Beau's Sketchbook

[beau]

Studies, comps... I'm excited to do the second Whis and beerus one when I have time, probably in a couple of days, since my schedule got messed up and I have a lot of client work due in twenty some hours... lol

Quick Supreme Kai + Kibito sketch ( using one of the comps up there)



Solid advice and critique Rick Richards, thanks and I found it helpful, and I appreceiate the feedback a great deal. I don't see these things sometimes, lol. I absolutely don't mind you painting over my images, though. I'm trying to keep in ming wrapping, since I'm into Dave Rapoza, and he demonstrates the effect in his Bog Witch tutorial. I try but I think it's hindered by my lack of skill in perspective (another area aside from anatomy that I've really been neglecting).

Thanks Amit Dutta. My lines suuuuuck, I agree. I need to and want to improve my stroke count and line quality, it's just so hard to focus on that! lol. I will draw with that in mind though. It really will help me and I know that. As for my studies, they are mainly form and lght studies, but I have always been scared of going too dark because I can so easily mess up an image with darks.... But, it's literally a study, so why am I thinking this way? Argh. I'm afraid of spending too much time on one thing, one study, and losing ffocus and not learning anything, like getting into copy mode and not actually understanding why I'm drawing something a certain way. I don't know, maybe I just have to study more, definitely have to take more time and be patient.

Apprecite all your guys' comments that I haven't responded to individually, thanks. 

[beau]

Some studies, I'm trying to learn the form and the skull. I haven't studied faces in... What, 4 years? Like almost 4 years, holy sh*t.  I'm trying to conserve my strokes. I think it  might be more helpful for me to sketch out of my imagination with simple lines, though, instead, but I will try some studies with 1 line and then a value overlay layer.

[Fedodika]

try at least doing the scribbly lair and then on top do a clean line layer, kinda like that commission thing ;)

[beau]

try at least doing the scribbly lair and then on top do a clean line layer, kinda like that commission thing ;)

Lol, that would take forever   I'm so bad at clean lines. I'm just now/recently staring to make conserving brush strokes a goal and a habit because I realize it's so important. The lines in the above commission have so far taken me 30 hours, not counting colors, just lines. Studying like that would be too painful... Unless it's a good pain... Maybe it is worth it to devote hours to a study, like forcing myself to get cleaner? No, that's what professional work is for, right?

Gah. I'll make clean lineart a close second in my studies, but I don't think it would be as effective for me as using clean lines on client work and getting better there. I meant to do the scribble layer separate, but I did it on the same one, and the opacity messed up, so I was done with that reference, lol. But I do agree. I was going to do the scribbly one to follow the shapes of the muscles and forms, and then a separate layer for like a detailed ink thing. Thanks for your feedback!

[darktiste]

You don't have to clean line unless your gonna refine the drawing but you shouldn't scribble in away that slow you down .The more you scribble the more you leave us to try to interpret.It ok to scribble i would say to save time to figure out certain element.The problem with scribble is people might interpret that your messy to work with if you should you can't finish.It why it important to show that your able to clean line aswell as to render a minimum.

As you are learning now there a principle call brush economy.Simply put it accuracy to save time... nothing practice accuracy more than being deliberately accurate.

[beau]

Short studies, first two are in photoshop , which I just downloaded (trying to get used to it to start painting in, usually use Clip studio Paint, but that can take awhile unless you keep it simple).

I'm doing some more later, but I have a lot of client work to do today so I'' have to make them aster, maybe some gesture drawing for one of them.

With the first page of studies in page 1 of my sketchbook, I would aim for 60-90 min per study. Now, it's going toward 45-30 to 20. That's out of laziness, and I need to take more time to focus- starting tomorrow, when I won't have as much clint work, lol.

Again, not paying much attention to color here in the pear one, focusung on form and struccture on these and really not thinking about making them look pretty. I'll do some full length studies tommorrow and really challenge all aspects.

@Darktiste
Yeah, that's kind of how I'm thinking about it, like studies are the practice runs and the testing grounds for my other work, but then there's also 'practice how you want to perform,' which I also see the value in. I don't know!!! Lol, improving at art is like following a ball down a series of escalators. I don't do similies.

Just noticed a tendancy I have to elongate the ribcage and squash the head! I'll keep an eye on that

[darktiste]

If you want to practice line accuracy Stick to a small brush the exercise is to limit the number of line you put down.The idea of accuracy is so that you don't have to go and create a new layers and clean up your line or atleast as little as possible.There nothing bad about restating line what is bad is chicken line(line that are uncertain) and overestating line go with one long confident stroke and if it didn't work make an other one just don't fusion small nervous line into one.It an exercise where you want to think of destination A to destination B it not simply putting the pen down and drawing A to B it visualisation before putting line down.Think of line in term of straight curved or zigzag.If it a small curve you can even simplify to a straight line and refine later on when you have more information to help you be accurate.

