JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[ShinOkami]

Hey man, good to see you studying more on the figures and they're position in the perspective, unfortunately i didn't go that far in the book cause i turned more to the head drawings sooo keep up the good work ! :D

[JyonnyNovice]

Cheers man, I'm planning to study heads after I get my own head around the perspective thing, so my figures don't just have crosses on their faces! Then I'll go back to Loomis figure drawing to do the planes and shadows and stuff.

[JyonnyNovice]

My last day of free drawing time before lady and little lady come back from holiday. I've amassed many pages of stuff since they left, am pretty pleased with my progress, I have a solid basis of stuff to practice.



Trying again to place figures in perspective; the poses are weird and stiff - not like I was trying to draw them - but I feel improvement, the scale is good and proportions seem better than before. Gonna stick with this and try and do at least one of these per day.



Next tried some gesture drawing, it was harder than I thought! Gonna try and do one of these per week if I can.

[JyonnyNovice]

Still practising figures in perspective; copied the page from the Loomis book, it turned out ok - even though I used his figures as reference I had to set up all the perspective to fit them in. Next time I will try a scene like this from imagination; they are just simple poses, nothing to complicated.

[JyonnyNovice]

Here's my recent work:

Copying more pages from Loomis - it's really helping me to understand figures in perspective; as soon as I finish the next page (landmarks of the body) I'll be doing many many pages of practice from imagination, trying to really nail my figures in perspective.





A 30 minute life drawing class from pixelovely.com:





And a longer sketch of an animal (A puffin today!)



Next animal I'll pick something where it's easier to map out the shadows, like a penguin, or a dolphin or something that isn't too furry or feathered - putting in feather / fur texture is a bit beyond me perhaps, I need to practice mapping out values more I think. Overall I'm happy with him though.

[Cruptic]

Hey Jonny!
Really good studies from the Loomis book they look great and it seems you understood it pretty well!
Like you said you just gotta practice this a lot without the book now.
When I went through this and didn't quite understand it I grabbed photos of people and drew box shapes over these photos to learn how to see perspective in reality and everyday life!
But just keep on doing what you do! Good stuff :)

[meat]

I hope to see you go through the whole loomis book, keep going!

[JyonnyNovice]

Hi Cruptic; good idea to draw grids over photos, I never thought of that! I'll give it a go.

Thanks Meat, I do plan to do the whole thing, although will probably switch to the head and hands book soon and do the initial section of that; I feel held back 'cause I can't draw faces for my figures.

[JyonnyNovice]

It's been nearly a month since I posted on here, I felt like I was spending too much time online not doing anything of value so I moved my PC away for a few weeks.

The result was that it felt weird at first, I found myself instinctively moving towards my desk to go online but without any specific thing I want to accomplish. After a few days I wasn't thinking about it at all. Now it's back, and so far I've only been using it for useful things that've been moving my life forward! So the experiment was a success; let's see how long before the internet time wasting starts again!

I have a lot of drawings in this post - I've scanned 66 of them, there are another 15 or so that I didn't scan. Producing that number in a month makes me feel good - I read a comment from a successful comic book artist who said that if you wanted to be good, you needed to fill a sketchbook every month. I think on average that's about 80 pages, depending on the book, so I've hit that target. That's just plugging away bit by bit everyday, not going flat out - I've still been going to work and looking after my daughter and stuff. Kinda nice to know that I can hit that level of dedication as a guy in his 30's with family and work commitments - anything is possible if you put your heart into it!

Anyway, this is my sketchbook not a blog so I'll post the drawings now:

Random doodles and practice pages that I like:











Studies from Loomis's 'Figure Drawing for all it's worth'






(Really happy with the ink line work on the last two)














Next, figure drawing stuff (mostly from imagination)


























Next, drawing figures in perspective (I was having REAL problems with this before, it's starting to click now)

















Next, animal drawings (I like to do these to relax as if I get the anatomy a bit wrong it usually still looks like the animal it's supposed to)




(the piggy looks much better on the paper, my scanner washes out the blacks too much and the photoshop level adjustment can't put them back without making the paper texture look burnt and horrid)

Next, some still life drawings from sculptures at the Bristol Museum




(The one above is unfinished, I had to leave, but I'm hoping to go back and finish it off)








Next, life drawings - I've started going to weekly untutored life drawing sessions


































(Not happy with the last 3 - I've been trying to learn the overhand pencil style like Proko uses with a manually sharpened pencil but cause I draw in an A4 sketchbook the lines are too thick and the shading is a bit eww as well)







Finally, some gesture drawings done from quickposes.com - I can really see improvement when they are all lined up; I was taking the approach that Proko teaches but my versions lack life and are a bit stiff, so I started trying to use the Glenn Vilppu style and feel that they are becoming more vibrant and dynamic. Also trying different mediums and trying to learn the overhand pencil technique still.































I believe that's everything I've done this month that's of note.

I've finally finished the first part of Loomis' Figure Drawing book - up to the anatomy section. I am planning to study the skeleton and muscles elsewhere, then return to Loomis after (I've devised a kind of study plan for doing the bones / muscles that I'll share on here, maybe in the next post). This is a real milestone for me, when I started studying this book all I wanted to get to was the stick figure mannikin - the point where I'm at now seemed such a far away place. I feel really confident with figures now (although much, much, much more to learn and practise! but it's really fun now, instead of a frustrating struggle).

I feel my figures are let down because I can't draw heads / faces very well - I'm in two minds as to whether to push on with the figure drawing, since I'm on a roll with it, or to break from it and do at least the early pages of Loomis 'Head and Hands', just enough to be able to construct a face that doesn't look like a halloween mask... hmm what to do!

