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

[rafa zanchetin]

Hahah, man I feel ya, "only 7 hours". To other it might seem a lot but I guess to us that are on this everyday it feels lazy.
The gestures are coming along man, don't worry. On the lines thing give it a shot on what I did about a year ago, http://rzanchetin.blogspot.com.br/2013_0...chive.html I was doing this double lines and I don't know why it helped me alot, eventually I just ditched the single one.
Loving the faces too, your render is starting to grow. :)

[Nikt]

Wow! Tons of studies here! Like your face\ value studies) Also waiting to see your chow update!

[crackedskull]

Nice face value studies man, keep up the design studies. Try doing more, like when your feel like your done just do 1h more.

[Suira]

Rafa: Yeah man, to some people it sounds like a lot, but if you think about it, most people dayjob is at least 8 hours, and I should do at least that, so I guess it's kinda justified. ( WE'RE NOT OBSESSED, NO!!!! xD) Thanks for the double line suggestion man, I saw that a long time ago in some people on ca, but never tried it, it's really a good idea, cause it forces you to realise what line you're doing by repeating it, I think I'll do that on the linear gestures from now on. And thanks about the faces man, but there's a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go till I get a clue xD

Nikt: Thanks man! Gotta keep grinding hehe. Today there's a little update, tons of work to do on it still.

crackedskull: Thanks! I'll keep them up, they seem pointless at first, but somehow I feel that taking notes and doing those simple drawings help a lot to remember stuff, also great advice, I'll keep it in mind :)

Today I VANQUISHED my 7 hour study time for the first time in two weeks, and I intend to keep it up, I don't even know how much today, but a fuckton more, that's for sure xD

Gestures, I have decided to also do "painterly" ones to warm up for painting and getting a better sense on silouhette and quick overall values, kinda helpfull, also the double line ones are really good for learning, although I had to extend to 90 secs cause I take longer ( granted):




Face studies ( quickies, failures) they suck, but I didn't really wanted to study today so the result shows my lack of comitment I guess:



Chubby Sam:


Speedpaintings ( the funniest part of the night for sure) did some cliché priest and another iteration on courrier six fron fallout new vegas:




Design studies, focusing on bandoliers and pouches cause I love that stuff, these actually take more time than it looks like, cause I focus a lot on understanding and not so much on drawing:




Update on the CHOW piece, based on Bjulvar's awesome advice on comp, unafortunately I'm pretty sure that I set myself up for failure because the light kinda sucks, and I'm working on mostly super dark values, so I have to still improve readability and shit, also need to add some accesories, put some details, blah blah blah. I kinda hate this painting by now, but I'll keep working at it just because I'm stubborn I guess:



And a quick filter/ color idea to see what I might do when I'm done with the values:



That's it for tonight, I don't like the results but I like the workflow so I can't complain. Hope everyone's happy and motivated, take care folks!

[rafa zanchetin]

Hells yea man, and I thought I did a lot yesterday.
Push it to the limit dude!
Walk along the razor's edge!

[Suira]

Rafa: Haha yeah man, I think I took it too far, and now I'm sick haha, serves me well, anyway, let's hope I can get back in action soon.

Well. I'm sick, dever and shit, yesterday too. Not terrible, but fucked up enough as to not give a shit when trying to draw and not even worth the effort, so I'll focus on getting better and see how it goes. Here's my failed and really short attempt, just to prove I tried :P





Anyway,maybe it'll do me some good to rest to really sink in what I've learned lately. See you soon folks!

[rafa zanchetin]

Oh man that fucking sucks, hate that too. At least you did something so the day don't go to waste.
Get better soon.

[Bjulvar]

Really nice updates dude! Cool that you're finding a likeable workflow and it seems like you're moving into a mode of more learning! Also glad that my crit helped you out. Maybe you could put some higher values on his left side that's in the shadow, just so he pops more. Noticed that I'm a bit lead to his crotch area because of the brighter tabard thingie!

Dig that courier six sketch because of the radiation feeling from the colors. The cool thing about New Vegas was always the cowboy vibe anyway :D

Damn sucks that you're sick. But now you can rest and think about more awesome stuff to paint! Get well man!

