What ImSkeptical learnt this week (Sketchbook)

[JerryActric]

this should play when you open your sketchbook !

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9D-QD_HIfjA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

killing it !

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D-QD_HIfjA

I clearly suck at linking things :(

[ramalooke]

oh wow. So much work. You inspired me to put more studies into my schedule. Thanks

[ImSkeptical]

Dennis - Thanks bro, but i didn't really think anything beyond that xD. I should probably try do more random things though

Jerry - Hope i don't get high on my own supply and crash and burn xD. Also you should get on skype more, i'm sick of hearing my friends talk about guildwars.

ramalooke - your witch illustration has me itching to do more imaginative. Hope i can get something done of that quality this week :D.

So this week i felt like i was a little lazy or something. Probably hearing all my friends having fun playing guildwars 2, and no one wanted to stream for me :(. I also ended up / still am watching a final fantasy 13 playthough, so that's a little distracting because i usually stop painting to watch all the cinematics. Next week hopefully i do better.



I rediscovered my hate of faces. One day I will conquer you. The ones without direct ref are horrible :(.



I tried out the whole pen tool selections hannes/alex negrea method for the bottom study here. I think it was a poor move for this particular one, as it was frustrating as hell dealing with my pen tool skills, poor drawing, and then loosing the edges. I don't know if it was quicker, i shouldve timed :(. I feel for certain things though, it would definitely be a good way to go.


I've been experimenting with lab sliders, and I think they are the coolest things ever. Everyone should give it a shot. The tutorial which taught me how to use them is here
http://fox-orian.deviantart.com/art/LAB-...e%3A1&qo=3
That guy has some really good tutorials



I thought dave palumbo's gorgeous figure studies were simple enough for a noob like me to understand. I though i kinda got it, but i need to work on it more when somebody hasn't figured out all the brushstrokes for me. And the values..., and the drawing... :(



More 3d. I probably would've gone past blockin into detail if i could settle on a specific reference, but i couldn't. Totally not me just being lazy :(.


I wasn't going to post this but i wanted to show i at least tried to do something imaginative. Maybe its better if i just erased it with the rest of the trash :(


So next week, going to work on still life, because i discovered i am ass at keeping a consistent light source. I think i plan on settling on some notation for direction and falloff/distance from source. Also, maybe i will do some imaginative work, maybe some kind of fanart so i don't have to worry about design. Metal Gear, Final Fantasy or Dota? Thanks for reading if ya did.

[Jonesoda]

Damn your workin hard! That neck/chest study looks awesome. I'm not lookin forward to faces, but you've inspired me to tackle them soon. Also for the fan art, I haven't played any of those games, But I like the look of Metal Gear and it's characters/theme (Always told its a great game to but never got around to it.)

[ImSkeptical]

Thanks Jonesoda!

So I'm pretty thirsty to win that golden boy. Damn thirsty. I mean, i feel like since i spent 3 years of my life learning about learning, I gotta put that to good use and be good at learning right? So its time I stop just saying "i do so many studies, gotta do some imaginative stuff", and "damn wish I had as good pencils as everyone else" and fix what i see as my 2 biggest issues right now.

So this is what I'm working on this month, minimum 4 illustrations before the month is over, and do almost all studies in pencil. I already hid away all the erasers too, so time to get that line quality.

Here's the studies before the golden call went out.





First 2 illustrations I got cooking; I decided on fan art so the problems i tackle are far less design focused, an issue i would like to deal with separately to make it a tiny bit easier on me. I already learned a bunch, like how i don't have to ability to work with any efficiency without a good line drawing yet, but the difficulty of concentrating is almost like when I first started doing art. I feel like this is a good thing, because clearly it means this is where i really improve, not lazing about doing a still life I hardly concentrated on. At least it better be because this is killing me.





So i need help with this dark souls one. I originally planned to do some kind of cool lighting scheme, but I think this warm light from the window works better. Also the 'story' isn't coming across as well as I want. The guy with the sword in the foreground is supposed to be ambushing the hooded guy, but i think i failed to pull it off. Any suggestions would be nice, i don't know if i should just remove him all together and put somthing else there like a blank wall :(





I promise the next image i do won't be a low angle shot. It's just so easy to get a nice big triangle comp going though and make all the poses ultra dynamic even though they don't have to do anything xD.

So for the pencil stuff, i will save it all for golden boy submission. I don't think i could handle charging my camera every week.

