@doublethink Thanks a lot for dropping by! I'll keep it in mind for next time.
today's notes: I lied. couldn't help myself and drew another portrait even though I said I would do boring gradients.
Anyway, tried my best with not blending edges here: 30 mins (maybe?) imagination
not perfect around the eyes and mouth, but next time expressions
(Edit: hmm... I see where I messed up in the eyes, in the foreshortened eye, part of it should be covered by the nose. that's why it seems more shallowly set than the other eye... d'oh!)
I was wondering why I wasn't getting any better, felt like my painting was getting worse and worse the more time I put in. Took a quick rest and started again this morning.
found out my brush setting were off and fixed it
here's a quick 1 hr photostudy. I learned what shapes and shadows are on the malar area
I think I'll be doing one of the portrait classes posted on the other dagger subforum
awww yeahhh time to get serious!
Edit: second session of the day, imagination 1 hr (as always)
notes: still sucks :( Need to get on that portrait class. Now that I fixed the brush settings everything is cool, stylus feel-wise, but my imagination pieces are always so smooth because I end up simplifying and buffing out all the brush marks.
+before bedtime fun sketch, yet another pacific rim inspired pic, dead kaiju near the ocean
Watched Charles Hu's gnomon video on anatomy today, helped me loads! though I have to use 100% of my brain to follow anatomy rules... it's not effortless. Sometimes I find that parts of the face will end up in a different plane than the rest of the face.
Imagination (forgot to record time)
enviro sketch, so terrible lol, never practice enviros at all :/
photostudy 1 hr (I am concentrating on ears next, tired of not being able to draw ears)
imagination (last of the day) I admit I cheated, adjusted contrast at the end because I never paint with enough contrast >_<!!
Some loomis heads and proko nose planes, another imagination head, gotta work on those brush strokes :/
watched scott robertson's matte painting dvds, really helped with knowing how dark to go where.
imagination (forgot to time), angle of the eyes/lips is wrong definitely, need to study edges and lighting more. perhaps master studies next time. on the plus side, I think I'm good with noses :D
today I learned: hard light=hard shadows/hard edges/ big difference of value between lights and darks
soft light/soft shadows/soft edges/ less form/small difference of value between lights and darks
Soft light is still difficult, sometimes turns out too muddy
but I fixed general muddiness issues by separating lights and darks and not blending too much
Today I'm officially done with noses. It was pretty easy to draw the nose with value instead of lineart, must mean I am ready to move on.
all these from imagination. next up, lips and more photostudies to get better edge control. The scribbliness is crazy in these :/
today's lessons: proko (lips), Charles Hu (gnomon anatomy/head), vilppu (head)
edit: added photostudy (the nice one), and imagination sketch (the ugly one lol)
not much to post today, did portraits from live model in acrylic. No camera though, can't upload :/
came home and applied paint study to imagination. this one was prob 30 mins- 1 hr, no ref.
eye studies from last time helped a lot. Lips still sitting not so settled on the muzzle. haven't done ears at all.
faces, faces, the good ones from ref (posemaniacs, head angle ref sheets)
the bad ones I started before doing the angle ref sheets, started to draw them instead of paint because it was taking too long to render by blocking out.
improved a bit after the studies, especially with head proportions and the way features sit on the face. May post more later today.
edit: added couple sets of studies, also worked on lip placement on heads. hell yeah loomis method! got the skull proportion correct now too :D
Heads from imagination, and set 4 of studies. (I think I'm finally done with heads! Gonna start expressions tomorrow) Got guests crashing at the place tonight so got a lot less work done today :/
more tomorrow after they leave, and probably less after school starts on monday, but I will try to update every day still :)
didn't stop practicing but school started and a bunch of stuff happened with the car so I slowed down a bit, also I haven't posted the traditional stuff. Doing expressions right now, but it's late and thought I might warm up with a neutral face first.
have come a long way from last month, and hope to get better!
Eyes study from refs
and surprised face from imagination/memory
also some traditional stuff from a couple weeks ago, traditional is slow going y'all... :/
did a quick imagination face today (look ma, no refs at all!)
it's not super great or anything, but it's pretty good after not drawing for 2 straight months :/
just bought the greyscale to color video from ctrl+paint. Maybe I can stop making boring black and whites now :D
this one... I don't even know what
also imagination
will do actual studies tomorrow on the lower half of the face because I really need the practice
@Hypnagogic_Haze thank you! I'm drawing every chance I get :)
learning to paint skin colors:
some imagination junk.... my skin painting skills need a lot of work:
edit (12/8/2013):
not my lineart, just using it to practice coloring skin
drew a random face to practice on, included the palette I used, I also added some blues in there but forgot to put them on the palette
if you have any crits I'd really appreciate it if you would leave them here
painting skin is so hard :/