(11-13-2018, 09:08 AM)Fedodika Wrote: youre getting better Peter, the asian woman head lay ins are nice, specially the second one. keep on with the loose scribblies, pip boy stuff i like the headspace itll get you in. brian homework is gettin there too, more bulk on the deltoid and forearm!
Thanks Fedodika :) Alot of people had difficulties with last weeks h/w for Erik (asian lady), they said they struggled with her likeness but I found it quite easy myself, although this week I had such a hard time :(. Felt like I understood how to loosen up more with the pip boy drawings although not as much with the other things I did, need to practice landscapes though as I didn;t have a clue what I was doing with those branches.
Yh still struggle with limbs but they have gotten better! I seem to either draw them too skinny or too fat haha, not need to put some serious milage in with them.
Finally got some free time to post! Had to work extra hours last week so little free time I had I was drawing but shgould be back to my regular schedule for now. I have thurs-fri off this week so hoping to get alot more done this week.
Here's what I got done last week.
Portrait Class
Still have a ways to go but felt rather pleased with this lay-in as it looked more like what I'm able to acheive through the live streaming classes or using photo ref, always felt there was a serious gap in quality between my life work vs what I achieve at home and that this bridged the gap. Not really sure why there is a gap, not sure if it's becuase I'm sitting too far away from the model and the lighting is also shit?
Life Class
Some gesture drawign to start, 4 3min and 3 10min poses (think the photo is abit distorted so apologies), I'd like to work on my gesture drawing from life for alot longer as it takes me a good hour of gesture drawing before I start to do ok but that will never happen.
Longer drawing went ok but the 40-50 min limit is still too quick for me.
Erik's Homework
Struggled from start to finish with Erik's h/w this week, I understood what he was doing and what I should be doing but my hand just wasn't listening to my brain at all, think this was my 4-5th attempt aswell Just decided to cut my losses and submit whatever I could since constantly stressing over it wasn't doing me any favours.
Brian's homework
Brian's h/w went alot better, this week was working form the actual model and achieving a lay-in without mapping.
Wanted to do some work yesterday and decided to work from another photo from the same class and complete a fully mapped drawing. Took alot longer than it shgould have (mainly because I struggled with her torso) but was happy with the end result since it felt like I levelled up my figure drawing. Still have issues with varying line weight but that should come with time.
Notes
Not going to my usual portrait class tomorrow as they are running a 4 week 12 hour single pose which I'm going to attned instead. Feel like 12 hours on a single portrait pose i far too long so I was thinking of completeing 2 6 hour drawings as I want to work on my rendering.
Also in the market of getting a nice bust but struggling to find somewhere that will deliever failry reasonably to the UK, thinking about working through the Bargue book during christmas break until I can find a cast.
(11-20-2018, 08:01 AM)Fedodika Wrote: youre doing good peter just always try to lose that robotic look as much as ya can, more like vanderpoel less hogarthe
Thanks Fedodika, planing on just doing master studies for like a month after these classes are over in mid-December to work on my design sense so expect alot of Vanderpoel studies!
Completely forgot to post the other day Better late than never.
Portrait Class
As I said last week I'm attending a longer pose portrait class instead of my usual 2 hour one each week. The class was much better than usual as 1. it's 3 hours each week for 4 weeks 2. Finally putting the spot light they bought to use and actually lighting the model, hopefully they make this class a regular one (hopefully a life drawing class aswell) since it's a million times better than the regular class.
Spent the first week working on my lay-in and making that look correct before moving on to rendering, started putting in my darkest shadows so this week planning on fully rendering it. Need to re-watch some of the Watts lessons or read a bok or something to see how they render the head after tha lay-in stage since I always struggle with the next step.
Erik's Class
Thought these looked alright once I finished them but now that I've put them side by side the ref I realise it's not as good as I thought, especially the looking up pose, can't tell if the face is too long or it's not wide enough? something feels off.
Brian's Class
Feel like I'm finally getting the hang of figure construction, especially with the sitting pose, it flowed really well between each stage.
Anatomy
I haven't had enough time to work on my anatomy recently and I really wanted to have a time slot each week to focus on it asweel :( Working chronilogically through Proko's course so this weeks I worked on abs but also included the pecs to see what I could remember from last time.
