Othrandir's sketchbook

[Othrandir]

Hello Daggers!I'm 17 years old, my name is Nick, but I go by the name Othrandir ( for the not that much LOTR fanboys - > It is a combination between Olorin and Mithrandir ( two of Gandalf's ancient names)) , so anywho...I decided to start a thread here and I hope I get lot's of crits and ass kicking because I really need it because I suck soo bad , but I guess you'll see for yourselfs :)

just going to post some of my recent stuff,nevermind me :)

[Othrandir]

I've been feeling sooo lazy the last couple of days...GAWD! I hate being like that.Sitting and feeling bad that I suck without doing anything about it...that is going to change though!Enough excuses!
Only sketchbook pages for this post , sorry !

[Sickbrush]

hey Nick,
i've already said preeeetttyy much to you and you're always in my streams so you've heard me say it a million times most likely.
so this time i'm not going to say much more than - keep it up! :))

[Othrandir]

Sickbrush - Thanks a lot man,will do! Can't wait for you to cook for me in Romania haha :D

OK...so for the post

Today was total crap...In school everybody's shouting all the time and it's sooo annoying.I guess it's just more of a "likes the sound of silence" kinda guy.So in school I barely managed to do a sketchbook page and some figure studies from imagination.When I got home I was still feeling so lazy from yesterday , but I made myself study and after the third or fourth figure it got so fun!I think you just have to get past that moment of laziness by sheer will and then start drillin'!I did like 50-60 30s figure poses , but I'm not going to show you those , because they're boring ,instead, I'll post some longer figure poses with no life in them!! Good deal , huh? :D
Anyways , I gotta get better with the anatomy stuff!I think I start to understand it a little bit better , but I've got such a long way to go I don't feel happy with my accomplishments at all :D

crappy figures , as promised











can't forget those hands!


the page from imagination haha

and some random shit so that the post wouldn't be just B/W ;)

[Samothrace]

Those hand studies are looking pretty nice. You're a heck of a lot better than I was at age 17. My only advice right now is to do some face studies and really study the planes and shape of the face.

[Othrandir]

Samothrace - Hey,thanks! Yeaah , I'd say I suck the most at faces , but I kind of can't determine what I suck the most at , since I kind of suck at everything :D But I am trying to study the planes , Loomis style :D

So today at school I forgot my pencil drawing stuff , so I just had a ballpoint pen.Never did stuff with that and it was really fun!Too bad I had only paper with lines though...
this is the only thing worth posting so :D


Some hands to worm up when I came home :)

And my first creature design! I should definetely do more of these!!

[Othrandir]

Ok , so here's for the past couple of days.Too bad , no sketchbook pages from imagination , though :\ I really must do those , I think it's important.

Some hands - some from reference some from imagination




Quick 30 sec figures - sorry for the qualiti , apparently the paper is a bit transparent so you can see the bottom part of the scanner and the levels are craazy :D


figure studies,lots of them :D - I learned soo much from those crazy angles , I really recommend doing studies from parkour photos!









Two quick 45 mins environments from ref


A really loose and bad selfportrait , my hair actually does look like that! haha I had long hair for long time and since I cut it off , my hair's been growing super weird :D

did another creature - turned out even worse than the previous one! hahaI love doing them though , I can really let myself go , since I'm making them up!


Probably will post again tonight , so c ya! ;)

[Othrandir]

So , it's been a suuuper lazy week for me!Here's all I did.It's not much , but I learned a lot from it so I'm not That unhappy with my productivity this week.It's all about learning , right? :)

sketchbook stuff , mostly studies....grrr I gotta do more stuff from head :\






A speedpaint from tonight ( 2-3 hrs ) - > a little [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-XLzt-CqXY"]jungle mix[/URL] for the jungle paint ^^

and a personal piece - "Ethereal deception" ( around 6-7 hrs)

[Othrandir]

Ok , so here's some stuff -

I started a piece , thinking more of composition and after two days , here is where I was at:



And today I for 2-3 hrs I got it up to here :



An enviro study 40-50 mins


and a 1 hour speedpainting competition with Joho
He totally kicked my ass :D I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!! :D



sorry , no pencil stuff :D

[OnkelJoe]

