JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[JyonnyNovice]

Haven't updated this in a little while - which is probably a good sign that I've been spending free time drawing instead of mooching around online.

Steadily working through the Loomis figure drawing book and practising various things~

I'm planning to set some goals for myself (well, I have my goals but I'm planning to put them down in a post to help solidify them). Will do that in the next post (probably)!








Pretty happy with the stick figure mannikin, moving on to the bulkier mannikin~




It's coming along nicely I feel.

Practising some different cross hatching techniques as well:





Still need to scan my manga stuff; will do that in a future post.

[Adam Lina]

Wow, I see a huge improvement in your drawing. Looks like you're taking more time with placing the big shapes first before going into detail. One thing with the hatching you should try is using cross contour lines. Make the hatch lines wrap around the 3D form of the object to give it more 3 dimension. Start practicing on simple stuff like wrapping around a sphere. Doing your hatching like that will also improve your ability to visualize things in 3D.

[JyonnyNovice]

@Hypnogogic You mean my duck? I did indeed start with basic shapes - squashed spheres and tubes - then built it up around those. Somehow though, something has clicked, my eye is better and I'm being more careful but doing it kinda subconsciously (like I just magically became better!) - that's what mileage does for you I guess! I kinda had a go at contour cross hatching on the duck, but it was a bit half hearted.

I feel like doing another shaded pencil sketch to test myself again! Watch this space!

[JyonnyNovice]

Trying to master the bulkier Loomis mannikin, I feel like I'm making good progress - I have trouble with the torso area, figuring out how it curves in 3/4 views. Mine seem to look a bit flat in the torso.

I've done pages and pages of these but won't post them all since it's pretty dull to look at. Here are some of them:











Experimenting a bit with water colour pencils - I didn't wet the pencils, just shaded as if they were colouring pencils then used this water brush thing to blend. The paper wasn't very good so it dried crinkled but it was pretty fun.



Finally I tried another animal pencil sketch to work on my cross hatching and measuring - tried using the contour lines more. It's an ok drawing, I'm not really too excited about it though. My measuring was off a bit on the muzzle, it should be longer - makes it look like a baby panda but then it has the long body of an adult which makes it look weird. Next time I'll also try something that isn't covered in fur - it was quite a challenge, I wasn't too sure how to approach it.






I want to set down my goals, long term and short term, so they aren't just floating around in my head - time to make some solid determinations!

Long term goals - these are my (current) dreams, subject to change at any time!

- Make a living with art
- Write & draw a comic book
- Paint portraits of the characters from 'The Wheel of Time' series

Short term goals - (and the order in which I plan to achieve them)

- Master the bulky Loomis mannikin
- Get to page 67 of 'Figure Drawing for all it's Worth' and become competent with the material so far
- Go back to Udemy anatomy course (finish learning all the muscles)
- Master 'Figure drawing' book up to page 87 (planes of the body & light and shadow)
- Do 'How to Render' course from ctr-paint (bought it a while back but haven't looked at it yet)
- Continue Udemy anatomy course (drawing dynamic poses)
- Begin studying 'How to draw the head and hands'
- Complete Udemy course (head / hands / feet)
-
-
- Finish 'head and hands' and 'figure drawing' books
- Take 'drawing sexy pin ups' course on Udemy (it came cheap with the other course and looks fun)
-
- Finish / redo 'How to Draw' by Scott Robertson (perspective related stuff)
-
- Learn more about colour and composition
- Become proficient with digital painting
-
- Paint the characters from 'The Wheel of Time' (I've studiously avoided seeing any fan art and even the book covers so I can create them as I see them)
-
-
- Win!

I'll post these on the 1st page of my sketchbook and edit / update them as things change. Wish me luck!!!!

[JyonnyNovice]

More mannikin practice







I'm pretty happy with this style of mannikin, still need practice but ready to move on to the next mannikin, which includes simplified muscle groups.

[JyonnyNovice]

Full mannikin 1st attempt - haven't studied the front / back / 3/4 views yet, just seeing how I can do with a pose

[JyonnyNovice]

Memorising the full mannikin (simplified muscle groups)

From the book:




Then after some pages practising.

