What ImSkeptical learnt this week (Sketchbook)

[BATE]

Good clean work!Youve got eye for perspective!

[ImSkeptical]

So it seems like i did more work this week, but i'm pretty sure i slept in like 2 days, and was pretty damn lazy, so i assume its just because Brent made me do these quick sketch things every night. I don't know how i feel about that, but i should aim to at least not sleep in next week xD.

Here's the sketches. One I gave up on trying to make it look good because i think i changed my mind like 50 times when pushing the forms around. I have no excuse for the rest looking bad. Not thinking about design at all? Yeah ill go with that one xD.







Some perspective study. Windows are stupid.



So i was wondering if i would learn anything from only using the square brush to paint something soft. I did, don't only use the square brush xD.



Pablo's pretty girls were pretty. So i did some studies.



Anatomy, half for shyamshriram's mentoring thing. Half being inspired by negrea's 2 million hands. http://alexnegrea.deviantart.com/art/200...egrea&qo=7




There was this amazing Scott Robertson lecture thing i watched on you tube. Man is a champion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMokHIs27...ure=relmfu
Yes i am stealing links from http://eyecager.tumblr.com/ , Do yourself a favour, watch that friggin tumblr and learn everything.

That's this week, can't wait to find out the Brent assignment for tomorrow.

[atrenr]

I don't think there is a problem with them, they're suppose to be sketches after all. Everyone else seems to be pushing to make theirs look pretty, which wasnt what was asked v.v
I do really like the mecha suit woman, along with all the studies. Keep 'em coming!

[Jonesoda]

Hey Man I really like your sketches you did for Brent's class, the environment and mech suit are my favorites. Looking forward to see what you do for the next assignments.

[JakeB]

Oh god, your line work is so sweeet. I love it. The hands and skulls are fantastic. And the bulbs great. Right, I'm rambling, but yeah. Great work. Keep it up.

Ps love the figure drawing too. You went and made them look all arty. So good. :)

[Piotr Jasielski]

Lots of hard work in this thread. Keep it up!

[Fännek]

Seems like ImSkeptical learned alot this week :P
No seriously, love all of it, great work!

[Flo]

i really love how you trying stuff you haven't done before, i have to get into that mindset. do you have a good way to improve linework and drawing?
really inspiring.

cheers
flo

[JerryActric]

Awesome man !!

[ImSkeptical]

atrenr - Thanks man! Glad to see you following along with Brent's stuff as well, lets work hard together :D. I do have a tip for you though, you might want to try experimenting with large soft brushes. Alot of your work has none of that smooth gradient you see in nature everywhere. Hope that helps!

jonesoda - Thanks dude. Seems i should be doing more mech suits xD.

jakeB - Thanks! I actually hate my linework but i'm working on it xD. As for the figure drawing, i find if you put composition as a goal in any study/sketch, you get something arty :D.

piotr - Thanks man, same to you. I like your enviroments alot, I need to improve on mine :(

Fannek - Thanks!

Flo - Thanks, I always try to not be too comfortable. About linework, frankly i don't think mine is much better than yours. What I do to get the clean lines is just drop the opacity and create a new layer or erase my under drawing back abit and just draw over. You can really concentrate on proportion and form with the underdrawing that way, then really concentrate on line quality and showing overlaps properly when you draw over. I'm also trying to follow eyecager's linework as a guide. You should probably go to them for help xD, they are far better at linework/drawing than me.

Jerry - Thanks man, looking forward to seeing your 3d stuff!

Thanks for all the comments! I appreciate it :D


So much mentoring stuff going on now! I think i need to start a schedule or something to keep up with everything, or more specifically, force me to do stuff i don't want to do xD. I'm definitely not pushing things where i want to bring them because i 'leave them till later'. Well here's the stuff for this week.





More hanz and anatomy




Sickbrushes assignment. The light i'm using is turning me orange. Or I suck at painting? Either way, i need a different direct light source. Or i could've swapped the key with the kick... hmmm. As you can see sickbrushes assignment spurred me on to paint some hands. I decided not to use to orange skin light for them.






Research and sketches for Dan's stuff. Planning to do it focused on Inca culture, and maybe even bring in Spanish conquistador stuff.



Brent's thing. As you can see, really didn't put enough time into this. Same with Dan's thing, was supposed to have a pretty set sketch ready for rendering by the week, failed that. So 2 failed things. I could blame watching canada cup (street fighter tourney), but that would be a lie, that's only the weekend. Just wasn't time efficient with the week. I need to step it up if i wanna work in this industry :(

Well lets go next week! I'm planning to follow Brent's, Dan's and Sickbrushes assignments from now on. Ill do study related things in the first half of the day, then assignment stuff in the other half. I should probably pick an hour. Say 5pm? I can always change it later. Here we go!

[Piotr Jasielski]

Really nice SPs! I see you're going with the mayan/aztec culture for dan's mentoring. If I join the party I'll probably do the same :]

And, personally, I believe it would be better to focus on things you need the most for your development and postpone assignments from other mentorship programmes. Of course it also depends on how much time you can spend on all this, but if it were me I'd always go with quality>quantity approach.

[ImSkeptical]

Thanks Piotr! I actually agree with your advice, but i also have the philosophy of tackling things that i don't do purely out of lazyness as opposed to just not knowing how to do them. And that's how i feel about all the assignments, so its more me trying to train my self control xD.

