Hey Bookend! Finally I find the time to stop by your sketchbook, thank you for visiting mine and your input!
It's great to see you working so hard and diligently, and as the others said, improvement is already visible!
I can only second the things crackedskull and archreux said. Above all application, it's really important (:
Otherwise I also can't really say something new, the important things have been said. So I'm just gonna say keep up the great work! Looking forward to seeing you post some work from imagination!
(Actually some time ago I also tried drawing 100 arms. I think I failed at 30 or something like that, so it's really inspiring to see somebody going all the way trough!)
(08-31-2015, 02:10 AM)Bookend Wrote: jsel: I agree-- That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for your input on it. And thanks-- Gotta work hard! There's plenty of time for personal work. I wouldn't even know how to do more than doodling really, haha. Any tips?
Personal work is the whole point of this art thing, keep that in mind. Studies are essential to your growth, but practicing personal work is equally important.
See how he used the reference as a guide but did not directly copy it? This a great practice to start with to make personal work. There's much to learn in direct one for one studies, but just as much to learn in translating that information into something personal like the painting in the link.
Hey ! Thanks for droping by my sketchy stuff here ! :)
First- great goals you set out for yourself, it's really inspiring to see this kind of dedication.
Second- I can't wait to see some personal work from you actualy, applying those studies can be a bit scary but in the end, it's worth it. Keep it up ! :D
Lordminkx: Thanks so much! Yeah, it's choppy. The brush I'm using doesn't seem to blend well, haha.
CaDisciple: Hey, thanks man. Yeah, I'm stoked about this CHOW. So much that I'm having trouble focusing on my goal, haha.
Broadway: Yeah, I appreciate your noticing, lol. I'm aware of it... I was reeeaallly lazy with that portrait. But, I'll for sure not forget next time for my eyes. Thanks!
Triggerpigking: So true! I even saw that it was lighter, but I took liberty with it because I thought it'd improve it-- Now I see what you mean. Like a big ol' sore thumb. Lol. Thanks.
Cyprinus: Thanks so much for your encouragement and support! It means the world to me man, haha. I've had so much time to do these arms that I've been kinda lazy this past week, unfortunately! But, I won't give up on them, even if I have new aspirations. : Thanks again!
Sketchosoph: Yeah, he's good with dynamic forms. He's stylized, but I think you can get a lot out of his work. Too bad you sold 'em, but there are tons of other good sources as well!
lurch: Thanks muchly! I will!
jsel: Thanks-- That's a fantastic idea. Will help me a lot when I'm going in. I'm excited!
ShinOkami: You're welcome, haha, it's fun to see what you're up to! Scary, but I always face my fears! Raaahhh!!
Murderotic: YEEAAAH, MUURRDOOC. Where you been, maan? I'm sooo excited to see your sketchbook!! Been too long!
Soo... It's not been the best week for drawing for me, but I've been picking away at things. Mostly I've been dedicatedly watching lectures on simple geometry to see what I've missed.
After finding out that I'm not going to be finding out much from the sphere/cube/rectangular prism/triangular prism section at khanacademy, other than mathematically discovering the volume, circumference, area, and etc., I decided the best thing to do would be to draw. I had already gone through 88 % of the content, or something. But, I still learned a lot. I now know with some decency, what a rhombus is.
I was just playing around with stuff tonight. Basically did a couple of spheres-- Kinda surprised at how well I did, really. And faked a perspective grid, lol.
What I'm much more excited about is my figures-- They are all from imagination. I was working through it, and realizing things, and seeing shapes in my head.. Things are finally starting to really come together. It's all clicking together, like connecting the dots, or putting a puzzle piece into place.
It's not much-- It's not really amazing or anything. Crude at best. But, still... I'm moving forward, and I'm making shapes, and I'm doing stuff from my head. And that is so cool.
Really excited-- My idea for the CHOW got chosen, mwahahhaa.
The Rusalka. How awesome is that?! I love this idea. Hope you guys participate and/or enjoy it too!
