Pekoe's Lively Book of Death (๑•͈ᴗ•͈)◞

[Orange Pekoe]

Because my abandoned sketchbook was called "Shen's Deathbook" and in the end, it really is dead... :(  I will try to keep this one alive.

Been trying to plan out how I will be posting online so I may do a lot of edits.

Also just got my scanner functioning so I'll try to experiment with efficient ways of using it for posting and polishing traditional work.

------------------------------

I've been mainly doing anatomy related work for almost a year now at school, so I decided to try working on an environment when my teacher for a digital painting class told us to do a study of a picture starting from a dark mass:



I'm waiting for a new laptop to arrive tomorrow. It should have a better screen so I can see the difference between blues and greens better. Currently having a hard time seeing a difference between the top and bottom image even though I calibrated my laptop screen. On my phones, the difference is very obvious.

This study really made me notice how inefficient I am at generating noise for details, like for windows, cars in the background, etc. I'll fiddle with some things for long periods of time before I realize that I could have given a similar impression with just a single stroke.

Also trying to use more solid brushes to render forms in one shot instead of using a very soft/low opacity brush and build up a form. It takes too long and makes things muddy, so I end up going over it with a solid brush anyways after finding the right colour/value that I was guessing.

-----------------------------------

A study of a mannequin for the first week of a digital character painting class with the same instructor as the one above. This was from a few weeks ago. Top is my life study in class. Bottom is a quick paint over by my instructor after the class was over.





The next one is also from the same character painting class. 



The model had a strong red light to his left and a yellow light to his right. I was sitting dead on to his left so I couldn't see much of his other side. The reds still lacked that extra push in terms of saturation when I compare my laptop's screen to the colours on the model, but it came pretty close to what I saw. Once I viewed it on my phone, though, it looked way too oversaturated. :( Again, hoping a better screen will help a bit with consistency. 

...I also gave the poor model T-Rex eyes... ;o;

This is the instructor's paint over.



The instructor wasn't there during the class to see the model in person unfortunately as something showed up, but he did give me some pointers afterwards during his time on how to improve the painting overall as an art piece rather than just a transfer of something we see in life.

I need to work on edges a lot more. One thing I kind of lack is pushing the few parts that I want to be sharp to be extra sharp, and the parts I want to be soft to be extra soft. It's something that can be easily done digitally as I can soften as much as I want without fear of losing my work, and the lasso tool can push the edge down to the pixel. The teacher from another digital painting class (who substituted my teacher when he had to leave for a week) pointed this out and said selectively using this should help greatly in giving a rough painting a polished look.

----------------------------------------

This piece was first a project on values. The instructor told us to do a value study of a greyscale painting he posted. The second week, he talked about colour and our homework was to add any colour we want to the painting ourselves. I didn't update the photo after the critique yet, but it's mainly some things to tweak about the face. I was trying to balance the photo's colours by comparing it to my phone. It didn't really end up the way I wanted, but it was better than how it was straight from my laptop. 



-------------------------------------

I also picked up watercolour this month for some reason... D:

Here are the first watercolour paintings of me life~



...watercolour is impossible to control... (>;v;)>

--------------------------------------------------

That's pretty much the end of my first dump post. Going to try and experiment with different formats and see how it goes. I hope this forum can also be a place where I can experiment with different ways of posting and get some feedback before I start to setup an online page.

Thanks so much for reading my gibberish. 

Cheers! o(^_^)b

Pekoe

-----------------------------------------------------

Currently listening to:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szdS3tt_xy0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DboMAghWcA

[Orange Pekoe]

Some WIP for a character I played as in an MMO. I'll reposition her and do surgery on her shoulder later. :P



Trying to use Clip Studio Paint for everything instead of Photoshop. Really awkward as it requires a different workflow. The brush engine is also very different.


------------------ o(ﾟДﾟ)っ ----------------

I'm having a hard time drawing traditionally at school recently, usually because the classes where I draw traditionally involves life studies of models and require that I use my shoulder to draw on a large pad. One of these classes is an anatomy class, where the instructor wants us to be highly constructive. I have to fight a bit to reach his standards of starting out with pure construction, and the end results really seem dull. The way he is teaching is very effective though. Just soul-crushingly dull.

In the another class, the instructor wants me to let go of all that construction, and I really need to fight my urge to be constructive, the habit I developed in the anatomy class I just mentioned. Right now, I finally am starting to understand the structure of the skull, so I see it more in faces compared to the past, where I just draw what I see. As a result, I have the urge to add or accentuate anatomical details because I know structurally, it is there. However, the end results for recent two weeks have been looking like crap. Drawing with muscles that I am not used to using doesn't really ease the frustration.

On the other side, drawing from imagination is a lot easier. Now I can add just that slight bit more structure to things such as this portrait to make it look more structured. In the past, stylized stuff always looks sloppy when I draw them. Need to do more work I guess.

[Orange Pekoe]

Life study WIP.



---------------------------------------------

Currently listening to:

[Orange Pekoe]

Welp, I got roasted by my instructor during the crit for this piece.

