Nerahla - studies and paintings - come help me learn! ;) UPDATE TODAY!!

[Nerahla]

Please scroll to the END of the thread, as these sketches in the first several posts are years old.





Alright, here is a boatload of recent sketches. Sorry some of the images are dodgy, but I took cellphone pics of them before I got my scanner. All images are March 07 to current. The attached thumb is much more recent than these first...

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice1a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice2.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice3a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice2.JPG

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice4a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice5a.jpg

[Nerahla]

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice6a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice7a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practice8a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/hands1.jpg

[Nerahla]

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/profile0.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/profile3.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/try4a.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/try5a.jpg

[Nerahla]

Why I kept doing un referenced stuff I'll never know... but I was.....


http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/brionysmall.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/chick.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/chick2.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/mishiko_sketch.jpg

[Nerahla]

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/hobbit1.jpg

Then I got some smarts in me and began doing referenced stuff, Vanderpoel is just LOVELY isn't he? I love love love that book. This is only a SMALL sampling.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/necks.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/hands.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/torsos.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/studies.jpg

[Nerahla]

I think my fave sketch of all:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/bod1.jpg

from a magazine pic:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/ponytail.jpg

decided to touch my tablet again after nearly 4 months

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sphere1.jpg

then with color:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sphere.jpg

[Nerahla]

A little more painting now, all very recent.

website stuffs:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/logoaequinox.jpg

Decided to 'reference' the cover of the latest IFX magazine:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/ifxcover.jpg

and colored it:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/ifxcover3.jpg

CHOW, whee :)

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/CHOW78_runecaster.jpg

did this yesterday in about 5 hours, from blobs of paint I was playing with in PS.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/colors_fin.jpg

[Nerahla]

I told toasty in IRC that I'd practice noses today. I think this is about 28 or 30 noses? Anyway, I would have kept going but I have errands to run.

Most unreffed, some reffed w/mirror and some with pics of my kids.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/noses1.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/noses2.jpg

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/noses3.jpg

[Nerahla]

colored some of the noses... but been reading Order of the Phoenix (re-reading really) before the movie tomorrow so, more studies later!

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/noses_colored.jpg

[katsgod]

Great work in here...keep it up.

[shannowman]

liking it alot, your faces are very good, although why are there so few male portrais in comparison with all the female ones? Keep going.

[Whitevillage]

Your studies show that you're very serious about the subjects. For example those muscle and nose ones. I don't have a critque for now, but I'll keep watching you ofcourse. :)

[Nerahla]

Thanks everyone :) I should do some more studies soon. Gotta finish all the sketchbooks I bought :)

Did this today on a total lark - and got great help in IRC. Was fun - it's a self-portrait! HAHAH Sorta finished because I was sick of it before doing much with her below her face. Sorry about that.


http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/selfportrait7.jpg

[The Crazy Dude SRD]

That self portrait is beautifully done, your studies are definately helping your improvement; keep it up!

[Mat Kaminski]

Good jeebus! Your shading and coloring techniques are amazing!
Like I stated before lol, I think I'm a bit underskilled lol. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up to you guys hehe.
Well, anyway, the only thing I can say to critique, is just try to bring in some environment now, not much really to say. I'm still improving myself. Keep em coming! :)

[Nam]

Keep it up on the studies. Look forward to seeing how you progress.

[Jay_Gunz]

I am loving all your hard work, very inspirational! Keep it up ill be watching! ^^

[Nerahla]

Thanks everyone.

This morning and last night I was having yet another 'I suck and will never get better' crisis. I have them regularly.

Problem is, stuff like this happens....

I'm painting this in color, for something to do and fixing this and that... then i flip the canvas, and I see it totally different and almost PUKE at how terrible and bad it was.

It's still terrible.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/selfportrait9.jpg

There are so many things I have no idea what to do about. There has got to be like a list of 300 things you MUST consider when painting and I've learned like 5... and it's /SO EVIDENT/ and I want to just cry or quit or both.

Problem is, I've already paid for Bobby Chui's classes at schoolism.com so I'm stuck :/

[squidmonk3j]

keep at it, headin' in the right direction!:)

[Nerahla]

thanks squid :)

[Mat Kaminski]

Bah your coloring techniques are beautiful! Especially on that last one.

[Nerahla]

Thanks Malakai - I did something totally different.. I just did an overlay layer on top of the B&W and just kept trying colors until it sort of worked. Then I took a normal layer and blended it up.

Im going to try and do some gestures/studies today.. and also will be re-doing a painting I did 1 year ago, so I will post updates of that over the coming days/weeks. :)

[Nerahla]

alright small update -- First one is an IRC TD for 'metallic symbiote' -- it's a data feeder. He sucks energies into his body for food and poops out mostly energy as well, passing along the data at a faster rate...or something like that ;) I spent about 90 minutes or so on it. Sorry it's so simplistic but I was thinking it's so tiny, nearly microscopic, that it was basically single-celled, but crystal-like.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/irctd1.jpg


Also reworking an older piece (last july): the older Defiance:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/defiance_small.jpg

^^^ that one had a photo ref for the girl

this new one does not -- but there are lots of things I have to fix - mainly (as texahol tells me) what I'm trying to say with this image. He's so right -- so, this will probably change a lot before I even begin coloring.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/defiance2-6small.jpg

Yeah, lots of changes still -- anyway just wanted to post that I was doing stuffs...
http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/defiance2-6_small.jpg

[mrpank]

It is not so bad
I think that you have a bit to work with your anatomy

I like this work the most,
http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/colors_fin.jpg
the face went out simply magnificently and fantastic shading
cheers


ps. I apologize for my English, I'm still learning :D

[Shehaub]

Some great studies! I am curious where you are going to go with Defiance. I really like the start.

[Jason Rainville]

Nice studies here, you're makin' it happen. I'd like to see some more painterly stuff, as some of this is getting 'over blended' but that's a nitpick, and a personal preference.

I'll be watching 8)

[Viking Raider]

Wonderful you have here---I loved the first handful of face studies and especially the colored in eye piece. I'm just taking my first stiff steps into the world of color so I won't touch those pieces yet, but the BW rendering of shadows is great! I found a new thread to watch.

[Nerahla]

hey all - really small craptacular update but I haven't done anything since my last post - at all :/ So today I did a little and here it is. VERY little.. Heh

IRC TD: redesign a Spore character:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/creatures_6a.jpg

Then a horrible little mess of me doodling -- they go from right to left in order of when I did them. I swear I should do 100 not only 3 at a time...

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sketches_mess.jpg

[loveandasandwich]

I... LOVE that chow. Awesome. Looks like youre working hard with studies and whatnot. The portrait of the lady, her left eyebrow is too short! and should be up a little higher compared to the other. Her eyes are fantastic.

[topiKal]

Your work moves along really quickly. I noticed earlier you have a problem with getting frustrated. I have the same problem too pretty often but please don't give up.Your figures and painting are both improving immensely from when you started this thread. I see a lot of improvement in your studies too, everything in here shows a lot of promise. Please keep going at it, at this rate you will make a very good artist.

[Nerahla]

Guys thanks so much!! It's so kind of you to give some encouragement, it really means a lot actually, I eat it up!! :) Most of my frustration stems from my impatience. On bad days it is pretty darn bad :/

On good days, I don't mind at all that this is a journey of /years/ :) Today is a good day :)

Anyway, a little more messing around for about an hour or so.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sketches_mess2.jpg

[ForScience]

Keep going man you are on the right track. Painting on a colored ground is a really good way to to start messing with color. I find that I fight with my colors a lot less when I use a more middle0grey tone to start with, you might want to try that.

[Nerahla]

okay some more junk here -- wanted to practice some faces but realized my chins are crap. So I did some chins:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sketches_mess3.jpg

Then people in IRC helped me out and told me they were too big, so of course I went and made them too small next try, haha:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sketches_mess4.jpg

And here, a very quick and dirty sketch of a face, with a ref this time:

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sketches_messref1.jpg

Which I began to color last night -- and I'm showing it in this TERRIBLE and godawful state so perhaps I can get some crits to my workflow to see where I am always messing up, haha :)

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/sketches_messref1_color.jpg

Here is the ref image: http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/fashion-erika-2.jpg


I'm always making the eyes too small -- always. I wonder whats up with that.

[SantaClaus]

hey Runecaster

Its nice to see your work. for this last pic I would subjest you flip it horizontally a few times. I think this will help you see anything you might need to adjust before you get to far. The skin tone looks pretty good. and I like how you put the warm skin tones over the cool backround. But the shadows look a little dirty to me. And it will help you to look at the tonal breaks on the photo and make sure to include them. There seems to be a shodow under her nose and one on the right side of her face. well, hope I helped... Keep on going. I want to see how it turns out.

[Shehaub]

Do you, or your family have small eyes? My instructor once told me that one of the reasons I make eyes much larger is because my family has fairly large eyes. (Including me) You get a built in symbol system going and it is really hard to drive it out. Eyes are one of the first thing a baby starts to notice.

Have you tried something like THIS (http://480bc.com/sight_size/sightsize.htm) for a study of a photo? You can substitute a ruler for the string and a scrap piece of paper for the calipers. Just tape the photo next to your paper. It kind of helps train the brain to judge distances and sizes.

I enjoy watching your sketchbook grow. Keep posting!

[Nerahla]

hey all - just a quick and dirty enviro sketch I did tonight, about 1 hour.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/cavern.jpg (http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/cavern.jpg)

[irina]

Hi,

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook and leaving the nice comments!

I really like your studies -- and your sketchbook already shows great improvement! I also really like the conte-like studies on blue up there -- that eye is great!

Looking forward to more of your work!

[Nerahla]

Thanks for all the comments :D I am so excited to be starting this class!

Okay so here is my first assignment from Bobby Chiu's class at Schoolism.com

He did this wonderful video, we watch it - we download the assets (in this case, a piece of linework, which I shrunk HUGELY and slapped a watermark on -- it didn't come that way) and then go about doing our best to paint it like he explained.

The best part about this class is that Bobby comes back and individually does a video crit for /each one of us/ and more, we get to see each other's video crits! We get a week to do the assignment but of course I have multitudes of time on my hands, so I got mine done in two days.


http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/painted_assignment1.jpg

[boogz]

That's not too bad for 1 year. :) I like your shading, keep it up and amaze us, show everybody there is still hope to be an artist even when you're in your thirties! :)

[Nerahla]

Hahah thanks boogz, I hope there certainly is still hope! :) I plan to prove them all wrong if there isn't anyway :)

Here is another 1-2 hour mess around tonight, I had a photo ref, but all I did was eyeball it. I'm supremely lazy, I couldn't bring myself to tighten anything up.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/practiceman3.jpg

[Nerahla]

Did this to keep me busy before the second Bobby Chiu class.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/lollipop.jpg

[Nerahla]

did this today as practice, photo ref (obviously) but I just eyeballed it all.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/frggie1.jpg

Oh I forgot to post the second assignment from Schoolism.com

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/painted_assignment2.jpg

[Briantoreilly616]

You've got some great studies here, I like your style and strong contrast. Drop by my sketchbook of daily self portraits and leave a comment. I'd appreciate it: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=102861

[Tasha]

Wow that last one is kickass. A lot of character in there :)
The green seems a bit wierd to me..I think it would have been good to go with the same hue of blue you used for the trees maybe?

Also, looking at your grayscale: It feels a bit weird that the trees which are further back then the background characters (at least it seems due to the propotions) are darker then the those shamanic characters.

[Miles_]

Nice stuff here. Don't be so hard on yourself over your work its good and not every piece has to be a masterpiece. If you don't set yourself such high standards you won't always be so dissapointed. Keep it up.

[Nerahla]

Hi tasha!! :D those actually aren't my B&W images, they are from my classes. I couldn't draw that well!! haha! So glad to see you here!


Thanks Spaz, seriously that's nice to hear. Thanks for the encouragement :D I am trying! Though not as hard as some, admittedly. Life takes its toll on the time, ya know?

Anyway, I did have about 30 minutes last night, and here is the last page of what I did in that 30 minutes. I filled out the girl at the bottom in PS right before I posted this, just for something to do - she had a promising ass. Didn't spend hardly any time at all on these, felt more like gestures really.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/pencil1.jpg

[Nerahla]

This was my third assignment for Schoolism.com http://www.schoolism.com


It was interesting, I've never done anything like this before. We used the hand-done texture given (the cross hatch) and made several pattern overlays in varying hues in grayscale under the drawing, then, using the clone tool, sampled from each color layer that we wanted and 'painted' the cross hatch texture onto the drawing -- the results looking far more traditional than a typical digital painting. He also supplied a stipple texture.

It was another exercise in grayscale painting ultimately, while learning a new way to use the clone stamp tool extremely effectively.

Admittedly, at first I was annoyed and bored, but after awhile, I began to enjoy the process -- and it was fun to shade Bobby's wonderful drawing.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/painted_assignment3.jpg

[Nerahla]

well, I popped into IRC today to assuage a huge rush of wanting to play World of Warcraft again after reading about the expansion in a magazine. Hah! So, I doodled a sketch and asked if it was 'an okay sketch to use for a beginning form' and was resoundingly told /no/.

so, I went and did some gestures, which I usually do in my pencil and paper sketchbook but I was shown the 30 second thingy on Pose maniacs and did it in PS, here are the craptastical results. I am just MISSING THE BOAT HERE fellas. I must not get it.

http://www.aequinox.com/paintings/sketchbook/nerahla2gestures.jpg

[Nerahla]

Alrighty this is my Fourth week of the Schoolism.com online course with Bobby Chiu http://www.schoolism.com

This was pretty cool actually, never used photo textures before really - I had piddled around with it but of course didn't really know what to do with them. This was like a light bulb going off, seriously. I mean, he did all the work, the drawing, the values, the colors and then bam, you just use photo textures for the bulk of the difficult detail work. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot of painting involved that is done over the textures, and detailing... but all the folds of skin are just shortcutted - and the ground and cave walls.

First time I had tried something like this, was really fun... but then working with Bobby's /great/ design was the best part.

This image of his that he did was published in Spectrum - among others, so don't let anyone tell you that using photo textures well isn't really painting ;) All the base work was done prior to the textures.

[Nerahla]

This was Week 5 at Schoolism.com

We had to use the smudge brush to start building up the values from this line drawing. Then we painted over it some.

It was fun, but man, that beard kicked my hand's butt.

[N1ck]

Heya, nice stuff you have here. Your selfportrait on the first page looks really good, the colored one especially. There have been some little ups and downs in quality, some stuff really looked absolute good, on some other you seem to have been frustrated at that time. Think positive and dont let you get down by yourself.
The schoolism studies are looking good too, i'm excited what you will make with your new skills.

Keep on working, its great what you do, just do it with some more confidence ;)

[BurntUmber]

you've got a good ability when it comes to rendering/colouring those tutorial examples. But I think if you really want to advance you need to start at the beginning with your own basic drawing skills. Dont expect to become a genius over night. Start with basic skeletal anatomy and concepts of light and shade. Then move on to musculature etc etc etc.

Best advice I can give

[Nerahla]

Hey thanks guys. Umber - they aren't tutorials. It's an online digital painting class - it isn't a 'drawing' class. So yeah he's teaching about painting :)


Here is the latest assignment from this week - and a personal work as well.

[Texahol]

looks like you're having fun with bobby's classes, and learning some neat working methods.

on the gestures, some of them are looking pretty good, really nice gesture with pretty accurate anatomy. The 'trick' is to do billions of them.. [and switch it from 30 seconds to 90 seconds each]

on your old guy with a beard, I dunno what exactly the assignment wasy, but I would have used a large brush on the beard to block in values, and then gone in and drawn a few highlights to suggest strands of hair. More like what you did with the hair exercise of the girl. Would have been a lot easier on your hand :)

with your personal work, your colors are looking a lot better lately :) I'd focus on hard edges though, to help the form read. you've got all soft edges, which makes it a bit fuzzy. those boobs are gigantic.

[Nerahla]

Thank you Tex :) I ought to stop by IRC more often again - school is back in and I got crazy busy. Getting Halo3 didn't help either haha! :)

Here is some stuff of late, in various forms of finished-ness.

I will post the final from my Bobby Chiu class here as well, maybe even in the FF section (whee) I worked THAT much on it. hah.

[silvestri99]

Your stuff is coming along really well..you have a strength in your shading and tone work. It seems your real weakness at this time is your anatomy. Keep working on your proportions and figure study, and most of all keep posting!

[DoubleXdragoN]

Oh wow, you have some really neat stuff here. I shall check back now and again!

[Nerahla]

Here is the final assignment from my class at Schoolism.com

had Bobby's lineart for the creature only and did the rest.

[Nerahla]

Did this up today, a day late for Halloween -- but inspiration strikes when it does I guess.

[Nerahla]

Just something I've completely recently, a fan art for my World of Warcraft mages, Mishiko and Chibidoom. I call it "Elemental Sisters"

[lefran]

i really like your sky fisherman CHOW entry! the frog is nice too :)
also your studies are looking better and better all the time, your paints are getting better too!One thing ive notice although its not all the time, your eyes are somtimes a little high and far apart. i look forward to some more updates!

[Coleb]

Hey Nerahla! I´ve looked at your SB before, don´t know why I didn´t comment. Sorry.

Awesome work on the painting. It looks like a really useful class that you took advantage of. Especially liked the texture work. I think you´ve come a long way. And I´m envious, since I feel like I´m reínventing the wheel alone in the wilderness every time I fire up Photoshop.

I didn´t think the gestures were bad either. 30 seconds is really hard.

On your facial anatomy - I think you have the tendency to lengthen noses. That makes the chin and eyes look off, even though by themselves they may be OK.

And I especially liked the tree frog!

Keep up the good work - it´s paying off whether it feels like it or not. Perspiration v.s. inspiration as Einstein said.

[Nerahla]

Yeah I really need to delete the sketchbook faces, because they are over 8 months old. I don't do faces like that anymore :) At least I hope I don't! eep!

Everyone likes the frog, which totally annoys me, since it's directly reff'd from a picture LOL

Thanks so much for the feedback though -- it means more than you know :) and I didn't know einstein said that :D

[Nerahla]

Okay here are some stuffs I did last night. Some were done quick and some not so quick. I betcha you can tell which is which :P

[Qitsune]

How will we see your evolution if you delete the old stuff?

[Nerahla]

Yeah, I thought about that, that's why I didn't delete it, I just put a big old "PLEASE SCROLL DOWN" thingy there. haha.

[chaosrocks]

yeah leave the old embarrassing stuff
its good to watch some on learn and grow. and you definately are. post more.
If you help me with my TD piece I'll help you with yours :P
the muscle studies are really nice
the elfs nose is crooked.
when you make things up you have to be even more aware of the rules of propotion etc
Not to worry you'll learn...I cant do it either
good to see you in IRC
its a fun crew
crx

[Nerahla]

Heyas Chaos! LOL you have no idea how badly skewed that elf head was, I drew it with the sketchbook flat on my lap, and when I lifted it up to see.... HOLY COW it was SO skewed to the top right, like a /. I tried to fix it with PS but just gave it up as a bad job since it was just a measly sketch anyway.

We can totally help each other!! I can't wait to get it all started. I plan on doing more studies this afternoon actually, while my kids and I watch Shrek The Third, so more posting goodness later!!

[Nerahla]

Okay here is four pages of REALLY uninspired sketching. I did it because I said I would haha. You can tell :P Anyway, my Terry Goodkind book came in yesterday and all I wanted to do was read it. :P

Anyway, I totally cut and paste everything and shrunk stuff to fit, so it would all be on one page.

[Nerahla]

two doodles - they mean nothing, I just hadn't sat down at photoshop in days and days and felt I needed to. I spent perhaps 1 hour or so (didn't keep great track) doing both.

[Nerahla]

apple I did for my Mentoring thread. I have mentees! Whee :)

It makes me think about how I need to work on my Mentor thread where I am the mentee. Ouch, bad me.

[Blue Severin]

Hey Nerahla, like the progression of work in here. The las digi enviro has a nice feel to it. I'd say on your faces, instead of trying to learn them straight through formula, it might help you to use the formula to draw faces from magazines and other reference. Build the ol' visual library and all that.

[Nerahla]

Small update, haven't done much in the past 10 days, as 3 of these pages are just from last night!

Doing my LMS entry at the moment.

[alesoun]

I can't say anything that hasn't been said already. Just keep on keeping on....

[Nerahla]

CHOW entry #99 :)

[Nerahla]

Just some Holiday Cheer -- painted for my Christmas cards I send out to family and friends.

[zephyri]

Hey Nerahla, I recognised the name from dA I think, you follow me there, neh? And then I saw the tag under your name and recognised you immediately from CGTalk! Nice to see your works here... It was fascinating to see the Bobby Chiu workshop images and how he got you to work, I'd love to take part in something like that myself one of these days. Your own work seemed to benefit from it nicely in terms of colouring.. i'd like to see you implement the texturing thing perhaps on on of your own pieces too. Looking good with the anatomy stuff too. Nothing too much to add other than keep going the way you are. Have you don any skull studies yet? I was amazed at how my understanding of the human had improved after I'd done a few skull studies from various angles.

[smugbug]

Hey chicca! Stopped by and noticed you've been making some GERRRATE improvements! Keep it up!

[Nerahla]

Hey Sam!! Yeah I do +watch you at DA :) It's awesome that you're here too - are you a member of the girl forum yet? we gotta get you an invite!

I did a skull study eons ago, but only one so umm yeah, haha I should totally do some, because that makes a LOT of sense. Besides, I love it when I can whip out my pencils and relax on the couch. :D

Thanks so much Patricia, you're so sweet do you know that!!! :D Coming by here just to be supportive! It's nice of you :D


And here is a weird little doodle that became a painting almost by itself. Yes, I know, it makes NO sense. Hah! I call it Sweet Cheeks. :P

[Nerahla]

Okay so like, here is my LMS3 Entry. Gah, it's a mess - but hey, I'm super proud I finished and didn't puss out!

[The Crazy Dude SRD]

It's been a while, and I see your doing well. Your life studies are turning out very well done. I noticed that you noticed how things become skewed when you draw on a flat surface, such as a table or (as you said) lap. Remember that the eyes will trick you when you're drawing at angles, At that specific angle the drawing did look right to your eyes at the time while you were drawing. As a rule of thumb, whenever you draw, keep the page parallel to your head's position, this will always help keep (unwanted) distortion away.

Your use of color is becoming exceptional. Mr. Chu's classes must be helping greatly with that as I can tell.

I really also like to suggest that when you have the time, Try breaking down the forms that your drawing to simple forms such as cuboid/spheroid/cylinders types with minimal rendering and at different angles (especially useful when drawing from life), this will give you more to actually draw and help you think of things in three dimmensions and improve depth.

Later,
Shawn

[waheednasir]

hey Nerahla, some really fine stuff in your thread, oh i did enjoy the tour...). uve done a lot and that too is very good. i like your studies (manual) and digital pieces. the card for christmas and "sweet cheeks" are very well handled, nice soft rendering...:). its so good to meet u here.

cheers.

[Shard]

excellent studies!! really liked those shading tests..keep it up!

[copperfire]

these are very nice! post more!

[Nerahla]

hey all!! thanks for all the votes of confidence, it means a lot :D

Here is a little thing I did for my sister and brother in law and their new baby :)

Also hope to post something I did for ImagineFX's Art Class soon!! It's really cool :)

[Nerahla]

Okay so like, I can FINALLY show this!

I did this for ImagineFX's magazine's Art Class feature. They paired me up with a Pro (Nick Harris) and he took my original Image [see above] and then painted over it with ideas.

I then took my own original image back and used his ideas to paint my own version... all with the intent of answering my questions regarding my piece and artwork.

We did this over a period of 4 sessions, over email. He giving me tips and paintover ideas and me taking my piece and painting myself.

I never used his paintover work, I always worked myself on my own image - so this is all mine.

I really can't believe I painted this LOL it made me feel really confident and good about my painting, this exercise -- and Nick taught me SO MUCH. He's really quite wonderful and was so easy to work with. I'd LOVE to collaborate with him again to get his help and insight!

[Nerahla]

Done for this week's CHOW --- The Host.

I call it The Wild Hunt.

[AsaB]

Hey Nerahla :) Been browsing through your stuff and man, talk about improvement! Especially in your colour, there are miles between your current stuff and from page 1! You're doing the right thing by learning from so many masters. Like the newer version of Sweet Cheeks is amazing, the difference is such that I'd have thought it was done by a whole different person! The CHOW is looking amazing as well, the atmosphere is very eerie and has a great colour palette. Keep at it!

[Nerahla]

Okay another chunk o' bunk update.

cards are done for rgcardgame.com :)

[Nerahla]

Did this today for fun, I have one of these little radish buddies sitting on my desk and they are so cute. Just for fun:

[ditchman]

nice improvement since page 1! I think on that last image the white highlights on the vine look very unrealistic, they look good on the grey radish guy, but if you shine even a very white light on a green vine - it wont make it lose all colour.
the best advice i ever got from one of these forums was when someone told me to stop shading with black and white, so I try to pass it on if i ever catch anyone doing it. keep up the good work

[Nerahla]

Just a couple things :)

[Giow]

you really have a great painting technique!
i really like the style of your hand drawing also.

keep them comin' ;)

[Nerahla]

on the advice of a friend, trying some B&W:

[Nerahla]

still working on the cards for rpgcardgame.com :) It's quite fun!

[Nerahla]

Just something I did for fun -- it's a Fan Art of sorts, I referenced a sketch of Kei Acedera from her and Bobby Chiu's book "Fairy Sketches" and then painted it.

It was fun! :)

[Nerahla]

more for rpgcardgame.com


EDIT: Decided to go full blown with the BG and flesh it out some.

[Nerahla]

just some more rpgcardgame.com stuff. if I like the png, I go back and do up a background and clean it up a little. :)

[Nerahla]

did this little lighting study in an hour tonight. Not sure what I even grasped from doing this.. not sure what I was trying to accomplish, either.

I think I'm trying to figure out what the best color to use for a highlight... I dunno. They all look like cubes so I guess they were all successful in their own way, but really -- I'm not sure.

I just directly colored the top of the cube with the color of the light, then I tried to estimate the side of the cube on how the base color would be affected by said light source.

I also estimated what color the shadow would be based off the light source.

I'm really just stabbing in the dark here.

[Nerahla]

Another card :)

[Jansi]

Wonderful painting technique! I also like you cube studies, very interesting) It is rather important to think about what the colour of the shadow is according to the colour of the light source. One can often ignore/fail to notice such important things that are, really, facts of life.

Well done and post more! :-)

[mya]

Nice work, I really like your coloured cube studies - very disciplined!

[Arteater]

great work, you have some awesome anatomy skills. your lighting is great too. keep it up :)

[kelly x]

Hi and you are doing amazing work here! good job and we all want more... Kelly

[Nerahla]

hai guys! =D Thanks so much for looking and commenting, it means a lot to me :D Thanks for all the kind words, too... encouragement like that really helps me with my motivation. So taking the time out to post is awesome, thanks a lot!!!

I had this amazing fantastic conversation with CA's own Texahol in IRC the other day. He's sooo kind and always, always, is willing to help. He helped make something clear for me that I'd been struggling with -- he helped me better understand what value means in regards to lighting and painting in general. It was one of the keenest, particularly awesome moments I've had on this Artistic journey so far, and I am eternally grateful to him for taking the time to coach me and help me. It means SO much.

So basically, he showed me some of his own pieces to help illustrate. I'd been in IRC asking about lighting for a couple of days (he was never present until that time) and just not getting the answer I was looking for. I'm sure I wasn't asking the right questions! :) He helped me understand the fundamentals about how each element of a painting has it's own value scale. Up until this time, I was using 1-100 for the entire piece, no matter what I was drawing or painting, it had a 1-100 value scale. I think I dumbed into correct values a couple of times in my paintings, but it was never on purpose... it was all happy accidents.

Anyway, I've been REALLY busy with the holidays, and we're going on vacation next week, but I was able to squeeze in some quick studies today (2 hours about for it all) with what I've been digesting. I'm so excited to do more!

[ditchman]

it's great when you get those 'ah! now i get it' moments. I wish I had more of those
nice illustration by the way. reads very well

[Trashy]

good updates and nice sb Nerahla. Yeah, values are insanely important when working on pieces. Those cubes and circle studies will help you tons. The basic's are the best.

[Nerahla]

hey guys! thanks for the responses -- I've been on holiday this past week and a half (the fourth of July-ish through now) and had a blast, got a new puppy (omg tons of work but fun!) and just started painting again.

Here is what I did today. I tried to bring what I've learned about values to this one, it was a different experience this time, I felt a little more prepared about what I set out to do. It felt really good actually, understanding a little bit more!

just about 2-3 hours work on this, the final is only 150x220 so it doesn't have to be super detailed :)

[Nerahla]

another card for rpgcardgame.com :)

[Nerahla]

Necromancer for rpgcardgame.com

[Nerahla]

These are sort of self-explanatory. The first one is basically directly from the PS thread and the second one was me practicing how to better paint hair. I didn't spend very long on each one, but I hope I picked up something for my next painting!!

[Nerahla]

just another card finish, I really ought to spend more time on something of my own - max 3 hours on these just isn't getting the results I want. :P

[RandAlThor]

Nice characters dude, you should show them in the context of actually being on a card (just a mock up) to get a better read etc. Interesting gray-scale logic there, i'll have to look into that, sounds like it might work tho... keep it coming ;-)

[Nerahla]

Thanks Rand! I didn't think of that, as I send off a tony PNG to the fellow who is paying me for the cards :) He pops them onto a BG and does whatever to them, I've never seen a finished one. I should ask! :)



Here is something totally different! :

I was reading a friend of mine's journal =mistressofspam here: [link] and she writes so evocatively that I just totally "saw" a scene in her dream.

Well, here is my interpretation of a single scene in her dream.... very very heavily Michael Whelan influenced. Probably why it seems kind of odd and surreal.

Anyway, I like it, it came out pretty much as I'd imagined, and that's all we can ask for!

[Nerahla]

couple more stuffs, sketches ref'd from the book "Fairy Sketches" by Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera.

[Nerahla]

Priest for rpgcardgame.com

[gardenrusalka]

Your color is really something to look at. I especially like the girl with the glassy eyes and fishing with the feather. Beautiful. Don't give up!

[walnut]

I like that masked ninja girl, you did good on the values there. There's one thing: have you noticed that all the women you drwa/paint have the same detached expression in their eyes? Think it has to do with the lowered eyelids.

[Nerahla]

got some help in IRC and here is an updated version of the Priest.

thanks for all the kind words :) I dunno about the expressions, I think I just like vacant-eyed women :P lol just kidding, I'll look into that.... try something different?

[Nibras]

wowzy at the improvment :D
Really awesome awesome awesome
it's amazing how much you progressed!
I love you latest characters, design and everything their soooooooo great!!!!!
Please do keep it up and keep posting, because your characters are great to look at
peace keep at it and have fun :)

[monotony]

your characters for the cardgame are really cool. that greyscale to color method seems to be working well for you.
Also like the recent sphere studies and the thoughts behind it. Might give it a go myself. really inspirational.
nothing helpful to say at the moment.
try doing some male characters again, though. last one was way too long ago. and thanks for the good critics on my work.

[brentos8]

Thanks for stopping by my sb, you got some nice stuff here, I've got to look into that grayscale some more looks like you have something there. I did some cardgame work and it was interesting to see what the art looked like on the actual card, you know I thought I could have pushed the value more on my art to match the card design. Keep it comming:)

[T_manAKATruman]

your characters are kinda flat and need more added dimension+use layers and paint saturated paint bucket. Start with black and white before jumping into color. and me i find it easier to post photoshoped stuff than scanning.

[zenichi]

great improvement in a years time! it helped me personally to see your post on your study for values, do share more in future. what stand out early on in your sketchbook is the "second assignment on schoolism"! also could you share the paint over images you received as comments in your ImagineFX exercise? or has it been discussed in another thread already? cheers

[Nerahla]

Oh I never thought of that zenichi, I guess because they showed them in the magazine... but I can make a little vignette at some point when I get time, sure!!

Monotony, thanks so much for all your encouraging words :D I'm doing females because they are meant to be Amazons, so tons more girly pics to come :P

Just another rpgcardgame.com update: Mercenary ( I got help in IRC with this one)

[Nerahla]

Spearwoman:

[Hauxe]

Wow Nerahla.

First, thank you so much for the kind words of encouragement on my SB.
It really helps :)
Also, your work load here is just inspiring. My only tip would be that the facial features on the priest, mercenary, and knight are a little too similar. I'd love to see you do a few quick sketches of a bunch of characters with different ethnicities.
Keep up the good work!

[Nerahla]

thanks alleluia, you're right, I haven't ever really tried to do really different faces yet -- and all these cards I'm doing are women... I at least ought to try and make them unique :P


Something I did for fun while on vacation:

[ditchman]

nice, a lot of people who are familiar with photoshop hate to see that star shaped brush being used, and can get really shirty about it (I'm not one of them by the way)

is that big space on top for some text?

[Nerahla]

Oh I didn't think about that ditchman, it started out as a very small sketch ( that's 100% working size right there) and I just wanted to give her a little breathing room, so I added the top part later. Also, about the star brush, it was completely intentional, as was the red/blue hair - because I was watching the Olympics while painting it and felt a little patriotic :)

Anyway, this enviro is done for an online book adventure called Heileen http://www.heileen.com and I just picked up the job to do all the backgrounds for it!

[Eon]

Your painting has really come along. It's reassuring to us all to see progress in others. The greyscale exercise has been instructive and I like those two amazons, well done!

[boybalasa]

nice stuff so far

[Nerahla]

Thanks guys!! I hope there has been improvement!! haha :D Here is another TCG: Javelin Thrower (rpgcardgame.com)

[teena_mom]

heya :D wonderful stuff here keep it up :D

[shiNIN]

it's nice to see your improvement and there are some good-looking amazon here :) anatomy is your strong point I see.
I usually like the bodies better than the faces, as for the latter, I hope I'll see more expressions and more variety in your future works.
I like your color/hair studies too.
keep it up :D

[My57]

hmmm faces need work. Just do more face studies and it'll be allllll gooooood.

on the plus side your anatomy is good, and your colouring is also pretty well as well.

Just keep it up and you'll do fine. I myself suck at drawing faces without a ref >.<