Crimson Daggers — Art forum

I'm a software engineer primarily, but I really love art and I want to be able to do both programming and drawing extremely well some day and aspire to work in some of the top game companies out there. I've so far worked in local companies here for about 2 yrs now.

Anyways I have had sketchbooks online for a long time. Primarily Conceptart.org. But I figure I'll get more critiques in more active forums so trying out different ones. I've known about this one for a while but just never got around to actually making an account until today. I hope you all will help me learn and improve a lot here! (:

I'm going to Start off with most recent studies
Currently attempting photo study of my brother and mommy. (:
I haven't really done many photo studies so this is really hard.

So far have spent an hr on this.

Gestures I did yesterday and attempted to kinda finish up study but honestly decided to stop after 40 extra minutes into it since the last version posted.

Gestures were 120seconds each from QuickPoses.com

Nice start to your sketch book. You should check out Andrew Loomis's book on figures Figure Drawing for all its Worth. As well as Michael Hampton's book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. Also look up Proko on youtube and watch all his figure drawing tutorials. And theres a resource thread in the forums with tons of links to helpful information.

The advice I'd give is to start with a single line down the center axis of where the body is. This establishes the space the figure is going to be occupying. Then draw a line to show the tilt of the shoulders and hips and a circle for where the head is. Then a line for each limb. Try to do all that in 30-60 seconds. It will be harder to do it quickly at first but try to take what time you need to place the lines as accurately as you can. Speed will come with practice.

After you get the hang of that then draw in the basic 3d forms of the body as cubes, spheres and boxes. You never want to skip ahead and start drawing the contours of the anatomy before you've practiced simplifying the bodies complex forms. Always remember that you're doing these drawings to improve your drawing skill not to create a finished looking presentable drawing. So dont feel bad if it comes out looking like a hot mess. But do try to think before placing each line and make one smooth line exactly where it should be. Avoid hairy, scratchy looking lines.

Keep practicing!

Didn't get much time towards studies for 3/7/14 so only did my daily 30 min quick poses (120s each).
Hopefully can get some book studying time in tomorrow. Exciting though, got an interview coming up for a flash dev position so hoping it works out well so I can stabilized and happier. <3

Will do loomis studies again and such. I haven't done them in so long. I need to stop taking long gaps between each time I do drawing studies. D: like for only a few months each year. Breaking that habit this time!!
So far did 5 consecutive days of gesture drawings (30 min each day) at least. Small but one way to form a good habit.

Hi Ji -- Nice start to your sketchbook so far!

As far as c&c goes, I'd echo pretty much everything that Hypnagogic said. (Especially about trying to avoid scratchy line work. If you're going to make a mistake, do it with confidence! You can always erase if a line is really out of place, so no worries. :D)

For your digital painting work, try to really push your values. You're not doing too badly for not having done many photo studies, but I think you could really make some nice focal points in your work if you utilize your lightest lights and darkest darks more. Adding just a few touches of almost pure white or almost dark black in a few spots can really draw attention to an area and make it pop! For instance, if you were to go back and darken up the eyes a bit more on your piece, then hit the iris areas with the highlight, you could really make those facial features grab the viewer's attention.

Practice your values by doing still life work -- grab simple objects from around the house and set them up near your computer. What areas are the lightest? Which are the darkest? How dark are they? (Do they close in to an almost black value?) Doing still life work will not only help you develop your eye for accuracy, it'll also help you develop your painting skills quickly. (It works out a bunch of stuff at the same time -- lighting/values, rendering form, learning to paint textures and, eventually, it helps a ton with color work!)

Keep up the studies!

Was visiting my mother this weekend and playing with my adorable baby brother as well. But also did a lot of drawing, primarily on friday. Realized I have draw from Proko videos before...
I'll try to do another still life sometime soon.

Here are the ones from this weekend...

Doing Daily Gestures, Today (3/10/2014) is actually the 9th consecutive day although they aren't all on here since I just joined recently. Trying to see if I can actually keep up with a drawing habit for once.

30 minutes of 90s poses from QuickPoses.com and then some short 30s ones after to fill the page and get a little more practice.

Depending on how things go tomorrow, may be able to get in more studies. Else this is the minimum I want to do when I'm busy.

I do wish though I could figure out how to do these gestures better.. I watched the proko vids... but moment I try to apply it I get all messy and scratchy like.. x.x;
Want to do more studies badly, but been pretty occupied with job interviews and such and knowing I need to be studying programming more right now, but once life calms down I want to make longer habits of maybe at least an hr a day of gestures and studies from the books and such more in the mix, until then most days will just be the 30 min gestures. Hope I can still improve with that little bit a day...

