Rip's Sketchbook [NSFW]

[Riprap]

Hey there, long time lurker here and thought I would give this a try.
     So I have a few months of free time and I want to try and improve as much as I can and maybe do this as a job some day. I've been posting on conceptart.org but I'm going to post here instead I think so pardon the art dump haha.

Master studies:














Life studies:








Other random studies:







OK, thanks for looking. I'll try to post daily and crits are always welcome and much needed haha.

[Riprap]

Hey again, quick update.

I forgot to add a couple things, a master study and some quick paintings of some mma dudes:





So I've been trying to get some basic anatomy figured out since it's the thing I suck the most at. Someone recommended Alex Negrea's gumroad video on visual library building and it seems to help a lot! I did one of the exercises he showed here.




Anyways, thanks for lookin' hopefully a bigger update tomorrow with more of these studies!

[Hobitt]

Welcome! and nice master studies, try to reserve your soft edges, they look good next to hard edges contrast and all that stuff, looking forward to seeing more

[Riprap]

Update time, still going with the Alex Negrea video studies. These look like crap but I'm actually learning a lot so I'm going to keep with this for a while I think.




Thanks for lookin'

[Riprap]

Hey Hobitt, thanks for the advice and warm welcome! Here's an update!







Not much of an update this time, more tomorrow for sure! Only just started the master study but it'll be done tomorrow.
Learning a lot though!

[Riprap]

Update time, still going with the same stuff! : )






Thanks for lookin'

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey there! Good that you started up a Sketchbook here : ) your still lives and other paintings look great and I love the traditional stuff too! You say you want to learn anatomy? Does that mean you're new to figure drawing? Some daily gesture drawing will really help. Also Michael Hampton is great for really getting to understand the anatomy in a manageable way, if you haven't come across him already. Keep going ^^

[Riprap]

JyonnyNovice: Hey thanks for the comment, you're not the first to recommend michael hamptons book but sadly up here in canada it's something like 80 bucks : (. I usually do some quick gestures to warm up for the day and apply what I've learned in a rough sorta way but don't usually keep them.
I mostly want to learn anatomy because it's what I struggle with the most, but hopefully that will soon change! : )

[Riprap]

Hey, update time. I think I need to find different ways to study anatomy, doing the same study or two over and over is making it hard for me to get into it, so I don't really absorb as much I find. Maybe I'll start doing some poses in oil or something, I dunno. Anyways, I did a still life to help break things up a bit.







Thanks for lookin'!

[Riprap]

Hey, so I'm trying to test my memory some and working less from reference. I did these helms from imagination and although they look pretty crap I was pretty happy with them.
      I also never try to do any finished illustrations, I always study and study and never paint anything so here's a proper attempt, or at least the start of one. I didn't use any ref for anything so there's probably a lot wrong, especially with the statue part. So far it's just the sketch with some basic colors blocked in.






Thanks for lookin' : )

[Riprap]

Update time. So in continuing with my my statue image I want to do studies to help with each part of the image, today I studied some mountains and worked on that and touched up some values.







So I tried fudging some little details with some scribbles but looking at it now it just looks bad and lazy so no more of that.

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey man, it's good to work on a project like this and really push yourself! Maybe add some randomness to the mountains, they feel very similar right now (in terms of height and width) .also might want to add some foreground rocks or something to show that the viewer is stood on something solid - it can feel a bit uncomfortable if it seems like we are floating in the air. I look forward to seeing how this one turns out : )

[Riprap]

JyonnyNovice: Hey thanks for the advice!. I forgot to update last night but I added a few more mountains here but I'll still go back and change up the back ones a bit. I see what you mean by floating too haha, I'll add some foreground stuff today and see if that helps.

So a few more today. I was trying to figure out how to blend mountains into the rest of the picture. With the back mountains I kind of just put a fog or something down which was lazy. Hopefully this looks a little better.







Thanks for lookin'!

[Riprap]

Quick update today. Did some rock/cliff studies to help with the foreground rocks.







I hope the colors are OK on this, both my monitors are pretty different in color I guess and I have no idea which one is more correct. I should try and find a way to fix that I guess.

[Riprap]

Going to try some daily thumbnails for a bit. I've just never really done them and that's not a good thing haha.

[BlackDelphin]

Well hello there big time lurker! I'm one as well! Lol! Or at least i was, i recently started a sketchbook myself. I see you doing a lot of studies, anatomy, perspective, armors etc, all very useful. Just don't forget to do from memory as well, without reference. Those really show how much you really learned and how you just mindlessly copied. It helps me learn faster.

Also your figures could use some more construction. Take one of the masters books and study from that. I myself am a fan of Michael Hampton and Gottfried Bammes.

And if you're stuck with blending those foreground mountains, use more reference, even try doing some study paintings separately, perhaps those work.

Cheers!

[Riprap]

BlackDelphin: Hey man, thanks for taking the time to comment! I'm trying more thumbnails to help working from memory. I don't really have much of a visual library which makes painting something completely from my imagination kinda tricky, so I tend to study something that I need for a painting and then use what I learned from that and apply it.
     I've used Loomis books a little in the past which helped and I've been meaning to grab the Michael Hampton book but it's like $80 here in Canada. I'll have to look into Gottfried Bammes later. Thanks again : )


So I've been lazy with my posting, sorry about that. I've been doing thumbnails daily, doing studies, and working on my statue image. I feel a little stuck on the statue though and might shelve it. I got too excited and wanted to start painting right away and didn't plan out the image well enough in the sketching phase. Because of that I had to keep fixing things and changing colors etc as I went and the whole process became pretty frustrating.
I'm trying a new image based on one of my thumbnails so hopefully that works out better. Just planning/sketching now. Crits are always welcome and needed haha.

[Hobitt]

Cool personal piece! One thing i would advise is study in grayscale and try lighting some basic geometric forms and try to learn how they are affected by light i think it will be helpful. Keep up the good work!

[Riprap]

Hobitt: Thanks for checkin' in on me haha. I'll have to try the shape thing, I've seen people do that with spheres etc but honestly never tried it myself. I used to do master studies in just value at some point so I'll pick that up again. Good advice, thanks again : )

Hey, so this is the only thing I've done in two days haha. I've changed a bunch of stuff and had to repaint a lot, especially the foreground which looks better then the sketch part I think. I'm in the middle of the snakes and still have a bunch left to do. Not sure if the colors are working so well but not sure what else to do with that.

Anyways, crits are always welcome. Thanks for lookin'

[Riprap]

Quick update. Just worked on this a bunch today and  I'm not sure where else to go with it from here. Might shelve it for now.