Caricature
Read abit of the book Fedodika linked last week aswell as watching the caricature videos on Proko. Did a study after the one of the instructors drawings to get a feel for it. Actually had alot of fun doing this and I can see the benefits from doing this type of work so definitely want to do more of this.
Notes
Been messing around with using my phone vs my camera to take my photos, tried using my photography lighting kit that I bought and my camera this week to take the photos but still looks rather dark, think it's time to take a photography course of sorts for illustrators, beleive muddycolors have a video so might be worthwhile buying it.
I was wondering with the Bargue course do you have to use sight sized or can you use comperative measuring? I know the book says to use sight sized but since I've been using comperative should I use that instead?
for the initial asian woman the way you drew her eyes is too big and the upper arch of her eye socket is rounder and wider, same mistake with the second one, her eyes are too big and to close together
The knox stuff is good some proportions are a little wrong but not enough to ruin the image. The proko ones are solid, but really emphasize the heroic midsection, he has that idealized V shape for the torso, push it more if you can ;)
For the bargue, i mean you can draw it with your foot if you want, idk if i had the book id try to learn the technique to see what i could learn from it, could help you never know!
Apologies for the late response everyone, been ill the past week so I've mostly been coming home from work and going to bed early but I'm all better now. :)
Gilger - Thanks man :)
bluehabit - Thanks :) All of the reference images that are in b/w are from the live streaming classes at Watts Atelier Online, pretty sure I remember Jeff saying that they are in the process of building a reference library for the online school but he didn't give an eta for when that would be up.
Fedodika - Thanks as always, still seem to be hit and miss when drawing eyes. Regarding the Proko studies which part are you talking about? seem to be drawing a blank haha. Yh I'm probably putting more thought than I should into Bargue drawings, I've read that there wasn't mucg instruction with them when they were originally created so will do it my own way.
Been ill since last weekend, just a cold but didn't half make me feel like crap. I was hoping to get more done this week but oh well, I'm off in about 2 weeks for around 13 days so I'll have plenty of time to crank stuff out then.
Portrait Class
Finished the first drawing that I posted the other week, tried thinknig of the head as an egg when shading to help me simplify but still feel like I went abit too dark in areas.
This is the second drawing that I started this week, had to change her hair a few times becuase after each break someone was telling her that her hair was wrong
Life Drawing Class
This is from the other week as the model cancelled last minute this week. Think I'm gonna make a suggestion at my club to vary the poses more since they are practically the same each week.
Tried working quickly on the longer pose and attempt a finished lay-in, accuracy suffered in some places like her right arm (left in photo) which I pished too far out and makes it look like her arm is dislocated from the joint.
Erik's Class
For the past 2 weeks I've been pushing myself to draw the head from extreme(ish) views rather than the standard views. Had difficulties with a few of them, mainly the extreme looking up view of the male. Been practicing the Loomis method for these as it helps me with placing the features. Not the best drawings but just means it's something i need to learn.
Brian's Class
Again been trying to break away from the basic views and work on some more difficult angles. Feell ike I've been drawing the legs abit too small the past few weeks, not sure if it's distortion (if it is does anyone have a guide for distortion for artists and how to correct it?) or if it's becuase the angle at which I draw since I lean my borad against my desk.
Gesture Drawing
Worked on some studies of Brian's gesture drawings, for the foreseeable future I'm going to start practing on my gesture drawings like he does so just focus purely on the reilly abstraction and not get caught up in anatomical details since that gets built upon the abstraction lines. Atm I'm trying to incorporate anatomy into my gesture drawings and not working on the gesture of the pose.
Got another busy week at work, will prob only have time for the live stremaing classes and my weekly ones that I attend so won't be able to post until next weekend.
good stuff peter, i think your longer constructions are getting there, be more careful on your gestures the proportions are whacky, try to focus on laying in a small portion accurately instead of trying to get the whole figure. And is that, zaria? with the pulled back hair, she has the loveliest hiney, i just wanna take a nap in that squishy pillow :3
Your heads, still well drawn, just lack the likeness, i guess it just means do more, you are doing very well
(12-10-2018, 07:25 AM)Fedodika Wrote: good stuff peter, i think your longer constructions are getting there, be more careful on your gestures the proportions are whacky, try to focus on laying in a small portion accurately instead of trying to get the whole figure. And is that, zaria? with the pulled back hair, she has the loveliest hiney, i just wanna take a nap in that squishy pillow :3
Your heads, still well drawn, just lack the likeness, i guess it just means do more, you are doing very well
Yh I really want to work on my gesture drawing, only get to do 5 or 6 poses at my life drawing class and it takes me a good hour when working from ref at home before I've really warmed up and can get the proportions more accurate. I've been saying to myself the last few weeks to just work on a small portion of the figure and get an accurate likeness/ getting the proportions right like you said, rather than trying to capture the figure as awhole I'll need to work my way towards that.
