SH! It's Sketching Time.

[Steve H]

Hey there,
All of these are done with an HB pencil on cheap scrap paper. (For rather stupid reasons I found the idea of working in a sketchbook really intimidating till recently) A lot of the thought behind these were just getting myself comfortable with drawing with a pencil, not erasing every single mark I make, and just really to try out some different things without any real pressure for them to be perfect.


I was going for a design that, while not exactly historically accurate, was at least practical.
Never attempted to draw an armoured figure in a pose and it really shows. As the sketch went on I abandon or forgot the idea and ended up added bits of the onion knight from Dark Souls. Really I should have at least looked at some reference while doing this.


Three individual studies from the same angle of a small wind up toy penguin. In a dimly lit room I thought "This thing's nice shape and will be an easy enough to shade". Only when I got it up to my work space and tried to light it did I realise it was actually quite reflective... Which made the process of rendering it quite a challenge. 
A lot of mistakes came from the movement of my head affecting the angle the light played off the toy. At first I also relied a lot on my wrist and small scribbled gestures to give it a sense of dimension. I was overall pretty content with the result, but thought it could be improved upon thus I opted to try one, and this time using the side of my pencil more.
Looking at the second attempt with fresh eyes I actually think it is probably much closer to my actual perspective of the object. and although at the time I didn't think it, I have to admit in a lot of ways this one is actually better than the first.
With the third one I tried to blow up the size of the toy to hopefully allow myself to work in more details, however I came to realise pretty quickly just how much I was relying on my wrist for these and I couldn't quite get the same precision as what I'd gotten before and got frustrated very quickly.
While I joke in my notes that I got steadily worse, really this was a pretty good learning experience.


I enjoy drawing hands and used to sketch them a lot in my late teens. With that being said it's been quite a long time since then and I am very out of practice. In that time I've gained a pretty bad habit where I'll start off with an angled position and at some point I'll find I started drawing a different potion (one more from memory). Which leads to every hand twisting into the same palm up position and the scale of my digits going all over the place.


Forced myself a little out of my comfort zone by using an ink pen to finish this sketch. Even though the index and middle finger are quite wonky I am pretty happy with the result.

[Artloader]

Hey there Steve, nice start to your sketchbook.

It's good that you are practicing drawing from real life.  I can relate to the issues you wrote about and I think you would greatly benefit from studying Doran Iten's Accuracy Guide:

www.dorian-iten.com/accuracy/

It's a pay what you like product that is widely recommended and I personally am continually gaining new insights from it.

Hope that helps.

Keep up the hard work :).

[Steve H]

Thanks Artloader, I'll be sure to check it out! :)

[Steve H]

*Sighs* It is has been an unproductive 2 weeks. I could make excuses, but it all comes down to just how terrible taskmaster I am.

It took me far longer, and truthfully too many breaks between starting, to do the Ideal Male Proportion exercise in Loomis' book than was really necessary. Add to that I was a bit of an idiot, as for an hour and a half I couldn't figure out what he meant when talking about a measurement of two and one third of an eighth (Only much later did I notice that "Male Figure is 2 1/3 heads wide" was written in the corner of the picture). I got kinda frustrated as a result, stopped reading, and copied the picture without really taking in the process of what I was doing. Of course the end result looks pretty awkward. But on the bright side this is an exercise meant to be repeated a lot so... [cue stereotypical kung fu master striking pupil with switch and shouting "Wrong! Again! Faster! Actually listen! And this time, No breaks!"]


If it is not especially clear but that is meant to be smoke coming out of skulls mouth.

[Runensucher]

*Sighs* It is has been an unproductive 2 weeks. I could make excuses, but it all comes down to just how terrible taskmaster I am.

It took me far longer, and truthfully too many breaks between starting, to do the Ideal Male Proportion exercise in Loomis' book than was really necessary. Add to that I was a bit of an idiot, as for an hour and a half I couldn't figure out what he meant when talking about a measurement of two and one third of an eighth (Only much later did I notice that "Male Figure is 2 1/3 heads wide" was written in the corner of the picture). I got kinda frustrated as a result, stopped reading, and copied the picture without really taking in the process of what I was doing. Of course the end result looks pretty awkward. But on the bright side this is an exercise meant to be repeated a lot so... [cue stereotypical kung fu master striking pupil with switch and shouting "Wrong! Again! Faster! Actually listen! And this time, No breaks!"]

If it is not especially clear but that is meant to be smoke coming out of skulls mouth.

Hi Steve!
First of all, you need to stop writing things like "I was a bit of an idiot". I red through your self introduction and it was full of self destroying sentences. I wanted to look up your sketch book because I'm new here too and I'm following draw a box just like you so I'm interested in your progress. :)
And that's because I'm offering you this advice. Don't be harsh to yourself. It helps no one. Stopping to write and say things like that will help you stop thinking like that. ^^
I like your idea with the hand. It's good to see you've been brave and finished it with ink. The result impresses me.
Keep up your work.