JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[Elderscroller]

Thanks so much for your nice comment on my sketchbook!
You have a lot of hard work here and I can definitely see improvment through all your pages. You are already on the right track! Keep up the studies and hard work, it really is all anyone needs to get better.
Also, feel free to ask, whenever you have a problem or want a critique on a drawing, I´ll try my best to help!

[JyonnyNovice]

Elderscroller Thanks for taking a look at my stuff : ) thanks for the offer too, PM'd you already ^__^


Here's international self portrait day:



Here's it with the reference photo just to show I'm not as scary looking as my portrait suggests!



Was planning to start anatomy work today but got sucked into digital painting. It's such a time sink... hours just fly by fiddling around and playing with all this stuff. I'm kinda following a CubeBrush tutorial about colouring line work, using one of my inktober pieces. So far I finished the colouring and painted over the linework on the head and shoulders. Probably won't continue it but it was fun, and I learned a good, solid, easy process for approaching digital painting. (This was the main tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDlmLYvWjE )

[CoreyH]

Hey man nice work. With your pencil portrait, I'd watch where you choose to use those hard lines. The mouth for example is normally very soft (unless a someone has dark lipstick on etc). Maybe you could experiment with using values without line (or very light lines). Looking forward to seeing more :)

[JyonnyNovice]

CoreyH Thanks for stopping by! The hard line around the lips does bother me - I'd been exploring the shape and trying to get it down and had pressed too hard, then when I finally found the shape I was looking for I had to press harder to show it (then it was a deep gouge that I wouldn't have been able to erase >.<). Basically just bad technique on my part (drawing portraits is really tough for me, I have to think so hard a lot of the basics get pushed aside). Interestingly I was reading an article about using value instead of line for portraits just before I read your comment! Looks like we're in rhythm dude! Some more portraits incoming soon ^__^

http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/05/disc...-portrait/

[KurtJeremy]

yo bro ive been very interested in your works for quite some time .
i like your determination . if you maintain it youll eventually reach your goals.

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey Foxfire! Thanks for keeping an eye on my stuff, it's awesome to hear that people are cheering for me ^^ I remember your sketchbook from when I first joined, with the breaking bad drawing in it. You haven't updated in a while?



I've been getting DEEP into Hampton these last few days, living and breathing constructive figure drawing. Still haven't got onto any anatomy yet, need to really nail the first few stages (gesture, placing the forms, making the connections and adding the landmarks). Some days I do a round of figures and I'm like 'Yeah!!! Finally nailed it!!' then the next day when I try to replicate it I just can't... it's happened like this numerous times with gestures and simple figures... I hit on something awesome looking then can never replicate it... I feel the general quality is going up though, just a case of keeping on hammering at it; checking for errors, correction, hammering again. I guess it doesn't matter if they aren't beautiful at the moment (although I strive to create quick figures and gestures that have visual appeal too).



A friend is making a phone app, some kind of training app for kung fu and asked me to draw a shaolin monk for him (I guess this is my first job - just a favour for a friend who won't make much (any) money from it but still I will approach it like a job). Just sketching different poses for now trying to get familiar with some kung fu stances and such - trying a bit in digital too since I want to get better at that.

[JyonnyNovice]

I figured out my problem with the figure construction drawings, I often get the egg shape for the ribcage wrong - either skewed or too long or just generally too big. I find when I get it spot on the whole figure comes alive and looks right. To hammer out some practice of this I'm taking a life drawing class style approach, doing 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute and 10 minute pose practice in one long session so I get loads and loads of goes at placing the ribcage. I'll keep doing this for a few days then hopefully will be ready to move on to adding anatomy.

[CoreyH]

yayyy Hampton study bros. They are looking great man! Need to get me some coloured pencils for that authentic Hampton feel you have going.

[Adrian]

You're starting to get a better feel for gesture man , keep going ! About the question you've asked me on my thread about what brush I use... I wasn't exactly sure what you meant but if I'm not mistaken ... everything in photoshop is a brush (?) . I'm not using PS , I'm using Manga studio 5. I'm just switching between two tools called G-pen and rough pencil in it. Sorry , that's not really helpful lol.

