Forrest's Sketchbook of Wondercanes and Dreamsicles.

[Forrestimel]

Not much, again. I do have some other things I worked on today other than client work, but it's getting late and I decided I'll just finish it tomorrow instead :P

[pnate]

Man, the studies. You are a machine. Love that Hades piece you did a page back and the final arena character, lookin great. And a big thanks for setting up the challenges in the first place, I don't think I ever actually thanked you fellas.

[Tygerson]

Wow, really mysterious lady archer!

I love the notes on your studies. Really opens a window to inside your mind while working.

[Forrestimel]

@pnate: Thanks man :D

@Tygerson: thank you :) The notes definitely do help

Man I didn't post yesterday! So I've got some studies (been really happy learning all the stuff about forearms from Hampton's book!) and I've got some other junk and then I've got X men Elsa! :D

Oh and the architecture stuff is for client work I won't be able to show for a long time :/

[Forrestimel]

Man I haven't been posting much, gettin ready for a con next week and been working on client stuff still. But I made time to work on more anatomy so yay! I really wanna get good at hands by next week D: Time to pump out the studies!

[Forrestimel]

Not much for today, almost done with some client stuff so I'll have more time to do other stuff after I get some mutha flippin money!

[Forrestimel]

So I haven't posted in awhile since over the weekend I was pretty busy with having my first table in artist alley at a con. Small con, but still really fun. And I broke even and made a profit so yay!

Anyway, I got another client image I'm workin on, here's some studies for it and a couple doodles <3









Need to simplify shadows more in this :(

[Forrestimel]

Too many gaps between posts! I gotta get my ass back into gear! Here's some studies and some messin in a different style and a finished client piece :D

[Forrestimel]

So I just did a video on my studying habits and have spent a lot of time doing traditional sketches and studies so I decided to post some of those. Studies will be comin soon cuz I just got a couple freelance jobs and am doing a tutorial for minorconcept.com as well so I'm super excited for all of that :)

Also, making that video was super fun and I'm totally gonna do more <3

[Samszym]

I'm scared dude, anatomy studies are all looking about perfect. Gotta get back to doing some of those DX
Work on the weight distribution in your poses form imagination, the feet don't really look like they're under the main weight of the figure so they look like they're falling.

[Forrestimel]

Thanks Sam, yeah I know what you mean with the weight thing, I think I need to just study feet :P Hopefully that'll fix my fear of them and help me foreshorten them and not look dumb

Woo, here's studies for two client pieces I'm working on, one I'll be able to show very soon and the other I have no clue when I can show :P And also studies for the tutorial I'm doing for minorconcept.com. Frickin been gettin busy lately, lots o workin and studying, just the way I like it :)

[DomSinkevic]

Stunning progress! Pleasantly surprised, really inspiring. Keep on the good work!

[Jonas Jerde]

Hey man, your rendering is looking nice.

I think you biggest problem right now is the stiffness that is apparent in a lot of your work. There's a lack of flow, and perhaps too much lasso tool (ultra sharp edges). I would suggest trying to get a little looser in your work, maybe lose some detail in certain areas. I think once you get past that, your looking pretty solid.

Good luck, have fun :)

[Samszym]

Nooo dude, don't study feet, study the distribution of weight throughout the body! where you put your foot when you put all your weight on it, or what points connect with the ground in relation to the body's center of gravity. Knowing WHERE to draw the feet will help the stiffness and falling-over-ness in your poses way more than learning HOW to draw feet better will.
my rule of thumb: the inner heel of the weight bearing leg will line up vertically with the sternum.

