The Velvet Revolvers

[CTrow]

Olooriel, does the drawings in the video look stiff to you? They are not. You can make them as fluid as you want, Look at how fluid and dynamic some of the ones Proko is doing are. And at the end of the day, you are gonna be drawing full figures, you wont be drawing stick figures. Also if you watch the video, the mannequins he is doing aren't only boxes and tubes specifically.  It was just a suggestion though, maybe try to do both?

OH I almost forgot, dont be afraid to show us your color studies, I know you said they had some one else's line art on them, but that's okay, as long as you let us know every time you post them that its by some other artist's line art, its a valid thing.

Yes I agree with Jeso. Olooriel don't think of the cylinder, box or sphere as rigid forms. Think of them as the overall mass. I think, if you have a good line of action/gesture, your drawings shouldn't look stiff when you add onto it. If you are having trouble with this do a figure drawing session and just focus on the line of action.

[Olooriel]

The different manikins have a different focus/train different things, I don't think that makes one better than the other though. The Loomis manikin is for proportions, basics of the skeleton and getting used to posing the figure. Proko manikin is for understanding volume, and I agree that I need to train these heavily at some point, I just don't think I've reached that point yet. Loomis is definitely more basic, but I obviously still struggle with proportions and can't draw a cube or cylinder in proper perspective on its own, so trying to use them in a figure is just going to be confusing at this point. Geometric shapes also do have a tendency to stiffen a drawing, of course an experienced artist like Proko can draw them in a dynamic way - that doesn't mean that a beginner like me can.

Focused on understanding what was going on with the hips looking off. I forgot to tilt them properly, so they were as far apart at the bottom as they are at the top, which made them look way too wide and bulky. I also confused which side edge faces the front a couple of times, and attached the femur joint to the front of the disc rather than the back.

The comparison to my headphones probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me XD

[CTrow]

Olooriel: those hips look better  I kinda like the headphone analogy, if it works for you why not use it, haha.
But I think its fine if you don't feel ready to flesh out the figure, Learn at your own pace.

I gave myself the challenge to draw 60, 3 minute figures. Think D ended up doing around 70 but I enjoyed it. I also realised whilst I was doing these that I was struggling with the forms of the knee. so I also studied them.
  

[Jeso]

CTrow NICE WORK! That's what I'm talking about!

[CTrow]

CTrow NICE WORK! That's what I'm talking about!

haha!  thanks man. It was killer, defiantly helped me though. might do the same tomorrow... but with hands! 

[Jeso]

Hey Guys, Here is today's shit. Though I'm not done, i think now ill get to work on that portfolio thing i had on hold.

Here is a little thingy i streamed earlier, several figures i tried to draw with Proko's maniquin technique. And a Master study, by Zhaoming Wu, which took some time...

[Lordminkx]

There we go! 

A wip plein air, 15 min still so rough. 
 A self-portrait. But it doesn't look like me so much xDD I will try to modify the self-portrait and make myself in another time(future or past)  
And a master study. I was trying to focus on colours and I didn't get so much likeness.

[Olooriel]

Was visiting my mum today, only had time to draw a little in the evening, so it's not a whole lot:


@Lordminkx
Nice studies! For the photo or master studies, some of your values (darkness/lightness) are pretty off, try to pay close attention to that, maybe even do some in greyscale only and ignore the colours for now, value is actually more important. For instance, if you compare the shadow of the house in your study and the photo - yours is way lighter. But the little sidewalk or whatever it is along that house you painted much darker then the rest of the shadow, when it really isn't much different at all.

You have similar problems in the master study, her head scarf is really bright, on yours it's in shadow. Try to pay attention to the big value masses and really think about the direction of the light and why the shadow goes where it does, dont just copy its shape. This one is lit from the top left side, her yellow dress is split clearly in half, the whole front is light, the whole back is dark. On yours, the collar front is dark, but the blue cloth at the back of her head is too light.

[Jeso]

Boy when i think how young Lordmink is... Damn.. Jose if you keep consistent with the hard work.. you gonna soaring through the skies when you get to my age.. and its all gonna flow just fine for you buddy.

[CTrow]

nice work today everyone! Jeso, nice Zhaoming Wu study I really like the painterly look to it. I also like your manikins. one thing I would say is that you tend to extend the femur a little too much in some of your manikins, I have the same problem too. But awesome work! 

