Ronin's Sketchbook of Practice....ness

[Ronin Inc]

Hello once again everyone. I've been lurking the site for a bit now. Before I came here I began to get extremely frustrated with why my work was looking so bad in my eyes, and that my end goal wasn't getting achieved in any of my drawings. Which lead to me never finishing anything.

So I recently decided to start over again beginning with a realistic study of figure using Andrew Loomis's book. The approach was I would read through and sketch along until I reached a point that I saw something I really needed some work on. Ive gotten as far as...page 26....and realized that there is so much for me to learn.

So this sketchbook will be lots of my practice sessions and fumblings, however I hope to work side by side with you artists whose work I admire greatly. So my first drawing of this session turned out well, building block number 1...

[EduardoGaray]

Hi Ronin! a new dagger is always welcome. :)
Its nice that you are starting with Loomis, but i dont want to see just one study, i want to see twenty!
Keep this updated!

[Ronin Inc]

More studying. Tried to eyeball it at first on the right, didnt work out so well The head chart is great but I feel chained to the lines right now...I guess I need to keep at it until my brain is trained.

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Quick overlay character sketch from the left pose for fun.

[Ronin Inc]

More loomis studies this morning watching a live stream. Figures in perspective and in perspective w/ relation to one another. Quite insightful.

[Ronin Inc]

Decided to keep rolling and do my first value study with painting/digital media. I like it, although it doesnt match photo ref as much as id like. Just means i need to practice,practice, practice.

[Ronin Inc]

Wanted to do some linework in cs6 today, got frustrated by the elbow so i stopped and tried to examine why.



Then I tried rendering him in a three dimensional space. Best I can assume the foreshortening is off due to the perspective of the figure. But please let me know what you guys think!

[Ronin Inc]

More studies. Going to try and focus primarily on basics and core principles for a good few months. Today was some perspective and alot of lighting.

[Ronin Inc]

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I really need to stop trying to draw from imagination something is just not clicking right now. I guess more studies are in order.

[Bag]

Hi!

Don't worry too much about doing "value studies" and learning about lighting just yet.

Draw lots. lots and lots and lots. Learn how to draw all the basic shapes freehand (after learning about their construction, ofc) quite well. Put your time in lots of gesture drawings, produce tighter drawings now and then. You'll see progress quite fast if you put in the time.

You'll see that when you know how to draw quite well, learning about lighting and values will come that much easier to you.

Im not trying to put you down or anything, quite the opposite! I just see so many people bogged down in doing color and value studies when they probably should focus on drawing. I know i did for the longest time and i believe that really hurt my progress.

These are just my two cents, hope they help! :)

[Ronin Inc]

Hi!

Don't worry too much about doing "value studies" and learning about lighting just yet.

Draw lots. lots and lots and lots. Learn how to draw all the basic shapes freehand (after learning about their construction, ofc) quite well. Put your time in lots of gesture drawings, produce tighter drawings now and then. You'll see progress quite fast if you put in the time.

You'll see that when you know how to draw quite well, learning about lighting and values will come that much easier to you.

Im not trying to put you down or anything, quite the opposite! I just see so many people bogged down in doing color and value studies when they probably should focus on drawing. I know i did for the longest time and i believe that really hurt my progress.

These are just my two cents, hope they help! :)

Thanks Bag I really appreciate the crits! I have never really drawn from life extensively, so maybe going to basics is truly the first step for me.

However when drawing shapes what should I be focusing on? Accuracy? Familiarity? Application in images? I plan on doing some of these suggestions today and hopefully henceforth.

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Suggestions applied. Gesture drawings are extremely enjoyable, only did a 60 second limit and seemed like was always on my toes!

The shapes....I have no clue.