Gestures are looking okay, but could be capturing a lot more motion and energy. I think you're still thinking of them as simplified figure drawings instead of studies for motion and flow. I'd recommend continuing to draw from a pose you like after you draw the first gesture, trying to exxagerate the action more and more in each successive drawing and make the forces of the pose more clear and extreme. If someone;s hip is sticking out, make it sticking WAAAYYY out, if someone's shoulder is raised raise it even more, if someone's sticking out their arm make their whole body tilt in the direction the arm is stretching out and make the arm with a couple straight lines instead of trying to describe the cylinder forms, etc.
I know you're going for realism, but that doesn't mean matching the reference, just using it to inform your decisions. You're the artist, if you have a cooler idea for the pose than the model had in mind don't let the photo stop you! I think practicing some exaggeration in poses and action might be the key to solving the stiff posing that plagues so many of you realism people.

keep killin' it!

[Forrestimel]

DomSinkevic thank you :)

JJ Aaron Thanks JJ, I'm trying to get out of the stiffness, I'm just not sure what's causing it, I've been working on gestures for my figures but it doesn't seem to help. Maybe it is the amount of detail and sharp lines, anyway, I'll try to work on it :)

Sam Oh I know that studying feet won't help, I just suck at doing them is all and still need to work on that. But you're right the distribution thing I also need to work on. And dang, thanks for for the response man. You're right I really am not exaggerating enough with my poses, especially in the gesture stage, I think I'm playing it pretty safe in there. I'll try to work on it, thanks broseph <3

Some quick studies (bearded guy is for a different piece of client work) from today and a WIP of another Greek God commission. I really need a lot of work on Hera below, gonna be a tough one but I'm super satisfied with the direction it's going in :)

[Samszym]

Hera's looking really nice, awesome colors and lighting going on. I think the positioning of the shoulders could be way stronger if you made some changes to reflect the forces going on, especially making the arm that's resting on the armrest and the arm that's supporting weight look like they're doing that. Right now that clarity doesn't come through, they both look like they're resting, but I can tell you wanted one of the arms to be supporting since you gave the torso that lean.
To accomplish that, first I'd suggest you make this pose yourself in front of a mirror if you can. If you're a normal human the shoulder of the arm that you're putting weight on should come up and the resting one should stay low, exactly the same mechanic as one hip rising above the other in a contrapposto stance where most of the weight is on one leg.
I'd also make the weight-bearing arm more vertical than the resting arm, that position transfers more force from the block to the shoulder. That's the force that lifts up the body and causes the arm to support the torso.
I came up with three different poses in this PO, if she's sort of carefree and sarcastic I'd have her leaning on her arm, if she's really lazy and disinterested I'd have her putting weight on her back, and if she's more serious and possibly angry I'd use a more upright pose with the arm not touching the armrest at all and instead letting her support her own weight.



this is the stuff you should be studying with your gesture drawing, the distribution of weight and how the body deals with forces of gravity and how resting on things works, and the different attitudes and emotions that slightly different poses give. That's why I think gesture drawing is such an important thing to do and I hate seeing so many people doing them as quick, simplified copies of the figures instead of actually studying the gesture!
Don't draw someone just sitting in a chair, draw them sitting in a chair angry, or serious, or lazy! Expressing attitude through posing is what gesture drawing is all about, and it's one of my favorite things in all of art so I want you to get more gooder at it!

good luck broseidon

[BenFlores]

keep it up forrest! inspiring improvements :)

[Mr. Toodles]

erhmagursh forest so coooool

[Forrestimel]

Sam Dude you are on a roll with these crits, thanks man! So I did some gestures (I think) and tried focusing on weight distribution and what exactly separates confident poses from relaxed and what I can use to get the kind of attitude I want with her body language. Try giving my notes a look over and see if I'm on the right track, they were super helpful and I'm much much more happy with the pose so I think it helped but let me know what you think :)

BenFlores thanks man :)

Mr. Toodles ermahgerd thanks :D

More work on Hera and some studies. Man oh man do body language studies come in handy, totally gonna do more of these before I jump into a character I work on. Any crits are very welcome :)

[DomSinkevic]

Awesome! The only thing that bothers me is that the tiles are too detailed, distracting from the focal point. I would suggest making the tiles not so consistent, try erasing or reducing opacity (even more) on the further from the throne or making the background more painterly. Let the brain fill in the gaps. Hope it helps! Can't wait to see it done!