What ImSkeptical learnt this week (Sketchbook)

[ImSkeptical]

Cyprinus - Thanks! I think that ruanjia study just gave me another color pallette to work with. Purple instead of yellow :D

Wolkenfels - Thanks!

smrrfette - :D!

goodsir - Thanks man!


About the mentoring thing, when i finish this piece im working on right now (which is taking longer than i would like -_-), i'll gather notes and plan a little how I would tackle it. I think right now I would rather just take a couple people at a time for a few weeks each, not have to much of a plan. Instead just take people who have plenty of free time at their disposal and a microphone, I ask them questions, record the sessions. I probably want to screen the people in some way that I know communication won't be an issue if I do it this way though. The other option i could do is lecture and planned homework stuff, but i'm honestly not too fond of that approach, and its more work for me :(. Any suggestions would be cool, but i'm aiming to have somthing up on an actual thread by next Sunday!


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Aight this week not posting much. Honestly a bunch of it was into the painting im working on. Was not very efficient with how I got to where I am, and I feel like i could still empty about 3 more days into it.

Bunch of random



Imagined bodies, seeing if i could just make up skin tones (the answer is not really)



Study for piece



Piece, struggling like crazy with it, any crits/suggestions even at this stage would be so nice.



Cool! Thanks for ending up on this page, you're the best!

[StardustLarva]

I really like the lighting in that WIP. I think some areas towards the left could be a bit darker in tone that may just be me.

[JakeB]

Looking good man, love those monk studies. Re: the WIP... there's quite a lot going on in the background, I'd be tempted to throw in some pretty heavy atmospheric perspective. Really split up the FG/BG in terms of value. I appreciate that it's still a WIP though, looking forward to seeing the final :)

PS. That's a good looking hand on the left. Nice one, you nailed the planes :)

[ImSkeptical]

StardustLarva - Thanks for the feedback, it defiantly helped

JakeB - Thanks dude, yeah I took your advice and tried to push the atmosphere, a good decision. Worked on the hand even more though, I think its way better now :p

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Aight so bit of a weird week, though thinking back on it not really a reason. I guess i got a bit lazy after finishing that piece. Anyway here's the stuff, I should really bother to shrink them cause they're so bad but im trying my had at really fast stuff.


Some Jiro sushi studies - 30 mins



Quick speedpaint - 30mins



Random thumbs for new illustrations i probably won't do




Portrait trying to see how far i could go with no reference (not too fond of the result)



Final of that guy from last week, I'm pretty happy with it for now, other than how long it took me to do. Need to get faster or better, not sure which way to head.



Was really experimenting with color after doing that piece because I wanted to move away from how i just use purple green gold complementary color schemes. But I found the only other options seem to be teal orange with is overdone, and red green, which just makes it look like Christmas. Probably just have to move away from complementary schemes, but then I feel like you can't have these really strong colors in big blocks of the comp, which I am fond of. Oh well, it was fun messing around.

I posted about my mentorship thing here - http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-5088.html . I am going to a workshop out of state next week for a week, so I'll won't be able to actually start it till next month, but that's probably a decent time for people to apply.

I'm out, I think you're awesome!

[ImSkeptical]

Hey went to Melbourne workshop it was grand. Here is stuff, lots of experiments.







Here is Melbourne workshop stuff






Thats it! Gotta work on that mentorship stuff now. Thanks for looking at my stuff.

[Cyprinus]

The colours in your pictures are always so lovely. I like them a lot, especially the pale skintone from post #205!

And wow, the workshop stuff is also looking so good, what was it about? Your mech design is really appealing to me. Recently I also tried some mech/tech stuff but I didn't really succeed...I guess I really need to do some studies, if not tell me your secret :D
I totally dig the lightning in your last work, the atmosphere is really nice. For some reason though I'm a bit irritated though by the brownish smoke, but I can' really tell why. It's really minor though it's still an amazing image. Love how the mech (or spaceship) kind of looks like a hungry beast (at least to me).

Always happy to see your updates!

