Pnate's Almost Daily Sketchbook

[pnate]

crater

1/2 memory/1/2 study exercise

[pnate]

study and application

[MrFrenik]

good studies and sketches, man!

[pnate]

Thanks Frenik!

Something I'm working on. Crits welcome! Trying to finish it up and having a struggle

[BenFlores]

you were probably going to do this already but try bumping up the contrast on the main figure or painting in more value and losing some edges where you dont want the viewer to look. blurring the pole on the right giant where it touches the cape might also help. anyway, this piece is looking amazing. the face really has a lasting effect and pushes a confident feeling. cant wait to see more!

[Zesiul]

Good to see you learning. It's rare these days to see people push themselves.

[Egbu]

The face is done really well, excellent application of the study, can't wait to see the finished product.

[pnate]

Thanks Ben! I saw what you meant, it definitely needed a contrast bump. Really appreciate the crit!

Thanks Zesiul! There are plenty of ppl working harder than me on these boards, but thanks for the comment :)

Thank you Egbu!

The "finished" piece. Probably needs a bit more detailing, but it's pretty much it.


May or may not be updating for the next few days since I'll be at the Massive Black Workshop. Hope to meet some daggers there :)

[Archreux]

I'd say you could put a few more good hours into this and have a really nice piece. The giants in the back don't really feel quite finished to me despite them not being the main focal point there could be some more put into them. Her right arm is blending with the cloak a little too well, it's almost looking like one of the folds.

Also, damn you lucky bastard getting to go to MB Workshop, hahaha. Be sure to tell us how it was. :D

[jeremygordon89]

I think softening some of the edges in the giants even more so would help push them back more, and I agree with Archreux about her arm. Maybe a slight hue or value shift on the cape would help fix that, but I don't see it as a big issue. Nice piece. I really love her facial expression.

[ramalooke]

ooooh hey there. i see some sexy stuff going on here. Is it me or you improve or something =D. Great stuff, especially this new piece of yours. Have fun at massive black. wish i could go. makes me jelly =D

[pnate]

Archreux - thanks for that crit man. Those points, among other things, were some of what the Massive Black guys critiqued me on. It was crazy awesome, you should have gone!

jeremygordon89 - Thanks! Appreciate the time taken to crit and comment!

ramalooke- Thanks dude! It really was awesome.

Got back from the Massive Black Workshop yesterday and it was amazing. I met some great people, learned from some awesome demos, and got some awesome in-depth critiques. Because of the way the workshop was set up, and because there were just so many instructors, I couldn't really get to see everyone's demo, but I did get to see Eytan Zana, Tom Scholes, Shaddy Safadi, Kemp, Karla Ortiz, Jung Park, Kekai, Kim Jung Gi, James Paick and Wesburt in action. I took notes so if you are curious about any of what they did, ask away! I may or may not do a full write up of what they showed in their demos, so let me know if you are interested.

The critiques were one of my favorite parts of the event and I learned a lot from them. The lines were quite long, so I only got to Kekai and Jason+Wes(they were paired together, as were many of the other instructors). They definitely dropped some knowledge on me and helped me to see exactly what I needed to work on, which was super inspiring and encouraging.

Probably the two biggest things I realized from hearing their critiques were that that little voice in your head that says something is off or could be done better while you are painting is usually right, and ignoring it to either take short cuts or out of laziness will bite you in the ass in the final product. And also that it is extremely important to be having fun with your work and not just fulfilling a genre. At least in my case, it produced pretty bland pieces instead of allowing me to really be unique. Jason mentioned that even for Magic, the AD's are looking for unique takes, not just what fills the role of "fantasy". Just some things I've got to keep in mind :) Hope they ring true with someone out there!

hidden treasure and long overdue still life

[BenFlores]

sounds like a great time, i wish i couldve gone. id love to hear any notes you have about their demos, particularly from wes and kim jung gi.

