14 year olds sketchbook

[_Forrest]

Hello, my name is Forrest, I'm 14 years old and i want to work for
Blizzard Entertainment as a concept artist. I'm not a complete noob to drawing but
I am a noob to artwork if you catch my drift :wink: So, all I'm looking for is
critique on how to excel forward.
By the way some of these drawings are from Magic: The Gathering Cards.


This First One is one i drew in 6th grade so its not as great as some of the others but the lizard looks cool.

[Hudd]

14...not bad at all. It's very good that you are drawing from reference. You should try to draw from life as much as possible. Study anatomy as much as you can. You have a promising start! Keep practicing!

-Hudd

[_Forrest]

thanks hudd and i have just been drawing whtever i see outside my school and what not, its hard for me to learn anatomy because they dont offfer it as a class until junior year.

[Nettle_Mountain]

hmm, get a book from: bridgman or hogart: dynamic anatomy

will help you a ton

take a model from here and tips what is he doing, how to get better, read trought every page, this quy was 14 when he started out: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=97046

You are really good for your age, but you could be a ton better

it's now up to you

[_Forrest]

Heres some of my artwork that i did on photoshop.
Some of these are also Magic: The Gathering Cards

[_Forrest]

wow that miles guy is amazing, in one year he went from decent to amazing ill try to study anatomy as much as i can, thank you.

[oomgawa]

14, eh? Great start to your art journey! I agree with the comments about Bridgman and Hogart. They are must haves for your understanding of anatomy. Just start on the first page and draw everything all the way through. Looking at great art won't get the information into your head, but drawing it will.

I suggest that you draw more before you start working in color in Photoshop. Also, work with more contrast in your drawings, things that are closer to the viewer can be more intense in value, and things that are further away should be lighter. This helps the viewer's eye to focus on the most important things, such as the face, the hands, and a bit of armor or weaponry. Here is an example of your work with the above applied to it. . .

[_Forrest]

i understand what you mean, i will have a look at that book and i dont do that much in photoshop but occasionally ill practice or review and hopefully learn something new. About the contrast i understand what you mean but the drawing looked so plain before i shaded the outside and i also wanted to give him a sort of glow. For the armor and weapons i totally agree but i wasnt sure if i wanted it to dark or not. thanks for the help though :}

[slpyliltrtle]

photoshop filters are fun to use but they need to be used correctly and controlled. try not to rely on the filters in photoshop. if anything don't use it at all...

[Slothboy3000]

I'd suggest trying not to smudge with your finger too much when creating tone, either. Try creating tone just by using lines instead.
Not bad at all for 14, though! :)

[_Forrest]

i stopped using filters, the ones with filters were made about a month ago, and i know what you mean slothboy and thats what im learning now in school and practicing because smudging can make it look messy. Thanks for the advice though guys really appreciate it.

[_Forrest]

im going to buy that book Dynamic Anatomy and do what u said Nettle ill practice and now i have a new goal. To be better then that Miles guy by the time im 15 :}

[_Forrest]

Heres some things i drew through out the day and just a little bit of anatomy that i saw on the internet im gonna spend an assload of time tomorrow studying, so expect a lot of drawings :}

[Peter Coene]

Its good to see the anatomy study there but I think you might want to study the skeletal structure 1st. The reason that I say this is that while you are drawing the muscles your study seems to show a lack of understanding as to what they connect to or the purpose of each muscle.

When you understand the skeleton (not necessarily every bone, but the basic mechanics of it) the muscles begin to make more sense and it will also help in understanding which muscles flex for different actions.

Also try to think of things as 3 dimensional when you draw them. The skull that you show there looks interesting as a graphic, however to understand its structure you will want to look closely at your reference and figure it out using that.

BTW, please don't feel like I'm coming down hard on you. For your age you are doing a great job, I'm just pointing out the areas where you could be doing even better.

