Anomily's Sketchbook

[Kassatay]

Nice start! I would suggest concentrating more on your values at the beginning. Make 3 or more value studies in black and white. That will definitely help you with your paintings.
Your colors looks a bit muddy, you should add a bit more color variations on your skin tone using color zone of the face.
Keep it up!

[cgmythology]

Nice work on your latest, some very solid color choices there and very solid brushwork, too. Keep it going!

[Anomily]

Nice start! I would suggest concentrating more on your values at the beginning. Make 3 or more value studies in black and white. That will definitely help you with your paintings.
Your colors looks a bit muddy, you should add a bit more color variations on your skin tone using color zone of the face.
Keep it up!

[/url]

Nice work on your latest, some very solid color choices there and very solid brushwork, too.  Keep it going!

[url=https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/wipwednesday/]Thank you guys for the feedback. I'll keep the values in mind from now on.

[Anomily]

Nothing real important or detailed.






(There's a more rendered version of this, but the angle of the back was so off that I'm not sure I saved it).





 

I was thinking about taking classes because I feel like I get better and then just plateau.

[Anomily]

Any feedback is welcome.

[darktiste]

There something about the quality of the skin i can't fully explain but it not there yet.I suggest drawing baby to teen to adult to old people you will get more familiar with the contrast in skin type and it texture also draw multiple skin color.I think right now your skin leak the living aspect about it there something doll like to it.Maybe search for how to draw skin texture and do a few study base on what you pick up on.

Also as a side note you should provide your reference as to help the people commenting from giving more accurate comment that reflect the reference.

[Anomily]

Just an update on this one.




This file went poof after my computer restarted.

[Anomily]

There something about the quality of the skin i can't fully explain but it not there yet.I suggest drawing baby to teen to adult to old people you will get more familiar with the contrast in skin type and it texture also draw multiple skin color.I think right now your skin leak the living aspect about it there something doll like to it.Maybe search for how to draw skin texture and do a few study base on what you pick up on.

Also as a side note you should provide your reference as to help the people commenting from giving more accurate comment that reflect the reference.

Thanks, that's a good idea. I'll try to post reference photos more often.

[Anomily]

Just a few things. I'm not particularly proud of the last one (it was from a live session) and the first one is looking a little slanted.

[darktiste]

Hi there i don't know myself alot about skin but i had a go to see what it would look like if i reworked one of the picture you already put down so it not necessary right or better the way i done it but if you find something you can extract from this i just want to share it with you.The modification are done mostly with a dodge and a burn tool which i change the range as to deal with highlight midtone and shadow.Most of the work was done more toward creating more define shadow.Contrast is one of my favorite thing and it also help your form turn more in space when everything is to close in range you get a flattening effect.

I also throw in a bit of a stamp brush to create more texture where the form transition before it goes into the shadow to indicate the porous nature of the skin.Since the skin is a bit oiled you get some wet hightlight stronger highlight on the lips and the nose as well as some more redish tone on the nose aswell as the ears.

I also read that you smudge alot which might be the reason why i find this doll like quality in the skin.You could study some artist who are really good at not smudging to gain more confidence in your brush stroke.Like this portrait of Van gogh.

Keep it up it up.

[Anomily]

Hi there i don't know myself alot about skin but i had a go to see what it would look like if i reworked one of the picture you already put down so it not necessary right or better the way i done it but if you find something you can extract from this i just want to share it with you.The modification are done mostly with a dodge and a burn tool which i change the range as to deal with highlight midtone and shadow.Most of the work was done more toward creating more define shadow.Contrast is one of my favorite thing and it also help your form turn more in space when everything is to close in range you get a flattening effect.

I also throw i a bit of a stamp brush to create more texture where the form transition before it goes into the shadow to indicate the porous nature of the skin.Since the skin is a bit oiled you get some wet hightlight stronger highlight on the lips and the nose as well as some more redish tone on the nose aswell as the ears.

I also read that you smudge alot which my be the reason why i find this doll like quality in the skin.You could study some artist who are really good at not smudging to gain more confidence in your brush stroke.Like this portrait of Van gogh.

Keep it up it up.

Ayyyy, I mostly paint on one layer and don't use a lot of multiple/burn/dodge. I'm pretty simple. But I agree I can definitely benefit from more contrast and texture.

I don't use a smudge tool to blend, but I probably am overblending.

[Anomily]

Nothing super refined.

[Anomily]

One more for the day. Really trying to expand out of my comfort zone. I gave up though because the head is so off. Feedback is welcome on that.

[darktiste]

Use the top of your subject head without the hair(can be tricky with people with afro) to the bottom of the chin.This will be a measuring unit you can refer to.

