Zizka's Sketchbook (Nudity and Vulgarity, NSFW)

[Zizka]

At the moment I'm doing what I enjoy doing: cross hatching. I'm taking this as an opportunity to study values. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

You're right that I haven't practiced the other stuff for a while. I'll get back to it eventually. I want to do a portrait next. And after that... not sure!

[Zizka]

Practice for today, trying to make a dagger:


Who mentioned before that I needed good lighting for portraits. I intend to draw my niece next and wanted to check with you guys if the reference was appropriate:

If it's not please let me know so I can pick another one.

[Kassatay]

I like your style ! How you add the date on the top of your sketches is so original.  Great sketchbook you have here.
For the photo reference, I think you should darken the values a little more, add more contrast. It will be easier to paint. Just my 2 cent

[Zizka]

Hey welcome and thanks although I'm not sure I have style just yet I'm aiming for it! I'll mess about with the picture a bit. I think you mean increase the contrast so that the values are more readable.

Practice for today:

The shading for the piece of armor was quite time consuming but I like how it looks.

[Kassatay]

Exactly! Sorry “ mon niveau en anglais laisse à désirer”.
Nice rendering in the armor. Are you working on a game?

[Zizka]

Ah non, ton explication était claire. Je suis juste très limité dans ma manipulation des options photoshop alors j'espérais avoir bien compris. Who et Mariyan m'avait déjà dit quelque chose de semblable alors je pensais être sur la bonne piste.

The "adventure sheet" is for a collective gamebook projet I've started.
https://scriptarium.org/forums/topic/227...ment-21198

Basically it's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book but with many authors. Everyone writes part of the story. It's like an anthology for movies where a different director films a different part.

I got grant to do some conceptualisation for my game so I'm doing a lot of exploration at the moment. Style, game perspective, theme, etc...

[Kassatay]

Oui tu es sur la bonne voie.
I’ve checked the link. It’s such an original project. It must be so motivating to work on that.  

I like your crosshatching shadings.

[Zizka]

It should be motivating but participation is lacking but oh well.

Practice for today, reworking a drawing I did on June 2nd:

Likeness is getting better but hair is gonna cause headache which is why I haven't really gotten to it just yet.

[darktiste]

Why not focus one week on hair you been cercle around the issue for a moment now.The longer you wait to fix something the more it seem to become stressful to address that atleast how i feel when i don't deal with thing that keep geting push back and just commit.You don't need to show everything you draw you can have day where you focus on ''failling'' which is to say you are more focus on experimenting and less on showing us the result.Don't feel like you didn't achieve anything just because you don't have any pretty drawing to show for that day.But i certainly think you gain alot by being open like you are.There a balance alot of drawing can be really rough and quick specially when you start to do your own work you have to find way to problem solve and plan out before you commit to piece.It good specially for illustrator to do Color test,Composition test,perspective view test,lighting test i think you get the picture because they tend to spend alot of time on one piece so it better work out and not be to experimental along the way for the risk of just not holding together.

I think you would gain alot from studying film screenshot because it highly scripted and thought out.You just need to find a movie you like and you just take some interesting close up shot for example you could learn facial expression, lighting,framing just to name those for example.

[Zizka]

Nah, I'm not afraid to show my shortcoming, that couldn't be further than what I'm trying to do here. I'm really comfortable with that. The showing part. I don't personally think that everything I've shown in this thread is pretty, a lot of stuff looks off which is normal. This is why I show what I do every day. If something isn't there, I haven't done it.

I'm less comfortable about my own standards, not other people's standards. If people want to think I suck, they can. It's not like I'm doing this for them. But if I do something which I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, then I can feel bad about it. I know hair is something difficult to wing, even with a reference.

But yes, hair is next. I'll start tomorrow.

[Leo Ki]

Some great hatching here :)
On your "June 22nd" portrait, try to draw only the outlines and main features until you get them right, before shading (which is very subtle on the photo). Pay attention to the shape of the jaw.

[Zizka]

You know I stared at the jaw until the cows came home and from what I can see the chin should be flatter and the left side of the jaw (my left) make her look fatter so probably too round.

Regarding the shading, I don't know if it's a cop out to resort to scribbling circles instead of cross hatching. I don't know if I should learn hatching better to be able to do it everywhere or if it's more of a case-by-case basis.

[Zizka]

Practice for today. As mentioned, first attempt at hair. I reworked the eye and the nose too.

[Kaiko]

I think it's fine if you concentrate more inking/crosshatching now than video games, because it shows how much you enjoy this direction right now. The drawings are really clean, although crosshatching is a lot of work and needs a lot of patience so I guess from the quality of your work that you get really immersed into your drawings - which is a good thing, I think. I also like your superb shading in the knife by the way. It's so well done!

For the portrait I'd recommend to you a little bit more lose with the lines and then add in shadow/crosshatching where it is appropriate. Otherwise the face looks a little too stiff. Maybe you can take some inspiration from the manga "Vagabond" here, which is drawn pretty realistic yet also loosely and energetic. Maybe you can find a good middleground between both your approach to faces and his approach! :)

[Leo Ki]

The face is more angular and long indeed.

Subtle shades are probably more difficult to achieve with hatching (and even more with cross-hatching) and that's where slight smudging might work better - but I'm no expert in this. I don't know if this is cheating but I pushed the contrast and brightness on the photo to make the strongest shades more obvious. See how the nose is shaded in one place mostly:




Vagabond looks like a good suggestion by Kaiko. Some of Blade of the Immortal too in a different kind of loose.

[Zizka]

I don't understand ''more loose with the lines''. I'm not an artist by trade so a lot of terminology goes above my head. Can you explain?

@Leo Ki: It's a little bit cheating but it'll be learn so :). I'd rather be able to do it without manipulating my reference just by my eye alone but one thing at a time.

This doesn't count as today's practice. I intend to practice animation for a while now. Don't know how long. I have experience as you can see in my first post but I intend to rotate things in space so it might end up being tough for me so feedback will be good. The upcoming messages will also be video game related so it might not interest everyone. I'm more enclined towards traditional art myself but pixel art is a better tool for games I find (for animation at least).


Early combat prototype, based on the NES Resident Evil remake.


Apartment hall, explorable area.


Explorable area, park.


Explorable area, motel.


Explorable area, motel room.


Interface conceptualisation.


Earlier concept.


Explorable area, house.


Got item.


Previously abandonned project.


More concept research.


More concept research.


(see above).


(you know it)












Pixel art anatomy. Among my first pixel art portrait I think.


Learn Japanese game also abandonned.


Car.


Another anatomy practice way back then.

I just discovered this one going through my very old things, a game I also dropped, Slimongo:



One of my very first pixel art area I think.


Padded cell.

[Zizka]

So this is me drawing from imagination. The idea is to create a hand icon. It's very hard:
1: ' Unreadable.
2:  Unreadable still.
3:  a bit more readable but generally difformed and off.
4. thumb is still off.
5.  Getting there but still off. Might be a palette thing.
6.  Still not working out. This is tough.
7.  Doesn't work. Not sure if this trial and error approach is a good idea.
8.  Maybe it's a palette thing.
9.  probably the best looking so far but not quite there yet.

So this is about two hours in I think. So going through trial and error is time consuming with diminishing returns. I can either go back to using a reference or try a different way such as starting with basic shapes and building on top of that.

This is also my first foray with colors as I usually stick to monochrome drawings which is a challenge in its own right. I'll practice two more hours today but I'll likely end up using a reference.

[JosephCow]

Your pixel art is really cool honestly. Especially that game with the wizard character and the green goblin guys. (?) It looks really fun, did it ever get to a playable result, even if not completely finished?

[Zizka]

Alas, there is no such thing mine freund. I could always make convincing mockups hahaha.

Anyhow, I lasted a whole 3 hours without going back to hatching, will continue tomorrow. And yes, I'll looked up how Vagabond does hatching.



On the upper left was my previous attempt about a month ago. Bottom rights are the steps I'm following.

[JosephCow]

Oh dang, you had maps and character stats and everything! pretty extensive mock-up.