page is really inspiring,i like your stuff.but the best thing that i saw here was your dedication to art and practice.i hope that i can be like you in near future.and i have a critique too and that is your line quality,i don't know ho you should improve it because i also have this problem in a harder form.
the soldier in this image is great,do more of them and the skull in #153 rules

[MeTaL-Mike]

Thanks a lot guys, appreciate it.


here's a quick one from tonite. i finally got time to sit behind my computer for a change and do some drawing. it's been a while.

[Niva.]

Wow you're improving quick and the studies are definitely paying off! I really like the eyes in 168 and the cloth study from above, in case you don't know here is the link to the artist who made that cloth tutorial, she's very inspiring:

http://www.tascha.ch/

[MeTaL-Mike]

n1va - Thanks a lot man appreciate it. I've seen her website, she's got some brilliant skills alright!!

more life drawing

[MeTaL-Mike]

finished this one yesterday, have to do more inking, totally suck at it.

[Bones Weep Tedium]

Cool skecthbook. Just went through it from the beginning, and the poses and studies that you do are immense. Really clear progression from first page to last.

A couple of my favourites so far have been the painted studies of torsos - there was a t-shirt a while back and a black leather jacket on this page. Really excellent studies, am anxious to see more and more paintings in this thread as time goes on.

[MeTaL-Mike]

Bones Weep Tedium - Thanks a lot for the nice words. I'm doing my best to do this as much as possible.

here's todays