|| Cold Coffe || Getting serious with caffeine in my system

[Nikt]

Great sketchbook, Suira! Especially cool, for me, looks your pen and pencil stuff, like this sketches of guys with swords and figure drawings) About last painting, rafa zanchetin is right, something wrong with values ( i'm not good at it, to give you advises). And ye, still lifes are boring, most of the time)

[Lyraina]

Haha wow, that sounds like you're quite far out there! On the other hand, that also means less distraction through the internet, right?
Nice figure drawings, especially since they're not referenced... a good skill to practice.
For photo real still life etc I'd suggest starting with something reeally simple or easy, fruit maybe, just to test it out .. then you can go more complex if you want.
Regarding your questions, workflow-wise... just experiment, start with doing lots of thumbnails, thinking of composition and values... then do some thumbnails for colors and think about your light source, if you want it to look cool, warm, what mood ... then put it all together in the final piece! But in the beginning it is easier to focus on every aspect separately.

[Suira]

Rafa: So cool GIFs!! They really help clarifying how to work in color, and I didn't know that dude! KILLER WORK he has up! And yeah man, you got it about the still lifes, I kind of don't know how to approach it and I just lose patience. Sadly this is a consistent problem when I'm working anything that's not really basic values with lines cause that's the only thing I've worked on for like 5 years haha. And yeah, that druid fucking sucks, so I'm reworking the whole idea from scratch, as a challenge and see if I can get things done without giving up for once in my life hahaha.

Nikt: Thanks for dropping by and the compliments mate! And yeah, those values are awfull! :P

Lyraina: So much good advice. And yeah, living in the middle of nowhere has its advantages, but staying away form th computer is not one of them, because it's my only window to the world , so it's turned on 12 hours at day, at least :P. I have taken your advice to heart and praticed what you suggested, I'll try to work on all that stuff for about 7 days, and it's gonna be a challenge, cause thumbs and values are basically my worst enemy.

Well, I basically have focused on reworking the druid piece from scratch, done some thumbnails, which have been a nightmare because I lack patience and knowledge so it takes a toll on my focus:



After that I did an overlay layer and roughly tried to plan colors, but I feel they're very inconsistent and I just realise now that every one of them have cold+warm hues, maybe it would be a good idea to work exclusively in warm or cold and learn how the respective hue correlations? Any advice on how to build consistent palettes is appreciated although I'll research it on my own anyway :D



And a redesign for the druids face I sketched loosely that I quite like:


Also, I went with the fruit theme for a still life and took 4 painstakingly hours and a half getting it somehow polished, funny how the light changes all the time and you have to find a midpoint. Althought I'm happy cause I'm starting to see color with more accuracy so it pays off:



That's it for now, I'm off to do some studies, nice to see you all folks posting so much awesome stuff on your SB, it motivates me to go out of my comfort zone and do my best! ( even if I fail :P)

[rafa zanchetin]

Fuck yea man, are you going for a kinda celtic druid? I love that study, showing promise!
On the thumbnails I think you're going too broad, either too much white or too much black on your grays, try to start the thumbnails from midrange and only go full black if there's something on the foreground and full white if there's an important light source, I'm still newbie at thumbnailing so I might be talking out of my ass. If you wanna try how I am studying feel free, I'm taking Jesper Ejsing (http://www.jesperejsing.dk/) paintings and turning them into the thumbnails, and I think I'm starting to learn, he kicks so much ass.

About the cool/warm it all depends on the atmosphere of your scene, if you're going for a swampy cave for the druid, green just about suffice for it all, make it saturated for your warm and reaaaly dessaturated for the cools. And when you're doing grayscale studies have to remember if you are painting some like say red, you need to make it darker as a light value on red is ... pink, lol. There was a blog about the right value range for your hues but I can't remember right now, if I find it I'll let you know.

And the still life is looking awesome too!

