What ImSkeptical learnt this week (Sketchbook)

[Markus]

Looking great, loved your take on the Beastmaster.

[Jaik]

recognized makoto shinkais work immediatly man, good job, his colour palette and way of doing clouds is amazing! He also loves his trains.. Dunno whether you have seen children who chase lost voices, long ass movie but its amazing!
The work you are doing is truly inspirational man. Hope you get work!

[ImSkeptical]

CoreyH - Thanks! I had a look at your sketchbook too, you've improved quite abit too :D.

JakeB - It wasn't a monk, its Jiro, from the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Its worth the watch!

Markus - Thanks. I was freaked out by your beastmaster, felt like he was staring into my soul xD.

Jaik - You win 10 bonus points xD. I'll check that movie out, I think I have it but it didn't have english subs :(. Thanks for the encouragement.



K so this week, the smallest of updates. The forgivable reasons as always are drawing alot on paper studying dark souls designs and this red ink teacher guy http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=59317 . I got the link from http://eyecager.tumblr.com/ , which is still my favourite tumblr which I will keep telling anyone who listens to visit. I've come to really like studying design/construction/memory stuff using pen/mechpencil, because I feel when I do it on the computer I don't commit to lines and stuff, so I can just erase till it looks right. I'm also still studying anatomy with echroche stuff, but read previous post why i'm not posting it.

The unreasonable reasons for small update, I got this game called Monaco on a whim, and played that abit with friends. Almost finished it so soon that will be out of the way. The other reason was Eva 3.33, had a viewing party with friends. Unfortunately, the movie failed to meet expectations (it failed spectacularly), but that took up most of a day. Then I wanted to watch norcal regionals, a fighting game tournament... I promise next week, less slacking :(.

So, here's the little I will bother showing.



Some more workflow tests. I think I have something I like for extremely quickly painting something emphasizing drawing and making it read.





More 15 min color studies. This time the coolest Chinese kekai kotaki, zhong feng hua.



Pushing that sketch further. I'm not feeling it though so this might be as far as I take it. I found something else I wanna push to finish anyway. I'm starting to realize I need some kind of long term project if I want to push myself to make finished works. I wish one of my friends was a sick writer.

Well that's this week, I promise heaps of work back to productivity next week. There's only like 4 more missions left in Monaco to play...

[Lumens]

Damn, love your colostudies! the subtle hue jitter in your latest sketch is a nice touch.
keep up the great work ethic.

You asked me to clarify what i meant with grouping values in a painting,
The basic gist of it, at least to my knowledge is not to overstate or exaggerate values too much within each part of the painting. Learning how to simplefy can help improve your understanding of value relationships.

Craig Mullins has a document titled John singer sargents notes on painting available on his site. learned a ton just from studying his notes.

''the longer we stare at something, the more value separations we tend to perceive, and thus begin to overstate those differences and incorrectly place values that are outside of their correct value family.'' a quote from http://georgetownatelier.com/tutorials/m...-tutorial/ while looking for a decent example on the subject.

yeah thats an awesome tumblr by the way, lots of good recources.

[ImSkeptical]

Lumens - Thanks for answering dude, I actually think I run into that problem alot xD.


So this is embarrassing, another sparse week it seems. My excuses haven't changed. I guess I stopped doing the 15 minute color studies this week because I felt I was more doing them just to do them rather than learn anything. I don't think the amount of progress on this one piece i'm doing actually equates a week either. Maybe its that thing Miles talks about on his tutorial (the one with his pets piece; its a great tutorial, talks a lot more about semi-philosophical things not many tutorials go into, defiantly worth the purchase) where I'm just wasting heaps of time not being productive in the middle of a painting, just noodling edges around. Maybe i should just photo my pencil stuff, but to me that feels like I'm just wasting more time to prove I'm not wasting time. I guess i just need to be less insecure and know that i'm putting in the hours and the work, so even if I can't show it doesn't mean i'm being lazy. Or is that just rationalizing me getting lazier the last few weeks? :(



Some anatomy stuff I want to show



The piece I've been working on. It's titled "the problem". If you follow fighting games, hi five, for those who don't, the man on the throne is Chris G, currently pretty much indisputably the best Marvel vs Capcom 3 player. Which is kind of a big deal, considering the nature of the game and the competition. I think i'll finish it off by next week.

I will definatly have more stuff to show next week, with this new bloodsport. One it gives an excuse to do movie studies, which i was trying to avoid because I felt i wasn't learning too much from. But I have things I want to try now. And also, I love the topic of the new one, I feel it matches my strengths artistically right now. So here's to putting my all into this one. Thanks for lookin, see ya with all that next week.

[ImSkeptical]

Suspending updates for awhile. Why? I think i most probably almost certainly have found myself a job. More details when things start to settle into a schedule. Still doing lots of art and practice! Hope to show stuff sooner than later.

[janvonfrosta]

gratz man! and awesome sketchbook. nice idea to paint clothes on models, have to try this out

[ImSkeptical]

Yay I'm back! Hopefully I'll be able to go back to weekly, but its going to be tough. Miles new daily sketch streaming schedule (http://livestream.com/miles_) has inspired me to get shit done again, especially with right now work not involving drawing or painting much at all. I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on that, but if in a month i realize nothing much has changed with that, I'll make sure the necessary changes happens. I have a goal of about 5 studies and 5 sketches a week. With this work now, I have to wake up at 5am to get a study in before I head off. But those sketches will be the real tough stuff. I managed to do 3 last week, so maybe that will end up being all that I can handle, but if Miles can manage one a day I'm sure i can do 5 over a week.

Here's most of the stuff I could find from when I went dark.





I found I could make some processes shots from all the saves I made. Both were approached way differently, but the way I usually approach stuff is the line method thing on the bloodsports piece. I'd like to keep messing with both ways, probably more with the Rigney monochrome kinda stuff, because it did feel a little funner, and it feels like it could be brought to similar speeds, if not faster.


anat


tomy


Zorn limited pallete study. Tried mixing from only the 4? Zorn colors in Photoshop. Felt strange, but it kinda works. Especially if you use the lab color mode, seems to mix colors better.


Memory testing




Moar anatomy

Here start all the morning studies. Mostly just movie stills. Try guess all the movies!


Here is the first morning study. I really didn't like it, so I thought I would do some studies of...

Jama Jurabaev! He really emphasises brushwork and gesture, so I thought he would be a prime target to find out what I was missing. The answer was brushwork and gesture xD. More specifically, make your brushwork follow that gesture.



I like how this one

And this one turned out

This one was weird, I think I was a little too slow and didn't 'finish it' because I had to go to work. It's the best way to force a time limit, having to catch a bus.

Here are the sketches I managed to do


Shitty drawing, but was the first one.


Hard surfaces are horrible to paint quick. I need to practice :(. This sketching is all making me realize how terrible I am.


Fan-art because its fun. Had heaps of trouble with color for this one, because I had a pretty established black and white thing. Not even monochrome, just this black and white that felt really hard to push out of.

K I'll try aim for weekly sketchbook again, 5 studies and 5 sketches. And maybe some kind of streaming next week in the morning. Not maybe, defiantly.

[Archreux]

Damn, I can't help but be impressed by the amount of improvement of the bottom compared to the top of the page. It's evident from this last piece right above me that those brushwork studies have payed off, definitely, I am interested in doing some studies like that now, haha. It really turned out great in certain areas, especially the cloth and lighting.

There are still a few things I notice to be off, mostly easy fundamental stuff. Faces, hands and feet are areas I'm seeing that need the most refinement. Your grasp on light and color is obvious, you understand a good chunk of it, for sure.

I really like the studies that you did of the guy with the sword, and the sci-fi dude walking away from that hover thingy, haha. I'm curious, from what movie did you do that study of the guy with the sword jumping and stuff. It looks cool. I'm liking this page of your sketchbook a lot and I'm looking forward to seeing where you stuff goes. :]

[YOLOLEX]

loving the variation and amount of work here, u are doing great! keep it up

[ImSkeptical]

Archreux - Thanks man, it felt bad not doing this sketchbook so long, but I'm glad I still managed to show some kind of improvement. Thanks for the tip too, i think i could gain a lot from doing some hand and feet studies, they felt really awkward. The sc-ifi dude and the sword one are both from the J. J. Abrams Star Trek.

YOLOLEX - Thanks! :D

[JakeB]

You're smashing it man, those last studies and sketches came out great. Good shout studying Jama Jurabaev as well. His brushwork is sooooo goood. Keep it up :)

[BjorkJT]

Insane improvement! I checked out your DA as well, really awesome! Can't wait to see more from you ^^

[Ron]

Your sketchbook is really inspiring. I have a few months that I can dedicate full time to practicing art and I'm trying to do it systematically. Balancing how hard/long I can go per day without burning out. You have a lot of tips and good ideas. Also real proof that practice pays off.

[Mannequin]

I like the most the pieces where You shoe the lightining. You've got some great ideas about usign the light in Your work. That would be the one of the strongest part of the work :) But overall paintings looks awesome and I see You've done just so many of them. Congrats and evolve the skills XD

[Izzual]

Wow ! What an improvment ! very inspirational ! :D

Keep this up !

[Ignatz]

As others have said, great improvements, especially in the confidence and economy of your brushstrokes. Keep up the good work.

[ImSkeptical]

JakeB - Thanks buddy.

BjorkJT - Thanks! Hope i can motivate myself to make stuff xD.

Ron - Thanks. Just remember its more important to do something than systematically do nothing :D. Looking forward to see you put in the effort!

Mannequin - Thanks so much, lighting probably is something I spend the most time trying to emphasize. I think it might even be a crutch for me, so much weak drawing :(.

Izzual - Thanks! I'll try :D

Ignatz - Thanks man.


Thanks for all the comments everyone. Really motivates me to wake up and get stuff done :D. Got lazy this week though, so only the morning studies. Gotta force myself to do those sketches :(. I will start streaming though, got it all setup. So ill probably stream weekdays when I get up.



Fun subject, get to play with gesture and losing edges.



Wanted to investigate animated skin tones...



So i could do it for other things. Tried to get a formulaic understanding of it. Took 3 seperate attempts, yes the first one was a little crazy xD, tbh i was planning at first to make it soft northen lighting with that but got way confused. Thats what you get for having an ambigous goal. So I was like, i'll try insert sunlight despicable me colors in there. Those were the other 2 attempts. Will probably try again next morning, was a good exercise. Got the idea to try after so many of these black and white studies where I wasn't actually trying to match the ref so much, more just the relationships and the gestural idea.

Well, thanks for looking, hopefully come join me on a stream? If not ill post again next week :D.

[Brawk]

I love your studies!

[smrr]

Hey Skeptical, firstly HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOOT!! (yeah, I'm a creeper, what of it? :3)

Man, I have to say - your studies and art is ridiculous! I loved being able to scroll through each page and see the improvement... soooo inspiring!

I saw this:

Sydney workshop was great, learned alot, met lots of great people. Even got to drink with Kekai. Sleeping on my friends couch, and also making the decision to not bring my tablet, i got to hone my traditional skills to the point i can get a clean drawing as opposed to a scribble. Also last week of work tomorrow so i can go back to mad study mode. Here's the stuff i did at the workshop and some stuff this week.

Mind if I ask?
Was this workshop at Enmore?
Super awesome that you learned some real tricks of the trade! Again, you can just seeeeeeee the butt-kicking!

I wish you'd update more frequently!! Your stuffs is so yummy :3