Morning! Figured I'd claim this sketchbook for my own, since it has my name on it

And the title isn't kidding. I do need critiques, and even if they might make me sob I'll be glad I had yet another chance to improve. I'm a bit stuck at the moment. I've been doing studies for the last few months (though not as much as I would have liked) and I feel I'm getting better at copying. Obviously, I won't deny that I feel the beneficial influence of the studies in my imagination work, but I'll try another approach: getting information from reference and applying it to a different image, forcing myself not to copy. I realized this by joining  the daily sketch challenge and seeing the diversity and creativity of the sketches there. I have no idea if it's actually feasible. Buuut, this is my chance to also see if my imagination works and if it's too dull for a future art career, to manage to keep art only as a hobby and focus my time on something else.

 Ahem, apologizing for the scattered intro, here goes some selection of drawings, both studies and imagination doodles.

 

 

 

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Heya Arnici, good to see you on imaginefx too :)

Hehe, funny reading your intro because I felt exactly the same!  I have become a good copy machine too. I found the best way is to think of an idea and draw it down, then look at reference after, study how things look, like lighting and different materials. Just copying photos might work for some people but personally I got to it's limit I think.

As for having enough imagination for an Art career. Well there are plenty of people working in Art full time with very little imagination - so I certainly don't think it's a pre-requisite to work in Art!

Depends how much you love drawing should decide whether you can make a career out of it imo.

Well I've seen most of these and you're definitely improving - particularly figure work, I would recommend drawing a lot more faces though, I'd say it's one of your weaker areas - though not bad at all!

Edit - use andrew loomis drawing the head and hands if you havent!

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You're actualy A pretty good artist. Don't beat yourself down to much. Being an artist is an ongoing process. If you need to copy and use refrences there is nothing wrong with that. Keep doing it until you've got it perfected enough. From there try doing stuff from your head. You have imagination, The level at which you want to draw with has to catch up with your imagination; and it will in due time. In time involves patience, consistence, persistence, passion, hardwork, and love for it. Trust me from experience. I'm still working and studying it myself. Keep practicing and pretty soon you will be able to bring balance to both approaches to drawing. Drawing what you see and drawing from imagination based on practice and knowledge of the subjects that you want to draw.

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Great start to a sketchbook here. Studies look really good, what do you use as ref for the poses? I really like the smoking fish and the clowns :)

post more images

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i think there's some really great studies here, and some pretty damn excellent ones, for instance the woman in the box is superb, the foreshortening is pretty outstanding,

And then there are some prime examples of why you would benefit from studying anatomy and proportions, as Alex says, specifically facial anatomy, one image that stands out to me for good and not so good is the last image (first if you haven't changed the forum's view settings) the woman with the hat and side profile, parts of it are very good, and then the eye looks like a very rookie mistake amongst it. And infact the same problem with eyes is apparent in all of your images, I hope that doesn't make you cry :) because your potential is huge. I just think rather than copying pictures, or using your imagination that you would improve way faster by studying basics.

I took the same path as you, and now i'm suffering for it, i've got to the stage where i'm 'sort of' accomplished, in parts, and so let down in other parts, so i've taken myself back to the beginning, and i'm going to learn how to do it properly. 

Please don't let this put you off, i see something very very good here, but you won't get any better doing what you are doing. 

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Oh good point Kaz! Forgot to mention studying the basics. Thats where I'm at right now as far as drawing goes. Kaz, Arnici, check out my studies from Riven Phoenix on my wp blog. These are studies from the past 4-5 months on human anatomy. His dvd series is good. http://urbanrockwell.wordpress.com/category/figure-drawing-info-reviews/page/1/

this riven phoenix site also. www.alienthink.com

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hey, welcome! great start to your sketchbook! that top study is beautiful, im looking forward to future updates.

Hey, Alex! :) I don't think I got to the limit of photo studying per se, but I noticed I started to be less patient and too comfortable doing it and began to use studying as an excuse to avoid personal work -- an endless source of frustration, but I guess more rewarding in the end. Of course there's yet alot to learn from masters and the basics, but that can be done wiser than how I approached things :)

Maybe the reason why the head stands out as rocky is that I drew more heads than other stuff ^_^ But indeed, I have problems with it, I find it extremely difficult to position the heads on the figures if they're tilted and I'm looking for a way to understand them better. Too bad Loomis didn't think to put more attention on explaining how to attach the head, for silly persons like me

I'm sure there are people working in Art with little imagination, but to pull that off I suppose they have to be very good technicians. It's easier to find work at an entry level if you have imagination and build your skills while you also gain a penny or two ;-D I do love doing this, so I guess it's worth fighting against set-backs.

Thanks for the links, urban rockwell! It's nice to see the different steps and it's also good to be reminded that getting skilled takes indeed all the things you mentioned; it's like a reality check :) I'm not very good at baby-steps and having a bit more free time now than I'll probably have a few months from now I want to use it efficiently. 

Thank you, jskotte! :) The pictures were gathered from various stock accounts on deviantart and from a wonderful pack Ales uploaded for the Crimson Daggers. I think I can find the link if you're interested.

Kazky! What I wanted to say with that crying thing was that while encouragements are awesome, I want them if they're based on true facts. Some people sugar-coat their critiques with things like "you're good, buuuut" where good is just a nicety. It's upsetting when I make mistakes, but in the end I think it's better to know than live in a but-it's-not-so-bad state ^_^

Eyes are on my top list of things I love about human anatomy, so it's indeed a shame not to get them right. I'll try to change the way I look at them and be more objective. What would you say it's the recurrent problem in all the pictures, if there is one?

 Nickybeats, thank you! I'll do my best to push things forward.

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Now, some not so polished heads, tried to understand a few things:

Spent too long on this head; not to mention the nonexistent background 

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home
Your house is on fire and your children are gone!!

:)

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Actually, copying is good for learning, is pointless to force yourself to come up with original stuffs when your basics isn't even solid. SOmetimes, even tracing an image multiple times helps in teaching you about someone's style.

I think one of the best way to improve is to follow/copy a tutorials very closely. I am not sure why, IFX mag has some neat tutorials, but no one has ever show that they did one...

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luffie:

 I am not sure why, IFX mag has some neat tutorials, but no one has ever show that they did one...

yes they have, quite a few people actually

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Good practice on the head!

I think this latest piece looks great - maybe the hair could be a bit bigger at the back of her hear, it's making her skull looks a bit thin right now. But I think you did a great job on the prespective and the composition is really interesting. As for background, well to me it doesn't look like you need much background elements, everything's there really - maybe just have sky/grass or something behind as the focus looks good! Possibly the bug could be a bit more fantasy like the character, dunno :o

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@luffie - I totally forgot about that possibility; thanks for reminding me :)

@Alex - thanks for the tips, they were much appreciated and hoooopefully put to good use.

 

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I think this came out really cool!

Really warm and the details are great.

If we want to get nick picky - I'd say the clavicle, deltoid/bicep area could use some attention , I usually just reference bridgeman for these.

Great job!

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update update.

And be aware of your images are not larger that about 1000-1200 pixels wide, otherwise we have to scroll right to see the rest of the image. 

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My Sketchbook