What ImSkeptical learnt this week (Sketchbook)

[Suira]

Great stuff! I'm really impressed, great grasp of comp, linework, values and color! Man I gotta bust my ass and try to catch up! Really nice stuff, I'm really diggin those environment concepts.

I wish I had some crits for you but you clearly know what you're doing man, just...awesome! :)

[ImSkeptical]

Mr. Toodles - Thanks man :D

Cyprinus - Thanks! Always inspired to do traditional by your stuff :p

Suira - Thanks dude, you're not too far off though, you do some really nice studies! Make sure to keep working on imaginative/design stuff and you'll be better than me already xD.

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Not posting much this week. Took a bit of a break for a couple days because my wrist was hurting. Feels like the week slipped by me :( , seeing guardians of the galaxy twice probably didn't help xD.

Was experimenting with a new style. It's mostly the Jama gumroad tutorial https://gumroad.com/jamajurabaev , but I was practicing girls faces from anime in pen trying to move away from the bored sexy spaced I usually do to some angry yelling action faces. So I did what I see a few artists do and tried to fill a page up with portraits from imagination. These havn't really gotten too much of a response on the facebooks, but its fun to mess around. Might be a good way to explore ideas or start a more rendered image.





The last one is still wip, there's a few changes I want to make. Was being lazy and using the same brush to do too much I think. That Jama brush sure is fun though.

K hope to be more productive next week! I think I'll be moving into horror themes for a project. Thanks for chillin

[Vicianus]

I just stumbled on your thread - great stuff! I really like your clothing designs, they have a nice baggy/tight contrast that gives them good shapes!
I started on the last page and only went back one, but I'm really stoked that you're starting to do some more expressions. They definitely have a bit more punch than the "lazy warrior" vibe from previous work. Nice stuff!

[Birchgrove]

The feeling of action in that last page is just crazy!

Seems pretty powerful to make things come out from the picture frame, cool
few tangents with the girls spear cape and trunk, but it is a wip, so don't mind me :)

[ImSkeptical]

Vicianus - Thanks a lot! Yeah its strange to discover expressions and how much they add, finally getting around to it, it's amazing how i've kind of ignored it till now.

Birchgrove - Thanks! This might be a slight cop out, but the tangent with the spear was an intentional experiment. I heard that tangents create tension, so i wanted to see if it was useable. Honestly though I have a hard time telling if it really has any positive or negative effect. Thanks for the comment though, I always find them really helpful :D

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Sup, nothing of note I think. I guess I went to an anime convention with friends, looking at cosplay is fun, so much craftsmanship and dedication in some of them. Made me realize how little anime I've seen though, I actually thought I had seen quite a lot xD.

Here's this week, finished off that other piece. Didn't really turn out as well as I would like. Also the black and white cartoon/anime didn't really seem to get many likes on the fb, so i'll see how I can develop it laters. Other than that, delving into horror for a potential project. Also realizing I struggled with developing one of the thumbs, I'm going back to film cap studies.

Finish of last week


Studies of Jacob's Ladder


Thumbs


Failed/abandoned attempt at developing one


Random 2min Sketch


Barton Fink Study


Thats it. Keep being awesome everyone :D

[ImSkeptical]

Another week. Kept up with the film cap studies because was still having trouble moving forward with personal stuff. Studies are way to much fun compared to doing hard work :p. Gotta do more imagination paintings, one day I will get used to the pain. Probably need to find new music though, keep wasting time changing albums.










Didn't like how the portrait came out from the Fink studies, so started studying portraits again. Trying a different technique where I cross hatch to help control contrast.





Just some dumb stuff




Probably going to try work on this one to some kind of finish. I was thinking of what kind of picture I could make with those wierd costumes I always draw in pen, and was then inspired by this awesome picture of Marceline by Stephanie Gonzaga (http://stephaniegonzaga.tumblr.com/post/...-the-third). Such a cool image, so I'm stealing the comp.




Thats muh week. Thanks for stopping by, keep being the coolest.

[Ursula Dorada]

Gorgeous studies man, keep it up.

[Suira]

Dude, you're rocking it for real. I loved the environments with the colossus woman and stuff a while back, and now I'm checking back in and I'm really amazed by the amount of stuff you're producing, specially more taking in account it's quality. The movie studies are just fucking awesome, amazin brushwork and colors, and of course: values.

