Alright! Time to get started with this sketchbook I will hopefully not give up upon in the very near future.
These are some of the things I did recently. The grey-ish one was a study (I sadly lost the source though) and the one with the three faces an attempt on Character-Design. I got carried away though and don't really know what I ended up doing, haha.
dodeqaa: Thank you very much! Hehe, my icon is actually just a tiny 20-minute pixel drawing, but I am very happy you like it.
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I've been with a friend for the last couple of days and did not do much more than my everyday studies. I am going to show some of those as soon as I am home!
Digitally I only did a study of Doug Jones, but I don't really know why I put so much effort into it. Since I picked the colours from the photo, I have no idea what I might have learned from this that I could not have learned from 5 minutes of figure drawing.
And I did a tiny sketch which I only include because I might be a bit ashamed of having nothing else to show /hides
Hey. You did pretty well with values and colors overal in the last study, however you need to work on form. Especially the head. I'd advise you to do as many small head construction sketches (from Loomis or whever you prefer), that should help a lot.
Also try to approach studies as an actual study, if you don't know what you lern from doing a study it's not a good thing. The main misconception is to just copy. Anthony Jones has a pretty good tutorial on how to study on youtube.
@ Piotr: Thank you very much for the feedback! Actually, not knowing what I am doing/studying really is a problem for me right now, but the video by Anthony Jones is very helpful.
And I also started looking at head construction and the skull in general, but I am still pretty lost when it comes to structuring anything. I guess that's going to get better as I look into it more.
(sorry for the bad quality of the images Dx)
Good studies. Undestanding how to construct a skull is so important for drawing faces, and rotating objects also helps you get a feel for their threedimensional shape, and helps to prevent you from simply memorizing where to place symbols. I'd suggest trying to draw from your imagination both before and after your studies. It'll help with figuring out what you need to focus on while you are studying, and what parts of your studies have stuck. Don't expect things to look on point for some time though. Even if you study super hard and work on it every day it takes a while until your brain has internalized it.
I can really feel the volume in the figures, the skulls not so much. Its something look into, that is to feel the structure of the skull in a definite manner, the simple ball and wedge construction can help you but you still need to develop a strong feel for how the cheekbones flow into the nose bone and into the mouth as well as how it connects with the brow bones.
@ Lodratio: Thank you for the feedback und kind words. I think always returning to drawing from imagination is good advice. Especially since I am a bit afraid of forgetting why I was drawing in the first place if I study for too long sometimes.
@ Hobitt: Thank you very much! Yes, that is definitely true.
@ dodeqaa: Thank you :) I also feel that the skull and head studies are lagging in volume a lot. A few months ago I never thought there was so much I don't understand about what I am drawing all the time, but I am glad I know now.
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I did my very first value study today and realized a bit late that all the values are far too low. And I also have no clue how to draw grass, maybe/hopefully I'll look into that in the next few days.
The second one is a personal piece I have already been spending way too much time on. I would love to add a background, but I really can't draw backgrounds/landscapes, so that will have to wait for another bit.
@dodeqaa, thank you! :) I actually still didn't take on environments, I really finally need to do that.
For learning how to draw faces I started a book called "Facebook" (I giggled goofily when I wrote that on the cover) and now I try to do one page with the help of Loomis everyday.
And here's also some of the traditional sketches I did in the past few days. Sorry for the bad quality again! I really need to figure out our scanner.
DarlingDove & IrishWhiskey: A bit late, but thank you both so much for your feedback!
Oh man, I haven't been on here for almost a year. I'm so bad at being consistent at sharing my drawing stuff anywhere, but I will try harder this time. After all, I've had a really good time on here last year.
For the last few weeks (or even months) I did the "introduction to Photoshop"-course by Andrew Hou over at schoolism. The course is great and I would recommend it to anyone who just starts out doing digital drawing, or who needs a bit of orientation. These are my assignments for the lessons on cellshading and thumbnails. I'm still all over the place, but I feel like I learned a lot.
Alright! So the first painting is the last assignment for the course by Andrew Hou. It was to put everything we had learned so far together. I am so glad I did the course, I never before dared to try a proper background. It still looks very flat, but I guess trying is a good forst step. I would be forever grateful for advice and this one.
The others two ones are recent value studies.
Hmm, the faces you draw in these imagined characters are interesting with the big eye lids and what not. I think it'd do ya a lot of good to practice gesture and loosening up in your work; Just keep working on your proportions and head studies, it will pay off!
Hello Tindeer! Thanks for commenting on my featherless chicken, I'll be sure to draw you another one as soon as I can!
Now, I shall commence the critique-ing process, as per request ;). On the first colored painting in your last post. I think the style is pretty cool, it's not yet realistic but there are definitely some stylistic choices going on which I really like. There are some lighting direction issues, I think there should be more light on the rocks in the left side. Alternatively, you can darken the rocks in the top right to be as dark as the left, then you'd suggest the lady being in some sort of grove/cave with a sliver of light coming in through a crack. Other than that I think the composition has a lot of potential, and I like how you handled cast shadows on the lady.
Hope I've been of some help, if you would like me to do a paintover or something to show you what I mean I'd be more than happy to.
Learning is not the same as performing. Sketchbook
You seem to be on the right track with your heads. I want to give a tip on accuracy. This works a lot better and doesn't rely on years of built up hand-eye coordination that some long-time artists can rely on. I like the logical approach, maybe you will as well.
Use triangulation between points to figure out where things go.
The human eye is very sensitive to whether lines are parallel. If you flick your eyes back and forth from your drawing to the ref, you will see if the line you drew is parallel with the ref. To start off with you can actually draw lines to points over reference images and then you can imagine the angles, even drawing from life. Pick points that are important and unmistakable, and connect them with precise angles.
If your angles are right and your points are right (ie not wiggling or traveling), your drawing will be right too.
This idea is from the book Drawing in the Digital Age. There's not much more in the book than what I've just explained so if you'd like me to clarify, I can. Or check out the book.
....Oh man, I'm literally the worst at being consistent at social media.
@ Fedolika: Thank you!! Yeah, I've been doing a lot of gestures and heads lately. It's a slow process as everything, but it really does pay off.
@ Jeffrey: I actually wanted to portray her in some kind of grove! So this is perfect advice, thank you so much. I really need to try this out. If you would still like to do a paintover I would be super happy, but the feedback already helps immensly. And yes, more featherless chicken!!
@ ThereIsNoJustice: Thank you so much! I will definitely look further into this, sounds like a great method to help with accuracy.
I am doing the Environment Design course, Assignment 2 by Nathan Fowkes right now. It's about portraying images in 3 values and concentrating on the most important content. It's a really fun exercise, but I chose a painting by Rembrandt and I made a huge mess. I still have no idea how to communicate the content more clearly.
And also some random, kind of unfinished thumbnails! Composition is still a mystery to me.
Today is the day I decided that I need to post here as much as I can, if possible every day. I have huge difficulties at social-media-ing but I really, really have to learn. I keep thinking that I can't for so many reasons, but nope, there's nothing holding me back.
Okay! So, today I basically only finished this drawing for a friend's birthday. The saxophone and hands are mediocre, but something else feels off. I hope I'll be able to recognise that soon.
edit: oh my god, what happened to the colors? It's supposed to be a lot less saturated.
![[Image: drawing-in-the-digital-age-textbook-chap...1484258096]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/ca233digitalagechapter2a2016-170112215256/95/drawing-in-the-digital-age-textbook-chapter-2a-2016-15-638.jpg?cb=1484258096)