This sketchbook has always creeped me out a little bit not gonna lie, The faces haunt me in my sleep at times. Haha, the exaggeration is cool and i'm assuming it's intentional, but I feel like it would help you a lot if you did some studies that where super accurate. Like spend a lot of time trying to get the proportions and structure exactly correct. Because if you keep studying with these exaggerated proportions you might imprint a false set of rules into you mind, which could be hard to fix later on if you needed to. Its best to have a base of reality when studying I think.
JJ: ahhaaha i wish that was a problem, i struggle a lot trying to make things look "less" realistic, i have to constantly sit and erase to make things look goofy and silly. I'm adding on more though there are some areas i want to refine accutely for sure
Your paintings have a really green tint in them, man; make sure you are reaaallly looking at your studies from observation. If you're using a digital reference, you may want to color pick every so often to guide your eye.
Try to be a bit more consistent and DELIBERATE with what you study: you are jumping back and forth from one-off illustrations that have no resemblance to your past studies to skewed and exaggerated renditions of figures and portraits before your concept of anatomy is at a more competent level.
A caricature is nothing but a "parody" (if you will) of realistic, LIFE-like figures. If you can't properly execute a drawing of the human figure, portrait, or character/sentiment to a CONVINCING degree, don't expect your caricatures to be appealing either.
And if you cannot see these flaws, I recommend you train your eye, train your eye, train. your. eye. That means tons of still lifes, drawing from photos...copy shit and lots of it.
Then, I would advise you do a basic review of your anatomy, value/light, color, perspective; build a strong foundation before you place a large percentage of your focus on ambitious endeavors, such as illustrations and concept design. Look at the industry's standards at its various tiers and let that guide you.
I love how much you are working; you are one of the only dudes on here that updates in large quantity on a consistent basis and you churn out a lot of work with each update, bro. You are DEFINITELY gaining mileage...just remember that there is such a thing as a wrong and right way to study, that is, if you're serious about making this into a career. We are all a slave to our habits, so why not make GOOD habits? Your ideas are dope and you definitely bring something fresh to this: I've told you the ones I liked on fb and that shit is sincere :)
Since my last post i decided to ditch a lot of my old habits and well, i'll try to explain why without a novel, but the short end of it is.
I hate drawing fantasy commercial art.
All my favorite artists are pinup artists; bouguereau, malcolm liepke, serge birault, paul richards, you know you know.. So i decided recently to just focus on that; none of my favoriteartists are fantasy illustrators, or even caricature artists. Though, there is an element of caricature in their work, its 90% pinup.
yea man, it's been quite freeing, like going to bed each night and saying, "hey that was fun today"
drawing hotties... And i feel like its the easy way out but it really isn't.
I didn't do fantasy because i initially wanted to, i did it because it was the only thing i knew. We are on a site founded by a fantasy artist, who, apparently doesn't even want to be a fantasy artist anymore. So i thought you know if he hates doing it less than a decade later, and i don't even like doing it now, why not just do what i want to do?
All my favorite pictures are of beautiful women, mostly photos; i have a folder filled with my favorite pictures, and only about 4 of the 200 of them are paintings. And instead of ignoring that i'm just going to embrace it and do that. It's gotten to where i roll my eyes when i see a lot of fantasy work on FB especially stuff that's geared to a certain company. The pieces i did that were pinup on my DA i felt much more satisfied with people's reactions to, because i know it was a lot more genuine on my part. hell every platform i put those pieces on got a great reaction,
as opposed to my more recent stuff.
I feel like a very sophisticated pervert, as in i have a way to see the fantasy in my head on paper now.
And i appreciate your critic jakt, it will take a matter of time for me to patch the remaining holes up in anatomy, and all that stuff i find a hard time caring about tbh, but i suppose i should. Only thing i recommend to the new artist is to not be afraid of what you truly want to do. Even if it is kind of naughty, do what makes you happy the most, and hey good for you if it's rpg stuff cuz as we can see from pnate and rafa z, there's definitely still places to
break in in that market.
the guys in hangout be like "mmm booty" *cough Jonas!*
Dude look, if you've found what you wanna do, go for it and forget the rest! You know my thoughts on the whole subject, but yeah - Jak had some really valid points that I wasn't game enough/suck at articulating what I want to say -- if you wanna make them gains, you've gotta do the stuff that bores you. You know the stuff, the drawing stuff, the fundamental stuff, the stuff that you've been putting off.
Sounds harsh, but ily and I just wanna see you shine like the mother effin' diamond that you're supposed to be!
Keep pushing, lord koala man-oxide
you got this,
mwahmwahwmahwa xxxxoxo <3 (typed in true Fedodika stylings ahaha)
sketchbook | pg 52
"Not a single thing in this world isn't in the process of becoming something else." I'll be back - it's an odyssey, after all
Just do what you feel is right man. Don't sweat the small stuff, like what is the right way to study, the right number of hours, the right schedule, the right content, the right markets to aim for, the right tools to use, the right events to go to, the right clothes to buy, the right food to eat, the right friends to make, the right number of likes to get, the right city to live in, the right tv to buy, the right girl/guy to marry, the right number of kids to have, the right mortgage broker, the right schools to pick, the right doctors to go to, the right retirement fund, the right cemetery plot to pick, the right gods to pray to as you die and realise what mortality means.
It's all a stupid dream that we are living to think we actually have control of anything. It will all happen as it happens. I don't mean don't think about anything or be smart about it, but really just listen to your self first. Not your mind. not your friends, not your family, not Dave Rapoza, not Jesus, not Sinead o' Connor, not Obama, not the Dalai Lama, not me. Just Your self. FUCK ALL THAT OTHER SHIT.
Smrfeetee:!!! OMMGGG I've really been layin into the borin stuff lately tbh... it's alot easier since i've kinda narrowed the scope of subjects to focus on. XXXX HUGSS ETC!!!!
I love that song, thanks for sharing aiiiiiiiiiee <3 srsly, I'm gonna stalk the shit outta her stuff and work to it! She reminds me of Fever Ray *swoon*
I'll be back ;)
sketchbook | pg 52
"Not a single thing in this world isn't in the process of becoming something else." I'll be back - it's an odyssey, after all
So gonna be goin to a fair tomorrow, got a booth and hopefully sell somma these charcoal drawings. Each were done in about 2-5 minutes. Also hope to make some more $$ of street caricature, as i did at the last fair i went to. Be sure to do it free so people come in, then accept tips, also keeps the police from harrassing you! the other things are oil paintings which took several hours each (aside from the hair and sargent study)
Some more sketches, stealing Reiq's shading trick... I really wish i would have drawn like 95% of the time i was learning instead of painting so much. I know all these super fancy rendering tricks but it doesn't help my mediocre drawings... It seems like drawing or drafstmanship is most of what this is. I wish i would have done that and maybe studied painting an hour a day, and occasionally have a longer study like once a week. i feel like im improving 300X quicker studying drawing more than painting, and focusing on one subject of course
No point in wallowing in what could have been and what could have been done better -- present now Fedodikoalaoxide knows what he can do with this new found knowledge! Also, think about when you get your draftsmanship gets up to standard - you'll hardly have the trouble of converting drawing to painting knowledge! Because you already smoked through that these past couple-a years :D
Really glad you did notice though, now there'll be no stopping ya!
sketchbook | pg 52
"Not a single thing in this world isn't in the process of becoming something else." I'll be back - it's an odyssey, after all
Mate like others said, if you have found what you really want to do, go for it!
Well you are already doing great haha looking forward to more of your pin ups and caricatures.
Getting better at rendering too!
