Tank Rat's Sketchbook
#1
Hey, I'm completely new to CD. I'm very interested in character design and comics. I've heard a lot of good artists mention this site and was hoping that posting here would help me improve quicker.

Here are a few pages from my sketchbook. I'm focusing on anatomy and gesture at the moment. It feels like I'm not really getting anywhere working on my own.


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#2
Welcome aboard. To me, it looks like you have a good approach.

This probably won't be helpful, but if you feel like you're getting nowhere, it may be best to try a different approach entirely, work on a different subject, or even take a break. I personally find that I can only work on one thing for so long before I start getting diminishing returns. Gotta let the experience sit and marinate real good.
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#3
Trying to practice values and digital painting by painting one primitive a day. I did three today to use the advice I was given from a question thread. Not as bad as the last, but I still don't dig these.


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#4






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#5
I really wanted to get out of the loop of just doing studies without ever using what I've learned. I decided to bite the bullet and start small by taking requests from friends to help me work on things from start to finish. My first request was to do something with a friends character. Here's the first thing I did with her. I see a lot of flaws, but I'm happy that managed to finish something.


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#6
That rabbit design is awesome, loving the eyebrows. You’re very rigorous in your studies, I’m sure it’ll pay off eventually.
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#7
Really enjoying your sketchbook, the amount of studies you do is very inspiring. You seem to have a great grasp on form regarding your figure studies, all of them look very convincing in 3D space. Well done! Nice work on the new character as well, very expressive! Keep it up!

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#8
Your just not applying enough of what you learn to your own work if you feel like what your doing is for ''nothing'' Make study before doing personal piece is a great way to mix study and fun the two can be synergistic they don't have to be view as separate they actually talk to each other in a unexpected way once you start to understand what are the fundamental.The problem is alot of people don't even understand what they are and how they support each other.

Please avoid asking for request work that not a good way to keep yourself rolling it ok when you really want to get out of a comfort zone but it limited at best you put yourself in a depend position instead of a proactive position. Create your own goal sound cliché ?But what exactly are you waiting to make it clear to yourself what your trying to achieve?

If lost always go back to square one. Fundamental or drawing for fun and see where it get you motivate to go and what it make you want to learn more that all there is to it i think.

My Sketchbook
The journey of an artist truly begin when he can learn from everyone error.
Teamwork make your dream work.
Asking help is the key to growth.
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#9
(06-06-2021, 12:13 PM)darktiste Wrote: Your just not applying enough of what you learn to your own work if you feel like what your doing is for ''nothing'' Make study before doing personal piece  is a great way to mix study and fun the two can be synergistic they don't have to be view as separate they actually talk to each other in a unexpected way once you start to understand what are the fundamental.The problem is alot of people don't even understand what they are and how they support each other.

Please avoid asking for request work that not a good way to keep yourself rolling it ok when you really want to get out of a comfort zone but it limited at best you put yourself in a depend position instead of a proactive position. Create your own goal sound cliché ?But what exactly are you waiting to make it clear to yourself what your trying to achieve?

If lost always go back to square one. Fundamental or drawing for fun and see where it get you motivate to go and what it make you want to learn more that all there is to hit i think.
Thanks for the advice Darktiste. I'll try looking into what I want to do. I guess I felt like I needed to focus more on fundamental skills because I didn't think I had the tools necessary to work on personal projects. I'm going to think things over and put your advice into practice.
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#10
A few still life paintings


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#11
Another daily primitive


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#12
You have done a good amount of mannequin so far but i don't see any real attempt at making any full character why not give it a shot after all we are doing those study for something of this kind at one moment or an other we have to test how far we can push those character.As far as i can tell you would probably need to start to learn how to draw cloth and fold to put on top of those mannequin is it something we not seen so far in this sketchbook which would give an idea of where that skill at right now.Drawing hair perhaps to.There a bunch of thing that we can't tell right now because there a need to see more finish attempt so that also something to think about in term of what kind of lenght and difficulty you might want to make your next study.

What exactly are you into in term of thing you like to draw?That might be of use for better study and project suggestion.