I'm really gonna take some time and see what you've done to get such a good grasp of them, your suggestions were really helpfull at that, and there's some other things you've done that look like they're gonna be really effective for learning that stuff.

I totally feel you on the stuff from imagination thing, studying is so much more rewarding and generally it's easier to get a cool looking study than a cool looking painting of your own. But of course, the objective of so much study is to paint cool stuff from your mind so it's a catch 22 (not sure if that's the expression :P).

Crits: The crosshatching thing is a really good idea, one that I hadn't thought of ( mainly cause I still gotta get the hang of big brushtrokes so I avoid smaller sizes as much as possible) and I think it has potential, but I feel you need to give them more thought, to their direction, to their size, and specially to the amount of them you're gonna use. The ones you've uploaded now are not too effective and are kinda killing the potential of the idea. I think the best way to go with that would be to be very selective on their use so they pop the texture and the hue effectively and balance that with a consistent amount so they don't become anecdotic. It's a really hard balance but it's a good idea for sure. I'm not really good at hatching or anything, but lately I've discovered that taking time before putting them down, and being really confident when you do, help termendously to increase their quality and efficiency. Hope it helps.

Also, you're not stealing the comp on the last one, you have basically redesigned the major shapes ( in an interesting way I might add), you just stole the skulls xD

[LaleAnn]

So much quality work and amazing style! Really digging your latest portraits as well as that cartoon/anime style! Keep it up! :D

[ImSkeptical]

Ursula Dorada - Thanks for stopping by :D

Suira - Hey thanks man, cool to know my suggestions kinda helped. And yeah I agree, the hatching is a bit heavy handed and crazy, but I defiantly think its an improvement to how I approached portraits before.

LaleAnn - Thanks alot!

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For some reason I didn't do much this week. I don't know the reason. I defiantly drew each day, but who knows what I made. I guess most of it was traditional? I don't think so. I won't lie, those two sketches at the end were just done today. I guess I went to see mythbusters live show and a wedding, but that was just one day so not really much of an excuse. I guess I went to some indie games meetup, and applied for a few jobs, but otherwise, feels really bad. Oh well here's this week.

I did think the CHOW was due this week but found out it was next week so still gonna work on it.




I think the shoes need the most work, but comparing it to people like Karla Ortiz and this guy https://www.facebook.com/sangsuj1 , it's still missing something. One day I will be good.




Random sketches I did to have something to post :p. They were fun if a bit nothing. Need to keep those up though, defiantly improving from what I used to be able to sketch.

I'm still working on that girl + mech piece but not really bothered to update, hasn't changed too much.

That's this week. Hoping for a more productive week next time, catch yall later.

[nastobi123]

dude, I like those painting with references from (movies) I guess ? where do you get those ? from google ? or is there a specific site about screen grabs from movies ? I'm sorry, im not quite familiar with movies.

[Jaik]

Looking good man. Spend some time on materials. I think that is what your chow is missing. The jacket, gloves, pants, shoes, hat, mask all look as though they are made from the same material each has the same value range (taking into account difference in local colours) I guess its kinda hard when he is wearing a suit since they are all very similar materials, but even then a vest has a very different texture to a suit and white business shirts are almost glossy. more closer weave than a wool suit so they are halfway between cotton and satin. As for the suit, depending on the weave (polyester, wool, cotton etc) you could get some really different textures out of it.
Hope that helps pushing it to the next level :D

[JacobJanerka]

Damn son, I've been missing all this beautifulness <3

[ImSkeptical]

nastobi123 - Thanks man, the specific movie is Barton Fink by the Coen brothers. It's one of their earlier movies and I still think its one of their best. My reading of it is it's about the creative process, so it might specifically be relevant to watch from our point of view as people trying to create stuff xD.

As for screenshots, I just watch a bunch of movies, so I take my own using VLC player. But I do hear there's good websites out there with hd screenshots, I have a friend that uses www.cinemasquid.com/ , and it looks decent. Have fun studying :D

Jaik - Man should've read this before submitting. Materials is something I need to look into, its defiantly a weak aspect of mine. Probably also to do with my complete lack of knowledge about how to paint specular highlights. Thanks always for the thoughts dude.

JacobJanerka - Thanks buddy, looking forward to ya kickstarter and the return of chillin in bali :D.



