JHarfords sketchbook // {1st sep - Pool ball study + underwater action!}

[jharford]

wow, the work here is pheneomenal , the amount of quality sketchbooks and artists is just mind blowing. I've had a couple of sketchbooks here in the paste, but just ran out of personal time. I think now things are different, I got married, have my own place and i'm at a stage where I really do have the time to draw and learn. I'm realy hoping to get a lot from the art, artists and advice here on CA. I've been painting and drawing all my life, but never in a serious capacity. I can't count the number of times i've picked up a new sketchbook and pencils, sat down and started sketching, and just got totaly de-motivated the more I drew. The time now feels right for me to get a grasp on fine art and concept art. It's important to me, to be able to express my opnions and feelings through art and it's a huge bonus for my career too.

I'll start with a couple of drawings from this morning I'm starting out with 30 arm studies. Here are the first few. I'll post as much as I can and promise to accept any crit , feedback , no matter how honest. Everything I post will be from today.

Cheers in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond.

[jharford]

The pics

[jharford]

Digital study

[Kfeeras]

great start looks very promising! keep posting, and thx for your comment

-antonio

[jharford]

Kfeeras Thanks ! any tips? I'm having some trouble crosshatching / shading along the form properly. Sometimes I do it the wrong way and the form breaks :/

More arms!

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:lifedrawing:

[Radio24]

awesome arm studies! nice clean lines. I'd say do some more foreshortened arms.
strong start, keep em comin!

[jharford]

Radio24 Thanks man, that's a good idea, i'll do some more of those,

Heres a few more, and some shockingly bad heads!, Althought I like the top left one .

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[arttorney]

I think the cross hatching is good more frequently than it's bad. Just keep practicing until you feel you are always making something look the way you meant for it to look. If you want to study other cross hatchers around here, there is Mentler (who will also rub out his ink a little bit with an alcohol swab so it's hybrid hatch/blend) or Kev Ferrara whose work I find a little busy but highly technically proficient.

If you are interested in a little looser approach to lines, I highly recommend Tensai's sketchbook.

[BRINKMAN!]

Looks like a good start! The arm studies are great! The heads suffer form some anatomy issues, but judging from the quality of your arm studies I'm sure you'll solve them if you keep your nose to the grindstone. Keep at it!

[jharford]

Arttorney Thanks a lot arttorney, mentler really has the crosshatching thing down to a T! I'm going to go look at kev's work now and study that.

Brinkman
Thanks mate, I'm glad they are of an OK quality. I'll keep it at hard!

A few older images I haven't posted anywhere before ( that doesn't mean they are secret or good :P )

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[Eon]

Hey Joe! First, congrats on the wedding! Welcome to our SSG, from now on there will be no more of this de-motivating business. Kiss it goodbye :P that's what we're here for.

I like how you show mass with your hatching and some of those foreshortened hands are quite difficult. They're very well done. Love the first digital study. Strong work in your sb, looking forward to the journey!

[snootchy]

Sup jhartford, awesome hand studies and hatching! I also have a difficult time hatching across the form if you got any tips send em over my way.

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE

Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.


Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 )

[jharford]

Eon Thanks! , The wedding was fantastic. I'm so happy :) No more de-motivating? sounds great!
I'm going to continue the arms tonight, as there are plenty of ref photos left and I haven't hit 30 yet.After that I can have ice cream :P
Hatching is fun, but your right, a few strokes wrong and the form breaks. Arttoney gave me some really useful artists to study.


snootchy Cheers buddy , I'll send some tips as soon as I improve!

[Brun]

Great sketches, looks promissing, love to see more soon :)

[D.C.]

Great arm studies, good clean lines. Keep on doing studies as many as you can, they'll really help you.

[Peetaer]

yo j. the artgasmic force will see its mission statement realized! welcome!

lets see some more work. what you have so far shows a lot of potential.

arm sketches are looking nice. as far as improving; don't think, just look and then draw. if you're drawing and its something you're not satisfied with then keep just keep drawing. a good practice would be to just draw with no preconception of what you want to draw. i often just start drawing and see whats coming out. you'd be amazed how much information is stored in the unconscious. build your muscle memory!!!

[jharford]

Thanks everso much for the comments guys, i'll respond properly in the next post with work.

Heres the plan for the next 5 hours. Its the weekend and i'm going to nail this.
3 20 minute photo studies
1 hour copying anatomy from bridgman
2 hours digital painting
1 hour of something else :)

See you in 5 hours with posts.