After that Look for visual checkpoint and if possible try to visualize thing that allign spacial.

For example here you got window which are perfect measuring tool generally due to the fact they are man made a trick is to find man made object with 90 angle those are your best visual measuring guide which you should already be looking for before you draw anything else most of the time.There also that flower pot tutor which would also make for a good visual measuring tool careful not everything is as horizontal or vertical as they seem so compare them against the frame of the picture.Generally it best to find vertical and horizontal line first but if you can't find any you can try to find diagonal instead remember that you can plan ahead of time a make a frame for your picture which can be use as a measuring tool by using the vertical and horizotal of that frame if you don't want to create a frame you can still use the paper itself to compare the verticality or the horizontal quality of a line.

Once you got most of your visual checkpoint and guide establish you can start to look for negative space and big shape to simplify the complexity of the subject.Since your after big shape don't only think in term of anatomy look for highlight midtone or shadow area that occupy large portion of image and try to squint to ruffly put them down.

Remember to try to look at the reference regularly to avoid building on mistake.

Using your head measuring unit and count how many head you can count from the top of the head to what ever part that touch the groud.This is mostly useful for measuring body part that don't experience extreme foreshortning if you know the human body proportion.

You don't need to put everything you draw into the final drawing so don't hesitate if it help you to draw extra detail if it make your work faster because time is money.But erasing can be time consuming also so don't over do it it can be a waste of time if you work traditional a good way to minimize the wasted time would be to have a underdrawing made with graphite and then once thing are ready to be rendered outside the outline going in with a marker paint or ink and then erasing the graphite afterward.

Don't feel bad this is a really organic subject you took with alot of curve which are much harder subject to capture than hard edge subject such as cube. Here it almost a study on curve.

Also i don't recommend rushing to put in color or value make a solid linework and take the time to check your visual note.

I hope this was helpful or atleast a reminder as to how you can think will doing those study.It still surprising sometime how we can get overwelm by complex subject that why structure is a good thing to have.Remember that proportion and shape is atleast in my mind n.1,n.2 in term of priority but you can also aswell think in term of value shape.

Also remember that you can always create a layers for your underdrawing when drawing digitally it won't kill you to have 2 layers and you can always lock the layers so you don't mix them up will drawing by locking the layers you will get a message if you are trying to paint on the lock layer. Try thing i think the last thing you want is to be stuck in your way of doing you can always go back to whatever feel comfortable later on and built with whatever you found useful to your process.

[Anomily]

Use the top of your subject head without the hair(can be tricky with people with afro) to the bottom of the chin.This will be a measuring unit you can refer to.

After that Look for visual checkpoint and if possible try to visualize thing that allign spacial.

For example here you got window which are perfect measuring tool generally due to the fact they are man made a trick is to find man made object with 90 angle those are your best visual measuring guide which you should already be looking for before you draw anything else most of the time.There also that flower pot tutor which would also make for a good visual measuring tool careful not everything is as horizontal or vertical as they seem so compare them against the frame of the picture.Generally it best to find vertical and horizontal line first but if you can't find any you can try to find diagonal instead remember that you can plan ahead of time a make a frame for your picture which can be use as a measuring tool by using the vertical and horizotal of that frame if you don't want to create a frame you can still use the paper itself to compare the verticality or the horizontal quality of a line.

Once you got most of your visual checkpoint and guide establish you can start to look for negative space and big shape to simplify the complexity of the subject.Since your after big shape don't only think in term of anatomy look for highlight midtone or shadow area that occupy large portion of image and try to squint to ruffly put them down.

Remember to try to look at the reference regularly to avoid building on mistake.

Using your head measuring unit and count how many head you can count from the top of the head to what ever part that touch the group.This is mostly useful for measuring body part that don't experience extreme foreshortning if you know the human body proportion.

You don't need to put everything you draw into the final drawing so don't hesitate if it help you to draw extra detail if it make your work faster because time is money.But erasing can be time consuming also so don't over do it it can be a waste of time if you work traditional a good way to minimize the wasted time would be to have a underdrawing made with graphite and than once thing are ready to be rendered outside the outline going in with a marker paint or ink and than erasing the graphite afterward.

Don't feel bad this is a really organic subject you took with alot of curve which are much harder subject to capture than hard edge subject such as cube. Here it almost a study on curve.

Also don't rush to put in color make a solid linework and take the time to check your visual note.

I hope this was helpful or atleast a reminder as to how you can think will doing those study.It still surprising sometime how we can get overwelm by complex subject that why structure is a good thing to have.Remember that proportion and shape is atleast in my mind n.1,n.2 in term of priority but you can also aswell think in term of value shape.

Also remember that you can always create a layers for your underdrawing when drawing digitally it won't kill you to have 2 layers and you can always lock the layers so you don't mix them up will drawing by locking the layers you will get a message if you are trying to paint on the lock layer. Try thing i think the last thing you want is to be stuck in your way of doing you can always go back to whatever feel comfortable later on and built with whatever you found useful to your process.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, as always. I'm overly reliant on using negative space and other tricks to draw figures, and not enough measuring/marking. I thought everything except the head was going in a positive direction, so I may go back and give it another attack.

[Anomily]

Not so proud of the facial features, but I like the value. (it's a sketch of a video game character).







The model for today's session bailed, so I volunteered and stepped in. Then I went home and started drawing myself because everyone else seemed to have such fun doing it today.  

[RottenPocket]

Thanks a lot for your feedback, as always. I'm overly reliant on using negative space and other tricks to draw figures, and not enough measuring/marking. I thought everything except the head was going in a positive direction, so I may go back and give it another attack.

I'd be interested in hearing what these tricks are because I'm all for alternative methods of learning. I do want to note that your measuring is -OK- it's definitely more the marking that needs some love. 

For instance this neko girl you have has a pretty solid head as a base but I know it's easy to get lost in each individual feature without looking at it as a whole. Here you can see just how slanted the features are compared to the head structure and that's what makes it feel warped. 




The beauty of digital is it's easy to edit these things, which does help you eye to 'see' these issues and train you to avoid making them in future. 

Ultimately output is a great way to keep improving on these things so great work!

[Anomily]

Thanks a lot for your feedback, as always. I'm overly reliant on using negative space and other tricks to draw figures, and not enough measuring/marking. I thought everything except the head was going in a positive direction, so I may go back and give it another attack.

I'd be interested in hearing what these tricks are because I'm all for alternative methods of learning. I do want to note that your measuring is -OK- it's definitely more the marking that needs some love. 

For instance this neko girl you have has a pretty solid head as a base but I know it's easy to get lost in each individual feature without looking at it as a whole. Here you can see just how slanted the features are compared to the head structure and that's what makes it feel warped. 



The beauty of digital is it's easy to edit these things, which does help you eye to 'see' these issues and train you to avoid making them in future. 

Ultimately output is a great way to keep improving on these things so great work!

I basically use negative space to measure the angle of the nose. So in a 3/4 profile I would draw the triangle (or negative space) of the nose, the outer edge of the face, and the lowest part of the eye. Then I would draw the rest of the face out from there. It keeps the general relationships the same, but on the flip side you can end up drawing larger than the size of the canvas unintenionally.

My old figure drawing teacher also taught me to draw the inner features first, and then draw the outline of the face around them. He also said to draw one part of the eye, then then the same part of the other eye, instead of focusing on drawing them whole separately. He lied to his family about the degree he was getting and went to a very fancy art school in Spain. He actually never saw the point of dissecting bodies or doing muscle studies because,"we don't dissect a flower to understand the anatomy", but it might have been a bit of trauma on his part because his school had them dissect bodies. I actually interviewed him for a cultural project after I switched my major to social work. He was highly complimentary of my ability to sneak in and steal supplies even after switching majors. I used to art model a lot and picked up on various methods from listening to teachers instruct their students. Still obviously not enough to make me an expert. :P

I love the feedback I receive on this forum. It does take me longer to absorb it with my day job being a little extreme. I don't post a lot on other people's sketchbooks, but I find what they do amazing it's hard to find anything to say.

[JosephCow]

He lied to his family about the degree he was getting and went to a very fancy art school in Spain. He actually never saw the point of dissecting bodies or doing muscle studies because,"we don't dissect a flower to understand the anatomy", but it might have been a bit of trauma on his part because his school had them dissect bodies. I actually interviewed him for a cultural project after I switched my major to social work. He was highly complimentary of my ability to sneak in and steal supplies even after switching majors.

Um wow okay there's a lot to unpack in here! hahah

[Anomily]

He lied to his family about the degree he was getting and went to a very fancy art school in Spain. He actually never saw the point of dissecting bodies or doing muscle studies because,"we don't dissect a flower to understand the anatomy", but it might have been a bit of trauma on his part because his school had them dissect bodies. I actually interviewed him for a cultural project after I switched my major to social work. He was highly complimentary of my ability to sneak in and steal supplies even after switching majors.

Um wow okay there's a lot to unpack in here! hahah

He was a character! But as a result I'm also somewhat lacking in areas of figure drawing education.