stroan's sketchbook

[stroan]

Spent the last few days working on another CHOW, when not in work. But managed to get some small amount of sketching done at lunch.

One of the sketches:



Two progress shots of the CHOW:





I think I'm allergic to color of something. It started off ok I think, but I fell in to a sea of warmish mud. And I mangled a good chunk of the anatomy, and clothes. Blargh. This is what I get for neglecting my studies!

I'm hoping to get a run of free time over the weekend, and I'm going to take another swing at the archer CHOW.

[Othrandir]

I think you did a wonderful job on the watercoloring! The face ppossible needs a bit more work, but given how difficult watercoloring is for me, I admire your results. Keep at it! :)

[stroan]

I gave the CHOW another shot. This time with the intent of being more adventurous with the colour palette. I wanted to do a kid, kinda with the view to it being a character for a kids show, so I stylised it more. Overall I think it was less successful than the first one, but I'm glad to have given it the second swing.

[Adam Lina]

Its great to see other people working in trad! I love your sketches too. Im so jelly of that visual library. And I find holding down a job and the facade of a social life while juggling art is HARD. Great job sticking with it and keep it up.

[Cyprinus]

I can only agree with Adam about the traditional art part (:

I like the two designs you made for the CHOW, in the first especially the expression, in the second the hairdo. Although you say that in the first one the colours came out muddy, I still like it (sometimes those palettes work out as well) - although the shadows have a greyish tint, but that could be a wrong impression due to the fact that it's a photo.

About the colours becoming muddy tho, this can have different reasons. (I don't know if you take ready colours or mix your colours) In general, if you mix complimentary colours you will get neutral hues, and the more colours you mix together, the duller the results will be.
Also, what happens to me sometimes: the layer isn't completely dry and I already paint the new one, this also sometimes messes up my colours. For me there was also quite the difference between pans and tubes.
Mixing and layering watercolours needs quite a bit of knowledge about your colours and hues, as well as a ton of experience and trial and error, it's really rewarding though, so keep up the good practice!
In case you have a question about watercolours, feel free to ask me! I'm by no means an expert and I can't promise that I have advice if you have a specific question, but I've been working with watercolours for quite some time now and it's my favourite medium (:

[stroan]

@Othrandir - Cheers! Slowly figuring out the medium :)
@Adam Lina - Yeah, traditional painting is just so rewarding. It's so nice having a physical artifact for your work.
@Cyprinus - Thanks for all that advice. I'll have to take you up on the offer to bug you with questions :) It's definitely a fun medium, but yeah, a lot of learning to be done

A quick portrait sketch done in gouache.

[stroan]

Some painting studies I did today in advance of taking a swing at this week's CHOW

[stroan]

Went to a 12 hour game jam yesterday, and made a card game so I got to do a bunch of card art. It was a good way to spend a day for sure. Not going to have anything finished for the CHOW unfortunately though.

[stroan]

A bunch of studies done today. I watched two videos by Anthony Jones today about how to study, and I found them really useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kfK46nruKM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-bRsajdcqw

[stroan]

Some more studies for the last pilot CHOW.

[stroan]

Some studies, and sketches for the CHOW submission I'm working on.

[stroan]

[stroan]

Some studies over the last few days. Some jerk broke in to my house and stole my tablet so no more digital painting for me for a while...

[Adam Lina]

Man, thats sucks about your tablet getting stolen. :(

[stroan]

An evening's studies. Trying to figure out how to model hair.

[stroan]

Haven't posted in a while - so here's a bit of a dump of what I've been working on.










And I'm currently working away on this

[stroan]

And here's how far I'm taking it.