Zvarthav's Sketchbook

[JosephCow]

I think you're doing good. You're going to do other stuff in the future, but you can't do everything at once. Might as well finish the book you're on before switching lanes. I agree that perspective makes sense to study the most for doing backgrounds, as someone that does backgrounds.

[Zvarthav]

To JosephCow: Thanks. Well yeah, I'll finish this book, then I'll decide if I switch to gestures or something or continue with harder perspective.

16th assignments.


Since I wanted to draw digitally I took photos and included them under a spoiler. Feel free to use my photos for this assignment for your own studies if you want (mostly speaking to my associate who I sent this thread too here, but anyone else is free to use them as well if they want to).

1 This felt hard to do in the city so I went to my parent's house in the country (my balcony is too small, and while there is an outside area here I didn't want to risk anyone messing with my stuff). For the objects I used some geometric forms from my father. The table is facing north, I think.


2 I used a flashlight. Don't know if I did it right, maybe it was supposed to be closer so they cast longer shadows, but whatever.


3 Once again I didn't have an empty ink bottle so I used another. Don't know if the book meant turning the bottle around with a static light source or keeping the bottle static with a light source that moved around but I went with the first.


4 There was hardly any difference between the 12.00 noon room picture and the sunset one, so I used one from 09.30 the next day instead. I don't know why, maybe it was cloudy or maybe the house isn't in a fitting position for this study. The room is facing east, I think.


5 My drawing.

Spoiler

Forenoon.


Late afternoon.


Nearby source of light.


Bottle.


Room at nine thirty.


Room at sunset.

[Zvarthav]

17th assignments.


1 I used some of the geometric forms for the other small articles. I copied and pasted a lot.


2 Google says that is 2.54 centimeters. I used a circular object. Maybe I did it a bit too simple.


3 I don't know what a "spile" and "piling" looks like (as I wrote earlier English isn't my first language), so I just drew a bridge. If you know what it looks like feel free to link an image of a spile with piling so I'll know in the future. Once again the men in these assignments are badly drawn because I can't draw humans lol.


4 My drawing.


5 I assume a leaning post means, like, a pole made from wood and not some other thing. I used one of the geometric forms and a mirror as reference.


6 My drawing.


7 My drawing.

[Zvarthav]

In his sketchbook JosephCow told me Blender was difficult to learn, but it didn't take very long, and recommended I'd give it a go if I am interested. It seems a bit overwhelming to me but maybe I ought to try it in the future when I have a better grasp of fundamentals. A story I'm working on begins in a gigantic cave ossuary, and maybe walls covered with skeletons would be easier to make if one had 3D models...
If anyone who happens to read this can tell me the best way to go about illustrating a giant cave with walls covered in skeletons, please do tell, should I just draw it freehand or should I learn 3D for it? If I should learn 3D are there any tricks that can help in modeling such an environment? Like something that would automatically pattern the skeletons on the walls so you don't have to do it individually for each one or something otherwise helpful... It's okay even if no one can give me an answer.
Posting this in my own sketchbook instead of JosephCow's because I didn't want to disrupt his with talk about my own projects. Hope it's not considered rude I didn't reply back there.

[TrashPanda]

Cool that you are trying to dig into 3d.
I agree, once you took some time with Blender it kinda flows well together with the shortcuts and ui in general.
Most guys I know who use 3d usually just buy established assets like trees architectural pieces etc.
and put it nicely into a scene with a proper composition.
However, modeling your own small 3d library is a good excercise and helps to deepen the knowledge
behind it.

For you case, you can try using metaballs to build a rough blockout for your cave.
There are pretty easy to move around and to generate some basic volume.
On top you can sculpt on it later if you convert it to flatten, sharpen certain areas or to create details.

Another idea would be to just model 2-3 simple rock or pillar looking shapes.
Once you are done with the base you have to apply the current rotation and scale of the object.
Afterwards add a displace modifier and play around to get some more complexity in it.
From here you can then add a array modifier to copy this object as much as you like into any direction.

For your skeletons, there is a function to kinda parent a texture or 3d object to a selected face or a created "0-object". I have to look it up because it has been a while.
But basically what it does is that it "glues" the skeleton to this location and if you use a array
modifier it will also be repeated.

But honestly the more simple yet effective your 3d base is the better.
Studios like these https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4Xw1dk
they kinda use a rough 3d base and apply the rest with phototextures, mixing brush, or paint
from scratch. Depends what look you want to go for in the end.
Strong shape language and a strong composition should do most of the work there unless
you really want to dig deep into the whole 3d process.

[Zvarthav]

To TrashPanda, thank you very much for your reply! I truly appreciate it a lot.
It's gonna take a fairly significant amount of time before I try 3D because I first need to learn more about the art fundamentals and things like how to make good compositions (I have books on this), but when I've done that I'll go back to what you wrote and will try to understand all this stuff about metaballs and array modifiers and more that you talked about that I can't comprehend right now.
It was cool seeing those drawings from that Artstation link too.

[JosephCow]

Howdy :)

I agree with Trash about the 3D. I think it would make sense for a scene like you describe, especially if you want like, a wall lined with skulls like the Paris catacombs or something. When I said it didn't take too long, I mean in relative terms. It took a few months to kind of get used to the program. Something for the future, maybe. I think maybe it would make sense to practice your perspective skills on the scene instead! Maybe you can do some composition sketches using perspective to block out the scene. There's a lot you can do with just photo reference and old fashioned 2pt perspective.

[JosephCow]

I also want to comment on the reflection exercise, because I like reflections.

I think you basically get the idea. I did look through the book a little bit to understand the context, and I think what Norling said about the reflection basically being the same as if the mirror were a window with a double of the object on the other side (like the hand with a pane of glass), was a really good tip. What that means, though, is that just flipping the object won't work, you need to use the tricks you've learned to construct in perspective another of the same object, upside down below the 'real' object.

copy and pasting a flipped version of the original works as a trick when you have like a scene of a lake and you flip the far shore. Because it's so far away, and the water will blur the reflection, there's no way anyone would notice any discrepancies in the perspective. But for something like the glass you drew, it's obvious that it's the exact same shape but upside down, so it looks a little flat because the lowest ellipse should have more depth than the top one. I do see you observe this in some drawings, like the pier with the fisherman is drawn reflected (idk what a spile is either), so I think you get that. But I don't see any construction lines. I think it would be a good idea to do the construction for practice even though the book didn't specifically show it.


So for example to do the prism, I start by freehand sketching the bounding box to get an idea of how to set up vanishing points. Then draw the bounding box for the shape. You can simply double the vertical height of the box to get the depth of the reflection because vertical distances won't diminish in space. But if it were mirrored horizontally you would have to use the space doubling trick that I think was probably in an earlier chapter.

Spoiler

 All we need to do is draw triangles in the constructed planes, and connect the lines. An equilateral triangle will look like this in a square:

Spoiler

. So that's why I made the point of the triangle a little back from the edge of the plane. Otherwise it would look weird  ( not that I found that out from doing it wrong or anything ;/)

so this is what it would look like. It's a bit distorted on the bottom though, but you can see the triangle part is flattened more near the horizon, but it's reflection has a lot more depth. On yours you technically do have the bottom one deeper though, but It doesn't feel exactly right.

Spoiler

For the cylinder with the slice in it, same thing. set up some perspective, and draw a bounding box that the cylinder would fit in. You can construct circles inside square planes, so we will draw it with planes first. So the dotted lines represent the invisible top of the box if it hadn't been sliced off. I just mark where the slanted plane would go, and take those vertical lengths, and flip them upside down for the reflection.

Spoiler

Then you just need to draw ellipses inside each square plane, and connect the lines.

Spoiler

And there you have the shape with a constructed reflection. I did all of that just to figure out the top curve of it would be a bit flatter when reflected. So uh... yeah.



Sorry to blow up your post. I'm hoping this is helpful and not just telling you what you know already.

[Zvarthav]

To JosephCow, no worries, it's very helpful to let me know when I did things wrong.
It's 3 at night where I live so I will write a better reply after I sleep and hope I can comprehend what you have explained (not because you're bad at explaining, I'm just not that smart lol) and will try to fix things.
Regarding 3D, I know you meant a year or so. It can feel like a short time to me, as I'm getting older time flies by.

[cgmythology]

Awesome studies!! I love how you handled the lighting studies in particular by simplifying the shadows and lights, might incorporate that technique for my studies as opposed to over-rendering them. Keep up the great work!

[Zvarthav]

To cgmythology, thank you very much. I was in the middle of reading your sketchbook so I haven't had time to comment there yet, but your art is very good.

To JosephCow, I tried to fix the prism, cylinder and glass. People can tell me if I did wrong or if there's other pics I should fix.


