jacksoneligray's Sketchbook

[jacksoneligray]

It's been a minute since I've been on a site like this. I feel kind of mindless when I work now, and I'm really just looking to step outside myself. I think I've gotten too comfortable with the level of my work I produce and I'm really just looking to take it to the next level and quit making the same mistakes, so if anyone out there has some feedback for me, it would be greatly appreciated.

[jacksoneligray]

A few things I've worked on over the last few weeks. My rendering is so hit or miss. D:

[xelfereht]

Hey there,
Did a little paint over for you to illustrate some things you may want to keep n mind

Biggest stand out is consistency of the direction of lighting
His eye area is darker than his ankles for example. how his head is lit and not his eyes is hard to justify here
rim lighting, you can do more with it than purely create a thin outline, some forms turning towards the light
will catch more allowing you to describe the forms more clearly.
again for consistency and for composition design, gotta light that rat up
also bounce light, its a thing, it can be useful. color also gets picked up in it

tangents, visual confusion by close intersection of edges or visual read connecting lines that arent related
theres not too many here but one is the tongue tentacle  coming out of the book lining up with the strap above it
you can use overlaps to ad a bit of dimension and interest to a piece.
i moved the tentacle to block his foot a bit to get an easy read that its in front of it.
i also increased the size of it to distinguish it more from the strap and increase size of shape variety in the pic
all kinds of contrast can be used to increase the visual appeal of a piece.

about contrast, you want to decide where it goes. you have fairly sharp edge rendering throughout
there are multiple bright areas to grap that first glance, coupled with this youve taken his eyeballs out of visablity
if you close your eyes and open them on your image, see where your eyes go and how they track around the piece.
for me they get torn between the face and hands equally

by pushing back the contrast in his hands and bringing his eyes to light,
try the same close and open eyes on my paint over and maybe youl find you go straight to the face

materials, the strap on his hat is great, besides that it almost all looks like hard matte material
use hard and soft edges, hints of detail and level of detail at different scales to create a more rich piece
that feels like theres more to see beyond a glance. practice pulling the eye of the viewer around in the sequence you desire.

ok, hope that helps some

[jacksoneligray]

Dang! Thank you, I really appreciate this. 
Your paintover really helps clarify some of the forms on the face that I was butchering. I don't know why I got so locked into that flawed setup. I definitely need to start bringing in some textures too, I see that now.
And I completely missed that tangent with the book strap! Great catch! I usually try to look out for them, but I absolutely did not see that.
I'll certainly be reworking this tomorrow, thanks again.

[jacksoneligray]

This was from a few months ago. I don't know why I never finish anything haha, I really need to just shut up and do it.

[jacksoneligray]

Finally, something from today. Working from reference has always been a struggle for me, I don't know why. I think I've gotten into the habit of always trying to simplify things into shapes, and it's really difficult for me to break out of that mindset and just draw what I see. My sense of realism is incredibly flawed, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it!
Hope everyone is staying safe and getting good work done. 
:D

[darktiste]

I think the problem is you didn't set your intention before hand.You simply get carried along amplifying what you found were the most interesting feature.Specially in term of maybe proportion,value and shape.

I am not even made at your simplifacation i find that it actually turn a bad photo into something better in my opinion.For me maybe the only thing your over doing that destroy the semi realistic style is how far you push your shape specially the hair on this one.I think if you render bit more the hair you would get a better realism out of this study.In realism you want to pay special attention to every element and treat them as equal in detailling.As they say in painting your after a likeness foremost.

[ognjiša]

I think the problem with what you call your sense of realism is probably just a problem with observing and exaggerating in a characteristic way, because, in this portrait, you seem to be exaggerating some of her features in a way that is not characteristic to the reference. I don't think you're supposed to just draw only of exactly what you see, but you need to inform your decisions on how to stylize based on what you see. For example, her smile is clearly a lot longer than it is wide, but you widened it and made the upper lip fuller for no apparent reason. Same thing with the eyes, they seem pretty small to me and i would have made them even smaller if i wanted to stylize, but you went the opposite way. Another thing is how wide you made her cheeks and face shape in general, while the reference is a lot taller.

Everyone has specific face decisions they default to subconsciously, and larger eyes and wider faces might be those for you, but the point in doing portraits from reference is (i assume for you as well) to get the likeness. I had a really specific way i would draw noses (among other things) because i drew a lot from imagination and less from reference and i had to be really conscious about observing what the model's nose really looks like. This stuff is just normal and the way to get over it, in my opinion, is to first take mental note of what you have a tendency to do by default, and then, when observing, consciously describe the model's characteristics to yourself. When you start blocking in a portrait, keep asking yourself - are her eyes large, what's the shape of her face, and so on, and consciously recognize what you think they are. I think it really helps to say it to yourself, that way you don't work mindlessly.
You obviously know how to render the forms from reference, but the problem with this one is the value relationships. The whole face is darker than the reference and the smaller value changes (like the side of the nose, for example) are stronger in your painting, which makes her look kinda old. I think you could think the same way when trying to figure out the values - keep asking yourself how light or dark something should be in relationship to the rest of the painting. If you now know you have a tendency to overexaggerate smaller value differences, try to be conscious of that particular tendency the next time you work. If you know what you tend to mess up, you can focus on a couple things and not feel overwhelmed by everything at once.
hope my rambling's been at least somewhat helpful lol
looking forward to more stuff from you!

[jacksoneligray]

Thanks to both of you!

@darktiste
That's definitely true, when it comes to studies I really just go into auto-pilot mode and get sidetracked from what I'm supposed to be doing, which ultimately leads to me not actually learning anything from doing it in the first place and just essentially trying to restructure things so they look like I didn't know what I wanted, which is what I think again happened here.
I completely agree about the hair, in all honesty I just don't understand how to render hair. I'm going to need to dedicate some time to figuring that out.

