bluehabit sketchbook

[chubby_cat]

These cat sketches are super freakin cute. Love the personality behind them. Just be careful with your shading and what parts you pick to hatch. Like with the first cat the hatching down the sides of its nose gives it more of a protruding snout feel (like a mussel like lion), whereas cats normally have a soft transition there. Also the shading around the inner corner of they eye just accentuates the fact the eye in not in the right place and needs to be nudged in closer to the nose bridge.

[bluehabit]

@chubby_cat, thank you! Cats surprised me with how expressive they can be, never had any as a pet. It was lots of fun. Thanks for the nose suggestion.

[bluehabit]

Trying to do a quick sketch style, what do you guys like?

[John]

Style looks pretty much the same to me.. Is there a reason why you asked?

[darktiste]

I am a contrast freak when it come to light. Every light scenario can convey a mood.What is important in my opinion is to understand how to correctly represent form with your value and how not every shadow as an hard edge.

[cgmythology]

Great figure studies on your latest. My personal favorite is 'c', has the most contrast and cleanest look so I definitely prefer that one!! Keep it going! :D

[Rotohail]

Oh! Well then maybe try the other way around for a while? Do more abstract, gesture, rougher drawings? Go crazy, see what you can learn from it. Unless it doesn't feel right to do so, I honestly sometimes feel like I bounce around like a pinball machine ha.

The cats, the left one looks the best to me! So funky! I think the right one the left eye (right side of pic) should be bigger horizontally? Keep the squint vertically. Overall tho, you have the reference so whatever you see on it!

Your poses look so damn clean! I'm jealous, I honestly like that you add that extra line weight and shadow into the line drawing, I need to do the same. Hmm, I prefer B but I'm and odd duck! I sometimes like stuff with low contrast for whatever reason, looks more pleasing to me. Is true tho that more contrast is better, so you should aim for A or C, in between those C is cleaner, but which one takes you longer? If C takes you too much maybe A is alright.

[bluehabit]

@John trying to get a quicker sketch / paint study down for volume. Not spend too much time on one drawing so I can draw many gestures - trying to see what looks best of those options.

@cgmythology thank you!

@Rotohail thank you! if I am being honest, I am not really conscious of the line weight when im doing it - so anything that you like in it is probably a happy accident. Other than trying to bring some parts forward by making them darker. I just try to incorporate the line into the shading if I can. My line weight needs lots of work still I am much more of a painter.

[John]

I see. All looks cool to me. Just so you want an unprofessional opinion:

A has more value variation than the rest.
B has more ambient light than the rest. Looks like you used a marker rather than a pencil like the rest.
C has this feel of having one value mapped out for all the shadows.

I guess it boils down to... which was the fastest one to do?

[darktiste]

I would say A to get a range of value to create form. B and C look more like mapping .If you want a quick way to render thing think of an overcast day there a minimum of shadow and no real highlight(in condition of being outside) what nice is if you want can use your own light source coming out of object to incorporate a light source and you won't have to worry about sunlight conflicting with your own man made light source.

If you want something more realistic definitively go for A.

One point i want to bring is why would you care about what take the least time shouldn't you be more worried about what you want to convey instead?

When i hear style i hear my older self thinking about how to figure out how to find style.Shouldm't you be more concern with observational skill?One thing i feel is you won't get a style asking for it.You gotta stay true to yourself we all have preference if you want to draw fast maybe you more into speed painting and limited value range.

[bluehabit]

Happy new years everyone, I hope everyone has a productive year and makes progress on both art and other life goals.

Some sketches to start things off.



One of the face sketches turned into a more indepth render and used it as an eye study and made some notes for future use.







Not very good at line art / sketching, really like FMM cats sketches on artstation, so I used one of his works as a study. In addition following Peter Han's dynamic sketching guide to try and improve it.

[darktiste]

The problem is the left leg.Remember that there ''always at least one leg supporting most of the weight.Look at this study her left leg is the weight baring leg you can find the weight baring leg in general by the lock position meaning it not flexing but straight and verticale will the other leg act as the counter balance.

[bluehabit]

Some hand practice inspired by Meatslurp









@Artloader, thank you i really appreciate it! I tend not to really utilize any particular way of sketching heads or any other part of the human anatomy really.

[Artloader]

Loving your quick sketches dude. I vote for sketch C in your post #43 - looks like a more uniform shadow map you've got there.

By the way for your head sketching - have you ever tried the Reilly method? I found it really useful for constructing and sketching heads as well as the Loomis method.

[bluehabit]

Doing some Raven sketches. It was very frustrating experience, still not the best at sketching, and part of the difficulty with this was finding something for a feather texture that I could do quickly. In the end and after almost giving up many times, I finally got something I was happy with.

For many artists that I admire, when they sketch they leave lots of the white of the paper visible as part of the texture. But with something like a raven with it being so dark that method doesn't quite work which made this even more challenging. You can leave some white behind, but it has to be much less.



Leading up to it produced a bunch of failures however.



Ravens have lots of different types of textures on their feathers if you look closely





A big inspiration for me was Modern Day James on youtube and how he approached texture:

[darktiste]

As soon as i saw the lay out of your study i had the modernday james vibe in my head good job.

[melolon]

Hey there! I enjoy the form studies and portrait rendering in your sketchbook. You have a good handle on light in controlled environments. Do you tend to create pieces or works based on these? In terms of skill, a personal project or piece may help push you farther!

[bluehabit]

Thanks melolon, appreciate it. I don't try to even apply my painting studies to an imaginative work. The reason is my painting is so far ahead of my ability to draw, I can do very little with it.

That is why I am spending a much greater amount of time sketching right now. If I can get a solid underdrawing that looks nice and is in perspective correctly I could add a light to the scene and I am fairly confident I could paint it well.






please note for the notes above the lynx and cat gesture is by another artist, so is the hand done by Viktor Titov

[bluehabit]

[darktiste]

It great to see your side note it let us peak into your though process.