Lance's Juicy Fruity Sketchbook

[Samszym]

Studies looking nice dude! People sketchin is always good to see. Not much to say, keep it up :D

[clockodile]

stroan: I have really gotten on well with Bridgman, though it is a big book that takes a long time to get through. I am using "Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life", and basically went through it once making sketches from it, and now am making another pass reading it and doing corresponding studies from photos (though many of the hands are from life because I have convenient hands). Loomis never clicked with me very well, but I chalk it up to personal preference.

Samszym: Thanks!

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Made an effort to do more imaginative work this week since I have been going pretty light on it lately. Also I recently read the first two books of the Night's Dawn Trilogy (god they are long) and they have put me in the sci-fi mood. Crazy good world building in there.

Redesigning this character lately to get a better silhouette. Not happy with the pose for his sketch though, so I think I will redo that.









Some random character sketches:









Asteroid interior. Speedpaint sorta - 2 and a half hours. I think I might try to spruce it up to something of a finish though, I am pretty happy with it. Used a lot of stuff I have learnt lately.




Failed speedpaint, got really frustrated with this. I'm trying to figure out how to paint with value better. It did help me pull out an idea for another picture below though.





Couple of photostudies. Really struggled on the detail for the bird wing.







Couple of short film studies. They look really crummy, though I found them very useful.







Quick self portrait sketch - about 30 mins. Messed up the proportions.





Car and body warm up sketches







Another random character sketch.





Fingerlickin' Bridgman studies







And finally a wip sketch with thumbs taken from that messed up picture above.

[Triggerpigking]

Man I like really them character designs, got a real 80's sci-fi cheesy feel to them.

[Samszym]

Nice drawins dude! I've been told very often thet cross hatching at 90 degrees has a sort of flattening, distracting effect. You might want to change the angle on your crosshatches a little so they're more directional.
You do seem to be using the hatching to create shapes a lot, you might want to try using some diluted ink and a brush instead of lines, it would be faster and less busy looking

[Jaik]

Apply apply apply! You studied a bird wing, now wheres the application? Your char designs are really cool though :) I like them a lot.

I agrree with Samszym, watch that your hatching doesnt flatten out your work. If you want to really look at good cross hatching, check out leonardo Da Vinci's sketches. Especially his hands. And I think Justin Gerard has a couple of nice examples in some of his sketches.

Keep up the good work though! :)

[clockodile]

Triggerpigking - Thanks! I think that watching a couple of corny sci-fi films (Planet of the Vampires, and the utterly baffling Starcrash) and reading Night's Dawn 1&2 lately brewed up the mixture.

Samszym - Thanks, I agree that I have really neglected to pay attention with it - looks pretty shabby in hindsight. I've tried to get the crosshatching to wrap better in some of these studies, and I also experimented with blocking with a brushpen and a pencil on the figures. Washes are a bit impractical for me when I mostly draw on printer paper, unless I am out and about, or doing a study with charcoal/pencil etc. Also, I've had a shot at caricatures after you suggested it over in your SB!

Jaik: It was meant to be a lighting study for a picture I'm working on (WIP below) but I don't see why I can have a go at using it as a prop too - I will have a shot at using the visual language in something, it'll be a good challenge! I have done studies from Leonardo sketches in the past, but I will totally go back and brush up on them. They're relatively easy for me to draw from since he also drew with his left hand - doing a Durer study a while back was murder since I was following the lines against my natural sweep direction. Also, as a side note, I love Justin Gerard's work so much.

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Was in London for appointments again yesterday, phew. Got some sketches done from the Natural History museum this time, and some quick people sketches on the tube/train. Since my pilot hi-tec Cs ran out I have been trying to settle on sketching pens, which has been awkward as every sketchbook works best with a different pen. Still, Rotrings are reliable, and I've been having a lot of fun with the Uniball Eye (though like all other Uniball pens I have tried, it has a tendancy to 'jam').

Should be working on a bit of giftart (so out of my comfort zone!), making headway with some original stuff, warming up for portraits, and hopefully getting some longer studies done this week.

This is from last week, as I forgot to post it, but here is the minotaur. I'm currently sketching out the main painting.





Bunch of caricature sketches done from photos, trying to get a feel for it. My penmanship and general ability to push things whilst keeping likeness needs a lot of work though.























Warm up figure studies







Trying out from digital still life - alarm clock (~90mins), and one of those see through capsule pills (~45mins). I have not tried it before, but it wasn't as awkward as expected, so I think I'll push onto longer, more complex ones.