I'm pretty sure there must be something similar created by someone for PS... after all PS is in the center of everything right now ... I'm still considering if I should transition at some point.

[JyonnyNovice]

CoreyH Yea get that Hampton on : ) gotta rock some colours for his "This is a drawing in a text book but it still looks cool" thing he's got going on ^__^

Adrian Sorry man, shouldn't assume everyone uses photoshop! And yea, in PS they are all 'brushes' since you use the 'brush tool' to draw anything (whether it looks like a paintbrush or a felt tip). Thanks for the info, it is helpful! I really like that look, might try Manga Studio sometime.


More of the same for today, I feel the Hampton figures are improving. Maybe one more day of this and I'll move onto the anatomy:

[JyonnyNovice]

More gestures & Hampton style figure constructions:





Tomorrow I'll start adding the anatomy to these.

[lillysparks]

All your gesture and figure studies are awesome, I'm looking forward to see your progress.

[JyonnyNovice]

Lilly Wow! Thank you so much for such a great comment! I'll keep 'em coming : )


Worked entirely digital today, trying to develop my tablet skill - it's so hard...

[JonHop]

those gesture studies are really paying off your manikin forms have a great life to them in those recent images, and that last colour image shows vast improvement. The proportions are a little off in places and there is a tangent with the hook and his groin area that you may have over looked but you're making great progress man! Keep it up!

[JyonnyNovice]

Jon Good catch! I totally missed that, fixed it. Thanks for the nice words and encouragement too as always!!

More gestures and shoalin monks today (hope to get on to the anatomy part of Hampton soon, seem to only manage to fit in the gestures / quick figures at the moment).






(There's tons of problems with this one, just practising the process from pencil -> digital colour, will work a bit tighter in the next one)

[Adam Lina]

Hey man nice work on inktober. To answer your question about Watts. I did watch pretty much all his video demos and downloaded all the pdfs. Although I did kind of rush through things especially the stuff Im already pretty familiar with. It has a fundamentals phase (the classes are called phases, with each area of study is broken into 2 to 3 phases) which you might want to review it more thoroughly if you do decide to do it. It would definitely help you with improving your basic drawing from observation skills. He says that the phases are designed so that you go through them many times. So I still have the pdfs even though I cant watch the video demos now that my subscription is expired.

I didnt come close to finishing every individual drawing assignment in the head and figure phases. But I did a chunk of each and watched all the videos so to get a good understanding of his step by step process he goes through. ideally if I had the money I'd keep the subscription longer so to keep going back to watch his demos which are very enlightening to watch. For instance its good to see how he starts and uses the head and figure abstraction method.

But in short for your current skill level I'd recommend not trying to go through all the phases in one month. Take as much time as you need and go through the phases in the proper order starting with the fundamental phase. Do the each drawing assignment from the pdfs and compare your drawing to his afterward, touching up and adding in things from his that you like.

[JyonnyNovice]

Adam Hey, thanks for the detailed answered. I've watched some of his friday night quick sketch videos on youtube, it's a real neat process and beautiful drawings. I figured as much that it'd be too much to go through in a month with enough practice. As things turned out in the last few days I'm gonna be short of money for a while too so I think I'll wait and do it later in 2015. Thanks for stopping by!


I've been getting into the Hampton anatomy, got a fair few pages of stuff done, will scan it sometime soon and update here. For now just some playing around in photoshop to break away from the clinical anatomy box figures I've been drawing.

[JyonnyNovice]

Some more figure drawing stuff; gestures / quick figures / anatomy study from the last few days.

[JyonnyNovice]

First set of Hampton muscles, will do a few more pages of these then move on to the abs, lats etc. Need to perfect the correct pinch / stretch on each muscle for the movement of the pose, these look ok but some of the muscles look like decoration more than an active part of the anatomy. Getting there though!

[JyonnyNovice]

Moar Hampton! Gonna move on to the next 5 or so muscles tomorrow: