Not bad Xenus....some good work here. Though Manga girl's got lopsided eyes...and while the warlock looks good....there's really nothing to identify as a Gnome....no size comparison. No feature traits.

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Wizard's First Rule

 

todays life drawing 

Hi greg! I have a suggestion: try not to put white around the edge of the figure; it flattens the form. Also, avoid mixing white with the black, other wise you come up with this muddy, grey looking stuff. This alos means that if you plan on doing dark, black cast shadow, it might work better to use black as your start up sketch lines. Let the color of the paper create the mid tone.

hi yian, thanks for the advice, i do a life drawing class in university so im basically told what to do =P but next time il deffo try your way

No problem. I went to a university, too, and it really depends on schools. Art schools, in my experience, tend to have better programs and instructors than regular college that has a regular art program.

Do you go to an art school, or just a regular university that has an art program?

hey, sorry if I'm interrupting your conversation, but.. Yian, tell me everything about it!! what are the best schools? How do I choose?

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-Nina

I'm really not an expert on this. Like I said, I'm just speaking from my personal experience. I went to a state school for four years, and they had a decent art department, but comparing to the school I am attending right now, they were really bad. Then again, it was way cheaper.

i go to an art and design university so to be honest they should be up to date on techniques and methods but iv been recieving better advice from the forums so far. im doin a degree in illustration which shuld mean im getting the best advice but the lecturers seems so narrow minded and will only give advice and help to certain people whos style they like. and apparently they hate fantasy and sci fi art so im gettin no help at all.

 

It really depends on the lighting situation and the methods by different artist, and I'm sure your professor is very good at what he does. And certainly you shouldn't be put off by the fact they they don't like sci-fi or fantasy... to be honest, sci-fi/fantasy genre in general lacks the subtlety that the fine art market requires, so it is natural that some of them don't find them appealing.

Here is an example of a figure drawing that is close to what I have learned from my school. This is a figure drawing done by William Bouguereau. The white is used as highlights to bring out the form.

 

But here is a figure drawing done by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, which uses white as light to separate the planes, and it works just as well. I think this might be what your professor was going for. Do notice how Prud'hon put his white down very carefully so there is no mixing.

 

It might appear that the first image's light source isn't as strong as the second one, but they could actually all had similar amout of light, except that white is used differently here. Prud'hon and Bouguereau has different styles, and their figure drawing reflects to their style. Overall, my point is that both methods will achieve amazing result if you really spend your time getting the core shadow, the form shadow, the cast shadow, and the proportions right.

 

Thank a lot for the advice mate. il make sure to take in on board during my next life drawing session.

 

here are a couple of sketches and pieces iv been working on. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here are two sketches i did of some post apocalyptic guys influenced by the sketch book in this months IFX. first guy is just a hungry fat dude that only needs a fork and chainsaw to survive (and of course his bib and googles incase things get messy) The second one is of a father growing his children and feeding them knowledge thru tubes.  

 

 

 

 

Hey man, the last two posts are excellent, you definitely have skills with a pencil man.

 

Pity I am not into these monster type things. Great rendering though, looking forward to more dude, you don't update enough!

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My Sketchbook

IFX Gallery

 

some alien designs for my 'war of the worlds' project 

 

graffiti gal