From memory:



Now the fun really begins! When I started studying this book I just wanted to be able to draw the stickman mannikin in cool poses, now I have surpassed that and learning this mannikin has made my figure drawing ability shoot up about 500%, I'm so excited to be entering this stage! Next comes learning to draw it in perspective but for now I am having so much fun practising with this one:







Having this framework in place makes everything feel so natural and fluid, I am so happy!

[JyonnyNovice]

Just one today, I used a reference image for the pose then added the costume; it's a bit dodgy in places but I feel like I'm getting there~



It's let down in part because I can't draw faces; maybe I'll start the head and hands Loomis book alongside the figure drawing studies - maybe alternate between doing 1 day head 1 day figures.

[StardustLarva]

I'm seeing some good development here. Though I think you really need to focus on fleshing out your hands more.

[JyonnyNovice]

@Stardust Thanks for the comment, I was planning to work on the hands after I've learned the rest of the muscles, but they do let my drawings down quite a lot so perhaps I should take a look at that and make my own sort of mannikin hand in the meantime.

Today's offerings; more figure practice with a bit of painting:

[JyonnyNovice]

Trying to develop my hands a bit, trying to find a simplification that feels comfortable:







I like the blocky hand, it's nice to draw, I'm having terrible trouble with the perspective on the flattened fingertips though - I don't really want to draw all kinds of construction lines just to do the fingertips so I'll just keep trying to feel it out until my eye gets a bit better.

And some more figure practice:



I'm feeling pretty comfortable with these, I will do some practice drawing figures from imagination then move on in the Loomis book - the next section is drawing figures to the horizon line / in perspective (my attempts at this have been absolutely dreadful, they look squashed flat, need to persevere!)

[JyonnyNovice]

Managed to find a whole evening plus following day without work or babies to devote to drawing! Here's what I've produced so far:

Trying to put together everything I've learned over the past couple months about anatomy and proportions, everything in this post was from imagination, I just used reference images for some pieces of clothing.





Trying to play around with the proportions to make stylised pinup style drawings.







Decided I'm going to try and make an actual finished picture - I've been just sketching and practising for so long now - did the above thumbnail sketches to figure out a fun pose and idea. Went for the clumsy waitress top left.

Here's the full pencil drawing:



I'm pretty happy with how it's looking so far, I'll probably stop with pencil for now and work on it more in photoshop. If anyone notices any glaring errors with the composition let me know! (the guy at the table needs to be moved, since he's closer to the picture plan but smaller than the dog, also the hotel in the background could probably be put into 3 point perspective since the viewing angle is so low?)

[JyonnyNovice]

Developing the previous picture a bit more:

[JyonnyNovice]

Managed to get another long drawing session today, decided to start with just a blank piece of paper and a pen (trying to eliminate my scribbly / scratchy style) , no books or pictures or realia and just see what happened. It's pretty liberating for me to be able to just play and draw without any specific thing in mind. A month ago I needed 'something' in front of me to draw, unless I was just practising memorising skeletons and stuff.



I must be missing my woman... she's been away for three weeks and by now about 70% of what I draw is sexy girls...


On with studying from the Loomis book:


This was hard but getting my head around it steadily


Figures look really stiff and boring, but I understand the principle and can sorta put it into practice...









Now behold! My greatest masterpiece yet!














Wow, just wow... this is HAAARRRDDD!!!! I'm ok with drawing symmetrically curved or boxy objects in perspective but drawing the human figure... sometimes I feel like I'm about to have a stroke when I'm trying to figure out where stuff goes... this is a really. huge. challenge for me!


It might be because where I've studied the front / back / side / 3/4 views, I've got those locked in my mind but shifting slightly above or below there's a gap in my visual library that I try to imagine my way around. I might try drawing some figures from reference at extreme angles (really high and really low) in hopes to move forward with this.


Anyway, it was about 10:30pm when I started this, I was pretty tired - gonna try again tomorrow (well, and the next day and the next until I get it right!)

[RejectedMoose]

Hey, you're doing great!
Lovely studies and whatnot. I recommend you start try to put those studies into practice.

