The Sketchy Sketchbook of ....Sketchyness!!

[AngeliquevdMee]

Love the way youre constructing everything! Keep it up. You are improving really fast this way :) .

[clockodile]

Great improvement with these studies, I really liked how you were analysing Level Up value studies on the previous pages.

Good shot with the portrait, again , really improving on rendering/using values - one thing to look out for is the size of the back of the head though. It is always way bigger than you first think it is. (It catches me too, faces are just so over-powering.)

[Triggerpigking]

Angeliquevdmee:Thank you! btw did'nt I see you in BrotherOstavia's stream the otherday? :)

Clockodile:Thanks! and yeah the back of the head, i'm aware of that something I keep forgetting though XD, problem is I always start with a circle for it(think most do) when it's more of an oval shape, i'll try to start adding onto the back of the circle next time I draw a head see how that works out.
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Two small things, tried to apply the lighting excercise to an imagination portrait(Yes I did need to add onto the back of the head with this one but I was almost done with it before I read youre comment)


and also trying to learn how to draw scales, for the Siren peice I figured it might make some degree of sense for them to use theyre tails as sharp weapons considering what they are.
Tried to use a photo-overlay and draw it by hand, i'ma gonna go with drawing it, at my level I think the overlay would be to obvious even if I heavily modified it.
Also gonna try and make some texture brushes for the sand rock and scales if I can find something that works well.

[Triggerpigking]

Hi again everyone, just quickly updating this with lineart of the siren piece. pretty happy with the composition, they're missing theyre heads atm because I could'nt get them right, need to do some studies.


And a quick light study on a cup when I was bored, gonna do a more indepth one to look at reflections and speculars soon.


And just refreshing my memory of bones, the ones that are circled are the ones I could'nt remember.

[clockodile]

Good to you're thinking about your proportion and volume with the siren picture. One quick suggestion for it is perhaps to mix up the tree branches a bit more - they're a bit parallel to each other right now, though you are on the right tracks with how you are making them and the trunk kind of twisted and knobbly. (I don't know if you have a species of tree in mind, but if you don't, look up cypress trees for inspiration, as some of them get that old knobbly look.)

[Triggerpigking]

Clockodile:Thanks man, adjusted the tree a bit so it's a bit more varied, tried to keep the general look of a hand though, honestly got no idea how it turned out lookin like that but I liked it anyway XD.
oh and I looked up them Cypress trees, defineitly interesting trees i've tried to apply them to the tree a bit, thanks for mentioning them.
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Pretty big update, most of the traditional stuff is from a while back, i've been way to lazy to upload them for a while.

Firstly some study's for the siren peice.
Female study's went well I think.




These turned out pretty bad, can't draw the top left guy for shit XD.


And an update to the Siren, something's wrong with the proportions on the siren I think, can't figure out what though, also can't seem to get the tail looking right, aside from that and the hair I think i'm mostly done with the lineart stage.



A few things I drew while listening to Chiu's stream



And some gestures and hands

[Triggerpigking]

Quick update on the Siren.

[meat]

This might be useful for your current piece: http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/29022...otate.html

I would also suggest having his jaw hang open if he's dead. The only reason we always see each other with shut lips is because we subconsciously keep our muscle tighten around the jaw. When we're dead or asleep, gravity pulls the jaw down. I would also try doing the siren's pose yourself to get a feel of where surprisingly a torso will be stressed into certain poses when in that kind of position, even with a tail/legs as counter weight.

[clockodile]

Good work with the studies you have done to back up your siren picture! Great way to learn as you make your own things. I like how you've been trying to de-construct and understand the photos too, rather than straight up copying.

It is also good to see how you are trying to get your head around the contours of the form are working. A couple of things regarding the arms - I think that the upper part of her left arm is a bit long, when looking at the distance between the shoulder and the elbow joint. The other thing is more minor (but might be handy to know) - when looking at the contours around the joints of the wrist and elbow, the cross section is a little more 'squared off' and flattened than the fleshier parts between them.

[Triggerpigking]

Meat:Thanks, I already have quite a bit of skull ref but yeah that might come in handy, come to think of it I used to have a link to this really indepth skull model online that you could turn in all different directions, god knows what I did with it though :/.
Anyway yeah thanks for the tip I was trying to do that effect already hence why his mouth is slightly open but I forgot to lower the jaw as well. i've corrected it but i'm not sure if i've overdone it a bit though.
Also tried doing the siren's pose in real life as you said, and I think i've got a better idea of which parts of the torso are stressed, primarily the scapula bones and lower spine it seems.

Clockodile:Thanks you. yep thought there was something wrong with that arm, and yeah i'll try squaring of the elbow and wrists more.
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First of a few study's, some of these are pretty crappy methinks, I might try them again soon and try to figure out them muscles on them.





Also was advised by Jason Manley to try some Bargue drawing to improve my proportions, been thinking about maybe trying these for a while now, due to my scanner there's a cut down the middle though but I hope the proportions are still generally seeable.





