Chronbergs sketchbook

[Chronberg]

Hi!

I figured it was time to revive my old sketchbook. Averaging a couple of posts a year (totalling two!) was not.. how shall I put it.. very ambitious.
So I'm giving this a second shot!

Just wanna draw and follow my own and others progress.. getting/giving critique etc.

A few skulls and heads..

/Chronberg

sketchbook (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108239)
blog (http://www.chronberg.com/blog)
homepage (http://www.chronberg.com)

[Chronberg]

A portrait I did in july 06. This was to practice blending and shading. I traced the outline and I also picked colours from the ref :nohope: .
All painting was done without aid though. The original pillow had stains and some pattern on it so I decided to try to draw a plain white instead.

/Per

[Chronberg]

From being inactive for waaaay too long I just started drawing again last week.
First up, studies from Bridgmans Constructive Anatomy.

I feel that the proportions are my biggest problem as of now, but I'll just keep on going and hopefully it gets better over time.

[Chronberg]

On the last image in this batch I changed from ballpoint to regular pencil.. 4B.

[Chronberg]

More studies..

[Chronberg]

Yep... it's Bridgman!

[Chronberg]

Still fighting with proportions.. trying different ways of finding the contour or silhouette before laying down harder lines..
Filled my first sketchbook doing this batch.. felt kinda nice! Pathetic, I know... but still, a mini-milestone nevertheless.

[Chronberg]

So.. I guess this book is kinda boring..
However.. I think I will start doing some color-stuff with the Wacom soon!

[jackpot_anjr90]

Looks like it's been ages since your first post O_o!!! Hopefully by now you're not color picking from your references :P And nice Bridgman studies you've got! Keep up the work and KEEP UPDATING! :)

[ismo]

Very nice Bridgman studies. I'm studying the same book myself at the moment and just can't wait to get my hands on the Complete Guide To Drawing From Life I just ordered.

[Moosh]

Excellent studies!

[Chronberg]

jackpot_anjr90 - Thank you! Yep.. quite a while. Will try and keep away from that color-sampler from now on! :nohope:
ismo - Thanks! Yeah.. I'm thinking about buying his Life Drawing, Human Machine and Hundred Hands as well. More Bridgman to the people! :teeth:
Moosh - Thanks a lot!

A few more Bridgman studies... not very good yet.. but I will keep on hammering for a while! Maybe I'm just rushing a bit too much.. not taking my time to check the errors and correcting them?

I have been drawing some 30-sec gestures from the Posemaniacs (http://www.posemaniacs.com) site but will do the public a service by not showing them. They are just too strange looking. And also.. I threw them away. I get the feeling that it might be better to just grab some real footage and pause some frames here and there.

Kinda interested in gesture drawing though.. and will probably keep doing it.. I feel that I need some guidance though.. Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators (http://www.amazon.com/Force-Dynamic-Drawing-Animators-Second/dp/0240808452) seems to be a good book. Have read a bunch of positive posts about it.

[kev ferrara]

Very very good! Rah Rah Rah (I'm cheering you on.) Keep at it, you're doing great!

kev

[jackpot_anjr90]

Great Bridgman studies you keep dishing out! Would be great to see you put those studies to use through some imaginative work :) Keep it up!

[Chronberg]

kev ferrara - Thank you very much! Hehe.. I like cheering.. keeps me going. :painting:
jackpot_anjr90 - Thanks! Yeah.. that's one of my goals. But it feels like I need to fill up the image-bank in my mind a bit more first. Would be cool to start dabbling with some original stuff soon. Will try my best!

So.. some more Bridgman and a few black/white/grey studies.

[Chronberg]

A few more Bridgman studies.

I have been doing some other stuff as well... problem is that there are so many obvious flaws that I feel like more practice is in order before getting crits on them.

[Chronberg]

So.. a few mouthstudies and more Bridgman.
The mouths are reffed from photos and drawn with a 4B pencil.

I think its hard to get an even shading, especially the light tones (I did not use any particular technique other than varying the pencil-pressure).
Some of them also feel a bit "outlined" here and there, not being integrated to the surrounding flesh.

C&C:s welcome!

[Chronberg]

More Bridgman...

Got the book Force: Dynamic life drawing for animators (http://www.amazon.com/Force-Dynamic-Drawing-Animators-Second/dp/0240808452) by Mike Mattesi yesterday and am in the process of going through it. Really interesting.. and great, lively drawings as well. So hopefully, I can show some gestural stuff soon!

[Chronberg]

More studies.

[Sublimus]

YEAH! That's it dude! Keep rockin' those studies!

[Nezumi Works]

Oh Bridgeman, how I love thee! Great work on those studies, have you done much in applying his stuff to actual models (or stock photos)?

I really should do more Bridgeman work myself, there's so much he teaches in a few simple images.

[Chronberg]

Sublimus - Yeah.. thanks! Planning to do just that!
Nezumi Works - Yep, love them too! Not started to really applying it yet.. but will definitely do that as soon as I feel a bit more confident! Thanks for looking!

