Beau's Sketchbook

[darktiste]

What might be looking chaotic can turn chaotic.The important thing is that you work in a way that is smart rather then sloppy.Your not gonna help yourself posting sloppy looking drawing because you will not recieve comment that are relevent to what your trying to achieve because people will have problem translating what your actually trying to do.Here the core of my message simplify your line or simply use flat value in the thumbnailing stage no need to use different brush when thumbnailing you only need an hard brush and like 3 to 5 value.Also stay away from line because they often push you to commit to a drawing to early. If you can try to stick to the essential you need all your brain to focus on value and composition in the early stage of a drawing in my opinion.

[beau]

Thanks darkiste, I kept line conservation in mind with this study I did today, and like trying to earase as little as possible and really focus on getting it right the first time. Obviously I erased a bit, but less than I would have without focusing on this. I included a bit of loose thumbnails for a splash screen, of an adventurer in pyramid ruins with those reanimated skeletons around him. I want the final to look either Hearthstone-y or MTG. Sorry if you don't feel like these are worth critiqueing, these are more for my own accountability than anything. I should be posting the final image from one of these in a couple of days, though, and I'll make that as close to my current skill level as possible.The boxed off parts of the comps down there are ffor the title (tbd) and START GAME and OPTIONS. I think top right feels the best, even though top left feels more eerie, and bottom right feels kind of Indiana Jones.

I'm sorry if it looks like I don't care about your criticisms with regards to this first image looking sloppy and rushed- I don't know, I guess I was;t focusing while doing it. The skeleton from a couple days ago was a big jump in my inking ability I think, and I didn't spend as much time remaking my lines as on other pieces. I'm taking everyone's words to heart, thank you all for your critiques. I've felt myself improving more the past month than in the past several years of drawing in my sketchbook. Going to post a 1 hour figure drawing session's sketches in here later tonight after some more client stuff.

Btw, in the study, tried to draw a perspective grid on another layer, drew it on the same layer, and messed up the location of a point, which is why there are three, but I know that the left point would be further offscreen than it is and I did not place it there because I thought it was correct. 

[beau]

Extremely freeing, just sGesture study, one to two lines. I actually feel like I learned a ton from this... Confidence and just how simple you can imply forms to have them read. Extremely freeing, just served to reming me how much time and energy I'm wasting in the way I have done lines up until now. It's a deeply ingrained habit that's hard to kick- I'll try to post some art from the past year sometime soon, both to help you critique my progress and to show my bad habits I've been ignoring.
Then some Durarara comps, not sure about the color, only added it for story reasons to separaate them, but I may end up discarding that and going with some compositional background shapes, or just making the colors subtle in their outfits. 
Found out I have a hard time drawing basic standing female gestures, esppescially since Anri's so reserved and full figured- challenging combination.

[darktiste]

I was refering to the thumbnail only not the skeleton piece.

[roanna]

Hi Beau,
I really like your skellies! Drawing all those bones is extremely hard! For the learning purposes only and not to critique your ideas, I should mention: be careful, not rush it seems that you lose your skeleton's nasal bone.

[beau]

I really fell off the wagon, huh? Well, I've got reasons, wether they're good enough to warrant this much of a break from posting? I'm not sure. I've been having a lot of anxiety about medical stuff, and relationships, and just general hopelessness... despite my antidepressant. The antidepressant basically blocked all those negative feelings until a couple weeks ago, then they came back all at once and basically crippled me mentally. Lol, that makes it sound worse than it is, but it makes concentrating and focusing on self development hard. I've been thinking maybe I can get around that by doing painting studies, because they're usually less thought-intensive for me- I don't have to be accurate with llines so much, so I don't have to concentrate so hard, which would make it easier to physically make the movements with my stylus. I'll do some studies now, probably face and lips, and also some hat studies because I'm making a character sheet for a game. (He's basically Indiana Jones, so I can use him as ref).

I photographed a few of my most current sketchbooks and tried to upload them to dropbox, but technology hates me and I haven't been able to upload all of them. I want to share these to give a more focused look at my progress and issues, and give a cohesive look... I have like March-June of one of them, which I'll edit together probably this weekend. Slacking on client work so I waited til the last minute for a couple of projects, lol. I'm not the most organized.

Anyway, here's some stuff from the past couple weeks, or whenever I stopped postting. Tring to really make stroke conservation a thing, the single line studies I feel help with that, even if they look terrible. Do they help anyone else? It's not as easy for me as it looks, am I just wasting my time though? I feel like I'm cheating myself when I do them, yet afterwards my lines feel like they take less focus to get accurate. I don't know. By the way, it could just be that I'm really, REALLY bad at drawing faces, because aside from a couple stylized, abstracted faces in the same angle, I haven't drawn many faces in the past couple years. I never, ever drew them realistically either, and this is basically my first time drawing a nose.

I know it's just a series of shapes, but I can't help thinking 'you're drawing a nose right now.'

I feel super guilty by the way, but feel free to rip me a new one.

[Fedodika]

hmm lots of scribblies! who doesnt love scribblies :) I'm not sure how to critique the perspective stuff, but the (goku?) guy, id take that lasso, rectangle his bicep and make it longer, and also fix his hand behind with reference. Idk if its a great pose, or value arrangement, it seems like an exercise really. Im not sure what the narrative or action is, hes just a naked guy seemingly walking, i remember in an old critter dave rapoza stream he said something along the lines of,

"This, dude is just like a guy in the woods screamin like, whats the point, wheres he going?"

