sketchbook

[helloworld]

Hi everyone. Have been a long-time lurker and decided to start up a sketch for fun and to help keep me motivated with studies. My art progress has been very slow over the years but I've come to accept and appreciate the process, even if I happen to learn at a much slower pace.   



This is my handy dandy little man doll I use to take lighting references. I was very motivated to get one after seeing a post from Dan Dos Santos about using these figures for unique lighting situations. It also really works in a pinch when you can't work with a real person.

[BrushNoir]

Omg is that an action man? Good times good times back in my childhood. Great drawings too! Should not worry about slow progress, it's different for everyone.

[Artloader]

Welcome Aere :)
I really like your colours and values, especially the two night time pieces.
Also, great idea using the action man to collect reference images! I've seen other artists do this with toy cars and stuff - cool!

Looking forward to more - keep posting :).

[helloworld]

Omg is that an action man? Good times good times back in my childhood. Great drawings too! Should not worry about slow progress, it's different for everyone.

Hey thanks! I've learned to take it in stride now, although I do still have those moments of frustration like most everyone else.

It's a Truetype/Hot Toy action figure :D I remember reading a muddy colors post some years back by Dan Dos Santos about how he would use these figures to help him with lighting and angles.

[BrushNoir]

Oh that's a great idea indeed. I do have the spiderman figure which is great for anatomy ref ^^ Got to find my action mans now heheh

[helloworld]

Welcome Aere :)
I really like your colours and values, especially the two night time pieces.
Also, great idea using the action man to collect reference images!  I've seen other artists do this with toy cars and stuff - cool!

Looking forward to more - keep posting :).

Thanks, Artloader. Value is something I struggle with a lot still, I tend to make everything overly dark. Sometimes I add a black and white filter over the entire drawing to sort of cheat and see what I can fix; I find it's a great little trick to more easily spot errors in value.

Haha~ I never thought of myself as a collector but I've been so pleased with the Truetype doll, I may have to start a little collection of sorts.

[RickRichards]

Cool stuff here! Has the vibe of Akira Toriyama´s art for Dragon Quest VIII, specially the first two.

[helloworld]

Thank you, Rick : )


Here is a super rough sketch for a semi personal piece I'm working on. I'm kind of excited but nervous about this one.

I've been staring at these two sketches and I can't decide which one to choose. Any opinions?




Hopefully the images show up! I'm not sure what I did wrong with the image  code. Edit: fixed

[Soluxos]

Hi there! Your portraits are lovely, they feel really soft and feminine (in a good way). I feel your pain, I feel like I'm also improving really slow. A thing that might help is learning something out of your comfort zone, because now you're so used to doing the same thing, it's good to do something else for a while and come back with fresh, improved eyes (:

As for the sketches, I prefer the bottom one because with just a simple head tilt it gives more dynamic to your piece. You can also give her shoulders & arms a slight tilt, creating more diagonals = more interesting to look at [:

[helloworld]

Hi, Soluxos! I agree that attempting something new and out of my norm is a great way to push myself along. I think architecture and buildings are something I'd like to tackle--it's totally foreign to me.

I ended up going with the bottom sketch, so yay! :D  Hmm. I wanted her arms to look relaxed but ready to attack if needed. I'll be making a ton of adjustments as I progress. I do wish to change up one of her arms, though, it bothers me some that they're both similar in the way they're bent.

Laid the local colors and started working on the first layer of shadow, trying to be mindful about the direction of light this time since I have a habit of plopping light sources in all sorts of weird, nonsensical places. It took me forever to decide on a color scheme and direction for the background but I'm glad I took time to really mull it over--there's little joy in working on an image that doesn't feel quite right. I finally decided to go with a clandestine sort of forest backdrop.

[helloworld]

Late night sketchy.

[helloworld]

Something random I started, a bit of a personal idea behind it. Decided to render it out some for practice. Will probably continue to poke at it and see where it goes.

[helloworld]

A wip. My interpretation of Ghirahim :3 It's been a while since I've used the grayscale to color method, I forgot how fun it can be. :D

[helloworld]

[forever wip red fabric]
A little progress on the blood elf   Not too fond of the slight anime feel the face has going for it, trying to figure out how to give it a more realistic edge.

[helloworld]

xxxxx

[helloworld]

Rough sketch for a new painting. More blood elves!

[helloworld]

I decided I didn't like the first sketch I made. I've been pushing a lot harder to step out of the cartoony looking style most of my work has going for. It's been a learning process. I rather like how this one came out and am really glad I decided to start over.

[Triggerpigking]

Lovely work, shame you're trying to get away from the cartoony style, I think it looks great but to each their own.
One critique I have is that you might want to try sharpening up some of your edges, especially around the eyes since they are the focal point of faces and body's, you don't need to overdo it the soft edges look lovely especially on that bluish elf piece but maybe try sharpening them around the facial features(this barring the blonde haired woman who's already got a lot of nice edges on the face.)

Also I just noticed you were doing a Ghirahim piece, damn I wish you worked more on that, we need more fan art of that gloriously flamboyant bastard XD.

[helloworld]

That's a good tip on sharpening my focal points a bit more, I've been told in the past I tended to overuse the soft brush. I guess I'm still trying to find that balance between hard and lost edges :)

Ghirahim was fun to paint! It's tragically funny that the one and only fan art piece I have was commissioned.

[helloworld]

elf flower and badly drawn roses in the bg.

Calling it done for now. Still fighting a bit with keeping my darker areas readable.