[grenappels]

artgasmic force lol... hi there, i see you've made an artistic to do list. i try that to but i usually cannot restrict myself from spending way too much time on one thing or trying another in the process etc. power to you if you can actually regulate your drawing exercises, wish i could. anyway, nice stuff, the arm studies are clean and confident and you show potential to own with the wacom. post more so we can seriously crit!

[jharford]

Thanks Grenapples!, I'll post more now :) and later.
Your right, it's hard to regulate them, they run into each other, but if I go over by 30 mins thats okay, as long as I output the desired amounts.

Here's the first 2 digis.

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[Freddy Lierman]

You picked the hardest photos damnit !
But it was real fun I admit. We'll be doin more of these.
Aside from the fuzzyness and the croppy image height on the last one, they be lookin great. Good exercises. Lets do some more ! (tomorow)

[jharford]

and the third.. phew!

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[jharford]

Last digi for tonight ( I think ) ,
scanning in bridgman stuff too now.

Another burlesque dancer.. Crazy colourful feathers are great.

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[snootchy]

nice use of the rake brush on the feathers

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE

Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.


Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 ) l Droemar (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134011)

[jharford]

Thanks snootchy, rake brush is pretty cool but hard to get used to.
cheers

[Dark Razvan]

I really like your pencil studies, nice use of colors in your third digital pic too! :)

[jharford]

Heres another! cute Taiwanese kid , aw.
cheap concrete overlayed over the image :P.
I could image this being chalk painted on a wall and the kid actually walking past at the same time, would be a cool photograph


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[Freddy Lierman]

Good round J-man ! ( J-man ? really ?)
It's cool to see how different yours always looks to mine (not talking about penises this time).
It's cool to see how we approach it differently. And I get a better perspective on how my piece looks you know ?
Cause I often get lost in my piece and don't see it for what it is, by comparing it to yours I can see better where I went wrong and where I went right. I guess that's a compliment and a crit at the same time eh, hah!

Anyways, we'll do more of these !

[jharford]

Haha, hells yeah man, that's how I feel about it too, it's really good to get a perspective on a piece. We can do another few tonight with mario and gm , thats 4 to compare with, pretty useful!.
Cheers

J-man :D

[grenappels]

i wanna try too! i need to get more into digital painting but i find it boring but if im doing it with people it will be fun. do you use open canvas online with each other or just share the ref link?

[jharford]

another digi with freddy and mario, more later.. 15 mins. Good fun.

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[jharford]

Hey grenapples!,
No OC , I can't get that working yet! only through hamatchi , and that's a pain.
Are you on msn ? Or I can post up the next flickr pic we/I study and you can join in, It's really cool to see others version of the same picture, helps a lot for crit, new ideas and things.

[jharford]

last one for today

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[Eon]

That Taiwanese kid really looks like it could a a graf on a wall. Very good speedies for 30 mins. Only crit I can give is that there are slight posing differences compared to the originals. Do you sketch them out first or just jump in with the painting laying out colors?

[jharford]

Hi Eon ,
I'm glad you like them so far :)

I jump in with colors and try to block it out and then refine and refine. I do sketch with the block color to get proportions, but with these speedies , i'm just not quick enough to get the proportions perfect.

[snootchy]

ooh nice Hartford juicy speedies i'm digging, motivated to do some anatomy/character speedies

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE

Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.


Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 )

[jharford]

Thanks for the post snootchy, so your motivated to do some anatomy/character speedies? That's great. Post them up when you do:)

I tried a little exercise tonight, I took a color photo, made it black and white, and then in a new layer mode set to color I 'recolorised' it. It was a good exercise ( I did about 3 of them ) , to work out the colors needed to make good skin when the values are all right. ( becuase good value is the most important thing ) .

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[jharford]

I decided to go ahead and paint a little character scene, something to work on and off. Hers a very rough sketch for it. Essentially there is a fully grown woman, holding presumably her kids hand, who looks just like her. Her kid is holding a teddy which is pretty worse for wear. The lady also has a monkey on her shoulder, just for fun :) Let's see where this goes shall we! :yum:

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[jharford]

Another speed digital study done with Freddy and Mario - Heres freddy's (http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1906210&postcount=23) and mario's is somewhere :).

This one was very fun, I really enjoyed the colors, the feeling of underwater exploration. I'd love to do more of these and put a proper piece together.

