Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Hai! I'm Steph - I come from the land down under and I'm here to stop coasting in life and with my art and actually get down in it! 2013 is the year I begin my exciting, cyclical art Odyssey.

I want to be able to paint everything.

...I want to be the best that I can be.

I have never been so motivated before in my life - seeing so many incredible artists and their beginnings is what truly kicked me into gear!

I must study the fundamentals! You can't just skip all the basic stuff and get paintin'... I mean, a boxer doesn't just get into the ring, or an astronaut into space õ_ô

I will work hard - and when I get knocked down - I'll work even harder.
So le go ;)!
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| 1st

| 2nd

| 3rd

| 4th

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Light studies:
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attempted colouring of the light study:
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first still life painting ever
30 minutes
blehleblher...
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| quick anatomy/portrait sketches :


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p.s. crap scanner is crap...

if i'm not going to paint i'm going to sketch and if i'm not going to sketch i'm going to read

pencil-pen sketches:
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pen sketches that I hope to turn into paintings one day in the future (note to self):
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colour study
lotr film still reference
| tried to challenge myself my only using a hard brush (which I find to be most intimidating...) for the initial painting (/ went over background with softer brush)
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portrait study - after I finished it I was somewhat okay with it, being my first painted portrait... until I went back to the file and looked at it after resting my eyes :/
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gesture studies while watching the tennis (go Djokovic-!)
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2 hour speedpaintings from http://speedpaintstudies.deviantart.com/
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any feedback would be greatly appreciated. ta

Did a bunch of 60 second gesturals yesterday from posemaniacs:

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Followed by some Vanderpoel & Bridgman studies
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Did some more 60 second gestures this morning as well as a quick self-portrait, quick Bridgman arm studies and some refless doodles:

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Last gesture drawings of the day...
Feels good that I've done a lot of work today
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Dinner sketches to finish of the day
23:01 already :'(
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... I have a lot of work to do tomorrow ;D after looking over these refless mind drawings from diindins!

Nice start. I love the eye, lips, and nose sketches you've been doing.
As far as your line work in concerned, they lack confidence in their flow, and shading. A lot of the drawings look scratchy in some parts, and sloppy in others. It makes hard to read the picture as intended, although, the values themselves seem to be quite good IMO.
Also, keep proportions in mind when drawing figures. I know it can be hard when doing gestures under a specified time limit. I've noticed a lot of the torsos are warped and elongated in a few of these.
I'd still say my favorite things in here have to be those eyes, lips, and nose sketches. A majority of them are by far some of the cleanest, and have some really nice pencil values in them. I'd really love to see you apply the same level of cleanliness, if not more, in your drawings.
Hope this helps. Keep it up! :]

Archreux - thank you a lot for the critique! Very much appreciated ^^" the fact that I knew my line work looked off... but I had no idea why until now until you pointed it out means a lot to me. I'll definitely practise achieving confidence in drawing from now on. :J

¬sketchbook: Haven't really done that much today (although the day isn't over yet_just updating) - after this I'm going to move onto some Bammes studies, followed by more of yoitisi's Assignment studies.

The gestures in pen = 60seconds. Need to get in the habit of using my ARM and not my WRIST. I can't believe I was doodling all wrong when I was growing up. Dang bad habits :/
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The ones in pencil were 30 seconds a pop - they were done before the 60 second bunch.
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Pluuuus some perspective -- my weakness (now along with crappy linework :blush:) and some of the yoitisi's assignment stuffs.
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Edit: definiteelyllyly need to work on proportion and my accuracy too!
Also: more circles:

Bammes skel studies ¬ screwed up a lot of the proportions so I focussed more so on my line quality :) (doesn't excuse me from studying proportion & form though! -- hello tomorrow)
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More hand studies... shit I suck at hands so bad...
practise, practise, practise!
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Same goes with this ughhhrghrgehgh of a self-portrait (daily self-portrait 2) -
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Refless sketches while eating dindins

The amount of drawings you produce in a day is mind boggling! I can barely complete two pages worth of drawings in a day! Very inspiring!

May I suggest you do some head studies? I saw you trying to attempt a few self portraits and I think knowledge of basic head construction (centerline, browline, hairline, facial planes) and feature placement will ease you of your frustrations and give you a better understanding of how to go about drawing portraits and heads in general. A good reference for this would be Andrew Loomis's Drawing the Head and hands. It's amazing and everything is drawn out and explained in detail!! You can get a free pdf of it online, for I don't think they produce it anymore. A shame.

