The Sketchy Sketchbook of ....Sketchyness!!

[Triggerpigking]

Was gonna upload more then this but eh, thinking it over it's really only proko bean studies and without the refs those are kinda useless for critique and are probably not particularly interesting to look at either.

So I went a little mental studying Krenz's methods today..5 hours in fact XD, I usually am not that into studying that much but I really got into it with this, I suppose because I felt I really was working my brain to figure it out as opposed to something like the Pelvis ones which are simply memorization.


I'm finding it difficult but I think i'm gradually getting a better idea of his methods, the rotation thing especially is great basically allowing for a quick way to figure out how you're moving the body in perspective.
The main issues i'm having is
1. figuring out what a 45 degree and 22.5/67.5 degree angle is for objects without even sides, i'm working off the assumption right now that your perspective would be in the middle of them but i'm not sure.
2. how to figure out the vertical size of these objects, think this might come down to eyeballing it since perspective can fuck with it a lot.

Whats interesting though is that once I've mastered this Krenz is of the opinion that you technically only need to draw a body part in every angle once, which makes sense really if you have a diagram showing the structure in most viewpoints(he recommends going 4 across with 90d 45d 67.5 and 22.5) then you don't need to really focus on drawing that specific subject anymore outside of anatomy so i'm gonna focus on this for a while and see where it takes me, seriously this vid has made understanding perspective so much freaking easier for me.

I also got the idea to start making little mannequins like the one in the corner and saving them for later usage. Since I've been playing around with proportions lately having these setup for reference could be a good idea, with this being the basic realism cranial units one.
these also tend to take a lot of time when I'm just drawing them over and over so it'll save time.


I also did a silly Midna pic for fun, I've noticed a big issue I have with my line work from doing this actually, I seem to not be spending enough time on the rough line work phase and i'm then trying to correct the piece and focus on some nice lines at the same time which is taking up so much more time then it needs to.
Wrote that down in my notes.

Also thinking I might ignore color and grey scale for a while, might do some stuff for silly fun but with all this focus on perspective and anatomy i'm thinking it might be a good idea to focus down on drawing over painting.

[Triggerpigking]

Bah these studies are so difficult xD.
I'm having massive difficulty's with trying to apply it to my figures, I am wondering if maybe i'm trying to be too correct since he did sometimes seem to be winging it a bit but that could just be due to experience.
It's frustrating though seeing it done so easily then having so much trouble with it haha.

I'm thinking part of the problem might be in the ratios between the planes, since a big part of it is knowing how each body part will look from different angles, I'm gonna start with a cube from all angles for practice then do torso's after that.

[Abnormal]

Oh man, this is so hard but studying this technically will help you to draw with more confidence, I think that to draw the human figure it takes a bit of this knowledge but there is nothing more precise than the human eye :)

Annnnd you know a guy named Davinci? lol 


keep going ^^.

[Triggerpigking]

Cheers dude! that should come in helpful, and yeah i'm hoping studying it like this will be really helpful, the idea Krenz has is that if you can figure out the general rotations of an object like what i'm doing with the cube here, then you can basically just draw it from any angle and never have to study it again barring anatomy knowledge, I don't think it's as easy as that myself but i'm hoping it'll simplify perspective drawing a lot easier for me.

________________

Ok I realized halfway through this first cube diagram what i was doing wrong, I hadn't really been thinking of the difference between actually tilting a cube and simply changing the viewpoint of the cube, which explains why I couldn't fit it into a square like Krenz was in his studies.
That being said I was still having hell with these, for the other one I simply tried drawing a cube from different viewpoints but I need to practice tilting it as well again soon.



Aside from that I did some museum studies which were fun, turned out well and fuck I actually learned something about history who'd have thought :P.
Figure studies with the robobean which I clearly need more practice with and lastly did a pinup piece of midna
Fancied trying my hand at something like this, hadn't done so before due to my crappy anatomy knowledge, was fun to draw and bonus, she doesn't look like she took a hammer to the face! XD.
Also gonna try painting simplistically like this for a while, I'm gonna avoid proper painting until my drawing skills have improved given how far behind my perspective and anatomy is, plus I like coloring this way so I'll see where it takes me.

[Triggerpigking]

Quick update.

