Marla's Sketchbook

[Marla]

Hi, I'm Marla!
This is the first sketchbook thread I start, and I'm not very sure how, so I'll just share some of my old art, to introduce myself, and make a pledge to add new sketches and ideas and finished things to it in the future

So, to begin with, I really like sketching ladies, especially portraits:




I like fantasy character art... a big motivation for me has always been doing good depictions of my Dungeons and Dragons characters. This is Alvana for example, a deva I play:


And this is Sade, a pretty classic fire-mage:



I really enjoy doing unlimited-time paint studies from photographs:

Although time constraints are really helpful at times too:
(~2 hours)

And this year I'm working on this kickass project known as the Land of Harmonia,which basically involves illustrating characters who wield musical magic, like Ariel, an angel of light:

or like Kali here, the heavy metal gargoyle queen of evil fey:


That's pretty much enough of an introduction I think In my future posts I'll put up more recent sketches, wips and finished things

[Marla]

These are two WIPs I worked on recently...

A friend's DnD Character - this one is really pushing me to focus on composition and detailing, I want this image to turn out really good, as it's a piece for a friend.


A scene with a sorceress studying a forbidden magic scroll:

[dracken]

Welcome to the forum. Good stuff so far.

Are you practicing from life at all? You should post some studies as well.

Good luck.

[Einver]

If you can imbue everything with as much love as you lay down for faces, you'll be an absolute ace. Keep up the good work and welcome!

[Zipfelzeus]

Oh wow really great work on those faces! The thing I would focus on would be general anatomy stuff. Can't wait to see more.

Also good job on those hands, they are tricky bastards.

[smrr]

Oh heck yessss!

Fantastic start to your sketchbook, Marla!

Would love to see some studies as well, keep grinding :D

[Marla]

Totally, it's been a long time since I've done studies, and studies from life, I should get back into them, thank you so much for recommending them!
I started on one still-life composition piece, from a photo, but so far it's only sketched, I'll post it when it's finished. :)

In the meantime, I promised myself to work on anatomy sketches every day for a while, so here's the 7th and 8th of January worth of images, refs from pixelovely :)

[justjingles]

These look good, I think your goal to do these studies daily is a great one. You've been prolific.

I think the back of the fellow on the 1/8/14 study is looking really successful. I also like the motion of the girl in the lower left hand corner of that page.

My suggestion is to focus on the connection of the arms and shoulders in upcoming studies; I notice that sometimes your visual understanding of that particular area isn't as clear as in others.

Great job so far!

[iamorim]

Goood ones! The Alvana paintings are nice and the light effect in the environment looks pretty good.

Beautiful lines on the anatomy sketches.

See you :)

[Marla]

I was commissioned to paint this fantasy flower that grows in volcanic soil on high mountains... Because of some misunderstandings related to how high the mountains are, I ended up painting two backgrounds for it, but it was pretty interesting, cause they each had their own challenges and atmosphere :D I still kinda like the first one better, I need to study snowy environments more I think.

[Egbu]

Great that you're studying hard, maybe try and redraw a few of the poses from memory to see what is really soaking in, keep going!

[Lex_paul]

Nice gesture;) totally worth doing them, i`ve learned a ton from gestures!

[Adam Lina]

Hi Marla, welcome to CD! Great start to your sketchbook. You've got nice solid painting skills. You just need to bring your drawing to the same level. Not that your drawings arnt good. Stick with those gesture drawings everyday. Id suggest doing 30 second basic stick figure gestures to warm up. Really try to observe the pose. Dont get ahead of yourself and always jump straight to drawing contours of the anatomy. Michael Hampton's book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention has some very helpful methods. Keep at it!

[Lyraina]

Nice sketchbook, so many lovely portraits! :) If you plan on doing a still life I'd suggest doing it from life instead of a photograph though (if that is possible), because it helps to learn and see colors a lot more.

Keep it up! :)

[Marla]

You guys are amazing, I love it here so far! :D

@Egbu - Thank you, I will try that, redrawing poses from memory sounds very useful actually :)

@Lex_paul - Yeah, I see what you mean, every time I go back to study anatomy I feel so inspired and educated hehe :)

@Hypnagogic_Haze - OMG, thank you for mentioning that resource, I started reading chapter 1 and I love the practical approach and focus of the book. With it in mind I did some smaller quicker gestures just now:

(the purple ones are imagination, green ones pixelovely)
I'll try to read a chapter every few days, and apply the lessons from it to my gestures, seems like a much more focused and cool way to study for the moment :)

@Lyraina -I think you're right about studying from life rather than photograph, I will try that with some smaller subjects to get the hang of it, cause light in my room changes super quickly now that it's winter.

[Marla]

Some studies! Yay!
These two were done with JustJingles, it's so much fun to have a study partner yay!

We did two value studies, this one is of a building... I've NEVER done building studies before, so here's the the first of MANYYYYY

And another aspect I have problems with, male anatomy. Another value study for that
ref from here

I also tried doing some studies of still life... this is just a sketch after a photograph:

and one I tried from life:

which I also wanted to color...

... but winter be damned, light in my room died on me before I could finish. It was this super bright day too, and since then it's been overcast

[anarlie]

Really love your portraits and gestures! No any mess lines just exactly what is needed. As a little piece of crits I think you should pay any attention to your hair drawing, now it looks a bit noodly at Alvana and Sade portraits. I hope that I'm not beeng mean! Keep it up!

[Marla]

Thank you so much Anarlie, no worries, not being mean at all, I love honest feedback :)

Finally finished this image:


Gosh it was a challenge, and I'm sure I got many things wrong, but it's still one of the pieces where I pushed myself most so far, and I'm pleased with the work and thought that went into it :)