Mental! Moist! Megalithical! Hyver's class in session...

[Hyver]

With the introductions out of the way, let's use this space for to post your results and questions. I'll do my best to answer and crit in a swift yet tasteful manner :)

I suggest you both read each other's posts and crits as well, but you knew that already didn't you...

for completion's sake, here's the task outline:
- on A4 sheets of paper, using pencil HB (mechanical and/or wooden is ok)
- draw freehand squares, not overlapping each other, in an interesting composition (not gridlike but smaller and bigger ones, look for interesting balance and weight) - no ruler: try to measure by eye, mark your guess lightly, see if you were off by measuring the sides with your pencil)
-aim for 10-15 squares per page
-one one page, fill in each square with gradients, range from paper color to the darkest black you can get with your pencil. go for the smoothest transition, but vary your rendering method per square. eg layered, crosshatch, scribbly, rounds, curves, etc)
-on the second page, go for more distinct textures. try fur, grass, leaves, silk, metal, rock, sand, grass, etc; again try to find as much variation as possible.

expected level-ups:
-linequality (more confident lines)
-measuring without tools
-pencil expression (pencil rendering!)
-mental material library (textures)
-composition

---------------------------------
and here's what you guys made of it:

LifeWontWait:

I am not sure if this is exactly what you wanted. I did what i thought you meant. I don't really know anything about composition so I did my best. My scanner is really awful and didn't pick up alot of the light tones... I tried to up the contrast on PS but it just didn't really work very well. On the second one I darkened it up again with my pencil just so it would show up.

Anyway, here they are. If this isn't what you were looking for I would be happy to do it over.

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/xrayspex138/Boxes1.jpg

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/xrayspex138/boxes2.jpg

Well, it wasn't exactly what i wanted, but since you did what you thought i meant, i'll work on my task-giving-and-explanation skills more ;)
Anyway, the idea was that you did a gradient in every box on itself, instead of spreading the 1 gradient over all the boxes. I also expected the boxes to be bigger... there's a lot of white paper space shouting at me now :) We'll get back on composition later on, so no worries. Choose for yourself if you think you need to do this over, but for me you passed (haha). We'll soon move on to the cooler stuff! (read further for more tips and stuff.. )

and then we have Cup of Joe:

I'm not later than I said, am I? Well, this gives me a better idea of how long it'll take me to do something like this. Some of these came out too big or just plain bad scans.
Also, I hope this I actually what the assignment was meant to be.

Page 1 notes- All squares.
-almost always too wide. Looks fine but measures wrong.
-Turned the paper on it's side, and tghey're now obviously too long. If I fix one, it looks off when i turn it back.
-Figured out that the side that's too long is always the side horizontal relative to the paper.
-1 measures right, but looks way off. are my eyes out of whack?
-Just realized that these are all more randomly plotted than compositionally planned. Also, i know nothing about composition.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5294/100407pg1lp9.jpg

Page 2- Value scales.
-Slightly squarer, but not enough line quality focus.
1. Straight diagonals, blunt pencil.
2. Diagonal hatching
3. Random direction hatching.
4. Curved hatch, random direction.
5. Straight hatch, alternating directions.
6. Grid-style hatching.
7. Circle Stippling.
8. Crap hatching
9."
10."
11."
12. Side of pencil.

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/5802/100407pg2ub7.jpg

Page 3- Textures.
- I know nothing about texture, so these are mainly from life. As such, I may make this a regular excersize.
-Seems like traditional pencils grab the paper less and allow for straighter lines.
1.Leaf
2.Painted wood
3.Wood
4.Metal
5.Ceramic
6.stained glass
7.cloth
8.broken brick
9.skin
10.plastic

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/6485/100407pg3ik7.jpg

You're bang on with the interpretation of the assignment, except the first page but hey nice extra there :)
You seem to have a natural tendency towards a 4:3 ratio... too much tv/computerrscreens in your life maybe? Try measuring before putting down the final line.. Literally place your pencil along the first line, point meets end of line, thumb and index finger pinc hthe pencil at the other end. Pivot 90° on fingered end, get the pencil to "stand up" on its tip and leave a slight mark. While drawing the line with a single steady slow move, use your peripheral vision to chekc the angle of your nex line towards the previous - after a while anything just off 90° will be easy to spot.

The gradients work out nice, though always check with squinted eyes, is this the smoothest i can go? Maybe this middle part is too "wide"? It's also interesting to see the results with a fresh eye. Think of each square as a cropped part of a picture, what could it be that we're looking at? Different styles or methods of shading give different textures and scale.
A note on crosshatching with variable-angled strokes: keep the angles closer together for a smoother transition (if that's what you would be needing, of course)


Good first round! moving on...
Next post will be your new assignment, post your own results please :)

[Hyver]

ok next task: set up a still-life using cd jewel cases, add a good lightsource (say a desk lamp) and draw, pencil to the paper.
Be advised: no shading! i want to see confident lines (no rulers of course), and try to convey the light/shade parts by using lineweights only. use around 10 cases for the setup. stack 'em, slant 'em, dangle 'em... keep it interesting for yourself.

boost your perspective skills, and linequality/lineweights. measuring too, of course...

you can use cassette tape cases as well.. or double disc cases.. i'm just asking for these type of objects because a) i know their dimensions so i'll be able to see if they were measured correctly) and b) they have sharp edges (as opposed to most dvd or ps2 game cases)

try to do this in one sitting.. i'll expect the results on monday
good luck, and have fun!

[LifeWontWait]

Hey guys,
Guess I screwed up the first one...sorry bout that. Nice work Cup of Joe... yours look good!

Here is the still life with the Jewel cases. I normally keep all my CDs in a case that doesn't hold the jewel cases and the jewel cases are in a box somewhere. I found a few but some are those really narrow cases. I hope these are alright.

The case on the far right is reeeeally messed up... hmph.
213744

[Cup of Joe]

Looking good LifeWontWait! Pretty similar to what I got. I also threw a cardboard box in there.

Also, sorry about the purple lines. My scanner's been doing that lately.

[Hyver]

waw guys i'm impressed.. great to see such spirit! i'm gonna have to step it up in the teachings i see :)

great job on the lineweights and line quality, both! And twice a solid choice of composition. On that note, as a small task, try to find the line of sight on your drawing. Where do you start looking at the picture, what attracts your eye the most? Try to physically slow down your eyemovement to capture every step it takes. There's no thing as a smooth eye movement, it's always in little (or big) jumps. Find those spots and mark them on your drawing + repost.

The perspective worked out ok for the most part. When doing perspective-oriented drawings (assuming there'd be drawings without perspective would be so wrong after all.. but this is not semantics 101), always check if your "parallel lines meet each other on their horizon". In other words, receding lines that have the same orientation (yes there's straight, gay and bi lines and that's totally no problem) go towards each other. all of them.
I've marked a few lines in Life's drawing to illustrate. (attached)

next task coming right up

[Hyver]

ok this might be a toughie, but it'll help you grow your drawing muscle so big even popeye would run away, i swear!

how's that for a little peptalk huh?

here's the deal. find a small mirror that you can place on your desk or wherever you draw. use it to look at your hand, draw your hand. use lots of foreshortening, create dynamic hand poses. build up that library.. i magine holding a gun, sword, maybe even use a stick for a handle and just draw the basic cylinder for that.. skip the neat weapon designs for now, our focus lies on a different scope right now :) granted, it would be fun... let's do weapon design next!
but first, gimme 20 laps on the dynamic hand drawing course, soldiers

diiiiiiissssssssmissed

[LifeWontWait]

Wasn't sure how many you wanted us to do for the exercise. Here are some of my attempts, if you want me to post more than this just let me know. I think I got better with each one that I did. At first I was really struggling to even get it to look like a hand as you can see.

Attempt #1:
215176

Attempt #2:
215177

Attempt #3:
215178

[Cup of Joe]

Sir Yes Sir!

As long as we're posting progress shots, I'll post my first half from today.

Lifewontwait- Nice job! That first page really isn't that bad.

[Hyver]

good going guys!
keep the focus on the lines (line accuracy as well as lineweights - just like in the cd boxes thing, i'd like to "feel" where the light is coming from only using lineweight)
i should've specified this more clearly in the task, i know :)

when drawing these, try to switch your mind/eyes to see the negative space surrounding your hand. often it's healthy to check the size and angle relations of the "blank space", since you're not biased about what shape your brain thinks it should have... am i making any sense at all? :teeth:

for your 21st hand drawing, draw one single hand gesture as big as possible on an A4ish sized paper. do a rock'n'roll hand, a thumbs up, whatever gang sign you affiliate with :)
go for gem quality in terms of lines.. this should be the best of the batch.. keep checking angles and measurements - and don't worry of a line is out of place.. just leave it be and draw the better line in the right place :)

also, for the near future, start looking for a white and black (or really dark blue) piece of cloth, doesn't have to be very big... handkerchief size :)

well that's a lot of smileys in one post.. especially for a classroom haha
thanks guys for working this hard, i makes me warm is places i never knew existed!

[LifeWontWait]

Here is my gang sign... yeah I know, I am really hardcore. :rolleyes:

I have a hard time measuring these... when I really take my time on them I end up moving my model hand and then I get all messed up. I did my best though.

The first finger and thumb look really short but they are actually tilted slightly toward the mirror... at least I THINK that is why it looks strange.

215751

Edit: Oh yeah... and I didn't leave all the lines that I messed up on (obviously)... there were too many and I couldn't see what I was doing. Perhaps I need to draw alot lighter when I first put it down.

[Cup of Joe]

Here's the last batch of hands and the big one. I'm really trying to convey depth throught line-weight in this one.

[LifeWontWait]

Hey cup-of-joe. The hands are looking really good man. I'm not very good at giving crits but if I were to say one thing it would be that the tips of the fingers are a bit narrow. It might just be because you have narrow fingers but I think even then it might be exagerated a bit? Maybe I am wrong... what do you think?

All your stuff is looking really good though and I am glad that we are working and getting better together! Keep up all the hard work man!

[Hyver]

all rightie now :)

you both have obviously grown in the lineweight/line quality/proportions department!
my remarks go for both of you (how convenient for me huh):
-proportions have gotten better over the batch of hands, clearly! keep in mind.. always check and re-check the width vs length of each fingerbone.. closer to the viewer means bigger, don't be afraid to slightly exaggerate this feature, especially when doing these so called dynamic poses.. it helps the viewer to read the image better.
-never neglect the pinky finger.. while it's not the most important digit for us in every-day use, it's very important to nail its shape/form because it often serves as a stoppie(*) and allows for great expression. go see some marko hands for the perfect illustration of this.
-you will have noticed by now: whatever pose you make with your hands, it's almost never just 4 digits lined up in the same direction.. remember this for when you're gonna do drawings from imagination.. put it all in your mental library!





our next task will combine all previous ones.. should make you sweat

start off with a warmup session (do these in one run):
-3 hands holding an egg (place the 3 studies on one A4 paper)
-remember lineweights / proportions / sketch lightly, go for confident strokes
-the egg is there for a reason... feel the shape.. it should have that typical tension in the curves.. the fingers holding it will help you measure its dimensions.
-make it a comfortable "pose".. with your hand resting on the table in order not to change your subject at hand (oh pun!)
-make notes on your thoughts as you progress and post them here

optional:
decide for yourself how well those egg-shapes are going.. if you're having trouble nailing that tension, do some eggs without the hand for instant power-up!

boss-type drawing to complete this level:
-A4 size, make the drawing as big as possible
-hand holding egg, resting on the table, place two pieces of cloth under your hand (so it rests on them)
-set up your lighting so that you have a good range of values (soft transitions and hard edges-
-do lineart first, like before, then when you nailed that, get into shading that puppy
-use one pencil, go for either HB or B (specify)
-use the entire range of values with the one pencil.. keep your darkest values for last, to punch those darkest areas to the bone.
-keep an eye out for reflected light or bounce light.. notice subtle value changes in the shaded parts (eg the light bouncing from the cloth back up to the bottom side of your hand/wrist/egg
-notice texture! how is your skin different from the cloth, how is your dark cloth different from the white? what does the table feel like? fingernails? the egg? tip of the day: texture (or bumpmap if you will) works best in areas where light meets shadow.. keep it subtle, yet convince me of their "material"
-go for top-notch-finished-quality in this one.. being the first milestone drawing, you're gonna have to get it right before moving on to the next level. don't let it hold you back though... if it's not quite there yet, we'll just do it over *grin*
-notes again.. .allow me to read your mind

general note on scanning pencil drawings:
-make sure your scanner software is not "enhancing" the image in any way.. turn off all sharpening, edge detection, level balancing, auto-contrast and whatever options it has (you might have to go in professional modus for this.. depends on your scanner software)
-don't enhance your image in photoshop or whatever either... while this can give good results, for this class i need to see your pure pencil work.. we'll visit the digital realm after this level ;)

[LifeWontWait]

Wow, I am having a hell of a time getting this to scan in correctly... a few questions if you don't mind.

What DPI should I scan in at? It says 72 is good for viewing online... should I use this?

Should I scan in black and white?

I really don't know how to get this to look like my pure pencil work without adjusting in photoshop (and even then it doesn't look right). I completely lose all the suddle shading when I scan in. Is it because I just have a crappy scanner or could it have to do with the settings? I looked in the "enhancements" section and none of those settings are turned on.

Thanks for the help!

[Cup of Joe]

LifeWontWait- Just turn off ALL the settings. At lest that worked for me. It might require a bit of levels work in PS or something, but not much. Also, Stevekim's first video was on optimizing scanning quallity. very good video, I suggest you check it out.

On a side note, I may be a day or two late on this. The end of quarter rush is just coming to an end.

[Hyver]

hey studs

i usually scan at 300dpi and do the rescaling in photoshop, down to about 800pixels wide for viewing on screen should be ok. this may be overkill, but you know what they say about old habits ;)

about the scanning options.. every scanner has its own quirks so i can't really comment on that. i'd say play around with different solutions and see what works best for you.. true enough though, not all scanners are good at getting the subtle value changes. i'm really happy with my trusty epson perfection 1670, but that doesn't really help you does it? :)
for what it's worth, my previous (cheapo) scanner sucked at that too, and i was half-glad when it broke down (i just couldn't justify buying a new one with the old one still working hehe)

don't worry about the timing.. better to nail it then to rush it

for the next level, i'm assuming you both have a tablet and access to photoshop?
also, do you have access to a digital (photo)camera by any chance?

cheers, and good luck!

[LifeWontWait]

I couldn't get my scanner to scan it in so that it looks how it does on my paper. In fact, i got so frustrated that i ordered a new scanner. lol. Hopefully it will work better! I bought that same brand as the one that you have Hyver.

Anyways, here it is with how my scanner scanned it in. I also did some extra linework... some of it is prett sloppy. The final one was done with a HB pencil. For some reason something looks off with the final hand... is it too long?!?

226231
226232
226233

EDIT: Oh yeah notes!! I didn't really take any good ones... sorry. I jotted down a few things during a few of the linearts. 1) Lines are too scratchy and not very confidence strokes. The line weight is not very good, probably because I haven't really set up a strong light source. 2) Havings lots of trouble keeping my hand in the same place... my fingers seem to be in a different location at the end when comparing to the start. Still have scratchy lines. I set up a stronger light source so I feel the line weight is a bit better. 3) Feel much better about this one. The lines are less scratchy and I feel I got the line weight down. I could have spent some more time measuring to get the proportions closer to exact.

