Darkiste: yea i sketched around to find a pose i liked, but you can always explore more, and then do micro explorations of that pose. thanks for the paintover, and that's a good point about the silhouette reading, i'll remember that on the fly next time. The obsession as you say with no ref, was me exploring what i could do without it; it's good to do because you hit the dead ends quicker, and come to important realizations. What i figured out from the last one is several things,
1. Drawing little stick men before a more finalized drawing is actually fun and relaxing, you can explore and not invest anything, just the idea of what a pose could be. that may end up being part of at least my imagination workflow forever
2. I need to see if i can create an accurate turn around of the body even in a static pose. I'll need to get proko's course and lay into hogarthe more to make sure i understand all the important muscles and can indicate them solidly in a turn around from memory; that'll be a big goal of mine this year.
3. Always always always figure out the whole pose inside and out before you add clothing, even if you're looking through limbs, make sure they are connecting properly, as its easy to lose them in foreshortening and clothing.
4. i really like the concept of dark natured things in beautiful bright and soft backgrounds.
5. i use a generic indication for imagination things, like a face or a hand; which can be fixed with reference, but it's something i'll remember.
So today was suuper frustrating, which i suppose is a good thing. This portrait was a master copy from watts and was absolutely comically bad, that even me with a half hour with it in painter, doctoring and fixing it couldnt save it from looking comically bad lol. The shaded pose has horrible shading that made me realize i had been sharpening my pencil wrong the entire time; which i proceeded to correct with more education. Its really vital to do that in watts style at least, you cant do these drawings right if you dont.
Also in the shaded drawing the calves are way too big, but the distortion from my camera made them look almost correct! i can make a list of all the things i see wrong in these, but im just gonna suck it up and do better tomorrow. possible may redo the portrait, and try some other things out, right now im gonna dip back into some super basic fundamentals like how to hold a fucking pencil; cheerio till then
this was sooo tough lol, that anatomy 360 site is increidble, i bought a couple things from them and man that will help assloads in the future; highly fucking reccomend it, even if you just check it out for the free reference, which is insane!
The ones on paper are from reference and the digital ones are 90% memory/invention
Desqueler: Thanks very much my dude! in due time ;)
I had a cool idea for a composition today and i had to get it down. It was a pretty simple concept, just a girl texting and another girl reacting in a shocked way to it, in a kind of idealized environment of mine, being some very lush trees in a forest. For some reason that is way more appealing to me than any fantasy painting, in concept at least. I dug out Daz3d and mocked up some poses, mainly to help me find a composition i like. I moved them around a lot, finding nice overlaps, and lowering the camera a bit here and there. also arranging a folder for the references for the skin tones i want, the textures of the plants, the hait colors and textures, the fashion, etc. all shit i neeeeever did in the old days.
I might mess with it some more, maybe even a closer angle, its tough to get it to what i see in my head even with 3d and photos to help. yea, when i think about it sincerely it seems closer, you can barely even see feet. the colors id say in the bottom left panel are closest to what i envision, but there is so much variance in values and saturation and such that it'll take a lot of planning, which is what good illustration is all about :)
The goal is to find a thumbnail i really like, spend the most time on finding that, then do a line drawing, apply all the shit i know now about designing good shapes in anatomy, photo composite/reference stuff i need to look real (everything) and try to spend 8 hrs tops rendering, the less the better.
I also really got into foraging today, which was very meditative and awesome. I ordered 2 books on edible wild mushrooms and spent a huge chunk of today looking into that since it really facinates me; i do think it will go on to influence my art since i live in a very rural and forested area. shuld be guud, also life drawing tomorrow :O
whew; this was fun but challenging to get as far as i did. after just a few hrs with this, awesome revelations of things i dont know
1. making cool tree shapes
2. make cool textures in bark and leaves
It was quite enjoyable mocking up a 3d model, throwing that into a sketch filter, then editing the anatomy to my liking, which was practically redrawing everything since DAZ3D has very noodle like, hotdog joint limbs and anatomy. im glad i can style the anatomy now to my liking and not stress over removing lines from the original. Tomorrow gonna spend some quality time refining my tree/rock skills, then some applications and maybe some more watts
Give more volume to the phone it seem rather flat.The hand also seem to have rather slender finger and long one.Her eye seem to be looking somewhere else than on the phone idk if that an error.I wasn't happy about the way the muscle where represented in the arm section.The tree texture seem to be oily it doesn't fit the harmony of the style i would say.For the good side i think you still did great in creating form in a 3d scene.
did a few hrs on this today, i mean i could push it further and put many more hrs into it but i've lost faith in it; it has pushed me a lot though and clarified many things, and i should probably do one of these a week even if i dont finish them. I wanna finish one that i feel really really strong about; i think this one is strong in places but it's a different feeling im banking on for a portfolio piece.
was a good opportunity to study some trees formations and backdrop stuff. I think i should be less ambitious and go for just one figure and get really good at that before trying two, despite how much i want to do multiple figure pieces. workflow is always good to test as well, so tomorrow its more watts, gonna go through erik gist's stuff which may be tedious but it'll be worth it to learn drapery properly and anatomy :)
I think before attempting a big piece it good to do some preparatory study drawing for example a few thumbnail to test the composition and maybe some study on to draw bark if we take the last piece as example i also the lighting is kinda strange you would expect a less direct sunlight and some leaf to obstruct the light idk just some thought like that can create alot of the mood.Specially a good dose of light.It those little study that prevent us from abandoning some project sometime.As general like to say plan before the battle and expect anything.
