Ol' Carl: Dec, 23 2009

[CTomlin]

Hello all,

Long time scroller, first time poster.

I recently began taking my art seriously, and trying to do an anatomy study every day. My favorite artists are Marko D. and Cole Eastburn, where most of my inspiration comes from. There are many other sketchbooks over the years that have kept me inspired to trudge on through the garbage I used to make, so thank you to everyone for contributing to my imagination.

I mostly work in graphite and some digital painting. I am currently enrolled in Bobby Chiu's 'Digital Painting Techniques' online. We'll see how that goes.

Learning as I go. Im going to try and paint the Pirate char. at the bottom in PS.

The stuff at the top is from this month and late last month, towards the bottom are stuffs from earlier this year. I did a shrinking batch in Photoshop and somethings should be larger than others. Any crits would be awesome, I would love to return the favor in another thread.

I work with juveniles so all i get when I show people art is ass kissing, but I know better. I would love love love some critique, I promise to hit you back :).

Thanks,
Carl

[Jaytea]

Uh... am I considered juvenile? *shot*

Whoa, really like your graphite work, the value and shading looks very nice. I can't really help anatomy-wise, but this last guy's [our] right hand is a little funky. Great stuff, otherwise, look forward to seeing more!

[syms]

wow man very impressive, especially the old guys in caps and works on the gray paper, keep it up ;]

[fullmetaljacket]

Great work awesome studies.

Id suggest that you also take another look at the perspective in your drawings, in some of them there are some minor flaws in that i think. (the two hands, and the "funky" pirate F.e. :p)

Grts

[CTomlin]

Fullmetal, Syms, Shalite: thanks guys that means a lot and its really encouraging. I'll try to stop by your threads later tonight.

Also heres some more I forgot, these were some of my recent favorites too.

[CTomlin]

Update. Friday/Saturday work, plus the cover for my little moleskin sketchbook all this work is in.


another Automated Batch, tried auto levels this time, a little dark in some areas.

[CTomlin]

Happy Holloween,

A quickie ghoul, prolly wont finish it.

[CTomlin]

More goons, and some underwater inspirations. Ran out of time to paint the values. Got stuff to do :(

[openanewworld]

Hi its Herman from Bobby Chiu’s class nice studying keep focus on analyzing the anatomy I find it most useful

[marleau]

Ahh, your studies are really nice. It reminds me I have to practice^^;;

[Lyno]

Hi Ctomlin, nice sketchbook :).
Those studies, I was wondering, are they from imagination or do you copy them? Nothing wrong with copying and learning, but close your books from time to time and draw. Now you can see what you learned and what needs more attention :).
Anyway, your stuff looks really good so keep pushing it!

[jatherip]

hey, nice sketchbook in here, exspecially your anatomy studies are cool , i like you realistic shading!

[destinyapocalypse]

good and clear jobs but i think some of your jobs human's body skins like metal
good jobs

[CTomlin]

Hello sketchbook page turners. I dont post a lot . I'm going to try to get one piece a week done. I've never finished a whole picture the way I've wanted or think that I could have before. But this year is my year, and I've been trying pretty hard the past month to improve and draw everyday.

I do have a lot of crap pages that I do in a crap sketchbook, as well as Jpegs saved from PS sketches, but I figured you would get more out of this, as would I, If I posted my best to be critiqued.

I'm going to color it, (I dont know how) and will fix the edges in the coloring. I also have not done the hair yet...So far I'm pretty satisfied. I'm about 6 hours in.

Its going to be a poster and my first personal portfolio submission.


openanewworld: thanks man, I love going to your threads, good tip I followed it, been trying everyday.

Marleau: thank you, yes practice, it does get boring sometimes though

Lyno: thanks for the tip, I took your advice, and really focused on my own stuff and tried to improve daily on what I kept messing up.

Jatherip: thanks man, im checking yo' stuff out now

destinyapocolyse: yes I have a really bad habit of doing that for some reason and have to overcompensate, for somehow I always want my drawings to be dark on the paper, and it goes over into my PS stuff. Trying to break the habit daily. Loomis fundamentals helped me a little.

[YihyoungLi]

You've got some impressive pencil skills huh? :) It could be fun to play with color too.

Might want to be careful with the darks in your digitals; some darker areas are looking cavernous.

[CTomlin]

YihyoungLi : Thanks! Ya I have that problem for some reason, hoping that it will look lighter eventually, getting the hang of greyscale without reference is hard still.

Here's a big dump from my "no reference" sketchbook that I've been working in all this year, there are some pages that are not included of course but I wouldnt want to waste your time.

There is one with the two girls which is from reference, both in an ImagineFX magazine. the one with their hair blowing in the wind. And the others at the bottom are from reference

Later I'm going to try and post some anatomy studies, but I'm going through Loomis as we speak. Like I said before, This is my stop being stubborn and learn all the fundamentals year, and build my first portfolio.

[CTomlin]

Here was a frustrating hour

Addendum: Another sketch added, instead of post.

[Volatile]

Wow your pencil work is really beutiful man nice work.

