Learning the lavhoes way (finally updated!)

[lavhoes]

I...I can't sketch. I do artwork, but I don't sketch. I just don't. I doodle sometimes, but if anything good ever comes out of it I trace and trace and trace back over it until I've got something. I'm too uncomfortable with drawing and I am unable to express or even really get started on some great ideas because of this great mental roadblock I've set upon myself.

So, I'm just going to start sketching. Faces, guestures, blind contours, self-portraits, whatever I can think of. After a little while I'm just going to start jotting down the first thing that comes to mind. I don't care whatever it looks like, I want to start getting stuff down without worrying about stuff being perfect. That is my goal.

Thus, I present my daily sketchbook. I'm going to post something every day in hopes that progress will be achieved over time. While I cannot match the level this forum has set for itself, I can step ever-closer to being able to just sketch whatever ideas are floating around in my head, even if there's nothing there to begin with. I want to become a professional artist by my 21st birthday (March 2005) so I'm going to work hard every day and progress as best as I can.

Besides, I'm only 19. I have plenty of time.

Here's what I did today (Nov. 12th):

Random face images from reference (except a couple that i tried to sketch on my own). Notice how thick and choppy my lines are. I'm pecking at the image. I should just draw what I want, but there's a huge mental block on that and I aim to destroy it.
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111203a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111203b.jpg

Some basic heads as I try to figure out just what I'm trying to learn through all these head studies, as well as a couple of blind contour drawings (they were so blind I didn't notice I ran over a previous head. See? I don't cheat! I swear!)
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111203c.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111203d.jpg

The blind contours of the faces I had previously drawn.
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111203e.jpg

Aaaaaaaaand a bunch of heads and circles and crap.
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111203f.jpg

As you can see, I'm not a very confident artist. But I want to be. I want to be so badly. I need to learn how to relax and establish a true connection between my pencil and my brain. I know this will take a lot of work, but I think I can do it.

[Yiako]

So, I'm just going to start sketching. Faces, guestures, blind contours, self-portraits, whatever I can think of. After a little while I'm just going to start jotting down the first thing that comes to mind. I don't care whatever it looks like, I want to start getting stuff down without worrying about stuff being perfect. That is my goal.

Ditto.
I think that´s the way. It's more boring that let your imagination fly wild, but first you have to feed your brain with facts and empty it of tricks. Good luck, those head studies are a good start point.

[AmadorL]

Hey Lavhoes that is a very interesting way to start to tackle your old mental habits. You know what might be interesting to? Maybe if you set a timer for say 30 seconds for 10 Min. and draw a head or idea in 30 seconds so 20 images in 10 min.

I myself have a few mind blocks, I have told myself that I get the proper training before I begin to tackle them and set affirmations for myself


Hope to see more of your work soon

Amador

[lavhoes]

Thanks guys. I think I'll try that timer thing tomorrow, when I'm off from college. I'm trying to do one facial expression a day to really study it from lots of different viewpoints so I can build up a supply of faces. I figure a little work with the face should loosen up my old DBZ drawing habits a bit. During high school all I did was copy DBZ pictures until my senior year when I decided I wanted to pursue art. Well, now two years later I'm stuck doing Akira Toriyama's stuff over and over and it's time to move on. I want to learn the real arts and become a professional illustrator. Can't do that when you've got a bunch of Gokou pictures in your portfolio.

Here's my work for today. Allready I'm noticing a little improvement as I'm really learning how to relax and let the lines come to me. I had a test today so I didn't get as much done, but tomorrow's pretty much straight classes (notes and lectures, no tests) so I'll have some time to fill in with sketches.

My facial studies for today, with "angry" as the expression:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111303a.jpg
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111303b.jpg

[lavhoes]

Minor update:

You know the bald guy with the goatee I keep trying to draw? Well, that's my personal avatar, a character named Cedyim I came up with a while ago. I have a very boyish face, and as this character is based somewhat off what I look like I've been trying to capture him in a more natural form.

Here's what he looks like in my old style:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/cedyimav4.jpg

Well, just now I decided to test out what I've learned today about facial structure. I figured, hey, the 2nd day is as good as any for a progress check. So I spent maybe 5 minutes sketching out this guy's face and cleaning it up a bit in Photoshop. I usually leave a blank 8.5"x11" 72 dpi .psd open for me to doodle in when I'm bored, so I just switched over to the program and out this came:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111303c.jpg

A more human-looking Cedyim, one whose features hint at mine yet have uniqueness all to their own. I think I'm starting to get the hang of sketching.

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Jens
one very important thing is that you shouldn't focus on just faces.. it's what i did and now i found myself hopelessy behind with my bodies..

Oh, of course, of course. I plan on starting my anatomy stuff and guesture drawing soon. I just like starting with heads and faces. I've always liked drawing the head and face, but I could never get it quite right. I figure if I can idly sketch some heads starting out, I can move on to more complex things like full figures and ideas for body armor, mechanoids, weapons, stuff like that.

[lavhoes]

Nothing much today, just a page barely half-filled with some characters of mine. I wanted to draw smirks today but I just couldn't find the time. Ah well, tomorrow I'll draw some more faces, this time attempting to pick up on a style of sketchy shading. I'm alway afraid to shade my stuff because I know if I screw up I'd have just lost the lineart I was working on. But, I know that shading is essential to the type of sketching I want to use, so I have no choice but to suck it up and get over my fear of shading.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111403a.jpg

I think I'm getting the hang of this.

[lavhoes]

Some cross-hatching today, from a photo (as well as my DSG assignment):

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/111503a.jpg

[Patch]

Looks great - you seem to be coming along nicely - congrats! If I may offer one word of advice? Try forcing yourself to make long fluid strokes with the pencil. Avoid quick short strokes. In the long run you may well go back to the short strokes, but if you keep yourself from lifting the pencil too much, it helps to build your confidence in your own abilities and linework skills.

Just my two cents.

Keep up the good work!

[lavhoes]

Nothing from me today except my DSG assignment. I've, unfortunately, got a test tomorrow, so I didn't have much time to sketch today. But I have some really boring classes tomorrow as well, so I'll sketch some more stuff during my breaks.