Lordminkx: Hi! good start to your studies. I agree with Olooriel. You need to work on your values, in particular your Vermeer study. squint your eyes to get a better sense of the value changes. This will help a bit, but I would recommend doing some value studies, take your time on it and try and be as accurate as you can with selecting the values. A good exercise to do is to get a grey scale reference image, first guess the values the best you can and then colour pick too see how close you were to the actual value. its a bit of a boring exercise but it helps me alot. I have shown an example below. keep going man!




Anyway these are the studies I have done for today, all hand studies. I also started a concept I might develop for next week. I would like some feedback on it. the sketch is a little loose but I was thinking of this character in my head so I decided to sketch it.

[Bookend]

Good work!

Here's the tail end of my arm/hand studies, FINISHED FINALLY.

And a comic strip.

[Vicianus]

I promised I would pop by >O< I'm just gonna quote my sketchbook post, since I would be dumping all the same stuff...

it's great to see everyone working so hard!!! GO FIGURES, YEA.

@Jeso
I agree with CTrow, that Zhaoming Wu study is dope as heck. Sweet work.

I want to drop some crits for you guys soon, I just need to get my head screwed on straight. I'll try and pop back later today.

SLOPPY PHOTOS!
For the last week, I just got hit by this MASSIVE, horrible depression. I barely left bed for three days straight. It was like high school all over again. Anyway, this is what I've completed since the last post!

Figures:




Musculature study - Neck:


Ecorche (LOL):


Master studies + photo stuff:


UHH YEAH then I got a new sketchbook, and some blue colored pencils to sketch with which has got to be my favorite medium *o* I dunno, somehow sketching seems more fun in this medium. So then, here's some stuff from this week...

Master copies:


Some ecorche I started (scrap):


Figure Drawing (Finally, a girl model! Hahaha):


Facial musculature study:


Expression/Gesture Study (I fucking love Kung Fu Panda):


Cassowary Animal Drawing:


Imagination Drawings:

[Jeso]

Welcome back! Vicianus, Great stuff. Nice to see all your work in here as well. I love your imagination drawings. they stand out!

Finally BOOK! nice to see your work at last! :p I dont get the comic strip though, maybe cause I'm not familiar with what its from lol.

[Jeso]

Hey guys, Today's work.. Now im gonna try to do some oil painting. Ill let u know how that pans out...

[Jeso]

Okay NOW the day is officially done... God damnit.. I had forgotten... how painful and time consuming oil painting was... This sucks balls... What was i thinking.. "Ahhh i can paint a pretty decent apple in PS, Oils cant be that much harder.. " Boy... was it harder... It was a massive challenge. But ill keep going with it. Maybe once every 2-3 days, cause its so time consuming, its gonna throw my whole schedule off.
anyways, enough rambling.. here is the shit painting.

[Lordminkx]

@Olorieel @Ctrow Thanks for the feedback I did it in Blan and white now
  @Jeso Hey man thanks, good stuff! 
  @Bookend I see so much improvement in the arm. First You did were a bit out of proportions but now they are looking niiiceee! 


So yeah, value study, Looks much better buy I still don't get the likeness I could like but I think it will come with time and practise. If you have any tips feel free to drop it here xD 

[CTrow]

Lordminkx: nice! values are good. No advice really, other than get in that mileage! draw alot paint alot and you will become more accurate, keep going man.

I mainly did some value paintings today.... umm I dont even know what I was thinking... BUT I LIKE IT! I also did some traditional thumbnail sketches. I will upload them soon.

[Olooriel]

@Lordminkx
Much better! :)

[Jeso]

My Weekly Review

Okay guys, I think we forgot about this, I forgot about this.. lol. Long day...  But here we are, lets all talk about our weeks, and what work we did, and how we are moving towards our goals based on the week's work!

On my end, this week since it was the figure drawing challenge, I spent most days doing just that. Gestures, portraits, color studies, anatomy studies. To be honest I felt a tangible improvement from last Sunday to now for sure. The prove is right there, that last portrait I Painted, I think I probably couldn't have painted that 2 weeks ago. So on that end I think the Figure challenge was a success for me. Although i felt like I could've dug deeper into anatomy studies, and structural studies. As far as Goals, Right now short term goal is finish my mini portfolio that I'm putting together to apply to Paizo and work on Pathfinder. Week 2 of the challenge is gonna be about that. Hopefully I'll use this's week's improvement to produce something cool next week. The dwarf I've been posting sketches off is what Imma be working on. So... Yeah, that was me review in a nutshell! :p

What about you My fellow Revolvers!??

[Jeso]

Oh, and Today's Still life, better than yesterday for sure. Scratch what i said before, Im doing one a day. I kinda love this shit...