[ImSkeptical]

Cyprinus - Thanks! I think i concentrate on my colors a bit to much though, need to focus on more important stuff for a bit :(. I agree with the smoke too, need to work on not just using the cloud brush and learning to make it fit a bit more. The workshop was all concept design stuff with James Paick and Darren Quach. James went over environment stuff and Darren over mechs and props. was really cool, they did a bunch of demos as well as spending time each day to walk around and look over at what everyone was working on throughout the day to give more personal advice. Also they are really cool dudes. But tbh the best part was probably hanging out with art friends, always super fun.

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Although I never really draw mech's much, here's the little I know about them. I'm trying to work on them more though nowadays, but I mostly like to draw them traditionally. I don't post them cause I think they're really bad right now, but when they start getting okay I'll post them up.



Here's more of the cdw series. One more to go!




That's about all. Don't really like the colors on that last one but i think i made some important discoveries about texture and opacity. In the future i'm going to try painting my shadows more opaquely and my lights with texture and transparent layering. Hopefully I can start the mentorship thing this week. Thanks for taking a look at my sketchbook.

[Cyprinus]

The workshop sounds indeed amazing! I wish I had the possibility to attend someday...unfortunately all the cool events always feel like miles away and it's always so expensive. I keep dreaming though, one day, haha! And yeah, hanging out with art buddies is so good. I wish I could do that more often as well, it's just I have some art-interested friends and sometimes we meet, but I always notice it's difficult for me because they aren't as ambitious as me. This really sounds strange, but...I don't know how to explain. Sigh.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and notes about the mechs here! I think the most difficult for me is to find a lot of different shapes and not repeating the same over and over again. I'm curious for your next sketches and stuff concerning the mechs! Do you think a lot about the functionality when designing them? I often wreck my brain if this or that design would be even possible...I don't know if anyone would notice if not, but still....

Workshop pictures are looking great, I really like the rock structure!

[smrr]

So good to hear about the workshop being awesome! can't wait to catch up again man, and shit I hopped on Facebook and saw your stuff and had a mini heart attack haha
Ripping it up
I'll try give some c&c when I can!

[ZombieChinchilla]

Man the work you did for that workshop looks awesome! Your environments especially are great, I loooove the one with the giant lady. I think that could be developed into a full story and I seriously appreciate it for that.

[ImSkeptical]

Cyprinus - I know what you mean about lazy friends :p, feels like you end up drifting further apart with some of them as time goes on. Oh well thats life I guess :p.

Bout the design stuff, yeah i know exactly what you mean, so hard to break out of shapes you comfortable with. I think a lot of studies, starting with silhouette first and using different workflows can help break out of that. And yeah, I think you're to not really supposed to think of function at all at the start, just silhouette and big shapes. Draw the outside of the box first and then the interior lines. I had a big problem with that my friend pointed out and I think its helped a lot with my drawing / design recently.

smrrfette - Hey cool to see you back, can't wait to hang again. Looking forward to you getting back into it, don't hurt yourself this time :p.

ZombieChinchilla - Thanks! Yeah James Paick gave us a nice workflow where we laid out possible story beats to really focus down ideas for each thumbnail.


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K this week I experimented a lot trying to find out how to make stuff quickly. I've been drawing on paper a ton as well as getting those awesome Anthony Jones tutorials https://gumroad.com/robotpencil which I highly recommend. So yeah just been doing a lot of starts and really trying to stop myself from finishing anything.

Last of Melbourne stuffs




Study



Sketches





Jelly



K that's this week. You're all awesome.

[Cyprinus]

Great post!! Really love the last Melbourne picture, especially the light and the idea itself. I also always love seeing such little sketches. I'd really like to see some stuff done on paper, but yeah, I'm a bit of a traditional art junkie XD

Thank you for the advice with drawing the outside first and thinking about silhouettes. I'm going to try this out next time I have a sketch session!

And yay for the Anthony Jones Tutorials! I solved the problem of the double-video, he replied to my e-mail and sent me the right vid. I'm so excited now to dive into everything and experiment a little as well x)

[Jaik]

Urgh, I want that torch light to JUST touch her hair as it hangs down, just the tip. You probably have a reason for not doing it though >.>

The experiments look really good. Why are you starting so often though and not finishing? Its kind of the opposite of what most people try to do?