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So, had a weird week. Had to go to the city for random things 2 days in a row. Didn't want to waste the long trip to and from the city. So I bought some new pens. I actually had a few products in mind, one was this brush that you fill with water so you can mess with colored Hi-Tec Pilot pens. You can see it in one of the John Park gumroads, hopefully I'll be able to do some and just post it here. Anyway, I bought a couple what I thought looked exactly like it



As you can see, its all in Japanese



Including the instructions....

So upon finding out black ink was coming out, I discovered I had instead bought another kind of brushpen to add to the growing brush pen collection ( I think I have 6 different kinds now). But by chance, this was the brushpen I was always looking for. My other favorite brushpen, the famous Pocket Pentel, is really great because its got this really nice actual brushy tip allowing lots of calligraphic line variety. Specifically, super super fine, to thick really easily.

I found though, that I enjoyed the pocket pentel the most when it was nearing getting dried out, cause you could do funky textural stuff, and kind of do light pseudo-underdrawings before committing to thick black lines.

So this new brushpen, you can just keep it in that semi-dried state all of the time. If it gets too dry, you just squeeze it a bit and keep going. And it has pretty much the same tip, this actual brush thing that you can paint super fine with.

So I ended up spending the rest of the week playing with the thing. Here's my stuffs. Its roughly in chronological order because I thought it would be nice to show how I experimented with a new tool.



































Pretty much a mix of anatomy and armor, reference and imagination. I was working mostly on foreshortening and legs for anatomy, and the leg area for armor. I also studied a bit of fluid anime effects at the end there.

Also worked a bit more on the chow and submitted it, looking forward to the next one. Other than that I did jack all but play and watch Streetfighter. Thanks for being awesome, keep looking and or reading.

[JonHop]

tons of hard work and experimentation, really loving the direction you're going with your work. Great job on the CHOW this may be personal taste but I think it would have been better not placed on a bright white background it hurts my eyes after looking at it due to that.

Other than that keep up all the hard work ! :)

[Jaik]

Good job man. CHOW looks good xP

Gonna bring that brush pen on Sunday? and tell me where to get it... Nothing else really to say, I guess I can forgive you for staying in your comfort zone while experimenting xP

[smrr]

OMFG.
DAT.
DOSE.
DAT.
PENS.
WHAT.

Freaking sexual update man :D so much work @_@
loves the trad work and I dig your CHOW concept!

I think I need to make a trip to Kinokuniya soon haha

[pnate]

Awesome studies, inky lines and CHOW! O_O Fantastic stuffff, keep killin it.

[Samszym]

Love the brushpen stuff! I decided to buy a ton of em myself, been missing brushpenny fun since my kuretake dried up :D
Awesome job on the CHOW! I really like the mask design, all those soft curves and roundness but he still feels super dangerous

[ImSkeptical]

JonHop - Thanks man. Yeah I kinda agree about the white, but I see a lot of cool concepts done on white backgrounds so I wanted to try it out. Probably not going to stick with it though.

Jaik - Honestly I think I'm at the opposite end of the comfort zone thing, got that master of nothing going on. Gonna try to stick to just sci-fi or knights for a little bit. Hard to decide though :p. And yeah its just Kinokuniya, save up some dollars xD.

smrrfette - I gotta go back to there and actually get the water brush thing that I wanted xD. Your CHOW rocked it btw, got them values down.

pnate - Thanks for the encouragement dude, means alot coming from ya :D

Samszym - Thanks! Brushpens are definitaly the funnest, but it does always remind me that traditional costs more money that digital :(. Always gotta buy a bunch/refills.

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Aight had another one of those lazy weeks. Played so much street fighter, picked up another character so hard to refuse when a friend wants to go a few rounds. I did some calculations and think I'm around the 2000 hr mark when it comes to street fighter, so like a 1/5th of the way to actually being good at the game xD.

Here's this week.

Random studying while watching Sherlock again.


Random thumbs.



Random sketches.





I only really like how the last one turned out. Happened to be the easiest to execute too, I remembered this study of min yum shrubbery a while back which helped. I'm need to do a few quick studies of different materials that i can use as elements that can take up a lot of space, I want to be able to move beyond the few things I can do well from memory.

And I'm out. Thanks for looking as always, you guys are the awesome sauce.