Jaik's Sketches & Thoughts

[Jaik]

Reza: You are definitely correct. He is much girlier than I painted him. I will definitely try and find reference for that. (Bishounen is a great search term for reference! Thank you so much!)

Rama: Thanks man! Yeah, targeted focus is the best way to improve, or at least that's what works for me. It also saves me time because I don't have to think about what to do next, it pretty much sets me up for months at a time.

Samszym: Yeah I found that to definitely be the case. Things like his cloak and stuff look okay in the anime, because when animating you simplify everything down to the shadow shapes, but for a finished realistic piece this just doesnt work. So I think I will add a heap of detailing in select spots and how it works =/ I may take your advice of hiding some of the face with hair after I have gotten a bit further along, because you raise a good point.

Lyraina: Right as always, I really need to find ref. Now that I have that bishounen search term it will be heaps easier :D The nose has been bothering me too, I think I will probably redo that at some stage.

Thanks Nika :)

Tom: The nose is definitely getting reworked. Thanks for the crit :)

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Alright, first things first. I promised Lyraina I would get some links together for my reference when it comes to anatomy so here they are:

- Classic Human Anatomy
- Art Fundamentals
- IFX anatomy, vol. 2 (Mostly Ron Lemen's tutorials which are fantastic, also going to use his gnomon tutorials for when I move onto portraits. Highly recommend people consider buying these.) As of this writing however it is out of stock =/
- Zygote Body for understanding exactly where the muscles come from and insert in 3D space.
- This book on google books for some of the more obscure parts. It is really in depth but it takes me 3-4 times to read a page and understand it.

This brings me to an important point. If we take anatomy specifically, but you can apply this to all 'subjects' in art. If you drop say $100-150 into a topic before you start (for example the classic human anatomy and the 3d Total book) you have the ground work which can be added to by online sources to pretty much completely learn a given topic. After going through each of the books, you should have enough of a fundamental groundwork to hopefully go to a more advanced online course, like CGMA and not feel like you are struggling to keep your head above water because of lack of knowledge.
If the funds are available (both for the initial material and for the classes) I think this will quick track any improvement. This is not a short cut insofar as it will take less hours, but you will waste less hours 'mindlessly' practicing if you get what I mean.
Of course, full disclaimer, this is just my opinion and the way I think I am going to follow. It is not cheap but if it gets me to where I want to go even 6 months earlier than I otherwise would have, I could probably make up the cost difference with the work I get in.

I would like to hear other peoples opinions on this. As it is something I am definitely interested in.


After all that, this weeks work. The last two days have been pretty low on the motivation side. So most of this was from Mon-Thurs.

Bloodsports 2: Swamp Elders
Ideation and inital thumbs. I tried the block shapes again and it just plain didn't work.


Exploring the different options, decided on the top one.


Thumbnailing different heads.


Character sheet


Exploring final compositions. Decided on 5, but also liked 10



Progress as it stands today.


Studies




Moodboard for final painting.


End of bloodsports update.

Anatomy:

Since I finished the muscle studies, this is now form studies.


Gestures from pics:


Gestures from imagination. This is a exercise Alex Negrea showed us at the workshop. Really cool idea. Draw the torso (ref or from head) and add arms in different poses.



Gestures from ref, using action lines.


Applying what I learnt from memory


End of anatomy.

Spoooooooooonnnsss.
Only got three this week :( /failure