DESQUOLOR's sketchbook -- journey to mastery

[DESQUOLOR]

value study wip- having a ton of fun painting!! :D will finish in a bit. blending feels a little more comfortable. values are hard as shit tho :>

[Fedodika]

Did some quick edge work on it, fixed the way the eyes are looking, blended and softened a lot of stuff. Asian type women (IMO) have smooth bright skin and having a reflective nose just makes the skin look oily. It may work better on darker ethnic types. A good tip for the eye lay in is to remember the upper lid casts a shadow, and lay in a blob for the pupil with a super soft brush and sculpt it in like the side of a pencil.

 Also never indicate eyelashes like that, it looks like a doll, when you see someones eyelashes they all blur together in clumps and you can see the individual strands, go for a soft edge on that. The chin was also jutting out really far, try to make a womans face rounder if you can, as ive drawn lots of caricatures of women and they never react well when i give them a long chin or jawline, even if they actually have that!

[DESQUOLOR]

Did some quick edge work on it, fixed the way the eyes are looking, blended and softened a lot of stuff. Asian type women (IMO) have smooth bright skin and having a reflective nose just makes the skin look oily. It may work better on darker ethnic types. A good tip for the eye lay in is to remember the upper lid casts a shadow, and lay in a blob for the pupil with a super soft brush and sculpt it in like the side of a pencil.

 Also never indicate eyelashes like that, it looks like a doll, when you see someones eyelashes they all blur together in clumps and you can see the individual strands, go for a soft edge on that. The chin was also jutting out really far, try to make a womans face rounder if you can, as ive drawn lots of caricatures of women and they never react well when i give them a long chin or jawline, even if they actually have that!

Whoa, I'm blown away. Thanks so much for taking the time to not only fix the painting, but to give me an in-depth critique. Honestly, your fix looks so much better... wtf.  I'm glad you pointed these details out. I definitely knew something was up, but couldn't really pinpoint it well. I'll work on capturing the softness much better (and avoiding the jutting chin and doll eyes LOL). You included a lot of great tips. Thank you so much, Fedodika!!

Please don't hesitate to point out any obvious mistakes like this if you see them again! <3

[DESQUOLOR]

I wanted to keep going with some proko anatomy, figures, and a portrait value study, but I really need to sleep tonight since I'm on 2 hours. I've actually just been way too excited to study and it's been keeping me awake.

[Fedodika]

i see youve tried a tough pose for the foreshortening; See once you've done that you gotta find a pose from reference to see what you could do better, try DAZ3D studio, its a free program that has a poseable figure with decent anatomy. It's not perfect but it is an amazing tool to have at any stage ;)

[DESQUOLOR]

i see youve tried a tough pose for the foreshortening; See once you've done that you gotta find a pose from reference to see what you could do better, try DAZ3D studio, its a free program that has a poseable figure with decent anatomy. It's not perfect but it is an amazing tool to have at any stage ;)

Thanks fed! I downloaded the program :D


--

Studies of the day~! I'm so slow ;-; I wanna do some figures and proko before I sleep though. I feel like I'm not progressing if I don't draw figures every day.

[ThereIsNoJustice]

Hey, DESQUOLOR. Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook, thought I'd return the favor.

A few things to try/think about:

Right now what you're doing w/ hair in the portraits could still be simplified more. Possibly this is only due to time restraints or not taking these images to a total finish, but just in case. Decide before hand if you're doing a study where you're copying the reference image or if you're doing it more as an artist, in which case you design, not copy. Artist is to reference/reality/imagination as a chef is to raw meat. We're 'preparing' what we see, alter it to fit our needs. Check out Proko's vid on hair. And check out this guy's portraits, see how design can be pushed: https://funkymonkey1945.deviantart.com/g...?catpath=/

You have a note on your image to use forms, but I'm not sure you've unlocked the sense that drawing is a 3D modeling program yet. I have taken breaks from drawing and come back, gained and lost this sense repeatedly. What I do to get it back is to draw boxes and shapes in space a ton, both from reference and without, until it just clicks, and suddenly looking at a blank page is like looking into space. Maybe this will work for you. Here's the type of thing I would draw, and then try to do the same without ref: https://i.imgur.com/huS2TA2.png

Could also be good to simply draw cubes in a circle, that kind of deal. Anyway, hope there's something useful there!