[Birchgrove]

Really liking the limited value face studies, need to do some! and the speed paints, and the portraits and your work ethic and everything :D

Get well soon man!

[Suira]

Rafa: Thanks man, a couple days have indeed gone to waste, but I have reflected a lot on what to focus on next and I came up with a pretty good idea on what I'm doing wrong, so I guess it's not so wasted hehe.

Bjulvar: Hehe yeah man, your feedback on the chow piece really helped me, it's funny what you say because it's exactly what I thought after coming back from my fever hehe, I have introduced some lights to pop the character, and I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the result. And yeah dude, New Vegas was all about cowboys shooting shit with lasers and whatnot, best game ever haha. And thanks for the good wishes :D

Birchgrove: Thanks man! Glad you dig, and also thanks for the good wishes hehe.

Well. After two days pretty fucked up, I seem to be recovering, so today I tossed about 6 hours into studying and whatnot, still I'm taking it slow cause I'm not 100% ok, but it's better than nothing:

Lame warmups ( surprisingly rusty on these after only 2 days of not doing them):





Design Studies, I REALLY recommend you guys to do these, in pencil if possible so it's quicker, go simple and don't copy the reference, do your own thing based on the ref and try to reverse eingeneer what's going on, it's the only kind of study that I remember 100% with just one try:






And to wrap it up, I tossed about 3 hours into the CHOW piece, redid tons of mistakes, change the lights, etc. I'm starting to delve into color now, I know it's far from being perfect value-wise, but it will have to do, I'll try to do it better in the next one. By the way any advise or crits regarding color are VERY WELLCOME:



Off to bed, see you tomorrow! :D

[Nikt]

Hi! Your chow looks nice, man ) The face of your Crimson Dagger, looks good, with this Riddic's eyes and highlight on nose) I'm not sure but for me his hood looks a little bit to high or his face showed to much... i mean, can't do anything imagining his head like a flattened oval. maybe his face a little bit too small compared with rest of the body, I belive you can easily fix that, if you think I'm right. About color, I think the room atracting too much attantion, I see that you used desaturated yellow but the problem is in brightness, you should make it darker; And add light outside a little bit more cold blue?

Spoiler

[Archreux]

Hey, man. You've got a really nice sketchbook. Try not to beat yourself up too much internally. We all know the feeling of how there is never enough time in the day and how much it sucks to mess a couple of days. Any time spent working on the craft is all good, we always walk away with something in the end.

Your gestures and lines are killer, and those dynamic poses are great. Just keep working on some of those color/value fundamentals. Your faces are looking good as well.

Also, thanks for sharing what you've been doing with the design studies. I've got a pretty limited mental library and have been wondering how to go about building that up. Heep on killin' it. :]

[Suira]

Nikt: Hey man, thanks for the feedback, I had the feeling that I had gone too far repainting the face, and indeed I did haha, so I transformed it to fix the issue, let's hope it makes more sense now. I gave a try to your idea about lowering the value of the room, but it kills the contrast and destroys the justification for the strong tim lights, so I left it as is. Overall I think I'm gonna leave the values as they are since I worked on them quite a long time and redoing them at this point is gonna be too time consuming, let's hope I can apply what I've learned in the next one. Thanks for taking the time to give me some crits! ;)

Archreux: Thanks man. Don't worry, I'm giving myself some breathing room since I'm still a bit dizzy, still I'm managing to put in my 7-8 hours again, so I can't complain hehe. I'm glad the design studies helped you, I cannot recomend them enough, give them a try!

Well, today I spent some time watching documentaries on painters I like and finally, after years of saying no, I decided to give master studies a go, focusing in learning stuff from them rather than just making copies. I gotta say they're pretty usefull. No warmups today, didn't feel like it.

