Peter's Sketchbook

[Peter]

Yea you did a wonderful job on the rendering and values; Just keep moving forward and stay committed

Thanks man greatly appreciated :) Just wish my design sense was better as I could of made it look so much nicer, guess I can always revisit it at some point and try again.

[Peter]

It looks great! It's pretty inspiring to see it grow from the first sketch to the finished piece!

I heard a quote recently that's really helped me, to get things "Finished, not perfect" since if you look back in a year at what felt perfect, it doesn't look perfect anymore, so better to work on finishing things. It felt somehow relevant to you, I guess I'm trying to say you did a great job on the swordsman, call it finished and move on to the next thing ^_^

Thanks man :) I'm just glad I was able to finish something haha, makes a change.

That's a really nice quote actually, think it definitely applies in my case haha.

[Peter]

Apologies in the delay in posting, been sorting things out with work in reagrds to me actually keeping my job or not due to the coronavirus it was rather unclear as to what was going to happen. Good news I still have my job but I’ve been told not to come in until further notice so I get to stay at home all day and practice aswell as getting piad to do so.

Onto some work.



Life Classes



Collection of work that I did from life over the last couple of weeks, obviously with the virus classes won’t be held for awhile.












Master Studies

Past week I’ve been working on master studies to help me improve my design sense. Right now I’m just working on the indivdual features as I can get more drawings done compared to full portraits or figures with my plan being that I copy some figures and portraits next week.


First page was from Loomis




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Eye studies from photo reference







Brian Knox studies




[url=https://watts.discoursehosting.net/uploads/db1356/original/2X/4/483b86fdc18546dc04c7126d9a1de5325e9dd632.jpeg]


Eye studies from photo reference.






Currently working in my sketchbook as I’m low on newsprint. Should have more coming tomorrow but I’ll probably keep that for when the live streaming classes start up again incase I can;t get any for awhile.



My plan atm is to continue with master studies and now that I’m at home all day I want to use my time off to my advantage and just focus on studying all day. Still plan on going back to figure studies next month to coincide with my anatomy course.

[Fedodika]

yes yes yes! those eyes are coming along!

[Peter]

yes yes yes! those eyes are coming along!

Hahaha thanks. Having all of this time off is definitely helping since I can get so much more done in a day!

[Peter]

Been spending my time since my last update working on master studies and then trying to appliy those studies to my drawings from imagination/photo reference.

Some more studies after Brian Knox since I really like how he simplfies the forms aswell as the values. Moved onto the nose which I then tried applying to photo ref on the right hand page.



More Loomis studies. Went back to the eyes as I have a hard time making them look more attractive. I also started to break down some of his drawings into basic head lay-ins to help me better understand facial proportions from varying degrees.



Rather than just focusing on individual features I moved onto studying Loomis's head in full. Tried 2 different approaches here. The male portrait I used the Loomis method of head construction, an on the female I used a block-in approach instead which yielded better results in terms of accuracy.



After all that I tried applying it to some portraits from imagination which I'm still struggling with.



I also started work on a master study from James Martin this afternoon in charcoal which I'm gonig to continue this week. Already have the overall figure blocked-in and I'm now working on the smaller forms. I'll post a photo once I have the lay-in complete.

Apart from that I've been making some goals for the next few months based off the really helpful topic that has been posted on the  Watts forum, really insightful stuff. Watts have annoucned their new live streaming classes, which is alot due to the virus. Planning on taking a couple since I have all this free time. My goals are mainly based off the content in those classes aswell as my anatomy class so I'll start owkring on them at the end of April.

In the meantime I'm going to continue with more master studies. Spend my mornings studying the features/head lay-ins and pair that with imagination drawing/drawing fetures and head lay-ins from memory, and then spend my afternoons tackling complete master studies in charcoal.

[Peter]

Some more work from when I last posted, still sticking to my schedule that I mentioned last time.

Master Study

Master study after James Martin who I recently got into. Tried my best imitating his mark making (the hair took forever).