Well, Heres mine - original photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56904808@N00/428761942/)

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[bleupencil]

Lovely colours in that last one. Are you picking the colours with your eyes, or the colour picker? I only ask because I'm not that great at picking colours when looking at reference. They always seem over or under saturated XP

[jharford]

Thanks bleupencil, - i'm picking colors with my eye, so My brain builds up a good understanding and later I can dig into that when creating a new custom piece. When painting a new piece yeah, I have that under saturated muddy problem. The more you guess from ref and then analyse the colors I guess the bigger your color memory gets, or something :)

[Mityai]

Hey Joe, good stuff here! I really liked the arm drawings you did. Good color studies as well, keep going. I think you and Fred should do more stuff from life though in terms of color...but that's just my personal thought. Check out my stuff if you'll have a chance, I suck a lot still, but some day will get better:)

Cheers, and keep it up!

[jharford]

Thanks a lot mityai. Good to see you here again. We will be doing life work very soon, and I agree. Once my tablet pc comes i'll go out and do a lot of life work ( my oil paintings from life will be photo'd once the paint dries :D )

Good to see your sb, it's quite interesting. Looking forward to some more, I''ll drop you some comments.
Cheers

[Peetaer]

That underwater pic is real cool. You really captured the basic gist of that picture. You could refine it but, like I mentioned, you did get the gist. Sometimes that's all you need.

[snootchy]

sup jhartford, i was motivated but then slacked and got stuck noodling on a digital speedie, but after seeing your underwater study i think that is the way to go, u really captured that image really nicely with few strokes very nice job.

just one thing about the colors if you look at the photo there is a very slight greenish-aqua-blue tint in the atmosphere so to give everything harmony u can add a solid color adjustment layer in overlay mode and then u can go back in on a new layer and even push the highlight more like on the upper arm to get an almost glowy effect like that in the photo, the green i put on this adjustment layer was a bit too greenish

i hope you don't mind me posting this image of what i'm talking about, just let me know if you want it removed and i'll take it off right away

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE

Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.


Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 )452943

[andyhunt]

I really like your re-colorization exercise. I'll hafta start doing that myself. Your underwater sketch is quite beautiful as well. Great work.

[jharford]

peetaer: Thanks man, I wasn't going to refine it like you said, but it gave me a great idea for an underwater based scene to paint sometime soon :)

snoothcy: Hey there !, Absolutely don't mind you posting that here, all the help I can get is what I need :) . Your right, in that comparison the one with the adjustment layer really looks a lot better. I didn't notice that it was aqua tinted. Yours like you said is a little 'too' greenish but the point comes across and the underwater feeling is a lot more obvious.

I actually came across this great porn site called sex underwater or something like that. They have a few free galleries, and although porn , they have a glamour one which is mostly non nude. That one is just great and really inspirational.

http://www.sexunderwater.com/tour/Tour_1/azglam1.jpg

How cool is that? :D


andy hunt: Thanks Andy, It was a good little exercise. I'm glad you like the underwater sketch too. I must say I had fun doing it.



Heres an exercise I did after seeing Fred's work in his SB here. Pool balls study.

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Joe

[bleupencil]

Wow, nice work on those!
Maybe it's just my monitor, but would the shadows on those really be as dark as they are? Perhaps a bit more underlighting. I dunno, it looks good anyway!

[BoiModl]

i think with a flash they would probably be that dark... looks good!

[jharford]

BoiModl Thanks!, It was a flash photo and it was that dark. Quite a high contrast photo.

bleupenci Thanks bleu. I thought I must be crazy, there should be some bounce light, but there really isn't in the photo ref :)

[Droemar]

Whoa. Gah! Are you using OpenCanvas or Corel Painter? I'm envious how fast and clean your studies are, especially for speedpainting.
You're willing to give the sketchgroup tips on proper environmental light and color balance, right? :hugsmile:

[Peetaer]

Those pool balls look super-good. Great job on those!

Like Droemar suggested, any tips you could offer would be totally awesome.

[snootchy]

ooh juicy work mate!

I agree with bleupencil on the bounce light i would think the bounce light might diffuse a little bit more around the surface just because the balls seem very polished and maybe even some reflection in real life, but given that it's a photo ref ur given what ur given, excellent job!

how long do these studies take you? I tried to do one but i just a lazy son-of-b#*(@ lately and have no patience with ref studies

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE

Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.


Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 )

[bleupencil]

Ahh, if it's a flash in that, then I can understand the high contrast. Still looks great anyway.