[Leonard]

dude.. you re improving so fast, keep at it!

[DESQUOLOR]

Hey, DESQUOLOR. Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook, thought I'd return the favor.

A few things to try/think about:

Right now what you're doing w/ hair in the portraits could still be simplified more. Possibly this is only due to time restraints or not taking these images to a total finish, but just in case. Decide before hand if you're doing a study where you're copying the reference image or if you're doing it more as an artist, in which case you design, not copy. Artist is to reference/reality/imagination as a chef is to raw meat. We're 'preparing' what we see, alter it to fit our needs. Check out Proko's vid on hair. And check out this guy's portraits, see how design can be pushed: https://funkymonkey1945.deviantart.com/g...?catpath=/

You have a note on your image to use forms, but I'm not sure you've unlocked the sense that drawing is a 3D modeling program yet. I have taken breaks from drawing and come back, gained and lost this sense repeatedly. What I do to get it back is to draw boxes and shapes in space a ton, both from reference and without, until it just clicks, and suddenly looking at a blank page is like looking into space. Maybe this will work for you. Here's the type of thing I would draw, and then try to do the same without ref: https://i.imgur.com/huS2TA2.png

Could also be good to simply draw cubes in a circle, that kind of deal. Anyway, hope there's something useful there!

ThereIsNoJustice -- Awesome critique bud! You're completely right about that. I think for now I'm just trying to get as much out of rendering and constructing as I can. I'm gunna try to add cube rotating into my daily exercise routine. For my next value study, I'm going to focus more on the hair too!! I'll watch proko's vid tomorrow for my value study. Cheers bro!! it definitely was useful.

Leonard - <333 ;-; you flatter me.

-- 

must revisit these exercises to crush them >:( portrait is for tomorrow's value study. need to sleep :p

[DESQUOLOR]

finished it. time to study figures/anatomy/form \o/

[Fedodika]

i think your edges are getting better, she has a really big nose and lips, is that how big they are in the reference?

[DESQUOLOR]

i think your edges are getting better, she has a really big nose and lips, is that how big they are in the reference?

thank you bro!! I'll post the reference for comparison. I've been trying really hard to alleviate it, but I could've subconsciously enlarged them still.

[Fedodika]

I think youre in the ballpark dude, just watch the width of the head, like on the far right is yours the middle is my tweaks. my changes could be considered subtle, like the shape of one eye is more angular where it comes in, the nostril holes are smaller, the head is narrower and more ovular. and always try to find places to break straight and curved lines like in hair flow, big, medium, small is a great design principle to hold to in anything :)

[DESQUOLOR]

@fed -- much appreciated as always! I'll do my best to correct those problem areas in the next portrait value study I do :D

--

studies. trying to focus more on anatomy for this week, but yesterday was a hard drawing day. Felt like I couldn't get in the right headspace.

I've included my warm-ups as well, which are what all those cubes and line drawings are.

[DESQUOLOR]

some things here. a still life value study which I do not like one bit. the objects don't feel real to me in the slightest. an imagination doodle messing with style here too. revisited scott roberson's how to draw perspective grids somewhat so I could tackle the how to render material. learned a bit about lighting.

gunna focus on figures more, i think. i want to at least get the knowledge of the musculature and forms somewhere in my brain.

[Leonard]

Good stuff man, you're doing stuff the right way!
Refreshing to see, I need to refresh my perspective knowledge..
fundamentals in generell lol

[DESQUOLOR]

Good stuff man, you're doing stuff the right way!
Refreshing to see, I need to refresh my perspective knowledge..
fundamentals in generell lol

Thanks Leonard!  I'm so happy to hear that. You're too kind! :) I'm dying to catch up to everyone, but I need to increase my efficiency in workflow. ><
---

anatomy stuff

[Fedodika]

steady dem lines!!

[DESQUOLOR]

steady dem lines!!

sir yes sir!! T_T *salutes and goes to work on it*

[DESQUOLOR]

scapula stuff and a random doodle. i struggled a lot with linework and understanding the visualization.