Reference



Loomis Studies

More Loomis studies in my sketchbook. I've bene braking down his heads trying to figure out the basic construction underneath using his method aswell as some studies of his rendered heads. Been studying his male heads recently since I don't do enough of them.




Did some diigtal studies as I was struggling with my first attempts in my sketchbook.




Imagination

Trying to apply those studies to some imaginative work






Head Lay-ins

Diving back into some head lay-ins from reference, mainly trying to work on fixing my proportions aswell as timing (trying to get quicker).










Still very hit and miss with these. I took my first drawing (55 min) into photoshop and overlayed the ref on top to see where I'm going wrong and I notcied that I seem to be doing ok in getting the general proportions/shapes of the features seperately but struggle to get them to relate to each other when I try and put it all together into a lay-in. I decided that the only way to correct it is to simply work on my lay-ins so I'm going to aim at doing a couple a day from now on.

Think I'll give myself an hour for now with them from now on and try my best at fixing the proportions.

Apart from that I've signed up to more live streaming classes. Taking 3 crtique classes and 1 audit class, so along with my anatomy class I'm going to be very busy at the end of the month.

[Fedodika]

your pinup master study is looking great! the shapes are really well designed, her face is cute, the shading is wrapping the forms well!

quick crits on these faces:

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...0layin.jpg
You drew a pretty face but the likeness for this woman, her jaw is a lot fuller and bigger

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...in%202.jpg
Again, nice face, her eyebrows are a little higher up and her lips are a little lower

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...in%203.jpg
This ones way off, his forehead should be a lot taller, his jaw is a lot heavier, and his eye is smaller

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...in%204.jpg
Jaw should be fuller, and his face has more width and dimension on each side.

These are definitely a step up though, pay attention to jawlines id say!

[Peter]

your pinup master study is looking great! the shapes are really well designed, her face is cute, the shading is wrapping the forms well!

quick crits on these faces:

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...0layin.jpg
You drew a pretty face but the likeness for this woman, her jaw is a lot fuller and bigger

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...in%202.jpg
Again, nice face, her eyebrows are a little higher up and her lips are a little lower

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...in%203.jpg
This ones way off, his forehead should be a lot taller, his jaw is a lot heavier, and his eye is smaller

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...in%204.jpg
Jaw should be fuller, and his face has more width and dimension on each side.

These are definitely a step up though, pay attention to jawlines id say!

Thanks manb. I actually notcied quite a few of these mistakes when I was editing them together but I'm glad they are a step up though, I wasn't feeling too confident with them since I feel like by now i shouldn't be having these types of proportional mistakes but I guess all I can do is keep moving forward.

Be prepared for some more bad proportions....

[Peter]

I was going to update sooner but it took me longer than expected to compile all of my studies together. Still have more to post but I'll include them with work I've been doing this week and hopefully post on the weekend.

Master Study

Some more lay-in practice. Started off with a study of one of Brian's lay-ins to help me work on simplifiying things.




Lay-ins

I was hoping to get some more lay-in practice done but some of my other studies took me way longer than I thought. I'm going to spend tomorrow solely on lay-ins. For now it will be just head studies but starting next week as a warm-up to the live streaming classes I plan on working thorough Brian's quicksketch handouts aswell as his figure drawing handouts, start getting back into figure drawing and continue these studies (hopefully) alongside the live streaming classes if i have the spare time.






Going to try and change my approach on these and do more thorough measuring instead of measuring off my inital measurements and see if that can help improve my proportional issues.

Skull Studies

Jumped back into skull studies, tackling extreme up and down tilts since they confuse me.

First attempt I tried breaking the skull (from life) into the loomis method and with some tracing paper draw the skull on top.








Second attempt I took some photos of the angles that I drew from and re-did my first attempt but this time tracing over the skulls.








I think what is confusing me the most is the initial sphere and what exactly it represents. From my understanding the sphere represents the cranium mass so I made sure my sphere was measured from the top of the skull to the bottom (where it is attaching to the tripod). I did that but then I found I had a hard time getting the side plane to fit correctly on that spehre as sometimes it wasn't lining up on the skull correctly. Hopefully someone here can show me where I'm going wrong?

