Some advice- If you're working digitally, it can really help to remember the muscles of the body by coloring each muscle group in a distinctive color.
Draw Lots of small muscle studies from various angles, after you color them, it will be much easier to see/understand where each muscle group attaches and wraps.
Michael Hampton had some very excellent books and video classes on this subject!
trying to get better at stuff ppl recommend like anatomy and simplification/observation; we'll see if it helps. these backs are from memory; i'm iffy on some of the shoulder attachment muscles like teres minor/major infraspinatus etc.
one of these skulls SK3 has horrible perspective, drawing it in front with a slight tilt is so hard and i cant understand why.
Hirvios: Im so sorry i missed your comment yesterday! i was gonna reply i was just so tired i forgot! Yes, i have worked from hampton for awhile, but not the way i should have. Back when i was on Sycra forum in like 2013, there was a user there named Matthias Kinniegkit i think. He was working strictly from hampton and maybe a few other things, but he became quite decent in about 2 years and even got a job at a game studio. His lines were so tight, his construction was on point and he had such a strong grasp on foundation it was very inspiring. If only if only i had been so... correct and focused with my studies.
more stufff... Uuuh working on like understanding the shoulder connection muscles, but i didnt get a chance to apply them yet as the rey bustos vids are about 3 hrs and i was more trying to correctly place a few back muscles. Turns out it shouldnt be too much more complex to add in the back shoulder muscles as their shape is similar to the blade, just the acromium process throws me off cuz it like wedges into the back obscurely and confuses me with some shadow shapes.
I wanna be over prepared before i do another finished piece. And even that piece will be simple so i can make sure it doesnt have boo boos all over it. This skull is a little better than the others in terms of the proportions but the line quality is fucking bullshit and i need a more coherent hatching technique, we'll get to that somehow!
I think this one turned out a lot better; I tried watching a few things about doing lay ins, like linear line patterns and contours. I'm trying to meld a lot of information into my head as of late... will take some time!
mmkay, the more i do these the more i kinda look into negative shapes and i understand more of the tilt of the skull; geeze there is so much little nuance in a skull... Hmm, maybe 5 or ten more of these and ill have something worth rendering!
Srry if this stuff isn't super exciting to look at, its essential for me to focus on at this point
Doing them skulls seems to have not only improved yer skull-drawing skills but overall line quality. Especially the last one. Show us some crisp line arts later on with the same quality in lines as the skulls, ya old koala you! ;D
Hirvos: You shoulda seen it, i got Daily Deviation and an arstation featured folio on those last two sketches ;). Value in due time my man, the most values ill be doing are some basic tone lay ins to block out the matrix of the image, just two tones, my drawings still aint accurate enough yet :) thx btw
Adz: Thanks my dude; and observation essentially improves everything since, for the most part a mind can create only so much information on its own via memory. The more accurately you can observe something, the higher your capacity to create it with more accuracy without reference. And line quality boils down to just positioning shapes right, either as straight lines or C curves, and varying them depending on distance/focal point etc.
more stuff, tried to like zoom out and draw the skull as small as i could manage. Was interesting and I'll soon be posting some things i was trying where I was trying to draw some portraits also quite small and use simplified lines and break the planes down with two tones. If I can get that right I then could just plug the features in and have an accurate face, so I'll need to keep at that :)
Lotta reading today, nd watching things; will have more tomorrow hopefully! probably turn this thing a few degrees and draw it from that angle a few times
Whew, today was intense even though there's only three things im posing. Just lots of ass in chair time, the rendering was very entertaining, probably about 3 hrs worth the sketch from yesterday. I'm turning the skull and gonna draw it from this angle now and try to make that better. and this sketch 100% imagination, also tiddy
K trying to make some more structural skulls at the behest of my mentor; I'm also gonna copy a bunch of more academic skull drawing from modern masters like Erik Gist and a few others who i wanna draw like
Dang, you are in a serious drawing crucible! That's awesome.
_________________________________________________________________________
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
-Chinese proverb
Tygerson: well.. That's one way to put it! Crucible... interesting word choice! thanks btw
These are all studies from artists more affluent than me; but me stylizing with construction to arrange the forms in ways that influence my perception better. Hopefully get to more portrait stuff next month, this stuff has been intense mentally!
Mmkay yall im gonna take a break tomorrow for just one day, need to just have a me day, do some retarded shit for fun and I'll be back with more exciting studies before you know it!
Duckman: Thanks my friend! Glad you enjoy the struggle; and i think i'll pass on that art trade unless there's some $ in it for me ;)
probably gonna be luggin down on these february as well since i feel it really helps my forms/perspective/line quality/observation all at once quite efficiently! Also finding good reference for structurally drawn heads/riley method is tough, as there's lots of really really bad student work to sift through, but i have a good eye of what's worth drawing now so that helps a lot!
![[Image: ebb.png]](http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/984/539/ebb.png)
