Hello, well rather than clutter up the "Mentor" thread with ALL my work - best to keep it useful for others =)
So to document my progress this year I thought I'd start a sketchbook, kinda blog my progress 2009-2010 - eventually I'd love a job in games, but I'm a long long way off but gonna try my hardest =)
I am studying animation til September, so there's going to be a LOT of figure work in here =)
I want to draw my own characters in any poses out of my head - that's the goal. Slightly secondary goal is environments, which I want to work on in any free time I might have!
Character work is hopefully gonna be used in my animation somehow - excuse the muscly men, skimpy women, and guns etc, but I wanna work in games so need some relevent stuff; will be doing more personal work too =) (beleive it or not I don't play games anymore, but I grew up with 'em and would still love to be involved in their creation!
I am starting life drawing twice a week starting tonight, lol lets see how that turns out - it's MUCH harder in real life >.<
All work shown is 2009.
Cya :-)
Entry 1 - 13 Jan'09 :-)
My lifesize skull - should draw it more often really >.<
Michelangelo - Madonna statue thing, drawn from a photo on google
Nude, from a book
Eye study
Planes of the head and shading
Tried digital painting in Painter - it's very hard, I don't know how to paint in real life either so I need a lot of work in this program. I also tried photoshop, but found painter more fun =)
Gesture pose of my parents doin stuff, 30sec ish
Learning to draw heads from my head - read the Loomis book on heads, so I know how to construct them now - these are all terrible, but it was excellent practice - I'm a bit better now.
Posemaniacs practice.
Decided to critique my own posemaniacs, dunno why.
Some of my posemaniacs.
Mini - tutorial I did for posemaniacs - see if you find it helpful =)
Ok, all the images are below are completely out of my head, no ref at all - wanted to test if I'd learnt anything from posemaniacs - and I have - I am much better than before - they aren't great but the shapes I am much more proficient at. You should have seen my drawings from memory 6 weeks ago. It's LOL and a half. Excuse the weirdness of some of these, doodles really, kinda thing I used to do in lessons at school =0
My first character - pose and character completely from memory - used a Hogarth book to check where some of the muscles should be.
Had a go on Painter last night with my new character because I was so excited I'd made something I could call my own =) Checked my watch was 4am, but I had some fun with light and colour - dunno if any a developeable - I like the black/dark ones though.
New character I made today - don't like the tatoo I'm gonna re-do that. I don't like the pose either.
Used Bridgeman for reference on the muscles, everything else is no ref.
Male anatomy is going to take me a very very long time to memorize, now I realise women are alot easier!
Gooooooood stuff alex. Your working real hard. Seems like we want to go into the same subject matter. I'll be keeping a close eye on this sketchbook. Your work is great.
Hi Alex,
Good volume of work. Shows your drive. I would recommend, a smaller narrowing to concentrate on a ixture of quality and gestural studies on SOLELY
HEAD, NECK and TORSO
I believe, if you can focus your energies on the main body parts now, the rest can slot in. So, for example a Torso, could be Bean (and depending on the perspective - you can have three parallel lines - upper, middle, lower) - you can draw a bean crouched forward, a bean extending backwards, etc etc.
The rest, I'd like you to explore. Namely the head, and how the head can act like a weight and its direction, determining a S kind of shape related with the spine and torso.
Hey thanks for the comments, nice to have some encouragement =)
Funny you say that Koshime, it's a very good idea - because I normally whack in the legs first and fit the rest of the body on top - it's something about legs, they're pretty awesome lol.
Sound advice, I'll concentrate on those areas for now...
Disappointing evening at life drawing, no model turned up >.< had to draw some college worker's head, did a few, might upload 'em later on.. (didn't come out well, much harder IRL - knew that though!)
Hopefully thursday's life drawing will be more succesful :-)
Well no life model last night so we had to do portraits of someone who worked at college, mine didn't come out too good, I find it very hard to relax in that environment, I have more life drawing tomorrow, so hope it's better. Some of these little college kids in there, some still doing a-levels, were freaking insanely good, deflated me a little. Then I thought well, they've probably been drawing all thru school, so hopefully won't take me too long to catch up.