[clockodile]

Wow, sounds like you are even further out of the way than I am. I feel your pain with the powercuts, until they re-did a load of lines around here I had them a lot until about a year or so ago. Also rural buses are just ugh.

Still lifes and imaginative work, excellent to see you pushing yourself with this stuff!

The still life seems to read well in form even though there isn't much contrast to the shadows, so I'm guessing you are doing them in a bright room. The forms and colours are a definite improvement on the first one and it is really nice to see the bounce light colours on the surface too, good attention to detail there.

It might help to, if you have one around, set up a lamp and light them with it in a darkened room. It is easier to understand how the light effects things when there is only one major source to deal with, and you get a really nice range of shadows to deal with too. Also, if you are doing multiple objects, don't be afraid to use the still life as a bit of a composition exercise - before you start painting, look at your set up and think of how you can make some interesting shadow shapes, get the objects overlapping and casting shadows on each other, etc.

I like rafa's suggestion of reducing paintings to thumbs - it is a good way to study composition (and colour for that matter!). I've looked a a lot of old masters for it, but it worth being diverse. (For example, I learnt good few tricks about composition from book and CD covers I never previously noticed, because they are so simple and obvious.) It try to keep thinking of major shapes, and designing the picture around them. Which sounds simple and totally is not. It might help work in maybe 3-5 solid values to help simplify thumbs and get into the habit of thinking about their design (and don't be afraid to work smaller if you are finding them slow, or if the detail is taking up time - sometimes I see thumbs that are tiny, with just a few major shapes and directional lines in them).

Great poses on the last page too, they're looking much more dynamic, and you can foreshorten them really well.

[Suira]

Rafa: Haha yeah man celtic style for the win! the other one looked too cliché so I thought it would be better to simplify the design and go for a more "fo real" kind of deal haha. Thanks a lot for all the feedback , it has saved my life for real! I took your advice and designed the painting with green and some brown, and a few touches of red and greenish blue here and there to spice it up. The thumbnails idea is pretty rad too, I'll try that out soon, although I'm probably gonna try studying Sergei Kolesov (Peleng) he's by far my favorite painter and I so want to steal his incredibly awesome skill! xD I gave them a try a few months back and it was incredibly hard to mimic his super simplistic comps. If you don't know this guy check him out, even if you don't go for that style it's too awesome to pass :D And this Jesper Fella....TOO AWESOME! Really cool stuff, I like the stuff for Magic the best, there are some incredible comps in there and the way he handles color is pretty impressive too! Great to have a hardworking pal around to give me great feedback and to help each other man, thanks for all of your feedback, it motivates me a lot to push myself! :D


clockodile: Ohh man, the power cuts, THE GODAMNED POWER CUTS!!! >_< You're lucky though, cause getting public workers to actually do what they're getting paid for in Panama is harder than becoming Kim Jung Gi in a week lol. Great suggestion about making a setup for the still lifes, I'll try that soon, it totally pays off to take some time to prepare something interesting that way it's easier to stick with it for hours without wanting to do a blowjob to a 9mm xD Also great idea about the covers thing, I tend to overlook that stuff but indeed there's some quality work in those, I'll have to give it a try when I'm done with this "block" of content I'm on right now. And BTW: UPDATE YOUR SB ALREADY!!! We're all waiting man! Don't let us down! :D Thanks for the mindfull feedback man, as always really helpfull!

Soooo had a couple bussy nights. Here we go:

Reworked the druid painting from scratch ( it was a fucking pain in the ass and helped me realise how TOTALLY LAME I am at color and how much value work I need to do still) I ended up with this, which I color balanced after finishing to get it more muddy feeling:


The original without any tweaks whatsoever, which one you prefer?:


Also an incredibly lame selfportrait from a pic I had, used only a hard textured brush from Kolesov , the result is lame, but it taught me a lot about face structure and colors:


Also, an experiment to loosen up, took about 45 mins or so, again two choices,first the filtered one ( my values where not reading properly so I had to do it to get a somehow decent picture, although it sucks):


And unaltered, as you can see I go to extremes when working with value if I have to do it "fast", either too much midtones or too much blacks, trying to find a balance :P



A really lame enviro study ( trying to start with enviros just so my characters don't stand in the middle of nowhere)


And a rough comp that I was gonna refine a bit before uploading it, but my laptop overheated and decided to crash, so it'll have to be for tomorrow. This one, I really like, but I'll probably fuck up during the rendering, anyway:


Did some sketches on pencil too, but I'll wait till I have more and I'll upload them in a few days.
That's all for these couple days folks! ;)

[Suira]

Quick update, more to come tonight.

Struggling to build stuff and also trying to find an approach I like in between the "super rendered" and the "impressionist" type of deal, as of now I'm awfully failing :P

[Suira]

Today it rained! It RAINEEEED! This means I wasn't living in a fucking oven for once, and thus was able to work during the day. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!??? During the day!!!

So I have done a few value studies cause I still need more work on that. It has felt really comfortable and fun for once, because I don't have to think about hue temperature and all of those crazy complex things that color entails, donw a few quick ones, also an experiment after that trying to apply values between 8-9'7 on a goblin's face and see how it goes. Also a HUGE FAILURE on female face color study ( seriously hard this one, failed big time). There's more but it's incomplete or unscanned. Anyway, off to bed for a few hours and then I'll be back with the late night studies! :D







Fail Time. Jesus Christ I fucking hate this one:


As always , crits and feedback welcome :P

[rafa zanchetin]

Only crit to be carefull on the value studies, too much white. Try something like: https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/h...6833_o.jpg save the whites for special ocasions. That's all really, you're working so hard that there shouldn't be anything to crit really.

[Craig Paton]

Wow. A great sketchbook here. Envious of your confident colours and cool line style. Can certainly see the Peleng influence in your work

More please. :)

[Suira]

Rafa: Thanks for the crit man! It's totally true, I'm a fucking extremist, either too much midtones or too much black/white, trying to find the balance still, hopefully this update is better, but don't cross your fingers xD

Craig Paton: Thanks! Still a fuckton to work on until I'm close to decent, but I'm glad you dig mate! I love your stuff by the way :D

So, my incredibly fucked up shedule has finally caught up to me. Tried to balance myself and went to bed at 6 in the afternoon so I would wake up at midnight and actually do some night studies without having my computer at volcanic temperatures. Unafortunately today was a rather slow, unproductive, unsinspired day. Most of the stuff I've done is incomplete or too shity to show. So here ya go with some of the crap I still hate but is the least shity of all:

Value studies ( mostly focusing on speeding up and getting accurate and efficient brushstrokes, result: FAIL)





And a painting I'm still experimenting with, because the composition disturbs me to no end still, I don't know if I'll carry this one to the next level, at first I liked it and now I hate it :P


Also did tons of pencil sketches but I'm too tired to scan them so that will have to wait ( and they suck anyway)

Off to bed, take care folks! :)

[clockodile]

Wow, tonnes of value studies recently! Getting a cool weather break is so nice, it must be crazy hot for you.

I think you are on the right track with the efficiency, if you keep at it. You are already pretty good at defining those form planes, so you should try to make better use of that. (I like how you handled them in your self portrait a couple of posts back, the structure shows through well.) So perhaps it would help to slow down and try to put them in with fewer, more accurate strokes, hitting in the value shapes. It might take a little longer at first, but the end result is that it will take less time to get things down, even though you are moving slower. It is something I've noticed watching pros paint and draw actually; they move pretty slowly, but because they think so carefully, they turn out results in less time. (It is super hard to get the hang of though, or I am finding that myself.)

Also as a very general suggestion, master studies (or little detail snippets out of master works) can be a good way to get a feel for brushwork too (among other things).

