Miles' sketchbook- D:

[Miles_]

I'm Miles Johnston. This sketchbook shows my progress from early 2007, at age 14, to whatever date it is now. I plan on keeping this going for as long as possible really. Skip to the last page please. The first page is bloody old.

[alesoun]

Miles, I can't advise you on digital art; can't do it myself (never tried) but, for 14, you aren't bad at all. Keep looking, keep thinking, and keep drawing....

[Roxas]

Nice anatomy work, i like the mech arm guy myself. I would definately advise splashing out a little and buying some decent software, maybe even flash so we can see some animation from you.

[Miles_]

All unreferenced except the street fighter and the anatomy ones.

anway here are a few recent sketches i thought worthy of uploading. may be oversized.

The first one is just some pretty generic soldier thing.

The most recent one is the guy with the mechanical arm which I drew tonight (he is also easily the best one I rekon).

The fighter guy was the start of a project I never finished in which I wanted to make a set of designs for an imaginary fighting game, but I never did more than one. Its also drawn really lightly.(and its got a bloodstain on it)

The spartan has some anatomy issues with his legs an hips.

Also there are a couple of anatomy studies I did a while back. The forearm ones arm awful, way too short and blurry, but still i need page filler.

[DeJakhalz]

Nice start! I would advice some more muscle anatomy though to learn more bout proportions too. lets use your last sketch as example: the body has little weird probs like a very small right upper arm.

Just keep doing anatomy studies and you will improve FAST.

[devbot]

for a fourteen year old your very good dude. but i agree with what DeJakhalz said, work on anatomy and muscle structures, im 15 and its improving my drawings after a few days of learning.

just keep drawing and drawing, no maatttteerrr WHAT

[Miles_]

So today I got photoshop elements with my new laptop (yay), so here is some drawing I did this morning and my first attempts at colouring it. I'll keep posting my progress as it happens..

Miles.

[wsp85]

hmmm do you spend much time on your art? because your pretty good and have awesome potential, looks like all you do is draw lol. keep it up!

[Miles_]

um, thank you wsp85, but unless that was sarcasm, no I don't spend nearly as much time as I should do drawing. I'm always too lazy. I really should though.

[RandAlThor]

Nice work for a fourteen year old, wish i was drawing like this 15 yrs ago ;-) keep it up dude..

[Zombie_dla]

Really good start for your age. I would say you need to work some on perspecive aswell as anatomy. Try to do some studies like that every day and you'll improve really fast. Don't let all that potential go to waste Keep it up!

[Miles_]

Thank you very much RandAlThor. In fifteen years time I'd love to be a concept artist in my spare time. Would be a dream job.

Zombie: I really should do studies everyday but its kinda hard to keep yourself motivated to doing them when you find them boring, well sort of. I'll try anyway to study more, my laptop basically now gives me a portable source of unlimited references so studies should be no problem.


More progress on the drawing. I'm just blocking in colour for a lot of the picture and moved the head up. Progress is kinda slow cos I'm still getting to grips with the program.

[Miles_]

Um...more progress.

[Qxzi]

hey,

im very very surprised from where you live first of all, get to that soon. its great to see you start a sketchbook at 14. I started my sketchbook at 14, or maybe 15, i cant remember, but trust me its worth it, if you put the work in. Good start, keep on going with the studies and imaginational drawings. Try some still lifes, like a pair of apples or bananas and keep on doing them ( not just apples or bananas, anything, i mean anything), thats what i did anyway, and it helped me alot. I cant really believe you live in fleet, when i first saw i was . I live quite near Basingstoke, in a village called odiham, heard of it? As i have never seen someone on here as close as that!

Qxzi

[Miles_]

wow, really. Why would I have not heard of Odiham? its like 15 minutes away. I'll comment on your sketchbook tommorow but right now I'm gonna go get some sleep.

cheers for the reply.

[Miles_]

Here is my final version of the man. I could spend more time on it but its not worth it for something that was really me starting to get to grips with photoshop.

[Miles_]

Um some stuff for today.

The digital one is the start of me screwing around on photoshop. I'm trying to start something from scratch rather than colouring a pencil drawing.

The others are some hands I drew in Geography in school today. We had this drama teacher covering the lesson who didn't really care about me drawing.

[Miles_]

Just looking at that shows me why I need to practice. The one titled hand, is crap now I look at it again.

[silvestri99]

Great work. It looks like your faces and proportions need work but the rest looks good. Keep it up, just draw draw draw!

[Miles_]

Thank you very much silvestri99. Yeah about the faces I always feel my characters sort of lack real character and its becuase the faces look a bit funny. An when they look bad I always end up giving them some mask or somthing that covers thefeatures I don't like drawing. I think I'm gonna do a self portrait some time soon to help with drawing faces. About the proportions, yeah on the last figure that I painted fully his left upper arm is waaay to long and his hand would probably reach his knee, which is wrong, so yeah. I'll keep drawing.

[Miles_]

Yeah I decided to do a self portrait but it was way too late at night so it turned out kinda strange. It does look like me though so I guess that makes it a success. Oh the other three faces were quickly copied out of a biking magazine (MBUK).

Miles.

[Piranha Clan]

Only 14? Pretty good, mate. Keep it up with the anatomy studies, those look good. If you stick with them it will pay huge dividends in the future. Plenty of life drawing while not neglecting your imagination. I would say work more traditional than digital for now though. Learn the basics of traditional drawing first, then move on. Do both and stay with it! You have massive potential. Good luck.

[Miles_]

Cheers Piranha, Im gonna do some more anatomy tonight. I'm trying to up this sketchbook to a daily update if possible. With the digital aspect of art, while I'm trying to do more traditional, I still want to use photoshop as not to waste the money spent on the software. Plus at the moment anything I colour in photoshop will probably have to be drawn first with pencils. For now though here is a quick pencil line art of some guy with a cool sword. I was trying to go with something a little less conventional with the weapon and just kept on expanding the hilt and blade of this sword and this is how it ended up...



The only thing I don't like is that some of the proportions are a tad off and that he looks a bit pixie-ish if you know what I mean.

Miles.

[Miles_]

Here is another self portrait but this one is based on a photo which is about a month old. I used it becuase I had a different expression, i.e. a smile. Also I was wearing a strange hat and my hair was slightly shorter, and all in all I looked completely different.

Maybe some anatomy later...maybe...

[thirdeye]

Hey man, thanks for visitng the studies were based on various resources. I can't remember exactly but I think that the ones on first page were partly from Loomis books, partly from photo refs. Just a combo of various refs. But the source really doesn't matter that much, you just have to use what you find the way it fits you.

[Miles_]

Yeah, no problem, I'm gonna keep an eye on your sketchbook becuase it is really cool. I just wanted to know becuase I need to do some antatomy studies and yours looked really nice. Loomis eh? I'll look it up.

[yanino]

keep drawing and post more ! You are young!

[Looped_Warrior]

Wow! 14 years old and going strong... Keep it up! I suggest doing as many anatomy studies now as you possibly can so you can soak up all the information... learn as many different techniques as possible and dont be afraid to try something new!...

[Miles_]

Cheers yanino and Looped warrior. I'm gonna do some anatomy studies tonight. I think...Okay I'll make myself do some.

Until later.

Miles.

[Miles_]

My internet was down yesterday so I couldn't post this anatomy study. I'll probably post more for today later. Any days without art posted are probably cuased by my unreliable internet. For now though, here are the three main states of the bicep.