[pnate]

Sadly for Kim Jung Gi's demo, I wasn't around for the Q and A part, but watching him do his thing live was pretty awesome. As far as I know, he didn't really give any kind of organized lesson over the course of the weekend, aside from blowing everyone's mind. It was cool to see all the MB guys watching him and talking about how incredible he is. He was pretty much the rockstar of the event :)

Some main points I got from Wes's demo were:

• He sees the face as a whole, and not by feature, to nail an expression
  
• He likes to visualize pockets of shadow on the face as the base areas for construction and in helping show expression
  
• Also mentioned that he adds a tilt to the head and spine to mix it up sometimes
  
• He finds good reference to capture mood, expression, state of action (he often uses pictures of singers' faces at live shows)
  
• He plans his values when he is adding color later according to the color (ie, something that will be red is slightly darker, yellow brighter, etc)
  
• Finish your pieces 2 days early so you can look at it with fresh eyes before it's due
  
• For that green elf MTG card, he showed an initial rough sketch where he carefully planned the facial expression and location of the facial features before getting more complex
  

I think what he painted is up on his fb page (the tribal lady's face that's underlit).

chain lightning - with about 20 min extra after

[Jonesoda]

Damn I really like that still life Pnate! That's awesome you went to the massive black workshop! I saw a bunch of pictures on facebook, looked like a great time. Kim Jung Gi looks likes a really nice guy.

I'm glad you learned a lot and had fun! I've seen a lot of depressed status's on facebook about leaving though, I'd be depressed as hell too having to leave after being around so many awesome people doing the same stuff! Some day when I'm adequately skilled I've got to go to a workshop.

Thanks for posting the Wes Burt notes, I'd love to see your notes on Karla Ortiz demo!

[pnate]

Thanks man! It really was awesome. It was so weird seeing all those incredible artists in real life. And they are all normal people! Who woulda thunk. You should go next year! Don't worry about your skill level, it's a learning experience regardless :)

As for Karla's demo, the demo I saw wasn't the one she posted on facebook of the girl with the fur and face tattoo. The way the event was laid out, there were 3 rooms with demos where the instructor gave sort of a lecture/demo and a main floor with four guys doing their thing all at the same time. The demo of Karla's I saw was when she gave her lecture thing and it was of a couple cloaked figures and a standing female figure holding a staff.

• She began by showing her reference, it looked like she photo composited some photographs she took of people wearing cloaks and a female figure
  
• She put the reference side by side with the canvas and blocked in her shapes with a dark value, designing the composition
  
• started adding basic colors and blocks of value according to her reference
  
• showed how she would add a layer on top, fill it with white, lower the opacity, then put in her lines on a new layer on top of that to work out the drawing
  
• she kept the lines pretty rough, just to indicate where things were
  
• she would then put that line layer on overlay and change the line color to like a darker brown type so that it would blend in with the paint layer
  
• then she paints on top of everything and it becomes a part of the painting
  
• When asked about tips for painting folds, she mentioned she looks at them like triangles
  

That was mostly what I got from the demo, hope it helps! The rest of it was just rendering and refining things.

sketchy

[pnate]

action man

jeremy lipking study and application

[Bjulvar]

Hey you beautiful boy. Haven't dropped by on a while and god damnit you're punching through studies and sketches like it's butter on mars. I'm glad to hear that you had a good time at the workshop, really wish I could've been there. Thanks for sharing the notes, gotta read through them.
Great work on everything, especially like that one with the two ogre guards, that's friggin' Magic quality dude :D

[ramalooke]

Heeeey mate ;) Glad you had an awesome time at MB workshop ;3 and thanks for details on the lectures. Hope I'll be able to attend next year and give you a high five =D. As for the updates, they're cool as always. Keep them comming ;>

[pnate]

Bjulvar - Yupp, workshop was great man. Learned a ton and felt so awesome being around people who understand what we are all trying to do. Hope to see you there next year! Appreciate the kind words, but I'm not magic quality yet. We'll all get there one day :)

Ramalooke - Yesss go next year! We can also grab some beers and have drunken art rants.

I'm not sure if I improved this or not with the changes. Call me out on any faults if you're feelin it! Love them crits. Some more pieces are coming up, but no real timeline. Just some ideas I'm excited about woooooooo


hercules beetle