I want to try and concentrate on one element of my art every week. This week, I'm going to focus on the torso and its various movements and muscles. I figure I'll spend a week drawing nothing but dozens upon dozens of torsos (and the heads they're connected to) and my skill in sketching torsos, both realistically and stylistically, will improve dramatically. Next week I'll sketch the head, torso, and arms, while also focusing on arms as well. If I build up the body along with accompanying full guesture drawings and anatomy work, I'll have a better grasp of the human body and its composition. This, I believe, will help me sketch better than I've ever been able to before.

I'll post my progression tomorrow.

[lavhoes]

I'm not dead, nor have I forgotten about this. Just haven't had access to a scanner lately. I'll post back a huge update when I've got a scanner by me.

[lavhoes]

Well, I promised a big update, but there's too many pages for me to scan right now, so I think I'll just pick up from yesterday and slowly add in all the old pages until I'm completely caught up.

Man, I hate stupid scanner problems.

Anyway...

I've devised a method for keeping up my motivation through final exams. Right now I'm really suffering from a lack of motivation and I really need a good system of keeping myself from slacking off. So, I thought to myself, what do I everday no matter what?

I play video games.

So, I thought, why don't I turn my art progression into a little game? I like games. I like art. Working on anatomy can be a little daunting and oftentimes I'll just want to skip a day or two. That's no good. So I worked out this system.

Pretty much, for every little sketch or doodle where I learn something or discover something, I gain experience points. That's those little "10!" and "20!" things you see in the image below. I figure myself to be at level 2 (don't want to start off from the very beginning because I'm no newb, nor do I want to advance myself too far or else it'll take forever to feel any sort of acomplishment). I figured I could gain a level a week or so, as I'm tackling things on a weekly basis, so I should be level 4 by the end of this week. I'm actually level 3 by my count right now, I just haven't added in the experience for this really elaborate painting I did over the weekend where I learned a ton about composition, painting trees, and internal anatomy (it was a disemboweled corpse).

This is my way of keeping myself motivated, and it's working out pretty well. The only penalties I ever suffer are when I don't draw for a day. I have to dock myself 500 points for that. It's enough of a deterrent to keep my lazy ass drawing.

So anyway, here's my sketch page for yesterday. I don't know yet how much XP I should give myself for the barbarian dude on the left, as it's probably the best pencil piece I've ever done. I'm learning a lot about the torso, especially the pecs and upper shoulders. It's really sad how horrible my art looks even from a couple of weeks ago compared to what I'm doing now. I just...can't see how I ever saw to draw torsos like I did.

Here's the page:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/120803a.jpg

And, for comparison's sake, here's something I did back in January:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/cedyim3c.jpg

For the record, I'm getting my anatomy work out of Bridgman's The Complete Guide to Drawing from Life for now. Once I've gotten all I can from the book I'm going to start looking up reference material and attending life drawing classes. This is all just preliminary stuff.

And one final note to my incredibly lengthy post: I'm only concentrating on men for right now. Originally, I wanted to split it 50/50 between men and women, but I decided I'd rather get my male anatomy solid before tackling females (heh...male anatomy solid...tackling females...oh shut up.) I've been staring at naked females since I was 13, so it shouldn't too much of a challenge.

[Sapphire]

That's a cool idea. I'm in the midst of finals too (and turn 19 tomorrow!), so I find it tough to be motivated... especially since my art final is another self portrait. Yargh... the millionth one.

But the whole "game" idea is good... maybe I'll have to make some goal for myself like that about how much I draw per day aside from that assignment.

Jut a suggestion, drawing animals helps to spice it up and also keep you on a realistic track. Varied musculature and facial structure and fur and soforth!

-Sapphire

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Sapphire
That's a cool idea. I'm in the midst of finals too (and turn 19 tomorrow!), so I find it tough to be motivated... especially since my art final is another self portrait. Yargh... the millionth one.

But the whole "game" idea is good... maybe I'll have to make some goal for myself like that about how much I draw per day aside from that assignment.

Jut a suggestion, drawing animals helps to spice it up and also keep you on a realistic track. Varied musculature and facial structure and fur and soforth!

-Sapphire

A fine suggestion. I think I'll sketch some dogs today.

[lavhoes]

Didn't get to the dogs...stupid final exam...but I did manage to draw this demon thing.

My focus for this week is the shoulder and upper arm, as well as my rendering skills. So that's what I concentrated on:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/petdemon1a.jpg

I'll be doing some arm/shoulder sketches tomorrow. I'm starting to render more and more, as I really like rendering. It's fun. Plus it gives me an opportunity to add in some detail, something I've been meaning to work on for a while now.

Dunno how much XP I should give myself (still factoring for the barbarian yesterday) but it should be quite a bit, given the couple of hours I spent working on this and everything I learned in the process.

[lavhoes]

I'm still rendering like an old fool. I've got my DSG assignment from yesterday (took most of yesterday's art time to work on it as well as a good chunk of today's), as well as a little orc thing I drew in my small to-do notebook. The notebook's...not here right now, but I'll add in the scan as soon as I get it.

Here's the first sketch:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/beardragon1a.jpg

It's a Bear Dragon.

Took me a few hours to render, but I think it came out pretty good. I'm getting better at fur, at least, and now I have a rudimentary grasp of bear anatomy.

My human anatomy hasn't been working on for a couple of days, but I'm smack dab in the middle of finals so I can't really blame myself. Rendering is nice and relaxing; I just follow the guidelines I've set for myself and take it where it wants to go. Anatomy work requires rigorous studies, dozens of little sketches, and a lot of thinking involved. This week has all my brainpower going towards stupid finals, so something passive like rendering is exactly what I need.

A perfect opportunity to futher one a much-needed sketching skill.

I figure with all these renders I'm level 4 at the very least.

[Jeff Gran]

good job man. I think your drawings rock. Good studies, and the demon(?)'s pose is sweet. I noticed that on his bicep the top edge of the white shape should be diagonal the other way and it would look more like it's going under the deltoid, I think. For blind drawings, if you do it the right way your drawing will look terrible. Try doing it for 10 min straight without looking down, and moving your pen as slowly as possible. Or semi blind you can look down to re-place your pen but always look up while it is moving. For studying, tone, squinting is invaluable. Keep it up man.