[_Forrest]

nah man i dont think yur comin down hard on me, even if i did i know that what you say helps me. Ill definitely read up on skeletal structure and what not, i probably wont spend too much time on it as muscle though, ill just sketch a few of the major joints. thanks for the crits.

[_Forrest]

This is a self portrait i need to fix the lips but i don't know a good technique to do so. My downfall on faces is the lips and occasionally the eyes. If anyone knows any good way to draw lips then please tell me :}.

[slpyliltrtle]

a fun way to practice is to take a picture of yourself. then using what you have studied about the human anatomy try and draw the skeleton of yourself base off your picture. then lay a transparent paper on top of your skeleton and try and draw the muscles. then after that lay another transparent paper on top of that and do the skin. its a very long process but from doing that you will be able to understand why and how the muscles and tendons relate to the rest of the body. you can do this either section by section of your body. or just do your whole body. i suggest starting with each body part and work one at a time slowly.

[_Forrest]

damn thats gonna be a pain, but i guess ill try it, thanks :}

[_Forrest]

I just drew this, i can't find any anatomy books that are good for sketching so i'm probably going to stick with searching the web.:carnifex:

In All the drawing took me about 1 hour or so.

REFERENCED

[_Forrest]

I decided to mess around with photoshop a little bit.

[_Forrest]

Sorry i havent posted anything in the past few days ive been drawing a bunch, heres some of the stuff ive done lately :steph:

[_Forrest]

Some of my Anatomy study drawings, ive been reading Bridgeman and so far its goin good :lifedrawing:

[My57]

anatomy coming along fine. You need a little bit more practice with painting i think. Im not good my self at painting so just take your time...

sorry i = tired.

[~Maximiliaan]

The study's are going the right direction but your paintings still need some work. Try using more contrast to make the ullusion of depth.
Keep it up :)

[_Forrest]

thanks guys, sorry i havent been posting for awhile, ive been busy with school so i might have to take a little break on my drawings.

[PsiBug]

Good work so far on your sketchbook. Be sure to write the date on your drawings! In a few years it'll probably be fun for you to look back at your older stuff and see how you've continued to improve.

Regarding your comments on drawing faces: I think I only saw one human face in the sketchbook so far (the self portrait).

The self portrait:
as you mentioned, you are already developing some good methods but you are still building your techniques for doing eyes and mouths. You've handled the nose well by drawing it the way you see it, as a three dimensional shaded shape. On the other hand, you have drawn the eyes as simplified eye-symbols with clean simple outlines. They look like symmetrical almond shapes with two circles inside. When you look at your eyes in a mirror or a photo, try to see them as a little asymmetrical and irregular with odd folds and curves and eyelashes and tear ducts. Make sure that when you draw, you draw the eye that you are seeing (in the picture or mirror) and not just the eye-symbol that you have stored in your head.

I know that's not exactly a tutorial but I Hope it makes sense.

Edit: I'm attaching a quick sketchy to help illustrate what I mean by "more realistic eye VS eye-shaped symbol"

[_Forrest]

thanks, i know what you mean and ill start practicing my self porttraits whn i get the time to. :}

[_Forrest]

Sorry i havent poted anything lately, it's been really tight with school lately. Heres just a few guys i've made lately, the first two are eww but i'm still goin to show them to see how i can improve them. The last guy i just made today and i think he's epic :anime:

[_Forrest]

I just did this today, i really tried to practice my shading on it.

[Nettle_Mountain]

Looking good allready, fight for it to get better

Draw posemaniacs 30s 200 kpl and 60s 100 kpl

http://www.posemaniacs.com/?pagename=thirtysecond

Do these and you are halfway there

[_Forrest]

ive been lookin for a website just like that, thanks man, ill start right away drawing poses. really appreciate it. :steph:

[SamC]

Great start :D nice to see another 14 year old about. Pop down to my SB sometime if you like ;)

[_Forrest]

I've been workin off and on on this and just finished it last night, im too lazy at the moment to post some of my figure practice drawings. It's been a pain tho because i can't finish a drawing even in 90 sec. any ideas to help me draw faster would be great.

