Jed's Chicken Scratches

[Pictomancer]

Think I've just about reached my saturation point for this image. Not quite sure what else I can do to push it further.

And all the mistakes I'm now seeing seem to stem from the base sketch.



Because it's been a while, some gesture studies, referenced, and then a few slight variations from the references.

[nastobi123]

Your chicken scratches are awesome. 3 typhoons ? Do you live in SEA ? Hope everything is alright there man or woman.

[Pictomancer]

Your chicken scratches are awesome. 3 typhoons ? Do you live in SEA ? Hope everything is alright there man.

Thanks nastobi123; and yeah am from SEA so typhoons around this time of year are fairly common.

Managed to peel away from life and stuff for a while and do some sketching.



Some quick attempts at thumbnail studies, although I'm not entirely sure yet how to get the most out of it.


Assorted quick sketch ideas that never quite made it to being potential finished pieces. The chibis are potential banner arts for a friend.











And another WIP since I suddenly have the itch to draw an aged person in semi realism. Will be trying for a loose semi realistic feel for it, although not entirely sure how something like that would look "finished".



critiques and paint-overs are very much appreciated.

[pnate]

You have a nice sense of lighting in these portraits, and is that old Zukko?? (I am very behind on LoK) A little nitpick, the eye on the shadow side is generally darker because less light is hitting it (To me, both of Lin's eyes look nearly identical in value).

[Pictomancer]

Thanks pnate, hopefully the lighting is an improvement (and still imptoving) compared to previous works.

Starting to worry I'm plateauing.

And thanks for pointing out the eye values. Been too concerned with making the eyes appear piercing that I forget about subtle value changes involving them. Have yet to do it for Lin, but took it into account for the Zuko that I'm working on.

Yes it's supposed to be old man Zuko, and you should give season 3 of Korra a look. It's significantly better than the previous 2 seasons.

More corrections, & paints/repaints. Mildly surprised that it took significantly less time to get to this point with this painting vs. the Lin portrait I did previously.

[Pictomancer]

Finalized the Zuko portrait by adding in some more minor detail and highlights. Looking at it again 3 days later I'm thinking I probably could've nudged the values and contrast a little bit further.



Some not so quick attempts at thumbnail studies referenced and inspired from scenes in "Sword of the Stranger"



Still clueless on how to get the most out of thumbnail studies. Right now it's being torn between composition, values, scale of elements involved, perspective, and separation of elements (fore, mid, back).... yeah it's a mess. Any suggestions on how to tackle this better and how to slowly bring all those together would be greatly appreciated.

[Pictomancer]

It's been a while so here's a quick image dump













Trying to figure out common problems with the base drawing regarding certain portrait angles.





Ongoing WIP



Feel like I've either plateaud or significantly regressed; either my eye (as Sycra put it) has leveled up from observing a lot of other's works, but my mind and muscle control just can't follow it yet; or I'm off my game while still going through the motions of changing residences. Probably a little of both.

Latest batch of stuff hammered in that one of my biggest problems come from the base drawings. The rendering (in theory) given enough time can be fixed, but the most time consuming part is correcting problems in the base drawing which I can't seem to notice or isolate til much much later in the painting process.

Still haven't figured how to ideally tackle that problem efficiently.