Love your work on dA too! Look forward to more of your creations and sketches!

Okay so, bunch of gesturals from posemaniacs again, proportion studies,
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Some Bammes, Bridgman, Hogarth and Vanderpoel studies.
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Another ugly-ass self-portrait lel.
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And 1 hour to pump out portraits:
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Aww, thank you so much Mannyhaatz! <3 my fear of time running short by every second keeps me going ¬¬

Oh and I am so glad you mentioned head studies... and to provide me with a book?! You're awesome! So I saw your reply as I was pushing out as many portraits as I could in an hour (before bed :P) -- skimmed through it quickly and tried to apply what I saw to the male portraits! Really helpful and I am once again so thankful! I plan to read & study it in the near future (hopefully tomorrow, but I think I'm out all day :/)

Right back at you with the deviantART stuff! Love your studies!

Your sketchbook so far is an inspiring sprint of improvement, great attitude, focused on the right areas and applying yourself. My comments and critique kept shifting every each new batch.

Google Negrea Alex, to find his pages upon pages of studies of figures / hands etc. to get some insight into some quick but confident lines. Subscribed.

] michaeldoig - Thanks for stopping by and giving me that extra motivation boost I needed! I saw your post in the early morning and quickly Googled that amazing artist :) I tried studying his linework and attempted to apply what I learnt into an early morning batch of gesturals I did before I had to leave for the day. Very helpful! Although I have a long way to go to master such line quality... I'm eager to give it my best shot with each new sketch!

[ skb - so, 60 second gesturals from posemaniacs (must try other websites/life drawing classes) and A5 refless doodles while in the city & in an (amazing) pub.

note: the numbers are all mixed up, gah, confusing ¬

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[skb - These past couple of days have proven to be quite troublesome and gave me no choice but to neglect my studies... ;( which if anything is even more of a motivator! Just the idea of losing two days worth of studies is enough to get me going... but to actually lose those days?! aisjdiahsd riwuhd-!!

I may feel feel like death - but that is NOT going to stop me!
come at me life obstacles! :)

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First attempt at hand studies and a couple of portrait/eye studies (with and without refs)

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Are you more comfortable with shiny stuff? It strikes me how clean the sphere study in your first post and the lock one are. The shine on the portrait study's cheek is sweet too.

]HederaHiberna - Hahaha I like to think so... but I actually find I have a lot of trouble with understanding lighting :P something I feel I really need to work on and have been trying to work on :) but thanks you!

[skb - Bunch'a Bammes studies this morning -- really quick ones -- then tried to apply them to a couple of refless faces - sah hard! But fun nonetheless (morning)
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2 self-portraits from last night - the first one is so screwed, I didn't realise I kept changing positions while drawing from the mirror - I wasn't happy with it so I did a quick 5-10 min sketch this self-portrait is probably the first that actually looks somewhat like me. Yay progress! ;P
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So I gave female portraits a shot without references after I studied Loomis' Drawing Heads and Hands book :^^:
The amount of fun I had was ridiculous haha :P
Although I must admit, it would have been a bunch more productive if I had been studying instead... but I was called upon to watch the original House of Wax with Vincent Price so... better than doing nothing I guess :) (evening)
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Feels like ages since I've posted in the Daggers D: but I've still been working my butt off!

1 day ago: I was able to do a bit of Bridgman arm studies this morning -
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today: Did my loosen-up circles as usual before I cracked down on some gesture study (it has been over 3 days since I last did some life studyin' D:)

Started with 30secs, moved on to 1min ea, then did some 2min ones -- although I didn't really know what to do with my extra time with these ones... what am I s'posed to do with an extra minute? Now that I've gotten used to trying to complete the gesture between 30-1min -- 2minutes felt weird... like I was either finishing too quick and not knowing what to do with the extra time... or taking too much time :/ I dunno.)
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then did some animal gesture studies from 30sec to 1min to 5mins
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I did like one fabric study of a cowl/hood/scarf and some silk - took around 2-5 mins a pop... I could have done so much more, ugh.
So afterward I tried applying what I learnt from recent studies - drew a couple of figures wearing a cowl (because I've always sucked butt at drawing people wearing a hoodie etc) -- tried to pose some up ~ tomorrow: proportion studies here we come! (+ hands, muscles, head studies )
They were pretty rushed figures - around 5-10mins ea. ~
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