Jaik's Sketches & Thoughts

[Jaik]

I hope so Anzhou! My bank account is glaring at me so I better lol. Really motivates me to push even harder.

--

Focuses this week:

Environments
Bloodsports (failure)
3D Work
Wolves


Productive week for me, I feel like I did a fair bit, most of which is planning, learning and 3D stuff so not much to show for those as yet. But maybe next week I'll have finished the 3D model I am working on. Not much to write about this week. One thing though that I can recommend to people is the three Scott Robertson Matte shading technique videos. They are fantastic, really helped me get my values in order, just need to practice more and I should see a vast improvment. Also, for those interested I greatly recommend Art by Papercut's free magazine Vertex. The first issue is out now and it's a really good read, working my way through it in my spare-spare time. You can find their facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/artbypapercut


Oh and my visual library building topic for this week was canines, which just ended up being wolves >.>

10min study of a panther for bloodsports


1hr screen cap study from Kingdom of Heaven


Daily warmups, between 30min - 1hr


Warmups


Value cylinder, need to do more of these


Life drawing, hard to see sorry, scanner isnt very good with A3 >.>


Visual library building Canines (dodgy mobile pic)



Finished enviro, might tweak a bit here and there but all together pretty happy.


[Craig Paton]

Good stuff Jaik. Love that last piece.

Kind of feel like your logo is a wee bit invasive and distracting from your work some times though. Maybe use it more like a watermark or something?

[Jaik]

Craig: You are totally right! lol, didnt even notice, tried fixing that on new work. Thanks for stopping by!

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Not really weekly anymore, it's been a while. I will get back into weekly though, life's just gotten really busy week after week. Trying to juggle going in to a studio internship, working a paying job, a commission, bloodsports challenge, a computer dying and having to be rebuild from the ground up and then getting sick. There wasn't much time for updating. Not that those are excuses.

This isn't all I have been doing, I've forgotten where I've saved/what I've done in the past few weeks, so its really only the most recent stuff. This has prompted me to put all my work that I want to show into a 'quarantine' folder until it is uploaded, then sort it into my other folders. See if that works.

Just talking about what I've done recently, and my usual 'think too much, do too little' routine which I am trying to get out of, I have printed off some artworks from artists in various fields which I am aiming to be like/get to that level of quality. This sort of serves as a moodboard and every time I am not sure what to do next I look at it and think 'What do I need to do to get closer to this' then I just do it, it might not be the most efficient path to the mountaintop but going in any direction is better than standing still. On these lines, I looked at some concept art and it occurred to me that these people have done hundreds of thousands of figure studies to get the anatomy down, as well as studies, so gestures, figure drawings are incredibly important and until I do that mileage I will never be able to make poses up from my head. So that what I am working on now, is just doing anatomy studies, then I will go back to trying some personal work. It's boring but still fun.

My bloodsports 15 entry, I think it would have been much stronger if I added a background, plus some anatomy is off.



Progress gif n.n


Bunch of studies:

Beetle study - 1hr


Frog skin study ~1hr


Sea shells, 1hr


Iguana skin


Lion study



Warmups all between 30min to an hour





[Cj_marsh]

Hey man great work in here you can really see your improvment! something I see though is (a problem I myself am working on) is you have some issues with a little bit of depth like your last golem piece the golems right arm is very defined and strongly colored bringing it closer I would desaturate it a bit to bring it back and work on foreshortening. Also something with color I recently learned is the shadow colors in a painting are more saturated and highlights should be less saturated try experimenting with that and it should help bring out more color and make the colors less muddy. Hope that helps! Your kicking ass mate keep up that hard work! Cheers :D

[Jaik]

Thanks for the advice CJ, will definitely try and work on that!

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This week I am going to focus on the importance of Visual Library building, which I think I have mentioned before, but because I have just started a group on Crimson Daggers for weekly Visual Library exercises I thought it would be a good topic to talk about.

As designers, all of the ideas we come up with are just amalgamations of memories. We combine a fish with a rock, or a bulldozer with a rock, or a rock with another rock to come up with a design. And the only way to replace the rock with something more interesting is to have a larger library of shapes, objects, animals.... rocks... So to do this, we do studies, except instead of the point of the study to be getting it to look realistic, the point of the study is to absorb as many visual ques from the thing we are studying, so the study can be done purely in lines, tones, it can even just be a list of notes. So long as you are actively thinking about what makes a dog look like a dog and not a cat, or a rock...

So, to increase my visual library every week I pick a topic and do some sketches, notes, anatomical studies etc to add it to my visual library. I have been slack the past couple of weeks, as it seemed to be lower on the list than other things so it got pushed off, which is why I created the thread on Crimson daggers, to force me to rotate my study weekly and to keep it going. I figure if other people count on me then I am more likely to do it, and if no one else joins, it wont matter because I will be doing it every week and posting in the thread so I don't look like a jackass with another failed idea.

The last visual library exercise I did was for Canines, didn't really do a too good a job of it so I think I'll try it again some time.

Also I finished up my commission so I should have that to show after this weekend :)

Figure Drawings, trying to increase my memory and attempt an exaggerated style on one.. Didn't turn out so well..



Skin colour, made up the lighting and skin colour, not a fan. Need to study more portraits.



Warmup Cloud practice



Left is from photo, right is trying to turn it in my head. Really challenging and fun. Will do this again.



WIP. Learning ways to add tattoo's to a drawing.


Visual Library fail.

[Jaik]

Not much for this week, finally finished the 100 faces exercise. Personally I can't see that much of an improvement, if any at all. Definitely not enough to justify the pain lol. Also, first pages of visual library for this week, may do some more between now and next Monday, not sure.

MesoAmerican Architecture


Random page I did a while ago from my sketchbook.


Random sketcharoo



This.. I dont even.. Should have slept more...



Playing with colour temperature



Pain...


[Jaik]

Forgot to add, also finished my commisions this week.





Here they are on deviantart too. Show some love if you have time :)

http://fav.me/d63vu28

http://fav.me/d63vsuz

[MonoOrder]

I like your idea of having a different topic for visual library building every week. I know the students at FZD do the same thing so it's a great plan of action. Once I get my perspective down solid I'm gonna do the same thing and draw along!

[Jaik]

You should join Mono, perspective isn't a must, It doesn't need to be perfectly accurate drawings, just shorthand to remember some content.

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Hey all, hope the week treated you well.

I was painting last night and it occurred to me just how fun it is to render an image, I was really enjoying noodling at this piece of skull I was doing at the time and the thought occurred to me that I don't appreciate just how enjoyable drawing/painting/art is. It is easy to get caught up in the frustration that this face looks more like a potato that's been left in the dark too long, or that a pose isn't dynamic enough (struggled with this one A LOT, to no avail and a huge amount of stress). And thats fine; The frustration, the stress, all drives us to become better artists and to really feel a sense of accomplishment when we finally do succeed.

But it is equally important to enjoy the process, enjoy the act of making marks on a page and just making a mess if that's what it takes. We all, myself included, will one day be paid to do exactly that, make marks and people will stand and gaze with awe at what comes out the other end, our creation, that we summoned from nothing. It is a great power to be able to sit down and after a period of time walk away from something that once was white, and is now a fully realised piece of our own imagination and skill. I think the point of this is to really look at what you are doing objectively, you are not counting stock, adding numbers, or dealing with pain in the ass customers that can't decide between katsup and ketchup (thank you Mr. Burns for that one), you are developing a skill that most people will put down to magic. And that's a great feeling.



Anyway, this weeks art:

Not a lot to show (I say that every week, maybe I should work hard) My excuses this week are: I'm practising my patience so I am working on a study for 20+ hrs, probs not getting that much out of it anymore but I am learning that the last 5% takes 80% of the time.

Applying the visual library I did last update on a quick warm up sketch.

Really quick 20min lol.


Going to try and catch up to current in Suzannes class, which is going to take me forever lol. First week here, hoping to do 2 weeks worth this week.

Front view



3/4 view



Anatomical side view

[MrFrenik]

I've followed you on CA.org previously, so it's good to see a familiar "face" on here as well! Good work with the amount of studies you're putting out (certainly putting me to shame). Just be careful of your perspective and constructions in your drawings; sometimes it gets away from you and needs to be "reigned" back in. Keep working hard!

[Jaik]

Hey MrFrenik, welcome to the forums and thanks! Certainly keep that in mind :)

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Hey all,

Spent a lot of time this weeks on Suzanne's portrait class, having a lot of fun. Hoping to catch up soon! Also saw a post by Mr Negrea on facebook, showing improvement from consistent drawing of 1minute gestures. I myself haven't gotten up to an hour a day, but I generally do about 40 a day when I am at home working. So I think this may be 160 or something. Lost count. But they were all from www.quickposes.com. 20minute challenges are great. You can do anything for 20minutes.

Also did my visual library building of Felidae, which was fun.

60 Second gestures. I need to keep them all the same size =/



Felidae Visual Library 1



Felidae Visual Library 2



Thumbnails for an enviro I want to do.





Assignment 2 of Suzannes Class



Bonus of assignment 2



Warmups in the morning.



Assignment 3 of Suzannes class



Bonus for assignment 3

[anzhou]

Good work man :) I'm anticipating that environment you're planning for and the feline studies are cool.

[silverkeeper]

you're working really hard!!

[Jaik]

Thanks Anzhou and SilverKeeper :D

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Hey all,

This week went by way too fast. feel like I havent done anything at all. I signed up to Chris Oatley's Art class thing which has monthly lessons every month for 18 months. Figure it is a good investment into my future.. Or something like that. So this months thing was to do a few colour comps. But I did finish my ironman study, which I was doing to improve my patience and rendering skills.. So many hours @_@

My Anglo-Saxon visual library building page


So many hours...



Colour comps, I am going to go with the first one as it suits the design brief I set myself the best.


Daily gestures. Lost count.


Portrait study, failed this one


Portrait 2, less fail, still not happy.


Female portrait, liked it more, but can see a lot more errors now -_-


Colour Comps


Refined Colour comps.


[Jaik]

Just a quick update. Kind of a slow week I guess, since I havent got that much to show, working on some bits I'll upload next week though. I'll upload my portraits for Suzannes class next week too.


Usual Gestures


Weekly Visual Library and hands for a piece I'm doing, trying to age hands is hard...


The other half


sketchbook page while I was at it


Really not happy with this.. Not sure if its finished or given up on.. Cant quite work out what went wrong or why I dont like it..


[MrFrenik]

Don't worry too much about a slow week; I've kind of had a slow MONTH, ha. It happens. I'd say with the environment, the values need to pushed much further for a more successful read. It's an important part of perspective that your values get lighter with less contrast range towards the background, whereas the foreground will have your most contrast. Typically you'll have your midground be the area where your subject matter is. Also there's not anything to indicate scale here. For most environment pieces (not all) there are a few human figures placed throughout to indicate scale and help establish depth. It's a funny thing, but as soon as you place one in, the scene automatically feels different. Hope some of this helps. Keep it up!

[Craig Paton]

An impressive show of dedication going on here sir. Like your portrait and gesture drawing studies. Hope you keep up with the stuff on Suzanne's class.

Best way to build visual library, I find, is just to read a lot of fiction. As well as presenting you with a lot of imagery for you to steal, it's also, like, an exercise for your mind in building scenes and objects from imagination.

[Jaik]

Hey everyone.

MrFrenik: Took your advice on the values and started working to improve them :P Also putting people in my scenes has helped loads. Thanks :)

Craig: Thanks Craig! Suzannes class is really helping. I do read a lot of fiction but I'm trying out the Feng Zhu version which i sketch different topics every so often. I started a community activity here for it as well, check it out! :)

Bit of a high quantity update, finally finished my emotions for Suzannes Class. Took so long T_T I feel like there was some improvement on creating faces from my imagination, need to keep practicing them, maybe on a smaller/not-colour scale lol. All the skin tones aside from surprise were created from scratch aswell for practice.

20-30min enviro studies


Weekly gestures, only doing around 20 a day now.


Sadness



Anger



Happy



Fear



Contempt, this was definitely the hardest and I dont think I succeeded



Suprirse (least favourite)



Disgust



Visual Library - Horses - Page 1



Visual Library - Horses - Page 2 and learning Gouache



Visual Library - Horses - Page 3



Visual Library Building - Horses - Page 4



Visual Library Building - Horses - Page 5. These Gestures are great for learning proportion



Visual Library Building - Horses - Page 6



Another Sketchbook Page with more gouache practice and notes on light shafts i observed this morning while having a shower >.> lol



3 Value enviros. Going to do heaps of these till my values get better


[Damien Levs]

Man, you really get a lot done. I'm envious. Keep hammering away. Portraits are hard. May I suggest grabbing a mirror and trying some selfies from life. I think this might help you along (It's something I need to do also) Good practice.

Regards!

[Jaik]

Damien: Thanks man! :D and totally going to take your advice soon. Going to start doing selfies more often :P If they help (I think they will) totally going to hound you to do some too!

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Not a heap this week, struggled a bit, going to take a few days off this week, so even less will be pumped out for next week. But it's been a while since I've had a day off. Working on taking actionable steps this week. I read an article on over complication of simple ideals, making things more complicated than they need to be (i.e Looking for the perfect work out routine without getting into the habit of going to the gym everyday first or, as it is for me, worrying about content and workflow before having something as simple as values done) so I have gone back to good old black and white.. again.. and done some studies. Also continuing to work on faces for Suzannes class.. Damn they are hard... Thinking a self portrait is in order in the next couple of weeks.

60s Gestures



Illustration I am working on, PLEASE tell me which one you think works best, I am leaning towards the two furthest to the right, let me know your opinion.



Imaginary portrait: Sadness



Composition using circles squares and triangles



Thumbs



Silk dress study for aforementioned illustration



Silk Material sphere



Master studies for value. 5 values is hard...



Visual Library, not much this week :(