Sandras Sketchbook
#1
Hi guys,

my name is Sandra, I'm 24 years old and since the beginning of 2012 I'm taking art seriously and try to continuously improve my skills. My mail goal is to become a concept artist one day. So here is some stuff I did the last year. It's all stuff from imagination. But I
also did a lot of studies :)

If you want to know something about my background check out the Introduction Section.

2012































2013




























I hope to update this thread at least once a week. Any feedback and critique would be welcome!

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#2
And here now some studies I did recently :)

Some perspective exercise, trying to construct shadows



Painted from life



Trying to remember what I just learned and applying it (3mins each)



Drawn from life



Painted from life



Currently I'm trying to understand different materials and also cast shadows, occlusion and reflection. Hard stuff man! :D

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#3
I recognise this stuff, great to see your here now too, welcome :D

The still life studies seem to be paying off, and it's awesome that your looking to tackle specific areas in your work. Keep hitting those fundermentals, your going in the right direction. Now please show us more, i love watching your progression.

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#4
Hi warburton, thank you so much for recommending this forum to me and also for giving such a warm welcome =D

Something great happened and I got my first little freelance job. I'm doing all game assets for the first three levels of a 2d side scroller developed by Javier Bryan, an independent games developer from New York. He was so nice to allow me to show you all the graphics I did for the first milestone, which is already finished :)

So at first one of my material studies, this time a rock. I also tried a totally new shading method recommended by a friend of mine. It's a lot of work to do it that way but I think it pays of in the end :)





And here now all the character design and animations I did for the 2d game. All the characters in the game look like childhood heroes of Javier. Let's see of you can recognize all of them.

First of the concepts for the main character and four enemies

















An overview over all characters currently in the game





Main character idle, walking and flying animation







Enemy 1 walking and attack animation






Enemy 2 walking and attack animation






Enemy 3 floating animation





Enemy 4 walking and attack animation (the final sprite sheet has both animations on the same frame size^^)





Thanks for dropping by. Any feedback would be much appreciated!

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#5
Cool stuff here, your fundamental studies are very good. Congrats on the freelance job :). Looking froward to seeing more of your progress, keep it up!

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#6
@JonHop Thanks a lot! I'm really grateful for the opportunity to work freelance :)

Hi guys, long time no post. As you already now I did start working freelance in March this year. I'm so happy that I have got the opportunity to do what I love for a living. It's still a long way to go, there are many bumps in the road, but I never enjoyed working that much before.

So after I finished the "Stickman"-job in May, I luckily found directly a new amazing project I could work on. The guys from Pyrrhic Studios are amazing. Sadly in July I got a tendovaginitis and had to stop working :'(

Two weeks ago my hand started to get better and better. So the plan was to start painting again on September 1st. But sometimes life doesn't want to play along, so this exact morning the graphic card in my iMac crashed :'(

Surely I hadn't a backup of my files so it was a pretty long week hoping they can fix everything without destroying my data. Also having to buy a new graphic card and paying for a repair isn't the best thing to do after two months in which I wasn't able to work and earn money.

But that's over now. My iMac is back, all data still there, and now also back upped, and I started working again. Was really a challenge getting back on track and picking up where I left off two months ago. But after one week I'm getting used to everything again and it's a lot of fun =)

Also Pyrrhic Studios, my awesome clients which waited this whole time for me and didn't replaced me through someone else (I'm so thankful words can't describe it!) started to release the assets I did in June one by one. You can find them on the bottom of this post.

So let's start with the art I managed before I got a tendovaginitis :)

First off the backgrounds I did for the Stickman-project.
This one ones really hard to one, first because it has to be repeatable in every direction without any visible edges and secondly because painting the same stone structure all day long gets really boring very soon and it takes a lot of nerves to push it through^^



This and the next one are only repeatable to the left and right!



My personal favorite :3



A personal project I'm working on. The big hand, feet and ears are on purpose. More to it later.



In May this year I applied for Noah's Art Camp. It was such an amazing experience. Unfortunately I had to stop after week three because of my hand. But I will do all the stuff I missed as soon as it's healed up! First off compositional master studies!












The main menu of "Stickman - Savior of the City"



The end screen






Color studies of old master paintings for Noah's Art Camp






Full master study - W.I.P.



Digital sketch from imagination - 30mins









Still life from life =)



photo study W.I.P.