[Amit Dutta]

https://www.dorian-iten.com/accuracy/

If your study goal is better form drawing...ask yourself if any of the studies in the last couple of pages you did or any of them really successfully show form? If not can you identify why?

[Fedodika]

id reccomend you got through my sketchbook, maybe pages 10-50 ish, i was making a lot of the same philisophical mistakes youre making like, as far as your attitude towards neatness. it really cost me years of development, slow down, look at what amit is reccomending, its golden, i promise you... making nice lines even in studies or wherever you can is. Slow steady lay ins, nice lines, its not a race, you dont get extra credit for doing tons of things, you get credit for doing it right

[chubby_cat]

Hey there :)

You've received some really solid advice from great people. I'm not going to reiterate what everyone else has told you, but rather try and get you to look at your line art approach differently with a bit of hard truth.

but I don't think it would be as effective for me as using clean lines on client work and getting better there.

The thing is, sure you might be getting better there, but what use is it when you're just going to destroy all your progress with sloppy line art during your studies? To become good at something you need repetition, but you basically cancel that out by reverting to chicken scratch line art in studies.

Your commission line art shouldn't be taking any where near 30 hours to complete. It is probably taking you so long because instead of practising your line art daily with all your studies, you are only practising it in your commission. You're basically shooting yourself in the foot here with a counter-intuitive process. Instead think of it like this -> The more you practice lineart daily in your studies, the quicker you'll be at commissions, the more $$ you can earn.

Another thing to note is that you really don't learn a lot with doing scratchy line art, and it makes it hard for people to crit as well. Line art like that doesn't actually convey forms, objects, details, etc. properly so you and your audience is left to try and find the image themselves amongst all the lines.

So basically tldr:
All this comes back to repetition - the more you do something (and do it properly) the quicker you will become at it.

[beau]

Hey there :)

You've received some really solid advice from great people. I'm not going to reiterate what everyone else has told you, but rather try and get you to look at your line art approach differently with a bit of hard truth.

but I don't think it would be as effective for me as using clean lines on client work and getting better there.

The thing is, sure you might be getting better there, but what use is it when you're just going to destroy all your progress with sloppy line art during your studies? To become good at something you need repetition, but you basically cancel that out by reverting to chicken scratch line art in studies.

Your commission line art shouldn't be taking any where near 30 hours to complete. It is probably taking you so long because instead of practising your line art daily with all your studies, you are only practising it in your commission. You're basically shooting yourself in the foot here with a counter-intuitive process. Instead think of it like this -> The more you practice lineart daily in your studies, the quicker you'll be at commissions, the more $$ you can earn.

Another thing to note is that you really don't learn a lot with doing scratchy line art, and it makes it hard for people to crit as well. Line art like that doesn't actually convey forms, objects, details, etc. properly so you and your audience is left to try and find the image themselves amongst all the lines.

So basically tldr:
All this comes back to repetition - the more you do something (and do it properly) the quicker you will become at it.

Thanks, chubbycat, fedolika, Amut and Darktise- I'll focus on my line economy now, in my studies especially. I've never rally done that, so I can't say it's better to do something else, and it sound like my peers have reached more or less of an agreement. Thank you :)

Here is the finall image for the barbarian commission. I'm not very happy with it, there are so many issues with the image and the costume and the pose, but it's definitely not my worst work. I was really happy with the designs I made in her hair, and the color palette in her design, as I tried to use a very limited palette, so many of the colors are from different parts of the image, and her eyes are the only saturated part.

[beau]

Anyone wanting to study together daily, pm me or add me on discord beau-art #8311.

I would want to make it an everyday thing, I study once in the morning and once at night daily for about an hour to two hours. We could even stream it. So, yeah, let's get better together.

[beau]

Took my time on these. Like an hour and a half and two hours

[darktiste]

There to much white inside your color.Also think about adding a hint of yellow using layers mode inside the teeth the trick is to play with the opacity of the layers to control the intensity put the white on an other layers when your satisfy merge the layer.Don't be scared to go dark digitally you can alway fix it if you play safe.Just don't start to dark when your near finish it good to play with the adjustment.

[beau]

There to much white inside your color.Also think about adding a hint of yellow using layers mode inside the teeth the trick is to play with the opacity of the layers to control the intensity put the white on an other layers when your satisfy merge the layer.Don't be scared to go dark digitally you can alway fix it if you play safe.Just don't start to dark when your near finish it good to play with the adjustment.

