JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[BrushNoir]

Perhaps place a 2 dots that are in line with eachother and than draw the rest of the eyes around it, other than that you're doing good!

[JyonnyNovice]

Sketchosoph Thanks for your comment! I do really like the look you mention with really dense cross hatching and texture in the dark parts. I'll try that for sure in my next drawing! Needs a bit more planning I think, a little thumbnail to figure out where the values are but I think it will be worth it! Thanks again : )

Brushnoir You know, I think I had some kind of revelation moment after reading your comment. I always took the approach of either using spheres for eyeballs and wrapping lids over it or getting the eye shape down first - my success has always been hit and miss and I didn't feel much control over it. I never thought to try using two simple dots and building everything around them! Really feels like it could be just what I needed to start getting eyes right! Thanks so so much for sharing that ^_^b


Day 6 of pen training, circles and spirals made of short sections of line joined up to make a seamless shape. This one was really hard, yet another one I'll have to re-do many times before I get it.




And finished off my comic from a few weeks ago. I don't like it anymore, just slapped on value in the last 4 frames so I can consider it 'done' and move onto the next one. I have written a nice little story, just planning out the pages, should be about 3 - 4 page long comic, a love story. I'll be spending my weekends on that til it's done.



Looks nicer printed out, a lot of the little mistakes are taken away:

[JyonnyNovice]

Nothing listed for pen training today so just some mixed practice, week 2 starts tomorrow!



And trying to find a good face for my next comic book, I really suck at this XD majority of them have dead eyes and when I get a good face down I can't replicate it :/ will keep trying!

[JyonnyNovice]

Pen training, week 2 day 1. Drawing straight lines with a ruler. Pretty straightforward and easy one, draw pencil underlines with a ruler then ink them on top with the ruler. Have to have the pen held right or the line skews off but it's an easy one. The side of the ruler gets covered with a thin coating of ink so you have to wipe it off else it'll go on your hands and get smeared on the page.



Some inking practice over 2 min head sketches. It was pretty fun to have the loose head layin underneath then do the features from imagination.

[IrishWhiskey]

Looking good Jyonny! 

I can see by the 2-minute face practice your lines are becoming a lot more clean and confident so the pen training is working for sure.

If you go to pixelovely.com and go to practice tools you can do timed face studies that i found very useful.

Cool comics too btw.

[John]

Those water color pieces are looking good! Nice color choices!

[Mechanizoid]

Hey Johnny, thanks for dropping by my SB man! :) Looks like you are working hard here. Keep it up. But I have a question–why are you practicing drawing straight lines with a ruler? Seems like it would be easy to do that, though I haven't tried so I really don't know. LOL But you are aware that you can draw really really straight lines with no ruler as well? Feng Zhou explains it on his video about traditional materials. It's all about drawing from the shoulder and lots of practice. It's worth cultivating, it brings a great level of control to your lines!

Anyway, just curious, I haven't used straightedges as much because I'm still training my arm and staying more on the sketching side. I know people use rulers and ellipse templates to tighten things up, but I haven't played around with that yet.

[Rshin]

Hey Jon! I know I rarely go to daggers but when I do, I always make sure to check your SB. I am so proud of you. Youve been working so hard. I learn so much from your SB. I've been doing those line drills too but yours seems more hardcore. honestly, I admire your patience for it. It's rather difficult for me because I got really used to my sketchy lines - which is why I'm practicing lines too cause I want to correct myself. And wow! You're making a comic book? Are you posting it somewhere? Or are you going to publish one like print it out and sell it? Oh man, if yes, I'll definitely get a copy.

And oh man youre doing watercolour pieces now too!! I also love your GoT redesign! The studies you made for it, there's so much to learn. And I remember you asking me about tips for drawing hands, but look at your hand studies! I should be the one asking for tips haha :)) I'm just so amazed and proud all at the same time. I'm puking rainbows here. So much great stuff in your SB. I'll make sure to drop by again.

[JyonnyNovice]

Irish Whiskey Thanks man! Thanks for the encouragement! I know pixelovely, it's a great site ^^

John Thanks too! I'll be doing another of those flower vases in class this week, hopefully I can apply what I learned from my mistakes : )

Sagi Haha, yea it seems a bit strange practising lines with ruler, it's part of a training program from a book and that was the exercise that day. The lines at the top of this page are all freehand, so I practise that too. Cause it's a nib pen that you dip in ink, there is some skill element with the ruler, and learning how to avoid getting ink on the page and smearing it (like I did in today's one) is important. But it's still quite easy for someone who draws already. The point of it though, is to lead up to stuff like this, which is Saturday's exercise:





which is possible freehand - I even saw some guys do it with a brush and keep all the lines tight - but it's super hard. So most of the manga guys use rulers for that kind of stuff. Thanks for commenting! hope you come back again : )