I also didn't use any perspective for the shadow exercises, except for the room, I just eyeballed them. I don't know if I should redo the shadows or if it's ok that it's eyeballed.
By space doubling trick do you mean the one that was used for the trees?
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...ment37.png
I didn't know an equilateral triangle would look like that in a square, I will try to remember that. You are very good at understanding and explaining this art stuff, makes me want to have a teacher lol.

In response to what you wrote earlier.
"I think maybe it would make sense to practice your perspective skills on the scene instead! Maybe you can do some composition sketches using perspective to block out the scene. There's a lot you can do with just photo reference and old fashioned 2pt perspective."
I don't know, I kind of want to save drawing it for later because it feels so complicated and I might change my mind about things, I can't even draw a proper skeleton now. Here's an old bad drawing I did of part of the area:


It's inspired by Beksiński in case it looks familiar.
https://muzeum.sanok.pl/images/stories/B...201972.jpg
I imagine the walls and these large figures are made out of skeletons (the figures aren't the skeletons, they're made from thousands of them), maybe they have red ferns growing out of their eyes. Or maybe that looks too edgy... I dunno I might change my mind about things...
It would be hard to see the skeletons from so far away, but I was planning a closer angle that is hard to explain, and there are smaller room sized areas too.

I got feedback on a small bit of my writing a while ago from some real critics and was pretty much told it was terrible lol, so I ought to study storytelling too and after that maybe I'll change my mind about even more details... but I know I want to at least keep the skeletons because they're important for the plot. Still, I haven't even read through books on composition yet so I don't think I should draw it now, if I do I might just end up wasting my time on something that ends up looking bad.

I imagine the background art style kind of Mike Mignola like, for studying I took a bunch of screencaps of one of his cartoons. A lot of his backgrounds are cast in shadow, which helps with not having to draw details. Things can also just be implied, like how all the bricks aren't fully drawn in most of the backgrounds.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFb2Bmz...9pICt/view
Sorry for rambling.

[JosephCow]

Okay awesome! Those all look better. The construction techniques are A+. The glass still looks a bit funky though actually, and it's not due to the mirroring technique, but rather the placement of the vanishing points I think. You can see that the bottom ellipse is really wide, almost circular, which feels strange. The square you've drawn it in does diminish back in space, so it is done correctly it just seems strange. If we extend out your lines you can see that the horizon would have to be tilted, and the VPs quite close to each other, too, causing this effect.






If I just lower the second VP to the height of the first one, just make the points a little further apart. and resketch the object, this is the result. I think it looks a bit more natural. Ironically it looks almost like what you had in the first place. I think it's something to be aware of, though. Even if you are freehanding the perspective, you wanna make sure it feels right. We actually usually don't want the angle of the lines to have too much depth, as it starts to break the illusion as they approach 90 degrees. And it is just an illusion after all.




The other objects look good, it's clear you have a handle on the technique.

I didn't know a triangle would fit into a square that way either, I tried it with the point going to the opposite edge of the square and it looks really weird and long, and that's how I realized.


Your idea for the skeleton cave sounds really cool! Will be interested to see what you do with it, one way or another. Even if you do it now and it looks bad, you can always redo it in the future. But of course it depends on what you feel is a good use of your time at present.

[Zvarthav]

To JosephCow, I didn't freehand the perspective this time, I used Krita's perspective assistants with snapping, and the horizon looks straight there, so I don't understand how yours becomes tilted? I appreciate your help and am not necessarily saying you are wrong, I just don't get it. I could share the file if anyone wants it. I still have it with the assistants so I made the canvas larger and drew lines to the vanishing points.


If it helps I tried overlaying your first picture with this one.


I did draw all the objects in the same place and then moved them beside each other, so the prism's vanishing points should be different from the glass in the final image.
I guess I put the vanishing points too close, though in the file they are the same for the prism and looked good there. I agree yours looks more natural, but I also kind of like the strange (extreme?) perspective on my glass.

[JosephCow]

Oh no, you're right, I must have just had my angles a little off when I projected the lines out. My bad, sorry.

[Zvarthav]

It's okay, no problem.

[Zvarthav]

18th assignments.


1 I took a photo and then referenced it since I prefer to draw digitally.


2 Again, referenced from a photo I took.


3 I don't know what the bottom of an elevator shaft looks like or how the cables connect, so I just drew four lines on one side. I did try searching it but the results obfuscated me a bit with all the engineering details... I guess I could research it more, but that seems like it would take too much time for something that is just supposed to be a perspective exercise.