My Sketchbook
The journey of an artist truly begin when he can learn from everyone error.
Teamwork make your dream work.
Asking help is the key to growth.
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#13
great sketchbook good amount of study.don't pressure yourself to draw full characters just because others are telling you, if your focus now is anatomy and gestures keep studying it. I see that you have already acquired a good sense of three-dimensionality in what we call "construction", but I still feel that it lacks movement (gesture) and a little more basic anatomy. Box mannequins are great for viewing perspective but end up making the figures too hard and stuck, Steve Huston always says "try to choose simple yet characteristic shapes" so your mannequins will be as close as possible to the real human figure.

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#14
(07-08-2021, 09:58 AM)VitorCardoso Wrote: great sketchbook good amount of study.don't pressure yourself to draw full characters just because others are telling you, if your focus now is anatomy and gestures keep studying it.  I see that you have already acquired a good sense of three-dimensionality in what we call "construction", but I still feel that it lacks movement (gesture) and a little more basic anatomy.  Box mannequins are great for viewing perspective but end up making the figures too hard and stuck, Steve Huston always says "try to choose simple yet characteristic shapes" so your mannequins will be as close as possible to the real human figure.
I appreciate both of your advice. I definitely do struggling with gesture and I'm trying to do as much gesture drawing as I can to improve it. Along with finding better shapes to build figures with, I do want to try making things because doing studies does get boring and I'm sure they're not fun to look at. I always have ideas I want to work on , but I get anxious feeling that I haven't studied this or that enough. If I start small, hopefully I can learn to balance studying and personal work.
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#15
Here's my primitive for today. I might redo this one after some sleep.


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#16
I've really been struggling with getting used to my tablet. It just doesn't feel as good to work on as a traditional sketchbook. The screen tablet feels better than a graphic one because I get to draw directly on the screen (I'm using a texture protector), but the screen's texture doesn't feel like it has any tooth to it. I'm sure I'll adjust to it if I grind enough digitally.


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#17
You are getting wierd cylinder are you aware of this?Specially where the cylinder wrap around the bottom creating to much of a corner instead of a clean ellipse.

I am not sure if it just due to a leak of paying enough attention to cleaning your edge or if you would benefit from pratice making cylinder. To find out if you have some common cylinder issue i recommend you draw 10 or 20 cylinder just black and white no shading needed and drawing them as if the cylinder is made of glass.But the issue seem to be when you want to turn your two ellipse into a cylinder you don't know which part we would see and which part we wouldn't see so in away you have trouble to estimate where the plane of the cylinder start to curve away from your eye .

Don't forget to think about ramping up the difficulty if thing become to easy.I could give you advise as to how to do that but that should be pretty straight foward.

My Sketchbook
The journey of an artist truly begin when he can learn from everyone error.
Teamwork make your dream work.
Asking help is the key to growth.
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#18
(07-19-2021, 02:06 PM)darktiste Wrote: You are getting wierd cylinder are you aware of this?Specially where the cylinder wrap around the bottom creating to much of a corner instead of a clean ellipse.

I am not sure if it just due to a leak of paying enough attention to cleaning your edge or if you would benefit from pratice making cylinder. To find out if you have some common cylinder issue i recommend you draw 10 or 20 cylinder just black and white no shading needed and drawing them as if the cylinder is made of glass.But the issue seem to be when you want to turn your two ellipse into a cylinder you don't know which part we would see and which part we wouldn't see so in away you have trouble to estimate where the plane of the cylinder start to curve away from your eye .

Don't forget to think about ramping up the difficulty if thing become to easy.I could give you advise as to how to do that but that should be pretty straight foward.
I understand where you're coming from. I recently tried going from doing everything as if I was working with charcoal, to using the selection and line tool to make things cleaner. It was easier to do with objects with corners and flat surfaces like cubes and prisms. Things became way more difficult when I tried painting the cylinders this way. I knocked out a page of cylinder using the clean method. While they're not perfect, I think I've learned enough  to make things look better when working with rounder objects.


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#19
Awesome practice, keep it up. Truly inspiring.
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#20
Tried to break down the foot into simple shapes I can piece together.


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