Wardy's New Sketchbook :)

[Wardy]

Some perspective stuff, learning from Andrew Loomis' 'Successful Drawing'.

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Moar

[Wardy]

A study from feng zhu's work, zoomed out just for colour pallette, so really sketchy.

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Snow study, feng zhu.

Realised that I need to darken my closest values or they turn out washed out.

[Wardy]

Did a landscape using the pallette from feng zhu's grassy stuff :) really happy with the pallette, will use in the future. Spent about 40 mins on this.
Used a photo for the sky, may try some mattepainting soon.

[Wardy]

Quick chest study, just having a look at the muslce groups especially abs, as I tend to draw cartoon abs...

[Amit Dutta]

Great start man, really nice studies , though i wouldnt use too many photos or do too many mattes just yet. Concentrate on your painting skills. Having said that, nice work on that last enviro!

[Andantonius]

Nice studies, keep it up! I agree with monkeybread, be careful about trying to use too many photoshop h4x early on, it's better to learn how to do things by hand and then when you're comfortable with them find ways to shortcut the process. Your environments are looking really nice though, and doing the comp studies like you did from the Feng Zhu pieces is great practice. :)

For your latest study with the chest muscles, your study looks good but if you want to get in-depth with figure / anatomy study, I'd recommend getting your hands on Stephen Peck's "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" or David K. Rubins' "The Human Figure". Posemaniacs is handy for gesture studies, but the muscle texture maps don't wrap over the forms in the way that real muscles do and they have the potential to mislead you in terms of anatomy study, so using an artist with some nice clean reference plates will be helpful I think.

Great stuff, keep up the good practice!

[Wardy]

Some gestureal female figure studies.
Learnt further about using lines of action as well as using cylinders and other shapes to construct form.
Fairly happy with the results but I have a lot to learn :)

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Great start man, really nice studies , though i wouldnt use too many photos or do too many mattes just yet. Concentrate on your painting skills. Having said that, nice work on that last enviro!

Thanks very much, yes just wanted to try something new and saw a nice sky pic :)
Cheers!

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Nice studies, keep it up! I agree with monkeybread, be careful about trying to use too many photoshop h4x early on, it's better to learn how to do things by hand and then when you're comfortable with them find ways to shortcut the process. Your environments are looking really nice though, and doing the comp studies like you did from the Feng Zhu pieces is great practice. :)

For your latest study with the chest muscles, your study looks good but if you want to get in-depth with figure / anatomy study, I'd recommend getting your hands on Stephen Peck's "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" or David K. Rubins' "The Human Figure". Posemaniacs is handy for gesture studies, but the muscle texture maps don't wrap over the forms in the way that real muscles do and they have the potential to mislead you in terms of anatomy study, so using an artist with some nice clean reference plates will be helpful I think.

Great stuff, keep up the good practice!

yes that was just for an experiment really, but thanks for the advice will steer clear of that until im good enough to take shortcuts. Yeh feng studies are great fun too :)

Ok that sounds like a plan, defo need to learn more about anatomy, will have a look at both of those thanks for the recommendation :)

Thanks very much, will keep going :D

[Wardy]

Male figure studies, about 15 mins on each.

[Wardy]

Tried to come up with some original poses to practice getting lines of action and proportions right.
Wanted to get across a sense of tension and strain in this, hopefully it doesnt look too awkward!

[Wardy]

Quick b/w speedpaint, using new oil paint style using full opacity and rough brushes, I really like the results.

[Damien Levs]

Hi, You have a real good start here with the studies. Feng is really motivational to learn from. How about try some still life? I think that will help a lot. It helps everyone a lot.

Don't forget to break things up from studies and still have fun by having a toy around in your imagination. Exercising your imagination is still important.

[Wardy]

Hi, You have a real good start here with the studies. Feng is really motivational to learn from. How about try some still life? I think that will help a lot. It helps everyone a lot.

Don't forget to break things up from studies and still have fun by having a toy around in your imagination. Exercising your imagination is still important.

Hey, thanks a lot :)
Hm I havent tried any still life actually, will give that a shot!
I try to exercise it everyday with a speedpaint, you dont see it here because I absolutely hate whatever I produce and end up giving up on it pretty sharpish. Colour just never comes out right for me :/ I can only practice...
Cheers for the comment :)

[Wardy]

Quick speedy, 40 mins.

[Wardy]

Painting took about 5-6 hours i think, trying out some new brushes and tried to go for the same kind of thing Noah Bradley does with the clouds.
Tell me what ya think ;)

[Goht]

It's good to see perspective studies, I think it's so important to hammer into our skulls perspective drawing so we can visualize it on the fly. Your speed paintings are also starting to look quite good. As for the last painting you did, I recommend defining the object in the sky more, I can't tell if it's the hollowed out inside of a cavern, or clouds. Maybe look at volcanic rock shapes like this http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/namein...-sprou.jpg which has the smooth surface you're looking for if you're going for that look. If they're clouds I recommend blending more and using different brush shapes and erasing/smearing them around. And as always, references are our friends :)

[Wardy]

Hey, yeh exactly i need to do a few more i think, but interesting stuff.
Thanks very much, i was quite happy with it for once :D
The things in the sky are clouds, but i know they are too defined. I was trying to get the edge lighting such as this
http://copypasterepost.com/wp-content/up...y_Moat.jpg
I'll give that a go in future. I'm sick of that piece now so I'll let it rot!
Next painting i do i'll do a big sky expanse and try doing clouds from reference, thanks for the advice!

[Tygerson]

Really great speedpaintings! You've got a lot of depth, and some beautiful light going on!

[Wardy]

Really great speedpaintings! You've got a lot of depth, and some beautiful light going on!

Thanks very much! Much appreciated :)

[TNiznet]

Hey Ward, I have to say that YOU MUST be fluent in the traditional medium if you truly want to expand your digital work. You need to draw from life, lay off drawing in the digital format if you can't draw well with a pencil. You seem to lack foundation, I would suggest you to layoff the digital work for a while and start learning to accurately see from life as well as learning key fundamentals like perspective. Only then will you understand what artists like Fengzhu were possibly thinking when you are doing studies off their paintings. Better yet, do master studies from classical painters instead of your contemporaries, since even they looked up to such artists. Good Luck man!

[Wardy]

Cloud study, at sunset. Learnt about various tones that are in sunset clouds as well as the different forms they take- will use brush variation in future as well as using some blues and purples.

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Hey, yes I intend to keep a physical sketchbook as well as taking oil and acrylic courses this summer. I actually find it far easier to use a pencil and I much prefer the results, but I thought that it would be good practice to use a tablet.
I'll do more sketches from life, traditional painting would require considerable effort and funds for me to set up for myself- what are the merits of traditional painting practice as opposed to digital for practice? Will see if I can buy a few small canvases and go out somewhere some time.
I've learnt a fair deal about perspective but havent put it down in my sketchbook, will have to do a few panes of 2 and 3 point perspective some time. What about my work seems to lack fundamentals? Is the perspective skewed in some of them? Sorry, dont mean to sound defensive its just I dont know what looks wrong.
I intend to do some studies from the hudson river group soon, thanks.