Darkiste: yea for the next imagination piece i'll do next week i'll plan out the shapes more and have a lighting design, neither or which i did for that one. I just found some poses i liked and figured a camera angle, what i need to do is explore how many different cool shapes i can find, then find the ideal pose, then ideal value pattern. Next one i'll do ill go for something simpler and yea, less dynamic. I've been digging that deharme guys stuff lately, despite his work flow being very photo heavy, i like how he composes and love the subject matter. So it'll probably be reminiscent of that, i'd love to at least attempt that style.
I spent most the time on the last one again, just editing details of anatomy, which im happy i can do, and playing with colors, which are ultimately insignificant vs the rest of the fundamentals. could even try a more monocrhomatic thing try and keep my head under control.
Just some lay in's and a diaper fold from Erik Gist, that dudes very good but also very monotone, his voice being the complete opposite of jeff. I can deal with it though, it's gonna be brutal going through all the anatomy intensives from him and the other drapery vids but its gotta be done lol.
Panda: im so happy i do kristina <3 Hopefully one day I'll inspire many more people :)
2 one hr portrait after jeff watts; tomorrow gonna go for at least 8 figure lay ins. nothing too fancy, just lines and subtle edge indication, gonna be goin off of brian knox's stuff on instagram and maybe a few of jeffs from the workbooks
You work so large must be such a waste of time =S idk it seem i alway heard that we should work small maybe i am wrong but i you think you would gain more control and could do more drawing by drawing smaller.What the point of drawing so big if it not for a commision?
Just here to make you think if it efficient way to study or just an habit you pick up somewhere and it a kind of zone of comfort.
I am not here to say there a wrong or bad way i think it important to be aware of what happen by working big compare to working small.
It's easier to draw things in smaller scale. Why would all academies all over the world use huge canvases and papers to just draw life drawing gestures? You get better feel of the line and flow when you use your entire arm, body to it. When you draw small you limit yourself to small strokes and details quite often.
I think it's better that Fedodika is using regular paper for this rather than let's, say, sketchbook - than he won't bother with making things pretty or be limited by size of sketchbook, but focus on the most important thing - study.
Darkiste/Toxicpanda: I don't work on large newsprint because i particularly want to, im quite a cheapskate and its quite painful for me to burn through sheets that are essentially a quarter a piece. I'm taking Jeff Watts course and i owe all my development because im working large scale and taking the materials seriously, the paper, the shapes, and the presentation. All of those things i never ever gave two shits for in anything traditional.
My cheapskate mind would much prefer working on the tons of copy paper i have, but i instantly notice a mindset shift when im sitting with that stuff of "oh this is another sketch i can fuck up and throw in the bin with the others." With the newsprint my mindset is, "okay, time to be careful, be serious, make a good drawing." So, huge difference! And likewise if i had some fine archival paper, i'd plan a drawing out thoroughly before even putting a mark to show how much i value the material.
Got some great feedback and crits from my mentor today, she says im getting into advanced student level stuff at least in portraiture. even going as far as saying some of my drawings look "good" which is new for me, specially from people who know what they're doing lol. did 8 figure lay ins from Brian Knox and will be taking tomorrow to finish reading the stuff in the Mad Art of Caricature and maybe do some studies of that and then maybe some more figure layins, head practice; might try from photos to see what i can do
Life drawing todayyy; had a lot of fun, a lot of the time the models dont pick the best poses so i finally got fed up with it and started editing the limbs. The model had her feet flat on the ground, so i picked them up in a dainty Elvgren style. I'm inventing lighting since the shadows arent very strong in the studio, she was very very skinny with little muscle tone, so I added some in. Was absolutely a blast, and this week im gonna cram lots of anatomy and figure work so i can do it even better ;)
Not sure if i'll post a lot or a little tomorrow, or if at all, but i'll be swingin for sure sunday
it's great that you took initiative and started getting designing the figure more. that'll definitely help when you get to imaginative works. as always, nice job on the work so far. i like that you're mixing up the type of studies that you do with the figures too.
definitely study up that anatomy. it can only enhance the life drawing!
I'm super jelly that you are drawing live models. I'm still figuring out how to arrange that. Just like Des said it's great that you took your own initiative and started working on figure the way you want- it just proves how much you have improved in these studies that you can let your mind be free and do more dynamic stuff or things you find more expressive. How many times a week do you have these sessions?