[grenappels]

the last two-- so good! so much improvement! bravo :)

and i bet his advice would be "well i did like 8 of them in a row... in like 4 days... try that" hahaha

[Freddy Lierman]

your balls are nice Joe. Very nice render there for a speedy. And I think they are very close proportion wise in relation to the original photo.
But if I may,(and I certainly do) I've one little crit on "your balls".
The nr.8 and nr. 14 seem to be floating a bit, and I'll tell you why.
It's because of the green little rim reflection at the bottom of the balls.
They should not be there with that shadow under them. Sure you'll have it a bit on the sides, but the moment the side of the ball reaches that shadow area it will fade to nothingness. Well actually it will fade to black, the reflection of that shadow. On the 8-ball it's kind of ok, but the 14 shouldn't have it, unless it was floating a bit I guess.

Lol, anyway, good progress mate. And I think your balls are proportionally more correct than mine..... (no pun intended !)

[Peetaer]

It's been a few days now... where are them fresh new posts?

[bleupencil]

I'm with Peetaer! It's gonna be asswhooping time if you don't update soon! :assspank:

[Eon]

The balls are as everyone said, terrific! My crit is with the even color background. I know it's photo ref but it doesn't highlight the perspective well and flattens the painting. I think you could have played with it going beyond the limitations of the photograph. The freedom painting provides to reshape and recolor reality.

And yeah, you're going on ten days without posting. That's long, man! Give us the goodies!

[jharford]

Hey guys,
Lots of bridgman sketches to scan, some head study also.

As for digital, it's been queit. Here is a quick wacom cintiq eye study. 15 mins.

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[jharford]

Woah , 10 days!!.. Time flies too fast guys. I'll post up those sketches tonight for sure.

Eon : I agree about the balls, Some artistic liscense could have really helpes the perspective. I'll bear it in mind for the next study.

Freddy : Absolutely agree, I noticed that bounce light isn't actually there, and it contributes a lot to the floatyness.

Bleu and peetear, updated coming I promise :)

[Peetaer]

Yes! I can't wait! Good to see that you're back and well!

BTW, excellent eye study considering that it only took you 15 mins.

[snootchy]

good to see you back in action jharford and great eye study, i think a great approach to practicing the eye is to break down the form, first start off by rendering a ball just like ur pool ball studies but use black and white first, then some rendering studies on the orbital muscle, lastly i'd practice position the eye within the orbital muscles and you can practice different depths whether the eyeball bulges out a lot or a little, almost like your doing 3d work pulling and pushing

hehe i know this in theory, yet i have done these kind of studies, but i hope to see more of your eye studies, keep up the good work mate!

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 ) l Droemar (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134011)

[Peetaer]

Where you at? It's been 13 days....

[jharford]

Thanks for the bump peter!,

Heres a cop I painted, I'm really not happy with it.

I appreciate your advice there snootchy , I'll get on that now. I think it's going to be a better approach than concentrating too much high level right now.

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catch you soon , I really gota scan my sb in asap.
:drinkup:

[snootchy]

sup hartford, this is pretty good for non ref stuff and i think the studies are paying off, just a few things even when approaching speedies, getting form (like the guys forearm holding the stick) is still important, also the form in the belly seems to flatten out a bit in the shaded area, you could apply that pool ball rendering you did to the belly to get that really full stomach pouch feeling to this one, i think it really helps to break down all the basic shapes first then add clothing or texture on top, kind of like building blocks

either way keep up the great work!

SSG 69 :heart: ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107005) l grenappels (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99577) l snootchy (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112991) l Peetaer (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=111899) l bleupencil ( http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134180) l D.C. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133502) l jharford (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=135098 ) l Droemar (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134011)

[Peetaer]

First off, I'll gladly bump anyone in our SSG! I'll gladly assist your bumping in the future!

Secondly, I think snootchy gave a comprehensive critique of your speed painting so, in other words... what he said.

[thesadpencil]

hey you've got some nice stuff here, those pool balls are insane. i think you still need to work on your anatomy and try enhancing your values a bit more to give more contrast and depth. other than that just keep it up.

[jharford]

Thanks for the comments guys, glad you liked the pool balls.
Sorry for the lack of updates and participation. Things have been insane busy here, working a ton. I'll get back on it as soon as humanly possible.

[bleupencil]

You'd better O_-
:assspank:

[Peetaer]

Even though its been a while that you've posted, it's good to hear that you have your online sketchbook in mind. Just make sure you post at some point. Can't wait to see what you've been working on. Rock on!

[Eon]

Looking forward to having you back man!