Neopatogen Sketchbook

[neopatogen]

Thanks Andrew! Yep the "How to draw book", I find it as well as "How to render" awesome for form/light construction.

[Artloader]

Cool bike Neo :).

Very cool construction work as well by the way, must've taken some real deep concentration.

Keep it going!

[Leonard]

awesome progress neo :D

[AngeliquevdMee]

nice perspective work!

[Fedodika]

Love those hands!!

[neopatogen]

Thank you guys so much! Will visit your sketchbooks soon as I'll have a bit of time

Actually I got some crits on that perspective work and design on our Discord and re-did it. Some studies first and the trike is going to be in the next post.

[neopatogen]

Here's the trike, took much more time than expected but I learned a  lot.
Thanks to everyone who helped me with crits!
More crits are always welcome :)

As for perspective, I decided to follow my own advice I gave Trigger and made a 3d blockout, made a grid based on it and did stuff in 2d, then checking myself with 3d model. Good way to practice but it's extremely hard not to cheat when you have a model. I must admit that I cheated a bit due to time constraints, but still my 2d perspective improved since I had instant feedback and mistakes correction.


I think I've got problems with golden chrome material here, so I'm going to continue working on "How to render" book, reflective surfaces chapter. "How to draw" and matte surfaces have been a blast, can't say I mastered those ofc, but hopefully enough to learn some new stuff :)


The project that the trike was made for only begins, not sure what comes next, will do tons of sketching and exploration.

[Fedodika]

Nice folio piece neo!

[neopatogen]

Thank you Fedodika the koala!
Some Proko as usual, doing about 1 per day
As for my project, sketched a parasyte and a candle wax monster, somehow not happy with the parasyte concept so far, will work more. Bike and monsters, it doesn't seem related just now but I am going to make  some keyframe illustrations later when I'll start imagining my game's world better.
Also started learning reflective surfaces from Scott Robertson's book, will post a bunch of studies later.

[neopatogen]

Long time no updates,been busy. Here's a bunch of studies and next post will be with more imaginative work...

[neopatogen]

More imaginative work but also quite a bit of study in the the faces and gesture sheets, applied right away

[Fedodika]

Neo, you've really got a good handle on the basics and drawing stuff in perspective! The one thing i think is weakest in your stuff is the appeal in your faces. I think it'd do you some good to find some artists you enjoy who stylize a lot, and try to understand how they make their faces appealing.

You seem to understand how the structure of a head should look, and the placement seems to be correct, but the faces feel stiff and unappealing despite that. Sometimes the eyes are too small, or the eyes feel flat, so after relooking at it; its mainly an issue with the eyes. Basically just learn to draw some sexy eyes, and remember the spherical shape they have.

It comes from playing with the brow thickness, and the lineweight on the eyelashes to create both male and female eyes that are attractive. BTW im loving these diner droids, but the one you've shaded feels more like a military bot than the one with the uniform and the pigtail (which feels like a "diner droid")

Eyes are THE MOST important part of a face and a character design so dont skimp designing the eyes!

[neopatogen]

Neo, you've really got a good handle on the basics and drawing stuff in perspective! The one thing i think is weakest in your stuff is the appeal in your faces. I think it'd do you some good to find some artists you enjoy who stylize a lot, and try to understand how they make their faces appealing.

You seem to understand how the structure of a head should look, and the placement seems to be correct, but the faces feel stiff and unappealing despite that. Sometimes the eyes are too small, or the eyes feel flat, so after relooking at it; its mainly an issue with the eyes. Basically just learn to draw some sexy eyes, and remember the spherical shape they have.

It comes from playing with the brow thickness, and the lineweight on the eyelashes to create both male and female eyes that are attractive. BTW im loving these diner droids, but the one you've shaded feels more like a military bot than the one with the uniform and the pigtail (which feels like a "diner droid")

Eyes are THE MOST important part of a face and a character design so dont skimp designing the eyes!

Hey hey Fedo! I agree I posted some crappy faces. Working on it, will take your advice into account. 
I just started re-doing the male character for same story, I hope this face look better. (Didn’t think much about the eyes yet thо). He's supposed to be about the age when people start being allowed to buy alcohol...somewhat 19, side view looks younger andtest 3/4 older, but I triedto nail it with the figure sketch
I agree about the diner robot style, will fix the military-looking one! Now I took a pause with the illustration to understand how people look and dress in this world. Thank you for commenting!

[Fedodika]

Faces are tough! This is just my theory, but there's two things in art. There's appeal and there's correctness. You've got the correctness down, just work on the appeal. I worked for the longest time on appeal without care for the correctness if you catch my drift ;)

And your faces are not crappy they could just use a few small touches to bump the appeal, not bad!

One thing to look out for is the size of the heads proportions within itself. Make sure theres a lot of room for the jaw, for the eyes to sit apart, for the nose to sit on the face... It's a lot but with practice you'll see it! Try to take a leap of faith and say, hey what if i made this jaw longer or made this eye bigger, just try stuff out while you draw even if you've indicated a "correct" mark dont hesitate to erase and find a more appealing shape!

The profile view is actually a good character, but the 3/4 loses the feel of that kind of young asian boy, which could be tough to maintain. 

I left a little thing to show some little extra lines and things you could add, not that i'm the most appealing artist hehe, but i hope it helps!

[neopatogen]

He's not supposed to be asian, and the side view looks like about 16 imo which is a bit younger than intended. I like asian people very much and probably that's why, if I don't intentionally do effort, all my faces look asian.
Thanks for your care. Most likely I'll need to sculpt all my characters, otherwise I won't be able to draw them beleivably multiple times in different images.

[neopatogen]

Seems like very randomstuff but it's just me exploring and looking for what fits the story.
Also I feel uncomfortable posting those wips, so I posted them here and for CA challenge.
Spent less time than expected drawing today, but am happy that I tracked my time and am aware of it, and can hopefully do better next time :) I noticed I tend to spend too much time looking for refs and then it turns that I don't need most of it.

[neopatogen]

WIPs and a memory study. Did some other ones with clothes and stuff but won't spend time shooting them.

[Fedodika]

pretty hot!

[darktiste]

Hey there something that is bugging me with the steampunkish piece it seem like the outfit compete greatly with the face i think it must have to do with the fact that there is a outline for the body but the head seem more like a painting i think you should put the goggle on her head to attract a bit of attention to the head.The face also seem really flat compare to the body but that must be normal because there no shading yet.To be honest it only minor observation it nothing severe.

[neopatogen]

Cheers Fedodika!
Thanks for your observations darktiste! You're right. Tbh I just can't "see" my forms of the face with pure line so I did it this way to help myself with further shading. If I'll need to make a nice lineart later, I will just draw on another layer :) Also not sure if the face is bound to be that much more important, I think AJ said people often pay most attention to the face and it's not that crucial.