Rshin  Shin your comment really warms my heart! Such nice words thanks so much, you really made my day <3 The nib pen training has been soooo helpful, I would definitely recommend it - they also really really helped my digital drawing too since I think it's a similar thing, physically, with the sensitive pressure and needing to draw lines quite fast. I can post up the full set of exercises if you want to try it. As for my comics, I probably never mentioned to you, but that is my goal to be a comic artist, so right now I'm practising that stuff to learn a good process. I'm just doing short comics based on writing prompts from Scott Mcloud's "Making Comics". I'll post them all on here, might be a while til the next one's done. As for hands I started to find it much easier taking Glenn Vilppu's advice and going with a four fingered cartoon hand, makes it really fun and I can focus just on pose and making it look solid instead of worrying about all the joints and proportions and stuff. The plan is to build up to realistic hands when I get more consistent with them. Really thanks again so much, I feel totally buzzed to keep going after reading yours <3 <3

Today's pen training, parallel straight lines with a ruler (week 2 day 2)






More inking practice over quick heads (5 min heads this time, makes for a much better result)

[JyonnyNovice]

week 2 day 3 pen training, right angles / corners / closing shapes cleanly



Some anatomy / inking practice.

[KurtJeremy]

sup jyon! thanks for the thoughtful insights you gave on my sketchbook, they really do help for my motivation to keep on trucking. I'm gonna start thinking more clearly as to hone in finally to what gives me the most joy into doing this in the first place.

nice stuff with the inks btw. I have been doing the same lately with the drawabox stuff what I found out is that my lines get Indeed better when I do them daily what a surprise :D

[Triggerpigking]

Great inking practice dude, i'm assuming these exercises came from the drawbox site?, i've just started on the first assignments there and it seems to be a really well put together site so thanks for reccomending it :).

[JyonnyNovice]

Triggerpigking Thanks! They're from 'Pen and Ink: A manga startup guide', there are more exercises than drawabox but the benefits are pretty similar ^^

Day 9 and 10 pen training - swell & ebb with a ruler and using french curves





And a crappy watercolour from class (flowers in the style of Roaul Dufy)

[JyonnyNovice]

Kurt Forgot to reply to you last time! I'm glad those comments were useful, I look forward to seeing where you head : )

Had to break from my pen training for a few days to go attend to something in London (my capital city). Managed to visit the museum while there, the sculpture hall at the V&A museum is really great, it's really accomodating for people sketching in this long hall with benches down both sides to sit on and draw. Only managed one drawing in there since it was so busy I didn't get in til quite late.

Doodle on the bus:


Random objects:


From my hotel room:


Bronze statue from 'The Wallace Collection Museum'


Outside the V&A waiting for queue's to die down:


'Theseus and the Minotaur' from an original Roman sculpture (so ancient!)



Back to pen training from tomorrow!

[JyonnyNovice]

Back with the pen training, week 3 of 4.

Yesterday (end of week 2) drawing speed and concentration lines


Today (start of week 3) crosshatching

[JyonnyNovice]

Pen training day 13 rope hatching



Day 14, cross hatching gradations





And some practical application of this stuff (it's really fun):

[Eyliana]

The amount of patience you have! Really awesome stuff. Keep it up :)

[miracoly]

Thanks for stopping by my sb Jonny! Its always fun to scroll through yours, just keep it up man! Loving all the traditional stuff

[Triggerpigking]

Nice updates dude, how many days is the pen & ink practice? I might try that soon as it looks a lot more varied then the drawabox or Peter Han excercises.

[JyonnyNovice]

Eyli Thanks! I find a kind of zen meditation doing those exercises, so it doesn't feel like it takes patience when I get into it.
Miracoly Thanks for stopping by mine too : )
Triggerpigking It's 24 days total, but a few of them are specifically for nib pen (about using the pressure to get thin / thick lines) so if you do them with a regular pen you can skip a lot, and possibly skip the stuff with a ruler too and just do the core stuff in under two weeks probably. I scanned the whole thing in anyway so have a look. I'd really recommend doing it with a nib pen though, since I've found the sensitivity training soooooo great for improving my use of tablet and stylus in photoshop.


Big versions
week 1: http://i.imgur.com/Bv2VCnL.jpg
week 2: http://i.imgur.com/rTypJEx.jpg
week 3: http://i.imgur.com/gbln8SH.jpg
week 4: http://i.imgur.com/F7t8s7W.jpg


My recent work:

I lost another few days so a bit behind with the pen training, here's day 15 ropehatching gradations - this one is quite tricky. Mine look nicer from a distance / shrunk size, a bit messy close up.







Need more practice at that one for sure.


Some 30 second and 2 minute gestures, I decided to keep a sketchbook just for gestures, so I can flip through it when it's full and see if I've improved.