The idea was cooler when it was in my head...a week ago...at 3:00 AM in the morning... :P



-------------------------------------------------

Currently listening to:

[John]

Welp, I got roasted by my instructor during the crit for this piece.

What he say?

[Orange Pekoe]

What he say?

He basically showed me suggestions on how to rebalance the lighting a bit and adjusting it so the different parts of the character (the hat, the hairpiece and the coat) looks united while still keeping variety (throwing light differently on different parts and how to use shadows to push the forms/composition to look more interesting), as well as how to add a bit more structure to the face even if it is stylized. Also gave some tips on making the hair look more dynamic and natural, because even with combed hair, there is still a bit of variety, and that can be used to make the piece more interesting. :D

Welp, onto the next piece!

------------------------------------------------

Still trying to figure out a more consistent workflow, especially one that involves more layers. I'm used to painting on just one or two layers. This habit developed as my previous laptop can't handle too many layers. Unfortunately, if I saved more layers (or saved separate files), I could go back and avoid certain things that actually did not work out well in the end.

Also, some instructors recommend that I intentionally keep different things on different layers so when I work, it will be easier to adjust things, especially when there are multiple people working on the same file/piece or if the nature of the work requires easy changes/replacements for different parts.

Here's a tank study I am working on. Just started it and felt like using more solid brushes. It feels very expressive when using solid brushes as no time is wasted building up forms/figuring out if something is the right colour or not. You just lay it down and deal with it in relationship to the rest of the piece. ^_^



A more bold way of saying it is that if it is sloppy, it shows. And it definitely shows here. :P

--------------------------------------

Currently listening to:

[Orange Pekoe]

I painted a liddle dank!

o(^_^)o




---------------------- (๑•͈ᴗ•͈)◞ ----------------------

Currently listening to:




^^ "Yellow Line," from the REDLINE original sound track.

[Orange Pekoe]

Need to work on integrating some new techniques to speed up my workflow, either with special effects/tools done digitally or just more efficient ways of generating noise with brush stokes. Currently taking too long to note down my impressions of things, when some simple indications with the right shapes, colours and edges will do the trick.

Here's a WIP of a painting I almost forgot about!



This was kind of a mess because I originally wanted to paint the study in grayscale and paint a colour layer over it. This way, I thought I can take out the colours from the study session and add a background with a lighting of my choice. The previous ones I did for this class didn't go so well because the lighting was very unnatural and difficult for me to blend into a background.

Still...this time it isn't any better. :P Need more practice I guess!

-----------------------------------

Also trying to learn some basic video editing to make videos in the future. Looking for some practice materials I can use to get mileage out of making some clips and being comfortable with the basic tools. HitFilm 4 Express is very nice so far as both a compositing software and a video editing software. It isn't as hardware dependent like certain other programs and they provided some nice resources to get a hands-on approach for beginners.

-----------------------------------

Speaking of techniques to improve workflow, I suddenly thought of this nice video I saw some time back.



I have plenty of plugins and brushes for aiding in more perspective dependent things like cityscapes, yet I never used them.

Let's change that! ( ╹ ◡ ╹ )

[Amit Dutta]

The best plugin for perspective is learning how to construct forms in perspective with your drawings first. That's where i see you went off on that recent full figure. Scratchy construction i assume from the lines left in the feet. Suggest doing line drawings first until you can wing perspective with paint. It's much harder digitally of course but shouldn't stop you trying to be more precise. Remember almost everything can be boiled down to a box.

After effects is by far the best vfx / editing / animation tool I've tried for overall versatility, power and ease of use. Blender has some stuff but it's nowhere near as intuitive. No good open source alternatives that match AE so far unfortunately, unless you want real basic stuff ofc. I love AE it's lots of fun to use. VideoCopilot has some great tutorials on yt

[Orange Pekoe]

The best plugin for perspective is learning how to construct forms in perspective with your drawings first. That's where i see you went off on that recent full figure. Scratchy construction i assume from the lines left in the feet. Suggest doing line drawings first until you can wing perspective with paint.  It's much harder digitally of course but shouldn't stop you trying to be more precise. Remember almost everything can be boiled down to a box.

After effects is by far the best vfx / editing / animation tool I've tried for overall versatility, power and ease of use. Blender has some stuff but it's nowhere near as intuitive. No good open source alternatives that match AE so far unfortunately, unless you want real basic stuff ofc. I love AE it's lots of fun to use. VideoCopilot has some great tutorials on yt

Alrighty! :D

 I actually did start with lines, then went grayscale, then colours, and even though I was looking at the person head on, I wanted to challenge myself last minute by redrawing him as if I was looking at him from an worms eye view and now it's a total mess. XD

The instructor told me at the end of class to try and imagine the camera is at his shoes. In this case, I shouldn't be looking down on his shoes. I should be looking at them head on, and then as I go higher, I will slowly see the bottom of the things on him. As a result, I quickly tried to paint over it and failed, and then tried to throw in some lines to outline the shoes before packing up, serving as a reminder to adjust the perspective when I get home. One night later with no sleep, I still didn't work on the piece yet...Instead I got this mess:



Need more patience when painting in watercolour! (# ﾟДﾟ)

Sorry, I digress.