And yh that is Zara haha, lets just say she has some really nice curves...
I can't remember if it was Brian or Erik that was saying that it takes awhile to really get a likeness and that we shouldn't worry too much about it atm, it will just come with time like you said I need to do more!!!
Had a really busy week with work and my classes that I go to so just did as much as I could, think today is the first time I've taken a break!
Life Drawing
Couldn't go to my usual Thursday class due to a work Christmas party so went to a class on Monday instead. Did absolutely terrible on my quicksketchs (if you can call it that) they do a 5min, 10 min and a 25min drawing as "quicksketch" which I hate. Didn't help tat I couldn;t concentrate due to having a very noisy person sitting next to me.
Had to crop the image of my drawing so that I could get the details in, I did draw her other leg but didn;t get time to finish.
Erik's Class
Here is my last h/w for Erik's class. Learnt alot from it and feell ike I have improved with my lay-ins even though this weeks didn't turn out so good. Didn't have alot of time so had to rush it so some of the proportions are off.
Brian's Class
I felt that this was the best class of the two just becuase I already knew how to do a lay-in but not awhole lot about structual figure drawing (plus I got a shit ton of good figure ref!). Still have some issues with my measurements being off even though I'm always mesuring and chekcing negative space extra, guessing it will just come with more practice.
Portrait Class
Here are all the drawings I did from the 12 hour 4 week class. Wish the club I go to did this as a weekly class since it is alot better than the usual classes, I'm gonna make a few suggestions when I next go so hopefully that might do something. Think I got her likeness best on the 3/4 view, I was meant to take some ref photos but forgot to bring my camera.
Notes
Busy again at work this week but finish on Wednesday for 13 days and since my classes have ended my plan for the next month is to work from the Bargue book and master studies, possibly some painting aswell, I'll just see how I get on.
I think knowing what to be aware of is important like;
her pelvis is more tilted forward than yours and thus would make her stomach pudge out more ever so slightly. you kinda gave her stick legs, and yea women of this body mass have slim legs, but there is a little more density to keep those muscles in check. There is more negative space between her breast and the back of the rib cage on the right side of the screen.
I see youre sloping that contour inwards to perhaps show the scalpula/teres major wrapping into the arm, but her isnt that dramatic, hers barely slopes at all. The bicep on the right side of the screen, it is higher up than you drew, and you see less of the trapezius coming through. Also her naval feels like its floating, like you attempted to draw her belly pudging but ended up drawing the naval as if her belly was sucked in a very neutral position. And like her leg thats holding the weight, try to aim a lot of a pose on the weight bearing limb because most the energy in a pose is there.
I cant tell in your drawing that he is heavy set, he seems very skinny in your drawing, mainly from how you drew the neck. His eyes are a little further apart, his nose is tilted up a tiny bit more, his beard obviously has a much more curled shape, and i also cant tell that his hair is long and tied back, yours looks like he has short hair from the silhouette in the back on the neck. A lot of his character type is in his neck and shoulders so pay attention to those
I'm still having difficulty with standing poses and spent a fair amount of time on the gesture since that is where 99% of my issues lie. From everything you've said my main issue seems to be my understanding of anatomy, I know abit but I don't have the level of understanding that I need/want. What's that saying "I know just enough to be dangerous"? or something along those lines.
Not sure how much of an issue it is but I need to step back more since I draw with my board leaning against my desk so I'm fairly close. Think that is skewing my proportions, mainly in the legs since I find it akward to draw close to the bottom of the page.
As for the portrait. I don't know what it is with beards but my head can't seem to comprehend how to draw them. I think especially with how he is lit on the ref so his face is mostly in shadow so some landmarks are hard to see I'm trying to use my knowledge/understanding e.g. how wide should a neck be etc and it just isn't there yet where I can fill in areas that are hard to make out with it.
