Elderscrollers Sketchy Stuff

[Elderscroller]

Here´s the finished king in yellow made from the lineart posted earlier

[Elderscroller]

There was a rerun of the Disney John Carter movie on TV lately, so I sketched a Dejah Thoris and a bunch of faces as I haven´t done that for quite some time

[Elderscroller]

After finishing illustrating a RPG book about undead, I was asked to do the same for demons. To start, I´m painting a demon sword created from living materials. I was asked to make it disgusting

[Elderscroller]

Sketching and doodling with ballpoint pen

[Elderscroller]

Somehow the second sketch turned into a streching Indiana Jones, no idea why

[Elderscroller]

I recently rediscovered a movie, I really loved as a child: The Black Hole by Disney. While it does have its flaws, it is also a very creepy and dark movie. So I did some sketches of some of the characters. They´re not actual redesigns, more like how I remember them and with a touch of me :)

Maximilian, the giant robot always reminded me of a big beetle, so I pushed his sketch in that direction.

[Elderscroller]

I did an exercise in trying to stay true to placement/proportions when drawing from imagination. I drew a couple of heads in different angles from imagination and after that tried to find some fairly close photos with the same viewing angle and overlayed them in Photoshop to check out errors. Works quite well. I´ll try this with figures (though finding a matching pose afterwards might be more difficult :)

[Elderscroller]

Some material studies from photos

[Elderscroller]

[Elderscroller]

This is the last sketch of my current sketchbook. Starting the next one :)

[RickRichards]

Good stuff with the pencils ElderScroller. Have you considered doing some kind of a group character designs for your portolio i.e. like a cast for Overwatch for example. I think you would have a ton of fun and the result would be very cool. Not sure if it is your cup of tea haha, just a suggestion.

[darktiste]

I think a fun way that you could use to study perspective is to illustrate a couple of adventurer overlapping each other and to draw through as if they where transparent

all you need is some larp group photo

https://www.google.ca/search?q=larp+grou...50#imgrc=_

Dont forget to add some background detail to add a sense of scale and add the ground plane so that the figure doesnt seem to be floating in mid air

Maybe you allready doing this in the work you not showing but maybe this can give you a good idea i hope.

[Elderscroller]

@RickRichards & darktiste: Thanks very much! I have some character group paintings in my finished stuff at deviantart or artstation of mostly some RPG groups I´m playing. Maybe I´ll incorporate that into my pencil sketches

[Elderscroller]

I usually don´t post many doodles/quick sketches/studies etc. anymore, today is an exception. Next to those throwaway sketches, at the moment I try to do more in-depth studies of how good artists create their work. Some are generous enough to post animated gifs of their steps, which I analyze and paint along, trying to observe how someone simplyfied things or how they used their brushstrokes etc.
The portrait below is from Sharandula, the other one I sadly don´t know its creator.

[Elderscroller]

Trying to be more carful and concentrated with proportions in my latest sketches

[Elderscroller]

A mostly non-pencil update from the last few days, doing portraits, quick poses (not too accurate...), anatomy, some doodles and a not finished study of a painting by Anna Steinbauer (didn´t think I would learn anything more by finishing the details)

[Elderscroller]

The portraits below are quickly done with a ball point pen (non took more than 15 minute). Goal of this "exercise" (besides being lots of fun) is to get a feel for a face without construction and lots of thinking. It´s trying to get the subconcious to take over. Likeness was not a primary goal just to get the overall shapes, so the people may or may not be recognised. And before someone mentions some noses to be off.....some people tend to have crooked noses :)

[Elderscroller]

Below are 2 examples of exercises I do regularly every day now. The first is a proportion exercise:
1. Pick a reference photo (mostly frontal views, not too much foreshortening) and trace over it. Mostly draw outlines, but you can also include anatomy of muscles and/or skeleton. Take the head on a separate layer and use it to measure things in relation to it (figure height, length of limbs, width,....anything). All that is done very focussed, not on autopilot, that is very important or it won´t do anything!
2. Remove the tracing and do a study next to the photo. Just lines, nothing fancy, but again, focus and try to memorise
3. Remove the photo and the study and redraw from memory. You can also wait for a certain amount of time to make it more difficult and see if longterm memory got the figure.
After that, repeat with another reference photo. I usually don´t bother saving these drawings and delete them after the exercise.

Second one is a lighting notan study. Take reference and just draw the overall shape and focus on the terminator (the separation of light and shadow) to get a better feel for light and shadow shapes by using only 2 values. If that simple separation shows you what the drawing is, the main task of lighting is done. 

[Elderscroller]

Trying out some lighting next to proportion exercises:

[Elderscroller]

A bit less lighting this time but some foreshortening/movement/storytelling sketching