Beard Clippings

[smrr]

Oh no worries haha, I was thrown off by the bit of colour you added

So I'm assuming you're going for a more dramatic overcast weather going by your wip?

I'm not much of a landscape enthusiast, but I recommend checking out Thomas Moran's work for that kind of thing (example: http://i.imgur.com/h4nH0Db.jpg), or to switch up the usual overcast colour palette - check out Jean Charles Cazin (example 1: http://i.imgur.com/hKqDAQe.jpg example 2 (more subtle values, but still effective): http://i.imgur.com/6vjnw2H.jpg)

No need to overthink overcast skies, just remember your simple 1-4 values, making sure everything reads well.
A good way to check if your values read well would be to make a black & white layer as well as a posterise layer



Keep rockingg ittttt!

[Patrick Gaumond]

Oh no worries haha, I was thrown off by the bit of colour you added

So I'm assuming you're going for a more dramatic overcast weather going by your wip?

I'm not much of a landscape enthusiast, but I recommend checking out Thomas Moran's work for that kind of thing (example: http://i.imgur.com/h4nH0Db.jpg), or to switch up the usual overcast colour palette - check out Jean Charles Cazin (example 1: http://i.imgur.com/hKqDAQe.jpg example 2 (more subtle values, but still effective): http://i.imgur.com/6vjnw2H.jpg)

No need to overthink overcast skies, just remember your simple 1-4 values, making sure everything reads well.
A good way to check if your values read well would be to make a black & white layer as well as a posterise layer


Keep rockingg ittttt!

Yea that's right. At first it was going to be the more flat overcast like you overpainted but I decided to go for the "looming storm" kind of look. I've only spent about 2 hours on the piece so far and most of it was on the mount and rider so a lot of it is still unresolved but I like the examples you linked! I think I might go for something like the second one actually, maybe that stormy bit is too busy for this piece. I should have done thumbnails before haha, always putting off the thumbnails, probably not a good habit

Thank you very much for the feedback by the way, it's much appreciated : )

[Patrick Gaumond]

Some studies. The first I used from memory in the foo dog piece, with quite a few changes, but doing the study helped make it look like a face and not a bad loomis drawing lol. And the rest are for something in the future.

Also took in smrrs advice and worked on making the values work, not just in the sky but in the whole thing and changed the composition slightly. Still lots to do before bringing it to colour

[JaneXP]

oh *** oh the improvement, I can really see it! Props to you buddy
Your process is really working for you. 1000 head challenge I come here as well
Thanks for your work, it is challenging for me*=*

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey Patrick, thought I should drop a message in finally since you've been checking my sketchbook and liking some updates - thanks for that! Makes one feel a bit less lonely in this struggle when people do that (^_^b)

It's great to see the improvement since your page one, although some of that stuff was pretty tight already. Love the fashion studies too from the group thread.

You seem to try and focus equally on figures / faces / landscapes / vehicles - I'm trying to do the same, how do you balance things so you don't get rusty in one and still push forward in others? Do you follow a schedule or just stay with one til you get bored?

Keep up the great work!

[Patrick Gaumond]

@Jane Thanks! I was pretty intent on doing the 1000 heads thing, but to be perfectly honest I got burnt out trying to do that many heads for no real reason. I wound up just doing it for the sake of meeting that goal and not really learning anything! Definitely try it out but if you get sick of it and you're not learning anything there's nothing wrong with stopping

@Jyonny thanks man! Yea I know what you're saying, when I started this sb I was at a point where I was pretty damn inconsistent. Some things looked pretty tight and other things looked like someone else may as well have done them lol. So I tried to focus on making things just look consistent rather than perfect. I think consistency is a better asset than perfection, especially if you want good jobs (I haven't had any freelance yet, mostly because I'm still pretty damn inconsistent and don't feel confident in submitting a folio but I'm working on it!).

I looked through your SB again to refresh my memory and you're doing good stuff man, if I may offer you some advice. I'll leave you some feedback over there shortly

And part of the reason I focus on so many things is because I don't work like a lot of other artists in terms of volume equalling progress. It's different for everyone of course, but I've found generally most artists seem to subscribe and do pretty well on the studyflow of doing a ton of shit and learning that way (feng zhu calls it mileage). I tried that, with things like the 1000 head challenge and doing X every day for Y amount of days and I honestly felt almost no improvement and more often than not I got burnt out and frustrated. I don't do gestures everyday like most people, I don't do anatomy studies everyday like most people, I don't do anything regularly like that.

