Woden's Sketchbook

[Woden]

Hello everyone! Everything I post here has been made after February 2019. That's when I started taking this whole art business seriously.
I come from a comic background and I enjoyed drawing very clean linearts in the past, but I've gradually moved to quick and rough studies as I felt the perfectionism wasn't really getting me anywhere near my goals. I don't usually finish my pieces as I still don't feel ready for that (after 30 hours on a piece of crap I feel like I'm just wasting my time), that's why you won't really see anything polished in here.
My goal is to become a professional illustrator in 4 to 5 years, but I also want to be able to draw comics with expressive characters. I won't feel at ease until I'll master drawing the human figure from imagination, that's why I draw heads compulsively. I think I might be able to do it in a couple decades if I keep going at this rate... Better late than never I say, so fingers crossed!

[Woden]

These are some of the earliest digital pieces I've made, back in 2019.

[Woden]

These are my first attempts at adding digital colors to lineart. Still 2019.

[Woden]

These are from when I started leaving clean linearts behind to experiment with painting. Late 2019 to early 2020.

[Woden]

These are from when I started experimenting with expressions a bit more. 2020.

[Woden]

From now on, everything was made in 2021. These are my brain dumps, my compulsion sketches. Most of them are from imagination, like the previous two. I take these as a way to practice what I've learned.

[Woden]

And these are some portrait studies I've made recently. I still have a long way to go with these, I struggle with values and rendering quite a lot.

[Woden]

In the last few days I've been trying to learn how to sketch Geralt from the Witcher videogames from different angles and different expressions. I still suck at this so badly though... T_T But someday I'll manage... This is my number one art goal: mastering the head, being able to draw the same character consistently from any angle. It's hard as f@+# though!

[JosephCow]

these are great! I'm sure you will do well. You have a very clear a d solid style of painting that I like. The Last Geralt piece is probably my favorite. The structure ypu give the clothes and hair is really nice.

[chubby_cat]

Hey Woden, welcome to CD! I really dig your sketchbook, especially your latest character sketches (really like the Witcher sketch page at the bottom of the 2021 brain dumps haha). Your stuff is really good, so I think you are sometimes a bit hard on yourself :)

Your heads have a really good sense of structure too. Was there any particular resource/artist you studied from? Drawing a face consistently is hard af, I so agree lmao, but I think it's a case of practice makes perfect and having a few distinct features (like eye shape, lip shape, etc etc), so keep at it!

Keen as beans to see you post more!

[Woden]

these are great! I'm sure you will do well. You have a very clear a d solid style of painting that I like. The Last Geralt piece is probably my favorite. The structure ypu give the clothes and hair is really nice.

Thank you, that really means a lot coming from you! I love your work, you are extremely talented!

[Woden]

Hey Woden, welcome to CD! I really dig your sketchbook, especially your latest character sketches (really like the Witcher sketch page at the bottom of the 2021 brain dumps haha). Your stuff is really good, so I think you are sometimes a bit hard on yourself :)

Your heads have a really good sense of structure too. Was there any particular resource/artist you studied from? Drawing a face consistently is hard af, I so agree lmao, but I think it's a case of practice makes perfect and having a few distinct features (like eye shape, lip shape, etc etc), so keep at it!

Keen as beans to see you post more!

Hey there, thank you for the warm welcome!
I really like your work as well, we seem to be interested in pursuing the same exact career path if what you wrote in your sketchbook thread back in 2018 still rings true. So your comment on being too hard on myself and having a good sense of structure with my heads really means a lot. Thanks!

To answer your question, there are waaay too many to count. :'D I'll do my best to mention a few though.
I can say with the utmost certainty that my interest in creating solid-looking heads was sparked by the works of Moebius, Philippe Scoffoni and Marianna Strychowska. The last one solidified my will to do whatever was in my power to learn how to render believable heads in perspective and from any angle, so I think I might have watched and read every tutorial on how to draw faces and heads in existence at this point. XD
And I felt like they weren't enough, so I started watching 3D sculpting tutorials as well. You might want to check out "SpeedChar" on Youtube for example, I feel like his tutorials really helped a lot!
I could mention many more artists and specific quotes that really sticked with me, here's some of them:
I became aware of the planes on the side of the nose by looking at Takehiko Inoue's drawings;
Glenn Vilppu's videos informed me of the area between the eyes and the nose, and the way the glabella intersects with the superior arches of the orbits;
I think I got how to make the nostrils look more solid with three simple planes while I was watching Stjepan Sejic work his magic during one of his livestreams;
I learned how to draw the zygomatic arch by looking at Scott Eaton's work;
I've been focusing on simplifying my lines ever since I watched a tutorial by Sinix on drawing square faces and read a piece of advice from Glen Keane: "don't be ambiguous: with a characters' head, there is a top, back and front".

I could talk about this for hours on end, it is my obsession after all. If you have any more questions, feel free to add me on Discord (everyone else who is reading this is welcome to do so as well if they wish!). My username is Woden#7151.

Thanks again for your comment, I'm looking forward to seeing your work! :)

[JosephCow]

Thank you, that really means a lot coming from you! I love your work, you are extremely talented!

 Thanks! That's nice of you. I added you on discord btw, just because.

[Zizka]

Really enjoying those pages filled to the brim with practice. There’s something which always ends up being lost in digital art I find, the soul what’s created which is why always end up having a preference for things drawn on paper. Keep it up!

[Woden]

Really enjoying those pages filled to the brim with practice. There’s something which always ends up being lost in digital art I find, the soul what’s created which is why always end up having a preference for things drawn on paper. Keep it up!

Thanks! I know I feel much more comfortable with physical tools than digital ones, that's for sure! Thank you for the encouragement!