Jones Sketchbook

[ramalooke]

Your stuff is getting better. Just keep doing what you do. And your power will increse in short ammount of time. Believe me on that ;3

[Nimao]

keep pushing man!

[Jaik]

So much improvement! that robot thingy a couple of posts back with the red glowing eyes looks really cool. Keep pushing hard! You'll get there someday :D

[Jonesoda]

Thank's guys - good to hear I'm improving, It's nice to see my sketchbook and art folder build up as well. - Trying to push it!
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Haven't been able to come up with idea's - Also sort of not sure what I should do to improve at the moment, aside from my figure study book I'm going through. Will probably just keep working through the book today since I can't seem to come up with anything.

Flat diagrams from loomis figure studies book - found those pretty confusing when I first got to it. Understand it now but I'm pretty sure I did a bit of a bad job + an hour and 50 minute drawing and some sketchbook sketches

[DK]

Good studies Jones. If you run out of ideas feel free to try out the random character generator :) could help to spark some ideas. Also, if you don't know what to study, study heads or hands, that's something we all need to study and get better at all the time.

[Jonesoda]

Thank's dennis - will definitely have to try it out soon.

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Set up some hand and foot worksheets with area's to draw beneath each image - should save some time having to search for images each time.

a bit of a slow day, I've sort of had art block the past little bit - started with some hand studies from my worksheets, then tried a knight but looks pretty horrible, Got a lot to learn about painting metal as well as drawing armor still. after that I worked on that meditating guy a bit more - tried to improve upon it, look's a little better I think.

[gen5]

hmm, the last picture is cool. however, the perspective seems sort of wacky, also from what i learnt from those fengzhu videos, the trees should be less defined with the increasing distance.

try like a low opacity brush round brush to generate that effect

just my 2 cents!

[Jonesoda]

Thanks for the comment Gen, perspective does look off - also thanks for the tip on the tree's, will have to try that with objects in the future.

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heres a bunch of stuff that I don't care for from today - been working really lose, and haven't been feeling to focused. Also been struggling with the flat diagram figure drawings. Tried out the character generator - started sketching a character but didn't really like where It was going, I think I'll stick to trying to do realistic anatomy instead of stylizing, was planning to go really thin and comic styled looking.

Already 11pm and hungry so I think I'll leave it at that tonight - maybe gather some more materials to study, or try to find something inspiring stuff. Now off to make some food!

[Jonesoda]

two from today - Giant was the first time trying a texture over top of the image, probably didn't do too great a job. and with the second I tried making the chubby kid running not look so flat, but had little success.

[ramalooke]

You tend to go to dark with your values. Also remember that shadows are not black, they usually catch some background color or something. Good updates. Keep pushing!

[Jonesoda]

Thanks for the comment ramalooke - I noticed when I was using black it wasn't looking very dark, I switched over to the desktop computer to use for now on. Now I see that my recent work had dark's that were way to dark. A little saddening, but it should be a little better on here now since I can spot that out. Although I'm nervous now since every one has monitors that are a little different, and my art may look decent on my computer but horribly saturated or discolored on another lol.

I thought switching would help, but I still have to wait for the brush to catch up when using bigger brushes or erasing large areas. I usually worked at around 2300 px plus width and height 300dpi which has slow down with bigger brushes still. Maybe I should scale down my size I work at, but I've heard that working bigger is better.

phew...Digital art is confusing :( so many factors it seems when it comes to specs, size to work at, and everything. It can be somewhat overhelming taking everything into account.
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Onto what I've been doing though - here's some sketches I've done since I was been busy transferring files between computers. Was into a sci-fi mech type theme.



sorry for all the text and lack of art - but I'm ready to get back to it

[Jonesoda]

Got PS and my tablet all set up how I like it on this computer today.
I've been sketching a lot more then normal, trying to improve my line control. As well as get more idea's down. Think I may experiment with other ways of starting a painting aside from line work, or maybe just leave the line work messy since It's gonna be painted over anyway.

Got some basic starting points done for two different ideas + more sketches from my sketchbook.