It's just I suddenly realized that for almost a year, I only used one brush and I really should at least consider using a second one, or even something like the lasso tools or layers. Did you know there was this technique called using a few layers in Photoshop? I literally forgot about it! XD

I though the joke about integrating more tools into my workflow was funny when I posted it, then I realized that nobody had the same train of thought as me so of course it was stupid. : (

I'll try to adjust the perspective with boxes this time. Thanks for the advice!

All my headaches could have been avoided if I just simplified it all with boxes from the start...  

-----------------------------

I'm mainly using HitFilm because it's the only program I can find that covers both compositing and editing for free, even if you are working on commercial products. Unfortunately, I can't really justify paying for After Effects or Premiere at the moment...

More familiar with Premiere because I used it at school for a year, but alas, the price...

Thanks for the resource though. I'll look into it after I'm done the exercises for the current video project.

-----------------------------

Currently listening to:

[Orange Pekoe]

Haven't uploaded in a while. Been kinda busy with school and life in general. Here's a WIP I'm doing.

It was mainly to refine my workflow and to cut out the fat that I didn't need. No design aspects were taken into consideration when starting this piece. I don't have a story, I was playing with colours and they completely changed multiple times depending on what I wanted to experiment with, I didn't think of perspective or lighting or composition. It was just a random doodle that I spent a day on. Now is when I actually start the design aspect of it and figure out what the heck I'm doing, as well as think about how to save this piece and make it presentable. I suck I know. :(

Ended up doing a massive brush cut as well as remapping a bunch of hotkeys so I can don't have to move my hand in awkward positions when using tools I often select (increase/decrease brush size, level adjustments, lassos, actions for making layers, etc.). Having 70% of my old brush pack deleted is quite refreshing.

Was pretty fun even though it looks terrible right now. I'll start to work on this as a piece now instead of a canvas for experimenting. Not sure if I'll get anywhere as I feel I need to change a lot in order to save this piece, to the point that I might as well cannibalize it for a new piece.



---------------------------

Here's two exercises I did for another class a few weeks ago.

Front, top, side, and 3/4 view of a simple object. Didn't get everything right but I tried to fix them on the second one. The gun is the Heckler & Koch Mark 23.



Same object as before, but in 3 point perspective, so this time the parallel lines converge. Seems like I still missed a few things now that I look at it. Decided to do this one on paper freehand even though Clip Studio Paint has a perspective guide as I felt like I need a break from digital. I basically drew a quick 3 point perspective grid in Clip, printed it, and taped a semi-translucent marker paper over it to do the pencils based on the initial diagram I drew above.



Between these assignments were a few weeks filled with basic perspective stuff. Basic, yes, but they fried my brain. xD Think exercises from Scott Robertson's How to Draw book. I must say, I am now significantly faster than before I did the first gun diagram. That is why I worked on it freehand on paper. Before, there is no way I'll be able to just do that without messing up in quite a few places or get very confused. Still have a long way to go though. Onwards! o(^_^)b

------------------------

Currently listening to:

[Orange Pekoe]

Another term almost done. It's around this time that everything is starting to click in place, which feels amazing, but also feels frustrating, as I need more practice to fully grasp what is going on.

--------------------------------

Here's a drawing I did for an Environment Design class. The theme of the week was about the "golden path," or the most optimal path that one would want a potential explorer of this world to follow. The assignment was to come up with a jungle temple environment illustration that emphasizes said path with visual cues. 



Was originally planning to start adding vegetation and large trees that twist onto the architecture, as well as a waterfall coming from the structure the character is looking at. Then I'll start to work on the values. Line drawing took way longer than I thought, but it's a lot more structured than usual environments I paint, probably because I focus on rendering effects but skimp out on (or straight up forgot about) the design aspect at the beginning. 

The instructor offered a lot of feedback and ideas to try so we will see how this goes.

----------------------------

Kind of an experimental thing, trying to understand different tools and such. No real goal in mind aside from testing various filters and experimenting with hard and soft brushes. The instructor was showing some stuff at the end of class so I dug this out to try and follow along. 



------------------------------------

Feeling like I'm so close to getting somewhere, but need to push myself just a bit more.

There's still 2 weeks left before the spring term at Syn ends. Will try to make the best of it.

-------------------------------------

Currently listening to:

[Orange Pekoe]

Worked on this a bit more, and ended up experimenting with extremely hard brushes with no opacity.

I guess I got into this mess when I dropped in some photos, which look terrible, so I instinctively painted over everything with brushes that had a hard edge to hide the photobash effect, only to cover everything with atrocious brushwork.

Kinda lost my original design and composition, but will work on this a bit more to give myself a bit push. I feel like I'm getting somewhere in terms of my understanding, but I can't grasp it yet and just need a bit more work to figure things out. I'll add in a figure, some birds, and try to introduce more colours as the current palette is quite bland.



-----------------------------

Currently listening to:

[Orange Pekoe]

Been mostly posting on Instagram, if anyone wants to follow my trash studies.

https://www.instagram.com/momentary_pixels/?hl=en

I feel more comfortable posting my failed studies there and dumping random comments that make no sense. :P

-------------------------------------------

Currently listening to: