The Sketchy Sketchbook of ....Sketchyness!!

[gregorkari]

Hey! You got nice and sharp rendering skills!
If you want your brush work look a bit less smooth but still good take a look at the work of John Singer Sargent. He's got mad skills at that.

[neopatogen]

Damn! 100 ribcages. I'm still into spines :) That hard work will pay off! :) Yep I also think some Sargent studies would benefit your works

[Triggerpigking]

I'll try doing some Sargent studies, here's the thing though I've got no idea how to study paintings well, I used to do that for hours back with the conceptart levelup thing and I didn't learn anything from it so I've got no idea how to approach this without it just being copying.
Should I try and copy his brush? and just do similar strokes, or should I be doing this with the three basic brushes usually used?. I'm using a basic block in brush basic round and a basic round soft.
If I need to copy his brush then I have no idea how to do that, I've never had any idea how to make brushes and i'm using Krita not Photoshop now so even more so, though the setup seems to be the same with selections for shape spray bristle and all that stuff. I think I can import photoshop brushes but it only saves the tip, I'd have to manually enter all the settings such as the bristles and like.

[Triggerpigking]

Alright I gave it a shot, not done with it yet because I need to figure out how to make a decent brush for it.
I tried to approach it intelligently, I decided I'm only gonna spend 3 hours max on it so that i'm not wasting time, and I focused down on one specific area of the piece where all his major brushwork is, I did all of this with a block in brush to get the values and shapes correct and i'm gonna do the rest with a textured brush like his in the piece.
Also since the study was about brushwork not proportions I skipped all that by tracing over a lot of the major edges.



Also been working on this, I'm having a really difficult time getting the mouth to not look like a duckface.


And more form studies, i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong with these, I feel like i'm missing something present in Istebrak's ones which I can't seem to do here. http://img10.deviantart.net/1123/i/2015/...8pjiq0.jpg

[Triggerpigking]

More updates.

So I finished the Sargent study I figured it'd be best to try and copy his brush work as best I can with the basic round, since that's the one I primarily use. I'm not sure if I learned much from it honestly... I suppose the main takeaway was to be more messy with the skin brushwork away from the focal points and use more edges around them, though this seems hard to do on images without strong shadows like this one.



I also redid this...I decided i'm gonna stop working on it if this one turns out a failure as well, I was trying to use the block in brush for as long as I could like the sargent study and work my way down to a soft brush, however it's just not clicking with me as a piece, for one I've lost the solemn expression from the previous one and I don't like his anatomy even with ref i'm having trouble, it's even really far away from what I originally intended which was something waaay more cartoony that I just couldn't pull off.
http://hiddentriforce.com/wp-content/upl...-wind.jpeg
i'm gonna give myself 1 more hour on it then scrap the project if i'm not liking it, I've already spent waaaay to much time on it and I need to get out of the habit of overpainting pieces that just aren't working, it says something that a similar piece of fan art for the character I worked on back in 2014 was actually better.



RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBCAAAAGESSSS!!!!
Got all 100 done, now I'm working on 100 from imagination I want to make sure I got this shit internalized in my tiny human brain.

[Triggerpigking]

Quick update I started another 14 day challenge, this time on female faces.
Had a ton of issues on this one having to repaint it over and over, having trouble figuring out where to put hard edges and contrast given it's a female face and i'm mainly going for soft lighting.

[Triggerpigking]

Update time.





W.I.P I'm having a lot of trouble with the eyes on this, it's fan art of the anime character in the ref, also having trouble trying to get the values on the dark side looking right.




Eye studies



And another head, not happy with this one, I've been doing some feature studies and blending studies to try and get the skin looking better, i'm having a lot of trouble figuring out where to use soft blending and where to put the edges.


And just some fun fanart of rottytops, though i heavily reffed it from the original art.

[Triggerpigking]

Expecting Updates?

:P

Worked on quite a bit lately, I feel i'm getting better at painting the difference between soft areas and edges.
Need to do another 14 day challenge head to test myself.

[Triggerpigking]

Update.
Fairly happy with the form on this, problem is i'm still not sure how to paint skin itself, think I need to learn how to texture it.
I'm not sure if the color is a distraction or adds to the piece, the character is nicknamed Bloody Harry so I figured adding that red in there would be cool and add some color contrast.


Cylinder practice.


14 day challenge head and ref, came out much MUCH better then my last one, I still need to work on a good balance of blending and edges though, these look too strong for a girl, also trying to improve my proportions as well so hopefully I'll have a better base for the next one.