For the composition in the last one, the strong left-right flow of the action and pose flows pretty well to start off the picture, it can definitely be built on if you are inclined to. I have a couple of suggestions that might help the composition. The figure looks a bit cramped against the left edge of the image - I think extending the canvas to the left might help give him a bit of space to fly in on. The top of the monster's head and hand also lines up rather neatly with the mountains behind him - so maybe changing the placement could add interest and form some diagonals. (For instance, the mountain could be raised a bit in order to let its silhouette create a line to the focal point.) The last thing that could help is the hand placement - it might add more depth to let the monster's fingers overlap his face as he reaches out for the guy attacking. Keep experimenting with composition though, it is a tricky topic!

Otherwise, cool action shot, and good start to the rendering of the monster's face too, it looks delightfully fleshy.

Great set of updates, loving all the effort.

[Birchgrove]

Hey man, linked few videos about color that really helped me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8w0pCH_MI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIr2SmilLj8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFqIiN0ZFo

But always keep in mind that value is king.
If you are painting something that is in orange tone, for example,
the orange does not need to be spot on, but the value needs to be, to look good.

hope the videos help :)

also I would suggest to not color pick if you are trying to learn color.
If you can't get it right in 5 minutes or so then color pick
and try to figure out what was wrong with hue, saturation, value.

all the best

[Mathias86]

Great works man!!! I loved his work with pencil.
The poses are great! You made ​​all of the memory?

[Suira]

clockodile: Awesome suggestions as always man. I'm totally positive that what you're talking about thinking carefully the mark making and the strokes before putting them in place is the way to go to get rid of my messiness and overall chaos, which really destroys the quality of everything big time. I have tried to do that in a few face studies today, but I'm too tired still, hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to do those studies properly. I'll also be studying peleng cause it's about time, great ideas. :D And also you're quite right about the issues with the comp, if I find the patience/courage to work on it further I'll give it a try. Thanks a ton for all of your feedback man, always makes my day :)

Birchgrove: Thanks for dropping by! I hadn't seen those videos , thanks a ton , they will be helpfull in the coming days. And yeah you're right value is key, that's why I made a little break to work on those some more so I can focus just on color properties :) And yeah, I stopped color picking quite a while ago, that's why all of my studies suck hahaha, but it's good to see how ignorant I am and hopefully fiz it in the future!

Mathias86: Thanks! Yeah, the poses where made from mind. The trick is to correct them until you find them "correct" and do your best to try and visualise as much as you can before laying down the pencil. :)

Well...I'm totally brain dead, I'm still readjusting after this whole crazy week of sleeping 2 hours, studying 8, sleeping 3, studying 1, sleeping 8...etc.

So tonight I tried to do faces with ref of chubby guys and it took too much concentration and patience for my poor brain, so I just did these studies and I have a direction for tomorrow. I like these two, although they took an hour each ( way slower than my usual speed with pencil)



These other 2 are just shit, lost my patience and went to music planet while drawing and forgot what I was doing, plus the refs, specially for the douche with glasses where 300x400 and lit as total crap ( but yeah, I failed, no excuses):


Just so this update isn't so empty I scanned the warmups I did today before starting to think:



Oh, and some face failures from mind ( I really need to work on faces man, I suck balls):


And to wrap it up, some sketches I did while sitting on the shitter:


Hopefully tomorrow's update won't be so lame. Anyway folks, take care and remember: DON't MESS UP YOUR SLEEPING SCHEDULE.

[Birchgrove]

Thx for feedback.

check my sketchbook for a crappy joke

[LaleAnn]

Damn that's 2 very nice sketchbook pages! Love your different techniques, traditional as much as digital!

[Suira]

Birchgrove: Hahaha! Best death scene ever INDEED!