Oh i didnt kick your ass :P
i totally focused on painting while you entertanied the rest of the people in the conversation ;)

anyways, awesome looking sketchbook so far.
you already got one of my "superawkward crits" so im not gonna add one in this post ;)

[Othrandir]

Joho - Haha , yeah , entertaining the one left person :DThe dumb thing is that when I get in that mood I can't stop myself :D
Thanks,man!The crit was actually really helpful :)



So I did some more stuff on the competition environment , for about 10 mins.I was simply too frustrated with my end result , so I just had to touch some stuff up.I still don't like it , but I don't think I ever will :D



and some pencil shits : sketches , dragon studies , shoulder and hand anatomy practice

[Othrandir]

Here's today's environment thingy with me and Joho
The topic was "Mordor" I really wish we had more time than 1 hr.
mine

his


and here is his environment from yesterday ( I forgot to post it)



c ya! :)

[Othrandir]

quick character concept - the influence is obvious of course :D
I'll try to put in some color and I have to give him some more personalizing details.

[Othrandir]

Okay , so here's to what point I got the character.I'm not going to do more on him , because I'm lazy and I want to do other stuff, like studies and environments!! :D

[Othrandir]

blah...










quick studies , I decided to learn and not do everything like a machine.I tried doing the studies with no sketch beforehand , only with colors while really thinking about them.

[rich4rt]

I see pieces of golden nugget in here, your progressing. Keep it up!

[Othrandir]

Rich4rt - thanks,man!!! golden nugget..?


So today was a really cool day!I got up like 8h , I walked the dog and I started drawing.I listened to Bobby Chiu podcasts and I discovered Alex Pascenko!! :O I mean , I knew his name but never his super duper amazing pencil and painting skillz!!! :O What the hell is this guy's brain made of??Soo cool...so yeah , I looked at his stuff and I just saw just how much my anatomy sucks,So I did more studies.Damn , I'm lazy , I have to do more , but oh well , that's it for now.I really want to learn light and color.Something I'm really not good at , so I did some fast environment studies ( 10-15 mins each? )really focusing on that.Looks like I suck at that too :\I have to do more. You don't get better with just words though so here's some of yesterday's and today's stuff! :)

10-15 mins environments from photos






two fast portraits - 20,30 mins probably


a 50 min extremely crappy doodle, I need to get better at imaginative stuff

some hands from posemaniacs and life



some eyessssss

30 secs poses , sorry they're that big , but I don't have time to go to photoshop right now and make them small and stack them








some arms from life and mind

and sketchbook pageeeeeesss :D faces are from mostly from mind , Only the girl with the weird mouth placement is from a photo





I did some legs while waiting for the scanner :D

cheers guys , gotta go! :)

[Othrandir]

Crappy post today , so enjoy!! :D
Here's some legs


Hands from life


and some crappy faces , damn my anatomy sucks so much.I need to stop being so goddamn lazy...

Here's a quick doodle from this morning.Pretty much everything about the face is off.I can't even look at it.I have to do loads more of these.It turned out that painting is quite more different than drawing.Who knew ?! :\
I was trying to experiment with light and color , but I still can't achieve a strong atmosphere , and that's soo important in a painting :(


blah...that's it , I've got some studies on the side but they're not worth showing.This post was too little , I need to up my game and draw more!

[rich4rt]

ooo lots of stuff again, keep this pace up. By golden nugget, I meant a few gems of artwork, by gems I mean there's some good pieces in here :D

[Othrandir]

rich4rt --> Oh cool , thanks.I never knew this expression before.If you stick around you'll see a lot better stuff ;) ( I hope so) :D


From yesterday ( I'll try to update every morning)

Some sketches
The good think is that it's getting a bit easier for me to imagine different poses that are not standart
The bad thing is that my anatomy (above all) and everything else still sucks :\ Gotta keep working
Yesterday was such a crazy day , so this is all I could squeeze out
Here's some hands to warm up .



Sketchbook pages all from mind...blaah my imaginative work sucks so much.What should I do ? More stuff from mind , more studies??Guess I'll try to do both 'till I see progress :\




A 1 hour thing again , trying to focus on lighting and color
I really want to understand how it should work!Until then - practice :)