As a small side thing, a big 'teacher' in my mental development is a man called day9, who teaches Starcraft on a web show. I owe a lot to what he taught, and looked up the show again in my procrastination from doing the hard work this week. I found he made some video outlining some of the main philosophies and lessons i gained playing starcraft competitively, and if anyone interested i highly recommend listening while drawing or something.

http://day9.tv/d/Day9/day9-daily-400-spe...sumptions/

At the very least, you might be less puzzled if i mention how much I think painting is like street fighter and starcraft.

See you next week, thanks for reading if you did, go for gold everyone!

[JerryActric]

so much stuff and all so good dude !!!!! i really feel like saying wow every time i look through your updates man ! im going to watch this day9 man aswell :P

[DanilleG]

Heaven's sake. You're very driven. You seem to have so much covered :) its terrific that you're very critical about your work as well. I tend to be the same way, balance is everything too, never forget to keep it fun :)

[ramalooke]

Newest still life rock. Keep it up dude xd

[kevin]

a lot of studies in here, you definitely on the right track! keep it up!

[Warre]

Great studies.
The metal ball is awesome!

[ImSkeptical]

Jerry - Thanks as always jerry :D

DanilleG - It's defiantly hard work xD, thanks for the always relevant reminder to keep it fun, so easy to forget xD.

ramalooke -Thanks, i feel bad for being lazy towards the end of it though :(

kevin - Thanks for the encouragement!

Warre - Thanks dude. It was a fun metal ball, i got to paint my cat in my lap inside the ball xD.

So I was thinking about delaying posting till i finished the dark souls piece as well, because i have like almost nothing to post now that saving all these pencil studies for the golden boy submission. But i feel like i needed to punish myself for not doing enough this week anyway, i think i slacked off a bit too much. Need to work on focusing down and getting efficient work done on imaginative pieces, cause i sit around pushing forms around far too much. I finished my dota piece though, i think it turned out okay, but i think i was expecting it to turn out better somehow :(. I think ill post it in the critique section as well, cause i think i probably have stared at it too long.

Furthermore my dark souls piece is descending into unsaveable territory. I think it needs a restart cause i don't think can get the story across well with this angle. And rendering that wierd havel's armor confuses the hell out of me, probably should do stone studies instead of just guessing. Oh well, maybe my next pieces won't fail. At least i learn't a fair bit, i'e just do tight linework till you're good at art. One problem at a time!

I promise more stuff next week. See you all there, where we are all one week better at art! xD

[Nimao]

i really like your studies keep it up!

[JerryActric]

they are both looking awesome !! you have influenced me to sit down and do a propper finished illustration as well ! but as for the feeling of not doing enough and slacking off, i have that too, really bad. I think it wont matter how much we do, it will never be enough. we always think of all the time wasted versus the time spent actually painting. but i guess in the long run that is a positive because we will try and push for more ! awesome stuff again man :)

[deerandfox]

Hey dude, brilliant sketchbook! Your studies are great, i've always had trouble with studies as my imagination tends to wander off to other things, its brilliant that your so focused! Keep it up

[ImSkeptical]

Nimao - Thanks :D

Jerry - I wish, but i'm definitely starting to slip. Got abit burnt out overthinking these illustrations. Watching the animu again xD. I promise ill stop after this series xD.

deerandfox - Thanks dude :D, but focus wouldn't be the word i would use. I think i've gotten way to comfortable with observational stuff, can't construct and simulate light to save my life.

So like i said, still watching anime. But after i watch these last 2 series, one im actually just rewatching :(, ill get back on the horse. Here is my list if anyone is interested http://myanimelist.net/animelist/ImSkeptical
I'm very proud of my spreading it over the scale, and my very filtered selection due to getting friends to point me to only good stuff. Anything above 5 is guaranteed to not be a waste of time.

I think me watching anime again may be just me haven gotten a bit depressed after me and my friends didn't go out for a week. May just be me making an excuse, but i'd like to think i need to do the afternoon with friends fun at least once a week.

So here's this week



Not many changes, mostly just trying to fix the pose. Thanks heaps to the people in the crit section.



Random imagination stuff foolin around, trying to do more of it because its much more relaxing than trying to plan an illustration. I feel like the traditional stuff I've been doing helped out with the faces. I almost gave up on that Asian one (I left up where I almost gave up so you can see xD) but i pushed through and made it look not so bad. My non functional purely random form mech's still annoy the rational parts of my brain. At least they take like no time and effort at all, more the tactile fun of pushing forms around than any educational worth or to look any good.





Here's a possibility for another illustration, in an anime i was watching, a giant kitten fought a squid thing, i thought it might be fun to do with the whole alt art realism thing. I'm not sure if it looks worth pursuing, anyone think it looks interesting in thumbnail?