Nice job sticking with it. Yea 30 minutes a day will definitely make you improve. Just dont expect results over night. I can already see some improvement. Id say watch prokos bean and robo-bean videos. Just focusing on understanding the movement of the torso will help your figure drawing tons. And I see you were practicing cubes and basic forms. As boring as it might be its one of the best things to help you improve your ability to draw anything. All objects can be broken down into simplified forms which makes it easier to understand them as 3d objects. Be patient and keep up the daily practice!

Hypnagogic_Haze: Thanks and yeah I understand it'll take time. :) I'm working towards keeping this daily gestures habit so I can actually improve this year a lot more than before since I usually am on and off with drawing for several months at a time. But not this time! No more large breaks between drawing sessions. Going to maintain my programming career and my drawing hobby on a daily basis together. :)



Today's is daily 30 min gestures and eye study based on the eye tut vids by Proko.
Did more gestures than shown, but not in my sketchbook so misplaced the paper somewhere... >.>; But these are the last set I did today. Decided for 30-45s ones for practicing just seeing the form without worrying about details.

Did my gestures plus studies yesterday will scan and upload them when I do my set for today.
It's been exciting news yesterday and today. Got two upcoming interviews, one of which is for one of our local top game companies. O: They liked my code samples... hope I can impress them in person too :)
Either one of them would be great, but definitely hoping to work in games again O:
So that's what's been keeping me busy. But I did draw still and will scan tonight.

In the meantime, here is a gesture study I did and turned into my little character Ji-Li. :p
Thinking about playing around and inking and coloring it later too since it's been sometime since I drew for fun and also did anything with color.

EDIT: Added in 3/12/14's gestures and studies

3/13/14's gestures and such:

Couldn't sleep so started off this morning with some arm studies, gestures, and hand studies.

Thanks! I definitely want to improve. I have a hardworking game artist for a future hubby, so seeing him always work on his skills so much daily motivates me a lot to work on my own art.
Yeah I like Bridgeman books. But I don't have any funds for buying stuff now, hopefully I pass one if not both of my interviews next week so I can afford to get it. O:
But I am also studying the Loomis Books along with Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy, and the proko vids and doing the gestures with online tools.


Gestures today, 30 minutes at least. Feeling sick so not very strong drawing day. Hope I feel better tomorrow. But not gonna stop drawing everyday even if I feel horrible. O: So far 13 consecutive days woo!

Sorry haven't posted in a while, but I haven't stopped my consecutive daily gesture studies. I've just been busy with interviews and such so I didn't get around to scanning and posting. Been pretty hectic, waiting for interview results and just gotta keep on practicing and hoping for the best.

Here are my gesture studies from 3/15/14 - 3/18/14
With at least 30 minutes a day.

Some of yesterday's gestures. Did over my 30 min, but only scanned a small bit since most just didn't go well at all and a quick study of feet and hand.
Wasn't feeling very well yesterday, so I didn't get too much into it. Will try to do a portrait study soon as well as of course my daily 30 min gestures. So far 19 consecutive days. Not sure if I'm improving, but at least I'm drawing more often now.

Still did 30 min gestures yesterday and today, but didn't feel up to scanning them (done on scrap sheets). So here's just one of the pages from today:
[attachment=46553]

Today marks my 20th day of doing daily 30 min gestures. Now thinking on moving to another set of 30 min a day studies for art. On top of that adding 30 min a day workout.
Considering sticking to one or doing maybe 10 day sets of these each or alternating between these:
-A portrait (mostly pencil ones) a day of different people
-still life a day
-loomis/vilppu/bridgeman/hogarth/other books studies a day
-100 challenge for multiple difficult things such as arm studies, leg studies, hand studies, etc.
Each at minimum rate of 30 minutes a day.
I feel like these kind of challenges are fun for me because I love something I can actually count. So I've been making sheets and acting like I get score each time I do one of these.

Having a little fun with this gesture. 2 hrs so far of trying to draw a pose and turn it into someone's character on gaiaonline for fun/practice.
Realized her right shoulder is messed up and right arm is too long and pushed out too far unfortunately after I had already done the lineart for the final part.
But something I can keep in mind to pay attention to on my next attempt at doing a detailed gesture study.

Might just do a flat color overall and move on. I just wanted some digital practice since it's been so long and getting tired of using up all my paper and making a mess everywhere right now. x.x; plus save trees and save money cause less physical sketchbooks to buy lol.

Flat colored it and stopped there.

Watched Frozen finally last night and did a fun study from a still frame from the Let It Go music video part.
Here are the wips so far.
Approx 4-5 hrs total so far.

Calling it done even though I know it needs a lot more x.x;
hurt my pinky doing this study. It was fun but I am definitely too under skilled for it. Need more studying on shading and even more so with coloring.
Btw including ref this time