I need the variety man... it's just the way I work. I need to spend time with things and resolve them, try to do them as well as I can without spending too long on it obviously, but still enough to understand it. I think Craig Mullins said it best: "Less painting, more thinking". That might be because of my personality type (more on the analytic side of things),it might just be coincidence, or who knows maybe I did find a better way of working and using my time. Anyways, I usually feel like I understand the topic in a shorter amount of time that way, and so I move on to other things that I either haven't done in a while or feel need to brought in.

I like the analogy of the shepherd a lot: a shepherd doesnt herd one sheep at a time back into the pen after grazing, he moves the whole pack back and if there are any stragglers makes sure they keep up. It can feel like more work and less focused, but the result is safer and more consistent.

I also get bored of doing the same thing again and again... Some people can sit on their ass and crank out 1000s of anatomy drawings in one month, and if that works for them fine, but I lose my mind when i do that. I personally don't feel "rusty" switching between topics too much, in fact i actually find that they all play off each other in interesting ways and I learn MORE switching a lot than not. Don't underestimate the power of your subconscious brain; in many ways its a hell of a lot better at letting information sink in than your conscious brain. Taking a break from drawing a certain subject and coming back to it later when you're more interested/engaged in it, and after it has fermented in your subconscious was more potent as a learning tool for me than cranking it out to meet arbitrary mileage goals.

And about schedules, you know I tried following a strict schedule for a while (daves old one to be exact) and didn't work well that way either. What if you're just straight up not feeling the vibes to get out an environment that day and youd be better off doing some figures? Theres nothing wrong with going with the flow. I've found that being fluid while you study and learning many topics at once builds discipline and skill to draw on at will for when you need to focus on something very specific,

Say for instance youre participating in a challenge and need to do a lot of environment thumbnails. You've set the last few weeks up in such a way that you've been in a good state of mind by going with the flow, and so now you're perfectly fresh and in a great position to focus intensely on something. What if you've been slavishly doing only portraits for the last three weeks to meet some arbitrary goal, and suddenly you get commissioned to paint a very elaborate portrait? You might have that experience under your belt, but your sure as hell gonna be sick of doing goddamned portraits and might not be guaranteed a good result for when it actually matters.

I dunno, just my opinion man. It's been working well for me ever since I started working differently since about december. I basically haven't had a bad art day in the last several months because I tried different ways of working and doubled down on the one that works the best, and it pretty much runs contrary to a lot of the advice people give but i really don't care honestly. Find what works for you and run with it, that's pretty much what that all boils down to. I doubt if this way of working would work for a lot of people, and theres nothing wrong with that. It's pretty erratic and directionless sometimes, but for me personally it helps me conserve focus for when I it most and be consistent in my work ethic. There's nothing more valuable than time, and if the way you're working results in a time deficit because you feel like you're regressing or not improving at all, making you put off art for a long period of time because you're demotivated or whatever (not saying you are, but it happens to a lot of people who get burnt out) then just change it up, look for different answers, look for the happy synthesis between different extremes of the spectrum that's tailored to you



Sorry if that was too much to read man lol, I try to keep these things short but I always feel like I'm leaving out important information. Hope it helps!

[ShinOkami]

I red through all of that and I gotta agree with you since I'm the same, I saw people doing anatomy stuff and all every day, doing figures and color studies- in general, posting the same stuff so i tried it as well, i made a schedule but after 2 days I couldn't follow it anymore, i wanted to do more of something I did the last day xD

I think either way is good if it helps you improve and keeps you motivated but you already said it yourself so yea ! :p

Also great studies you're doing here, keep on working on the values, they are always fun ! : )

Keep it up !

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks Patrick! No worries about writing a lot, I like the detail and understanding the reasoning behind stuff, I'll reply in my sketchbook so I don't start two replies about the same stuff!

[rork]

lovely painterly work man, gorgeous colours, went through your SB and there is huge improvement, great use of your brushes, some of your painting look like oils, jealous :)

[Patrick Gaumond]

@Rork, thanks :) I'm glad some are achieving that effect. I think theres a long way to go to get there still! And I looked through your sketchbook quickly and you've got some solid work in there man, just gotta keep working at it!

Been a while since my last update! I decided to take part in a contest (COTM Robomance, from jazza) at the last minute so basically spent a whole week just cranking it out. I learned a lot about process, but i should have planned it out better, thumbnails :((( . Theres a lot I'm not happy with but the important thing is to learn from mistakes instead of living with them!

Some samurai pants studies










A house in the woods. How do I foliage? Im so impatient when it comes to repetitive detail its not even funny!