More Shantae, trying to figure out how to better translate over realism to anime, not sure what rules I can break and what I have to keep to.


Ugh this godawful thing...spent ages on it and I just could'nt get it looking right, doesn't help that I messed up the layers too. I might retry it soon as I love the idea, the character Kat(From gravity rush) can bend gravity so I was originally gonna have her in this pose sideways on a building, but seeing as how it was coming out I ditched the background and just made it a normal sitting pose, I couldn't get her shape and proportions down well either.
I feel like there's something i'm really doing wrong when it comes to drawing figures and I can't put my finger on it especially because stuff as simple as this can take hours for me(think this was a 4-5 hour project).
Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62UzLgdb1GQ

[Abnormal]

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU:). 
ONLY A SMALL PROBLEM OF BASIC PERSPECTIVE AND THE LOCATION OF THE 
FORMS IN SPACE, TRIES TO SIMPLIFY MORE.

IMAGINE A LARGE CUBE IN HALF ONE MORE SMALL, NOW TRIES TO DRAW THAT IN   PERSPECTIVE BEFORE DESIGNING BONES AND ALL THOSE THINGS.

^^.

[Triggerpigking]

Thanks a ton for the crit dude, I really appreciate it, I did start off with simplification but I think it's the perspective that i'm not getting.
___________________


So I started the piece again, really trying to make sure everything works fine before I work too much on it.
Having a few issues though for one, I'm confused how to go about the proportions I broke down the proportions of her character however I've always had trouble figuring them out for sitting poses since unless you're sitting straight up your ribcage and pelvis are leaning towards eachother more, I'm thinking of drawing a full profile view of her proportions and then tilting them from there to see if I can figure it out however I wanted to ask first if there's some sorta formula or good estimate for it.

Other big issues i'm having is that i can't figure out how to draw an object that's going over the horizon line but also tilting towards the viewer, it's probably simple but I can't seem to wrap my head around it, all my attempts seem to make it look extremely weird.

I think I need to practice more sitting poses, will do tommorow, also noticed i'm having issues identifying landmarks on models and placing them in perspective, I've decided i'm gonna focus exclusively on anatomy and figure drawing till I get good at it now, I don't feel like i've made much progress with it at all compared to my portraits which is a problem since I really want to do characters XD.
I've been kinda avoiding them as well due to how crap I feel about them, gonna try and teach myself to not get so much anxiety over them.

Also did some gestures of people in motion watched some youtube vids of people dancing or running, and a small bit of fanart of Emi(best girl!) from Katawa Shoujo.

[Triggerpigking]

Yo guys.

Did more work on the gravity rush piece, I kinda did a 180 turn on it near the end, I was originally gonna cell shade this but I decided instead i'm gonna play around with some of the painting brushes instead, so right now i'm undecided on whether or not to keep the linework in it and rework it since right now it's really thick(I really need to learn line weight) or if to remove it altogether like i did with the Symphogear piece a while back.
I also pretty much stole the background from the main art of the game heh,
http://calmdowntom.com/wp-content/upload...dImage.jpg
Honestly I could'nt figure out any architecture nor could i find much ref for the buildings of the game....though I suppose I could've just booted up the game myself now that I think about it... fuck, maybe i'll rework it then xD.
Also messing around with her skin color, not sure if to make it accurate to the game or more darker since I'm kinda liking it.

Aside from that just got more anatomy work,  finally I seem to be getting the hang of them proko pelvises though, not sure if I'll do 100 from imagination of these but I plan to do 100 from ref, I really just want to get this down already so that I can move on with my life haha.

[kvSketch]

Hey there :D, it seems like you have a tendency to not have a enough contrast in your values. I would pay attention to cast/core shadows in your next studies. A still life with a strong direct light (while perhaps overdoing it) is a great way to start noticing them. Your forms and figures seem to be improving a lot from your new post, so great work on that.

[Artloader]

Nice work here Triggerpigking :). Your anatomy studies are looking solid - 100 pelvises? You will be a pelvic master by the time you're done!

I just noticed on your Gravity Rush piece in post #313, be careful with the perspective of the background, the perspective of the two forms near the right doesn't seem to match up with the perspective of the forms on the left - unless that was your intention?

Keep pushing dude!

[Triggerpigking]

KvSketch: thanks for the crit, yeah I've been having trouble with that for a while, thing is i'm trying to not overdo it since skin isn't that reflective with highlights but shadow wise I should probably go darker.
I'm not sure what I should do about the light contrast on this new piece though, since this is more cartoony and it's set out in the middle of the day with a lot of reflective light.
But yeah I'll try doing a hard light still life and I'll do some more form studies as well.

Artloader: Cheers dude, yeaaah I know the perspective is completely fucked now..thing is I originally planned to have her be sideways on the final piece but I didn't think what I was doing through and put the vp line the wrong way so that it's cutting through her head horizontally as if she's just sitting normally.
So that blew up that plan in flames but I also didn't give much thought to what i was gonna do with the background while working on the figure, basically was focusing so much on just trying to get step 1 right that I forgot steps 2-4 lol. I've redid the background but the perspective is still wonky on the big building where her head is gonna need to redraw it after that I think it'll be mostly fine...
Basic lesson here is I need to draw some goddamn thumbnails next time and plan XD.

Also I hope I'll be a pelvis master by the end of these, drawing these are tough as hell and i'm only just getting a grasp on it now after the what? 2 years it's been since that proko video released xD, i'm taking a short break from them now as I sent off the first 25 to be critiqued by Proko hopefully that help me with them.


_____________________

Ok so I started doing a bunch of proko bean studies, didn't realize just how bad I was at these, twisting forms especially are something i'm struggling to grasp more so what side to put the stretch though I think i'm starting to get it, i'm gonna try and do a good 30 mins- hour of these a day for a little while.

And more work on gravity rush, redid the background though I need to change the perspective on that top building, I lost the vp point layer! so gonna have to make a rough estimate of where that was XD.
Also not sure how to paint the foreground, part of me wants to keep the lineart intact I've seen a lot of artists pull off using lineart and paint without resorting to cell shading but i'm not sure how to approach it plus my linework is not exactly the best either so I might redo it though that could take more time then it's worth.. I'm gonna do some cushart krenz studies he seems to use line work in his paintings but paints over parts of it, http://orig02.deviantart.net/afab/f/2017...att9zq.jpg i'm not good at studying art like this but we'll see if I pick up on anything.

Anyway I'll try and get more work on this done tonight, Ciao.

[Triggerpigking]

Sooo many hours spent on this...
I did some cushart krenz studies recently as well and I noticed how he seems to color some of his linework in on the piece so I tried to apply that a bit here. I think he does it to add little bits of contrast or to match the lines with the light, however i'm finding it difficult to figure out where he does this with the lines, I highly doubt it's random, anyway it's an effect I want to figure out how to do properly since i really like it, I should probably study how he paints skin as well and just do some general skin studies since I'm terrible at it.

[Triggerpigking]

Quick update of some studies.

Trying to draw the frames of the figure in motion more, surprised this isn't something more commonly talked about after all what we're trying to do is move the body and our references in our heads.

If anyone has any good videos or can link me to any sites with moving people for this I'd really appreciate it.
First one is from a video while the other 2 are from my mind.

[UKRAINIANWOLF97]

I like ,that you don`t know How to  give up )

[RickRichards]

Hey man, fantastic dedication! Hope you don´t mind that i´ve made a very quick paintover and tackled some issues with an image that i see having loads of potential.
Cheers man!!

[Triggerpigking]

Ukrainian wolf:Lol thanks dude, i'm just extremely stubborn with everything XD.

RickRichards: Thanks a ton for the paintover dude! I'm actually done with it though, maybe I'll go back to it at some point but I spent way to long on it, I'll write down your notes on it though!.
This whole piece was a mess I have a big problem with planning and i kept changing directions mid piece(originally I was just gonna cell shade the damn thing XD).
About the hair I wasn't going for realism in fact I was trying to draw it as a cartoon shape like the reference but yeah it does look extremely stiff could'nt figure out how to make it look like it was flowing as a shape.
Shoulders are a big issue for me, noticing that now just finished a quick piece where I once again put them out to far.

__________

No update yet, I've got stuff but I honestly can't be assed to upload it right now since most of it is traditional and i've been busy the last few days.
I do think I've figured out what I need to focus on with figure drawing though, aside from the proko studies and gesture I've been finding it hard to figure out what I could do to improve them.
Cushart Krenz just uploaded an amazing 1 hour video though(seriously I cannot reccomend it enough it's only 10$ on his gumroad!) going over how to improve figures mostly talking about how to properly use perspective in figure drawing.
This had been a real big issue for me, I've studied a decent amount of perspective in the past but barely anything touches upon how to properly use it on a moving figure, when you have limbs flying everywhere and foreshortening trying to study from someone like Robertson simply hasn't worked for me but this vid's cleared a lot of stuff up for me, and hell it's only the first half of it XD he hasn't uploaded the second part yet and I've already taken mountains of notes.