Gotta work on getting back into the pace I had seeing as I'm all set back up now. Also think I may restrict myself to one or two basic brushes to get my fundamentals down better.

[Jonesoda]

Spent a lot of time today working on this first thing, but it really doesn't look too good. Definitely messed up, But I've learned from what I did wrong there - I think. After I just worked on random quick stuff, this helmet design was one.

An issue though, that hopefully someone might know about -

I'm a little worries and frustrated, when I was painting/drawing, every once in awhile my stroke would randomly lag out a bit and then there would be random hard 'taps' of the brush, or a hard straight line. Not sure what the heck is going on with that, Never experienced it on my laptop. Really getting in the way of my work flow. uninstalled my tablet and re installed but the problem was still there.

Anyway hopefully I can work it out, looking forward to more stuff - gotta get back onto my studies.

[ramalooke]

Keep rocking. Your doing good work xd.

[Jonesoda]

Thank's Ramalooke, doesn't really feel like it though.

Worked out that issue, it was my finger touching the tablet when I was drawing. just had to turn off the touch function.

Today I tried improving upon the helmet, and tried a sketch, I spent a lot of time on the sketch, I don't usually start off with shapes and very loose lines like I did so it took me a lot longer. Some late night sketchbook sketches in there to(My sketches are angled as heck haha). My schedule's all messed up, gotta get back to being up in the day, always so much more productive then.

I want to improve, but I gotta take it one thing at a time maybe - Might just focus on characters/anatomy - armor etc for awhile.

Anyway - Gonna get the old alarm clock out and try to get up early lol

[Jonesoda]

Woke up a bit earlier, at noon, Got a bit more done today.

First time trying silhouettes, Cartoon-y portrait, body with no reference to see where I'm at with understanding of the body - It's pretty clear which part's I need to work on more, also painting some hands I had drawn earlier, came out really dark.

I want to be making cool/badass characters, characters+environments and so forth. Not super refined/digital-y looking, I've always liked stuff that's a bit more rough but not so rough that it looks unfinished. To get there I think this is what I need to learn (off the top of my head) -

* anatomy (A given..)
*Armor/Metal
*Clothing/Drapery
*Lighting/darkness
*Environments

Also I've been more interested in sci-fi type stuff like mechs and futuristic themes. I was reading some thing and this one dude first studied a lamp he had to learn hinges and so forth - And then made it more complex for his mechs. thought that was pretty cool. Something to possibly study.

Otherwise been sketching a lot more, idea's, characters etc. It's pretty dang messy and ugly but If I draw a lot it should naturally improve while keeping up studies and my digital art.

[DK]

Ya man, keep this up. Workin hard. It's tough at first but it will get easier.

Try to find the part in the Loomis books on face proportions and planes and do some studies on those. Will be good knowledge for when it comes to doing these stylized portraits you're doing.

[CKL]

You've got some good hustle so far, keep that momentum going! If I were you, I would throw in some life studies, using simple geometric forms (Preferably monochromatic) and use some directional lighting on them. That'll help you understand how to wrap those forms a bit more accurately. Keep it up!

[Jonesoda]

@Dennis - Thank's for the suggestion, I'll have to get to try those, sound's helpful.

@Corey - That sounds like it can really help, Will get to that soon.

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Two face studies, second I spent a considerable less amount of time on. And some Fashion! lol, Wanted to try something different, Was a lot of fun. Had to use reference for the pose from a loomis diagram, Need to learn poses better, as well as the female form. (Width of there chest's seem too big)

[Jonesoda]

Ouch... didn't get any art done in the day so went for a midnight sketch - turned into 2 hours and this mess came out. most the time was struggling with trying to get the poses right. Although I think I learned something atleast, the value of directional brush strokes to show form. Got to get back into that loomis anatomy book and REALLY study it hard - for a page or too I wasn't really actively thinking about what I was doing.

Also I said I was going to do just characters for awhile - maybe I should just stick to what I said I was gonna do, and continue to learn my lighting and fundamentals before trying 'big' things just yet.

It hurts right now lol, but I know what I need to do at least.