Jaik's Sketches & Thoughts

[Kaffer]

Nice anatomy stuff! Struggling with these myself.. :)

[Jaik]

Last post of the year! Next Sunday we will be well into 2014. Kind of scary how fast the year went by this year. It was a fantastic year, I had a lot of great experiences, met some awesome people and all round had a tonne of fun getting a moon tan from spending too much time inside in front of my monitors.

The 4th of January (yes I remember it better than I do my own birthday) will mark exactly two years since I started this drawing venture and I am both happy and disappointed with how far I have come. Happy because I can see the improvement (I make a comparison image every year for motivation). Disappointed because I think this year I realised that there are no short cuts and that until recently I was probably studying wrong. I have since worked out a method of study that I think will work, but I don't know what that means for the time I spent before that epiphany. Is it only worth 50% of time spent, 30%? Less? This is what irks me about the 10 000 hour rule. It is 10 thousand hours of focused study, but if I was focusing on the wrong things does it get subtracted or added. Meh, I guess at the end of the day the rule is only there so that people can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So not as much this week, my schedule got disrupted because of christmas (I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays :) ). BUT I did get a large intuos 5 pro. ITS HUGE! I have to rearrange my desk just to fit it on.. But drawing is SO MUCH EASIER to do nice lines. I could never understand how everyone kept saying "Draw with your elbow". I was sitting in my little man cave with my intuos 3 small, which is smaller than an A5 page, thinking there was something wrong with me because I couldnt get elbow drawing right.. But it is so much easier on the large tablets >___>

Thanks for the comments everyone, I will get back to your sketchbooks today :)

Armor study.


Moving on to Forms of the torso (not a lot this week as far as anatomy goes.. Damn Christmas)


Applying that anatomy


Horse gestures, trying to work out how the guy on the horse was wrong. These studies showed that people actually sit much further forward on the horse than I thought they did..


Okay so I think I am finished with this.. There are some things I would like to change, but I think I should just learn from it and move on. The light made everything very saturated, and comparatively the shadows were desaturated but when I focused on them, they were also very saturated.. I think this is because of the range of values and colours in real life is infinitely more than what a screen can produce, and also because of the eye adjusting to lighting conditions.. Needs more practice.


Readjusted the composition, altered the values. I think that helped a lot. And added a cape based on Lyra's suggestion to get something with weight down in the bottom right corner. I knew that I was jumping into details too quickly, but I couldnt see what else to do aside from detailing. Could someone please point out what they would have done differently? I tried to go from big to small?


Website Update. The HTML prototype is almost done, I just have to do skethbook and contact pages. Then I need to convert it to PHP and it should all work. Which means it will probably be up and running by the end of January.

[Adam Lina]

Hey thanks for commenting on my sketch book. Awesome sketch book you got here! I know my lines are pretty chicken scratchy but thats because I cant draw from my elbow on the tiny wacom I've got. I have no problem getting clean lines drawing traditionally but not when all I have is a 6x3.75in(9x15.5cm) drawing surface... my poor wrist D: I see you got the intuos large and its working out good for you. I think even a medium would make things 10 times easier for me. I dont think i'd have the room for a large. Where do you put your keyboard with that monster hogging all the desk space?

[ramalooke]

This armor study is great! You did awesome job with the tribe mask as well! Sweet sweet stuff!

[Tom Seas]

moon tan from spending too much time inside in front of my monitors.

I'm pretty sure most of us are guilty of this :(

but if I was focusing on the wrong things does it get subtracted or added. Meh, I guess at the end of the day the rule is only there so that people can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't think there's any subtracting if you're going about it "wrong". Regardless of how you study and work you're still drawing so even tho it's not focused per say, there's something improving (may it be line work, color choice, proportion ...). I just think that it means you pick things up at a slower pace than focused study.

Really good to see you study armor and anatomy and apply it right after.
And that tribal mask study is killer.
Happy (disruptive) New Year!

[razvanb08]

Nice post for ending the year. Great stuff!
Good luck in 2014 and have a good year!

[Gliger]

It's awesome how every sketchbook in CD makes me want to push myself harder and harder, awesome stuff. Keep improving.

[Warburton]

Hey man, happy new year! And I hear ya on the whole on the whole time spent effectively thing. Though one thing to consider is that you couldn't have come to this new style of studying effectively without spending all that time learning otherwise. Some one might have told you but would it really have sunk in? I would guess not. And in fact, by coming to this realisation you have in fact, improved yourself. You learnt a new way of learning which works best for you, and I a year or two's time, you'll probably come to a new realisation of something else you were doing wrong and slap yourself at how much better you have become. Its all relative to how you look at it I guess ;)

I wasn't sure about doing this, because I feel like a dick destroying all your hard work and detailing but you mentioned you'd like an opinion on the new piece so I did you a quick paint over to better show what I mean.


The main issue is like you said, you went into detailing way too quick and in doing so let the main big shapes and values take a back seat. Plus I think there was too much focal points previously. The horse head, the spear, the monkey face, the armour and the cat on his lap. Although in this quick paint over ive kept them, the biggest contrast area (where that hard light is hitting the monkey face) i think is now the main focal area.
Keep an navigator window open when you paint and look at it to see if it reads really small. Because if it doesn't it probably means you need to spend more time adjusting your main shapes and setting up contrast and values. On a final note, still not sure about that spear, because its dragging the viewer out of the canvas as its acting as an arrow pointing away from everything, especially with that horse starting at it (seemingly)
Hope that helps man, so in a nutshell, focus more on the overall construction, spend more time working out the thumbnail stage and not detailing, and setting up dat lighting and values. That's what i would do anyways ;)
All the best mate!

