Flo's sketchbook

[pnate]

I like your style! Especially the cartoony stuff, it's really visually pleasing to look at.

[Jaik]

THis is one nice sketchbook :) With your master studies, dont be afraid to check horizontal alignments by drawing a line. Most of the time you arent looking to get construction out of a master study, since doing loomis studies would be more beneficial in that regard, so having some help to make sure something like 'the eyes are too low' the forehead is too big, etc. Doesnt happen, because it'll put off the rest of the drawing and stop you learning what you want to learn. Keep up the good work though :)

[Flo]

hey guys,

I am back, with a light - study

for this study I first made a skull bust out of soft white plastic-clay (I don't really know what it is composed of, if you want to know, write me a pm and I try to look it up :)

Then I placed a candle next to it until I was satisfied with the composition.

I tried to work out the core shadow and have a warm / cold contrast going on. Since I painted both lightsources fairly equal in intensity they compete a bit.

What I learned:

- Occlusion shadows were important, to increase the reality of the picture
- I should focus my hard edges on the important parts
- the upper sketchbook really is not a black color, where the cool light from outside hits it. It is more of a really desaturated blue. Thanks to James Gurney for bringing that to my attention.
- the specularity on the lower sketchbook has a really hard edge, because it is super smooth
- the molten wax in the candle has an edge, below which it is a bit darker, while close the "wall" of the candle is a highlight
- the longer I take to work out shadows, the more likely they will be at another place, because the sun moves, so I have to be "fast"

I enjoyed it a lot, here is the picture.

@ rama: you are too good to me ;)

@ pnate: thanks man, I didn't know what would happen if I unplug and just use an black ink-pen but hey, when you like it, it was worth it. :)

@ Jaik: thanks for the c n c. Always happy when someone takes the time to help me improve :) my color studys tend to lack good construction. Actually most of my paintings lack good construction, I sometimes think I have to hit the right lines quickly and then think I can't do better than what is there after a while. What I want to say: I rush through the construction phase to get to the color part. A friend of mine told me that one should do a copy of the study from memory after finishing from ref. That way the information gets solidified more. I will try to do more carefull construction and add a memory-copy after my study. When it works I will let you know :)

Cheers

[Jarrad]

I second what pnate said! The pen and ink stuff is super fun ^^

Your still lifes are also good, but i feel like you'd learn even more if you set for yourself a really long time to do them in.. say 10-20 hours.. try setting a time that is far longer than you've spent thus far and see how much you can learn! just my thoughts!

[iCi]

Nice to see you picking up studies and breathing through the pain :) Keep em up man!

[Bjulvar]

Hey man!
Stepping up your game I see! Lots of interesting things going on here, curious to how that game is going to work. Great when you have a larger project that actually leads to something concrete, awesome man :D
Sweet job on the still life, especially like the notebook and the fact that you dared use a candle! Could try and set it up against a darker background for a stronger contrast!

And yeah, applying a study from memory directly after you've done it is said to be the best thing ever! I guess it forces you to actually go through the information you just stuffed into your brain, and keep the data worth keeping. If you're after colorstudies, your best bet is to focus on it! Maybe even skip having a good likeness and all that. It's not a must, but I think it's good practice.
Try finding pieces of art in which the color really speaks to you and study that!

Keep it up broheim :D

[Tygerson]

Love the colors of the study with the candle and facial plane model. And way to do some sculpting, too! I like how you document what you learned.

[ramalooke]

Still lifes are great. It's always very inspiring to see solid work. Can't come up with any valuable crits. Simply keep doing what you're doing and you'll be fine. Cheers!

[JonHop]

Flo I <3 your pen and ink work! Seriously lovely style and linework, a great variation of playing with shapes and form to. Watch your edges in places sometimes they seem a little lacking in hard edges (to me at least) I also see that your light and colour is improving, keep up the great work!

[Flo]

These were illustrations for two different videos. In the first the topic is "How to write a discussion". The english-style is based on light outlines and colors that neither exceed 60% saturation nor fall below 30% value. So I kept it all fairly light. The pictures started out as pencil - drawings, which I refined and scanned. The rest of the work was getting the lines clean and coloring. What is funny to me is that the color makes the weapons look friendlier, almost like toys. Don't you want a plush Remington 870 for your kid? ;)

The second video is about the life of Einstein, his son and some sort of weird statue. I guess it should represent an important waypoint in his life or something.

Also today is my birthday, wooohooo! My co-workers gave me an awesome toned-paper-sketchbook and black and white chalk-penscils. I can't wait to try it out. Niels Walter, one of my co - workers drew a picture of me in the HEV - suit. Pretty kick - ass in my opinion.

@ Jarrad: that sounds like a great idea. I think a lot of people would be amazed if they knew how far they can push a piece. (Miles Johnston's words) Maybe that applies also to me ;)

@ ICi: thanks for the encouragement man, will do! *concentrated face*

@ Bjulver: yep it is great to see the game evolving along. And it keeps throwing work at me, which is also great :D When it is in a presentable stage, I will post a link to it and everybody who is interested can play and crit the s**t out of it. :D I can't wait!
And thanks for the hint about focused studies, it makes a lot of sense.