[lavhoes]

Crap, you're right. It defnitely should be the other way...

Blargh, ah well, something to consider for later I suppose. Right now, unfortunately, I've discovered I'm using the wrong hand to draw, so I have to take a break and gain control over my other hand. Until that time, this daily sketchbook is going to be filled with blind contour drawings.

Since my left hand is squiggly anyway, I figure it'd be best to start out with a ton of blind contour drawings, just to get comfortable with the pencil. The mistake I made with the right hand (well, the second mistake, the first was picking my right hand in the first place) was learning to completely control my lines. This, I feel, is a big detriment to my artistic abilities, as having complete mental control over all of my lines requires a lot more force than necessary, frustrating me and tying up other valuable mental processes which should go towards keeping a vision of what I want the picture to look like in my head.

So, now that I'm left-handed I'm going to start contour drawings and let my subconcious eye take hold of my lines. I'll let my arm tell me what lines go where. I'll concentrate on the subject and my body will do the rest. Once control and confidence have been gained in my left hand, I'm going to start a long study of the face and its various attributes. Eyes, nose, mouth, ears, forehead, proportions, sketching, renderings, you name it. The face is as complicated as the whole human body put together, I figure as much work as I put into the body should also be put into the human head as well.

I'll be gone 'til after Christmas, but I should have a number of pages of contours to post.

[-The Swift-]

nice work! keep it up and you'll definatly be an artist by 21!
:D

[Jeff Gran]

Ya man you're definitely on the right track. When you're doing your contours, try to get the sensation that your pen is drawing *on* the subject you're looking at.
peace.

[Sapphire]

Did you just decide to switch hands, or are you lefthanded to begin with but for some reason have been drawing with your right? Either way, it's a cool undertaking, to learn to draw with both hands. I'm a lefty, so maybe that's why it's annoying to have to draw digitally with a mouse.

Keep up the good work!

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Sapphire
Did you just decide to switch hands, or are you lefthanded to begin with but for some reason have been drawing with your right? Either way, it's a cool undertaking, to learn to draw with both hands. I'm a lefty, so maybe that's why it's annoying to have to draw digitally with a mouse.

Keep up the good work!

I chose my right hand when I was little, but I'm very left-oriented. True, I use my right hand to do everything (brush my teeth, eat, catch, etc.), but i'm more in-tune with my left hand. It's really hard to explain.

I figure I'm more ambidextrous than anything, and to neglect that advantage would be to do myself a great disservice.

So, for now, until I can get my left hand chops up (something I cannot afford to do right now, what with school about to start and the jobs I need to undertake), I'm going to use my left hand to get the image in my head down on paper, and then follow through with my right to draw/render the image.

That's what I did tonight:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/122703a.jpg

Top is from reference, bottom one isn't. I didn't try make the bottom one of the same guy (Toshiro Mifune) as the top one, but they ended up looking pretty similar, which is good because it's what I wanted but didn't think I could do.

Now I start my focus on heads.

[Sapphire]

I understand, I sort of have the same issue. I do a lot of things with my right hand, like throw or use the mouse or whatever, but when I draw and write, it's with my left. I guess it's just a right-handed world. :) Anyway, the top sketch looks pretty good, but on the bottom, I think his face would look more correctly aligned if his mouth was facing us a little less, and his jaw was tilted in the same direction as the nose.

[lavhoes]

Hmm, yes, I see what you mean. I fixed it and rescanned/reuploaded, but then I drew some more today, so here's the image re-re-scanned:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/122803a.jpg

Starting tomorrow, for a straight week: nothing but eyes. Wide eyes, narrow eyes, squinting eyes, happy eyes, sad eyes. I'm going to master eyes like nobody's business. Hundreds or even thousands of eyes, all laid out in my sketchbook.

[obid619]

good ideas. obviously these are sketches. It seems like you draw freehand, without much basic steps, but just follow an idea in your head. try to set up the head in an ...ahh just forget it :mad: i dunno wat im' talkin about....um....i guess just practice:rolleyes: i cant put the ideas on my mind into words...thats just me..i put it through art instead hah

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by obid619
good ideas. obviously these are sketches. It seems like you draw freehand, without much basic steps, but just follow an idea in your head. try to set up the head in an ...ahh just forget it :mad: i dunno wat im' talkin about....um....i guess just practice:rolleyes: i cant put the ideas on my mind into words...thats just me..i put it through art instead hah

Nope, I definitely use an underlying basic structure. I use the Loomis method of doing a circle and then building the rest of the skull off of it. The lines just end up becoming part of the drawing, or they get erased.

[spork891]

Good work man, you are very diligent. I'm sure you'll reach your ultimate goal.

[lavhoes]

Yay, eyes. Nothing but eyes, or people with eyes.

I spent the first three days doing nothing but really quick eye-sketches. I have a number of other pages, but these were what I consider the best:

12/29/03:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/122903a.jpg

12/30/03:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/123003a.jpg

12/31/03:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/123103a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/123103b.jpg

Then I branched out and did faces for the new year:

01/01/04:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/010104a.jpg

01/02/04:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/010204a.jpg


01/03/04:

I did all of these without reference:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/010304a.jpg

01/04/04:

Just a quick one-hour self portrait today, will probably draw more tonight. Not much time today =(

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/010404a.jpg

Next week: MOUTHS

[lavhoes]

Ugh, mouths didn't go so well. My ADD kicked into overdrive and I just could not focus. Every little detail seemed to escape me, so I just couldn't draw 'em.

Plus, I had relationship trouble with my girlfriend, classes started up, god, it was a huge mess.

Luckily, though, things have calmed down, and I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this face-drawing thing.

Here's today's page:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012404a.jpg

Just some faces, all without ref except the very bottom one (the guy in the hate who was cut off because I ran out of space on the sketch page). They all look kinda the same, so this next week I'm really going to focus on drawing all sorts of different faces. I bought a People magazine with every celebrity ever in it, so there will be plenty of facial types for me to choose from. I'm going to see if I can push the extremes: flat noses, long noses, short noses, thin noses, big noses, small noses, bulbous noses, narrow noses, etc. This goes for eyes, mouths, chins, etc. Once I get different facial types down, the following week will be devoted to head shapes. Round, square, oval, etc.

