Jones Sketchbook

[Jonesoda]

Thanks guys :)

Was out of it for 2 days but I did character 3 today, 4 more to go and then I think I go back to each and try to push them further might be kind of a cool set.
First is a sketch inspired by Anthony Jones, love his work.

Also last is for Sickbrushes assignment, Got a lot of work to do on developing Kethun.

[Jonesoda]

Some rusty timed gestures, felt a bit rusty while drawing them. timed hands and character 4 spent a lot longer on this one, The clothing looks too dark overall, when I go back to each character I'll have to try and balance the value out.

I really got to strap down and work harder. been slacking a bit lately.

Lemme know what you think I need to do to improve

[mindwrack]

nice improvement! i think you need to work a bit more on values; you seem to be contrasting areas too much or not enough, i think more still life studies are a great way to help with this!
your anatomy seems to be coming on well :D

[Jonesoda]

Hey thanks Mindwrack, I see what your saying. Trying to keep a good balance with the contrast on the new ones. Going to get around to some more still life's soon I find them pretty fun if I'm relaxed.
--

Some recent sketches and studies. Working on character 5 and cleaning up/improving the others. trying to push them as far as I can so I probably wont get to posting them for a little while yet.

[JonHop]

Good hard work going on here, I keep seeing improvements each time you post, keep pushing yourself my man!

[Jonesoda]

So here's those characters I've been working on for fun and to push further than my normal. 1, 2 and 4 are finished for the most part.

I could really use what anyone has to say on how I can improve these, It seems I'm either going to dark or too much contrast with them and cant seem to get it right :(

[EduardoGaray]

i can see improvement since my last visit :)

Edit: i already said that in my last post, lol. But it is true, look at the way you rendered the metal on the first guy from your last post.

[atrenr]

Hey Jones, like Eduardo I see a lot of improvement so keep at it man!

As for advice, Something I'm seeing in all your characters is that you are painting the shoulder muscle as a ball rather then it's actual shape, and your muscles look like they are butting against each other under the skin rather then meshing and weaving together like they should.
I recommend you do some muscle studies without the skin, it really helped me get a feel for the muscles shape and how they all connect. Your heads are still trailing off upward(they are getting much better though!) Most of your characters are a bit wide, especially on their lower halves.

I've done a little paintover of one of your characters(I hope you don't mind.)

Spoiler

Some things about this individual character.
A lot of her proportions are off, she has male shoulders(the width of them) and short legs.
The grenades on her belt are very small, they almost look like cherry bombs you would put in a school toilet and she has a lot of belt loops. The top and toe of her boot are in different perspectives, as are the gun and her hand(def ref it btw!)
She looks like she has a bit of a gut because her shirt looks like a normal sized one that is just sitting on top of her stomach, I would shorten into a more sporty type of shirt.

I hope this was helpful, keep up the good work man!

[Jonesoda]

Eduardo - Thanks Man :)

artenr - thanks a ton for the advice, really helpful. I studied shoulders and then went back to each to fix them up, really noticed how wrong they looked after that study!

---

The skull's look kind of off, I've got to use more construction. Also I'm always having trouble with hands so I set out to do 100 hand drawings, will do however amount I can withstand each day for the next while and post when I'm done the lot.

[Jonesoda]

Recent Stuff, still working on those hands. going back to some basics, an drawing from photos and a bunch of random sketches. Simplifying things and building up, I don't know why I wasn't doing this before.

[BenFlores]

keep up the hard work russel :) remember to stay out of those comfort zones , im talking about the gray scale

[Jonesoda]

Thanks Ben, your right man I've got too push out of that comfort zone. I think I've gotten a decent hang/understanding of value by now, I better try and step it up with color.

---

Tried a color study and had a hard time, Really struggled with blending and putting colors down.
It felt much different then regular grey scale where you can blend and paint freely. I did learn a bit from it though. Looked through art after, and tried to understand how other's work with color. I noticed much of it looked like it was done with high opacity (my opacity is always at 100% but set to pen pressure 0% min) will be approaching the next color study much differently, possibly just controlling opacity manually will be a better approach.

Will take awhile to understand how to use color, but it's going to be awesome to finally get it down eventually

100 hands are done! went for 2 passes on each basic forms and then refining and adding a little detail.

Some small sketchbook sketches too, I'm going to try and work bigger, might feel more comfortable. oddly enough I like drawing on my tablet more then with a pencil.

I forget where I found this site, may have been from someone posting it in the resources folder. but It's a great site filled with game concept art, I check it out from time to time - http://www.creativeuncut.com/ personal favorite galleries are the Dark souls and Assassins Creed revelations concept art, really Love those characters concepts

Will be gone for the weekend, take care guys.

[Jonesoda]

Recent stuff. Main issues I want to improve on are anatomy, and figure balance, I notice whenever I try figures or characters they always feel unbalanced. Anyway built a daily schedule I've been following to, will make it more specific If I can follow it for a week.

[Warburton]

Lots of studies which is awesome to see and defiant improvements too! I recommend doing some master studies, maybe of still life objects to see how they approached colours and brush work. Keep it up man, your doing great so far.

[DK]

Hey Jones, some great improvement from the last time I checked!

I was lookin at that still life you got up there and noticed some of the colors were looking a little "muddy" so I color picked one of the dark colors on the banana and noticed that most of the colors you were choosing are on the gray side of the color area.

Here's an example of color picking one of the dark colors on the banana you painted. Notice the picker is on the bottom left. You usually want to stay away from that area when working with colors.


Just try to remember that anything shifting more to the:
- LEFT - Gray
- RIGHT - Intensity in Color
- UP - Light
- DOWN - Dark

If you work too much on the gray side your work will come across as "muddy looking"

If you wanted a really dark color I would choose something more to the bottom right so that your banana has more color. An extreme example:


If I were going for the dark parts of a banana in particular I would probably choose a color something like this, because I know bananas usually have some red in them and I would stay away from going too dark unless I needed to.



Try color picking some areas on this banana. You'll notice the colors are staying more on the RIGHT side of the color area and anything that looks dark is NOT going all the way to very BOTTOM of the color area.



Anyway, I hope this wasn't too confusing. I myself am not an expert when it comes to colors so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is just stuff I noticed over time painting from photos and life. I hope that some of this made sense.

[ramalooke]

Look at you and all those fancy improvements. Look! See? Focus more on anatomy, that's my advice xd

[deerandfox]

nice improvements mate, im the same as ramalooke, i'd be focusing on anatomy the most, but its really good that you're stepping out of the comfort zone and trying colour. Keep it going!

[Jonesoda]

Warburton - Thanks Man, thats a great idea, Will definitely try some master still life studies.

Dennis - Thanks for taking the time Man, I really appreciate it, this really makes sense to. Looking forward to using this knowledge with my next still life.

ramalooke & deerandfox- Thank's Guys, will do

---
Pounding away on Loomis trying to really learn how to simplify the body and build up rather then just drawing from photos like the image below. Then the last two and really just practicing my brushwork to imply textures, dislike how smooth my paintings have been.

Having a lot of fun lately, and I feel way more productive on this schedule.

[Jonesoda]

Some recent stuff, Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

[atrenr]

Those studies are looking good man, keep it up!