I think I'm operating a bit too much in Xerox-mode at the moment, but still feel that I am learning. The proportions are still not good but some aspects of the process seem to develop slowly but surely. I think I will try to analyze what I draw a bit more when the actual measuring/looking/drawing gets a bit more automatic.

More Bridgman studies.

[Chronberg]

More Bridgman studies.

[RenitaOraLlama]

The movement and muscles in those last few Bridgman studies are beautiful. I love them.

[Chronberg]

RenitaOraLlama - Thank you for your kind words!

Some more studies.

[AmontilladoAg]

I think your diligence with these studies is paying off already :teeth: Show us more!!!

[Chronberg]

AmontilladoAg - Thanks! What I'm feeling so far is that proportions seem to get a little bit better, which feels good. I felt I had absolutely no control over that in the beginning whereas now I feel slightly more confident.

More studies :teeth: Sorry about the lack of variety.. it will come.. promise!

[Chronberg]

Bridgman continued.

[V.I.N]

mhh nice. now we all know that you know every page of your bridgman book.
next step: stop copying and start to draw from nature or imagination... develope your own style

[laxon]

Some awesome anatomy studies here!

[Chronberg]

V.I.N - Yeah.. I'm soon finished doing studies from Bridgmans "Constructive Anatomy" but that's just one of the Bridgman books i own.. hehe.. more to come! :teeth:

On a serious note though, as long as I feel I gain something from the practice I think I will continue doing it. After this book (will finish it off in the next post) I'll probably continue working on gesture and maybe tonal anatomy studies...

As far as imaginative goes.. that is one of my goals for sure, but I feel that much more foundational knowledge is needed before doing something like that. I do however get lots of ideas, original designs etc.. but feel that I am not proficient enough to realize them at this time. Drawing from life will probably/hopefully also become part of my daily routine.

Thanks for looking and your suggestions!

laxon - Thanks a lot for your kind words!

[Demon Lizardman]

Coll stuff man, that baby portrait was pretty amazing, it actually looked real!

[Chronberg]

Demon Lizardman - Thank you! That was my first or second painting with my, at the time, new wacom. Took ridiculously long time.. I don't know.. almost 30 hours if I recall correctly. Pure shading practice, and I was really satisfied back then. Good practice I guess! Haven't been much drawing on the Wacom since then.. but I think that is about to change!

Here is finally the last batch from Bridgman's "Constructive anatomy" (http://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Books-Instruction/dp/0486211045).

What did I learn? Not what I initially intended or thought. I was targeting an understanding of the muscles, bones, insertion points, planes and masses.. Instead I think my hand/brain coordination, line confidence, proportion, "drawing each day"-areas where what improved most.

I think this boils down to me not having these basic skills of drawing. It feels like it gets easier though, so absorbing concepts etc should become more manageble when the basics are in place!

Next up I guess I'll start dabbling a bit more with gestures and get into tonal representation of anatomy.

[Chronberg]

More Bridgman. Delving into his book "The book of a hundred hands" (http://www.amazon.com/Book-Hundred-Hands-George-Bridgman/dp/048622709X) now.

Been doing gestures too but I still feel very dissatisfied about the look of them. Will practice a bit more before posting some of that.

[Chronberg]

More hand studies.

[Chronberg]

And more..

[Chronberg]

hands, hands, hands..

[Chronberg]

For lack of other stuff... more Bridgman.

[Chronberg]

More hands.

[Chronberg]

Still hammering away!

[Chronberg]

... and more...

[Chronberg]

A couple more.

[Chronberg]

Another batch..

[Marian Rowling]

Chronberg nice Bridgman studies I'm working my way through one of his book as well. Your hands look really good have you thought about trying to draw your own hand in different poses?

[Chronberg]

Marian Rowling - Thanks! Yeah.. I've thought about doing that and probably will a bit further down the road. Will finish of this book first and then add some more variety when it comes to drawing exercises. More general sketching and gestures, digital stuff etc. As it is now my sb is waaaay to boring to go through.. if you don't happen to like so-so reproductions of Bridgman that is :P

[Chronberg]

I have started working a bit on faces.. picking up were I left off a couple of years ago (my first post is about that). Back then I started to study the skull to gain a better understanding of the underlying structure of the head but unfortunately did not follow through.

This time my plan is to start with the skull from the side. Learning a generic skull fairly well (this time based on the illustrations from Stephen Rogers Peck's "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist (http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Human-Anatomy-Artist-Galaxy/dp/0195030958)". After that moving on to drawing the face superimposed over the skull. Then start studying the planes of the face, and at that stage also tinker a bit with value and light.

Starting off with some skulls. And also some faces based on those skulls. Both real and cartoony proportions mixed up a bit. Most of the faces are loosely based on random photos from the net.

