Mat Kaminski Sketchybewk

[matkaminski]

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meat:

Dude you're a painting machine...

Zoo doodle question: how do you hold a sketchbook, a brush, and a water container all at once to do those ink wash studies? Don't your arms die after 5 minutes? Or it is just my arms are disgracefully weak?

I used to think game concept artist is what I should be too. Even went back to grad school thinking that. Now that I'm out, I don't feel like I want to fight off all the competitions, then dedicate 10 hours a day into making games. ... unless it's Firaxis. But the point is you won't know unless you give it a go, and listen to your instincts, even if it's telling you to painfully change course.

When you do those color, digital studies, do you always keep the whole canvas on screen when it's bigger than your screen, or do you zoom in to paint? I've never liked doing studies on computer because I can't see the whole "canvas" together. Also I haven't transitioned to picking color from the wheel instead of mixing them on a palette. I want to get into color digital studies though, because it should be less hassle/mess than setting up paint and paper...I think.

Heya Meat!

So, to address this question is kind of a silly answer...
Firstly, buy two of these: http://www.amazon.com/Niji-Waterbrush-Me...B000KNJEMW
What I do is fill one completely up with ink, and then the other one completely up with water.
Do all of your flats in solid ink black, let them dry for a small amount of time, and then lay down black and immediately hit it with the pure water one.
Think of this pretty much like painting in washes.
If you're fast enough, the ink will actually move instantaneously and you shouldn't have any problem.
To further this, I highly recommend that you get a mix media canson sketchbook, or something damn close to it.

As far as the competition thing goes, I mean, sure it's hard to visualize working in such an industry, but I think it's safe to say that anything in the art industry is super highly competitive.
I'd honestly just suggest that you just simply make art and don't really worry right now where specifically it'll take you.
Dedicate yourself with enough time, and I can only hope that it will pay off (of course, I'm still in this step, so I'll get back to you on the true success rate). :P

I'm actually planning on doing some livestreaming soon to really show how I paint and maybe it will help you in some respects to learn digital painting.
It was a really hard leap for me to get over, and sometimes simply doing it is the best lesson you can have.
The only real big difference I see is dry time honestly, between digital and traditional.
I of course am getting more fluent with digital, but I still ultimately would love to learn oil painting!
Add to that the fact that I learned how to digital paint by watching like a thousand videos on how oil painters do their tricks.
And finally, if you look through the slightly earlier chunk of my sketchbook, you can find my exact brush pack and also Marc Brunet's brush tutorial.
That was really the key to pushing me forward.

Anyway, sorry bout that long-winded response, hope it helps.

Samszym :
Bringing the house down with all the studies bro! Really liking it when you leave the shadows flat and put the details in the lights, those places for the eye to rest work great against the busy sketchy brushstrokes

I have a tendency to paint from dark to light - which makes me flatten out first and then build up the lighter tones.
Thanks for complements!

Cyprinus:
Really dig those arm studies! The others look good as well. How much time do you spend on these, I mean you consider them sketches, yet some of them (most of them) look already pretty refined to me? (Or did this only account for the head studies?)

I like the overall design of the pest controller, but I think the blurry lines make it a bit hard to get all the details of the work. It doesn't disturb me that much in the line-only drawings though. (Maybe it's also just personal flavor.)
It's great you're doing so many studies, keep it up! And thanks a lot for coming back to my sketchbook and helping me out, I really appreciate it (:

I try to make it a point to only spend about thirtyish minutes on each study, but sometimes time can get away from me because I'm really trying to interpret that color to it's maximum.
The pest controller is still definitely a WIP character that I need to address more. More on this one below, and yet more to come for sure!

I love trying to help in any way I can. I think when I first started out I got a ton of help and so I'm trying to return the favor as often as I can...

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5-19-2014 Monday: Anatomy - Heads

Title: 5-19-2014 Monday: Anatomy - Heads
Date: May 16 & 19, 2014
Medium: Photoshop CS3

Title: Applied Studies - The Pest Controller
Date: May 13 - 21, 2014
Medium: Photoshop CS3

Notes: Over on the Permanoobs forum they are doing character of the weeks and things, similar to old conceptart ones. Well, this week (I think the deadline already popped) was The Pest Controller. Here's my start just for fun. Still working on different things, so I think I missed the deadline, but I would still like to work on it.