god I know the ill feeling. Don't push yourself it will only slow your recovery. glad to hear your starting to feel better and cant wait for you to continue to kick my arse in this whole art thing. l8r mate Once consumed by the fire, Now I control it!
Really great sketchbook here, keep up the good work! ;D I know the feeling of having no motivation, I'm feeling like that now.. Not the best of times at my final project in college. Gah :( All i can say is wait it out, dont feel like you have to draw because it makes you feel even less motivated. Maybe browse art online, listen to music, play on a computer game for a bit. I'm not so good at giving advice either, but I hope you feel better soon. :) Sketchbook
hey alex - sorry to hear you've not been to well, i've missed seeing your entries in the challenges :) - uni is always a hectic time to, what with the ritual pub crawls etc lol. i think we all go through slumps but what has helped me keep those slumps shorter (rather than months at a time lol) is the daily sketch challenge...just churning out a basic doodle keeps you active....instead of focusing on the huuuuge area of creativity, pick something you want to improve on (i picked eyes) and just get going on that, it's easier to work on and achieve something rather than waiting for something to take shape on a page.
go on, go grab a tutorial and get your butt in the daily sketch thread lol :)
I've joined the quest for the Dragon Scroll! http://community.imaginefx.com/forums/317/197422/ShowThread.aspx#197422
Well hey ho =) ..Been a while... kinda went of the rails a bit somehow this year... weeks turned into months and I hadn't drawn anything for ages and ages. Anyways had a holiday abroad a couple of weeks ago... 10 days of no computer, no phone, no internet, no tv, no games, no dvds. Did a lot of soul searching and decided that being an Artist is the only thing I'm ever going to enjoy.. So yep here we are again, kind feel like I'm back at square one though!! Been listening to Bobby Chiu on Youtube all day... so I've devised somewhat of a plan from his advice, he often works 15hour days, so well that'll be a good start for me if I can achieve that. I remember I emailed Bobby many months ago when I was more active, in a nutshell his advice was - "Make a plan and stick to it" - I guess I never got around to making the plan, part of where I went wrong I guess >.<
Also in the plan - feel free to try it out if you need some motivation - or to add something else:) - I am sure it will help; I start tomorrow!
The Plan
- Pick a work of Art from your favourite Artists and spend at least one hour recreating it - starting with B&W tonal studies, look at structure, composition etc
- Next pick/take a photo - Paint this in the style of the Artist you're looking at that day (again min 1hr) - Same start with a tonal B&W Study.
- Next draw/paint a picture from your imagination - In the style of today's Artist - Min 1hr. Try to think of all you've learnt from the artist. B&W.
- Progress to colour painting when you're more confident.
Ok, so that's like 3hrs, though I'll probably spend longer.
Also in my plan I am going to go back and hit my anatomy and environment studies big time - already dug out Loomis head and hands today. And draw from life more!!
I really want to paint great environments and landscapes too, I guess photo studies will help, gonna try a Gnomon DVD too, been looking at James Clyne =)
Spent the last week getting inspired, downloaded gigs and gigs of concept, photography and classic art on my travels in cyberspace; been on ca.org and cgtalk everyday! - I'm really buzzing with new energy now, especially as I have some solid goals^^ One being to try and submit something half decent by Jan 10th to IFX!!
Anyways, rant over... if anyone's interested, lol. Kinda like my blog this SB heh.
K stuff I did recently - bit rusty but haven't totally lost it, luckily I remembered all the good advice from Koshime, Bobby Chiu, Feng Zhu and Bob Kato all great teachers - I'd advise anyone to look up their tutorials, especially if you're having motivational issues!!
Recent trip to london, visited the Courthold gallery, never been before, really enjoyed it - loved the Rembrandt's the most, guy has got serious compositions - might make him my artist to look at tomorrow.
Little matisse, now I don't usually like Matisse's painting, but this was very cool little statue. Used a mechanical pencil, tbh I didn't like it much, prefer normal pencils!
A Degas sculpture, they has loads of these, they're pretty awesome!
Some quick figure sketches from a Degas painting, pretty famous one I think, then again he drew loads of ballerinas!
