Veneq's journey of self discovery

[Veneq]

Mindwrack Thanks! There's a bit of a gap between my comfort levels there but it is slowly closing.

Shoethief He's sexy and he toads it! ...I'm so disappointed in myself.

A handful of items from today. Trying to get back into figure warmups (60 second and 5 minute poses here). Also a sketch from a few days ago of some kind of dark skeleton rider guy. Lastly, my daily study - didn't time cap this one. Just wanted to get all of those textures and surfaces as realistic as possible.

[Veneq]

Here are some creature sketches for the Bloodsport challenge I'm working on. I'm going with the colored one.

Hulky guy with big teeth? Comfort zone. Next.

[Veneq]

Stuuudy...

[Veneq]

Here's my final first character design for Bloodsport 6. I won't be finishing on time for the deadline.

[rich4rt]

Cool stuff man, it's a shame your latest concept doesn't have the edge control of what you show with your awesome dog study. Also try to shift the hues around a bit more for more colour variation :)

[Veneq]

Rich4rt Yeah that thing was kind of a mad scramble at the end. Most of the coloring was done with various overlay methods over grayscale. I intended to build on from there but ran out of time.

Here are studies and sketches from yesterday and today.



Quick heads from magazines.

Mostly 2 minute heads from online references.

[Veneq]

I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything for the current Bloodsports challenge which is a bummer because it's such a cool challenge - I just have way too much client work that I have to focus on. That shouldn't sound like a bad thing but it is because it's mostly non-painting stuff.


Daily study - another hand.


And doodles from the weekend, mostly Sunday.


aaaand... CAPTAIN FREAKING PLANET (a redesigned version anyway):

[Veneq]

Daily study:


And daily doodles - Sheesh those pencil scans are killing me. Anyone know any good settings for scanning graphite (particularly some typical Photoshop stuff I can do)? Right now I have the contrast and brightness adjusted to pump up the darks. I also scan them as photos to start. Any ideas?
Anyway:


Another self portrait:

[Monsieur-Beefy]

For scanning graphite, I usually go into the levels menu and slide both the black and the gray input tags to the right. This darkens everything and makes the soft lines visible, but you get some crazy paper texture showing up. So to keep the paper white you have to slide the white tab to the left. Your drawing should be pretty clean at this point, but most of the lines will be nearly black so on the output section you have to slide the black tab like 20% of the way to the right. You can also use a really light multiply layer to darken the whole thing if you want. That's usually how I do it.

Great job on today's girl study by the way!

[Sickbrush]

hi Steve,

I think you're on a good learning path, i like the fact that you're working focused in a direction and i also like that you're varying your studies. I don't think i've got too many suggestions at this point except for keeping it up and staying consistent. All of these will look better and better as you assimilate more information and they will eventually pay off.
Cheers and good luck

[Veneq]

Monsieur-Beefy Hey thanks for that tip! I'll definitely try that out next time I scan some sketches!!

Sickbrush Hey thanks for the input and encouragement - It means a lot to me!

Daily studies - lost one to an automatic software update in the middle of painting. Here are the survivors:

[Veneq]

Recent studies:

[Cornelius Hoelz]

great work with the studies, getting better every time!

[Veneq]

Cornelius Thanks! I hope so. Have to do MOOOORE... FASTER!

Recent studies:

Day 39:


On these most recent 3 I've started taking my timing a lot more seriously and also sticking to the simplest brushes and avoiding crutches.
40:


41:


42:

[ferrando]

lookin good!

[dwalkerart]

Hey, I'm from michigan as well, I sent you a reply on twitter man. I need a michigan buddy.

[Veneq]

ferrando Thanks!
dwalkerart Mitten power for life!

Just getting back into the swing of things. Here are a bunch of random recent things.

Studies first:






And some of recent doodles and wips smashed together:


And here is a snapshot of some recent commission work. It's for the inner panels of some album artwork - they were going for more of a comic book ish style.

[Jansi]

Hi there,

Really like panels - especially the last one. Neat, chunky style.
I also think that your supersmooth stuff is great, but it doesn't leave much room for error, so
keep working on ironing out the little slips. I think the hand with a crystal sphere was fantastic.
Just a tiny bit more sparkle, perhaps, and it would really pop.

Keep up the great work!

Ana

[Veneq]

Jansi Thanks! Yeah I could have pushed that study a bit further I think.

Stuff from today.
Study:


WIP:


Figure stuff:

[Jamesxwu]

Your studies are getting better and much more realistic, keep it up, try doing some from memory.