SamC Thanks man, i'll be chackin' it

[_Forrest]

Ok, i havent posted anything for a long time, ive been busy playing video games and wasting my time :} anyway, ive been drawing poses lately and ill post those first and then i drew a couple things lately that use no references and i think are pretty good.

[SamC]

More :)

[destrometal]

looking good, you can see how your drawings are gaining dimension. keep up the good work!

[Crazy Pills]

Drawings are looking good. You've got a lot of good things going for you. In some drawings I see a good sense of form and value, but in others they are weak - I think your life drawings/studies would be the strong ones and the stuff out of your head is weaker, but that will come with time so long as you keep hammering those studies.

But I would suggest you practice a little humility (your thread title, particularly the self-praise, irritated the hell out of me). Once you realize how much you have to learn, and that there are so many people out there to learn from you'll begin to learn a lot faster. I get the feeling from your posts that you do realize this, but your title definitely gives a different impression.

Keep up the sketching and learning.

[_Forrest]

k, sorry i haven't posted anything i'll definitely have some stuff on tommorow.

SamC Will do. :}

destrometal Thanks.

Crazy Pills I completely agree with you, and about my title, i put it up there before i realized any of these things about studying or anything. Only reason it's still up there is because i don't know how to change it :[ If you could tell me how then that'd be awesome.

[ihatemexies]

Crazy Pills I completely agree with you, and about my title, i put it up there before i realized any of these things about studying or anything. Only reason it's still up there is because i don't know how to change it :[ If you could tell me how then that'd be awesome.

Yeah your thread title pisses me off too. to change it click edit post and you can change the actual thread title from there.

you have a lot of work ahead of you and practicing humility before anatomy would be a good start. you have some good reference stuff but you are far from badass. miles can name his thread "i'm 15 and badass," you still have a lot to learn.

[_Forrest]

Ok, i haven't posted in awhile, but i haven't quit drawing. For the holidays i got an anatomy book by hogarth and have been drawing in it and reading it. I'm not sure if i'm going to post any non-referenced art for awhile.

Ihatemexies I'm not sure what you mean by humility, and yes i finally changed my thread title so it's not so misleading :}

[_Forrest]

Just kinda experimenting with photoshop a bit. Made an environment.

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[Bill]

You have a nice line and your figures have the start of a good sense of form. It's already been said that the best thing you can do is draw from life. If you can't get to a model then your hands, a mirror, statues, Action figures... whatever you can find. You are on a good track, I'm sure you'll be really good.

[_Forrest]

I'm still keepin up on my anatomy studies, it's gonna slow down now that schools back up tho. Anyway,
made this second desert because after a long time i decided i don't like my last one :}

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[_Forrest]

I think this is my best photoshop work yet :} I still have the feeling theres something wrong with it, if anyone els sees something please tell me and i'll fix it.


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[ImaginaryMonkey]

hey another 14 year old!
but dude, your miles ahead of me so keep it up!!!

oh for your last picture, the ear is quite far up, im definitely no master in facial structure but generally the ear is a little lower down

[_Forrest]

ImaginaryMonkey Thanks I've been tryin to figure out how to change t with out completely erasing it and making a new one.

[_Forrest]

Just made this today, it took about an 1.5 hours. I was mostly just testing
out a brush that i noticed, i thought it would look cool for a volcano
texture :}


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[_Forrest]

These are my anatomy studies that i have been drawing in the past few days.
I've been doing usually 1 drawing per day. Except yesterday i went on a spree
in my sketchbook and drew about 5 or 6 things.

