molesting virgin moleskines with graphite <3

[Raymond Luk]

Ahh, so this is that fancy ogre xD
Hmm tess, the butt coming off his left leg looks a bit too low/pronounced
The pants are sagging way too much on that side, and should be pretty snug against the butt and crotch area, otherwise it'll flutter out directly from the butt down to the ankle. But in this image, i'm assuming he has sort of dress pants or pimp pants?
Either make the material loose or snug: loose Snug

[Budgie]

raymond luk - thanks rayray. I'll take a look at that as soon as all the school stuffs finished. I do see what you mean, missed that tension point in the clothing.

I've tried some watercolor stuff and done sketches etc, but I cant upload them atm (1:10 am so I'd be waking up the whole darn house with the scanner)

but I do have another ballpoint sketch -probably also for a larger project-, +/- 30-40 min
about not working in the system you live in. school, work, family, anthing.

[Budgie]

aaaaand dump dem drawings. derping with watercolour.

[florentK]

like the colors mix. and your watercolors .Do you have any suggestion about learning the colors in watercolors ? your studies looks very interesting. did you take art classes ? It looks you have already great solid fundation. :) this is insane.. very inspiring.

[Samszym]

Nice swatches! This stuff makes me feel like breaking out my own watercolors again XD
It's great to see you're experimenting with media, keep up the good work!

[Budgie]

florentK - hey man, thanks a lot (: It's always awesome when someone tells you you're inspiring, such a compliment (:. I never really took any art classes, but I did attend 9 life drawing sessions with model. books and internet ftw. the studies are actually just derping around and taking notes of my thoughts, to figure out some stuff instead of mindlessly putting down the paint. I don't have any good tutorials or anything (which I usually do have) sorry :/ If you'd like, I can stream a watercolor piece and explain some stuff, or just talk about painting and stuff. send me a PM (or add me on FB: tessa aalbregt - I only post art stuff-) if that seems like a good idea to you. (also goes for anyone who's reading this, I like meeting other artists (: ) cya next time (:

samszym - heya! nice you've stopped by again (: don't hesitate to do some of it, watercolor is too nice to collect dust ^^

sooo, some more messing around and experimenting. discovered some dos and donts.

[Budgie]

daargh I have to update my sb more often. School is CRAZY these last weeks of the year, so I'll barely be able to draw. I do have an assignment to make a portrait (for school) which I will be working on. Here's the WIP, a closeup of the face. Oils, still have a lot of work on it. Have to work on the facial hair, ear, and eye. havent really started the mouth and hair yet. The portrait is A3 size and will also include the torso. so. much. to. do.

oh, and also an unfinished drawing which was a daily for a skypegroup. drawing from imagination, just for fun made during boring classes and at times like 3 am.

[natori]

So that's where you've disappeared to =P

I like the notes that you did on the watercolor swatches, the traditional stuff is looking stronger.
On the foxhide wizard guy, it seems like he's floating off his feet. A cast shadow might help his case of levitation.

The demon guy could use more hard lines like you did with the torso to make him come out from the grey background. The oil painting is really coming along =D Keep it up and try to survive school ( > o < )

[Budgie]

nat - ey (: currently using the foxguy in a collaboration drawing, so someone else is working on it now :p have to let that one go.

being productive during maths. (btw, I will upload that portait asap, so busy D: only a few weeks of school left, I'm so looking forward to freedom.)

[Budgie]

some more pencil fun

[Budgie]

summer break is slowly starting to get closer, and in two weeks the storm will begin. for now, two weeks of learning for school A LOT, no idea if I'm gonna get through this.

this will be my challenge this summer:



as it says,

LET'S GET IT ONNN.

[Budgie]

first 5 pages

[Samszym]

oh sweet, lots of drawing!!! I usually do gestures free on the page, trying to fit them in charts like that seems like it would be kind of restrictive to me, but maybe it's helpful for drawing things at the right size :/
Matt Jonez and Rad Sechrist are a couple of my current favorite artists who do really appealing, simple gestures, might be a nice source of inspiration for you to look at. And definitely get Walt Stanchfield's Drawn to Life books if you can get your hands on them.
I don't personally like posemaniacs, I think it's a step better to draw from websites with real people like quickposes or pixelovely. It's again a step better than that to do gesture drawing from films where actors make notable gestures a(Chaplin and Buster Keaton films are favorites of mine for that) and the top of the stepladder is getting out and drawing actual real people from life.
Oh and if you're lucky enough to live near a zoo take advantage of that and go animal drawing a lot. Remember to have fun!

Awesome to see you're taking your summer seriously and trying to use your time to learn well. I have one critique, your rule of doing only hard studies and no doodles sounds AWFUL AND BORING, make sure you have fun. And apply your studies to the fun stuff you're drawing! I guess you might be keeping a second sketchbook for silly doodles, if so then that's all good XD

I spent a summer doing pages upon pages of gestures and Bridgeman studies, and I got just about NOTHING from it since I wasn't really thinking about what I was drawing and using it in my own work. SO just a warning: always think about what you're drawing and apply it to your own work. And remember to have fun!