Crimson revolver 1 thumbs and the final




Chicken warrior sketch after having done the chicken studies. Trying to break out og pushing for photorealism and try to develop a style a bit. Its so much more engaging to try and have fun rather than try to impress people with fancy rendering nonsense


The contest entry. The challenge was to depict a romantic scene between a human and a robot. So I chose the mechanist and the Jane the securitron from the fallout universe. In the picture the mechanist decides to reveal he was a human all along mcuh to janes chagrin!


and Some steps if anyone is interested.

First is to gather reference for the characters and environment. I also had some for the nuclear explosion that I didn't need all the way through so they're not in the file
Second is to plot out the scene. I was short on time, so I went straight into colour. To do that effectively , I used line to plan things out first. I made a rough ortho view to gauge the relative sizes of things and to figure out the placement of everything and then did a sketch to block it out.
Third is to establish a general colour palette and lighting scheme.
Fourth is to Begin seperating elements onto their own layers and to resolve some compositional issues. Start to work out the forms, colours and the lighting more
Fifth is to round out the composition and balance it a bit. I also really didn't like the head so I tweaked it quite a bit and continued to tweak it and change the lighting on it for a while
Sixth is to change the colours again and start adding in the other elements of the figures that were still missing.
Seventh is to continue adding details, tweak the face, tweak the lighting, tweak the composition here and there
Eight is to add the last layer of details to the characters
And last is to subtly add the post processing effects here and there and to smooth out anything if it needs it still

[constructicon]

you are a tank sir!

[Patrick Gaumond]

@construccion Haha, thanks!

So I started playing age of empires 2 again in the last few weeks, and then moved onto number 3. I sat down, loaded it up and what do you know, pretty much all the splash art is done by craig mullins! The last time I played this game was 10 years ago when it came out, long before I was interested in art and so I really didn't give a shit about the splash screens. It's funny how I play games to forget about art for a few hours and then get hit with the mullins bomb anyways lol

All that to say, it put me back in a mullins/jones kind of mood again. I spent a lot of time looking at their work and trying to think about how they work and why they do things certain ways, and I've tried some of their workflows in the past and they've always given me personally great results. Much better than any other workflow I've tried (shaddy, dave rapoza, dan luvisi, eytan zana, just to name a few), and while they were all effective in doing what they set out to do, they never gave me the quality (or qualities) of work that I wanted, nor a look that I actually liked


I found some brushes that actually feel like pencil, been having fun doing warmups with them



15-20 mins master studies




Experimenting with things


Spent a good bit of time on one of my weaknesses last week for the CROW 2 challenge, thumbnails!





refined thumbs


The quick lines on the thumb I chose


The colour palette, and the study I did to learn about them




And the final


More time on the chicken warrior


More time on the foo dog and did a first colour pass. Still need to fix a lot of things. I think greyscale to colour is good for simpler pictures, but the more details and variations in colour the easier it is to go straight to colour imo. Im basically going to have to go over everything again!

[StardustLarva]

Hey there Patrick. Loving the landscape stuff, even as thumbnails you still succeed in conveying much atmosphere and a sense of believability.

[KurtJeremy]

yo patrick! so much work in here. maybe a little too much? i like that you kinda nitpick your paintings and juggle on subjects do you work like this all the time? also how did you come about that palette that you made for the crow challenge? i cant stop looking at the chicken warrior lol. awesome work.

[Triggerpigking]

Dude you have an awesome imagination, I love the chicken warrior and that fallout fanart.

[lungcell]

Really inspiring work dude! I really love your sky bird and your chicken warrior - they're seriously well done without taking themselves seriously. It's pretty fresh to see :)

Your big write up on experimenting with study styles was inspiring to read too. I think there's definitely a tendency in the community to work in very similar ways, which are not always a solution for everyone, but we naturally jump to them because they worked for our heroes, and we want to follow their ritual. And if they don't work for you (ie for me, a strict hour by hour schedule or pounding hours in) they discourage you even more. You feel like everyone else can read this specific map, but you're gonna get lost at sea. It's so cool to see you have no fear and just go with the flow. Especially because it might seem more unfocused, but often the very "focused" regiment left me feeling like I was racing ahead in one area, to the detriment of another. Keep going man - great progress here :)

[Patrick Gaumond]

Wow thanks guys :D So much love :3

@Stardust Thanks man! I still think environments are one of my weak points but its good to hear they look ok from another perspectiev