So since these cube studies aren't turning out how I want them I decided to take the sensible solution...and push the nuclear button gonna draw 1000 of em!!
I'll probably do this over a long period though, it's taking me about an hour to draw 10 of the bloody things lol.


Robo bean figures





Also a w.i.p I need to get into the habit of showing these off earlier, when changing stuff from critiques would be easier.



Doing some studies of Yotsuba, since Cushart krenz reccomends it, the perspective work here is really really good! gonna keep studying the pages.
Also..might be getting slightly addicted to it XD, it's pretty damn fun to read, was having to try and tear myself away from it while studying.

[Heliux]

so much construction/perspective; very wow.
O_o

[Triggerpigking]

Thanks dude!. Yeah i'm trying my best to just study the hell out of construction and perspective, forget about everything else, painting composition, color all of that, I want to do manga style work(if it's not evident XD) so a strong design base is really what I need to focus on.

__________
Big dump update.

So I'm having a lot of trouble with understand Krenz's methods, I feel I've got it mostly down but there's a few points of frustration that's currently making it impossible to study fully or to apply to my own work, 1 of course being the cubes which is simply a matter of practice.
But the second is how he rotates planes, here's an example.


so for the most part I get this and it usually works on ground planes however, i'm having trouble with getting it to work from other pictures


Some of these work fine but some of them just won't work for me, for example the bottom one with the chick sitting on the couch, I've been trying it for hours and just can't get it right, neither her torso placement, head nor even the cushions leaning diagonally, and I think the reason why is that I can't figure out how to place the plane used for rotating them.

I think it might require knowing what points the object you're rotating would touch if it was placed diagonally or horizontally(say if she was sitting upright or lying full flat on the couch.)
That being said in that quick diagram of yotsuba Krenz did the cube he built to figure out the perspective of Yotsuba seems almost random, so I don't know.

I've also been using it a bit in figure drawing here, i'm trying to copy the poses with the method then try and draw them from a different angle(might try changing some placements as well sometime soon).



And more stuff!, plan on writing some dialogue for this before uploading it to deviantart..honestly this part has been more difficult then the drawing itself lol.
Was playing around with some charcoal brushes for it, I think it's a cool little traditional effect.



Anyway that's all for now Ciao

[Triggerpigking]

PC died for over a month so, that was fun!.
Done a lot of traditional work though, i'm gonna upload it gradually, I feel I've learned quite a lot in the last month for imagination drawing atleast.
I'm finally figuring out a process for drawing the figure that I can get to work correctly pretty consistently and i've been drawing all the  muscles underneath them as well as a way to learn better.
Still not sure on proportions though, my end goal is more anime or cartoony proportions but trying to get there without it looking weird has been difficult and i'm simply not a fan of full 7 1/2 head proportions, though I do have them memorized.

[Fedodika]

Triggered my shaggy friend, keep drawin! Keep bangin it ouuuttt!!

[Triggerpigking]

Cheers dude!.
Quick update.

[Fedodika]

not bad on dat figure drawing!!

[Triggerpigking]

Cheers dude!.

Not much of an update but I want to get these out of my scan folder already :P.

Did some fanart of a character I love from a skyrim mod.
I found a really comfy brush for drawing recently, think i'm gonna stick with it, it's got a very rough pencil texture to it and it works great for me given I tend to go over my lines a lot and draw roughly.
Not sure about my colouring and painting atm,  it's not too much of a focus for me atm since i'm focusing on my anatomy and clothing first but i'm finding it hard to figure out a way for it that I like, I seem to naturally lean more to simplistic shading but I also admire some of the more realistic anime painting some people use.

And some (mostly) imagination torso's, think I need to do a lot more from ref, thinking 100 for male and 100 for female, though perhaps thats a bit excessive.

[Fedodika]

keep doin those imagination torsoes! One thing you could try is to notice one thing about the torso, like the collarbone, learn how to break it down and draw torsoes from imagination that kind of emphasise the collarbone/deltoid area. Then do that for abdominals, pectoral etc. I think it's very effective because you'll make yourself understand the muscle how its represented on paper and its function as opposed to just copying

[alexsieu]

Yo idk if you're doing your 1000 cube challenge still but having some sort of feedback loop would be necessary to accelerate learning considerably

If you're doing digital maybe try extending the lines to see if they meet at the same vp? Or trying that rotation exercise on drawabox and using his finished example as the correct answer. Regardless, good luck! Personal work looks fun and you got some liveliness in your work.

[Triggerpigking]

@Fedodika cheers mateypotatee!, I've kinda been doing that I think, with the proko lessons atleast, generally outside of that i've been trying to exaggerate all the anatomy draw all the muscules, erase then draw over that.

@Alexsieu Honestly I haven't done that in a while, got burned out at about 200 since they were taking so long each haha, I will defineitly remember that when I get back to them though, cheers mate.
_____________

Ok decided I thought that last piece ended up garbage so I went back over it, I decided to compare it to some of my favorite artists or just ones I like and see what was wrong, I ended up comparing it to Kawacy, Krenz and some random bloke who did some Sucy from LWA fanart. 

I realized i'm not putting enough thought into linework, considering i'm working with a very simplistic shading/colouring style currently lineart is very important.
I think it's helped a lot now that I've gone back over it, i'm still a bit unsure on how thick or thin to go with some lines but I suppose that's more up to preference then anything else.
I studied the way Kawacy draws hair a bit too, I think I replicated it less successfully but I honestly need to study hair soon in general so i'll keep it in mind since it's a way of drawing hair I really like.
 I redid the colour and really pushed the shadows into colder colours. I think this is what was making my last piece look so bland, redoing this made it pop out a lot better.

Aside from that I've done a bunch of torso studies I plan to do some partially from imagination today, gotta cement that anatomy knowledge into my thick stupid head.

[Fedodika]

TRIGGERED: I think the colors look better on the redo, but the pose and forms are just the biggest flaw. Like there are better ways to enhance the silhouette of that pose. For instance, just cover up the character with a flat black tone and see the silhouette. Then find some examples of characters expression that kind of stammered angry emotion. You can wing the arms out at the side, raise them in the air in rage. Change the angle, not just three quarter view.

oh and good work on the studies, I love the big boobz <3

[Triggerpigking]

well of course Big boobz are the bestz!.

Ah I see what you mean with the sillouhette, I find the idea of her throwing her arms down in rage like that cute but I defineitly should've winged them out more like you said.
I need to put expressions on my list of things to study soon, trying to apply it to anime is difficult I've seen a few shows do so very well though like Konosuba. Cheers dude!.


__________

Hey y'all wanted to get an opinion on this W.i.p before I take it any further, also some torso studies.

I'm thinking i've made the pose here a bit too stiff, might try moving the ribcage back more.

[Fedodika]

well bro her hand with the book is backwards, the thumb is on the wrong side. I'd maybe thumbnail some more, its good youre going for a dynamic angle, but i don't think the silhouette is strong. So far it's like a body, with a witch hat, nothing really special with the countours, maybe figure out a cool design for the outfit, then make the composition

[Triggerpigking]

Ah shit, how did I not notice the hand XD.
thanks dude.
hmm thing is I do really like the comp I have now, atleast the general idea, I'll mess around with some other thumbs though.
I figured the overlapping forms and interesting hair would make up for the basic pose silhouette. The problem with the outfit thing is that the character i'm basing it on has a very simplistic design to her.


Edit:Ok rather then redo the comp since I liked it, I decided to try and see if I could make the silhouette(god that words hard to spell haha), more interesting and came up with this, I changed the reaching out hand to be pouring a bottle in instead which I think adds a good bit more negative space to it and I expanded the hips a lot as well, i think it's more clearer whats going on now.
Only issue i still have with this is with trying to make the cauldron look interesting since it's a reallly basic object, I think adding the handle adds detail to it but aside from that i'm trying to use smoke and bubble like forms to make it more interesting, i'm not to sure on the forms right now and I think it might be taking away from the silhouette of the cauldron, i'll have to sleep on it and retweak it.

[Artloader]

Great work here dude, I like the robobean stuff because it gives structure but at the same time keeps things nice and organic.

You've got so many things going on right now that I hesitate to throw anything else into the mix but here goes ... one thing that I'm getting a lot of mileage from right now is Dynamic Sketching And Constructive Drawing exercises on drawabox.com. I find that applying these to a range of subjects (animals, birds, architecture) really boosts my figure sketching too. I guess it's because it's is giving me more of a feel for 3D form.

Maybe revisit when you get chance: http://drawabox.com/lesson/5

Keep it going fella!