Mika's Sketchbook

[mika_land]

Sketch Sketch Sketch








Ganondorf  Wind Waker Painting  I did over January for a present









These were done with reference photo of an artist friend.





self portrait/art therapy   done in quick 5 hours to vent feelings

[Artloader]

Nice start here Mikaela :).

Am I right in saying that the guy in the glasses and vest was done from a reference?

If so I like how you're taking a reference and then applying your imagination on top of that to make the soldier guy.

Although I would look at his right wrist again (with the gun) it seems to be at a really awkward angle.

Keep posting!

[mika_land]

Nice start here Mikaela :).

Am I right in saying that the guy in the glasses and vest was done from a reference?

If so I like how you're taking a reference and then applying your imagination on top of that to make the soldier guy.

Although I would look at his right wrist again (with the gun) it seems to be at a really awkward angle.

Keep posting!

Yes it is from reference! Good eye.

I struggled with the hands (always seem to too).  Perhaps I'll do some more studies on them and try again.  In this case I actually altered the hand from the reference... In other words that hand is from my head, he wasn't hold anything in the picture.

Thanks for the input.  Hopefully I'll upload more soon!

[mika_land]

I haven't been doing nothing.  I decided to post a WIP study and a sketch I made.



This is my WIP study of skin (there's many other types of skin to look into).  This is just a couple different types (or lighting) of Caucasian  skin.  One was Christian Bale looking dude and the other from some Irish teen portrait. Strangely I found the different skins seemed to behave different with how deep the shadows were but maybe I'm just confused?  I wish I had a live model of my own. DX



I was burnt out so I decided to doodle one of my characters and challenged myself to only use a charcoal brush I downloaded.  I actually kind of like it... maybe I'll play around and polish it a bit, see what happens.

[cgmythology]

Off to a great start indeed! Some pretty cool concepts, love the expression on Gandodorf as well. Are you planning on refining any of these further? Keep it up!

[darktiste]

I find that it help improve your value to put your background as a midgrey when you use a blank backgrounf this way your highlight can speak instead of being in competition with the white of the background.Try the exercise as many time as you wish what important is that you improve how you question yourself.What i mean by questioning yourself is that you actually ask yourself question about what your looking at.I know it sound generic but the more you can ask yourself precise question about what your seeing the better your observation become.

[mika_land]

It's been a bit since I posted.  I draw everyday but have been hating the outcome, so I've been reluctant to post.  But I've decided I should try... maybe you guys can help with the problems.



@cgmythology  Thanks!  I'm posting the one piece of my OC that I've refined a bit.  I might rework the cyberpunk guy a bit more later.



@darktiste Wow this actually does help a bit to have a grey background.  I'll work on the skin tones again and put them up today or tomorrow.  I need to ask myself what I'm looking at more often.  When I work I kind of go blank and just "draw what I see"  but I rarely think as to why I see what I see.







This piece below is driving me nuts.  I  think my skill level is to low to attempt doing this one without a reference.  I'm going in circles just on the face.  Maybe it's time to set it aside for a while?








And some warm-up gesture drawings (man am I out of practice with these).  I have a bad habit of drawing too big and having to resize them after the exercise.  These aren't in order either I shrunk them and moved them around on the canvas.   I used the 30 min class time on [This to practice]

[darktiste]

Well a general advise to beginner i often see is to paint less and to draw more.The reason is that outline are the base of any form if you can't be clean and precise with your line your just going to struggle to paint because you actually leak the control to do so.Painting can be painfully long and if you don't understand how to use you brush you end up overworking yourself.One of the ''rule'' of painting is to always to try to use the biggest brush you can and then slowly reducing the size of your stroke this way you minimize the amount of stroke imagine using a 1 pixel brush vs a 100 pixel brush how much faster you can finish a painting.

A good place to learn to draw without spending $ is drawabox.com

[Artloader]

Hi Mika, I like your cyberpunk girl piece - she has a real attitude and personality :).

I think Darktiste has hit on a good point about prioritising drawing.  I believe the problem on the face would have been better solved at the drawing stage.  She looks to me to be facing slightly to _her_ right and slightly downwards.

That being the case, what I would do is practice some Loomis heads with the orientation of your piece and then get the drawing right.

Also I would almost always grab some references for any pose I was trying to invent - even if it is a piece from imagination.

Anyway I have had a go at a quick paint over for you, hope it helps, if not please ignore :).

Either way keep going :).

[mika_land]

So due to the interest in my cyberpunk girl piece.... I just wanted to post the structure I've started with real quick... I think my perspective is off?  Next time I'll use a reference and spend more time on the structure.




And the one above I posted is me trying to recreate my old Drawing I did in pen and ink, that I liked.








@darktiste  You have a point.  My "structure" is shaky.  I'm thinking I'll go back to the beginning of drawing again.. Maybe some Loomis to start.... Oh Wow!  This site is really cool!  I've been thinking of saving for a mentor or something (though with other expenses it's hard) but if I could use this site... This could really help.   Huh, that's a good "rule" .  I've been watching speedpaints and tutorials for weeks, but I never figured that out.  Thanks for the advice and website!


@Artloader I'm glad you like her!  I've been redesigning her alot for a comic I'm writing.... Just want to get better at drawing first....  Oh Yes the positioning you have now is right.  Thanks for the paint-over! I'm gonna dig through my files (I have Loomis somewhere) and practice some Loomis heads, as you said. 

Um a question, when you use references do you always need permission to use them?  i have a hard time finding all the original artists behind the photos.  Sometimes I don't use them as much when I'm feeling conscientious.

[mika_land]

I know it's been a long time... Though I draw everyday.  I was wondering does anybody else get extremely nervous when posting art that's not finished?  I find even right now sharing my studies and WIPs or anything that I don't deem "worthy", makes me sweat and feel queasy a bit... though I'm not sure why... I still wanna try to power through it today. I hope I'm just not the only one.


I've been slowly doing the DrawABox exercises.  And they've been helping.  Here are a few.






The two below are first attempt and second.  I want to do another cause it's really cementing in my mind the technique for perspective.  Though I could use a little work on lightening my lines, using my arm more and ghosting.







The one's below are the progress on a piece I'm doing more or less for fun?  I used multiple references but he still looks a bit funky.  I was trying to make the cheekbones and jawline look mostly like this . Wasn't sure what to do with the background. I used an asaro head for basic placing.







[url=https://www.pinterest.com/pin/247205467027873408/][/url]

[mika_land]

Sorry about the wonky posts of my pics above, mainly the duplicate and the double link.  I was having some trouble with the site.  For some reason I couldn't get the link to go away and when I pressed "remove" attachment it posted my entry.   If I need to start over and repost let me know!

[darktiste]

You got a problem with your vertical line in those perspective exercise try to compare them to your horizon line to make sure there verticale and not slightly diagonal but you might have problem right now with estimating angle so don't stress to much about it just try to remember to compare it with the horizon line.No need to add the crappy shading it a waste of time in this exercise you could use to draw more cube if you ain't going to really apply any logic to lightining don't add any shading.Your also missing 1 segment to close your cube so that it can tell the viewer you cube as 6 side.

[mika_land]

You got a problem with your vertical line in those perspective exercise try to compare them to your horizon line to make sure there verticale and not slightly diagonal but you might have problem right now with estimating angle so don't stress to much about it just try to remember to compare it with the horizon line.No need to add the crappy shading it a waste of time in this exercise you could use to draw more cube if you ain't going to really apply any logic to lightining don't add any shading.Your also missing 1 segment to close your cube so that it can tell the viewer you cube as 6 side.

I actually didn't think of using the horizon line for vertical lines.   i'll do that if my practice from now on!  I did the shading at the time to tell myself what the front was... think it was recommended in the Draw a Box assignment as a suggestion.  I wasn't trying to shade in terms of values.  But in my next ones I'll work on line weight to tell the difference in the front.  Dammit! I can't believe I forgot the extra edges.  I'll definitely work on that!

Thanks for your input.