Hopefully, by the end of February I'll have the basic knowledge necessary to freehand some pretty good-looking faces and heads. This is something I've always, always wanted to do, and from here I can begin to construct the rest of the body based on the other stuff I learned last year. I left off at the shoulder, but I'm going to jump back and look at the neck some more. Then build on the shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, etc. But that's all past February and into the spring. Right now, though, my focus is solely on get faces and heads drawn properly.

...as an aside, next Thursday I'm getting my ADD diagnosed and myself put on a multi-modal program, partly medication and partly therapy/routines/exercises that'll hopefully diminish my wayward focus abilities. I think you'll see a ton of artwork coming from me in the next few weeks.

[legacy]

holy shit man *high five*

you are just an inspiration to amateur artists everywhere! the way you put your mind to learn how to actually draw teh human anatomy and the way it changes is amazing!

your progress is just blazing fast and leaves me waiting to see more of your studies.

....*awesome, just awesome*

"goes back to work on my sketchbook"

[Valcon Jet]

You get huuuge points for focus, drive, and motivation man ... excellent job sticking to your guns and truly studying your subject. Bravo.

[lavhoes]

Thanks guys =D

Here's what I did Saturday night/Sunday morning:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012504a.jpg

And just a small part of what I did today:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012604a.jpg

I would've drawn more, except I had the day off because of ice and couldn't get myself moving. Plus, I spent most of my time working on another sketch page that I'll complete later.

Let me tell you, the different between when I started drawing faces from ref and how I can draw faces now is greater than I thought it could be, starting out.

I'll have that to post tomorrow.

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by lavhoes
http://www.darkensai.com/art/cedyim3c.jpg


I just wanted to point out that it's been exactly a year since I did that drawing. It took something like 3 or 4 hours to get the pencilling and inking done, and it doesn't even look right. Now, exactly one year later I can doodle something that looks infinitely better than that in just a few minutes.

I still have a long way to go to bring my art up to speed, but it's refreshing to see myself improve at least a little.

So today, among everything else I'm going to be doing, I'm going to redo this picture the way I currently draw, just to show myself the improvement I've gone through over the past year.

[Sapphire]

Good job! I've been watching this thread, and it's great to see you practicing so much on anatomy. I'd love to see some faces in detail, with the different nose and jaw shapes!

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Sapphire
Good job! I've been watching this thread, and it's great to see you practicing so much on anatomy. I'd love to see some faces in detail, with the different nose and jaw shapes!

Heh, I'm certainly working on it this week =D

I've started adding the jaw and chin to my face drawings. I still have that page of renders I'm doing as an exercise to finish, and I didn't get to the redo like I wanted to today, but I managed to draw a whole two faces, plus three more on the message whiteboard on my dormroom door.

So...yeah, my "big update":

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012704a.jpg

Wow, yay, all that. Both without reference, so that reference crutch I've been carrying around since I started drawing has been used less and less. I'm really pleased with my progress so far; I didn't expect to learn this much. Honestly, I never know where I'm going to improve, and likely the drawings I produce in a few months whill stomp these into the ground.

This is the adventure that is being an artist.

[lavhoes]

Today I was doing some old commission stuff for some people. Pretty much, trying to test out drawing different heads 'n stuff. It all came out pretty well, the faces at least.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012804a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012804b.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012804c.jpg

[Sapphire]

The faces on the very bottom look great, but the guy in the middle there has a problem with his nose. I think if you change the angle to line up more with the eyes and make it so that you can see less of the nostrils, it will look more correct. :)

EDIT: Either that, or you could change his left eye to line up with his nose.

-Sapph

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Sapphire
The faces on the very bottom look great, but the guy in the middle there has a problem with his nose. I think if you change the angle to line up more with the eyes and make it so that you can see less of the nostrils, it will look more correct. :)

EDIT: Either that, or you could change his left eye to line up with his nose.

-Sapph

Yeah, I've never drawn a face from that angle before. It's...freakin' hard, to tell you the truth, heh.

So, I could either tilt the left eye, or erase part of his nostrils?

Let me try that out...

[Pezz3D]

Awesome studies man. I like to tape those studys up on my desk so I can use them for reference without having to look it up on the internet nor flip through my book. Easy access. Good improvement too! Keep it up!

[van]

Rock on! You are coming along great. Its great to look back on past stuff. I look at the stuff I did 6 months ago and laugh my ass off.

Keep drawing!

[lavhoes]

Thanks guys!

And now...a very special Whiteboard edition of lavhoes's sketch journal:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012904a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012904b.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012904c.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/012904d.jpg

Tom Cruise on the left (from ref), my roommate on the right (from memory), and a random eyeball.

I did some sketching in my notes today as well.

[JackalAnubis]

that tom cruise sketch is looking great, keep working!

[van]

Haha! Excellent!

[jadedchron]

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/010304a.jpg .. holy moly :)

[lavhoes]

The long-awaited (by me) update:

Well, they diagnosed me as having ADD/OCD, so I tend to get distracted by really dumb inane things that I must complete or else I can't function the rest of the day. They prescribed me some Concerta, which I'm now taking.

It's really helped me focus.

Now I can finally concentrate on my face studies!

Here's what I've been learning this week:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021104a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021104b.jpg

I'm sorry the scans are so rough, but I was using a really light pencil and I had to bump up the contrast.

Basically, this week I'm tackling overall head construction, utilizing a really great head tutorial I found right here (http://www.anticz.com/heads.htm), by Ron Lemen, I believe. It's based off Loomis's head construction, if I remember correctly, which was one of my favorites during high school but something I could never quite grasp. The missing key, I've found, is how to construct the face and chin. I could get the sliced ball and brow bit, but I'd always end up making the face too low or something. Well, after a couple of pages of constructing basic heads, I think I finally see what I had been missing.

The first page was mostly from ref. I have this big book of celebrities published by Time and VH1 (200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons), so I was just flipping through and constructing the random heads I saw. The second page is completely without ref. I glanced at my desk mirror maybe twice.

This week I'm going to continue with the head construction and hopefully I'll finally get the underlying 3d forms that had previously eluded me. With this basic skill, coupled with what I've been learning about facial details, I'll finally be able to draw heads without reference. I bought a book on facial expressions, so starting next week I'll begin twisting and contorting the face/head into all sorts of different emotions.

And after that, I want to spend a week just...drawing whatever.

(Man, when I compare these constructions to some of the earlier head construction stuff shown in this thread, I see that I was really off. Thank god I found that tutorial, or else I'd still be lost. I'd post what I did last night and earlier today, before I chanced upon that URL, but compared to what I did after I read that tutorial, last night's work is absolutely hideous.)

[Nadim]

Well done lavhoes - keep moving

[Valcon Jet]

keep on it man, these are so fucking awesome. I wish i had your dedication. I can't wait to see what you will come up with :)

[siskol p]

where are you doing all these drawings from? books, head, life? i think my best stuggestion to you would be to look at different AGES of people, old, young, baby, REALLY old etc. because your face changes so much over time. plus i've found that its just really plain fun to draw old people ;)

[lavhoes]

Thanks guys =D

siskol p: I've been sketching most of the faces without reference, though all my studies come from various sources (books, magazines, friends, etc.). I've been looking at different aged people (in fact, I drew some kinda old guys this very night), and likely sometime in the future I'll do a massive study for babies/children/adolescents/teenagers over the course of a month or so. Right now, though, I just want to get the basic shape of the adult head down. From there I can progress into other things.

This first page was completely without reference, applying what I learned the past couple of days with what I've been doing this entire time:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021104c.jpg

This second page is mostly without reference, except for a sketch of Alfred Hitchcock in the upper right and Bill Clinton in the lower left. I just wanted to see if I could establish somewhat of a likeness using the head construction method. While it doesn't look like them exactly (it'd take more rendering and refining to get them to look at least somewhat decent), there is a great deal more likeness shown than how I had previously been doing portraits:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021104d.jpg

If you're wondering why a good number of these people are without hair, it's because I never really did a study of hair. I mean, I'm sure it's pretty easy once you get down to it, but I just never really learned how to draw hair.

Or ears, for that matter.

So let me revise my pending schedule:

Next week is definitely ears. I need to learn ears to complete the overall head. I have the basic shape, but I know nothing about the various parts and shapes, and this, I feel, is very, very important.

The week after that will be hair. Facial hair, head hair, eyebrows, that sort of thing.

The week after that will be emotions and lighting. With the face twisting and turning, I'll really have to think about how the face is shaped, and by bringing lighting/rendering into it, I can further advance my 3d-to-2d skills. Right now my shading is crap unless I put some thought into it, so I figure I'll kill two birds with one stone.

The week just after that will be my Spring Break, where hopefully I'll get to spend the whole week drawing faces. Life, books, magazines, my own imagination, etc. will be my subject. By the end of spring break, I want to be able to sketch heads/faces.

[Sapphire]

I like the woman on the second page, with her head tilted up; the angle is nice, and she has some interesting character.

In your endeavor to perfect different portions of the face at different times, an anatomy book would be great. Maybe I'll look around for the name of mine, but it's seriously old, I think from thee 50s or 60s (somebody got it at a garage sale for me or something, but I like it). Anyway, I'm sure there are great books at places like Barnes and Noble that would help give you reference for seperate body parts and then how they actually line up on the face.

-Sapph

PS: For bodies and posing, I just got a new 46-joint movie Spiderman toy, and it's so cool! Individually jointed fingers and everything... way better than those wooden posing dolls, cheaper, and smaller, too. It also helps show the way a muscle turns with the leg or arm. I got mine for 8 bucks.

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Sapphire
I like the woman on the second page, with her head tilted up; the angle is nice, and she has some interesting character.

In your endeavor to perfect different portions of the face at different times, an anatomy book would be great. Maybe I'll look around for the name of mine, but it's seriously old, I think from thee 50s or 60s (somebody got it at a garage sale for me or something, but I like it). Anyway, I'm sure there are great books at places like Barnes and Noble that would help give you reference for seperate body parts and then how they actually line up on the face.

-Sapph

PS: For bodies and posing, I just got a new 46-joint movie Spiderman toy, and it's so cool! Individually jointed fingers and everything... way better than those wooden posing dolls, cheaper, and smaller, too. It also helps show the way a muscle turns with the leg or arm. I got mine for 8 bucks.

Yeah, that was the one I poured a lot of effort into. I thought to myself, "I'm going to create a bald...techno-y...sensual woman," and, well, there you go.

There's an 18-inch 67-joint Spider-man floating around toy stores and Target, and even Wal-Mart. I want the one you're describing, though; all the same joints except not as many in the fingers as the bigger one (the 18-incher has joints for every single knuckle, though they aren't ball-and-socket so you can't spread the fingers out, unfortunately), plus it fits in my pocket, just like the last three I had bought.

I've got a progression of super-articulated Spider-men that have served my art endeavours over the years. My first one had something like 15 or 20 joints, I think he came out in 1992 or so. I loved that thing =(

I was using Spider-man as an artist's tool before it was cool. =P

[Sapphire]

Well, I just discovered that, so... meh. :P

I don't know if it's "cool", but my boyfriend's into toy collecting, so when he showed me that, I thought it'd be great to use. I was originally going to get a stickfa, but they're way expensive, and they aren't as cool or realistic.

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Sapphire
Well, I just discovered that, so... meh. :P

I don't know if it's "cool", but my boyfriend's into toy collecting, so when he showed me that, I thought it'd be great to use. I was originally going to get a stickfa, but they're way expensive, and they aren't as cool or realistic.

Well, the idea is certainly catching on, which is good because as artists we could really use a pocket posing tool to help us with those tough poses and such.

Let me know how it goes once you start working on it; I'd like to see some other opinions on the use of Spider-man and his extreme flexibility =D

[Sapphire]

Well, I used it for this...

http://img11.photobucket.com/albums/v35/Sapphire8400/witchdocsm.jpg

But nothing else yet. Maybe I'll try some more figures with watercolor wash and col. pencil like this..