Some more of those Degas sculptures, kinda funny shape they were.
Was a Sunny day so as I was eat lunch I drew some pics in Trafalgar square.
Had a look in the National Portrait gallery, kinda cool - too many bloody portraits though!! No surprises :s
Some old bearded dudes.
Sketch from my Henry Yan book.
Some Bridgeman hands.
Some posemaniacs, gonna cut back on this website - draw more gestures from photos, though I still like the 3D aspect and movement in posemaniacs.
Started Loomis Head and Hands book, again. This time I'm trying to read more, and literally draw every pic in there!!
good to see you sketching again Alex.( Recognised the ballerinas immediately :) Like the squishy skulls ,lol the sculptures and the pastel(?) sketches in Trafalgar square. Quality stuff.
Today I went back to posemanics, though I am going to limit that site to once a week - need to draw other figures, of people not 3D models. I think it's a good website still!
30sec
45sec
90sec
Ok, so in my plan of looking at Artists, I chose a painting by Rembrandt 'sarah waiting for tobias') , I think he's pretty much awesome. Anyway, I was meant to spend 1hour but it turned into more, partly because I did a scruffy under drawing, which basicaly meant I painted it from scratch, which I'm not that good at, so next time I will do a decent line drawing first.
I am annoyed with it now, it's frustrating I can't get it like his, it's the tones, they're so subtle in the original yet so hard to try and reproduce>< Argh, guess it's practice, anyway I will leave this one for now, as I have 3 more parts of the assignment to do next, in the rembrandt style. I think I learnt alot from this anyway, especially on reflecting light and shapes. Strong light against cast shadow is also a pretty strong thing he uses in this, must remember that^^
Greyscale study, as this is the task, colour sometime soon when I'm decent on my values!
hey man, nice sb you got here. all that figure work your doing is paying off, they are starting to look alot more relaxed, like you yourself are becoming alot more comfortable with them. im very happy to see alot of artists posting a ton of figure studies in their sb's lately, it has inspired me to hop on the bandwagon as well. you seem to be moving in the right direction, so just keep on moving forward.
wow looks awesome. it may have to do with the original painting but the shoulder area on the left looks a bit floppy, maybe add some more structure to it.
Hey Nickybeats, yeah the figure stuff helps, but to me it seems a never ending struggle - still a million miles to go!!
Thx Phoeni, what kinda tips are you after? As far as technical stuff I could give some steps on how I paint something in photoshop if you like! Not that its neccessarily a good way, takes me bloody ages! Other than that, I would say - stay inspired, look at lots of artwork which excites and you try to recreate it somehow in your work. And of course I can't rate anatomy practice enough.
Yeah Emily I see what you mean about the arm, I'll try to fix it a bit, thx!
Today I almost didn't do anything, I was meant to draw from a photo in the way I copied the painting. So picked a photo, and I just couldn't draw the bloody face right, hours and hours I spent, throwing them all a way. Eventually I decided to sketch in photoshop, and finally messed about with it until it looked vaguely right - then I painted it up, spent so many hours and it's nowhere near how I wanted it. The face is still wrong, so I'm not gonna finish the rest.... I could make it look pretty but what the point if the underlying structure's all messed up >.< Need to practice face more, like mega more :S
Somethin's all messed up on the left face edge, never looks right, suppoed to be a woman but looks like a man,, argh1! Anyways, onwards and upwards, I'm at least proud that I didn't give up entirely - serious had nothing useable til after lunchtime O.O
it has to do with the lips and cheek, if you soften up the lines surrounding the mouth (the crease you see when you smile) and the line of her right nostril to the lip (the dark line on the left) it'll look more like a girl. also if you soften up the strong brow or lift it a bit it'll be girlier as well. a lot of it has to do with her gigantic muscley arm too hehehe. i know the neck is covered up but you should look at your photo again and see how the back/shoulder lines up proportion wise with the head. it looks a little off.
another thing is if you use a softer brush, it'll look smoother and more attractive.
those are just minor crits tho, it looks like it's almost there.