[ImSkeptical]

Cyprinus - Thanks :D. I've been doing a bunch of traditional as always but it always looks so bad unless its a study. This week I'm gonna try get some good looking traditional designs / original work out there. It's gonna happen, you've pushed me to it and I was looking to try breaking through a new boundary anyway.

Jaik - I think i tried it at one point and decided it didn't look as nice. Which is probably why I take forever on my paintings :(. Which is also kinda speaks to the starts and not finishing. I've heard from anthony jones and craig mullins about sketches and speed, and it seems like I need to work on how I start my stuff. I tend to just force something to work, trying out 100 different medium and small things to see if they add anything, rather than finding something that works from the start. My best pieces so far seem to do that, and I generally get them done faster too. Also I wanna change things up just to force myself to get back to them basics, try get them a bit more intuitive rather then applying them consciously after i screw them up.


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Missed a week, kinda just let it slip by. Did an art test, hopefully that ends up going well. Mentoring is going well, its good to be able to put some of these random ideas I have into words, but I managed to screw up recording twice now. The first time I just didn't get it to work and I was a bit late so I just decided to forget it. The 2nd time I forgot to turn on my mic, so it doesn't have me speaking :(. It might be for the best, I think the stuff I am trying to teach will come across a lot more understandable the second time around. I found I'm pretty bad at just winging explaining things.

So here's the last two weeks. Started to just use the round brush for studies as an experiment, see how far I could push it.

Drapery





Imagined Anatomy



Composition and Materials (It's funny how obvious who's compositions they are)




Art Test







The final for the art test isn't looking as nice as I would like. It was kinda that problem where I was forcing the idea to work. I just really wanted floating crystals to work :p. If it was personal I probably would've given up on it. I need to get better at pushing variation with a single idea, rather than just more ideas.

Thanks for dropping by, cya'll next week. With traditional designed characters / illustrative stuff. Wes burt, Kekai Kotaki, John Park, Marco Nelor, Miles Johnston quality. It's happening.

[rafa zanchetin]

Wow, that last one is amazing, love them crystals.
Post more!

[ImSkeptical]

rafa zanchetin - Thanks for the encouragement man, means a lot :D!

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Went on a ski trip with some friends so missed a week. Friggin snow an mountains are real pretty as all hell irl, and skiing is super fun, never done it before but we all seemed to pick it up pretty quick, even did a black run on the last day.

I'm gonna just dump traditional. Of course not as good as I was aiming, but I'm pretty sure I'm making progress. Some done on the roadtrip to and from the mountains.



















Aim for this week to have a decent digital piece a day. Lets go!

[Heliux]

SKETCH BOMB! XD
Cool to see you're keeping productive while on a trip!...I've always found it pretty difficult to keep engaged when away.
can't wait to continue stuff with the mentorship-project! XD

[ImSkeptical]

Heliux - Thanks dude. Though most of it was done during that week before the trip, so I'm not that dedicated :p. And yes, gotta work out continuing that mentorship stuff, was planning to do it today, but the day is almost over already, been playing a lot of streetfighter recently. Maybe you could help me out, otherwise i might just end up pushing it back till never, because that's how I seem to be treating it right now :(.

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Here's this week. 3 out of 5 ain't bad for the challenge i set right? 3 out of 7 maybe.... I did do some failed ones I abandoned surely that counts right....

Anyway yeah, ended up needing to study more hands and facial expressions in pen. But next week should be good on the sketches side, I think I have some pretty good imagery i want to explore.

So this is a 3 tone master study i did randomly a while back but didn't post



The failed/abandoned sketches throughout the week. The feet one I was trying to drop photos but remembered how hard it is and how much I hate it. Need to work on that



Sketches




Studies of Yu Dehong portraits for sketch



Sketch



Studies for future sketch



That's this weeks stuff. Psychologically I feel lazier then ever for some reason, but the reasonable part of my mind knows I'm probably working as hard as I ever did not counting my 14 hour a day period. Working through it :D!

Thanks for stopping by, looking forward to post again next week!

[Mr. Toodles]

I'm digging those enviros man! Totally concept art level haha your doin great

[Cyprinus]

So many delicious traditional sketches! And I'm totally digging the dynamic brush strokes in these little black and white sketches from this week. And I love that idea of the lady repairing something, love the whole atmosphere <3