And a wip of one of the Studys for level up Colour & light 2-saturation.

trying to do this differently then the composition ones, i'm not gonna spend hours measuring out every little detail for one :/. but i'm trying to get the general proportions down first then build the peice up ironing them out as I go along, it won't be as precise but honestly I just got to the point of mindless copying without learning anything with the composition ones, barring the notes I made before I started painting them.
Also gonna start on two of these at the same time one low saturated and one high saturated, it'll stop me from getting bored with one of them too quickly and allow me to compare them to eachother.



And more work on the siren, I made her bigger and slightly more slim, think I need to just iron out the anatomy and a bit of the proportions and I should be good to go on painting this.

[meat]

I'm flattered you actually tried it out, and glad that it helped. If I may offer another bit of information: a human head weighs between 8 ~ 12 lb. I am XS size and even my head was 9 lb on the scale. So that guy looked like he was a big sailor, maybe his head would be 10, 11 lb. You can get good reference by having someone you know hold a watermelon about that weight and photograph them.

[Triggerpigking]

Good idea, though i'm not sure if I could find one to use, don't know anywhere nearby that sells watermelons though i'll try to get hold of one.

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Update on the siren messed around with some of the anatomy and did some studies,
also started on another of the colour & light assignment.

[Triggerpigking]

Wow this is a big update, XD. really tried to improve my anatomy the last week, also rebought Bridgmans anatomy guide so that'll help alot.

[Triggerpigking]

Been way to long since I updated, anyway i'm going to try and work on my values & observational drawing for a while, so I started trying sycra's value game excercise & i'm going try and get into the habit of doing some regular still lifes that'll help my observation skills as well.
Also did a quick painting of Dr.Trager from outlast.

[Triggerpigking]

Art dump,
Went to a gallery last tuesday so I drew a few statues & a japanese mask.




A portrait of Rin from Katawa Shoujo
Was'nt gonna post this until I was finished with it as it just started out as me doodling, but i'm putting alot of work into it now so I figured i'd leave a w.i.p of it here.
Anyway i'm experimenting with how to paint the hair for this, i'm leanin towards the left one but I might just do another from scratch.



Tried going back to the basics(again XD) with the siren picture, i've limited it to 5 values, cheated a bit on the water reflections though as they're just slightly darker values of the sun and sky above them. also having trouble pinpointing where the cast shadow of the siren would hit the rocks, and just how to light them in general.



And a value study that came out pretty well, gonna do one in pencil from life next

[Triggerpigking]

Just a quick update on the Rin picture, I redid the hair and I think i've got it to a point where it looks like quite similair to Rin's hair, also redid some of the linework as well.

Like the Siren piece i'm also going over this in value first before I paint over it in colour, I adjusted the ref to grayscale so I could get the value of the eyes and hair as a starting point, i'm not entirely sure I know what i'm doing painting in value like this XD, but it's good practice anyway even if it's most likely going to end terribly.
Thinking about it, I should probbly look into how to paint skintones as well, I know a few things about it such as the cheeks being more redder then the rest of the face which I tried to apply to the Trager piece, but i'm gonna try and make this a bit more colourful then that so I could probbly get some better practice out of this.

[Triggerpigking]

Quick update. Rin picture could've come out better but i'm happy with it and it was fun to work on.

[clockodile]

Great to see all this hard work with the studies, nice mixture of subjects, and imaginative work too. The anatomy studies in particular seem to be coming on well, really solid breakdowns of form there.

Good effort on the latest value study (I think it is the Doctor Who screencap, right?). You seem to have a pretty good handle of the mid tones and lights, but the darks are a bit too strong on your version compared to the ref, and lack the same variation of tones. (This might actually be a monitor calibration issue if you don't have a calibrated monitor - I had to adjust mine for values last week for the same reason. There is a simple test for blacks over here - you basically adjust the monitor settings until all the swatches are visible on the background, if they are not already.) Well done on picking up general shapes as well! I think the observational work and Bargue studies must be helping you there. If you plan on doing longer studies, I think the next step might be to work on the transitions with those soft edges a bit. Keep the good work!

[Triggerpigking]

Thanks man, that monitor test helped a bit, it's odd though but the scan I uploaded was way darker then the study actually was, I put it side by side and the difference was pretty clear.
it was a bit dark anyway so I messed with it slightly.
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Changed a bit of that doctor who study, think it's pretty much finished now






Been watching Sycra's light videos, already know alot of this stuff but it's good to go over again anyway.







And i've pretty much had it with the siren piece XD, just finished the value and i'm messin around with the colour now, also yep I as pretty as it is I need to mess with the tail more as it's pretty much the current focus point.





And a new sketch i'm working on, did this first and relized it was pretty bland but I liked the idea so I did a few thumbnails for it, i'ts proving hard for me to apply composition techniques to an indoor scene.

[Triggerpigking]

Another update, meant to upload these sooner.
shiton of hand drawings, some still lifes and other random stuff.
would've had some imagination drawings as well but photoshop took it upon itself to completely delete the file -____-.
i'd usually condense these hand drawings into a single image as well but, photoshop is acting weird, it refuses to open or save documents and won't create new ones either, and even when I somehow got one open it kept deleting my brush strokes seconds after I put them down.