@ognjisa
I think "my sense of realism" is really just chalked up to me not knowing what I am trying to accomplish when I set out to do a study. Part of me wants to try to recreate what I'm looking at, but part of me wants to repurpose it into something else, so then I just end up with something down the middle that is just... weird. It's pretty much always gone this way for me. I guess I struggle to think in a one-track mind in that setting. Because it's weird, although I clearly made decisions to stylize things, I stylized them in a way I would have never chosen if I didn't have a reference. I would have never drawn eyes this way in any other setting. They look strange!
In regards to values... Yeah. That has been a never ending struggle for me. I need to not move things so drastically. Acknowledging the common mistakes I make will definitely be on my mind, thanks.


Alright, thank you both; this was very helpful. I'm going to try to knock out another one today with your notes in mind.

[darktiste]

If i can inject something more i would advise you take pause to come back with a fresh eye this way yo will come back your work with a fresh eye being able to notice stylisation much more than if you do long session.It hard for some to come back to there work an notice all the flaw but if your interested i owning your still in term of what you see it important you find your middle in term of how far you want to push what you see into something that not there also remember your result is secondary it your intention that matter you can always get a better result later on along the way.I think a good way for you to approch going more toward realism if that your real intention and not because you feel pressure to do it.What i would advise is to isolate the feature of the face on there own so that it much more apparent when you going off track it will allow you to be able to do much more realistic figure i believe.But i think what really key is not to fall in the auto pilot mode and for that i suggest small session of drawing like 20min so as to not go off track to much in term of stylisation as well as to fall in the auto pilot mode.Ok now i think i been clear enough.

[jacksoneligray]

I'm still going to try to take this one further tomorrow; I'm just trying to get in the habit of posting daily, so yeah. Tapping out for today.

[jacksoneligray]

Just wanted to get this posted before I inevitably screw it up. I think this is the best I have managed to paint something so far. It's for a friend's Company called Sweety Twisted.

[darktiste]

Good job any reason as to why the teeth aren't white?

[jacksoneligray]

Thanks!
I'm kind of debating the teeth situation right now. I hope it reads clearly, but it's supposed to be a piece of candy corn. I thought it might make sense to make the teeth out of candy corn as well. I know I made the eyes out of like eye material, but I don't know. I feel like realistic eyes are kind of more friendly, whereas real teeth might just be unsettling. I am going for "unsettling" though. I haven't really made up my mind on it quite yet.

[xelfereht]

Finally, something from today. Working from reference has always been a struggle for me, I don't know why. I think I've gotten into the habit of always trying to simplify things into shapes, and it's really difficult for me to break out of that mindset and just draw what I see. My sense of realism is incredibly flawed, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it!
Hope everyone is staying safe and getting good work done. 
:D

ok, so first of all good work
theres some nice moments of shape design and blends
things to consider:
some harshly defined lines there. its going to change the read of the forms and describe them as more severe
plane changes or just look like outlines.
these defined parts create contrast and if they arent where you decide hem to be they can draw attention to not so warranted areas, my eyes for example flick to under her nose and the forehead shadow

its looking a little hard surface for skin, if the style is consistent it can be ok,long as you mean for it.

i suggest as part of the study process, to observe how the parts interact during different expressions
in this case for example, how the mouth stretches for the smile pushing up the cheeks and in turn the lower eyelids
the lower eyelids which are very dark,
it looks like youre noticing the values changing, but over stating it
your eyes, when you focus on an area will adjust to see the values there, like how our eyes adjust to a dark room but can also adjust to a bright room
to get around this, switch your view between focused to wide view of the whole face to find where it sits in context after getting the detailed info.
im sorry if this is a bit overwhelming lol but its also why arts great and you just get better till you die
shes got one less tooth than in the reference.. thats a thing
her eyes are a but a stray too

i could have kept painting but just wanted to get the idea across enough
I hope it helps make sense of my words



Ok! and cool candy corn character.
the angle of the mouth felt maybe a bit at a different angle, i just bumped up the size and nudged it over.
slightly desaturated everything except the eyes to make them stand out cos its a form of contrast..
and make it a little softer on the eyes overall
i find it hard to look at wholely super saturated stuff, i dunno about other people
uhh tried to give it a bit more interesting highlight shape that worked with the forms and didnt gompete as much with the eye highlights
took away the blackness bordering the character, it feels a bit unjustified especially because of how light all the local colours are.
just did a quick pass of a possible rim job tharr.. which for i just panted orange in the spots it may hit, turned it into a divide layer and used a layer mask to soften it where it felt appropriate
(fyi ive never used this method before but i like how it turned out)
the divide layer turned it blue which because of its opposition to orange pops it and insta 3D

hope that helps
great work

[jacksoneligray]

Dang dude, all I can say is thanks. 
Definitely not "too much", I will take any advice you have for me haha, it's actually exactly what I think I was looking for here. I just wish I could return the favor lol. Hopefully soon!
I'll be staring at these for a while haha, thanks gain.

[jacksoneligray]

Didn't really get an opportunity to work on anything today, I had a bunch of finals/homework to take care of, but I'm trying to put together a better Graphic Design portfolio. I don't know if this is really appropriate for this site, but it's what I worked on today so. D:

[xelfereht]

Dang dude, all I can say is thanks. 
Definitely not "too much", I will take any advice you have for me haha, it's actually exactly what I think I was looking for here. I just wish I could return the favor lol. Hopefully soon!
I'll be staring at these for a while haha, thanks gain.

 thats cool man, I'm happy to help
keep up the good work

[jacksoneligray]

Blehhhh

[jacksoneligray]

S'more