So, something to consider, creative illustration by loomis addresses a lot of composition stuff and narrative to consider, also study the works of dean cornwell or other golden age illustrators to see how they did story and conceptual stuff. Maybe your picture is more a simple concept, theres ways to present that well, like leyendecker... Also consider the values, i mean they seperate but they are all so samey, try to make the background say much darker, or the figure much darker, seperate elements clearly with value ;)

[beau]

Hey Fed, thanks for the feedback. I see that his arms are too short now, lol. Blind to it because I've put so much time in. I do have a plan for the background, and other stuff, I didn't do the drawing first though, sadly, so I'm doing that improv thing while I paint... Which just makes it harder! Haha. So I have an idea of the bg, it's not just a green-screen. For the study, I kept it to two hours, did a tighter sketch underneath and painted overtop. I didn't get his mouth, which makes me upset, because it communicates so much.

A study, and then where I'm headed with the above piece. He's a vampire sculptor, going to be in some temple ruins with energy stuff. Basically seeing how busy I can go and still make it read, currently. Otherwise I can put him in robes and just keep the red fire, but with the piece with the woman in the dress, I think that would be too samey in my portfolio.

[Fedodika]

your study is, the proportions are okay, its just a terrible reference because the lightings all dead pan flash camera style, idk if youve seen this post but its worth reading for finding good reference

http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/...reference/

Despite that your edge work is all slushy and samey, theres no variance between hard and soft edges, i hate to say it but painting stuff like this might be too advanced for where youre at and youd make a better use of your time learning traditional drawing techniques like basic lay ins and shading simple forms well with just black and white, or pencil/charcoal.

just doing some basic proko or watts exercises helped me develop alot, lot faster than working with color straight on digital.

[beau]

your study is, the proportions are okay, its just a terrible reference because the lightings all dead pan flash camera style, idk if youve seen this post but its worth reading for finding good reference

http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/...reference/

Despite that your edge work is all slushy and samey, theres no variance between hard and soft edges, i hate to say it but painting stuff like this might be too advanced for where youre at and youd make a better use of your time learning traditional drawing techniques like basic lay ins and shading simple forms well with just black and white, or pencil/charcoal.

just doing some basic proko or watts exercises helped me develop alot, lot faster than working with color straight on digital.

Wow, do I appreciate the real talk. It's always good to reestablish "I'm not hot shit."

I watch them on youtube but I'm not familiar with their stuff out of that, if you have any recommendations for me to read or study please post them. Otherwise, I'll do research of my own. As for going beyond my current skill, I always thought biting off a lot more than I could chew was the fastest way to improve- after all, pain comes before groeth, right?- but I guess I've neglected the fundamentals... That's a shame. Greyscale studies will help, also patience and planning, two skills/techniques I've ignored. Also, this is going to sound dumb, but what is a lay-in?

Thank you, as always, great feedback.

[Fedodika]

Sure! I appreciate your attitude, some people (on this very forum, an older self of me) cant handle it very well.

See youre at a kind of intermediate level, you have some basics down but its kinda scattered and the important stuff isnt refined, so that ends up hurting your overall quality. I was stuck where youre at now for several years, spinning my wheels, if you go through say the first 10-50 pages of my sketchbook. You can skip that in less than one year if you focus and work hard. 

What id reccomend is getting the whole watts gear, the newsprint, smooth, get some nice pencils sharepened they dont have to be the conte 1710B you can get some cheaper like generals smooth charcoal just sharpen them well. And just go through all of prokos videos from gesture to spine to ribs, to basic head stuff, then go through each muscle group make sure youre drawing them immaculately, watch all the critiques, take extensive notes on paper about anatomy. also hit drawabox.com and do the box and cyllinder challenge if you havent. 

If you can afford like a month of watts drawing, hop on there and download the workbooks, watch as much as you can do the exercises, learn the reilly rythms. Perfect your head and figure construction meticulously, using observation and memory studies. Go though Loomis head and hands, figure drawing for all its worth, hampton figure drawing, watch all steve hustons vids, villppu. Watch these streams 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKfsZaNrmzM&t=5212s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVx1cHBlYgU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTG00o3woq8&t=2371s

And just make beautiful drawings your goal for now; dont paint for... hell a year or two, digital or traditional. Just make it all pencil, learn how planes work and form and anatomy and perspective, lock it down tight.

This is a great thread from Erik im copying from
Art: E.M. Gist life drawing/ Updated 9/20/10 post 196

Also check brian knox's instagram and this:

https://wattsatelier.tumblr.com/

Basically even if you dont do these things, get as good as you can with a pencil, so good that just your line drawings are inspiring and people see value in them. From that point painting becomes a breeze. You shouldnt have the thought, oh color will save this, it should always be man i hope i dont mess up the quality of this drawing with color. once you do all that, youll see the value of drafstmanship, its just a journey of tuning those skills, color and painting is such a small part of the process, and not necessarily a crucial or even required skill for being a professional

[Baldgate]

Hello,

Nice going on those sketches, your last face study show improvement.

Fedodika already mentioned 90% of what I could say so... I personally recommand Bridgeman, because I think he depicts mass and volume very clearly. For your color studies, I think you should try to finish them, even if its takes you 5-6 hours. Rushing it won't teach you anything. Try to really reproduce it, same background etc . Trying to paint on a white background will throw off your value most of the time, unless its a contre-jour lighting.