Here's what I've been working on the last few days.
Potrait class
Didn't do too well this week, especially since I went to the class straight from work I didn't have time to warm up, as I've said before it takes be abit of time and a few drawings before my eyes have adjusted and I start to get y mesurements right.
I decided to attempt 2 drawings which i think works better for me, so rather than 1 long drawing that I will make lots of mistakes on I'll do a quick 30 min drawing which I use as a warm up and show me what mistakes I'm making and then start on another drawing and should hopefully get something that is proportionally right and more to the models likeness.
I found with the 2nd drawing, i'm not sure how to describe but it when I was watching Erik do his demos each week it felt similar to that. E.g facial rythms seemed to flow and slot together better so as I built up the drawing it really felt like each previous step was building upon the last or how when I was drawing her hair it flowed nicely and got an impression of her hair without getting too caught up in it.
Bargue Drawing
Decided to go with comparative measuring with these as I thought it would help train my eye. Gonna take these into photoshop and lay them other the plates and see how well I did and then finish the face since I need to add tone.
Skulls
Been warming up the last few days by drawing from my skull. Been trying to find the rythms like Brian does and learn them aswell as some more extreme fews which where challenging. Might buy Proko's portrait cuase as I beleive it contains a 3d loomis model you can pose since I still feell ike I'm having problems with the thirds from these extreme angles and not really learning the rules.
Studies
Mostly been working on the mouth and working on studies from Vanderpoel and Watts as I feel like working on a bunch of master studies is what I need to do to take my work to the next level, see how pros designed features and design their shadow shapes and start trying to emulate that in my own work.
so i got an idea peter, i did this to a friend of mine, and well lets just say he didnt like it because its too brutal of a critique but it really gets the point across. Next time you do a portrait, post the reference, and i will morph the reference into the proportions of your drawing, so you can see the differences.
(01-01-2019, 10:43 AM)Fedodika Wrote: so i got an idea peter, i did this to a friend of mine, and well lets just say he didnt like it because its too brutal of a critique but it really gets the point across. Next time you do a portrait, post the reference, and i will morph the reference into the proportions of your drawing, so you can see the differences.
Don't mean to be rude but that gave me a laugh, was not expecting that when I checked my sketchbook haha. Tbh not sure when I'll next have a portrait drawing to show apart from my portrait class I was gonna dial back on them and focus on my figure work for abit but I'll definitely post something. :)
With the Winter break I cut back abit on practicing and spent some time relaxing and catching up with family since it had been awhile. Last week I was getting rather tired of working on studies and decided to do some imaginative sketching instead and just have some fun.
Tried some different approaches for some portraits, 1st page I stuck with the reilly abstraction and used it rather heavily to help with the initial lay in. 2nd page I still used the abstraction for the lay in but not as much, tried pushing a few of the lines more but mainly I tried being alot looser than normal and just skecthing for fun rather than being heavily systematic.
1st page
2nd page
Tonight I wanted to dome imaginative figure work but it kicked my butt. Felt like I was getting alot of mental blocks and not being able to draw the pose I had in mind so that's telling me that I need to study the figure more.
Foe the remainder of the week I want to do some more imaginative work and get back to studies next week. Watts classes start either next week or week after (I'll need to check) and sign up is tomorrow, planning on taking lucas's features and facial expressions class and Erik's figure drawing class. When they start my plan was to cut back on portrait work since I feel like I've studied it quite abit for the last few months and focus on master studies, anatomy and figure manikins.
Started a Leyendecker master study last week so will work more on that either on the weekend or next week and finish some other studies that I started last week aswell.
Starting next week I'll be putting in more hours into my job until the beginning of Feb, we are currently in the process of moving offices and they need my help so will most likely update my sketchbook on the weekends.
id say keep up the imaginative stuff more, really get some of the studies youve had out of your system, some of them are interesting.
For imaginative figure work, draw lots of different stickment, just 5 lines, body, legs, arms, and circle for head, then pick the most dynamic one and test yourself drawing it :D
Just decided to cut my losses and submit whatever I could since constantly stressing over it wasn't doing me any favours.
Better late than never.
