Flo's sketchbook

[Flo]

I went to the figure drawing class, it was a lot of fun.
one of the teachers there told me how to improve my linework, but I don't know if it helped.

[Flo]

finally some more finished stuff.

I had to do an art test for that german game company. I had as much time as I wanted they said so I kinda slacked off a bit.

The company is not really a place I want to work at, I just wanted to check how much they would have paid me.

Anyways, I didn't get the job. I asked them to tell me, what the problem was, but they didn't respond yet (I asked yesterday).

Nevertheless I think I learned something from it.

1st: having many organized layers stiffens my workflow.
2nd: working on the drawing first, then on grayscale and then add colors with soft light is an awesome workflow for me as a beginner.

With that workflow I had a lot of fun working on the sabre.

I know Dan and Dave talked about working in greyscale then adding colors with Softlight, but I just now really tried it (on the armor-study a couple of posts ago). After that some more saturated colors may have to be added but it is really easy.

So I am happy to finally find a workflow that frees my mind from the technical side of digital illustration a bit.

Cheers,
Flo

[Flo]

update on Azura

[Flo]

i am back to the basics

trying to get more into cross hatching and value control. both faces are from ref. the girl took about 1.5 h.

[Flo]

after hearing about Noah Bradley's art-camp, I decided to do more old-master-studies. So here it goes. 2 hours

[Flo]

some stuff from last week and today.

my environments always look like from a jump and run game : ( do you guys have some crits how i can give it a more realistic feel?

I would love some feedback,

cheers,
flo

[iCi]

Hey Flo, just do 5 very detailed studies of movie shots or good photos of environments and you will figure it out :) The last one is cartoonish because proportions are not realistic, perspective and rendering also. I see you are doing a lot of studies already, and work a lot as well, don't stop :)

[Flo]

Hey iCi,

thanks for stopping by. Will do more studies soon and thanks for the encouragement. :)

here is the newest version of the old master study

[Flo]

I changed to forrest scene into an evening-mood and a winterscene. A coworker asked me why I didn't put it up in my portfolio. But I am not convinced if it wouldn't hurt more than help. I can't decide, what do you think? If it isn't ready in your opinion, what could I change to push it more?

Also I did a value-experiment and a photo-study of a salamander.

cheers,
flo

[Flo]

I spent another hour on the portrait

[florentK]

I have already studied this portrait ..but seeing your stuff give me the feelling i want to do it one more time. I think the eyes socket should be a little bit more darker than they actually are in your painting. even for the eyes ball ( may be you it's still in wip ) . The brownish colour under the nose , on the beard is get a little bit of redish(orange ish ?) tone in the original. sorry for my english...
You are almost done !:) great
your salamander studies is awesome.. you have a great eyes for colors and painting details.
(

[Flo]

hi guys,

this is what I got for today.

The caustic-study is from a James Gurney painting, he is awesome. I bought "imaginative realism" and got it in the post today. I just have to get it from the neighbor. Yeay!

And I tried to do a form-sketch of a bee and at the same time finally find a way to do line art. I think I will stick with Opacity/flow/size on penpressure and airbrush on. It feels closest to working with pencil for me at this point.

@florent: thanks a lot. I really like studying old masters, it feels like they know what they are doing, hence what I learn from it can't be that wrong.
also thanks for the comment on the salamander, much appreciated.

[florentK]

a bug in dynamic sketch ! . good one !
your cross hatching is very strong. It looks like you have a nice sense of 3d shape :p

[Flo]

@florent: thanks a lot. I looked through sickbrush's conceptart sketchbook and saw his crosshatching. I tried to practice that :)

this time it is just a quick character i did for a gameproject at work. Tried to use 100% opacity first and some dodge and burn later.

[Warburton]

hey man, great to see your doing loads of work as usually, it's always a pleasure to drop by here and see your progress. It's great to see your line work has come along too, which is awesome.

In regards to wanting a crit for your environment, i would have to agree with ici. Try studying abit of perspective, that should help alot with getting things more realistic. It's a drag to study but it's super important too so i would recommend learning the fundermentals. Isra did a mentorship for it and all the vids are still there i think so you could always use them for help.
Also keep studying those forms. I see you've already done that with this latest bee which looks great but having better understanding of forms will help alot with your values. In regards to values too, i noticed on your master study you've got a black background where as the master painting is a reddish grey background. It'll probabaly help to get that background a similar colour if your trying to duplicate the master painting because the black is going to fuck with your perception of values and the colours. Bear in mind that the skin tones and values are painted that way BECAUSE the surrounding space is a reddish grey. Everything is deliberate. For example, notice how the eyes are actually darker than the background, so that they draw focal attention, and that colour and values shift from left to right with the values of the face.
Anyway, i dropped an essay in your sketchbook again -_- i'm sorry dude lol, i hope this helps anyways my friend, your work ethic is really inspiring and i always love seeing your updates.

keep it up mate.

[Flo]

hey man, thanks a ton for that essay. I always love it when you or someone else decides to help me to get better :).

actually this week was a bit calmer and I couldn't draw as much as I wanted to. i guess that is the crux with working at one spot full time and don't have all day to do studies. but i can upload an art test soon and I am excited to show it and get feedback on it :D

I will definitely have a look at isras mentorship and keep working on those fundamentals. But honestly I think the problem is not only faulty perspective but also lighting (which I don't know a lot about yet) and rendering. it also looks a bit dirty and somehow ugly to me. maybe I should stay with harder brushes more so doesn't get too blurry?

dude i totally forgot about that background D: I thought I add it last, but now that you say it, it totally makes sense to work on it first and base everything else off of it.

I did some small adjustments to it. It is crazy how much details there are to look for. Now that I changed the bg I see a lot more things that I need to change ^^

[Flo]

Pictures from the latest video about bees and there behaviour.

All of it was done from reference images.

more coming sooooooon.

[Flo]

Pictures from the latest video about malaria.

All of it was done from reference images.

[Flo]

last week's video about Parasites

[Flo]

last week's video about: Extreme Biotopes

It's weird, somedays I seem to forget how to use the brushes I set up and I keep struggling with them. That are the days I wonder what brushes other people use.

That happened to me with the cactus-skin (everything went well) and the tardigrade (everything was hard).

other than that, my internship ended but I will work there as art-director from September on.

Until then me and my girl will do a 2 month trip through south-east-asia.

I will take a water-color-sketchbook, colors and a pentel water brush with me. I am so pumped to see the nature, temples and the people there. I thinnk I will have something cool to show after that time.

Cheers,
Flo