Craig's Sketchbook

[OtherMuzz]

Those head rotations are sweet. The last sketch page of them especially.

The posters are looking pretty great as well, though i do think they expose a problem with some material definition. Your fully rendered materials have a tendency to look a bit chalky and clay like rather than being shiny, matte ect.

Great stuff :D

[Craig Paton]

Thanks for pointing that out, OtherMuzz, that's something to work on.

My results for the random word assignment, assignment 8 of the portraiture class. Quite enjoyed this one.

I'll post up what my random words were later (three randomly selected words per drawing).

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Some recent 10-20 minute figure sketching. Need to keep in practice, getting a little rusty.

[Craig Paton]

A portrait of Christopher Waltz as Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds.

[Craig Paton]

Some new cover artwork, this one is for Robert Fields' The Knowledge, a music industry guide.

[Craig Paton]

Getting real frustrated with my lack of improvement and development. Seem to be watching everyone else improve on their work and skills, and I sit and stagnate. It's been having a negative effect on my confidence as of late, as you can perhaps tell from my limited output lately.

Going to have to take a real close look at how I study, and rework things into a better and more productive schedule and work flow.

This is my current daily routine. Will perhaps take this further, and create a schedule planning out the next few months of work and studies.



And.. so this is not a post comprised entirely of moaning and self pity, here are some ficure sketches and studies from the past week of so.

Figure studies.




Some composition studies based on Noah's Art Camp video.




Some bust/light studies.


Some studies and thumbs for an illustration.

[JakeB]

Inglorious basterds study and that last illustration both came out great man, the composition especially. You're definitely improving, even just over the last couple of months your work's got way better :). I know the feeling though. I think it happens to everyone. It gets really hard to see progress or changes in your own work when you're so focused on it all the time I guess. Keep it up dude :). Looking forward to seeing this next piece when it's done :)

[anzhou]

Hey man I'm with JakeB, those pieces are great! Stay positive!

[Craig Paton]

Cheers for the encouragement guys, really appreciate it.

Hopefully I'm just going through a brief spell of discouragement and lack of motivation, I've decided I'm going to take drastic steps over the next few months to restore confidence in my work and improve its quality.

Still working on the final assignment for Suzanne's class. Was supposed to be completed last Wednesday, but commissions kept me from it. Should be able to show you my 'master' portrait next Wednesday.

Here's some commission work I did recently, for an Australian indie games studio. Poster art and a logo design for a game called Roaming Ninja. Tried to go for a more Eastern style, a bit like the UDON Crew artwork, think I may have failed slightly not sure this has worked as well as I'd hoped.

[Craig Paton]

A fan art portrait of Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath, from Prince of Thorns.

My final portrait for Suzanne's portraiture class.

[Veneq]

Damn Craig. That Roaming Ninja thing... mmmm. Cool stuff.

[Warburton]

Nice sketchbook dude, your stuff is awesome. It seems a lot of people have been having a downward slump this summer, it's kinda crazy to see how it's happening all at once. Just know that it's completely natural and everybody driving to achieve something difficult goes through it. Passing through it is what makes you stronger, and were a lot of people who haven't got the self will fail. I love this video, you might enjoy it too on this subject ;) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jwWYX7J...A6Feh9a8fQ

On the topic of crits, just watch out for your faces dude as in a few cases the eyes seem abit wonky. Wonky eyes is a wall ive been bashing my head against for years lol but plently of study and practice will do the trick. Also, those skull studies a couple of pages back were awesome. I never even realised people had such different shaped skulls (face palm) lol. Great job dude, keep it up.

[iamdemsugar]

Wow man really good amount of work keep going.

[Craig Paton]

Cheers again for the feedback and encouragement.

Hopefully I reaching the tail-end of my Summer artistic slump. I'm hoping that I'm just going through one of those transitional phases of improvement, where nothing I create matches the standard I set in my mind.

Finally putting my commission work off to bed, so I can focus on doing my own thing for a bit. Hopefully that will rebuild my motivation, and give me some time to work on my steps to improvement.

Not done much lately (out side my comissions), just some sketches and studies. Been spending a embarrassingly large portion of my free time just reading and playing Assassins Creed.

[JakeB]

Awesome last post dude, studies look great. :). Glad to hear you're coming out of the slump as well. :D Looking forward to a ton of awesome new stuff! :)

[Craig Paton]

Cheers Jake, you're a gentleman indeed.

YOLO Zombie. A cover illustration for Iain McKinnon's Demise of the Living.

[michaeldoig]

This is great stuff sir, nice cover :B

[Craig Paton]

No new work as of late.

I seem to have fallen even further into the 'art slump', and I'm really struggling with getting motivated and confident again. Can't seem to put pen to paper/Photoshop without getting really angry and frustrated at how poor my work is and how little it has improved over the years.

I often find myself wondering if I have some sort of mental deficiency, preventing me from progressing any further with my artwork, and that perhaps this career choice is just not for me. But, I can't really think of anything else I would rather do than paint, draw and create. Conflicted and frustrated

This is perhaps a post consisting solely of moaning and self-pity, but I thought putting my slump issue and frustration out there might be some kind of step to fixing the situation. Maybe one of you fine people has some words of advice, or direction for me? I'd be grateful to read any advice you may wish to share, maybe on how you have dealt with a similar period of artistic slump and self-doubt.

[hollinrake]

Dude, a lot of my summer was this. I hoped for so much and ended up doing much less, and I spiraled into a cycle of self hate and misery because I loathed everything I did. I didn't feel any development happening and it was killing me.

The thing is though, these kinds of things tend to fix themselves. Everyone has slumps. Everyone expects more of themselves. Personally, I went to something I knew would make me happy that wasn't related to art (I read a LOT of Harry Potter) and reveled in it for a good few days, as well as seeing people, and then drew a lot of comfort zone stuff so that my confidence in my art was restored. I tend to find it's that when artistic confidence takes a heavy knock it can leave you a bit down and out for a while, and it's okay to take some time to build yourself back up.

Essentially, let yourself recover and try to hold off on the not-painting guilt for a little while. Do things you know you enjoy and when it comes to art, do things that you love and are most proficient at so that you won't feel like crying when perspective goes wrong or a speedpaint looks like a splat (I speak from personal experience).

This is just my two cents though and I'm sure someone will say I'm talking out of my arse, but I hope it helps. Stick with it, you'll be past it soon :)

[Jonas Jerde]

Your psyching yourself out....It's a natural occurrence that happens to everyone when learning something difficult. You clearly have some skills with your art and I don't think it is as bad as you think. The best thing I would suggest is trying to do something you have never done before. If you are stuck, don't continue doing the same studies and portraits and figures... See if you can find something that you have never tried before and do it. Most importantly though I think you just need to work through it man.

[Finnjamin]

Take a couple of days without painting, take a week! This is what works for me.