[SamC]

Awesome studies man..seriously. With paintings (i like the sand in the 2nd desert), paint alot from photos to develop colour theory (the sky is not blue, grass is not green, the sun is not yellow etc) you only really understand this if you had like a blue metallic ball in front of you and tried paint it blue, you get me? It'd reflect the objects around it and contain the colour of the light etc. The only way to get this is to grab some fruit first of all, put it on your desk, look at the ACTUAL colours, and paint it. Just takes practice, but yeah life and photo paints. Remember you can't do something well from mind if you haven't studied what it actually looks like. Oh and more study, it's paying off. Keep it up.

[_Forrest]

K, i wont be posting anything for about a week starting tommorow cause i'll be in Arizona.
It'll give me time to focus more on studies and less on world of warcraft :carnifex: :uzi2:


Hey, thanks Sam. After i read your post i grabbed my nearest CD case and started photoshop. I haven't
been drawing from life a whole bunch. So, i think i'll start doin' that from now on. :wink:


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[Brightdreamer]

Nice!

My only real comment is to remember that fantastic animals, such as your dragons, need anatomical grounding, too. Study other animals to understand skeletons, muscles, surface textures, etc. Once you get an idea of how real animals are put together, it helps you create convincing imaginary ones.

[Legacy Flame]

Great sketchbook you got coming along. And as a fan of magic:the gathering, I have to say those fan-arts you did were just awesome. I'll be watching you.

[_Forrest]

Legacy Flame Thanks :}

Brightdreamer Yeah, I'm not too worried about those yet, I won't be
drawing those till i finally get my human anatomy down. Thanks though :wink:

Ok, so its mostly the bad side of my mind thats been pushing the positive side of my mind with this thought. Looking at other peoples art makes me think if i'm doing mine in a way thats worse or better, my mind is telling me it's worse. For example: all of my art i've been using the smudge tool to smooth the colors and blend them together. On others they have been using brush strokes entirely. This thought has bothered me but mostly struck me hard when i tried the drawing below. It seemed amazing at first and then as i looked at it more and more my mind just grew more curious.


As you can see it looks smooth but thats what i hate about it, when i try doing just brush strokes i fail miserably and you can see an example above as my first desert. I hope that someone can tell me about this problem or hopefully when i finally get a tablet it will get better. Thanks to those who read all of this and please help

[SamC]

I wouldn't worry, these were done with a mouse? You'll be fine when you get a tablet trust me, you can set the pen to different opacity on pen pressure and then it'll be easy flying for you stroke wise. This one is pretty heavily smudged, but you had your reasons I guess, just seems quite blurry. Colour-wise it seems like you've stuck to three shades of each colour. I'd focus on pencils until you get a tablet, which will help your paintings in the future. Keep it up and try not to get bogged down, if someone told you to become a master of art in 2 pages you'd say they were nuts right?

[Smarty]

keep it up biddy! all it takes is practise

[_Forrest]

SamC I agree, thanks for the help. I'm going to stop photoshop
for awhile and sketch an study anatomy(which I have sadly
not been doing)

Smarty thanks :}

Tonight im going to spend my time sketching and practicing figures.
Also, after looking back at Miles sketchbook just because it taunts me
in every way i noticed that after he stated doing self portraits his faces
became much much better so im also going to start that soon.

Oh and ive been gettin mad at my user name. How do you change it?

[SamC]

People seem to use Miles as an assurance they'll be successful if they follow his path, and sure you could do everything he did, but you wouldn't end up with the individual style he's developed... just a mimic. The path that lies before you that hasn't been discovered will be much harder to follow, but it'll be a much more exciting journey and the style be entirely you're own. After all, Miles didn't have someone who had done what he'd done to reference what to do and when. But if you don't wanna be Miles, fair play to you :) You can beg them to change your name here http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=116699&page=10

[eparts]

nice sketches. getting better.
work more on value studies so that your forms stand out more - that would be my tip :)

[_Forrest]

SamC That makes sense, and yes I was getting much of my studying ideas from Miles. I think I'm gonna take a break from his sketchbook so as not to be too tempted.

eparts Thank you, ill try that :}

This is a little Minotaur I drew for a project, I used the body from a reference but changed most of the other things.

