Egbu draws stuff!

[chromaTinker]

Hey egbu, thanks for stoppin by my SB! Awesome job tackling faces and hands early on, that's definitely something not to procrastinate on. Your digital paintings are coming along, but I agree with the other posters; push that value range! You can always put a hue/saturation layer with saturation:0 over your painting to check values and make sure they're working well.

[Egbu]

Ben Flores: Yeah I agree, I think I will start experimenting with value, composition studies because I want to start getting some paintings from imagination done.
chromaTinker: Thanks I have always been aware of that function but always forget to use it D:

So I will start posting sketchbook pages as well here again. stopped doing it because I found it kind of embarrassing about how bad I am at traditional but, who cares riight?

[Egbu]

For anyone wondering, I first heard it when watching James Kei's massive black demo, and he said (paraphrasing here) kung-fu painting is putting all your knowledge into each and every individual stroke, like how in kung-fu they put all their strength & focus into to each individual blow

[atrenr]

That is the spirit, Miles! The amount of stuff I've put up here that embarrassed me throws the few things I was proud of into shadows, haha. Keep updating!

[Egbu]

Thanks Terran, to put it in a weird metaphor it is like only posting the stuff you like is like you're protecting yourself in a way, but then when you post almost everything you do, it is like being naked, and everyone can see you D:.

Been carrying on with the mountain studies, trying to get better at environments and what not. Learnt more from these two studies than the other two I have done, like how perspective affects how you see the ripples on the water, and the forms of rocks. Want to do more though to improve my knowledge as I am still quite shaky at the moment, the last painting was from imagination trying to apply the stuff I learnt, I looked back at the photo ref about 3 times to check a few things but apart from that was done from the head. Was trying to play around with the distinction between midground, foreground and background, really trying to improve my values D:.

[kikindaface]

first thing : use the whole range of values( exept pure black or pure white ), exaggerate a bit what you see to make it more real, for the colors, warm ligh= cool shadow, and vice versa, that's all you need for now ! really observe what you're drawing, and think a lot, don't get distracted, don't let your mind wander ! Keep it up dude !

[Egbu]

kikindaface: Thanks!
Just a self portrait from the mirror, for this update

[Samarus]

Good to see you work so hard ! Much improvement !
Keep up the good work :D

[Amit Dutta]

Hey man keep up the dedicated work. For a start you're really attacking things the right way with thought and purpose. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of progress made here, oh and nice job on the selfie. Keep it up!

[Egbu]

Samarus: Thanks you're really killing it in your sketchbook man!
monkeybread: thanks for the kind words :)

So this is kind of like a test painting/illustration/application of study thing I am working hoping to push it further, so would really love some feedback :D

[JakeB]

Self portrait came out great man, and this environment's looking good, you've got some really cool planes going on in the rocky cliffs. Keep pushing it :)

[Samszym]

Hey, thanks for the comment! Really cool stuff here, it's great that you're keeping the updates regular and always working on new stuff!
I might play around with the composition and shapes some more before getting into painting that landscape, if there were some smaller shapes in the image it would make the big ones feel bigger. maybe shrink the people, or try showing more of the sky so the horizon line isn't right in the middle, or extend the reflection of the mountain to break up the big horizontal bar of the water, maybe add some foreground elements, there's so much you could do! Best of luck.

[Egbu]

JakeB: Thanks for the encouragement :D
Samszym:Thanks for the compostion advice, I'll definitely make sure to also keep those in mind in up coming paintings

So I edited it a bit added a few smaller objects and lower the skyline slightly. Did a rock formation study as well to help with the rock shapes, painted without pen pressure was kind of fun not o have to worry about pressure, might try it more in the future.

[kikindaface]

dude, there are a few concepts that you should know concerning composition ! 1 Overlapping : In order to create depth, each thing must pass in front of or behind other things ! 2 : Shapes variety : in order to have interesting composition, you should vary shape size, ie use big, medium and small ones ! here, the 2 rocks from left and right are about the same ... = boring composition ! ( third useful rule : ) make your background, middle and foreground read well by playing with value patterns ! dark tones for the foreground, and lighter tones for background ! Anyway, keep it up !

[futurespaceghost]

Hey man nice SB!

when it comes to faces and human anatomy in general if i were you i would first draw the bones as basic cylinders and spheres for the joints to get down the structure. then draw the muscle on top and then the flesh. your heads and bodies really lack beleivable form and volume and i see in your sketches where youve drawn boxes and they look a little wonky. take your time to make each line of the box straight and also plot the horizon line and vanishing point(s) before drawing any shapes unitl you have a good grasp on perspective :)

[Jonesoda]

Just popping in to say stuff's looking good Man, I really like the self portrait. keep it coming Egbu.

[razvanb08]

That portrait came out nice man. Good effort in this sketchbook, keep posting!

[Egbu]

Thanks for all the feedback guys :D!
Kikindaface: Yeah I thought I did do a few of thing things you said there but I guess they did not come out well :P, I should try and focus on the basics of the image before going into more detail
futurespaceghost: I actually kind of took your advice found a scott robertson perspective video, to solidify my perspective knowledge, it was extremely dusty D:!
Jonesoda & Razban08 Thanks, will do!

Soooo I am trying not to lose momentum and update this thing frequently, (don't want a repeat of a common broken promise in this thread, which is to update regularly then never do). I didn't paint that much digitally this week only a few studies one from a photo and another a master study of themistokles von eckenbrecher, if you don't know him, I strongly recommend you check him out, awesome landscape artist. The last digital painting was like an application nothing special. I have been sketching more frequently in my sketchbook and I am using....watercolour D: my greatest enemy. Trying to become more familiar with traditional mediums because I feel like it will really help my digital stuff, plus it is actually kind of fun..sometimes.

[Egbu]

WIP of this landscape kinda thing, trying apply all crits from before and to use all the knowledge I have learnt so far, crits wanted !!

[Yann.F]

Hi Egbu!

Impressive amount of work and will to progress you have in here!

I see you've applied the previous crits you got about changing tones depending on distance,
irregular shapes, overlapping, and that's great!

Now since you asked for crits:

If you're in an extreme setting like this, that should be reflected in your painting : don't be afraid to go extreme with values, pump up the saturation, and don't forget to treat your lava as a light-source that's gonna affect the surrounding environment, especially where the rocks go into the lava.

here's a thumbnail paint-over to illustrate what i mean:



Hope that makes sense, keep up the hard work!