Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Great sketches, love the mouth and nose studies! Fully agree with Tygerson, it is really nice to see characters with a variety of facial features so looking up to that! ;)
And seeing your gestures makes feel that I'm lazy. I feel I should do alot more of them... Maybe then my sketches from the life drawing class will look as good as yours D:

@Janos: Thank you so much! Glad you like my stuff (:

@Tygerson: Thank you so much!!! I aim to bring more variety into my stylized figures, so I'm trying to expand my visual library when I can. Vanderpoel really has a sweet collection of nose examples. And I can only recommend drawing from life! It's always really beneficial, and as for the life figure drawing, I just started going by November last year I think but I don't ever want to miss it XD

@Nowio: Thanks! Glad you like them, and yeah, as I stated above! The reason I really got into this is my frustration with all those stereotype 0815-Manga-Faces where you can only tell the characters apart thanks to their hairdo. Definitely working on that! I think for life drawing it's not only gestures that are important but also a solid construction (:


Have a small update. I think I'm really missing my quiet hours where I just sketch from imagination in my sketchbook...also I miss practicing figure drawing. I feel like the work I'm practicing is all out of order to the point where I'm getting confused and frustrated after a while, but well, going to figure things out. 2 digital from imagination. When I like the colours, the values are all over the place, when I think the values are going into a good direction then the composition is really out of balance...can't have it all, eh XD One watercolour study from life, still using too many layers on these, a watercolour doodle from imagination, faces losely based on photos to expand my knowledge of face shapes etc. I discovered biro again for sketching!













Sometimes I really get doubts about painting. I mean, I really love clean, beautiful lines and stylized work, and I seem to be able to pull out quite nice lines as well...so...sometimes I think why I get myself frustrated with painting so much?! GAH. I sometimes think I'm just confused about how I want my work to look like orz

Wow your lines and drawings are awesome! That little watercolor? bust thing in your last post is super cool too, such nice shapes. Keep up the painting, as soon as you get the hang of of it its going to look amazing. I don't know what your aiming for, but if you want realism / Sargent type stuff, I think you should focus on getting big gradients and more soft edges, because you already seem to have basic values down. You say your having trouble with it because I think your forcing yourself to simplify them down into the bigger shapes while ignoring the gradients and soft shapes and lost edges. Looking forward to see what you do whatever you do!

Bah, long time no update... u__u;

@ImSkeptical Thank you so much, glad you like my stuff! And thanks for that advice with the gradients, I actually tried it out and it worked a lot better (I feel). I've seen people here and elsewhere do it before, don't know why I never tried it, so the better you gave me a reason more to try out (:

Actually I'm still thinking about what I'm aiming for, it's not always easy to tell as I kind of want to have a kind of comic-style which is stylized but with a tad of realism. I'm pretty sure about my colours though, I want them to be as realistic as I can achieve. I mean, do you know that feeling, when you see a thumbnail of a painting and you think WOAH WHAT A COOL PAINTING and when you look at the original size you see that it is by far less defined as you thought but the colours kind of tricked you? (I don't know how I can describe it better...). Ideally I'd like to achieve this in watercolour as well.

Have a potpourri of different things today, studies, copies, a lot of stuff from imagination, I don't know. (Bluegreen is probably my favourite colour and I draw that green haired guy a lot, he's my best muse ...)



















Oh I'm drawing mostly with a biro only these days.

Hey, great stuff so far! I'm liking your pencils and the style you've got going on, really awsome.

The paintings you've got in here are nice as well. Hoping to see some bigger pieces in the near future.

Keep up the good work! :D

awesome stuff here! loving your gestures and manga drawings.
Extra points of awesomeness for that drawing of musashi!
Actually, i think i'm maybe in the opposite situation, i already know the way i want to paint, but i still have to figure out about drawing haha.
Have you heard of Benjamin zhang? http://www.comicvine.com/benjamin-zhang-...01/images/

Maybe his style is closer to what you want to do.

Wow. Great looking sketchbook. You are so patient with your traditional stuff. Its great. It'd be great to see you post something that you have dumped a heap of time into somtime soon. Keep up the good work! :D

Your lines are so beautiful!

Cyprinus I am right there with you on not knowing what style to go for!! Seems like you have it well more figured out than I do though XD
I'm planning on copying the style of artists I like for a couple weeks, trying to get into their head and steal what appeals to me in their work. Can't say whether that'll be effective or if it would be a good plan to try, just thought I'd mention it since we're int he same boat XD

much thanks for the link and the comment, keep rocking those nice clean pencils and paintings!

Great gestures! Also sorry that I was absent in the life drawing class this week... I fell asleep somewhere during the day... x.X
I can relate on don't knowing on what style I want to pursue. I like the more realistic approach but then I also love the more stylized look and now I'm starting to like doodling manga stuff...
I think for now I'd just go with what ever makes the most fun and do studies, the right style will then manifest itself in time :D

nice clean lines, really makes me want to bust out the pencils and keep drawing. keep up the hard work :)

Strong figures, appealing style, awesome studies. Going to be really sweet watching your stuff evolve, as it can't help but do so with the hard work you're puttin' in.

WOW GUYS I'M ALIVE. I didn't even notice how fast time passed and how long I didn't update my sketchbook here. *blows off the dust from the cover* I didn't mean to take so long, but life happened ): Convention life to be exactly, as well as a ton of workshops that had to be prepared. Add an unexpected job at a fair for a few days and life gets even more busy. The situation has returned to a more normal pace now so I hope I'm somewhat back to more regular updates. First replies though!

@Archreux
Thank you so much! I'm glad you like my stuff so far. I hope I can soon finish a digital piece. It takes me courage to finish one somehow XD;

@EduardoGaray
Thank you! And thanks for the bonus points, hehe <3 Inoue-Sensei is my biggest idol. I don't have words for how much I love his work! I do know Benjamin! His work is awesome and I like it a lot, but somehow it doesn't click when I think of my own future works. I just need to experiment more XD

@Jaik
Thanks! I hope I can finish more bigger pieces in the future. In this post at least I'll show something traditional (:

@Lyraina
Thank you so much! I'm really glad you like my lines. I love beautiful lines a lot and I always pay a lot of attention to them.

@Samszym
I'm always glad to know that I'm not alone! I thought of that copying/studying artists I like for a while, too. But sometimes I fear that my own work will get to similar to the artist I'm studying. I don't think it's possible that you become an exact copy but still it's something that troubles me.
I can't wait though to dive into your sketchbook and your new stuff!! <3

@Nowio
Haha, you weren't there this week either! What have you been up to?
Well I guess if you are able to paint realistically very well, you'll always be able to pull of a solid more stylized way of drawing. I know your feels, though. I get doubts from time to time, too.

@BenFlores
Thank you so much! I will! I hope I'm now back on track again!

@Einver
Thank you so much! It means a lot to hear that! Before I always thought that someday you'll hit your limit but since I've been here I have the feeling that there's truly unlimited potential, somehow. Gotta work harder!


I'm also sorry to disappoint you with this lame update here, even after such a long time. I didn't have much time to squeeze something in in the last weeks. It makes me feel disappointed, sad and enraged at the same time. Like I'm wasting time. But I need to earn Money, need to eat, drink and sleep. It's terrible. I also was really frustrated because I felt that I didn't make one step forward, above all my life drawing stuff didn't seem to make progress. Also. It's almost April already. I didn't even draw one single good background. I need to rethink my schedule. But I figure that if I keep beating myself up about it it won't change anything either. Better to make sure to be more diligent in the future.









I don't even know when I did this or what I wanted to achieve with it





The last one here is actually a finished watercolour work (just to show something finished for once XD ) I finished it to have a new print ready for the con... bigger version can be seen here at my dA.