[Peter]

Work from the last few days. I was planning on getting more work done but I injured my shoulder last week. I think my practice schedule along with getting into working out again but too much strain on my shoulder.

I've been taking the last few days off to let it rest since it starts to ache if I use it for too long, it's still abit sore today but defintely feels better so I'll see if I can get back to work tomorrow. In the meantime I've been catching up on some instructional videos that I've ben meaning to watch (mainly muddycolor videos).

Skull Lay-ins

Here are the down tilt drawings that I mentioned last time. Completely fudged these up, I think getting the divions of the side plane wrong is what threw off the drawings completely since all of my divisons where off because of it. I'm going to do some tracings over the photos like in my last update once my shuoder is feeling better.








Master Study

A quick Jeff Watts lay-in study in my sktechbook and another that I started but haven't had the chance to finish yet.




Imagination

A couple of imaginary male heads. Tried a down tilt but still find them tricky. I've got some head models so I was thinking of wokring on my down tilts, try and familiarize myself with how the features look from different angles.




Had a go at some memory drawing of the skull from the standard views, aswell as up and down tilts, see what I can recall from the skull studies.




Lay-ins

A couple more head lay-ins. Think my proportions are getting better, still a few mistakes which I noted down but I feel like they are starting to look more like the model now.

[Leysan]

Your head studies are great. I really like that way to mark the shadows. Some elements are sometimes off but you notice it yourself.

[Artloader]

Hey Peter, I love how you study man! Your patient hard work is really paying off, those latest heads from imagination are awesome!

I can't really help you too much as I am struggling with head construction myself.

One thing I noticed when trying to use the Loomis head construction is that, it'll only get me so far, if I want a more realistic head then I have to resort to using references.

I can see this in your skull studies as well, when you compare a Loomis constructed skull with one from photo reference, there are definite differences. I guess one way to advance beyond this is to do exactly as you are doing - start with a Loomis construction but then refine it with real world reference.

Keep going dude, you are an inspiration :).

[JosephCow]

hey, the head study of the girl with the braid looks really good! It's not an exact likeness, but the construction looks really good.

[Peter]

Leysan - Thanks for the compliment :) I feel like I'm getting better at noticing/fixing my mistakes....if slowly :)

Artloader - Thanks for the kind words man :) It means alot. Glad it's not just me having difficulties with the Loomis head, it seems to work great  for your standard views and slight up/down tilts but any views apart from that seem to be a no go. Tbh I wasn't sure if what I was doing was correct or not but I guess I'll stick to it.

Joseph - Thanks Jospeh :) I was actually surprised myself by how that one developed, I wasn't too confident with it at first but the more I worked on it it got better so I guess I'm doing something right.



Shoulder appears to be better now. Took the week after I posted off from drawing since it was still sore every morning, just caught up on some instructional videos so it wasn't a complete waste of a week.

Here's some of the stuff I've been working on this week.

Anatomy Course

Scott's anatomy course started last week, there are alot of videos to watch (think about 2-2.5 hours a week) so I've been watching them when they are posted on Fridays, make some notes and then attempt the homework on Saturday. First week focused on the landmarks on the body and trying to identify them ourselves from the photo reference provided.










Did some additional trace overs from Scott's reference library aswell as some artists work he included himself, trying to cemement the concepts he talked about. Plan on doing addiitonal trace overs from different reference and when I get to the muscles do some invention work over poses from the skelly app to really test my knowledge. He said I can send him extra work I've done in the next couple of weeks so I plan on submitting them to him (as long as I don't overwhelm him).










Live Stream Classes

Erik Reilly Painting

Homework for the first week for Erik's painting class which was a burnt umber pick out which we will then add colour on top. Spent 2 hours on this, mainly because I was struggling with drawing with my paintbrush. Got the placement of the features right but made the head too wide.




Lucas Foreshortened Figure drawing

Homework for Lucas's class, attempting to mannikanize figures in foreshortend poses. Spent 20 minutes each on these as he directed.