Anyway, I hope it's been of interest! Please give me some feedback if you have anything to tell me : )

[ShinOkami]

Hey, it's good to see you again ! :D

Yea, you can really see a progress in this sketcbook and about your dilemma, why not study from both~ one day the figures, the other faces, whatever is more convenient for you

Keep it up ! :)

[JyonnyNovice]

Hi Shin! good to see you too : ) You're right of course, I should just study both - it's not like I can just stop practising figures when I start the heads anyway. I was kind of blinkered since I keep a sketchbook just for my anatomy studies and didn't want to have the pages jumping between skeleton / muscles and head studies - that's just my compulsive nature putting stupid limitations on myself though. To satisfy my OCD and progress I'll just buy another sketchbook for head studies and start right away!



More gesture practice today. I really love Ryan Woodwards' gesture drawings
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PPTOOQfJ7ME/UG...201015.jpg
http://conteanimated.com/wp-content/gall..._print.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_kIWY2DV0KnE/TUJMW0...rd%202.jpg)
I've been analysing his drawings and he seems to use the side of some kind of charcoal / pastel to make light action lines then goes over again with the tip to put in some form, then puts in some values with the broad side again - so 3 passes, in a few minutes.

I've been trying to mimic this approach with a light grey marker, then going over with a black felt tip, then putting in darker values with a dark grey marker - 3 passes, in two minutes. I don't always get to do all 3 passes in the time but have made it with some of them. They're nothing like Woodwards' but I feel I can develop this technique and make some really nice gesture drawings, in time.



The beauty in Ryan Woodwards' gestures is that the action lines add to the artistry and give the drawings their beauty - mine don't quite do that yet but I'll get there with practice!






I also did some sketchy / gestury stuff of my daughter in her paddling pool; she moves like every 5 - 10 seconds so these were really testing my skills. I kinda forgot all about gesture though and found myself quickly scribbling out the forms before I forget them - although there is some flow and life to them I think.

[JyonnyNovice]

Someone asked to see my artwork this evening and I realised I don't have anything 'finished' to show anyone newer than March, so I'm going to try and make time to develop my sketches into stuff that looks nicer. Here's one I did this evening, sketchy version is a couple of posts above:

[JyonnyNovice]

Trying some new mediums; charcoal pencil, compressed charcoal, light grey pastel and some dark coloured ball points.

[JyonnyNovice]

A couple more experiments with charcoal and pastel - I'm finding it tricky to handle but am really enjoying it.

I didn't time these but around 2 - 5 mins each, I'm really happy with the one of the far right.



Went a bit heavy with the smudging on this one, I like the smudged pastel background though, nice quick way to tone the background.

[JyonnyNovice]

Back to anatomy study today; human skeleton.

I've learned the full skeleton front / back / side / 3/4 views previously, I've never managed to do a good, clean, balanced drawing of them. I realised today it's because I find it really boring to draw, my heart isn't in it so I only produce mediocre drawings. I much prefer to draw the skeleton posed, so I've decided to study important parts of the skeleton from multiple views then will practice drawing the full skeleton over gestures.

I'm planning to study these things, in this order: pelvis, femur/tibia/fibula, hip joint, knee joint, humerus/radius/ulna, shoulder joint, elbow, clavicle, ribcage, scapula, ankle, (hand, foot)

I'm working on simplifying them a little but keeping a realistic look.

A great tool for studying how the skeleton looks when bones are in certain positions is this one:

http://www.kineman.com/new/webapp/index.php

You can select bones and move them then pan/zoom around the skeleton to see how it looks from various angles.

Today I studied the pelvis:





I also did some more experiments with charcoal / compressed charcoal / pastel:







Give me some comments guys! I just can't tell if these are rubbish or not...

[Adam Lina]

You're observation skills are getting better, man! That 3d skeleton site is pretty cool too. Its a good idea to study the skeletons parts the way you're doing. Writing down notes really helps. Also if you want to really memorize things try to draw things completely from memory after you take notes on it and draw it from reference. Or look at the reference and try to draw it as if you're looking at it from a different angle.

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks Hypnagogic, great tips as always ^^ I'll keep at it! My usual method for memorising things is to draw from reference 2 - 3 times, then from memory, then from reference, then from memory until the one from memory is like the real thing. I find it really boring though... Good to vary it up, so I'll try the reference -> draw from a different angle exercise as well. I guess everyone finds that kind of stuff boring right?

Getting sidetracked into other things though, which isn't a problem! Anatomy seems to be a really slow start. The compressed charcoal was proving too difficult for me to manage so I bought some conte crayons - they are a kind of halfway point between graphite and charcoal but can be blended like pastels. Here are some doodles from imagination with charcoal and then some experiments with conte crayons:











Started reading a bit about colour theory as well, feel that I might start with that alongside my anatomy studies - I'm tired of all my stuff being black and grey!

[JyonnyNovice]

A bit more study on the pelvis



And some more gestures - these were done with conte crayons on A3 paper (I usually use A4) and they felt so much nicer; really so much space to swing my arm and get into it, I really enjoyed these.

2 minute gestures, last one 10 minutes

[iCi]

Hi, when doing those studies from photos focus on shapes, not details. Just like those anatomy references are. It will surely help you understand volume and planes of an object.

impressive amount of work, just make sure you're on the right course.

[JonHop]

Seeing some good improvements here my man. Nice to see you experimenting with colour, you have a lot of studies and thats awesome but remember to take some time to just relax and draw for fun as well (like you're doing with the animal drawings :) ). Keep pushing !

PS - seeing if things are correct or not takes time your eye will improve gradually and then overtake your ability then your ability will catch up there's a vid here that explains this very well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb0g_gWrNf8