/lame update end /)(\

Thank you so much again though for the replies. It's so motivating to read them <3

i love the energy that your lines possess, i don't know how you do it? It's like I constantly need coffee just to keep an energy like that.

Your watercolor illustrations are awesome!

Yo, I like the new stuff! I hear you about the frustration from not improving enough, it's a slow process and it sucks to feel like you're putting effort in and not getting much out of it...but I think you've got the right attitude, just gotta stick to it!

Your figures are looking pretty solid to me as usual, I'm always impressed by how clean you can keep the lines :0 maybe it would help you towards a breakthrough if you tried to achieve a different goal, it seems like right now your focus is to get everything in the right place with a really confident line so maybe try to draw a figure entirely with large shapes and no lines? or try to get the lines to be very descriptive of the shadows instead of the placement of the features. Or make the lines sing about the way the flesh rests on stuff, letting the shapes of a hand resting on a leg blend into the leg and not be entirely separate for example.

rockin' watercolor illustration, how did the con go?

Loving your figures and that Inoue study you did (it's spot on!) Definitely adding you to my inspo folder, thanks for being a motivator to get better!

Hey everybody!

Hope you are all doing well.

@rmd
Oh wow, I take that as a huge compliment! I'm happy you think my line holds some kind of energy. Well I drink coffee too sometimes XD, but other than that I'm just very obsessed with beautiful lines and line quality. It's something I've been always paying attention to and so I've cultivated it I think.

@nikt
Thank you so much, glad you like them! I really want to master the medium some day. I just need to venture into new realms with them or else it won't work orz

@samszym
Thank you so much for your words! Altough lately I feel like I've been slacking too much, but I also wasn't feeling too well. I hope it will be better now.
I really liked your suggestions about some different approach. I haven't tried out too much until now but I'll hopefully do a bit more in the future. At least I took my watercolours to lifedrawing this time in order to paint and think more in shapes instead of lines like I usually do with the brushpen. Thank you for the input, it's always helpful!
The con was good, although it's a rather small one. I'm always happy to meet old and new friends though, always a special time <3

@layfayette
Thanks a ton! I'm always very happy to hear that my works inspire others, it's really a big compliment for an artist!
On a funny side note, I was really like -GASP- when I saw your Aki - Icon because I read your comment right after I turned my PS3 and Persona 3 off XD;

Just a brief update, watercolours from life drawing (I only have about 10-12minutes for each and it's really a challenge ): ), some personal stuff and experiments and I started with hampton, because I just didn't feel right with Vanderpoel at the moment. I mean I like the drawings but I got lost in the descriptions somehow. Well, the last days I took some time off to think and relax/play. I think in the past I was too obsessed with improvement and put myself under a lot of pressure and far too high expectations. It left me disappointed and unmotivated as well, and instead of doing me good, it was counter-productive. This evening I will sit down and think of a new schedule to get my studies in order again. I want to approach everything with a good mental attitude now to finally unlock my creativity again and come out of this annoying slump.









I know that there technically would be a water surface that would distort everything, but well........let's just see this as some kind of surreal painting...

Yay, I feel like I have my mojo back so here's some stuff!

Life drawing and two of those screenshot overpaints I've seen others do







Eva didn't look fantastic but like plastic so I decided to dive into some metal studies





I do think I'll do some more I'm developing a strange fascination with faucets.
And here's some stuff from imagination; I'm definitely going to finish this digital piece because it's the cover to a comic. Other stuff from the sketchbook, going to tackle the backgrounds from now on as well. Only a free hand sketch this time but hopefully more defined work next updates.







(Didn't manage the backview as well as I hoped for </3)



I'll be away from home until Monday. But next week I'll definitely want to do some anatomy studies as well again <3

Life drawing with watercolor must be tough o_o but they look really cool!
The comic cover looks nice so far. I like the vignette (?) but the way the spider gets cut bothers me a bit... I think it might look better if it was either painted completely (although breaking the strong V silhouette), or maybe get moved up a bit more. Just some thoughts, looks good anyway!