And here's my other thing i plan to do. Something simple and fun for me. Rule 63 on solid snake. Hawt. Ill probably need to work out a nice design before i render though. Explored a few different poses. Silhouettes are way relaxing, if you work up sufficient drawing skills, i highly suggest you try them out. I wouldn't recommend it until you do though, i can defiantly see where you could fall into a trap with these things. Anything too fun, be wary xD.

I also had the realization with the last study there that there was no reason at all to 'complete studies'. I just need to render what i want to learn and what I'm going to pay attention to. No point rendering out everything i am just going to zone out to podcasts and music.

Well see you guys next week, and hopefully goodbye anime for awhile. Lets say at least 2 months.

[JerryActric]

Thanks for the advice in my SB man :) i actually need to squint aloooot more, Ill spend some time drilling that into my head ! your Studies are getting so accurate ! Look how well drawn the Soldier study is ! and all the studies are painted so well that i have trouble seeing which is the actual photo haha, all so awesome !

[ImSkeptical]

Thanks Jerry.

So i uploaded all my pencil stuff for golden boy, but i don't know where to submit yet so ill just post it up here. I also finished the metal gear fan art thing i guess, i spent way to much time fixing mistakes and it still has broken anatomy in the end :(. Gonna do more concept/ideation/accurate foundation sketches next month, probably not bother with any fully rendered stuff. Maybe ill do design challenges each week.



I want to emphasize that i did next to no designs in pencil, and infact copied some of the designs of artists i like for fun/learning/detailed observation. So basically this was me just learning how execute with pencil better this month.

































Once again, anything cool probably was somebody else's creative work.

I think maybe its not worth posting so much? I already restrained myself from posting up all the loose gesture stuff. As you can see, a lot of studies relating to some of the works i've been doing. I guess what i learned the most about working with pencil is a more thorough understanding of form change = change in value or at least representation of value (i.e hatch another direction), and how to model forms with the 'camera flash' sort of lighting that a lot of pencil people seem to be able to pull off so well.

Thanks for looking if you did. Small side note, watch the movie looper that just came out. It is the best film since forever. Like seriously, do it. Its amazing. True cinema.

[ImSkeptical]

Well i've gone back to doing too many studies and no personal work. Next week, im going to do challenges. Maybe the character of the week on ca. I do want to focus on design stuff this month. I also need to do more animal anatomy so i can join in the creature design Alejandro is doing with his mentoring. I also feel like i missed out on last months goldenboy? I felt i failed anyway because i didn't meet my goal of 4 illustrations, but it would've been nice to post. I guess i should've asked around :(





Studying opening sequence of 'Brick'. Watched it after loving 'Looper', Rian Johnson is now one of my favorite writer/directors.



Studying Robh in an attempt to understanding landscapes more as drawing and design rather than copying tones and edges/texture. This is so much harder than i thought it would be. I think everyone should try it. Im gonna do it more, and im even glad that sickbrush made me use lasso/grad only, cause it got to reinforce what i learned here.




This made me realize i don't know any Indian actors. Or many black female ones. I feel like I've failed as a citizen of the world.




See you guys next week. Crimson Daggers hwaiting!

[Heliux]

wow. awesome stuff man! I'm envious of your industry and speed! I look forward to future posts! X)

[ImSkeptical]

I always feel bad when it seems like i didn't do much work in a week. But I'm feeling optimistic about next week, mainly because i was lucky enough to get selected for brentoring! So maybe i'll finally be able to produce 20 pieces of imaginative stuff a week xD. At the very minimum, weekly assignments will keep me honest and away from so many studies and more real work. So here's this weeks stuff.



Some Hampton. Perhaps aesthetically ugly, but theoretically beautiful.




Sickbrush's stuff. I really hate this lightbulb. I'm planning on doing it again some time. I think i need to just approach the spiral bit a lot more scientifically with more selections. I only had a silloutte selection, and i think it made the whole thing inefficient. Somethings wrong with the edges of the reflections it just bugs me. Maybe i just needed more contrast in the values. I'll get you next time...



Random sketches from http://operatorsgonnaoperate.tumblr.com/ a good tumblr for quick modern military ref. Some rotating and ortho's to keep me on my toes and make sure i was absorbing information / exercising the brain.



Exploring an alternate method of figure 'drawing'. I wanted to simplify it so i only had to worry about simplification of form and lighting; something similar to robh's landscapes. In the end, it also emphasized composition a lot more, and I also found i could explore edges. I wanted to narrow down the focus from a figure drawing, but in the end i just changed focus xD. I feel there was something to learn though, and will probably try it again. You guys should try it, i'd like to see if anyone else gets anything out of it.

Well that's this week. Thanks for reading if you did, and look forward to Brent kicking my ass and finally getting me to do more real work.