SoulsCore's Sketchbook

[SoulsCore]

Welcome!
 
I’m aiming to become a professional illustrator so I’ll be posting my stuff here for you all to give your advice on. I've had no formal training so it's mostly drawings from the books/videos I’m learning from or artists I admire. I hardly draw personal work since I’m always bothered by how I can't draw at the level I want to. Hopefully, I’ll be posting here daily since I have the time to.
 
While digital painting is my weakest aspect (since I’ve almost never done digital studies) I’ll be mostly posting traditional work since I want my line work to be greatly improved first and just have more confidence in getting my ideas down.
 
For this first post I’ll put a few pages of my sketchbooks and some digital work I’ve done in the past few months. My previous physical sketchbook (from January to July) and my current one are full of pages like those below.
 
I’d appreciate any comments about anything especially regarding study methods/habits you think I should be doing.

Jan 26, 2015


Feb 8, 2015

Feb 26, 2015

Mar 1, 2015

Mar 15-17, 2015

Mar 25-27,2015 - Poses done from imagination

Apr 29, 2015

May 3, 2015

May 6, 2015


Jun 13, 2015

Jun 17-19, 2015

Jul 13-15, 2015


Jul 16, 2015

Aug 14-15, 2015 - Poses from imagination

Aug 17, 2015


An earlier date until Aug 22, 2015 - 


Aug 28, 2015

Sep 1, 2015 - Portraits done from a friend's photograph

Sep 5, 2015

[insbox]

Welcome Soulscore, love how you do the studies. the only thing i can say just keep it up :D

[SoulsCore]

Welcome Soulscore, love how you do the studies. the only thing i can say just keep it up :D

Thanks! I certainly will!

[Bookend]

Welcome to Crimson Daggers!

You've got some fantastic studies going! My suggestion is to take more time with them to make sure you're putting down your lines and values accurately!

Don't stop now!

[lurch]

wow! what a tonne of studies! keep it up, it'll definitely pay off.

[Cricketts]

Digging all the studies. Nice work.

[SoulsCore]

Bookend - Thanks for the advice!

lurch - I hope so!

Cricketts - Thank you!

[SoulsCore]

Started over in Hampton's book. I'm reading and copying all the images though maybe it's a waste to copy the gesture drawings? I still enjoy it regardless. I find I have a much better grasp on proportions than when I tackled this book months ago. I'm being careful to do avoid small scratchy lines and do things in more focused strokes but it's not easy.

[Brian Hermelijn]

Yeah have to agree with Bookend, really slowing down, letting your eyes draw what you see, can help a lot. Keep at it ! :)

[Olooriel]

It may not be easy to avoid the chicken-scratch, but it definitely pays off - the recent sketches have much better lines already!

[Axrel]

Wow! You've done a lot of studies! Keep up the good work :) I can see progress!

[darktiste]

How to Scan/Photograph your art (optimization)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJrgnxKe...J&index=31

[Rhasdra]

Awesome studies you got there!

I love that you're commited to a "cartoony" style, but you still are doing all the anatomy studies. People very often neglect that, you're on the rightest track!

Keep pushing for the stars! Good luck and have fun :DD

[SoulsCore]

Thanks for all the comments! I'll keep pushing onward!

Here's my recent stuff.

[Bookend]

Copying gestures is great-- Repetition, muscle memory, all of these wonderful things are being built up. I'd suggest also trying to draw these things without looking at a reference image, so that you can really get a feel for it with a blank page, on your own. It's very intimidating, but it helps a whole lot!

Keep it up! Love the full pages filled with sketches! Great work!

[SoulsCore]

@Bookend - Thanks for the advice! I've been trying that a few times. I should definitely do it more though.

-------------------------------------------------------

It's been a while since I posted but I have been drawing everyday. I'm still working on gesture and slowly working through/repeating the related sections in Hampton's and Vilppu's books.

Here are a few pages I've done:


Here are some drawings I did for fun of another person's characters:

[SoulsCore]

I've been gone for a year but I figured it would be nice to post here regularly again. ^^

Here's a handful of stuff I've done. I'll split it into 2 posts:

[SoulsCore]

I feel I need an art buddy, or be active in an art community or something but at the same I want to go at my own pace so that I can improve steadily. I've also been really unhappy with my progress and specifically with how hard it is for me to remember and apply the things I've studied so I decided to really truly slow down and focus on head construction.

I had bought PencilKings' Figure Drawing Challenge (for only $7 with the discount link on their Youtube channel) and in it Sycra mentions drawing something at least 20 times in a row to memorize it so I'm applying that to the head. It's strange, I watched a video a few years back where Sycra talked about how to practice drawing but I figured I was already doing that and didn't follow it properly. He has a newer Iterative Drawing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs that explains it a bit better (he focuses more on imaginative drawing though).

I'm finding it to be incredibly helpful drawing the construction of the head and features 20 times over (plus extra times in between to make sure I'm not forgetting it). I thought I was being patient before with my studies but it seems I was fooling myself and trying to cover too many things before I really understood it.

Here are a few of the pages I've done. I'll be sure to apply it to actual faces once I get through the rest of the features.

[SoulsCore]

Just some heads with the full features:

[SoulsCore]

I've  still been doing a bunch line drawing copies (no shading) of both realism and stylized works. I'm using Steve Huston's method for drawing the head and combined with the knowledge from Proko it's making things a lot faster. I subscribed to NewMastersAcademy since it's on sale and will be working through more of Steve's videos. I also colored a few drawings for fun so I don't go crazy.

Small bit of what I did: