Dear Friends,
Due to ongoing personal ambivalence and overwhelming public anonymity I have decided to start a 'sketchbook'.
My intention is to use this as an outlet to encourage my motivation and artistic development (y'know, keep me working hard at improving etc) so I would love to have your considered feed back. Don't hold back, I can take it!
Regards,
EtaCarinaeEtaCarinae2006-10-11 23:07:49
Dear Friends,
Here are a couple of environments of varying success.
This first one is probably the one I'm least happy with. It is a 'ruined shipyard' for C.A.org's environment of the week a couple of weeks ago.
I'm posting it because I think it demostrates the problems I'm trying to overcome with rendering light. You can see here I've got things lit from all different angles! Gotta work out the light source and stick to it.
This one is the fastest of these 3.
I did this in probably a half hour and I'm probably most pleased with it too. Really simple approach, 3 major elements (tunnel, platform, cloud.) and simple colour scheme. My wife reckons I should have had the character holding out his hand or something, I think she's probably right.
The platform in the foreground is a total Ryan Church rip off!
Incidently, this was done for a weekly sketch topic over at Design Studio Press forum. The place is quieter than a ghost town but a good spot if you're 2D and want a relaxed sketch group.
I need to work more on characters. I hardly have any in my folio! This one was done before the above rhino thing. But I think the rhino works heaps better!
I think I tend to overwork things sometimes. The other thing I'm trying to do since doing this is to avoid a predominance of mid-tones. I think that is the main reason this sketch looks so muddy. Also note there is no light falling on his left arm at all! I don't think that is right.
A couple more space vehicle sketches...
I like this first one. I was pretty 'lubricated' when I painted this. Woke up with a dim impression of having done some painting and was plesantly suprised when I found it. Using a couple of my custom brushes.
Studies
Making shapes in illustrator. I love illustrator. But don't get much of an excuse to use it at the moment.
Just trying to teach myself to layer paint in this bottom one. (I'm reliably informed it comes with practice).
You may have seen this in my launchpad gallery.
Dear Friends,
Well, for the past 5 months I have been working on storyboards for a TV animation (about 250 drawing last week, almost a reem of paper a month!) but now the real test begins for me. Today I returned to my 'regular job'. Business shirt, black leather shoes, the whole bit. I enjoy the job but compared to drawing all day... meh!
The question is 'am I going to be able to continue to practice enough to get 'good' whilst doing a soul destroying sales job 38 hrs a week?'
Stay tuned, the answer will become apparent.
In order to give myself the best possible chance (and to answer your question Bumskee)I'm endevouring to do the following;
1. Mornings; 30min studies. Randomly drawn subject from Vehicles, Heads and faces(male or female), Male/ female figure/ characters, environments, weapons, hands, feet.
2. Evenings; 30min studies (5min, 10min, 15min). Randomly drawn from a shoe, fruit/veg, simple household item.
3. Life drawing once a week.
4. keep a sketchbook.
I'll try to post as much of this as possible. I can assure you now, some of it is going to be terrible but if you like car accidents you might enjoy seeing some of my pretty ordinary drawings (and seeing them improve with time). Hey Bumskee, I take it my stuff reeks of needing studies? I don't doubt it.
Here are a couple of studies I have been doing recently. Crit the hell outta it!!!
Regards,
EtaCarinae
P.S. Hey JohnN, If we can pick this up and dump it in the other section I'll do it, otherwise here I stay. Thanks for caring enough to post a reply. I'd appreciate your feedback!
I'm sure if you p.m. or email souri, he will be able to relocate this thread for you.
keep posting, I'll crit when I have time (currently tying up loose ends for a trip to Melbourne *yay*)
seeing you are short on time I would suggest that you do some basic excercises too - they are quick to do and will allow you to really focus on technical skills and knowledge. I posted a sample of 'warm up' excercises for moonunit a while ago, but can't find the thread. it was just a page of basic volumes, spheres, boxes etc painted in grayscale. Didn't look very exciting but allowed me to practice perspective, tone, core&cast shadows, brush techniques and surface qualities... urrr, the point being... oh yeah, my 20 min warm up was used 100% examining and practicing these skills rather than 5 mins of deciding what to paint, 10 mins drafting it up and then only having 5 mins left to effectively practice.
anyway, food for thought.
Dear Friends,
Well, I'm doing alright on the drawing side but time has had to evaporate from some part of my life and it's ended up being the time I spend looking at forums like this and CA. Probably not such a bad trade off actually. It's better to be drawing than thinking about drawing!
Here is some of the stuff I've done as part of my 'regime' since my last post. Not so many morning studies. That's tended to be me flicking through e-books and reading Loomis rather than 30 min each day doing studies. But done a couple of nice evening studies and working in my sketchbook almost everyday, which has been a real hoot.
I know this isn't looking like much of a 'concept art sketchbook' but I've got some great advice from 2 great artists at Pandemic about some stuff to have in my folio so I'll try to post some of that stuff in the coming posts.
On that note, if there is any concept artists who can suggest what I should use as the core of my folio please let me know. If fact, anyone who wishes to make a suggestion, will be held in my good esteem forever.
Regards,
EtaCarinae
P.S. Nice one John. Your right, and I'm trying to incorporate a bit of this in my studies too. Cheers!
I like this guy with the suitcase.
Check out how bad the figure at the top is. Ugh!
For John (well actually for myself, but I had you in mind mate!)
Dodgy I know. From an excersize I found in a Loomis book. All this sketchbook stuff is drawn on the train which tends to crowded and bumpy.
Life drawing from week before last. Real problems with medium and line direction indicating form. I've pumped the levels on this so you can see it. My lines aren't really that confident.
These are the last drawings of the night. I just gave up and got loose after fussing around on the main drawing. I think the hand and foot are much better than the main event!
Same night, earlier on.
EtaCarinae2006-10-28 05:47:43
Hell! If Bumskee can do it, so can I!
(Except I can't.)
Evening studies.
Just could not get this thing to turn! No matter how I tried I couldn't get the left side to appear to be turning away and dropping back. What was I doing wrong?!
Didn't get this one finished, (note the shadow hasn't really been painted in) but still quite happy with it.
This weeks life drawing. Went for a bigger pad (A3) on a easel and used a polychroma blue pencil I picked up whilst working in animation and a dark blue prismacolour (great pencils!). Got a better handle on putting lines *across* the form, core shadow and drawing the eye. Still got a long way to go. Don't know what I'll do when life drawing shuts down over the christmas break...
How I spent my Friday night! Woot!
Problems with proportions but pretty happy with the depiction of light.
EtaCarinae2006-10-28 04:06:48
All looks good here :D
nice to see some life drawing being posted too. I got the same problem with christmas break in Adelaide, althoug hI think some groups here will only stop for a week of two, so not so bad.
the 'bumskee technique' pic aren't skiing their bums quite as well as bumskees' bums ski... I think I smurfed that sentence up! the pen sketches further up the page have quite a nice line quality to them though. It might be work trying the same process again but starting with a pen line drawing.
Dear JohnN,
Yeah, not a bad idea. I've got to do a few more characters so I'll give that a go this arvo if I don't run out of time.
Really the idea is not to try to be like bumskee, just to learn from him. The real challenge is to learn to look like myself (only better!).
Here's a few more I did last night in the same vein.
Regards,
EtaCarinae.
Dear Friends,
Can anyone tell me how to get the green and orange pencil out of this image? I'm using PS CS2 and have tried Levels, Curves, and various Contrast tweeks but the pencil line starts to break up at the same point the last of the colour is falling out! There has to be a way.
Regards,
EtaCarinae
don't use brightness/contrast - it is a simplifyed version of curves. Use curves instead.
...but, this technique might lose some of the fine line work when you remove the gray construction lines
for a more flexable, adaptable and probably accurate result:
1)darken black line work using levels.
2)select colour range, set selection preview to matte white, eye picking the black line work, use the + and - eye pickers and the slider bar to adjust selection to an appropriate result (previews live on the image)
3)make new layer and fill selected area with black
Sharpening the image at the start and/or end may help too. If the thick line work is looking too heavy or you are losing the thin line work do 2(+) versions, layer them on top of each other, mask out section of the top layer combining the best parts of both. If you are having problems seperating the colour out you could also try increasing the saturation levels before step 1.
Dear Friends,
Here's another character that I have just completed.
I'm afraid I let my training routine slip this week because of time, but I have a plan to overcome that next week. I'm also finding I want to use some of that time to do more finished work like this. My character folio was pretty anemic so hopefully this will beef it up a bit. Soon I'll have to do some character plans or orthos.
Thanks for the feedback Brain and John! I messed around with this one a bit to get it where it is.
1. Scanned it at 400 dpi.
2. G.Blured it 1 px.
3. Reduced noise (really pumped it to smooth off all the areas!)
4. Curved it.
5. Image sized back to 300 dpi.
6. Smart sharpened it.
Weird that it looks slightly grey. It doesn't look like that in photoshop!?
Probably not the simplest way but as I say, I was mucking around - experimenting. This technique did manage to smooth off all the jaggy's gave a more consistent line.
The folds of fabric around the wrist and ankles are 'puff flukes'. She's a paratrooper. These flukes catch the air when she's falling allowing her to control angle and rate of decent.
Regards,
EtaCarinae
Dear Friends,
Here's another character. After recieving some crits to 'amp it up' I started to work on this. Spent a lot of time wondering what 'amp it up' actually means and ended up settling for 'giving my level 1 character more money to spend on armour'. Also tried painting it. Hmm. Don't really like this and not even sure if it is finished but I think I've reached the limit of my skill for the time being. Working on something more complete like this is certainly good for your learning if nothing else!
I invite, Nay! I REQUEST crits on this painting!
Regards,
EtaCarinae
I still reckon her arm is too short, at least she can reach her holster now :P
Rufus Wainright's assassin is coming along, not finished yet I think (but when is ANY painting finished). As he/she/it is more or less monotone and lit with dull lighting, the elements a little dificult to read though. The line drawing is clearer regarding materials and details. I imaging 'amp-ing it up' on this piece might mean more dynamic pose, more exciting background/environ (something that will hint to the story and demeanour of this character) and more dynamic lighting.
Dear friends,
It's been about 6 weeks between drawings - that's no way to improve .
Here's a few things from before Xmas and two things I've done over the last 2 days. If anyone ever does a game based on shoes, i reckon I'm a 'shoe in' ... ahem.
Regards,
EtaCarinae
Almost a demo! No, just incremental saves.
Magneto from X-men 2. Various times... (10 min is best, never ceases to amaze me how hard I find proportions .)
This is a copy of something else. Not sure who did the original.
Here is the original. Again don't know who it is but they own the copyright.
And a 'copy' of Sparth that went it's own way.
Sparths original (copyright him!) ...AHHH, Sparth.
Hey EtaCarinae, I love your art! The lady with her arm out looks awesome; are you going to post a coloured version?
Also, I like your 'character's armour' pic as it reminds me of Samus' suit in Metroid Prime (GC). Did you have inspiration from that game by chance? :)
My only complaint is that it looks like the character is off-balance, even though in the coloured version you show with a shadow that the right foot is off the ground. It still gives me the impression that the character is falling over.
Oh and thanks JohnN for the tips for scanned line-art. I wrestle with the contrast and levels and am never satisfied with outcome. I'll try these tips out :)Skyla2007-02-11 05:09:50
Here's a quick 'futuristic vehicle', I spent about 1 hour on it and built it up from a silhouette, adding marquees, semi-transparent drawing, glazes and erase back techniques.
I'm still struggling to dipict form and feel alot of this grey stuff I'm doing at the moment doesn't really jive. I mean, maybe i just feels a bit muddy.
Regards,
EtaCarinae