Birchgrove's Sketchbook

[Birchgrove]

Fedodika: Thx man, actually going to give more focus on values and rendering for the next year, so you are spot on with that.

pnate: You know what? You just helped me to solve a major problem of mine, thanks alot. I will try to implement it in my schedule as good as I can. Well i'm sure you know that time is always of the essence. Going through art school atm, the kind of art school that is focused on many different subjects (and sucking up my time). Most, I feel, are wasting my time in the sense of fast art progression. But since the government actually pays me to go there, I can't really complain only adapt to best of my ability.

If things go as planned, next year will be my last in art school and I will switch to 3D animation and visualisation uni for 4 years (Reason for my focus on figure stuff). My main focus is to build positive habits in all areas of my life, so I can have a strong foundation to build on. Art is just a part of it. And I expect my art progress to pick up momentum as I go. Not in a rush, since i'm in a really lucky situation.

but yeah, enough rambling.

[Birchgrove]

some recent stuff.










trying to achieve more with less brush strokes.
long way to go :S




also my first illustration evah
"dragon rider" girl tickling her trusty companion
how to train your dragon got me in the mood

very experimental

[Birchgrove]

longer value study from today

[Birchgrove]

[Birchgrove]

Thanks Wayland!
Found a nice way to simplify it with smudge tool.

Study of a consept by Milan Nikolic, awesome art. Check him out!

[Birchgrove]

Quick gobo illustration and still life

[Birchgrove]

Another day, another naked lady. The story of my life.
wait...

[Birchgrove]

[Birchgrove]

portrait stuff from today

[ShinOkami]

Hey, nice work you have here, really liking the portrait studies since i'm doing them as well these days

Keep them up, the next level is close :p

[Birchgrove]

Still life from today.
Note to self - don't paint still lifes when the sun is rising.

[Birchgrove]

stuff.
breaking through mental blocks which is awesome :)

[Birchgrove]

Been struggling a bit with practicing painting daily, since it feels so "endless".
So I dabbled with personal challenges, like painting an animal every day for 30 days and it seems to work.

I guess it tricks my brain with the endless practice thing by giving me a end date that is in sight. Even tho after the challenge is done, I'm going to challenge myself with a new subject and it's pretty much the same grind, but it does not feel like it.

Funny how the mind works. If you are having trouble with this particular thing. Try challenging yourself!

some paintings from 1st week

[Birchgrove]

Few paintings from the week.

Starting to notice subtle hues of purples and reds in real life that eluded me before.
Everything is so freaking colorful :D

[Birchgrove]

Cranking that saturation :D

[Suira]

Cool stuff man! You're very strong with color, the frog, the fox, and the cheetah are my favorites :) The still lifes are very strong, that shoe looks crazy good an very efficient strokes too. You're definetely headed in the right direction man.

I've been checking out and your weakness seems to be into human figure. It's a pain in the ass that's for sure haha. I personally have checked out all of the usual to-go artist books like bridgeman, hogarth, loomis and vilpu, and took a bit from here and there. Also learned a ton from Ron Lemen's constructive figure drawing approach, but in the end I found that once you have some clues on basic muscle groups and srtuctures the best way to go is a mix between imagination sketching to see weaknesses and then some good old figure drawing with ref focusing on what you wanna tackle. I'm no master at all but it may help to try that out for a few months. No need to do tons of them, 5 a day for 3 months should give you a quite solid foundation to later on develop it further.

Also I've noticed you tend to use lasso to do your hard edges, which is a good option, but I would recommend trying to just use a hard brush to get those edges because it can give you much more control on the subtles variations of the contour.

Overall, cool stuff man, keep it up! :D

[Birchgrove]

*Dramatic screaming* SUIRA! *cough* How did you know? The human figure... my only weakness... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrnariwULfA

thx for the suggestion, going to implement!

[StardustLarva]

Those studies are looking pretty good, though I personally would balance out the soft and hard edges on the second one. Probably just me though.

[Birchgrove]

StardustLarva: Thx for feedback.
You are definitely right. Was focusing only on the colors.
My brain can't handle multiple things to study at the same time,
haven't even started to study edge control yet.
Baby steps :)

So, got bored of animals so here's some plant experiments

[Fedodika]

that clover is just... aomgg so cute..