Here are thumbnails for it-- I'm not sure which one I should choose, or if I should go in a different direction. Tips? Tricks? Anything that needs critiquing?
Agerkvist: Hey man, great to see ya! I'll make sure I keep up my good work then, haha.
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36 hours /10,000 hours
So, I was playing around and trying to make an environment after seeing Anthony Jones' gumroad on practical perspective. Pretty fun, but I have no clue what I'm doing, so any pointers are appreciated. ;)
(09-06-2015, 05:19 AM)Bookend Wrote: Agerkvist: Hey man, great to see ya! I'll make sure I keep up my good work then, haha.
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36 hours /10,000 hours
So, I was playing around and trying to make an environment after seeing Anthony Jones' gumroad on practical perspective. Pretty fun, but I have no clue what I'm doing, so any pointers are appreciated. ;)
That's a great video - he creates the illusion of depth so fast and makes it look so easy.
It's not "easy" but it's pretty simple(now it sounds like I know what I'm doing, which I don't but I think I picked up a few things from the tut).
I did this quick paint over to try and illustrate. It's far from pretty, but I hope it illustrates the principle.
Make the plants size go down in scale according your perspective lines and it will give the illusio of depth. Same way with the lines on the ground. Closest to the viewer the lines are thick and then they decrease in size the further we move away. Also added a few bushes or whatever, because I seem to remember that's one of the examples AJ also mentioned.
Basically relate it all to your horison line, draw a few guide lines to help if need be and you get get the sense of things receeding into the distance fairly easy.
Bleh, is this helpful at all? If not, tell me and I'll try again :D
In regards to the comment you left on my sketchbook... I don't really have any tips on thumbnails. Every thumbnail on my sketchbook is a master comp study that's following the general idea of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQfF-P70V2Q
I like your thumbnails tho, if I had to choose a favorite I would pick the second thumb just cus it seems to read better than the others. I don't know why.... again I'm just a noob haha
I had to read this "Chow" you speak of just to see what you were doing and it's safe to say I'm rooting for you!
I think it would help to get the story down in writing just so its clear in your head what you want to paint.
When I read the passage the first thing that comes to mind is a Banshee but that's because I heard a story ages ago about a man walking home when he comes across the sound of a young girl weeping near a lake....anyway long story short his family hear the banshee's cry and he is never seen again.
I apologize if you haven't heard of a Banshee too.... ah.... here.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee
They crazy haha
anyway like I was saying just get the story down in your head throw on some fitting music and make as many thumb/comps as you can until it all just fits together.
But really I would take my advise with a pinch of salt because I have no idea what I'm talking about, after all you are the first person I have ever given art advice to haha
Knock em dead in that challenge and enjoy the process!
Agerkvist: Great paintover man, thanks a lot! I don't know why, but I was hesitant to go in on the ground, even though I saw the concepts illustrated. There's a certain point I'll reach in personal work where I don't want to go in anymore. It's tough. But, yeah, I think you've illustrated it really well with the paintover. Thanks again!
Irish Whiskey: Cool! I'm trying out the second concept-- And I like it. I'm not sure about the pose. Maybe it's a bit boring, but meh.. I don't often do personal concepts, so maybe it's good to start out boring and non-dynamic and move on from there. Thanks for your thoughts! Really appreciated! Oh, and the only person I'm really competing against is myself, I think. I want to do better than I've done in the past.
It's funny how you can spend so long on something, but still feel like nothing is getting done.
I'm working on the Rusalka sketch, while watching the gumroad about finishing painting, and... I dunno. I keep going in, finding references, wondering about lighting and skintone.. And I go really deep and go crazy on values.. Then I decided I liked my original sketch, destroyed my progress, and started over.
So I've got a very basic concept here, with very basic colours, and hopefully I'll go in and very basically fix it and give it more depth. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll give my eyes some air and get something to eat before I go back in. Maybe I should work on arms today and give the Rusalka a little break.