Additional Work

Some quicksketch, a mix of 7/5/3 min poses, focusing mainly on gesture and proportion.




Figure Invention

Watched Ron Lemen's figure invention exercises on youtube where you break down a figure into a simple mannikin and then attempt to draw the same pose froma  different angle based on what you learned from the first drawing. Found this alot harder than I thought, mainly struggling with how the the simple forms change in perspective, not sure if I'm best doing somedrawings of these forms from different angles to see how they shift in perspective or read through Scott Robertson's book again to try and get my head around it.




Head lay-in

Some more lay-in practice. Plan on moving onto the figure next week.




Skull Studies

Studies from life from Proko's skull




Painting Practice

Purchased James Gurney's new video last week and atttempted some of the exercises he suggested. Thought I'd try painting my skull in a controlled enviroment but still work quickly to try and get a handle on painting with gouache before moving onto plein air. Trying to work transparantly and opaquely like he suggests but I find it incredibly difficult, going to attempt more next week to get some milage with it. Spent 15 minutes on the underdrawing and 45 minutes painting.

First Attempt



Second Attempt



Been spending  time each night after tea (around 1-1.5 hours) working on some personal work. Going to attempt another poster so I've been watching some instructional videos and chatting to an artist I like trying to clear up some technical issues I was having with photoshop. Started doing some rough comps the other night (want to do a poster for The Mandalorian) but still want to do some more before moving onto the next stage so I'll start posting once I have something to show. Not going to rush this and focus on trying to learn the process.

[Fedodika]

i like the umber pickout! his heads a tad longer, but its a good head nonetheless...

keep doin whatchur doin, the gaps are closing :)

[Peter]

i like the umber pickout! his heads a tad longer, but its a good head nonetheless...

keep doin whatchur doin, the gaps are closing :)

Thanks man :) I felt like I was on a plateu for ages and not improving but I feel like recently I'm starting to notice some changes. Still have a long way to go but atleast I know I'm actually improving.

I measured the width of his head a few times aswell at different stages which is so annoying. Still pleased with the resullt considering I had no confidence in the early stages.

[Peter]

Thought I'd start with feedback from last week.




Anatomy Course





























Reilly Painting











Foreshortened Figure Drawing











I've watched the feedback for the quicksketch class earlier but haven't had time yet to make some notes so I'll probably post it during the week.





Some of the work I did last week.




Anatomy Course














Additional Work












I was planning on getting more tracings done but the main homework was taking me much longer than I had anticipated as I found it harder than I thought I would. I kept second guessing myself and going back and making corrections. I've found week 3 easier so far so I've almost completed all of that thankfully so I should be able to get some more additional tracings done this week.




Reilly Painting










Week 2 was focused on mixing the pallette. I added some linseed oil (since that's all I have) to keep it wet longer so that I could use it for this weeks class but a few of the puddles have started to form a skin. I've bene keeping an eye on the puddles so hopefully it's still ok to use.




Foreshortened Figure Drawing










Lucas encouraged us to find our own reference for the class which is what I did this week. Still focusing on the manikin but starting to add more anatomical knowledge to it. Still sticking to 20 minutes  on these (Lucas reccommends 10 but that is still too quick for me). Sturggled alot with these, particulary the bottom 2 as I couldn't figure out how to break the torso and pelvis into boxes.



Quicksketch





Week 1









Week 2









These are all 5 minute poses. Week 1 was focusing on the gesture while week 2 was adding structure.




Essentials Hand/Feet











I'm going to be a week behind on these due to my schedule but since I'm only auditing it doesn't matter. Started copying Brian's notes but didn;t get much further since I needed to complete other work.





Additonal Work




Started getting back into figure lay-ins and as you can see I'm very rusty. Still having width proportion issues which I'm struggling to shake. I'm having a hard time seeing the big picture and getting the inital gesture down.












Some more quicksketch practice.











