Elderscrollers Sketchy Stuff

[Elderscroller]

Haha! Seeing you guys going back and forth is entertaining! It's like Muzzy caught you double dribbling while you're practicing your shot!

Muzz:"You're dribbling the wrong way."
Elder:"Yeah.. but I'm really just practicing my free throws right now."
Muzz:"AHA! You've just admitted you're doing something the wrong way!"

Hilarious! Oh Elderscroller.. you're a saint..

Now to the main reason why I'm here: Hey Elderscroller, you're one of the guys here whom I follow their sketchbook religiously. Can't help but wonder how you pull off looking so clean with your sketches? There aren't any construction line or guide line residue to be seen. If I may be so bold, it looks like you went straight to rendering. How do you go about your process in your Moleskin sketches? Follow up question would be, how do you know which direction your strokes should to go when you're shading your shadows?

Guess it must be quite entertaining for you guys, nice basketball metaphor by the way :D But Muzz does have a point, got to admit that

As for your question, the short answer: Construction lines are there, you just can´t see them :)
The long answer: There are some guys who can pull off going straight to rendering, I´m not one of them. I mostly start with a very light construction line, just to place everything until it look right to me, going from general shapes to finer ones. Then I slightly erase everything until it´s barely visible and I mind my linework a bit more (doing cleanups). Once I´m finished there, the rendering starts by defining light sources and their directions leading to separating lights from shadows (basically having 2 values) and from there it´s refining. When I´m doing a quick sketch where I don´t really want to render it out, I don´t construct like that, I just imagine a light source and indicate it by adding really light values (I´m a bit sloppy there...)
I did a quick step by step in my sketchbook some time ago, it´s older and not very well done but sort of still valid (it´s somewhere on this page):
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-1...ge-28.html

Regarding direction of strokes: Most times I don´t conciously choose the direction. Sometimes I use the direction that sort of feels right, can´t explain that better :) Most of the time I go with the direction that is natural to me. Everyone has a direction (angle) where he/she is most comfortable with when doing a stroke/line. So when just darkening the background, I use that there, for example. When shading over form, I try to follow the form with my hatching, which is important when it comes to thing like hair. Follow the flow and it looks a bit more believable. Also e.g. when shading cheeks or other rounded forms, imagine how it should look in 3D and follow the form with your pencil. To quote Glenn Vilppu: Feel the form wrapping around.
Hope that helps. Feel free to ask, if you want to know more.