A tip (I believe, perhaps it's just a personal preference), try not to think so much about where X is going to be or how Y is going to be shaped. If you tend to overthink placements, perspective, close or faraway, it usually gets stiff and off.
I see you're using lots of lines for different things, perhaps it works better for you, then great! Keep doing it. But I can say from my view, that I've never drawn with helplines (for the most part), just because I, myself, usually tend to draw more, flow..y without them. It doesn't get as much as thought out.
As I said, could just be a personal preference.

ANYWAY, keep it up! Very dedicated chap/lady. :)

---

Oh and..
Don't always use a book as your primary resource for studies and training.
We have wonderful pictures and outdoors to serve us too!

[JyonnyNovice]

RejectedMoose: Thanks for the encouragement! I'm using the construction lines because the section of the book I'm working on is all about drawing figures to the horizon. I don't like it at all, it's really hard and makes me want to pass out but I feel it's really crucial - since I want to draw comic books being able to place multiple characters in scale in the same scene from imagination is pretty important.

You're right though, I should get outside drawing more! It's nice to just lose yourself in drawing the world around you!

[Cruptic]

Hey man and thanks for all your comments in my sketchbook!
I'm pretty interested in your sketchbook too now, the stuff that you upload is great, keep doing that. I find it very difficult to add perspective to figure drawing and you're really improving by doing these sketches that's great! Good thing to do imagination stuff as well so keep that up!
Cheers

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks Cruptic, that gives me more motivation to keep going : )

Today's offerings:

Started again with just blank paper and pen and let imagination run free. The perspective on figures is feeling a little better than yesterday, but still stiff and lifeless (I made the scale way too small in this doodle though).



Next some proper figure perspective practice. Not too happy with the result. although it seems to be in perspective. I've been pondering and think my issue is that I am rushing them, in my mind I'm thinking about doing a whole scene of figures and then drawing the whole thing in the same time I'd usually take to do just one solo figure. Tomorrow I'm going to slow down and concentrate on one figure well - I'm also going to try using just the Loomis stickman, to try and get some life into the poses in perspective before I start trying to bulk them up.

Next another cartoon sexy girl (a sexy maid this time)



And finally, cause I was feeling a bit demotivated, a pencil sketch of an underwear model - as usual my head / hands let the drawing down but I'm happy with the anatomy and proportions.

As soon as I master the figures in perspective I'm going back to 'drawing the head and hands' book to get to grips with heads & faces.

[JonHop]

Hey man, taken a look through all your recent work and i'm impressed with all the hard work and mileage you're putting in! Way to go! *virtual high five*. I really like the drawing you did of the panda, it has a really nice feel of the care taken on it and it looks like you enjoyed doing it and it shows through. One suggestion for that is you have the base values laid in for the darker fur but you could get some darker tones in there for the shadows especially where the light wont hit like where the arm meets the face and the thing the panda is leaning on. You can use dark values next to light values in certain places to make the focal point (face) really pop. Also remember like on the duck when you are placing eyes etc you're placing them on a 3D form and think about how they would fit in the contour of the form.

Really great to see all your hard work on the figure, there are issues with proportions in places (human figure is a wonderfully complex thing to draw and can be very difficult at times but when you nail it it's oh so rewarding!), try not to think of it as this is an arm or this is this part but think of the basic form that goes there, simplify it to the very basic form get that right and the pose and then add detail as the icing on the sound base that you've built and above all have fun, experiment and keep experimenting and challenging yourself, that'll help your learning process a lot.

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey Jon, thanks for taking the time to look through all my stuff, I'll definitely take your comments on board! I think when I do pencil sketches, like the animals and such, I need to get it to the 'finished' point, then put it down for an hour or so and go back to it later - so I can catch the things you mentioned with the values and stuff. Usually I 'finish' them and am so happy I can't wait to spray it with fixative and show to people!



One more picture for today - was just flicking through Scott Robertson's book to brush up on perspective and can't believe I stopped at page 79 to go and study anatomy - page 80+ is where all the cool stuff happens! So I very quickly skimmed through orthographic views and x y z section drawing and doodled this little metal lizard tank thing!



It's really cool to be able to do the kind of stuff he shows in his sketchbooks on youtube! Will go back and study it properly sometime soon.