Lyraina's sketchbook

[Lyraina]

quick one
Day8

[Lyraina]

Day 9



First snow!



...not anymore.


Isn't it funny how this is almost what I painted for the daily random thingy the day before?

[PurpleScissors]

I love your environment paintings :)

[Fedodika]

Lyrona!! Let's see some masta studies guh! get some hi rez zoom the FACK in!!

[Lyraina]

PurpleScissors, thank you :)

Fedodika:  Uhhhhhhh... so many things to do x_X Been a while since I did a master study.

Day 10. I have no excuse. Unless you count "it was way past midnight"?




Day 11. Future

[Lyraina]

Day 12

[AlCo]

Cool environments, that texture and brush strokes *ç* have you tried implementing 3d? Not that I know how to do it though xD I remember a tutorial from Eytan Zana about that, the first one: https://gumroad.com/eytanzana

Well, check it out, I don't know if it can interest you :)

[Lyraina]

AlCo, thank you! :) I have used 3d before, as a base to photobash or paint on top. Currently also trying to expand my 3d knowledge/skills :) But nothing to show for it just now.

Day 13: Notmygirlfriend



Day 14: Really dislike this one - there’s something to be learnt here though. I was tired so I just wanted to get something done, but didn’t spend the time taking care my values and shapes are blocked in nicely early on. And this shows, because the result is incoherent and doesn’t read well at all. Same with the colors, I just did whatever, and don’t like the result - I also think I need to study color a bit more deliberately (soon).



Day 16: Love



Day 17: Trying to be more brushstroky. Already tried yesterday, but didn’t work out. It’s super hard to get likeness, make everything look right, and all that with (broad) strokes. Need more practice.

[DK]

Hey Lyraina, nice work in here. Lot's of improvements. 

I actually do like day 14 I think those brushstrokes were placed just right. Very cool painting, almost fantasy like.

For day 13, I would recommend not going so dark with the values, as it kind of muddies everything up. Also, for the brush-strokes in this painting I would just start out with a hard edged brush and block in the important values first before trying to do any smudging. I did a quick paintover here just to show what I mean.




your colors layed over

[Lyraina]

Dennis, thanks a lot for your crit and the paintover! I saw the muddiness but didn’t realize it’s because of the dark values. Thank you for pointing that out to me. Also thanks for the reminder to simplify first, then render. I should know this by now, and yet keep skipping steps! Thanks :)


Day 20, inspired by sky colors I saw outside.



Day 21, late night sketch and again violating the „make the big shapes read and look good first“ rule. Even with limited time or energy available, this is not a step that should be skipped.

[badbaddog]

Holy smokes!
Those last environments look really great.
Maybe one thing, I'd say that maybe this sky and the water need a little more love? Just a thought.
Lookin great!

[dodeqaa]

Lyra! All that improvement!

Love how the environments are turning out and how you're trying to pay more mind to the big shapes early on. Also, the brush work on the portraits are looking great!

Keep truckin on to more gains!

[Lyraina]

Happy New Year everyone! Hope it'll be a great one for y'all <3

badbaddog, thanks! Yeah, that’s the thing with time limit (which is the point of these exercises) - can’t give every area as much love as I’d like to.

dodeqaa: Thank you very much :)

Day 22: Snow, because there’s none outside. Yet.



Day 23: Desert rocks, because there are non outside. Yet. Or.. uh… nevermind!



x-mas days: Backup day no. 2 and since I had no digital paint available, I did some sketching in sketchbook which I may or may not scan later.

Day 27: Mediocre result due to the big shape being rather blurry. More time would be needed to figure out the shapes and where things sit in space before using photos. It might serve as an idea-thumbnail and starting point for a hypothetical image where more detail and design gets figured out.



Day 28: Another fail, I tried to capture a light situation that I saw IRL, but couldn’t do it. Solution? Study more from life, and if that is not possible, reference would’ve helped.



Day 29: Referenced from a photograph by Jaik, and tried to find a way to efficiently paint something that’s challenging to me (namely dense foliage/forest, which in photos is just chaos - ways to group and simplify may be the way to go. Didn’t quite figure it out here.



Day 30+31: This one counts as two, because… I say so :P Aim was doing something avoiding the urge to make everything rounded and puffy. As a side effect, I noticed that I really do miss using reference when doing something like this - for more interesting rock shapes, better color schemes etc. But it is good to see what comes out without looking at much reference.

[meat]

Great new year update! Whereas I just slept in to sleep off... things... .

[Lyraina]

meat: Things... I see...


Uhm... well... venturing into trying to be useful to people for a change? I would appreciate feedback. Too simple? Too confusing? Useless? Size ok? Did I miss a step? Typo/Grammar? Yes? No? Maybe?

[crackedskull]

Cool tutorial :D
I might try it out sometime when doing more pattern-focused things. Also it seems fine to me, you have divided the text into different paragraphs and texts so it doesnt get overwhelming. I guess you could change the white extra comments, maybe make them a complimentary color that sticks out more. Hope you get some snow soon, but not too much.

[Lyraina]

crackedskull: Thanks for the feedback! We do have snow now :D

So, I decided to keep doing the daily paint, or daily concept, or daily drawing. Daily something. Ideally from mind instead of study or copy or anatomy, because that is still what's hardest for me. So here's some stuff. I'm not posting every day because sometimes, I just end up frustrated with a few blobs of color on canvas and nothing to show.


Inspired by a piece of ginger.



Inspired by a more complex piece of ginger.



Not inspired by a piece of ginger.



Modeled in Maya, painted in Photoshop.



Light and dark.

[Lyraina]

More of the daily thingies. I'm still struggling with not being too precious about 'em, I really need to learn to be ok with failure too. But I just can't help feeling bad when one day doesn't turn out ("did I even learn anything over the last years?"), or when it's painful to come up with something ("Clearly I am not meant to be an artist") etc. On the other hand it's nice to allow myself to do some things faster/sloppier due to the time contraint, forces me to overthink less, and to make decisions faster, contrary to a piece that takes 2 weeks+. And if one does turn out okay, it feels good ("Pure luck, this time!").
I think continuing to do these will help me overcome some of these issues, because after hitting one's head against a wall, it surely doesn't hurt as much after the 100th time... right? RIGHT?

[crackedskull]

Woah, nice stuff, the last 2 are really neat.
Its just a process of getting used to it(keep banging). I quess a helpful way of going about it would be "I did my daily painting today, yay".
No need to worry about best results in a daily painting, just try to explore new ideas and have fun with it, experiment around, you can just do another tomorrow.
If you really have trouble with focusing you can always take a walk and get some fresh air :)
Sometimes, when a particular painting is really dragging you down, you can always just start back up from scratch, maybe even the same thing.

[Flo]

hey lyraina,

I did an op of an image of yours.

I tried to get more layers and overlaps and more dark/light contrasts,

hope it helps