Part of the qualifying test for Pyrrhic Studios



I'm kinda happy how much I managed regarding the art camp in the first week. Finished all 50 compositional studies, did 15/50 color studies and one full master study (/3). It's still a lot missing, but I never painted so much in a single week and this next to my normal work. So kinda proud yes =^.^=

So and here the promised little sneak peak of what is about to come regarding my work on Noble for Pyrrhic Studios :D






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#7
Hi guys!

After this long time without drawing/painting the only thing I did the last week was trying to get all the freelance
work done which stacked up. So after spending all the my time with that, I finally started to paint for myself again.

It's nothing fancy, but I'm trying to figure out what I still know after the break to get back into my study habits.

So first I tried to paint a woman from imagination. Beware of nakedness!
Doesn't look great, but I don't do much imagination stuff so I'm glad I finally found the courage to do so.

Also a quick composition from imagination. Maybe I make this into a painting. Because I think only studying doesn't
help you much if you don't apply it. So it's time to finally get my scared ass working on that. What do you think? < 3






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#8
Hey Tamaira. I really liked those stickman characters. You should definitely turn that last comp into a full painting. I think it'll be tough piece because of all the dappled light coming through the trees but you only get better by stepping out of your comfort zone and trying something challenging. Keep up the good work.

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#9
Hi Ignatz, thank you so much for dropping by and encouraging me to work further on it :)

I already put another hour in and hopefully I have some time the next days to make a tight line drawing of it. I'm always to scared to work on imagination pieces because I think I'm not good enough yet. That's said I'm totally happy right now, that I finally started =)

Hopefully I will stay that strong and don't let my fears overrule me again.

Good night everybody!



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#10
Heya, nice start to your sketchbook here.
There seems to be some great improvement from the stuff you've posted in the first post, especially in the colors. Awesome work in Noah's camp assignments as well, week 1 is great. It seems like you'll advance pretty fast over there :)

And congrats on the freelance job as well :)
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#11
Hi MajaD, thanks so much for the kind words. It means a lot to me! Noah's Art Camp is really great to learn. And it just started again. Have to finish up my current contract over the next 1-2 weeks and then I can dive into it again :)

Damn I'm not good in keeping my sketchbook here updated. But at least I'm drawing/painting everyday. So that must count something, right? :D

Pyrrhic Studios started to release some more of my art. So here we go.

First battle ground you will fight on in the game



Game logo, damn negative space is a tricky thing



Promotional art





One of many animations



Also I had a really small contract regarding some concepts. It was really challenging because I normally don't draw animals much. Task was to create a dog super hero.

First I went with a werewolf like design, because I wanted to try something different



I also did a more expected version



Which in the end won :D



Also her some sketches I did.












And the line art for an illustration I started based on the last sketch


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#12
Ah damn. My internet is going crazy since yesterday and now I can write everything again :(

I just was telling you proudly that I finished my first sketchbook and how amazed I'm how
much better you feel holding it in your hand when it's done then the usual pile of paper. Haha.

So here now the last pages of my now old sketchbook.











And the first three pages of the new one, which is Din A4 and therefor twice as big as the last one. Will be quite a challenge! :)








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#13
Guten Tag,
Seems like you're on the right track. You've got some sweet concepts and great characters, but when it comes to non-comic styles I'd suggest you to do some more still life pieces.

[Image: sig_vas.png]
Twitter: @evasburg
Livestream: twitch.tv/vasburg
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#14
Hi Vasburg, yeah you are definitely right about that. I will try to keep that up!

For now here some more stuff I did back in 2013:

Took the sketch to a finish



Sargent master study for Noahs Art Camp



What I learned



Imaginative work for Noahs Art Camp












And the ranger promo art for Noble got finally released


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#15
hey there,

I really like that Sargent Study, her rosy cheeks came out nicely.

Maybe try to think about the edges a bit more. Where a hard edges, firm edges, soft and lost edges. That helps making a painting look finished.

Also I took the freedom to paint over your girl - warrior.

She stood a bit stooped over, so I pushed her back so her head was above her feet more. Then I tried to define a cohesive light source and added shadows here and there. Also I added some of the before mentioned hard edges and modelled some of the forms out.

I hope it helps.

Cheers,
Flo


Attached Files Image(s)




Please help me getting better by checking out my sketchbook

HOMEPAGE http://floart.weebly.com
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#16
Great sketchbook you have here, Sandra! Those animations look cool and I love the observations you made after studying that Sargent piece

Keep it up, up, up! :D

sketchbook | pg 52
"Not a single thing in this world isn't in the process of becoming something else."
I'll be back - it's an odyssey, after all
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#17
@Flo Thanks a lot man! It’s highly appreciated even if I wasn’t here for a long time^^

@smrr Thank you!!! I think realising what I did wrong and how to improve it is somehow more important then the actual painting itself. So much about making great art happens in the head before even putting a line on paper. Still lots to learn. But I enjoy the road! :)

*** ** *

Hi guys, it’s been a long time. Nearly a year. There is a reason for that. Not the best but still. Last year February my freelance business started to get momentum. I had work continuously through 2014 and finally was able to pay my bills with it (not able to afford much else yet though). Amazing! And I still can’t believe it happened.

