JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[StardustLarva]

Good work with those gestures, you're getting more solid with them.

[JyonnyNovice]

Stardust Thanks man! They feel more comfortable to draw now.

More Hampton stuff, covered the next set of muscles now, torso / trunk area is pretty much done.

Notes:



And some practice from photo reference:

A few more pages of these then onto the legs.

Trying to work on my design / presentation of these pages too - let me know what I can do to make them look nicer.

[JyonnyNovice]

Some stuff from the last couple days.

Gestures / quick figures:



Hampton Anatomy practice:





Trying to do some cartoony / manga-like faces from real people reference (kinda like 'cartoonifying' people. Copying this guys idea: http://robertdejesus.tumblr.com/ )



And just playing around with some figure painting:

[JyonnyNovice]

took a day off from anatomy, starting to see boxy / curvy Hampton figures in my sleep. Trying again to crack the colour code and get some clue as to how it all works. Decided to focus on coloured pencil for my future colour studies. With digital I work too hasty I think and end up slapping colour around without taking much care - plus it doesn't teach me about mixing colours, and my goal is to work with watercolour anyway. Coloured pencil is nice and quick to set up, no need for special paper, really cheap medium and much more slower and controlled than watercolour.

Anyway my first experiments:

[Adam Lina]

Haha seeing boxy figures in your sleep is how you know its working. You say you aim to start working in watercolors? As Jeff Watts said in one of his videos, watercolor is a masters medium. As to say it takes a much more experienced painter to use water color due to it being very unforgiving. Once you go dark in watercolor theres no getting the lights back. So you have to be able to think ahead 20 steps like a master chess player. Id suggest acrylic or gouache and start with just black and white paint.

Gouache is kind of like watercolor but you can use less water and it becomes opaque so you can go over black with white no problem. Plus after it drys you can just add water to it and its completely usable again. Its the only kind of paint you can do that with. So you can do a few minutes here and there with no long term commitment or wasting paint. Its almost like painting digitally in some ways. Its the best starter medium to learn basic mixing, edge control and brush stroke economy. Every medium you work in has its own challenges and the thought process you develop to cope with them will make you stronger in all other mediums.

[JyonnyNovice]

I dunno mate, Jeff Watts is a great artist and teacher but he does come across a bit arrogant at times. I've been fooling around with watercolour for a few months now, it is a difficult medium - one wrong move can screw up your painting - but that's part of the appeal, it's quite an intense experience that forces me to slow down and think carefully about what I'm doing. I started using it because it's a cheap alternative to copic markers for comic book style colouring but am enjoying it in its own right now. It's also a great medium for doing street sketching and outdoor work and it is relatively self contained on my desk for when my toddler is charging around (apart from a jar of water there's not much she could cause chaos with, paints are dry in solid blocks most of the time). It really adapts to your skill level too - I can make a nice line and wash that relies more on my drawing skills and slowly improve over time getting more bold with the paint, doesn't need to be some kind of vivid portrait done entirely in watercolour right away - I find it really fun to use. Thanks for the advice tho, maybe I'll try out gouache sometime.

[JyonnyNovice]

Anatomy stuff from the last few days:

[Adam Lina]

Great looking leg studies! Yea, I can see how Jeff Watts could sound a bit egotistical at times but theres plenty of art teachers out there that are even more arrogant and have almost no skills to back it up. So to me hes being honest saying thats hes good and that he knows what hes talking about. To be a teacher saying that you dont have great skills just to appear modest sends mixed signals to anyone trying to learn from you. He doesnt say hes the best ever just that hes worked a long time and this is the skill level hes attained.

A lot of artists get into this self deprecating way of thinking as well which doesnt help them improve in the long run. It ruins their passion for art and creates mental road blocks. Its best to have an objective understanding of where you're at. Not being overly self defeating or overly confident. I dont mean to sound like I think Jeff Watts is the God of art just that hes much more experienced than me so dont just take my word for it. So if you're going to study color in watercolors then I suggest you use some other medium like charcoal pencil to study values. I think your values need a lot more work to be honest. Sorry for the text walls :D

[JyonnyNovice]

Adam Well, confidence and humility are much nobler qualities, although I do like Jeff Watts and learn from his youtube videos. What I think is arrogant though is saying that someone should be a master before they use watercolour - it's art man! it's for everyone, it's for people's enjoyment whether making it or looking at it. I know the route of learn drawing -> learn to render -> learn to paint -> (learn to paint in watercolour) is very valid and tried and tested but no need to stick to it too rigidly. Each piece done adds a little to overall understanding, as long as someone is diligent and thoughtful with their studies and learns from their mistakes it's all good, can jump around a bit to keep creative and motivated - that's how you develop a style anyway, by going your own path! And you're probably right about my values, I'll get to that when I work through the how to render book. Thanks for always checking out my sketchbook, it's great to have peer support.


Stuff from the past half week or so:

Quick figures:







Hampton & anatomy stuff:







And seeing if all this study has actually helped my figure drawing, was pretty nervous to start the first one in case it ended up all bent and broken like my figures were before. Not perfect but pretty happy with the results:

Photo was from the waist up, did the legs from imagination


Full figure photo


Full figure photo


Trying to apply the invention side of the Hampton process, charcoal and pastel. It's pretty scrappy cause I really rushed and am not very proficient with charcoal - will try this again with good ol' graphite sometime soon:

[JyonnyNovice]

Today's efforts:

Quick poses:



Figure study:



Creature invention:



Pretty happy with the last one, wouldn't have been able to do that a month ago, it can only get better from here right? :D

[BenFlores]

All those studies are really helping you read form and putting it in space. Don't stop, always love seeing someone working hard at learning fundamentals. Also try and up the amount of application.

[JyonnyNovice]

Ben Cheers man, thanks for looking over my stuff. Was thinking recently that I need to do more imaginative stuff to apply these studies - I'm on it!


Until now I've mostly done gestures from reference photos, going to start doing it from imagination too. This article really helped me: http://drawingseeing.blogspot.co.uk/p/ge...awing.html - close your eyes and picture the pose while drawing. Before when I tried to draw gesture from imagination it came out stiff and unnatural, closing eyes and visualising really makes a difference.

Did an experiment, trying two different gesture approaches - one page from reference, one page from imagination for each style. I'd appreciate any feedback over which style looks stronger / more dynamic / more interesting / clearer.

1st approach - Hampton-ish style (approach the gesture more analytically and place the 3 parts of the spine, then weight bearing leg, then other limbs, then add ribcage and pelvis and cylinders for limbs).

From reference:



From Imagination:




2nd approach - more spontaneous, start with a single line of action from head to toe, then without really lifting the pencil off the paper just go wild trying to capture the pose, no set rule or routine, looking very often at the reference. (I've been doing so many Hampton gestures recently though his method kind of kreeps in):

From reference:



From imagination:




Let me know what you think looks best, I'm pretty sure I know which one I think but would appreciate feedback!


Creature invention for today - really scrappy, rushed, overall not great and with a blurry line from scanning! Trying out conte crayon:

[JyonnyNovice]

Today's efforts, characters from imagination. Not the best drawing I've ever done but I'm really happy with this, being able to construct a scene from imagination and have it look solid and realistic (apart from the heads and feet - will work on those next month!).

[StardustLarva]

I agree with you on the heads and feet, but that is looking pretty good. I like the sensation of strength coming from the figure on the right, you've conveyed that quite well.

[JyonnyNovice]

Stardust Thanks man, I'm glad that came across!


Going to spend an extra month on anatomy, planning to spend most of my time on heads and faces since they're my weakest area.

I think I'm missing something when I approach heads and portraits - when drawing from reference / life with a figure I can clearly see the bony landmarks, angle of limbs, twist of torso etc etc and re-construct it on paper. With heads I find it so hard to determine where to put my construction lines to accurately re-create the face, therefore my heads from reference just end up looking weird / ugly / totally off and my heads from imagination it's just luck whether it looks realistic or cartoony. I've done skull studies, drawn many loomis / hampton head constructions and tried to do a lot of portraits but majority were total failures.

Any advice on how to better see the face and create a likeness using loomis / hampton construction techniques would be very much appreciate!

For now I'll just keep doing pages like this, re-doing the early part of Loomis and the head part of Hampton hoping I'll make some kind of breakthrough ¬_¬

[Adam Lina]

Hope you dont mind, I did a quick red-line of your anatomy. I changed the ladies gesture a bit which sort of changes the feeling of weak defiance to a stronger stance. I mainly just wanted to show more mass on the limbs and a bigger booty. Its all about dat ass after all. You anatomy over all is definitely showing improvement from your recent studies.




About learning heads. The biggest hurdle will be getting the shape and planes of the head memorized. After you get the big shapes in place the features will just fall into place. I had trouble placing the eyes until I learned to place the eye-socket and eye ball first. Im finding drawing asaro heads from different angles helps a lot. Also the Reilly rhythms helps with locking the face and head together as a whole. Copying and memorizing the Reilly grid helps develop your sense of how the subtle forms flow into one another. And of course keeping what you learned from Loomis and Hampton in mind. The more approaches you learn the easier it gets.

[JyonnyNovice]

Adam I can see Frazetta is getting into your head : ) but for sure the bigger mASS is more appealing. I got a long way to go still but am pretty proud of that drawing even with its flaws. Thanks for the advice on the heads - at least I have a new approach to try now.

Working on memorising the Loomis head planes, when I get these locked down and perfect a way of drawing them without the perspective getting all warped and squished I'll move onto the Reilly grid, then I'll try to tie the two together and just hammer out the practice! hopefully that'll be a win.

[JyonnyNovice]

Loomis planes are memorised now, can draw them from memory no problems. Will have to keep exercising it so they got locked into long term memory but now moving onto memorising the Reilly rhythm chart. It's getting there, I still can't get a good clean head / face from reference, all a bit wobbly still but think I've got all the tools I need, just need to keep practising the methods and getting it more accurate until it all clicks. Any other advice would be great though, if I'm still missing something.



And some characters so it's not all dull and academic:

[JyonnyNovice]

Today's stuff, more more heads. I feel like it's starting to come together, think I just need to practice practice practice for a while before I move any further into facial muscles / expressions etc.

Probably gonna slow up on the heads, just make sure to do a couple each day, and push on with the rest of the anatomy (arms / hands / feet left to do).

[JyonnyNovice]

Gonna stop posting my heads until I've made some significant progress - I'm doing them everyday; a set of 2 min faces, a few heads with Loomis planes, a couple of Reilly rhythm grids and a portrait attempt or two. Gonna try and keep this up for at least the next week or so.

For today's post: practising back / upper arm anatomy really but turned it into a scene.