Car studies, I'm going to make my nephew a corresponding picture this week for his upcoming birthday with any luck.





Another lighting photostudy





People sketching on train/tube















Sketches from the museum. Went into the sea life section this time. Sorry my dinosaur ones got a bit smudged. (Also I am sure that aside from upgrading the robot t-rex, they have had the same displays in that section for the past 20 years+.)













Character head sketches for fun





And finally a WIP for a relatively unambitious painting. Mainly just working on using what I learnt from that anatomy study last week, composition studies, and these dramatic lighting studies. Right now it is ready for an overhaul of anatomy fixes, and general tightening up with reference I think.

[Cyprinus]

Great update, I really like your caricatures, and also your train sketches! They're great, I struggle so much with it sometimes. I wonder how you do it, do you like look at the person, try to remember everything and then draw the picture or do you look at them multiple times in between laying down your strokes? Because in my case they always tend to move and I'm too slow. Maybe I just have bad luck with people who move too much. I tried the "remember it" method but my brain is just too untrained for it (yet).

Studies looking really good as well, I've got nothing to crit. Keep it up!!! (:

[clockodile]

Cyprinus - Thank you! It is a combination of a few things, and is kind of hard to explain because I'm so used to it, but I'll try. So I look multiple times, but I lay quite a few strokes between looks, and also do a degree of work without looking at the paper (more so with pencil for some reason). In a way it is a combination of remembering chunks of information, as well as attempting to treat it more like 'look at the person, check up on the page' over 'check the person whilst looking at the page'. Trying to improve on that one though, since I've only been doing people sketches regularly for about 6-12 months.

Things I found help with speed are practising with online gesture tools (gradually lowering the time limit), doing sketches from life and just practising drawing so much you get to the point that your process is more automatic. Learning the anatomy helps too, because if someone moves a bit, I can still finish the picture by mentally translating the visual information to match the original position. (I hope that makes sense...) I try to get the biggest shapes (the hair, the general face shape) down first, then eyeball the proportions as I build the detail.

I have a list of good places to do this too!

Tube trains - I find these the best, especially when crowded, because people can't move around much, and they are already so desperate not to appear aggressive on a carriage cramped in everyone's personal space, they rarely try to talk to you. Not really easy to access them unless you live in (or my case, have to visit) a city with a tube system. Trains/buses in general are good too.

Slow moving queues/waiting rooms - post offices in particular are good for this. People seem reluctant to talk in my experience too. People milling around stalls/booths at market-type places are reasonably similar too.

Cafes/bars are OK - people are seated but they tend to make weird faces when they eat.

Libraries

Parks, lunch areas, etc. when people sit down on the grass in summer.

Old people and fat people are generally easier to draw because they tend to be more slow-moving. Children and pets are way more difficult, unless asleep. Pets are still very hard for me unless sitting down really.

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Been a bit ill, but I'm back to practising for portrait/caricature sketching this week, and just tuning up some studies. Practising cars for my nephew's birthday stuff as well - haven't broken out the markers in ages and I am not terribly good with them. (I bet Scot Robertson has something on YT though...) Been trying to pay more attention to my rendering in these sketches too! I think once I get the car pic. done I will try to get back to more imagined work tomorrow, with that demon and perhaps some sketches. The cars have been surprisingly fun as a change of pace too!

Fists, Bridgman related studies







Caricature practises. Getting a bit of a feel for this, still a bit scratchy looking though.











Portrait practises, about 10 mins each













And some dog faces too... I have been asked a lot about them, but I doubt any animal would ever sit still long enough for me to get a portrait out of them. Not to mention that dogs don't often like me. Really need to pay attention to my proportions, this was a good study to indicate how far out I was.









Couple of quick Leonardo sketch studies





Car practise. Again with the proportions, and it really shows with mechanical stuff. But they are fantastic practise for perspective-form drawing. Thumb ideas for my nephew's pic. Did a couple of Plymouth Barracudas because man they look awesome. Not a car enthusiast but yeah.












Warm up sketches from this morning





A 2hr photostudy that went horribly wrong (colour temperature where?), got me warmed up though.





Another little still life with rocks, pushing a little more.





Using that backlit birdwing in a speedpaint. Might need to draw back and fix the composition a bit if I want to finish though.





And an update on that WIP demon picture thing.

[rafa zanchetin]

Lots of work here man, I can already see an improvement. The faces are more aligned and your linework is more fluid. Keep up the good work!

[giby]

Thanks for the visit dude ..... I really like your sketches and your anatomy studies ...keep up the good work dude :)

[AngeliquevdMee]

Love the sketchbook... great to see youre putting this much effort into it!

[clockodile]

rafa zanchetin - Thanks man. I feel I need to work on this stuff more, but I glad some progression can be seen.

giby - Thanks for dropping by!

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Decided to dedicate the weekend (well Saturday as I was visiting relatives Sun) to imaginative work - sketching and getting some progress. Take a break from cars I said. Nope. Had an insane amount of fun doing these, though I desperately need to get a better grasp of ellipses. And study more mechanical stuff if I want to draw it.

Another practise Volvo.





Random cars drawn from imagination.













Couple of characters







Sketches/thumbnails drawn in the car on the way to my relatives. Our roads are terrible around here, I daren't draw larger.







Progress shot of the demon picture. Not much left now, need to tighten up the body a lot though, and I am still not happy with the hair. Uncertain as to add to the background, or what, if I were to.





Ellipse practise + a moth that flew onto my hand when I was drawing.









Figure warm ups





Next batch of Bridgman - knuckles and baby hands. Weirdly enjoyed doing the baby hands.







More portrait practise, old people this time.













Caricature practise too - first go at drawing some kids.







Finally some brushpen doodles (good old pentel pocket brush) since I feel like getting back into using it. Got onto pinterest last week just for the hell of it, but I like the material on there. So these are all practises done from photos whilst I get used to using it again.

[aCrab]

Such rapid improvement! Your line work is getting so clean. The perspective practice is really paying off, especially evident in the vehicles. Nice work man. How much of this is photoshop and how much is scanned sketchbook?

[Cyprinus]

Great updates, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on people sketching! (:
I totally dig your cars, and those from imaginations are looking so amazing already!

[clockodile]

aCrab - Thank you! I've really forced to slow down to think with a lot of these recent sketches and it is helping a lot. I'm familiar with perspective theory, but I certainly don't practise or use it enough. Most of that post was on paper, aside from the painting of the demon guy (I am not much of a fan of drawing on a tablet). When I am out and about I draw in A5/A4 sketch books, but most of my sketches are done on printer paper. As for pens, I use cheap biros for 90% of this stuff, but am dabbling in gel pen, sharpie for fills, markers and the pentel brush pen.

Cyprinus - Thanks, and you're welcome! Yeah, the amount of visual material I am getting from the cars is crazy. I guess not really drawing them much has left my brain rather absorbent to them, so to speak.

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Posting before things pile up again. I have been working on the brushpen and caricatures, and I am learning so, so much about mark making/stroke efficiency as a side effect. Not what I was intending to get out of those, but it is an awesome find.

So kicking off with some life sketches done in brush pen when I went out into the forest (to get eaten by mosquitos euch). Still figuring it out here, I definitely need to draw smaller because that damn stump took ages.













Caricature practises, had a try at doing this with a sharpie marker, which was surprisingly effective.













Some little life painting studies of flowers. We have lots out in bloom in the garden, so I thought I would push out into colour with them. They are pretty insanely saturated, I don't think I got it across.







2hr photostudy of a Buick Riviera. Really didn't push the lightness far enough on the bonnet there.




Sketch studies to just warm up in the morning. Experimenting with adding pencil accents and using the brushpen again.







I think I have finished this. Maybe add a little extra tightness, I am not sure. This isn't really an adventurous piece in concept or construction, but it was a good way to use my knowledge from earlier composition studies, and that value anatomy study. Did some real overhauls with the anatomy - I basically ended up setting up a mirror and posing whilst painting.





Going to try colouring under the lineart of this sketch. Experimenting with colour and presentation, but I don't think it will be a long thing.

[Adam Lina]

Damn, dude you're a drawing machine! Awesome sketches in here too. I like all the variety. You ever work as a caricature artist like at a theme park or carnival?

[Adzerak]

Agreeing with Mr Haze about your caricatures there, so gestural and just the right amount of exaggeration imo. Some caricatures I see tend to look so similar, just "oh, squeeza everyone's head together, that's how you do it!" But all these look unique, is very nice man!

Your demon guy looks nice too, tight edges and the anatomy's good too. I personally think it could have some more color variation in his skin, some blue and/or greenish tints going on in there would look nice on his pale skin i think, and that nice red light from underneath could shine brighter and cover a bit more of him. Would make the pic more interesting for me I think, just suggestions tho ;D It does look done.

[clockodile]

Hypnagogic_Haze - Thank you! I haven't done caricatures, but I have been drawing sketch portraits at fairs this year. I've recently started to learn caricature, though I am rather nervous about doing it after hearing a number of horror stories about artists getting harrassed by unhappy customers, or having women bursting into tears. (Though I think that would be somewhat less of an issue in the UK.)

Adzerak - Thank you! I try to work with the big shapes of the head and play with them, lots of fun. Thank you so much for the crits on the demon picture too. Been working on some very small skin variations (cooling down 'fleshy' areas and warming some areas with blood vessels/subsurface scattering more), as well as pushing the cools further in the shadow. I ramped up that red light too, and I think it has definitely kicked the final product up a notch.

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Really big mixture of stuff in here, pretty sketch heavy. Been trying to get a handle on the unwieldy pentel brush pen some, with mixed results.


OK, updated the demon picture as per Adzerak's suggestions!





And here is where I ended up with the garbage punk guy. It was an interesting experiment with colouring under the sketch, at least.





Composition studies from book covers





Bridgman skele-booty studies. I AM FINALLY ONTO LEGS. Oh pelvis what mysteries you hold with your confusing shapes.






Had a shot at celebrity caricatures, which I generally am not happy with. Maybe a bit of an off day. Though, I was stunned to discover Eminem actually has really fantastic facial structure. Best cheekbones.









Ellipses... not going to post any more of these until I move onto something different because let's face it how many damn sheets of ellipses do we need.





Photostudy... currently at about 2 hours. Going to try and push this to finished and really clean up those forms. It is a weirdly blown out picture, but the overall shapes, and the very treacherous chin angle were why I picked it. Also I just need more practise with women.





Sketches from wandering around town and forest. Weirdly found more animals in the town (a big moth hanging out on the wall and a robin that perched on the bench next to me) than in the forest.















Imaginative sketching!











Portrait practises. All ten mins with the old lady at about 20 because she was fun to draw.













Studies from photos, again just practising my sketching really. Those I am trying to add more repitile-y things to my visual library to help with drawing dragons. Oh, and the brown paper book is my homemade sketchbook.







Pushing those still life studies further. 2 hours, more challenging colours, more objects. I tried to use a lumpy brush to force myself not to get tied up with details and focus on light shapes.

[rafa zanchetin]

Hell yes, nice update! Them brushes and them hips (I need to study them too!), very nice variation of subjects, keep at it man.

On your demon, if you don't mind I did some scratches to it.
Disclaimer: I'm no pro, and it's fine to not take my opinion seriously, the most important thing is what you feel about your painting, this is me trying to think like how you think and I'll never be able to do that 100%.


I tried to not mess too much with it, the rendering is superb but I feel like he's waaay too stiff for the pose he is making, it doesn't seem like he's thrusting his arm backwards because the chest is completely sideways, on this on I twisted it a bit to the viewer, showing his other pec.
His far arm is way too low for the pose too, if you make the same gesture yourself you'll notice that your deltoid basically touches your ear and your elbow will always be the same height as the top of your head when lifted straight up (not exact science but it's close).
And lastly because his chest is forward the head needs to follow it or it would be waaay back in the distance.


Now this is what I'd suggest, his twist is way more pronounced (you can say that pose is impossible, but honestly we try to draw interesting things not just realistic) but you can really feel the thrust into his gesture.

Hope it helps, and keep at it!

[clockodile]

rafa zanchetin - Thanks so much for the detailed crit, it is really helpful, and I gave it a go. The extra twist definitely helps fix that stiffness issue and makes for a better result. Whilst I was in there, I shortened his torso since it was a bit long too.

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Meant to post this yesterday but the weather knocked out the net, haha. Been busy all week getting ready for a fair this weekend, so lots of portrait practise. Also knocked out a few studies and sketches.

First off, the fixed up demon picture. Much happier with him now. Thanks again rafa!





More Bridgman studies, going in for muscles.







Caricature practises. Was feeling a bit rusty at first, though I did a... self caricature? Not sure, but it is the flat forehead. I think I used the webcam set up for a self portrait too.







Portrait practises, whew

























More composition studies, learning a lot from these.





Few figures





Still life studies. I experimented with recording the bottle one, and you can watch a speed up process over here. I talk about what I am doing but you might want to mute me. ;) I had fun making it, wish my connection could cope with livestream though.







And sketches, total mixture of stuff!