On the final one I didn't realize I was supposed to take notes directly after I drew it. So, my notes as of this instant are: I feel it turned out pretty well but there are some things that bother me. The proportions seem to be off... perhaps it is too long? Another thing that bothers me is that I don't think I really capured the textures of the objects. I couldn't really figure out how to make the hand look like skin, and the fabric look like fabric. I tried to do a different type of hatching just to distinguish between the two which you certainly can distinguish but I don't think it acturately reflects what I am seeing.

Getting long... that is all!

[Cup of Joe]

Too tired, I'll edit in notes tomorrow.

Oops, sorry about that!

Part 1- Started light, using angular lines for the hand to try and get proportions right. I thought this might stop me from making those tiny stick fingers I have been making. I think I got the shape of the egg down good, but the lines are a bit scratchy. Also, the lines are a bit too uniform.

Part2- Looks a bit weird because my arm was perpendicular to my hand, so you can't see it from that angle. Proportions are a bit off because my fingers kept shifting so I had to just use my original block-in as a guide for the later parts when I couldn't change too much anymore. I did a bit of a no-no by starting shading at the top and working my way down the fingers, instead of blocking out the whole hand. I used mostly solid shading with hatching covering parts of it. Looking back, I should have spent less time on the hand and not neglected the cloth and egg as much. Even though I used slightly different shading techniques on them, I mainly just relied on higher values

[Hyver]

comments for Life:

1- egg shape loses some of its strength because of these "dents".. minor issue really, but you see how a tiny flaw like this can have a lot of impact on the whole.

2- note: this could very well be due to the scanner not picking up all values, so check on your original. right now, i'm seeing a lot of pure white areas, which would mean that their angle towards the light is the same all over, thus making it seem flat. find your highlights and keep those pure white, and render accordingly. also (and i didn't mark this in the example) there's areas in the palm of your hand that seem to be as light as the areas marked with 2.. i *think* it needed to be a bit darker at least not as bright as the whole highlighted area.

-3 this bit is i presume a bit of cloth bulging up right before the wrist? i'm not really able to read the 3d form of it.. so remember that, even in dark colored objects, you need the variation of values to show form and depth.

-4 i think your mind owned you there for a second.. the fingernails seem to have been drawn as symbols more than as how they actually looked? look at your fingernails in various hand poses and lighting conditions, and see if you can actually see the outline of them so well... in most cases, the shape gets lost in the values.. unless you have really dirty fingernails ;)

-5 try to follow the 3d form with your shading, more like you did on the rest of your drawing. when applying shading or rendering through several "layers" of pencil, it helps to keep the strokes real close to each other, and build up form that way.

all in all, these are minor attention points (the most important being 2)
i don't know your hand as well as mine of course, but the proportions seem good to me :)
the texture differences work well too! you've got the matte eggshell, the oily wrinkles in the skin and the fabric weave impression working in good relation to each other.
you made a good effort man! and kudos for the extra linedrawings, i bet you can feel the good it did :)

Before we move on to the next chapter, I'd like you to render out a single egg, shaded, with a drop shadow on a white surface. take points 1 and 2 in your mind particularly.

to infinity, and beyond!

[Hyver]

cup of joe, can we have your notes? thanks babe ;)

[Cup of Joe]

Whoops! Sorry about that Hyver, could have sworn I'd already done it.

[LifeWontWait]

Excellent critique Hyver! I really appreciate it, it helps tremendously.

This egg was alot harder than I thought it was going to be. I didn't scan it in because I do lose a lot of the lighter shading (which is why the hand is all white where you pointed out). I just took a photo of it and the only alteration I did in photoshop was adjusting the white portion on levels so that it wasn't so dark.

I hope this is a bit better.... the scanner I ordered should arive in 3-4 days so these crappy photos and scans will be no more in just a short while.

228799

[Cup of Joe]

Decided to do Life's assignment while waiting for the next one, so I thought I'd post it here too.