[Jaik]

Alright, I already replied to sketchbooks. Woo.

Anyway, so yesterday (the 4th of January) is my drawing anniversary. It marks the day, two years ago, that I decided I wanted to take art as a career. So I started drawing. A lot..
So yeah, probably should have updated my sketchbook yesterday but meh, it wasnt a Sunday. So here is my improvement meme thing.. I know that the last pic was done in september, but I don't really have any personal work I am a fan of since then. Which is a new years resolution, to do more personal work. And more studies.. Should be easy right?



Added more to this page, doing some measurement stuff.


Beans, because I realised one of my biggest weak points is connection the torso with the pelvis. These beans should fix that.. I hope.. Only did these yesterday, so not sure if they have helped yet :P


Various revisions. (Watched some of David Finches Gnomon vids. Really cool approach)




Heres what I got up to with Crypt Cat. Then I applied some of War's paint over. Me and Lyra are going to go through and do all the bloodsports from the beginning, which we started on the 2nd :P of January. So I am not sure when I will get the chance to work on this again, but I really do want to finish it.


And applying the paint over. I wanted to keep the head tilted, because its part of the characters mood in my opinion, the creepy off tilt stare. Changing it to straight up makes him look a little too majestic for what I am going for. I also played with the idea of making the moutain much bigger instead of making it smaller. I think I will have to revisit this with fresh eyes lol.


Bloodsport 1: Sci Fi Hunter and pet. This was so far out of my comfort zone. I never ever ever do sci fi, so it will be a challenging two weeks. I spent so much time just beating my head against a wall that I didn't get very far for the last few days.

Mood board


Ref Board (I really needed ideas lol)


After trying with small figures, I failed so much I deleted them, so that was several hours down the drain, I thought maybe if I got the look of the head that the rest would follow.. I can tell you now, that surely wasnt the case.. These have since been scrapped.


Started from a base neutral pose, which worked a little better, then went to line drawings which seemed to work the best for me. So I think I will continue to use this method in the future. It's a little tedious and takes a logn time, but I like it better.

Anyway thanks for looking and commenting everyone, you give me the strength to keep on fighting this long arse hike to the top of Mt. Failure. As soon as I get to the top of this mountain I am sure I will be able to see Mt. Success somewhere on the horizon :)

[Tygerson]

Wow, the wooden mask turned out great--so much care for detail! The monkey character really shows all the research you put in!

[milkdose]

Wow those studies are awesome, I specially love the armour one it's so clean. Definitely keep those studies up man, makes me want to do some!

[YOLOLEX]

thnx for looking at my sb. I see a lot of improvement here its looking fantastic. THose back simplifications are awesome a good idea. Keep it up, as a crit i would suggest really nailing the anatomy, some of the muscles/labels/angles are in the wrong place, in particular i saw there was a incorrect scapula angle, and the teres major was a little out of place. Also try think about the acromion as it lines up with the widest point of the hip. :)

Also i never knew about the color thing you learn something new every day.

[Lyraina]

Congrats on getting an intuos 5 pro! How tall is the screen you are working on btw? I found the 'large' intuos (4) actually too tall when working on a laptop, not sure how it would work with my 27" desktop pc though. (I normally use M)
The armor study is cool, especially the chainmail (as is the chainmail in your crypt cat piece) - is this a chainmail brush or with some kind of pattern you used?

The still life turned out really awesome, so much detail! Although I would suggest to experiment with some (slightly) lost edges a bit more in the outer areas, pushing focus more towards the main subject. No real need for a extremely crisp edge on a wooden tabletop here, better let the viewer focus on the detail work of the mask. Kudos to your patience!

Keep it up Jaik, looking forward to your next bloodsport update <3

[razvanb08]

The bean is were it's at man :). Got to do some of those myself. The bloodsport is looking nice, looking forward for more.

[crackedskull]

You have lots of great stuff here, I admire the time you've put in the finished studies.
You seem to have some efficent studying methods, keep it up.

[rioriorio]

armor studies and still life mask is very great, it's show how much your effort in detailing it, very admire your energy jake. Glad you begin to find your own method of thumbs that you comfort with, can't wait to see the result of your bloodsport piece.

[kidult]

You really putting in the hard work, good stuff! With your imaginative stuff, try not render things bit by bit. Rather try work the image as a whole piece more. that way you can get a better sense of form across the whole image and making changes won't involve re-painting detailed bits. Once you have a good sense of the whole image you can then go in and render out the details.

[mrjovi]

Man, these look great. Really doing a good job on them. I really like the loose brush work especially in the desert enviro. If I had to crit anything it would be to say practice the drawing side more, some of your structure gets a little lost at times. But thats just me being picky :P Keep up the good work and keep applying those studies :D

thanks for the crit jaik its all about being picky!
Great sketches, what i could say about the monkey piece is that the armor need to grab more of the tones of its surroundings ( horse, sky, mountain, monkey).
have a awesome 2014 :)

[dracken]

Love those Bloodsport studies. A lot of thumbs, a lot of ideas. Keep pushing and make sure you finish the image, finishing can be the hardest part.

Good luck my friend!

[Samszym]

Hey, thanks for the comment Jaik! Super cool seeing your improvement in that last post, keep on rocking!!!
I'd suggest doing some of those character thumbnails in simple black shapes in order to find an appealing silhouette before you jump right into detailing and armor design. Then when you get a shape design you're really happy with you could use it as the base pose thing and do the lines over it. Drawing over that super average human build doesn't seem very fun :/
In one anatomy class I was taking we constantly draw the bones in before we ever drew the muscles and it really helped us focus on structure, I'd recommend drawing in the rib cages inside those torsos and building the basic forms and muscles around it.

Peace! Have a kickin' 2014 :D