Lurch's Sketchbook

[lurch]

Thought I'd start a sketchbook thread after lurking on and off - expect sporadic updates!

My main problem is that what little I can do, has been from the 'draw what you see' approach, so from life I'm a little more comfortable, but from imagination I'm totally stumped.

Plus I'm struggling with approaches, forms etc, so if I copy a photo, I'm not sure what I learned or how I could do it different to learn from it.

I've bounced myself back to basics, mostly perspective at the moment, as those nagging questions need answers.

Anyway, enough boring talk. Here's some stuff to give you an idea of where I'm at, crits most welcomed - there are LOTS of problems here!

[lurch]

Some studies from photo's.

[lurch]

and some stuff from life, with a total disregard for the rules of perspective around the eyes.

the skull study will be forever unfinished because my gf moved the skull, and the lighting! lol.

[lurch]

and finally some stuff from my head - the goblin has a pointy head because he was going to have a wierd hat originally, but after taking it that far I decided my efforts would be better used going back and studying faces some more!

The PS environment thing was following an idrawgirls video.

[CTrow]

Hi Lurch, welcome! good sketchbook so far. would love to see more

[Bookend]

Welcome to Crimson daggers! Great perspective pieces and general studies! Keep up the good work, can't wait to see how you progress!

[dodeqaa]

Good stuff Lurch! Keep truckin'!

[crackedskull]

Those enviros remind me of those cool old flash games.
Also the apple study looks pretty cool.

[lurch]

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement.

Managed to get a few bits done, mostly I've been obessing about perspective still, got very stuck on one particular corner in a sketch that I spent hours trying to understand, still didn't figure it to the point I'm happy, but hopefully it'll come with practice.

Lots of mess with VP's too close etc.








the dreaded corner, I'm still figuring out how this would work on an inside corner, pretty sure I'm placing the shapes incorrectly...




the same sketch minus the corners, but with an annoying lack of depth. more studies required.

[lurch]

gestures, a mix of 30 and 60 seconds,  mostly do these to warm up.

again really struggling to get that nice fluid flow, and making some hilarious errors with tiny heads,short bodies, impossibly long legs etc.

[lurch]

skulls from imagination, um, more studies needed!




 a couple of crappy characters






and random perspective and other bits










really struggling with the perspective when it comes to convincing layouts, and anything where objects might go to multiple vp's like mecha parts etc. gah.

thanks for looking.

[lurch]

Thanks Sketchosoph, wanna get some environments done soon, bounced back to basics at the moment tho.

Working through some lessons on drawabox as recommended by Punk-A-Cat.

Kinda boring to look at, so I crammed them all into one image.




Got caught up trying to draw stuff from my imagination, which is something I always do and wonder why I'm not improving but it was fun in a frustrating kinda way.




Tried to draw this after a break from gestures for a day or so, everything comes out cartoony...wtf?! this is not how i want to draw dammit!

[lurch]

For some reason I decided to redesign the fat drinker character, not happy with it at all but took it as far as laying down some colours...there are issues, arm is bothering me, face is bother me, and it's lost some energy along the way.

Plus, i'm not happy with the style of it, but I guess that'll come.

Anyway, here's the mess I made during this process!




Messed about with possible body shapes;






And then with the face and positioning and stuff;










The belly is bothering me, well the whole thing is bothering me! lol.

Not sure if I should continue to develop it and see it through, or move on. It's distracting me from studying more, but I think part of my problem is I never finish anything, it's all sketches.

[lurch]

bloody hell that last post has some bright colours...not quite what it looked like on the pc I saved it from! oh well.

did some more drawabox lessons (dissections), and some reworking of the fat man.








might try and paint him properly, but prob done with it for now, I think there are fundamental problems with my lines that might be resolved with a lot of studies.

[Bookend]

You have a really nice line quality-- And fun cartoons man. Great to see you doing lots of different exercises! Keep at it!

[lurch]

thanks bookend - I've taken on your idea of drawing ref from memory today - didn't approach it quite right though, just looked at the ref for ages trying to get a feel for it, then tried to draw the whole thing from memory. ah.

I'll be trying again though, here's what I ended up with.




Did some gestures too.








and a tonne of drawbox exercised...these were stupid hard for me, and full of errors but it was definitely worthwhile.












some perspective studies from ref, first one I tried for accuracy (and failed!) second one I took more liberties. how people do decent environments is a mystery to me.

[Punk-A-Cat]

Those studies look so good! I found the draw a box ones stupidly hard too, looks easy until you try it.. :D

[lurch]

thanks Punk-A-Cat, my brain is still hurting from those!

debating entering chow 15, had this vague idea of water and hair wrapping the character like a whirlpool kind of effect but I dunno. Plus it means you can't really see much of the character, anyway, I did some sketches, and I might do some studies and see how I feel about it.

[Punk-A-Cat]

I really like the idea, have a go! that bottom one where you can see her waist up with both circling is awesome.

[lurch]

Thanks Punk-A-Cat, I might try and develop it a bit further then. Got a bit put off after trying water studies! lol.




Some random bits, the two devil characters are old sketches I tried to colour, first one I tried to lose the lineart and just lost the edges. Couldn't see the shapes or figure out the light at all, probably a bit beyond me at the moment but I thought I'd stick em up in case someone has advice to offer!







more gestures, playing around with ways to approach them.










barn study, loose ref, more about perspective and photoshop for me really - didn't want to get caught up in just copying a photo!