@Darktiste- It´s an interesting thought but to be honest i have mixed feelings about MK character design. Many designs and themes are too repetitive, too many ninjas, characters with leather lol.
Some designs are indeed very well executed like Kabal (MK3) ,Nightwolf (MK3), Kitana (MK 9),Kano (MK3 and MKX), Cyrax, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Sonya (MK3), Goro, Shao Kahn or Liu Kang (MK3).
Thanks for the input mate :)
keep it up just dont forget structure, symmetry, and balancing straights VS curves. And dont shy away from more stylized artists, they can teach you important things that carry over into realism about line choice and shape ;)
Fedodika- Thanks man! Slowly i´m addng those elements to my system. I need to push much further movement in poses. Any suggestions of artists that merge semi realism with a big sense of movement?
Lately, i have been focused on flat colouring and hand drawing, which is nice however did not many digital studies lately.
So, forced myself to make quite a few studies, start with grayscale to go with the fundamentals, once again studying the values of skin. And then a couple of colour studies.
Did also a few quite loose charatcers for no project in particular, just having fun.
for movement its up to you, Masters of Anatomy was a godsend for me as far as anatomy, appeal and style. specially Raul Moreno's book which is book 2 i believe. If you like a fighting game for instance, you can go frame by frame of a dynamic attack and do a gesture from a different angle to find the action as it moves. And for style i mean J scott campbell's good, you know joe mad, etc, just good comic artists
Fedodika- Good refs man! Raul Moreno has fanastic linework, the first Master´s of Anatomy has an amazing cast of artists.
Good call. Probably SFV, Tekken or Soul would be awesome for pose reference.
Inbetween projects i´ve decided to finish a lone sketch i´ve had for ages and bring it to fruition as a portfolio piece; where are you my son.
Any feedback is precious, and it would be amazing if you daggers, would help me to decide which side is best,originaly it was the left one but i think if i switch it, the composition gains more weight.
Brining my portfolio piece a bit further, creating more atmosphere, building value, struggling to make sense out of the picture. Still trying to figure out a good colour schemme.
I´m a bit happy with the results so far yet it has grounds for improvement.
Another Flickr photo study. Trying to sink into my mind more patterns of light interacting with skin.
Those studies looks great and the portfolio piece is coming along well, the edges on the dog is really sweet!
It works as is, but an suggestion; you could expand the image to the left to amplify the storytelling (footsteps behind him showing that they have walked a long way, and then walking out of the picture creating suspense of where they are heading).
Another note - There should be some seperation or overlapping between his cape and the tree so that they are not in one line with each other.
Im not totally sure whats going on in this piece, like is the dog leaving him or guiding him? I dont think the choice of shapes is the best to work with the values youve chosen. For instance you have all your focal points as midtones, and there are no black tones except in small shadows.
From far away, the dog definitely reads because i can tell his silhouette very clearly, but the man is hard to make sense of as he could very well be a mountain range. The tree tangenting on his cloak only emphasizes that.
I'll do a little paintover to try and show a possible story alternative. Try to think cinematic, like think, could this be in a film? if its a narrative piece, have a theme. Right now im not sure what it is. But what i did was make the man smokier and further back, instantly you can imply a relationship with just distance, maybe he's dangerous, and maybe he's not. You can add a third figure, or several, maybe they are a traveling group, perhaps its an assassin.
My point is values tell story, so dont neglect them. Always pic iconic shapes, overlap things, and try to aim for a less is more style, it will make it more realistic, i promise <3
@Echo - Thanks and thanks for the tip man! Yes, creating room for the composition to breathe was a smart move and your tip was already incorporated on the piece.
Instead of an overlaping i´ve used your tip on another way, to create a gab between the cape and the tree, so the image may read a bit better.
@Fedodika - Hey man, thanks for stopping by and your paintover.
The image is about a man and his bitch ( female dog- no obvious joke implied) trying to find his son. IU´m trying to tackle from an emotional prism, not too obvious but kinda of ambiguous.
I love your paintover, the values are there but there´s a thing that would crash directly towards my main objective for the piece, loses the emotion as the man is removed far away in the mist. Any suggestion to push the cinematics yet without losing the tie with the characters?
Once again, a big thanks.
This time i´ve slowed a little bit with the portfolio piece, made some adjustments but i´m still trying to figure out a good colour schemme for the piece and open to suggestions.
Meanwhile did a few studies to push value understaning and slowly delving into colour realm. I love the way the original daggers pushed on the early history of this forum haha so i´m trying to copy their method, doing a bunch of studies, some directly related, other´s not that much.
I think for showing a relationship, try to find an artist who has solved the problem already. Maybe there's a film with a similar plot of snow, dog, and old dude. Or find like an animation (like disney or some professional company) of a large character whos friends with a small one. There will be strong visual cues in how they lay out the composition, and its best to take notes on that.
And ya the early daggers did train alot and any drawing is good, but you really need to think about what is the most efficient way to spend your time. You only get one life and the days will go by if you are wasting your time not improving on your weakness and just doing things for the sake of doing them. For each study, have a clear goal. For instance, i want to get my figure drawings up to snuff for a gallery show so i am isolating the most foundational things about figures. Im practicing gestures, long drawings, and anatomy. I don't imagine, it'd benefit me as much if i studied say, fashion design or creature design or something unrelated. Sure it might help a little, but its not the smartest thing for my goal.