To complement the anatomy course I thought it would be a good idea to spend some time each week doing some figure studies, focusing on the muscles that I've been studying so far and improving how I actually draw the muscles.












Some work in my sketchbook. Some memory/imaginative stuff. Didn't have alot of time last week to work on it so this was all I could manage. Another skull painting still sticking to 1 hour. Tried working more opaquely this week but still fidnig it hard.












I'm going to change my shedule around abit starting this week, either changing some of my study slots or dropping things all together so I have more time for other slots. I've completely misjudged how long some of these classes would take me which is cutting down on the amount of time for my other study slots.





For now I'm going to drop my skull studies aswell as my painting practice in my sketchbook so that I can work on anatomy drawings and work on memory/imaginative work since that is equally important, and dedicate a time slot to working on this poster idea I have since I don't have enough time atm to work on it.

[Peter]

Feedback from last week.

Anatomy Course

Scott said that my assignments where one of the better examples which was quite surprising since I felt like I made so many mistake.










Reilly Painting

Just a pdf this week from Erik regarding our mixtures and where we were going wrong and how to correct. I've been asking a bunch of painting questions each week so I thought I'd leave it in this week.




Foreshortened  Figure Drawing

Asked Lucas to help address the pelvis and how he would manikinize them (specifically the bottom 2 poses) since I was struggling with them.




Quicksketch

I've watched the feedback for both weeks but I completely forgot to take a screenshot and make notes so I'll definitely post it this week!

Here's the majority of the work from last week.

Anatomy

Week 3 was focused on the back. Felt like I had an easier time this week compared to the last. The main issue I kept coming across was how the infraspinatus and teres minor connect to the scapula, specifically if the scapulas is still visible like I've indicated or does the muscle extend further underneath the trapezius.








Some additional tracings aswell.




Reilly Painting

Week 3 was adding colour to our pick out from week 1, focusing on the big form block in. Spent around 2 hours on this (so 4 hours in total so far including the pick out). Feel like I added to much yellow in the shadows and should of made it cooler instead.




Foreshortened Figure

This week we focused on 5 minute gesture drawings of females. Again I decided to use my own reference and try and use some difficult foreshortened poses to really challange myself.




Lay in

Some more lay-in practice. Ddid a better job this time compared to last week. Still having some width proportional issues but not as severe this time.




Sketchbook

Some imaginary stuff , just playing around and having some fun letting loose.




Poster

Spent some more time working on my poster idea for the mandalorian tv show which I developed further, taking some of the ideas/concepts that I liked in my small thumbnails and combining them into some larger thumbnails on the right which I refined into a "final" rough comp. Still need to workout some things such as the poses of the secondary characters which I'll do this week and probably switch over to photoshop now so that I can work at a larger scale.

Don't want to use any reference yet but will probably have to to help with the faces and for the robot since I can't remember the design.

[Fedodika]

i think your asian girl, the execution is overall better,

Here calves too short, heads too big, her entire arms too small, torsos too short, and overall her body has more of a lunging force to it in the gesture line...

I think your imaginary stuff suffers from similar issues where say the sword guy has a really small body for his head and the pose which im assuming is from memory is really stiff

The oil portrait is going in the right direction, i think his eyes are slightly too big, but the overall control is good and the tiling is relatively clean.

If you want to get better at imaginary stuff, id reccomend copying an artist whos good at that very thing, imaginative drawing. I dont feel like you have a lot of appealing tricks and tools to use when doing imagination drawing, so the characters end up with similar stumpy looks to them. If you like anime or comics, copy that stuff, get those visual cues of appeal into your work, it'll help even with observational studies.

I can reccomend leyendecker or gibson all day, but not everyone resonates deeply enough with him to actually use that stuff (including myself.) I get the feeling that youre trying to play by the rules and do things right, but i feel as if we're not seeing what it is youre really enjoying, its like people are telling you what to like, and you follow them, instead of you genuinely liking something; i dont know if that makes sense.

I get youre trying to be rigorous and thorough with this method... I hope youre enjoying yourself at least, have fun with art, specially if you want it to be your career