Knight's sketchbook

[dimensional-knight]

Great update. I resonated a lot with your description of "sonar pings" when it comes to placing testing marks at smaller plane changes to aid in placement. I think when I was digitally painting I would intuitively do something similar, almost like a shorthand for judging without actually measuring specifically and putting down distinct shapes? I think it aligns somewhat with the idea of tracing surfaces and volumes like with contours but without the continuity of lines. If I get what you said, I dig it. I might also try this again but with my trad drawing :)

I think for someone who "doesn't know what they are doing" your figures are quite charming and express a  feeling of weight and balance. Even the scribbles you push within the forms, somehow feel to aid the overall, rather than make a mess, so obviously there's intent behind them. Keep it up! I'd be curious to see what you do with bigger drawings in trad. With your figures , but ofc that's harder with pencil and a limited hand health window so I understand if you don't.

The portrait sketches are great.
Sorry I don't have much helpful feedback, but take that as a good sign I guess :)

Haha thanks!

I didn't know you used to paint digitally! It doesn't really surprise me, you're very good and deliberate in your surface renders and digital paintings are so pliable and inexpensive they lend themselves to studying surface.

I'm also curious about what a bigger traditional actual illustration of mine might look like. There's a bunch of minor issues I want to chip at before but I have no doubts I'll eventually try my hand at bigger drawings. It's just a matter of spreading it across multiple days.

Edit: Oh actually I do have a tip I was told with where to cut figures in compositions recently. The idea was to only cut off forms at their widest width. Eg. the widest point of the calf or hips or any form where a decision needs to be made where it will go off page. Not sure why, but on reflection, it might be that it aids flow into the page and also the suggestion of existing thing continuing movement out of the page? Maybe it works, but I haven't explored that yet.

That's an interesting one, thanks! I'll hunt for examples in my ref comics. As for the reason, hmm... I think it's related to balance. Cutting on the widest parts will create more stable-looking compositions. Cutting on narrow parts can look as if the center of gravity of the character is displace, and carries the extra risk of directing the eyes to random locations off panel due the resulting funnel shapes.

Hey. Great stuff. It must be refreshing to be able to draw again without any pressure of trying to be professional artist. It's why I got back to sketchbook thread because I like to sometimes experiment and fail without too much exposure.

I like how organic your rendering is. Crosshatching has always been hard for me so it's easier said than done but I would work a bit more on simplifying values and working with limited amount of shades. Also some tighter hatching would help in some areas where you got the stronger contrast.

I'll keep an eye on this thread. Keep it up :).

Thanks! I agree about the values, they're not that great in some of the later pages because I moved to faster sketches. I enjoy the look of the ones with a lighter range + darkest for a few details, and learning to do these more efficiently is on my list.

About the hatching the funny thing is that I'm not setting out to crosshatch. I never crosshatched well when I tried it. :'D I'm just picking the edge of some plane and following along with parallel lines for a while, sometimes crossing with lines originating from another plane, sometimes going deliberately against another one. It's fun and a bit how I treat brushtrokes when I paint.

I also agree with making them tighter. The times the hatching is too dark and not really pretty I was either stressed or wanted to be done with it because it was starting to hurt my hands—which is stressful anyway hah.

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Update

And now for something completely different, studies in the shape of digital sculptures!

For a feature with so much weight in the way I structure heads my noses have been criminally understated. I know how their bits and pieces are supposed to work but I don't fully grasp yet what the planes of the wings and the cheek connections are supposed to look like.

The skull filling is pure indulgence, I've always wanted to try it! Make no mistake, this is no anatomically correct way of going about it. The thinnest part of face must be ~5mm thick; I was super sloppy when dimensioning the skulls. 

European Woman 01




Asian Woman 01




I'm hoping to do another one tomorrow to complete a set before moving to assorted noses.