I was thinking that there should be some green in her red hair, like seaweed, to give her an eerie look-- I haven't decided yet whether I'll have glowing orbs coming from her hands or something cliche like that. Probably not. She's going like, "BEHOLD MY MAGNIFICENCE." And drawing men in with her radiance. But, there's gotta be longing and sadness there too.
cool, the greyscale version definitely has a better feel to it - I don't have tonnes of digital painting skulls but maybe you can mess around with overlay and stuff like that to add some colour and knock it back out where you don't want it?
the only other thing that might help you move along with it, is maybe go back to your thumbnails and play around with those more, or put it aside and do some studies of the key components like water, hair, wet hair, stuff like that.
i've been debating this chow myself but dunno where to start, so feel free to ignore those suggestions!
the last figure drawings from your head are looking good, showing progress for sure - you're definitely chipping away at it.
lurch : Yeah, I'm still figuring out Krita's features. Getting comfortable with the tool. I may go back to thumbnail, or change her pose, but not the original scene. I dunno, we'll see. You should totally join the chow! It'll be great fun. Thanks about the comment about the figure drawings-- I know they're pretty crude, but I'm proud that I managed at least that much.
Eeehhh.. I'm getting kind of discouraged. I feel like I've come so far, and spent so many years on art, but I've only scratched the surface. I dunno, just been one of those weeks.
So, I decided to go back into my comfort zone a bit and do a colour study from Linda Bergkvist, since my brain's been on my inspiration a bit. Although my 'comfort zone' is kinda mindless copying, I'm also taking note of the colours and the tone of the piece.
At first I thought it was a very green piece, but actually, brown is what's going on here. Lots of different tones of brown, and just a tiny bit of green, and a tiny bit of orange. Really interesting.
It's not finished, of course. It'd take me a long time to refine all of those details, and fix the proportions, but that wasn't the point. The point was to understand and figure out the colour palette. Was a fun little exercise to make me feel a bit better about myself.
I think I'll do more colour studies just 'cause I've mostly been working with greyscale values... And maybe it's time to start thinking in colour. I dunno. I think it may aid in my Rusalka piece.
If you didn't know - kritas layers can be used like colour overlays - you can paint colour over the greyscale, and just colourise - it keeps the values, I /think/ the layer mode you need is colourise.. I don't use Krita enough, but it's pretty much the same as what you do in photoshop (I've seen tutorials for that floating around so that might be easier to find? Sycra does a good one)
It's good for thumbnailing even, just to get a feel for what kind of colour pallet you want to use.
You can also magic lasso areas, and paint just in the selected area for clean lines - or copy that area onto another layer, put it in a group, and if you unselect the loopy knot shaped thing on any layer above that one in the group, it's constrained - clipping mask I think it's called. Means you can hit things with large textures/ air brush etc without worry.
The imagination figures show a lot of improvement, keep going!
Last one is a good study, like you said, the point was to study color, if you learned something that you can apply to your own paintings it was successful.
Looking forward to your colored Rusalka piece :P
You know, something that you can do is start your pieces already in color, and have a layer filled with black at the top set to saturation, that way you can turn it on or off whenever you feel like checking your values!
Punk-a-Cat: Great tips and thoughts! Thanks so much. I'll keep these things in mind.
VoodooMama: Thanks so much, I will! I'm really excited now, you're pumping me up. I'm totally gonna use that last colour study in the Rusalka piece, haha. I'll try your tip on saturation as well!
Sketchosoph: All righty, you're the boss! One more colour study coming up!
I didn't time my study today.. I seem to be slacking off with my timer, lol. We'll just say it doesn't count.
I've subscribed to try out the New Masters Academy. I'm super stoked about it. I love Vilppu, and I can tell these other artists are fantastic as well. I'll let you guys know what I think of the program.
Anywho, doing some studies for the Rusalka piece. Looking at creepy-looking, neat swamps, and still water.
And thanks-- Gotta work hard! There's plenty of time for personal work. I wouldn't even know how to do more than doodling really, haha. Any tips?
But, I'll for sure not forget next time for my eyes. Thanks!