@Foxfire Thanks! Hmm, I disagree about the amount of work personally. I often feel like I do the least out of the active people in this forum. And yep, I do work like this all the time! When i started out drawing, I would spend 100% of my time on one painting/study, finish it and then move on, rinse and repeat. I found that, especially since I spent 10-20 hours on single pieces trying to fix everything, i would get burnt out quickly and grow tired of working altogether, and often take week long breaks. I think switching topics a lot keeps it interesting and helps me build stamina for when I need to bunker down and focus intensely without burning out. Dont know if you've read it yet but I actually just talked about this with jyonny http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/showthre...9#pid78799

And nitpicking, do you mean I'm very critical about my work? If so, then yea I'm like this all the time, even in real life. It used to be a burden on my self esteem but I realized at some point a few years ago that I could use it to improve myself. I enjoy the process of painting more than anything else, with the idea its showing being a close second, so if I don't like the end result then its not a big deal. I can self-critique it to a certain extent and try to focus on that the next time around, without feeling too bad about having a crappy painting.

And for the palette, I did a quick study of ruan jias work to get an idea of the colours. I know he does grayscale to colour, and actually arriving at those colours he has by going straight into is pretty fucking hard to be honest. I lost a lot of the feel I had established and it turned out very monchromatic but its still ok I guess. It works within intself in terms of value but not in colour imo

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/88/59/39885904b9bfbd65aca89c3219406c79.jpg


@Trigger Thanks! I'm quite fond of the chicken warrior atm myself. Its nice to do something thats not so chiaroscuro

@Lungcell Thanks, glad to be inspirational lol! I think My true calling is the more humoristic stuff honestly... I have so much more fun with those kinds of things and the results are almost always way better than trying to be serious rpg guy 959659 as dan warren puts it.

I've always been a bit of a contrarian, not for the sake of being contrarian but because a lot of what people said just didn't make sense to me. So I guess its just a natural tendency for me. It's hard to have fear once you find something that works so well for you. And I think when pros say that the only/best way to become a pro is to work stupid hours everyday and to basically neglect 90% of your life, including your body, it can be quite harmful to beginners, as you've said. If it doesn't work for them they think theres something wrong with them, but its more likely they just need to find a different flow to their life. And its funny that they'll often link to that article that shows how the best and most creative people throughout history used to divide their day, and iirc most of them only worked for a few hours a day. The rest was spent socialising, going for walks, reading etc etc, which you can argue is part of working if it helps you work better at a later point in time(I would) but not by the definition the pros give us

[Patrick Gaumond]

Had a pretty bad fortnight, not because I didn't want to make art or wasn't feeling it. Life's been throwing a lot of curveballs at me this year. Oh well!

Some studies for the foo dog thing, for colour ideas mostly. There comes a time in a painting when you realise its not worth pursuing anymore. No point wasting more time on it, it's beyond saving and I've lost interest in it for now






Been warming up with some basic geo forms, also been having fun pretending to draw on blueprint paper lol :D




Studies for the chicken warrior thing. Wolves are so hard to paint from different angles. Definitely going to revise the one in the back! What do you think about the others?

[JyonnyNovice]

The next kung-fu Panda movie !

The two wolves in the upshot look like short muzzles, the one bottom right has a longer muzzle - both look good but looks off because they're inconsistent. Either shorten the one bottom right or lengthen the other two. Although from the fur colour they could be different breeds - like the Uruk Hai and the regular orcs in LOTR or the baboons and apes in planet of the apes. Could separate them into different 'classes', like the two warriors and the mage / wise man type stood in back - get those things consistent and it'll be even more awesome.

The comic Blacksad has some awesome anthropomorphic characters - their aim was to take human's and exaggerate their features to develop into the animals they resemble, instead of the usual way of taking animals and given them human characteristics. It's a great concept. http://www.slate.fr/sites/default/files/...ntropo.jpg http://anthrozine.com/revw/rv13/blacksad6.jpg

[Patrick Gaumond]

Thanks jyonny! I had similar thoughts about the noses. I looked at some reference of dogs and wolves afterwards though and they do appear quite condensed and short from that angle, so maybe I should rework the small guy a bit? I did lengthen the one in back a bit but the guy in front, after much reworking, looks ok like this imo. I made several attempts at changing the fur colour and it was quite hard, though I do like that idea. I'll have to revisit it. Also tightened up and fixed values all over the place, made minor tweaks to design

More basic shape warm ups, looking back those cubes are terrible :D


Brain study, good exercise for studying form I have to say



CROW Deity, giant brain man wearing a fez. Nothin too serious