My advice to you, since you want to do this portfolio piece, is in all honesty to scrap the comp you currently have and do some research. Get a little notepad out and a ballpoint pen and start reading and taking notes on as much of this book as you can, creative illustration by loomis:
Find some shit on youtube or on premium sites on copmosition, like new masters academy with bill perkins has some great stuff, watts atelier has a premium course with robert watts on composition, schoolism, etc. Watch some noire films and take quick abbreviated studies of shots, live in a black and white world for a while. Read this article:
have a gameplan, you know, try to enlighten yourself every single day to new and useful information. And id also reccomend halting on the painted studies for a while and focus on drawing and design, i see lots of weird skewed proportions on your painted stuff and like that gladiators arm, i know for a fact it doesnt look like that. that stuff i reccomended a while back about studying cool shapes, you still need to look into, doing painted studies will help like 1% but dedicating time to drawing studies will shorten the time between each mistake and speed it up 50%, I proms
@Fedodika- Thanks man! Not too much movies with the dog, old man and snow theme combo, in animation there are a few. I will study the visual clues from the likes of the Revernant, the new GoW that despite being very different have interesting visual inputs. James Gurney has several fantastic paintings with the brushwork and the rich colour for the subject i want.
Yeah, i understand, the painting studies are just a way to force myself to put painting back into my system as my previous works were just line and flat colour haha as a complement for the studies done for the portfolio piece.
Thats very important advice though, not to be carried away with tangents.
I´ve seed the Muddly Colours article and some pages from the Loomis book, the video links are favorites, for as soon as i have an extra time. Did not had too much time lately to dedicate the necessary focus to the piece.
As Fedodika pointed well, i was too focused on the comp that i had, did two explorations that i think may work, i´m inclinated to go with the horizontal comp though, has room to breathe, and i wil add snowfall and cold breezes and maybe something to add weight.
Haven´t yet touched on the mans pose but that´s the next step once the underlying comp is solid.
Any feedback, as always very important.
PS; Did some quite luce figure drawings to pump figure drawing back to the system too.
Also two pages of imagination character designs done in coffee pauses inbetween work haha.
Also a kick value study from SCVI
yea that breathing space is instantly more interesting; im still saying to try an entirely new setup with different poses and ideas. You dont have to even spend 10 minutes on each one, just explore in small thumbnails and see how good an idea for composition you can possibly come up with with just stick men and camera angles, its extremely challenging becuase that is 50% of image making is just figuring out the copmosition ;)
@Fedodika - Thanks for the feedback man! Regarding the composition i feel it´s time to settle with what i have (compositionwise) and concentrate on starting to finishing the piece. I thought it would be a quick project but i´ve started loving the piece concept haha.
I´ll try to apply your tips on the character pose and see if i can push more drama into his pose.
I´ve made a few studies to understand the colour i wanted to go with. Since i´m going for the grayscale to colour route, i eeded to make sure that when i start painting the caracters they integrate with the scenario.
Did a couple of note to help me focus on whaty i need to still work on.
Any feedback is welcome, as always. Right now is the time for all feedback, i promisse i will take each one in consideration :)
Hey Rick, I'm loving your studies - good work dude. I've heard many people say to study values first and then move onto colour so that sounds like a smart move to me.
Your folio piece sounds cool, just one thought from me, if you're having "Where are you my son" as the story behind this piece, I personally feel that a still, forlorn background and lighting set-up would resonate better with a sense of loss. Like in your little study on the bottom right, it is less stormy than your current setup and being able to see the horizon evokes a sense of the vastness of his search.
Hope that helps, if not please ignore.
Either way, keep going dude!
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
I went through this sketchbook and really enjoyed looking through all the studies you've done. (It made me a bit envious, actually!) I particularly like when you do the traditional lineart/figure work studies -- those are something I need to get into the habit of trying to do myself and the ones that you've done have a nice, solid quality to them. They're lovely. The portfolio piece you've been working on is evolving nicely, too.
I don't have anything constructive to add at the moment, just enthusiasm/encouragement to see you continue! I'll definitely be checking back to see how you continue to progress! Keep it up! :)
I really dig your studies, they are great. The value are subtles and well done, I recognized mad mikkelsen :D. Each pages becomes better. and big thumb up to the frazetta line study.
I like your lineart too . It has a pleasant feeling to them.
To be honest, I don't have much to say, I'm sure you ll keep improving and do some amazing study.
I really like your old man and dog, I think the animal is very well done. I find the human leg near his wooden staff a bit weird, I can't decide if it receding so hard that we can't see it, if it in the snow or if he is clubfooted. If the leg is receeding in space I think the beholder should still be able to see it a bit, but I may be wrong.
@Riley Thanks! Yes, a few years ago i was trying to avoid the digital until it got sunk into the head the idea that in the industry digital is a must. I would never forget the traditional though. ;)
@Balgate Thankz! Hehe he has an awesome face to paint and draw, specially in Casino Royale.
Yes, i´m trying to either use lost edges for the legs or re work on the legs. That´s a very interest input, thanks mate.
I´ve made a very short pause from my portfolio work just to have the pleasure to enter in inktober and go back to the gold rush of the traditional stuff.
Here the final inktobers of this year. The two inktobers of Samurai Jack were collabs, two illustrators, two drawings, two characters.
Time to go back to digital. Inktober if taken seriously is not easy but there´s some fruit to pick at the end of the road.