I think you might be drawing too small, I'd maybe try drawing heads 2 or 3 times the size yours appear to be have room for searching lines and construction lines without everything looking too busy or detailed. And I don't know haw many of these are form observation or imagination, but it seems like you;re getting a mix of both which is ideal. I'd suggest drawing from reference and then drawing the same head in a different position to practice turning forms in space. And you don't seem to be drawing any women or children or smiles so add some of all of those in your routine.

And remember to have fun! :D

[Budgie]

samszym - awesome reaction. I've given your pointers a thought, and I'll be changing my plans a bit. less 15 sec from posemaniacs, more 30 secs from quickposes. larger head studies, and start using ref for some. pitefully, i don't have the luxury of someone posing for me :/ I had a few live model classes some time ago, and MAN, they were usefull. about the having fun part, that's nothing you have to worry about :p this book will probably be taking 2 hrs each day when summer break starts, which means I still have lots of hours left to derp around, I really want to get more into digital this summer, and also some plein air sessions.

halfway the gesture drawings, decided to go for 90 sec and a different technique. I like it, but it still needs lots of development. and a decent pencil :p
also facing one of my greatest fears: drawing the female figure.
TOO MANY DARN CURVES.

[Samszym]

I didn't mean going out to life drawing sessions or getting people to pose for you, more something in the vein of going to cafes and malls and sketching people without letting them notice you XD

The point of gesture drawing, imo, is to capture action and life in the pose. It's a storytelling exercise as much as a design/figure drawing one. And therefore, it's best to actually draw people doing stuff from life! That's why I've started to become less enthusiastic about sites like pixelovely, because the poses are all beginning to look staged and unnatural to me. I think those sites make good exercises for warming up though.

Just based on the fact that you started shading those last gestures, I think you might be getting down the basic pose then having a bunch of time left. I think it might be a better use of your time to spend a few seconds thinking about the pose before starting to draw it, considering how the model is supporting her weight and looking for rhythms and considering possible stories before actually making your first mark. If I wanted to study the shadows and forms of the figure I would probably set that up as a more careful, longer study instead of shading a gesture. Oh, and on that note, you should always draw the entire body in a gesture drawing!

Maybe try doing these in pen or marker or charcoal.
Plein air sketching sounds fun, something I'd like to get into too.
Hope your summer is awesome!

[Budgie]

got some great crits on gesture stuff which I'd love to try to apply, but I'll firstly have to finish this one. yep, oils, already 30 hrs of pure work in it, only have to do some small changes, the hand and the cigar. A3 size

[Budgie]

Being useful at work. nop. Glad I brought the right pencil. Not finished, probably going to continue this one digital.

[Budgie]

WIP yep.

[Madzia]

Hi Budgie! Nice sketchbook! Your works in pencil looks marvelous! I love your gesture drawing this pages with ~60 small rectangles containing small poses looks sweet, you can grab gesture in few lines and that's something :)
Your last pencil drawing with boy riding dragon is astonishing it's piece of art by it self. But I can't say that colors you picked work well. First of all you already going into so small detail on blouse while picture as a whole isn't established. Values, color palette, you will hear that many times but it's sacred to work from big to small any shortcut will only make your work look bad or extend the time you will spend on it. How I said the sketch is awesome and I only wish your digital continuation of it would be on the same level of awesomeness :)
The sky isn't flat color, it's brighter closer to the horizon,
Clouds are translucent so they will have more saturated shadows. In your pic they grab some of the green color and I don't know why, to grab color of the fields they should be really close to ground but the scene looks like high in the sky.
The floating islands don't grab air perspective at all.
Also the colors of boy aren't harmonious they clash really badly. Here's something from Loomis Creative Illustration
"All colors become a source of reflected color when in light and will reflect themselves into lesser light. All colors in shadows become recipients of other reflected color and will change accordingly. This means that you must consider each plane of the shadow area and whether it would catch the color of something else. This not only makes the units of your picture seems to belong together, it also produces harmony between your color masses. Any two colors will be harmonious when one or both contain some of the other."

Here's my fast overpaint. Top picture have equaled colors by mixing surrounding ones. And bottom is just fast value correction so between boy and sky is stronger contrast. Overall I would think through colors of boy and dragon to be more appealing, but I leave that to you :D Hope It's helpful! :D

[Budgie]

madzia - thanks so much for these critiques (: I will leave a larger reply on then when I post the next wip of th piece, for now it still has to little progress to post a new wip (:

and a 1 hr selfportrait from mirror. failing this hard, but still posting it in hope to see proogress after a while. might spend another hour on it tomorrow.