Been a little since I've posted something, so I'm just going to dump a bunch of stuff. I'll say that I finally feel like I'm painting light, rather than just struggling through it and trying to get things to resemble what they're supposed to be.
I do lighting studies mainly through pictures and film stills. I also spend a lot of time now just looking at things in real life and seeing how light affects it.
The past two weeks have been incredibly crazy for me. I got shingles somehow, even though I'm only 22....and you usually don't get it until way later in life..even my doctor was pretty shocked..
Anyways, my face started to swell up like a balloon. I looked like I was in a boxing match and got completely wrecked. I also developed a tiny swamp-like rash on the side of my forehead. What was worse was that I actually a job interview a few days just after that. I couldn't miss the opportunity and so I went in looking like an orc from LOTR. They haven't called me back and so obviously that went well.
Then after I recovered from the shingles, I immediately caught a cold that developed into acute bronchitis. That's been lingering for over a week now and today is probably the first day I really feel like I'm almost through the tunnel.
Moral of the story is that I haven't been able to focus on art all that much.
Here's a gift I did for two friends of mine who just got married a few days ago, and then a still life study just done today. Took me about 6 hours but I started to get distracted, probably would have been faster if I wasn't. But yeah, trying to get back into the groove of things.
I remember getting shingles around that age too. I had mine in the chest area, which alarmed my parents since anything crappy that's going on near the heart is never a good sign. That crap is so itchy, it hurts when you scratch it! Did the doctor prescribe you a cream or ointment for relief?
I recall my friend asking why I dropped off the map for a couple of days. I said to him that I got the shingles. He retorted if I wasn't too much of an ass towards women, maybe I wouldn't stay shingle.
*Badum tss*
Hey man, take it easy! Hopefully onto a speedy road to recovery!
If you are reading this, I most likely just gave you a crappy crit! What I'm basically trying to say is, don't give up! ---- IG: @thatpuddinhead
Thanks for the concern guys :) haha John it sounds like you have a good friend. Yeah I was able to get a prescription. I was actually pretty lucky because mine was on the side of my forehead and it was spreading towards my eye. My doctor was extremely worried because he said if the infection got into my eye, he was certain I would go blind in that eye.
Anyways, more studies. I decided to do more value studies because I was making things too complicated in color. I also really need to work on drawing/painting clothed figures. Folds are really annoying honestly and rendering folds annoy me even more. At the same time, I'm learning a lot about soft/hard edges from it.
I'm seeing a lot of improvement in your edges Daniel, the hard work is paying off for you.
One word of critique on your line drawings: try to wrap your hatch marks along the plane and around the form. In other words, try to go "with the grain" instead of against it. You're doing it well in some areas, but in other areas the direction of the hatching is arbitrary and flattens the form.
You're completely right Nick, I definitely need to wrap around my forms when it comes to hatching. I'll admit sometimes it's intentional because I was just being lazy, but it does flatten the image out a lot.
More value studies. I've been really learning to appreciate how careful you have to be when it comes to values.
Thank you Rick. The value studies in the previous post took about 3-4 hours each Markus :)
I'm too lazy to attach all the stuff I've been doing and so here's just one. This one took me a couple of days and I'm at the point I don't want to work on it anymore even if it still needs work. I'm not exactly happy with the values in it either.
Trying to take my time and work longer on pieces. Both of these took around 10 hours each and as you guys can see one of them is not even finished.
Definitely trying to work on the patience and big picture thinking but of course I'm not fully there yet. You guys ever work on a piece, sketch it out, block in shapes and values, and a couple of hours later say to yourself, "wow this looks like shit...?" And then of course you realize you have to just push through because you're not some badass artist who can make the correct brushstroke in a single stroke.
Oh man for me it's always the same. I work 15hours into a painting and i realize my colours, values and brushstrokes are all fucked up. Then I have to make definitive brushstrokes with clear purpose and colours all over the piece. Maybe some day it's possible to do correct brushwork on the first time :D Dope sketchbook btw!
The purple elf girl looks fantastic! The shoulder pad and hair look unfinished but I think you nailed the face. The features, the cast shadows, the cut of the cheek bone, it's really well done.
Don't be so hard on yourself, you're making consistent progress and that's what matters
I can't believe I spent like 4-5 days working on this (i don't even want to finish it lol), but honestly it was a good lesson in setting up an image and laying down solid foundations properly before trying to rush into other things. I'm really beginning to understand and appreciate how important it is to have correct values from the get go because you'll never truly deviate from those initial block-ins for the rest of the painting.
Started working on the second piece and I'm much more happy with the general direction it's going. Learned a big lesson about keeping lights and darks separated by keeping each within their own limited value range. I could never quite figure out why I felt like my paintings had some sort of flat cartoony look to them and I think that was a big part of it.