First,some corrections on the CHOW piece, I know I could do tons more of work, but I'm frankly quite tired of working on this, I learned a lot from it, and I managed to get a somehow decent look, so I'll refine it a bit more tomorrow and fix/ introduce some hues and call it a day:



After that I did a master study of Manet, I was specially interested in his simple, yet super effective values / hues so I did a detail study on Olimpia's hand, pretty fun, contrary to what I expected:



After that I gathered some courage and decided to go for a Velazquez piece ( since we're both spanish and he's awesome, you know xD) and failed quite miserably getting any close to his mastery, but learned a fuckton about simplicity and edge control:



To wrap it up I did a piece of POOP, just to give a try to some ideas, it sucks because the studies took long hours and my brainpan is kinda fried at this point, but hey, better than nothing:




That's about it, see you tomorrow with more crappy content peoples!

[rafa zanchetin]

You hit the spot on that master painting man, looks really really sweet and the hand as well, and old Piccolo (lol).
On the CHOW piece I'm finding the dead guy getting too much attetion away from the main guy, perhaps lighten him diminishing his contrast?

---

Did a quick paintover if you don't mind, I used mostly soft brushes so don't mind being messy, lol.



After I opened it I kinda realized the perspective you did on the floor/door is creating kindof another framing into the picture, might be too late now, but be carefull on the future!

[Suira]

Rafa: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW DUUUUUUUUUUUDE I wish I had seen your overpaint before submiting!!! HAHAHA Maan, so much better, damn!!! Ohh well, at least I won't forget net time to be more experimental before calling it a night haha. Thanks a lot dude. I still applied some of your advice but I think I left too much attention on the enviro :P

Well, quite the lazy ass night today, I messed up my schedule yesterday so I woke up late at night, tired and dizzy, so I basically have just refined a bit the CHOW piece, and done a fetus study ( yeah you read right) none the less, when I was taking the trash out this morning I saw a gorgeous cloud, and realised something very very important about edge control, I did a quick "note" on it, and I'll be expanding on that, I feel if I get the grasp of that balance a level up will be oportune xD

CHOW piece: ( damn you Rafa, DAMN YOU haha)



Fetus study:



Note: Sharing it just in case it helps somebody, cause it's really nothing more than an abstraction.



and that's been my lazy night, still, quite a helpfull one even if I spent it mostly watching episodes of Naruto hahah.

[rafa zanchetin]

Hahaha, sorry man. :(
Maybe you can review it again and submit before the deadline, I wouldn't mind but ask pnate. :)

[Adzerak]

Great design studies going on there, lad! Been meaning to do those kinds of studies for some time now but stuff keeps piling up xD Your way of tackling it really kicked me in the ass so to speak, inspires and reminds me to get on with it heh.

Sweet thing about observing clouds too, I mean one often tend to do clouds really soft and with some fluffy kind of cloud brush maybe. But it looks so nice irl when such clouds are contrasted by some really hard edge "lasso-tool feel" cloud xD Study on and grind that imagination, seeing some great improvement in here!

[pnate]

Glad you got the revised version into the finals thread in time :) Piece came out really cool man, love the mood and story!

[Suira]

Rafa: In the end I left it as it was, because I felt I would be cheating hahaha.

Adzerak: Thanks man, I'm glad the studies motivated you to give them a try hehe, I took the idea from an interview I heard in level up with Alex Negrea where he said he did those kinds of things. And yeah, that stuff about the cloud idea is dope if you manage to apply it, sadly I've come to discover I still lack a lot of required knowledge to apply that idea properly :P

pnate: Thanks man, you totally NAILED it, really loved your piece, you're gonna earn a well deserved victory :)

Well, this week I hit a new low motivation-wise. I had an accident on my bike and the pain of the injury kept me away from studying for a couple days, after that I just felt that I'm going backwards and all the hard work I'm putting into studies isn't really showing trough my personal pieces. Might also be because I work without reference, mainly cause I end up copying and stiffing up and that's my only way to avoid it. Still, I'm gonna keep pushing even if I feel my stuff is UTTER SHIT. Eventually I'll learn, I hope. So this update is just a personal piece I did this morning to kinda express how I feel and to tell you guys I'm still alive haha. I'll probably update by the end of the day with some studies and shit.

[BenFlores]

The chow piece turned out nicely ! Hope you're feelin alright too , looking forward to seeing more work :)