Ambi's Sketchbook

[Ambiguity]

So I made an account here 3 years ago and never posted anything, and I'm not really sure why lol. 

Anyways, here's some highlights of mostly recent stuff from some of my other sketchbooks around the net to get me started here:

















Some stuff from yesterday; getting back to drawing in Photoshop again after close to a year:


And some stuff from today, trying out starting from tone instead of line:

[crackedskull]

Well good thing you started posting now, cuz Im digging those sketches.

[Piotr Jasielski]

Great studies. Keep the updates coming.

[John]

I love your portraits! And your line art! It's probably better and shorter if I say I'm looking forward to seeing more!

[Ambiguity]

Hey guys, thanks for the warm welcome ^_^

Today was kind of a crappy day for art, actually every day kinda sucks because I never have any ideas(I think you can tell in the second image). I thought i'd try to work on my figures with some stuff from reference, but I still feel like I'm not getting anything out of this and my proportions are just as bad as they are with timed gestures:


I wasn't feeling it so I thought I'd do some stuff from my head, but my mind was drawing blanks as per usual, so I quit early:

[Artloader]

Really nice start here Ambiguity! I love your paintings and your latest figures look pretty good to me. If you're struggling with proportions - may I suggest you have a look at Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing For All It's Worth - I daresay you're probably aware of it already?

Anyway well done for getting some stuff done even when you were not feeling it - keep going!

[Ambiguity]

@Artloader: Well it's not that I don't know the proportions, it's that I can't control them on the fly so I have to constantly fix them. Still, it couldn't hurt to revisit them I suppose; thanks for the reply.

Another sketch starting from tone I did last night:

I think I might just have to switch to this method completely, it gets me better results in way less time than line drawing. I'm always worried about how I would be able to reproduce this in traditional mediums, but I guess I shouldn't.

[Ambiguity]

Welp, after 4 years of only studying I finally completed another illustration:

After 24 full hours of work on it(over the span of 4 days), I can't really say I'm all that proud of it, but it is what it is.

Here's the process if anyone is interested:
http://i.imgur.com/B0aXFl0.jpg
It started out as how all of my sketches have been lately, then I loosely followed a process video when I decided I was going to paint it.

[smrr]

Hey there n_n 
Made an account and forgot about it? lmao welcome!

But hell yeah! Great studies! Digging how you go about things!
I can relate hardcore on the studying for years and not having finished a personal piece thing. It's the hardest thing to do when you know that there's still a lot to learn - tho perhaps I'm just a perfectionist
In the end it's these finished illustrations that level us up the most

Keep smashing it, Ambiguity (sick username btw  )!

[RickRichards]

Love the lines, and love that crispy look of the 7th image. Your work reminds me a lot of the work i´ve seen a while back on Concept Art forums by Brokencow or Brokenshow (hope i´m not butchering his name).

[Ambiguity]

@smrr: Thanks for the warm welcome and the compliments :D. And yeah I might be a bit of a perfectionist myself, the sad thing is we'll never be satisfied with anything lol. Maybe that's not such a terrible thing though, keeps us working o.-

@Rick: I was actually pretty dissatisfied with how sharp that portrait came out, but at least the juxtaposition of the smooth smudging looks nice against all those crisp edges, thanks for the compliment though ^^.  I don't think I've seen brokencow's work before, this is him right?: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthr...(Sept-8th)
He really goes hard when he has a reference doesn't he :D?


Some painting studies from today:

Trying to figure out how to get that "painted" look, as well as turn forms with low contrast. I think I learned more about the former than the latter though.

[Ambiguity]

I haven't been able to draw much lately because my eyes are screwing up on me again :\, but I managed to whip this up: 

It's probably not as detailed as the last one I did(because I can't see well enough :P), but at least I can tell the thumbnail looks pretty good lol.

[Artloader]

Awesome - really nice job with the colours and values on the hair there Ambiguity - especially if you can't see properly at the moment! Hope your eyes get better soon!

[Ambiguity]

Thanks Artloader, and yeah I think they're getting a bit better, but still not great :P.


Portrait I did as a gift for a friend a few days ago:

[Ambiguity]

My eyes have still been bothering me, going to see a new eye doctor on Saturday to hopefully figure this crap out. As a result, all I have for you is an update to one of my recent portraits:

[Ambiguity]

I'm always trying this shot out, but always having to delete it because I can't get it right. This time was no exception, but I'll upload since my SB has been having a dry spell.


This started out as a joke because I "can't animu", but it accidentally turned out sorta decent lol:


Imaginitive figure/posing practice:



I'm always trying to come up with really dynamic posing and perspective for these and failing hard at it, but I actually went and looked at work from other artists I admire after doing these, and to my surprise, most of them don't really do anything that extreme when it comes to posing.


Also, here's a little gif about talent I made from an animu episode:

[Mechanizoid]

Hey Ambiguity, you are off to a nice start! I like your stuff. That's a very pretty portrait you made for your friend. And don't be frustrated by failing to make your illustration as perfect as you'd like. That's how you grow–by trying, falling short, and building yourself up to get that much closer to your goal the next time!

Oh, and I hope your eyes are better now! That stuff sucks. ;u; Looking forward to your next post.

[Ambiguity]

@Mechanizoid: You're absolutely right, not to mention the poor planning on my part didn't help XD.

Typical Ambi is typical:



(inside jokes)

Some examples for portrait commissions I might be doing in the future:

[Se7enLives]

Hey you're doing pretty well! I love the hand gestures most of anything and all these studies - the dynamic poses, the foreshortening, that's tough business but you're doing great with figuring things out!

It seems you like drawing portraits and people in general /I can relate/ so my advice would be to keep mixing it up with perspective, objects, environments, storytelling. I think that's a clever way to practice a bit of everything so that certain things don't get left behind.

Flipping the image always helps too. Good luck to you and have fun!

[Ambiguity]

Thanks Se7en, and yeah I agree that I need to mix it up, I'd like to get into illustration, but coming up with ideas is tough :P

Painted versions of the earlier sketches(which were also updated, but I won't bother posting):