4 My drawing.


19th assignment.






I don't know if I get this one, when I searched "Perspective Made Easy" and "problem" before I found this thread by someone who doesn't understand it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/drawing/comment..._ernest_r/
If other people are having problems with it, that makes me doubt that I get it. Someone in that thread said the last chapter on three point perspective of Simplifying Perspective by Robert Pastrana explains it, so I flipped to the end of that book and all that chapter showed was how to set up a grid in three point perspective, so I set one up upside down in Krita and drew (excuse how bad it looks, I hope I didn't mess up the placement of things).


Can someone tell me if this is right? Sorry if it seems I rely on others too much lol, still, if no one responds to this problem I'll just assume it's correct and move on.

[Jephyr]

Hi,

Don't have much time tonight but really appreciate the perspective work you're sharing. I've done some of that but know getting it right is so important.

Keep up the good work!

[Zvarthav]

Jephyr: Thank you very much, darktiste thought it best for me to also do other things so I'll stop the perspective studies soon as the book is almost over and will switch to something else, but I do want to continue with perspective in the future.
I thought I was going to do gestures but someone in an art discord I was in said it's not for beginners and that you need to have a firm grasp of anatomy first, linking this video: https://youtu.be/Is78CwGHty0?t=393
So I dunno, maybe I'll read Andrew Loomis' books next?

20th assignments.


1 I hope I understood this right. Sorry for the lack of doors and windows on the buildings, I did color them to try to keep track of which is which. They ended up a bit inconsistent anyway.


This is what it looks like in Krita with the perspective assistants. One vanishing point is what the book calls an imaginary vanishing point.


2 Not sure I did this right since I didn't set up an imaginary vanishing point this time. People can tell me if I should fix it.


What it looks like in Krita. I used the parallel ruler technique from this: https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/pa...hing-point


3 Not sure this is correct again, but I did use an imaginary vanishing point in addition to the real one.

[darktiste]

Anatomy is not as much of an hard rule as perspective since the human body vary depending on age and weight and race etc. 

But it a very subtle subject matter.

Loomis will still give you opportunity to keep refreshing that perspective knowledge. I don't think you need to focus exclusively on Loomis you could mix a bit of the other book you are interested by specially if you are going toward the narrative side of thing but in that case Loomis also have book on the topic a lot more ''classic'' because illustration was use alot more back then.

Creative illustration but if you are going for comic i am not sure if that the book you want to look as it not a book i have read more then just jumping over. Also it best to develop a sense of anatomy first instead of a sense of composition i think. Just because of the fact anatomy is one of the most useful subject matter to learn as an artist you can then branch out into whatever interest you the most after you develop a simplified approch to drawing the figure. 




Here an idea of the content of the book https://illustrationage.com/wp-content/u...ration.pdf

Here the book you should start with you can probably find better scan then this one it just provide for you to review if that a book that seem interesting to you.

https://archive.org/details/AndrewLoomis...9/mode/2up


You can also look at https://archive.org/details/HowToDrawComicsTheMarvelWay if you want an idea of what i am talking about by a simplified approch to drawing human anatomy.

[Zvarthav]

darktiste: I don't currently intend to make comicbooks, but I do like drawing cartoony characters sometimes, and if I could I would like to be able to animate. Though animation feels like it would be something for me to learn later.
I need to be able to draw backgrounds and realistic characters as I have a story I think would fit as a horror visual novel (interactive fiction), but that will only happen if I can find someone to do music since I won't have time to learn that. So maybe I'll scrap that idea and go for a normal novel with illustrations or something. I guess I could do it as a comic anyway, but I don't feel like it at the moment, as it seems like it would be too much work for me.
I looked in Creative Illustration, thanks, it seems good so I'll read it later. I'll start with Figure Drawing For All It's Worth then. How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way looks interesting too, I'll remember to read that later as well, though I don't plan on making comics, it seems useful anyway.

21st assignments, the last.


1 I'm gonna let two positions be enough. It might differ a little from the book because I followed this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BusXC9w2r0I The barely visible copy pasted brick in the middle was to position the lines that are parallel to the plan. I'm not sure I did it correctly.


2 Here I followed this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOaIDS7sEl8 Again, I'm not sure I did it right.


3 For this I used a ruler in Krita with 21 subdivisions for each side.