Most of those legs in that last piece are looking really good, nice folds on those baggy trousers, keep at it :D

[Wiggles]

Absolutly incredible work. Your work with pencil is by far my favorite. The peice with all of the creepy halloween-esque profiles is also really cool. The on with the spider face is REALLY awsome. :D

-Wiggs

[Eiki]

Awesome rendering! :rendered:

[CTomlin]

Morning doodle, more later

[Jesus Food]

great start man! good linework and shading. keep it up yo

[CTomlin]

Jesus Food, Eiki, Wiggles, Volitile: Thanks guys, I really appreciate the good words, it keeps me motivated to try and make more pictures. I'm such a harsh critique of myself, so its good to hear such nice things.


Urg, no reference is hard, so many rules to remember.

it sucks that it's more difficult to create symmetrical beauty than it is to create ugly bad guys. I've been trying girls faces cause I suck at them, and still do I think. Havent found a style of illustration for women I like yet, but I havent studied Loomis Heads book either, doing Creative Illustration at the moment.

[CTomlin]

Loomis, landmarks, very helpful

[E4sY]

liking your sketches. seeing the non references stuff is inspiring. keep posting.

[CTomlin]

More anatomy and my second personal Portfolio project.
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[tomjones]

Great pose and detailing for that last character. I think the only weak part is her feet and heels, it kind of looks like her left leg is floating - maybe because the feet aren't level?

She's very cool though - good work!

[CTomlin]

Drawing from imagination: Many hours a week with no pay

Stupid job not related to art: 40 plus hours a week

Still Seeing progress in myself: priceless

The one at the bottom was made for an Ipod Album cover flow, for those ones where you just see a musical note for the cover, use it if you want,

[ethan karnopp]

Good to see that you started posting again, there is quite a bit of progress to be seen here (it's a shame you took a couple of months off in between posts though). The anatomy/pose/form studies are coming along nicely, the thighs seem a bit big in general. Some of those are slightly off balance too, try drawing things in silhouette once to get the overall form and balance down, it works wonders (just make sure to keep them small). The last piece in your last post seems out of place though, not quite up to par with your grayscale work. Some color studies would be great to see!

[Chas]

Wow you've deffinately got some great pencil and rendering skills, and your knowledge of human musculature and anatomy are pretty well deveolped as well, but ( and you knew it was comming) since you aske dfor critiques I don't feel right just patting your ass so...
I think the two areas you need to work on most ( and they are deffinately related) are Figure proportions and foreshortening. I don't know if you're conciouly developing a style thing or what but your proportions, particularly in the legs (torso vs. hip to knee vs. knee to ankle) often seem wonky. sometimes the hip to knee section is way too long and on the same page another figure will have the knee to ankle section too long. Even on the page with the "Loomis Landmarks", the figure on the right looks correct but the figure on the far left the leg proportion looks all wonky - well at least to me anyway.
As for foreshortening well I don't know what to say other than keep at it. I've never really known what advise to give about improving one's ability in this area other than to keep at it untill it 'clicks' Sorry maybe some better help will come along for this area.
Anyway like I say this is simply what I see, and I am no expert -by far. So take it if you find it valuable and discard it if you don't either way you've got some really great skills period - just keep going!

[CTomlin]

Ethan Karnopp: Thanks, ya that last piece in that post was just a 20m warmup. No color studies tackled yet..sooo scared of potential frustration. >:|

Chas: Thanks, and thanks for the motivation to study legs. for some reason i was avoiding it.
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heres some girls heads cause I suck at them, and leg study.

[CTomlin]

more study after studying some more legs in unscanned work

[NanoBlack]

Yeah, heads are hard (i know, hence why i'm always doing some weird reptilian creature).

Nice work with the leg muscles, I know how hard it can be to find a decent reference image for muscular structure. You wouldn't think so, but then when you try to find one....

[Lapada]

hah tanks alot , your stuff is coeming along really nicely too :]

[DSmith]

You started taking art REALLY seriously!Awesome work,in every aspect of it!
May I ask how old are you?
I am a very beginner at figure drawing...Can you give me some advice in my sketchbook?
Thank you,and keep rocking!

DSmith

[Bummer6]

nice stuff... even if it is old XD If you're still alive I'd like to see you post more. haha

[CTomlin]

Thanks for the comments guys.

@Lapada: thanks, that's really cool

@DSmith: I did take it really seriously and had a job change that didnt allow me as much time as I wanted. I am just now getting back to daily sketching and stuff and trying to make my first real portfolio.----I'm 26

@Bummer6:Heres a couple quick things that I've started up again. I will be adding two more today.

[Emil_J.]

Haha cool half skeleton half face portrait. THhe poses from your last post look good as well. keep it up!

[Alexanderjr]

this is sweet, keep it up. i'd agree with Chas up there too though about the proportions especially the thigh area, proportion is difficult but super important. i'd say keep in mind the shapes and sizes in relation to the rest of the body while your plotting it out and keep up drawing figures from life and photos. maybe look at some skeletons's too? it all helps

[Cozmo]

Wow, man. I love your work, especially the pencils on the first page. You've got a GREAT feel for lighting, and I really like how your pencil strokes look very purposeful. I definitely feel that your pencils are stronger than your digital stuff, but that goes for myself as well.

One crit: on the guy with the bare skull above, it looks a bit like his face is lower than it should be, given the size of the skull, and also that maybe his face is too big for his head. But I LOVE the concept!

Looking forward to seeing more!