You're right, I've noticed that I'm not going dark enough. I think I'm hesitant to go dark and even to use saturated colors because it feels so final and so permanent, almost. I feel like I get more out of studies by only using one layer, though, so I try not to go back over them to correct them after the first pass. I tried to focus on going dark in these studies here, and getting the lines and shapes right in today's-

I think the mouth in the colored image is the only real point I would go back and redo, because her mouth is such a specific form, it's really important in making her recognizable and I didn't take the time to capture it. Jillian Banks is the reference btw

[beau]

Progress on this piece. I'm fully in art gear right now, so I'm spending 100% of my time on art. This pice will be done very soon!! That iis going to feel so good, after keeping it on the backburner for two weeks, and having started it almost a year ago.

[beau]

Some smoke studies, I didn't spend much time on the backgrounds relative to the smoke. Each study took around an hour and a half. I made sure to think about brushstroke economy and form. I'm having trouble wrapping my brushstrokes, maybe that means I should do perspective studies, because it's been awhile. It'll be much easier when I can imagine the form going into space. I always gets super confused about the horizon line, and the viewer's eye, and like... I don't know, it's weird. Anyway, have a good day guys, i'm gonna work on client stuff till tonight and then sleep.

[beau]

another study coming in a couple hours, the inked woman was actually an extra from a couple days ago! I got an MRI yesterday and that threw me off, but I'm back in. Going live on twitch at 7:00, after I figure out how to add music https://www.twitch.tv/gr8blud



I just want to add really quick, while I do try to make long, pretty lines, I found out yesterday that I do have a brain disease that affects my muscular control. I don't know if it's possible for me to draw with clean lines, unless I spend a lot of time, like on my barbarian commission, but I'm not going to use that as my crutch on learning good draftsmanship. I want to make this even more of a goal for myself now that I've got a doctor's confirmation of my suspicions, and this isn't something that I will let hold me back. It's called olivopontocerebellar atrophy, if anyone's wondering what I'm talking about.

I also got on antidepressants right around the time I joined the forum! Anyone suffering from depression, I understand how terrible and demotivating and cripp;ing that can be, and I encourage you to see a doctor about medication. My prescription was only $5 (I mean, the consultation and diagnosis was, LOL, $200, so :/ ) so it can be affordable espescially if you consider it an investment in yourself and your productivity as an artist. Which, by the way, we spend like 90% of our time alone thinking in abstract mathematical equations, basically- you're really vulnerable to lapses in your mental health, and I think that should be your top priority in this field.

Since I've noticed my antidepressants start working, I've been infinitely more productive, and I can draw for hours on end now, and I don't even have to drown myself with music when I sleep. The silence doesn't scare e so much anymore.

Anyway, I love you guys, this community is great and I'm glad it's held on for these years it's been out of the 'forefront.' Let's keep pushing eachother and all be professionals in the same field.



P.S. Anyone who wants to join me in google hangouts or something when I'm streaming, message me and we can work and talk together sometime. I do studies and personal work on stream sometimes, gonna try doing it daily from now on. Maybe I'll even make a group on here for it? Like a second coming of Dave Ropoza, lol.

[beau]

I had a ton of trouble with this study, spent over two hours on it and had to restart in the middle because I was getting too focused on details. I'm really only happy with how the hair feels, like 2d but still soft- not that that was my goal. I struggled and feel like I learned a lot about skin and color and makeup, so it was worth it. Also part of it could have been that I was streaming and was super nervous! Not an excuse.

That neck and jaw though... It's like I couldn't even see what was happening. Well, time for some facial anatomy studies. Next update will b figure drawing and anatomy of the face and neck.

[Artloader]

Hey Beau, nice going in here.

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis - hats off to you for not letting it get in your way!

I see you have received a lot of advice already about linework so I won't labour the point with you but I feel that you would benefit from putting effort into cleaning up your linework. I also recommend the Dorian Iten accuracy guide.

Just one thing I've found that helps me to clean up my linework is to slow down - I've found that it takes a lot of effort to focus on line economy and accuracy - if you're anything like me, I have to keep fighting the urge to mindlessly put lines down when I should be measuring and using a single stroke.

Be aware that line-economy and accuracy takes a lot of effort, if you're doing a figure study I recommend doing it it stupidly small steps - maybe just do two or three carefully measured strokes and then step away from the piece, splash your face, do some exercise and then come back. Sometimes I have to tell myself that it doesn't matter if one drawing takes me several nights to complete (I get maybe an hour a day to do my art). Try keeping your goals "stupid small" that way you will be able to build momentum and smash it in the long run :).

Hope that helps, please feel free to ignore if not :).

All the best!