Not much this week, went out to see old friends though, so i feel happier than i would usually feel about not doing to much work :D.

Mentoring stuff





I didn't really finish as you can tell, but I'm very excited for merlin, plenty of visual ideas to try.






Didn't really finish this either xD. But I feel I lack the skill and knowledge in knowing how the reflection would be lit. Also the lighting is wacky anyway. I really need to do some drawings and accurately map out light direction/ shadow shapes. It would probably help me alot because i find it really hard to keep a consistent light source.





Did another self portrait cause i didn't like the one i did for sickbrush. Doesn't look that much better, but i knocked it together in like half the time (maybe 2 hours?). So i was kinda proud of that. You can also see i gave in and started drinking tea again in the morning. Its only a matter of time till i get dependent on caffeine again :(. I also finally did a 'recomposition', an idea for studying I've had for awhile, but didn't feel I had the skill for. I'm gonna try do one a week, cause I feel it's a good way to learn, or at the very least I'm really bad at it so its an obvious and direct path to improve, even if it isn't efficient.

That's this week. I got a bunch of movies I want to watch, so maybe even less next week. I'm totally learning about narrative and composition though xD. Thanks for looking/reading.

[Jaik]

damnnnn dude, you good! really tackling the stuff you need, thats great. Great improvement, wish I had something more constructive to say but you seem to be hitting all the right notes. Keep it up :D

[ImSkeptical]

Thanks Jaik! I noticed you're working really hard too :D. Keep it up!

Me this week, I felt bad because i wasted a lot of time. It was kinda because i was like, im gonna work on Dan's stuff, then procrastinated because it was really hard. Then to make it feel like i was doing work i did a study and lots of mindless drawings. To remedy this i'm starting a new schedule, see if it works. Making it totally wasn't procrastination :(. I watched a bunch of movies though, like this film classic 'Seven Samurai'. Getting that film education, Kurosawa has all the compositions.

Here's the stuff





Tried to apply Dan's crit. Need to work on a weapon design then clean it up for finish. I think it looks alot better than it did other than the weapon though. Having heaps of trouble with Merlin, maybe cause i thought it would be way easier than it turned out to be. Maybe i need to study drawing more drapery or something.



I usually delete this stuff, but i thought i would show it for once. I do these kind of exercises when i want to listen to something, like an interview, movie, podcast, etc.



Probably all i learned from these was how to draw the ribcage and the arms separately. I need to stop doing this and do the hard work :(




Study where i probably learned jack all. Still have to do the recomp, didn't manage to finish.

Hope the schedule i made makes the next weeks till it falls apart on me productive! Thanks for reading/looking.

[BrotherOstavia]

So much effort on this sketchbook. Awesome!

[ImSkeptical]

Thanks Bro, hopefully effort will turn into improvement? :D.

So started a new schedule this week, its tough keeping up but it feels good not wasting time wondering what to do. Now its just actually wasting time xD. But seriously i'm feeling much better about the work getting done. I'm integrating all the theories of learning i managed to pick up like revision, note taking, memory testing, going back to check things, rotation, draftsmanship practice, when i can listen to audiobooks or when it has to be music or nothing. I missed a bit of my schedule towards the end of the week, but i excused myself because i had to go to this day long wedding, and i'm not going to have uninterrupted weeks anyway.

So here's the stuff




Finished the re-comp of last week and did another. Planning to do 3 a week, have due dates in my schedule. If you can guess who's comps i studied i will be impressed. I actually learned a lot doing those little boxes, getting a feel for how to break up the shapes.



Anatomy studies, this week arms (i got carried away and did chest/neck area too most of the time). I discovered that if the light is soft/ ambient, it makes it really hard to draw how i want to draw :(. I also need to integrate gesture studies somehow, will probably do them traditionally. I forgot to add the ref for the paintings. They are all from 'Serge Marshennikov', who has some magnificent figure paintings. I have gotten the impression from somewhere it is probably better to study colors from paintings as opposed to photos, so I'm looking for more good figure paintings if anyone has got any.



Visual library, next 3 weeks i will master 'knitted/woolen jacket things'. The topic i picked is a little random, but i kinda wanted to get to working in my new scheduale as opposed to thinking of some good topic. I need work on clothing/drapery anyway.



Dan's design class thing. I really needed that 1 week extension, the schedule is good, but it makes me tired when i get to the end of the day, and i find myself working really inefficiently when i hit walls in thinking about how to solve problems and such.

Well, hope i can keep this up. I wish it didn't size down my images because it makes it look like i didn't do much. I promise i'm putting in the hours xD. Thanks for reading/looking see you next week.

[Ursula Dorada]

Nice studies man. Don't be too discouraged though - I just spent two weeks planning this ONE piece, and now I have an alpha version of a sketch.

They say that doing stuff properly is hard like this.

If youre really having problems with the drapery on the merlin piece, get yourself a nice thick blanket and snap some photos - that will definitely help figure them out. Your colors are looking nice though, and I am really happy to see the line quality exercises there. I need to do more of those, specially digitally.

[JakeB]

Nice work man. You're doing so much, I love it. Really like the idea of the recomposition studies. Might have to give them a try. I always find myself studying and just doodling without thinking. Could be a way to make me actually concentrate lol.

Keep it up :).

[dracken]

Nice stuff.

What went into planning the new schedule if you don't mind me asking? Did you just plan out what to study for each week or is it something more involved?

[florentK]

this is amazing ! :) congratulations