Did some posemaniacs today - concentrated on head/neck - hard, getting there though, some came out awful.
After heads I fancied some fun so I got out some graphite and compressed charcoal and got messy.
2/3 hours of posemaniacs, got a litle board and drew some celebs, no idea who they are - havn't watched TV for long long time lol. Bit messy, don't think they'd be too happy if they saw these pictures lol.
Later today I was meant to do some uni work - but I wanted to paint something more. I did start painting my new character but was finding it difficult, so I thought I'd try and study and recreate a master (Vermeer) he is a master of light, and I also intend to be oneday so was a good place to start. If anyone can offer tips on painter to help me I'd love it. It's a WIP - will finish it tomorrow night after uni I hope.
Sketch - I used the method I learnt from andrew loomis for constructing the head, it doesn't look much like her but have correct proportions is my priority right now.
WIP I started in painter, needs a lot more work - tbh I found it easier just to work things out my self than follow a tutorial.
K, havn't eaten anything today hehe so gonna do that then my uni work =)))
Well did some more tonight, sketched clothes, but there's not a huge amount I can add to the face with my current knowledge, it's way far from where I want it to be. I might just be better off doing some tutorials for painter then come back another time - I should stick to simpler stuff for now.
Funny, trying to work from master, you realise how freakin' hard it is =) I might get one more WIP out of this image then come back to it in a few months, cos I would like it finished... just finished well lol.
Oh my geez Your vermeer is looking Great. What colours do you use for flesh tones? This painting is fabulous Alex. Looking at your work seriously gives me a kick. Your improvement is insane. More splendid work here.
Hello Oakseed, thanks! I'm going to post another update below, this is what I have done this morning - I tried to get it closer to a painting feel. But now I the more I try the more frustrating it's becoming, I just can't get it how I want it, the colours in the original are so intricate, it could take me days, I think there's a quicker way to shade nicely, but I have discovered it yet. So I think I might leave it for now, I am fairly happy with my progress, because I never thought I'd be able to get even close, and I have learnt a lot.
For skin tones, I dunno, I just looked at the painting and chose ones I thought were similar. In hindsight I should have brought the vermeer into painter and got a colour scheme or something, but I have no idea how to do that. At least this way it's my own version with my own light and colours, even though I much prefer the original. Think it's time for something new now =)
Ummm........looks ok, but maybe try using tectured brushes instead of filters. The texture is good but it just doesn't seem to flow in terms of contours within her face. It looks to overlayed. Sorry if this is a bad expression, I'm finding it hard to explain.
Well this was the KIND of thing I was trying to achieve (lines weren't meant to go with face contours)... didn't use filters, just got some cracked floor textures and used overlay. It's hard because it looks way too smooth/blurry without the overlay, short of starting the face again, not alot I can do with my knowledge of painter. Gonna try something easier next time hehe. was good practice tho.
Original
no overlay
Overlay
Anyway, gonna knock this on the head now, not really learning anything new the more I mess about with it lol. I have been using a textured brush, but I found I have to blend it so much otherwise it looks daft, might try some tutorials, got that uber IFX manual thing in whsmith yesterday =))
May I recommend NO blending till final. Try to get a whole variety of colour tones and palletes that it almost looks blended but have blues. greens, reds oranges in subtle mid tones made from multiple big brushes crossed over and over again
Big to small
Big to small.
NO refinements. If it looks good rough it will look good detailed. Unfortuantely, this study is too detailed too fast. Imagine how vemeer would construct the weight of the muscles, teh plane of the face, and slowly blend blend blend.
Because you have the luxury of seeing the finsihed product, a study of the master only produces a lesser fascimle. To study a master is to think it through , from first principles, how would vemeer appaorch his subject matter.
What are his rituals. Is he a greyscale to colour man. Is he a slap aroudn some colour and refine it man. etc etc..
Your vermeer is looking Great. What colours do you use for flesh tones? This painting is fabulous Alex. Looking at your work seriously gives me a kick. Your improvement is insane. More splendid work here.
