Broadway's Sketchbook

[Broadway]

@Sketchosoph: Thank you! I should be getting more time to work on the underwater stuff this weekend.

@Bookend: Thanks! Yeah, I rarely finish stuff. I'm gonna try to do it with the underwater piece, we'll see :). Often, for instance with that last foresty one, I reach a point where I feel like my lack of knowledge about something, like anatomy/etc, is going to keep me from being able to finish properly, so I feel like I should go back to doing studies.

Today's study topic is clavicle and scapula:

[Broadway]

More shoulders. Need to pay more attention to NOT SCRIBBLING MY LINES ARRRRGGGHHH :)

[Broadway]

Trying a new tactic today... spine/ribcage/pelvis/scapula from memory! And... there's a lot I don't know still. I don't understand how the scapula moves when the arms move. And I still don't have a firm grasp of the proportions between the skull, spine, ribcage, and pelvis. So I will probably review those things next before moving onto a new body part.

And... again with the scribbling... but it's kind of a symptom of not knowing where things go and "guessing" until they look right, I think. 

[wasgodx]

Can't really critique or give any tips but lemme say that your work is awesome and really inspiring in terms of improvement and hard work. I'll bookmark your sketchbook :)

[Broadway]

@wasgodx Thanks man! Hoping for continuous improvement... we'll see! Up until now I have been just making sure to do SOMETHING everyday, even if it's just 20-30 min of drawing, but I should be able to ramp that up significantly in the coming weeks, I hope.

Today just a random char sketch. Lots to work on based on this... gotta do some metal studies, particularly scratched/not-super-chrome metal. Also need to study people wearing armor, belts/straps, fabric... so I guess that's basically everything in the drawing, that I don't know how to do properly haha. But there's still enough anatomy issues here that anatomy will remain my main focus for a while probably.

Again, I tried to rough in the spine/ribcage/pelvis to start... and I feel like I ended up with worse proportions that if I would have "freehanded" a pose. Current focus: learn how to NOT do that lol

[Broadway]

Kind of random stuff today... trying to figure out the spine/pelvis/ribcage/etc proportions. Halfway through this I discovered this badass chart 

http://www.proko.com/wp-content/uploads/...rt-800.jpg

Which is way easier than trying to guess everything and remember my guesses! So I'll probably do more of these tomorrow based on that chart.

[Broadway]

Found some other videos on the same channel about drawing the figure in perspective using landmarks. These videos lead into that cranial measuring system thing from yesterday... so down the rabbit hole we go...
(also taking notes on any shoulder/scapula movement I happen to see in videos)

[Broadway]

Plugging along with drawing boxes for ribcage/pelvis proportions... Tried a few from reference poses. I seem to always end up with overly long torsos. I'll keep practicing these tomorrow...

[Broadway]

More practice with the boxes... I promise I'll do something more exciting eventually...

[Rhasdra]

Awesome studies you got there!

Try to think not only the torso on geometrical shapes, break down the other parts too! I find really helpful to think of that "wooden mannequin"

And keep it up! You got a lot of nice things going on! I hope you get the necessary confidence to build a finished image soon!

Good luck and have fun!

[Bookend]

Yep, this is the way to study. Keep at it! Don't forget to apply it. And don't forget to have fun with it, either.

And hey, if it's not boring you, it's not boring me! lol

[Broadway]

@Rhasdra: Thank you! I will definitely start figuring out how to make geometric shapes for the limbs and such soon... right now I'm just using "squishy cylinders" because I don't really know exactly what's there yet lol.

@Bookend: Thanks!! Your comment spurred me to try some more from memory today... but there's still a lot left to learn before I can do this properly without reference :)


Some sketches from memory (made up poses)... I feel like this is a little better, or at least the poses are more complex, than I could have done a month ago (although a couple of them still ended up derpy). But there are still tons of things to learn. I don't have the ribcage/pelvis really down yet, and of course I haven't really studied the limbs hardly at all yet, and also haven't really learned any muscles yet. And hands... forget about it :)

[Bookend]

Awesome, glad I could inspire man, haha. Hey, and great imagination figures! It looks like you've got an overall sense of proportion and general weight. Keep at it. Have fun with it.

[Broadway]

Thanks Bookend!

Learning techniques for reducing figure to geometric shapes today... also quick head from ref (no, it didn't turn out with a good likeness, haha). I should probably do more heads from ref soon and focus on getting the structure correct, this one has some floaty features.

[Broadway]

Some practice drawing from ref using Mr. Box Dude from yesterday...

[Broadway]

Starting on rules for balanced vs. dynamic poses...

[Bookend]

Nice geometric shapes and figures! My only suggestion is to maybe practice doing long lines. Practice circles, lines, elipses, and curves. It may help with your line confidence.

Other than that, keep at it! You're well on your way.

[Broadway]

@Bookend: Thanks! That's a good suggestion. I've never spent much time practicing that stuff. I'll try to do a page of it tomorrow. 

Today I got busy with work and so I did a few thumbs and a quick char sketch instead of studies... although then of course I ended up noodling it too long haha. Maybe I should paint this one? I'd need to get ref for the armor/cloth parts and fix them... Dunno, we'll see.

[Bookend]

Ah yes, I like this latest leading lady. (Also amazing alliteration!)

I think maybe you should try to draw her again, making the line art cleaner first before you paint. I may be wrong, but all the pencil mark details can be added with paint instead, so it may be more beneficial to have clean space to work with when you bring in the paint, only putting down the most essential lines.

You could, of course, clean it up in photoshop (or your photoshop equivalent like Krita or Gimp. I recommend Krita!), but when you redo a work, it can sometimes have the effect of being better, because you already have it in your head.

Just some thoughts.

Looks great though! You're coming a long way.

[Broadway]

@Bookend: Thanks man! Normally I just paint over all the lines so they go away in the end, but I've never really tried painting from really clean linework. Probably the painting part would be much easier that way. Of course, getting the clean linework... for me... may be difficult :) It could be worth a try though, at least to practice making clean lines and fix some of the clothing/armor designs from ref before painting. I've heard good things about Krita, but I'm pretty much a PS guy FOR LYFE DAWG at this point - muscle memory is too ingrained by now :P

Today I was not in a mood to engage my brain so I'm doing stuff that I can manage kind of on autopilot :) A whole page of practice ellipses... maybe 3 good ones in the whole page lol. And some quick studies of my hand (But... why male models?!). Definitely don't understand the planes of the hand. I should be better at this once my anatomy studies cover that.