[Chronberg]

Continuing on the faces. I have been pretty fascinated by Nathan Fowkes charcoal portraits for some time and decided to try and use some of the beatiful Reilly'ish head abststractions he showed on his blog (http://nathanfowkes.blogspot.com/). Mainly to get some underlying support for where to put the different values of the head. Although my attempts are pretty bland I feel that I got something out of it, and will continue practicing along those lines.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Chronberg nice to hear from you. Well done for doing all those Brigman drawings they look very accurate to me. You make me want to try harder with mine. Really like your faces they also look good and thanks for the link to Nathan Fowkes blog I really enjoyed it.

[BlackDelphin]

Wow and wow!! You draw a lot in one day!! And these bridgman look really good. I wonder how all these skills of your would look in a more complex drawing.

Just keep going, don't stop!!! :D:D:D

ps. do more figure studies too

[Chronberg]

Marian Rowling - Yeah.. it's been a few. I do feel that I need to vary my practice a bit so from now on there will be some other stuff as well (will continue the Bridgman studies in parallel though). Yep, trying to learn some basic proportions of the skull at the moment and also a bit about planes and values. I really dig Nathan Fowkes stuff, especially his portrait studies. Yum!

BlackDelphin - Hehe.. not in one day. It's over a number of days. Sometimes I'm more productive/have more time, sometimes not. Well.. I feel that I really need to be a little bit more well rounded before doing that. My ultimate goal is to not be hindered by technique and draw what pops up in my mind effortlessly.. but I have long road ahead of me before being able to do that.. if ever. Figure studies will come.. just not yet! Thank you for your kind words!

Some more skulls, from the front this time, and also heads based on those skulls. I did deviate from the skull on some of them to get a certain look. Will shade these as I did with the previous side views. Based on some faces found at Fellowhumans.org (http://www.fellowhumans.org/)

[BlackDelphin]

Ooh i know that way of thinking!! I tended to think so too, but now i just can't help myself! :)

I wish you luck onwards and do as you best think.

[Chronberg]

BlackDelphin - It all depends on how fast I progress I guess. At a certain point I probably can't hold back as well! :teeth:


Face studies from the front, continued.
Used abstractions again to find the planes and also as support for adding values. Ref used. Actually some of the faces became quite similar to the ref despite not going for absolute likeness. I wonder if that has something to do with all the Bridgman-studies I did/do.. sharper observation maybe?

[Chronberg]

Time for some non-human (well... a few hands thrown in as well :P) stuff.

Always been very inspired and interested in vehicles.. so I'm going to try and draw a few.

Starting with a slightly pimped version of a VW Golf. Just in the early stages so far.. will try and get the major stuff down first and then move on to details. Pencil sketch and PS coloring.

Also been looking into perspective lately. I bought a book on the subject called "Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up" (http://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-Point-Perspective-Comics-Ground/dp/1581809549) by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer, which I find very helpful. Really easy to understand but also covers a lot of more advanced (at least for me) techniques. Recommended!

Another perspective resource I found to be very informative was the tutorial-section over at Kevin Hulsey Illustration (http://www.khulsey.com/student.html). Lots of tutorials there but I have only checked out the ones concerning perspective.

Oh, and also, here (http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/tech10.html#index) seems to be a pretty vast resource on the subject as well.

And of course... rounding off with some Bridgman hands!

[Chronberg]

Some Bridgman hands.. but also something new! A sketch and some progress images of a caricature I've been working on!

I really dig caricature but have never completed a single one until now! I also started dabbling with color theory at the same time, which made the process a bit lengthy. Not to speak about the intricacies of human skin. But now it’s done, and it feels like I learned some stuff in the process.

Speaking of color. I read through a bunch of the classic, great tutorials from Ron Lemen on the subject (I have read them before but never practiced any of it), really helpful. I also found good info in an old thread over at Sijun where Jason Manley and a bunch of people discussed color. Great stuff!

[Marian Rowling]

Hi Chronberg I really like your latest studies. The car is very good as are your Bridgman drawings. Well done on your first caricature I think it looks good and the colours have come out well. I always look forward to seeing your posts so please keep up the good work.

[Chronberg]

Marian Rowling - Thanks a lot for your kind words! Makes me :rendered: !

Here are some stuff I've been doing lately. An in-progress caricature and two finished ones. Besides general polishing I will definitely work more on the likeness on the current one. I also include the finished car.

Happy new year everybody!

[Chronberg]

Mini update!

Just a progress shot on the caricature I'm working on. I have tried to improve the likeness a bit and also started rendering a bit more careful. Still a bunch of stuff to do on it though.

[Chronberg]

Haven't been sketching that much lately.. got sidetracked a bit. Wanted to try and do a couple of these cartoon ---> human kind of things. Liquify to the rescue :nohope: I did paint some small parts here and there to make stuff blend together a bit better though. Good ps practice if nothing else.

The finished semi-caricature I finished a while ago.

Well, now that I've gotten that out of my system I will continue with a car digipainting I'm doing.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Chronberg just thought I'd drop by and see how you are. Would love to see what you've been doing if you get a chance to update. :)