-Sapph

[lavhoes]

Ooh, I love that pose...

Anyway, here's today's stuff. I did a couple more sheets of head construction, which I won't bother to post since it's just study material, and then I moved on to character design. This is my girlfriend's D&D character, a spazzy vampire Hengeyokai (shapeshifter) that's also a dragon disciple.

I did this earlier in the day:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021204a.jpg

But then I went back and cleaned it up, adding a couple more sketches along the way:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021204b.jpg

I don't know exactly how much time I spent on each one, but it was really hard getting each face to look like the other ones. I learned a lot today about constructing likenesses based on the initial head construction, so being able to draw the same head from multiple angles should be easier tomorrow.

I'm beginning to think in 3d, which, I feel, is a major leap forward.

[jook]

I must say that I absolutely love those pages of a million eyes.

the head studies are great as well..

bravo.

so when is the page of a million hands? ;)

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by jook
I must say that I absolutely love those pages of a million eyes.

the head studies are great as well..

bravo.

so when is the page of a million hands? ;)

I'd have to say, out of everything that I ever do, hands are my strong point. I think it's because early on, when I was into Dragonball Z and Akira Toriyama's art (waaaaaaay back in high school), I would copy everything else but the hands, which I had to structure myself using a ball/stick/blob method because Mr. Toriyama draws some hard hands to copy. Anyway, here's what I did:

Balls for the joints.

Sticks for the bones in-between.

Blobs for the palm/thumb muscle. 3 blobs, one right near the fingers, one on the outside towards the pink, and one right near the thumb.

If I could find my pages upon pages of hand drawings I did in school, I'd post 'em, but unfortunately I think they were lost with all my high school class drawings. I should be on learning hands by the end of March or April, though, so once again I'll be neck-deep in fingers, thumbs, palms, wrist, etc.

I can't wait =D

[lavhoes]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

I'll have a huge update tonight. I bought a lot of art supplies yesterday (a bunch of pencils, a lead holder, a new mechanical pencil, stuff like that), mainly because I realized that my old mechanical pencil with the really hard lead was causing horrible scratches in my shading. So I've ditched the mechanical for everything but the finer details and now I'm a soft-lead kinda guy.

I really like these lead holders because you can extend the lead as far as you want and it'll still draw things just as smoothly. The only problem I'm having is that they seem to pick up the texture of the paper no matter what I do. I could switch to bristol board, but that shit's expensive.

I'll see what I can come up with.

Anyway, my plan for tomorrow is to spend 5 hours doing 300 1-minute face sketches of pretty much any face I can find. I have a timer here and I'm going to sit down and just have at it until I have enough faces to bury an elephant. I've spent all morning pouring over facial anatomy, getting the structure right, thinking about things in 3d, yadda yadda. Pretty much, building up the foundation for tomorrow's busy work.

I've worked up everything else this week. Construction, proportion, shading, tone, anatomy. All I lack is speed. I overwork my drawings to the point where they, well, don't have a point anymore. If I can do a veritable shitload of fast 1-minute head drawings, I can work up my idea -> paper conversion rate, thus using (and subsequently working out) all the knowledge I've been accumulating for the past two months.

I'm incredibly excited!

[spok]

yo lav, your work HAS definitely evolved....that is good....and i know this comment might be late, but check out lungbug's thread(if you haven't already), coz he also has a comparaison of his old and new work...astonishing...
so keep up the good work man...

[lavhoes]

Thanks spok!

I've got a huge updated today. I tried doing the 300 heads, but I quickly learned that I couldn't even get so much as the general essence of the character in a minute, much less finish the overall construction. I'll have to tackle it another time.

Things I've learned this week thusfar:

1. My brain corrects curves way too much, making all of my drawings really tight and tense. So I started drawing using straight lines, and so far I've been able to keep everything nice and loose.

2. I need to learn how to capture the feeling of something quickly. Right now I'm taking too long just going off my knowledge and I keep losing my inspiration.

3. I need to draw from life more. Restaurants, sidewalks, whatever.

So this week I'm going to take a break from faces and work on my gesture drawings. I've done a shitload of 'em, and I've included what I feel are the most productive in my update.

So here we go:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604a.jpg

General face anatomy. I've yet to really grasp the muscles of the face, so this is pretty much just a general summing of the masses. My handwriting sucks.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604b.jpg

Some more faces, this time with me working out how to draw females.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604c.jpg

A number of faces. At this point I'm really just testing out this neat lead holder I bought.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604d.jpg

My friend Joey on the left. I got kinda fed up with the lead holder at this point. My roommate is on the right, working on some art of his on the computer.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604e.jpg

I slowed down my approach and was really careful with these faces. I think I'm getting better at that.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604f.jpg

Random life drawing/barbarian guy.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604g.jpg

Same barbarian guy. I see this tilt in the upper lefthand drawing. I'll have to work on that (any tips on removing the brain's naturaly tilt in drawing?)

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604h.jpg

Some more faces.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604i.jpg

Even more faces. I started drawing porn stars.

...yeah.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604j.jpg

My gesture stuff. I hadn't quite "gotten" it yet.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604k.jpg

Still hadn't gotten it, but I'm getting closer.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604l.jpg

Aha! Now I'm getting into it. I pretty much devoured about 2 magazine's worth of poses after this point. I just couldn't stop drawing gestures.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604m.jpg

Aaaaand some other stuff. I like the girl with the gun; just need to work on the anatomy a bit. But I'll get that later. Right now, I'm just happy my poses are coming out nicer.

So yeah, that's all I've got. Since this is really turning into a more of a learning thread than a daily sketchbook, I'm gonna request this to be moved to the Learning forum instead.

Right now I'm headed out to go eat. I'm just going to sketch stuff at the dining hall. Whatever I can find. I want to fill up pages and pages with drawings now, especially gestures.

[lavhoes]

Can't believe it's been a month since I've updated...

Anyway, it's been a really crazy month. A friend of mine is producing a miniatures game (http://triskelegames.com), so I've been busting my ass trying to produce a few concepts for him. I've taken to a really nice warm-up routine that has me producing some pretty creative results.