Due to that and starting a YouTube Channel (in German) I didn’t find much time for personal paintings. And I missed it. So know I’m back and I hope I will finally learn to update more regularly.

It happened a lot in the last year. My sketchbook is halfway full by now and I did a lot of client-work. So I will now show you some bits and bobs of what I did. To show everything would kill the post^^

Any feedback is always welcome and much appreciated! I still have a long way to go :)

*** ** *

Back in February 2014 I decided to work on a personal project, because I didn't do so in quite a while. The challenge I put myself up to, is to paint a picture in an art style I really like and try to figure out what makes this style special and how I can apply it to my own art.



Last February I took part in a contest over on ArmorGames and wanted to include it here as well. Task was to create a 100x100 avatar with the topic "Valentins Day". So here it is!



Story: I'm sure everyone realizes that Amor himself must be quite old by now. That said it's impossible for him to take care of all the high expectations people have on Valentins Day every year. So he started to think like a business man. Now he has a lot of employees which do the work for him. How does he pay them you ask? Easy. Companies like ArmorGames want to spread some love and give back to the community. That said they asked Amor to send someone appropriate for the job. Someone who gives a hint, who we have to thank for all the love
PS: I hope the little helper manages to give all the love before he drops out of the sky of exhaustion.
Based on a simple idea: Amor + Armor = A®mor



Friends of mine are got married in September and they asked me to design their wedding invitation back in April, which I absolutely loved to do <3 It was my first time doing a full fletched illustration and quite challenging. But I really liked and still like the outcome. :)



Back in June I did a business card design for a games company called "Nuts". I'm sure you see the relation between the name and the design. The nuts represent the company owners with their specific features. It seems later on they want a nut for everyone of their employees to let them stand out in their forum, so that users instantly know when they are getting answers from the game creators.



I really love drawing female characters and I have quite the hang of drawing the body. But as soon as it gets to faces I never felt comfortably and they just looked flat - missing their volume/ 3d form. That said I felt really lucky when I met a good friend and fellow artist of mine back in July to sketch together. She looked at my drawings and drew over them to show me what they lack. And it's so incredible with what kind of small changes you can turn everything around! :)

PS: The single eyes drawn in pencil - not the colored ones - are the ones she corrected for me again and again until I got the hang of it. And now there is nothing I rather do then draw colorful faces all day long!



A lot of the time last year I spend working on a digital card game. I did over 20 illustrations for them and designed the look of the cards as well. For now I’m only able to show you three of the illustrations I did without the card design. The rest ist still under NDA.

I learned a lot while working on this project. For once I had to imitate the art style of the other artist on the team so that everything would be cohesive. Also I mostly draw characters and eventually a landscape here and there but not much airplanes and buildings. I would never have chosen to do those on my own but it was a great learning experience and I’m excited to see the final game.








Besides that I’m again redesigning my portfolio like every year around that time. I like to keep things fresh and implement what I learned about design throughout the year. It’s work in progress so the old page is still up. Presentation for me is at least as important as the artworks themselves. That said I jumped into the whole mockup scene and try to make my work more presentable through it. For example here an image you will probably find on the home screen of the new portfolio which is w.i.p.



I also started a tumblr in the hope to motivate me to do more of my own stuff again and don’t loose myself in work to much. I choose art because I love it and it shouldn’t be just work for me.



For now there are two things I want to tackle. First my fear of painting/drawing over the stuff I already did, because I could screw it up. That way I will never have finished traditional drawings/paintings and can’t improve. So now I’m going over my sketchbook again and try to improve everything as much as possible and just accept if something gets “screwed up” because I at least learned something.

—> Sketch from January 2014



Final in colored pencils from January 2015 including the better presentation^^



Secondly I will start on a perspective class I found here on crimson daggers. I would love to start right now, but work still needs to go first. This weekend is perspective time and I can’t wait to start :))

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#18
First illustration of a series of three I did for my german beauty blog

I really enjoyed working abstract and concentrating on the most important lines. I also really like the texture effect created through color splashes.



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#19
And the second one, which I like a lot more to be honest :)



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