Raedrob's Attempt at Art

[Raedrob]

Hey guys,
I'm trying to get into a daily groove, as I really need to work a lot to
become good enough to reach my goals. I started out doing daily studies some days ago,
so I have a long way to go. Particularly when it comes to knowledge of the human anatomy.
These are a couple of the studies I did recently, two hours on each. The hands at the bottom are something I did today. I can do them okay with a ref, but once I try to do 'em from my imagination it goes all wrong (these ones were done with a ref) =)

[Raedrob]

Today I did some stuff.




I joined Noah's Art Camp on impulse as well. Here's some composition stuff from today.

[CoreyH]

Awesome start dude. Great to see you exploring so many different areas of art at once. Nothing to really suggest as it seems you are tackling most thing already! haha. Looking forward to seeing how you progress.

[Heavenwill]

Yup keep doing that ! Push those studies a bit

[Raedrob]

Hey, thanks guys!
Some of those studies were two hour challenges, so they could definitely be much more defined and pushed further.
Here's most of the stuff I did for week one of the Art Camp. Almost 50 comp studies and colour studies plus three full painted master studies.

[Raedrob]

Week two's stuff. Focus on imagination, with a bunch of masters colour studies.

[Raedrob]

Week three of the art camp. Still life plus some sketches from imagination.

[Raedrob]

Got a big mix of different stuff here. Two weeks ago I focused on doing self portraits, and the one posted here's the one I'm most happy with. More landscapes from imagination and relatively quick painting of the outside of my window follow, and lastly some gesture drawings.

I try to do a session of figure drawing as a warm up every day, and I wanted to ask if any of you notice anything weird with mine. I'm not sure if I end up with too stiff poses. I tend to vary the approach slightly during each session, and I think I may fumble too much trying to define some anatomy. They're only 30 sec each, so I should really just go for the motion, I guess.

[Raedrob]

A mix of photostudies and applying what I learned.

[Samszym]

Nice amount of studies. And lol I was not expecting the Rainbow Dash knight! brohoof? /)

I think you have the right idea about doing studies and applying them, definitely keep that up! To me it seems that your observational studies are a step better than your imagination work right now.
I'd recommend studying from Loomis or Scott Robbertson or some other good perspective teacher for a while, your drawing's the biggest problem for your right now. Once you get a better grasp of perspective and form I think you'll be able to get a lot more out of the studies.

And a tiny crit on the pony piece, having a character look towards the closer edge of the canvas can feel kinda cramped compositionally, I think it would be better if she were looking to the right where all the open space is.
Best of luck in your studies and work dude!!!

[Raedrob]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to check out my stuff, brohoof! (\

There's definitely lots of room for improvement in my imaginative stuff. Some of it turns out okay,
but I tend to just wing it with mixed results. I agree on the drawing, I should make a plan for improving there (especially regarding anatomy). Thanks for pointing it out to me, it really helps!

Honestly I should have picked up on the flaw with that composition, I watched a demo that pointed out exactly that very recently. On the upside, I should notice this easier in the future, as I've had it pointed out to me with something I painted myself. Again, thanks for taking the time to help me out =)

[Raedrob]

Well well, it's been quite a while.
I've been busy with the art camp and other stuff, and should be able to do updates
much more frequently at this point. The finished piece from the art camp should come up within a week.

The previous weeks have been dedicated to come up with loads of compositions and colour schemes in hope to snag a few good ones.

[Raedrob]

This piece concludes my endeavour of participating in Noah Bradley's Art camp.
It's been pretty intense this summer, with both ups and downs for sure.
Now I just have to start packing and prepare to move as school starts soon.
It's going to be my first proper art directed education, and I'm looking forward
to some focused studies (and applying).

[Samszym]

Wow, sounds like an adventure!! I think you're taking the right attitude into this, my biggest regret about how I've spent art school is lack of applying what I've learned. Best of luck in school!

[Raedrob]

School starts up in a week, and after that I'm gonna try to and get structured with my art.
The first week may be a bit sloppy as it's set up for us students to get to know each other.

I've been tinkering with this painting for a while now, one of the paintings I've spent
a bigger amount of time on. I'm not very used to such "straight" stuff (buildings, interior etc). I'm more of an organic environment kind of guy :P

[Raedrob]

This is some of the stuff I've done lately.
I've started to look at Dave's famous schedule,
and want to do something similar myself.
When doing quick figure studies I do a couple without ref before
and after the session, it's kind of interesting. It's also worth mentioning
that I spend only 30 seconds on each of the figures during the actual session.
It's hard to make stuff pretty and accurate in so short amount of time.

I'm also doing some concepts for a fanmade MLP mmo, but I'm not allowed to show
any of that stuff yet. It's a very good opportunity for me to familiarize with architecture
and stuff like the pen tool.

[Samszym]

My advice is don't even bother making your gesture drawings "accurate", try to analyze the forces that are making the pose look how it looks, what the pose is about. Then draw that as simply and clearly as possible, regardless of what the pose actually looks like. One great way I've heard this put is "draw verbs, not nouns".
You don't want to draw a hip in an accurately angled relationship to the rib cage, you want to draw the hip seductively thrusting outward and swaying upwards. Don't draw an arm and forearm with a grabby-looking hand, draw an arm stretching to its limit and straining to grab the most delicious donut in the universe!

IMO it's better to have an exaggerated pose which tells the story of the gesture than a drawing that's mostly true to the reference but doesn't clearly show what's happening in the pose.

[Raedrob]

Thanks for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated and I'll make sure to keep it in mind!
Here's some studies I did today, trying to mix it up with both some anatomy and landscapes.

[Raedrob]

Here's today's studies and stuff.
I'm hoping to do some more personal stuff soonish.

[Raedrob]

It's the last weekend before school starts and I got lazy with the studies.
I ended up doing something, at the very least. Better than nothing I guess.