LaleAnn: Thanks! :)

Well, tonight I kept it up following clocko's advise, trying to think before putting down stuff, and in the process of doing such a tedious yet rewarding thing I realised one of my main problems in drawing, that is now evident to me, but I couldn't pinpoint before. See, the reason for the messiness of my construction lines and overall low line quality was.....MY LINE CONSTRUCTION METHOD! What a surprise huh? Well, I'm that retarded xD

So basically I suffer from the widely spread "chicken-scratch" syndrom when drawing, and from yesterday I've been forcing myself to do consistent and decided lines when building a shape, also I started getting rid of guidelines, which makes the process way harder, but theorically those guideline should be in your head before you put them down, so yeah...

Anyway, I'm quite happy with today's results, I kind of fell into procrastination midway trough the night, but it's unavoidable when you're frying yout brainpan trying to build in the complete opposite way you're used to.

First, some hand warmups, ( about 1,5 hours) I had to crop them like this because I made the mistake of purchasing a weird paper size that's bigger than A4, and thus my scanner can't properly scan them:


Then, this 2h face study ( I wrote 1'30 on the paper, but then I fixed a few things):


Then a 1'5h painting trying to apply what I learned with the tablet, kinda lame at this stage but I feel my construction skills have improved dramatically:


After that a quick 25 min face study that took way less than the first one and still looks ok:


And finally a rough construction of the next face study ( too tired to keep it up so I'll finish it tomorrow, I think), I'm uploading this so the process I'm using becomes more evident and thus you guys can crit me on the approach :D


Oh! And as a bonus, a silly thing I drew in my "sitting on the shitter time" that contemplates the deep consequences that Solid Snake has to face for bearing such name, aside from Metal Gears and crazy elite assassins:


And that about wraps it up for today, I hope I'll be mor eproductive tomorrow as I slowly get the hang of the new method. And really , THANKS CLOCKODILE, that advise really helped me man!! ;)

[rafa zanchetin]

Ohh yea, the linework is really juicy now, I like them few strokes, to me it's like the blues for guitar, you don't need a lot of keys but just the right ones at the right time.
It just seems a shame that your digitals aren't up to par with your hatching work, it's amazing how you block out the angles and volumes on traditional, maybe you could try something on digital on the same vein? I was trying to find someone to kinda ref but I'm almost sleeping here all I could find was:
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Waterfall-...-462841550. But I don't really know where you want to go with your style so don't mind me if it isn't what you're looking for. :)

[Suira]

Rafa: Yeah man, efficiency is always better than anything else, still gotta work on it though :P Totally right, I can't translate my pencil skill to my digitals yet, I totally lack a method, and after this week ( I wanna wrap up the face studies on sunday) I'll be focusing on building a system to paint that I like, so it'll be tons of hit-and-miss but fun. I quite like that painting btw.

In terms of style I haven't really focused on it because I want to nail down my fundamentals first , specially color and value, that seem to be my two biggest issues at the moment, but I'd like my stuff to be sort of a mix of these guys:

-Kolesov
-Kuciara
-Scholes
-Parel
+
My own flavour into the mix (once I know what that is xD)

By the way, you made my day with the goats thing haha, awesome man.


Today I'm giving up, plain and simple, had a terribly hot day, tons of pointless shit to do in real life and I'm really tired both mentaly and physically. I have reworked on the fat dude painting for a bit reverting back to construction and giving up on color until my values are set. It still sucks balls, even more than before, but at least it's gonna be completable to some extent, although I'm not gonna show it yet.

So here we go with my first 4 thumbnails ( inspired by the awesome ones that rafa and pnate are uploading), started with Parel, cause his stuff is awesome and it is quite challenging. Took about 25 min. each, I'm slow really, but I'll get faster and better with practice I hope:


To wrap it up and on a fun note, a sketch I did on the tablet when listening to how every government tends to be keen on taking freedoms away from us "for our own good", really distastefull way to illustrate it xD:


And by the way, I totally recomend Guild Wars 2 soundtrack for fantasy paintings, really nice stuff and not very distracting. Anyway, sorry for the lame update, but it's better than nothing I guess...cheers!