@tygerson: thanks a lot

@rama: thanks so much man

@jon: thanks man, and thanks for the crit. I should do some edge-studies and read up on it more. Maybe a sharpen-filter and shrinking my pictures would also look good. there is a great read on autodestruct.com about that. http://www.autodestruct.com/hacks.htm#presentation

That's it for now, now I will enjoy the rest of my birthday with Italian food and good cocktails :D If you guys come to Berlin, definitely check out the Paparazzi in Prenzlauer Berg and the Immertreu. It isn't cheap but awesome. ;)

And just for fun: an letter by Gabe Newell about Half Life 3 http://www.dorkly.com/article/54448/a-me...abe-newell.

See you.

Flo

[ramalooke]

Hey, nice update ;D Interesting approach with the white lineart. I like the effect =3 Happy birthday and hope to hear from you soon ;)

[smrr]

Hey Flo!

Just saw the fully updated eagle-hybrid... looks fricking insane! I like it a lot! I must have missed it last time I popped by (which is strange as all hell)

And also, what a great still-life study!

Keep up the good work, keep pushinggg :D

[Jaik]

Nice stuff here. I agree with rama, that white line art is a nice effect. You have so many different styles, its nice to see :) Keep up the good work!

[Flo]

Hey there, I am back from the holidays.
I had an awesome time, saw my family and friends and took some time to draw in my sketchbook.

@Jaik: thanks man, nice to hear that

@smrrftt: thanks so much, you can't know how good it feels to read that, after putting so many hours into this char^^

@rama: thank youuuuu :* guess what I got the Elysium Artbook for my birthday and the Pacific Rim Artbook for christmas ^^ both are great, although I feel more drawn to the Pacific Rim AB. Just so much details and concepts by awesome dudes like Wayne Barlowe and Keith Thompson.

I learned a lot from doing studies of great illustrator's work like the 1st face and the guy seen from back. The reason why some of it is doubled is that a friend of mine Anne Pogoda http://darktownart.carbonmade.com/ (check out her stuff, it is great) gave me the tip to draw studies twice (or more). Once from reference and then once from memory. It is supposed to help solidifying the information in your BRAIN. It felt weird at first, because I had the feeling that no matter how good my drawing from memory would be, it will never be as good as the one from reference. So it sorta feels like you can't "win". But then when I really had to think about what to draw in order to bring at as close to the 1st one as I could, I had the feeling that I understood it better. Also I tend to pay more attention to the study, when I know I have to draw it again later.

All in all there are mostly studies and some sketches for illustrations I plan to do in the future. The last one is one of the four horsemen. The drawing is still WIP.

I hope you like what you see.

Cheers,
Flo

[iCi]

Wow, your pencils have improved a lot, level up! :D The last one has some very nice shapes going on, I would make the head smaller and put it in completely static or more dynamic pose.
But man, I really dig the improvement <3

[ramalooke]

Awesome pencils mate! Always when I see some cool graphite work it makes me wanna draw in my sketchbook. Need to start doing it instead of only thinking about it xD Anyway hope to see more work from you soon ;)

[Flo]

@ ICI: Thanks for the tips. What pose would you suggest? Atm I am not really sure which direction to go with him. Infact is it actually a totally failed piece, because I wanted to depict the horseman "Death" but he is not saying death to me. I mean it is a bit creepy and such, but the design is not where I wanted it to be. But I will finish it anyway, only for the sake of it.

@ Rama: thanks man, much appreciated. And her is the new stuff:

I attended a podium - discussion about the topic: Cybernetics and human ethics. It was really interesting. One of the guests (Sefan Greiner) had a magnet implanted in his ring-finger that vibrated when there was a strong electric radiation. In a way he had one sense more than a normal human being.

Below are all the guest and the hosts (and a long nosed listener).




Dungeon League Card Art

Finally I have something to show from the card-game-project I am currently working on, on the side. The name is "Dungeon League" and here is the link: http://dungeon-league.com/

It is a mix of a card - game (duh), football and a good portion of fantasy. You choose your team-members from a great range of different characters. Each character has unique abilities, for instance: Tarantorla, the spider - goal - keeper has 2 chances to hold a penalty shot. It is a really smart designed game, I am always excited to see the new designs by Lena and Julius Kuschke.

The line-art is done by Lena Kuschke.

My job is to add color and texures. I have a lot of creative freedom and it's a lot of fun to work on the cards.

Below are the first 7 finished characters, more to show soon.

Laoma





Mara Donna





Miro Taurus





The Black Knight





Sylvana Windshadow





Tarantorla





Van Brocken





Emblem of 2. FC Nurnenberg (the dwarf team)





And a Van Dyck study I did for the next character card

[Flo]

This is Dribbli Ironlegs, when he gets fouled the other player has to check if he is injured ^^

[Flo]

Worked some more on the Van Dyck study. I tried a lot of different brushes, but ended up using the good old Hard Round Size Transfer

[Flo]

I redid a study i did on 16.9.2011.

I mostly used a soft round brush, did the values first, then just slapped a color layer over it.

Hope you like it