It goes:

15-20 minutes of drawing circles (warm up the wrist, arm, whatever)

45 minutes - 1 hour of plastilina/Sculpey drawing. What I do is just...mash the clay into some sort of shape, and as I play with it a little I start to get an idea for a drawing. Well, I only play with it for a couple of minutes, and then I'll set the clay down and draw based on the blob I've created. I've been getting some very creative results, and from this warm up I'm inspired for the rest of the day, even if what I produce during this time has nothing at all to do with what I'll be drawing later.

I do this hour or so of warming up every morning, and then I head out, go to classes, do gesture studies of my classmates, yadda yadda. I'm going to start a massive study on the planes of the head Wednesday, as I've a test tomorrow that'll be killer if I don't spend all day studying. Ah, the life of a college student.

Anyway, I've been doing some more creative stuff lately and less focused studies, which is why I haven't updated in a while. I was really kinda lost for a bit as to where I stood, but today I decided to just do some concepts and see how it went. I normally don't thumbnail, and today was no exception, but it's a habit I'll need to pick up soon. So I did my warm-ups, did the hour of creative drawing, and set to work. Here's what I produced:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/undead1.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/undead2.jpg

Now, it may not look like much, but I'm rather proud of what I've produced. I'd love to render the images, but the format for the book is B&W lineart only, so these'll have to stay lineart for the time being. I think my improvement is showing. Sure, they're not faces...nor, really, vaguely human, but I'm getting there. My knowledge is more instinctive now, especially about the bones of the face, so I feel more comfortable drawing random heads. I think I'm making good progress, and that's really all you can ask for, eh?

These were both drawn using plastilina as a reference. I just kinda played with it until something clicked, then did a quick 2-minute gesture of the clay as the idea fleshed itself out. Then I scanned the quickie, resized in Photoshop, printed it out, and traced over it on another sheet of paper, adding all sorts of details. Here's the quickie page:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/concepts11.jpg

I'll have those other two by tomorrow, along with some head studies and a massive headache from that goddamn test. Head planar study begins Wednesday, through 'til sometime next week, along with a few more concepts I've got to finish for my friend. All in all, things are looking on the up and up for my artwork, much better than they were 4 months ago when I started this thread.

[lavhoes]

Some random thumbnails tonight, this time in all-pen. I really like sketching with the pen. Really, really like sketching with the pen. I don't think I can sketch with a pencil again. Gotta use pen.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/031604a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/031604b.jpg

[Yiako]

Hey, Ivanhoes. You are progressing at a steady pace. That sculpey trick seems interesting. I'm gonna buy some tomorrow :)

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by Yiako
Hey, Ivanhoes. You are progressing at a steady pace. That sculpey trick seems interesting. I'm gonna buy some tomorrow :)

Who is Ivanhoes? I mean, it's a common mistake on my user name, so I get it a lot, but my name isn't spelled anywhere near that, so I'm wondering how this Ivanhoes guy got so popular as to make people reorganize my name into his.

No fault of your own, of course. As I said, it's a really common name I'm called, for one reason or another, so I'm kinda used to it by now.

Anyway, thanks man, I love Sculpey to death. Love it love it love it. Almost as much as I'm loving pens right now.

Here's some more stuff for today:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/031704a.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/031704b.jpg

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/031704c.jpg

[-The Swift-]

whoa lavhoes, i can't believe i've missed this sketchbook for sooooo long! you've really progressed as far as i can tell, those game concepts were a really good standard too. keep at it. your faces and stuff look as though they come naturally now! :)

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by -The Swift-
whoa lavhoes, i can't believe i've missed this sketchbook for sooooo long! you've really progressed as far as i can tell, those game concepts were a really good standard too. keep at it. your faces and stuff look as though they come naturally now! :)

Thanks The Swift!

Here's today's finished concept piece:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/undead3.jpg

More sketching tomorrow!

[metalwinds]

all those studies seem to be helping. .. your work is definitely getting better, and im diggin the latest concept piece

keep it up

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by metalwinds
all those studies seem to be helping. .. your work is definitely getting better, and im diggin the latest concept piece

keep it up

Will do, boss.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/sammech3.jpg

[JackalAnubis]

I agree, those new concept drawings you're doing are looking really good. the studies that you've been doing have definately been helping. keep up the concept work and the studies!

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by JackalAnubis
the studies that you've been doing have definately been helping.

I'll say, though I've been taking a break from them for a little while. There's a point where, no matter how highly you regard studies, you just...can't do anymore. You gotta step back and just doodle doodle doodle or else you'll go insane.

I've had a few weeks to digest what I've learned, plus learn a few more things in the process, so it's time to hit the studies again. I'll try drawing the planes of the face and see how that goes.

Anyway, here's today's massive update:

Getting comfortable with the brand new sketchbook (always a daunting task):
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032104a.jpg

Concept sketches of my Mage samurai Akashic character, plus a few more heads, undead and otherwise:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032104b.jpg

My creativity was sputtering out, so I just kinda wound down with a few simple sketches:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032104c.jpg

I warmed up again an hour later and did another page:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032104d.jpg

Couple of Chrono Trigger sketches and some miscellaneous stuff:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032104e.jpg

[lavhoes]

Originally posted by lavhoes
http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/021604g.jpg

That was a little over a month ago, when I did that. Today I did a shitload of studying on the planes of the face, and decided to put that information into use by re-sketching the barbarian dude.

First, here's the heads I did after I did some work on the planes of the face:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032404a.jpg

And here's the barbarian:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/032404b.jpg

All without reference.

I think my long-term study of the head is almost complete, for now. It won't be photo-realistic for a long, long time, but I"ve gained enough information to at least pass off some believable heads. They're in proportion, and I understand how the muscles and features work to produce emotions. All I have left to do is learn the planes of the ears and the eyelids, relatively easy stuff, and learn how to draw hair. After that, I'll go after the neck, and start building up the figure from there.

Looking back at some previous pages of my sketchbook, I've come a long, long way in only a few months. It's satisfying to see how much I've progressed, and it leaves me excited to see where I'll be going in the future.

[PeggyChung]

hey lavhoes, ahh what an inspiration, goodjob. sad because i have been working on heads for hte longest time, but they arent looking as good as yours haha. did you copy a lot of photos or life? because i studied the planes/skulls all that jazz and such but the problem was i didnt look to photos for ref and just started doing imaginary heads *wrong wrong!*

[sixBlade]

your perseverance in improving your art is impressive :) What is this 300 heads thing you speak of? never heard of it before ;o

[lavhoes]

Wow, I can't believe it's already been a year. Feels like just yesterday I was starting out on this trip. How I have progressed!

I've been learning a lot since I've been away, keeping my observational skills up to par. I took a bit of a hiatus over the summer but now I am back and ready to launch head-first into art once again. I've shaken off some bad habits and picked up some really good ones, so I feel pumped to start drawing daily once again.

Here is what I spent yesterday on:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/orc.jpg

I hadn't really done anything "big" in a while, just a lot of studies. I'm getting back into the imagination side of things in order to apply my knowledge.

Art, I'm finding, is best learnt like another language. Sure, I could learn German by memorizing the words and grammar structure, but the knowledge would only stick with me superficially. I'd never be truly fluent if all I did was know the words and not actually use them regularly. It's the application of knowledge that really gets it stuck in our heads. As an artist, I have to take concepts I learn (anatomy of the arm, shading in a wood texture, etc.) and apply them as often as I can so they become core to my art. No amount of studies will help me if I'm completely unable to apply what I've learned.

So I am prescribing myself a diet of 1/3rd studies, 1/3rd application with study reference, and 1/3rd application straight from my head. I'll mix it up a bit and apply what I've learned in order to really cement it in my head.

[lavhoes]

Damnit, it's been another month. My grandmum died, I ran into a bunch of final exams, lot of other "excuses." I've been drawing, but I really need to stick with updating too.

Here's what I did yesterday:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/dpal.jpg

I'm trying to nail my values just right, holding off on the highlights 'til it's just the right time for them, keeping my drop shadows nice and dark, and my core shadows blended in. I leaned on the darker side of the spectrum this time, to limit my value pallette. Next time I'm going to try and keep everything nice and light, yet noticeably shaded.

And I will post something tomorrow, damnit.

[hurricane]

great last pic, huge steps in improvement !

you know highlights doesnt need to be a spot, they can be lines too :)

in the last pic all highlights are spherical (hehe) or pointy..

wonderfull work and progress

cheers !

[lavhoes]

you know highlights doesnt need to be a spot, they can be lines too :)


Oooh, guess I held onto those highlights a bit too long, haha. I went back and broadened the highlights a bit more to reflect the flatter surfaces of the armor, plus I threw in a few reflections to make the armor seem more metallic.

Does it look better?

[hurricane]

yes, and if you add highcontrasted "bumps" into the highlight you uncontiously read it into the rest of the armor areas (my own little idea)

looks cool

cheers

[lavhoes]

My monitor here at home is shit, so I'm probably gonna head out later today to get a new one. It makes everything really "dark" so it's hard to see the true values of everything.

I should have brought my personal monitor from school, but I thought it was too heavy to lug around. Ah well =(

Anyway, my friend set up a chat board for doodling so I went over and doodled a bit:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/121904.jpg

I'm getting used to laying down a black silhouette, then adding in some greys and finally a bit of highlighting. I'm trying to be more careful when doing this, making sure that I don't have to scratch and hack at it to get it looking right, making for a smoother finished drawing. I figure this way I could speed up my drawing and do more instead of spending half an hour redrawing the same one over and over again.

[lavhoes]

I felt like black and dark grey tonight, so here we go:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/hellboy.jpg

[Nike]

Hi lavhoes
nice sketchbook and lots of progress! :)
I like your last black and grey sketch, but it's a bit hard to figure out what's going on at it's head. And what is he doing with his right arm? Looks like it's resting somewhere, but it's looking a little bit confusing. Or that's just me Maybe you can fix that -
hope that helps

keep the good work :)

[lavhoes]

Hrmm, I followed the Hellboy source material pretty closely with the head; the right arm was tricky though so I just said "fuck it" and left it hanging.

Here's some torsos:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/ds/122304a.jpg

[eliWolff]

I can really see that doing all those studies is paying off big-time for you. The last couple of drawings are great looking -- I really like the warrior with the spear. I'd like to see a few more characters drawn like that, maybe do one with the warrior fighting something with that big spear? Well I hope you can keep the momentum going, I'm sure you're going to just keep getting better.

[Sanby]

You are really improving with those studies which is awesome.

I think that thsoe couple monster things you made are really wicked. I also think that your idea of messing around with some sculpey and then just using that as inspiration is an awesome idea. I am going to have to try that one I think.

Sanby

[van]

Great value work on the recent stuff. The last two you posted I refer to as 'blocking in' sketches. A great excercise and you were right on the money.

[lavhoes]

Thanks guys =P

eliWolff: I took your advice and made a more action-oriented picture today. Not painted, but I'll work on that later.

Sanby: Heh, yeah, I got it from an old thread here about drawing a random blob in Opencanvas and having any other artist in the chat try to make something of it. Incredibly handy!

van: You're absolutely right about blocking stuff in; that's what I've been trying to aim for, as you'll see here:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/sambatprev2.jpg

Edit: Composition practice, much better this time around:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/sambatprev3.jpg

And a random robot:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/orbot.jpg

[Sanby]

Great stuff, with the blocking in. I really like the robot, he looks pretty kewl, and the perspective in neat.

Sanby

[eliWolff]

oh yeah, that's looking cool! It's amazing how just a few well placed highlights on an all black figure can make you tell what the details are. And that extra tree on the right side really helps. I'll be checking back to see what you come up with next!

[liam.c]

wow mate crazy progress !!!!
looking good mate!

[van]

Excellent work. The robot looks pretty organic though. :) looks speedy so maybe that a nitpick, but its hard to find much my friend! :D

[lavhoes]

Quick mountains, w/o ref:

http://www.darkensai.com/art/mountains.jpg

Will post commentary later, I'm late for a party!

[lavhoes]

Speed painting / color study with ref.

http://www.darkensai.com/art/desert.jpg

Will post commentary when I become conscious.

[van]

Nice couple of speedies, man. The desert looks pretty damn good. :)