[_Forrest]

This is my second self portrait, this one is much
better then my last one on the 1st page. I do
think that the nose is a little too long though.

[George Abraham]

Well on your way.

Keep pushing and redo some old studies from time to time.

[thechalkie]

you got some good stuff...a great place to start...

1)skulls- at the moment you are drawing basketballs with faces on it
-your doing studies of the human head and they are great, just when you draw from your head you need to rember the studies and not return to what you think it looks like. draw what it acctually looks like...try egsaturating the back part of the skull till it looks correct


2)also try not drawing lines arround every thing. the brain is a strange thing if you enthersis where a line should be eg on the side of a face... the brain will relise ther is no line

3)perception-things that are closer to you are larger...when drawing comics or an high action scenes try egsaturating the perspective to make the main action jump out http://bp2.blogger.com/_tYiCGgNLJ8c/Rv4kppD4QII/AAAAAAAACeM/Bq3NquV5AIk/s1600-h/fight0159-d.jpg

its only sugestions....you have some good stuff i wish i was that good when i was your age...i didnt really start to see any change in my drawings untill i was 17...and o yeah COPY COPY COPY....it may sound stupid but copy every thing you see and like, and then try and figgur out what it is that you like about it and how you can incoperate it into your work eg size of a character, feel ,shape, tone...but dont go out and plagerise (not saying you do)

[SamC]

The eyes and eyebrows are way too high up on the face, the mouth is quite low down and not wide enough. Drawing from life will help your drawings tons, you'll be thinking in solid mass and not outline, do more and you will improve.

[_Forrest]

zaorr thanks, will do :wink:

thechalkie I see what you mean and I will try those

SamC Yeah, looking at it now it doesn' look that good I think that I
was just getting caught in the moment because it looked much better then
my last self portrait. But like chalkie said, I should be focusing on what faces
should look like and not entirely what I see.

So, an awesome idea for a drawing came to my head about Care Bears going
rainbow hunting with gattling guns so once I get a tablet and acquire more
skills in photoshop I'll start that, the bottom pic is what I'm thinking of the
looks. First post is just a little bit of doodles I did earlier.

[_Forrest]

Some doodles and life drawings. I might have a self portrait later today,
I'm not sure how I'll feel later.

The bottom drawing got stretched somehow, the torso isn't that long

[_Forrest]

Alright so i quit world of warcraft (thank god) and i made the decision that id
rather draw as my future job instead of stay in a cubicle like my parents, so
this time I'm back and I'm staying.

[SamC]

Fuck yeah dude. That attitude will take you to the top. Keep up the studies man!

[jedininjaman]

WoW is awful, wastes so much time...
You remind me of myself two years ago, but hopefully you will be better than I am by the time you are 16, keep it up man
-jed

[_Forrest]

SamC Thanks man :wink:

jedininjaman too true :( and thanks

So I've still been studying and also practicing during school, luckily a lot of
my teachers don't mind :} Here are just a couple things I've done lately,
upper torso studies and I'm beginning women's torso study aswell.

[_Forrest]

So, just been drawin', heres some stuff I did today. Any crits or things I might
want to try out are welcome. Unfortunately, I was going to enter this weeks
Teen Challenge but I don't like any of the drawings I'm comin up with. So, on
to more practicing!


http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/5364/02132009080958pmjj7.jpg (http://img124.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02132009080958pmjj7.jpg)

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/9704/02132009081037pmyk7.jpg (http://img124.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02132009081037pmyk7.jpg)

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/337/02132009081110pmts9.jpg (http://img124.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02132009081110pmts9.jpg)

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/2193/02132009081650pmbk1.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02132009081650pmbk1.jpg)

[Legacy Flame]

Looking good, keep at it. Loving those Hogarth studies.

[_Forrest]

Legacy Flame Thanks


Alright, so I don't have an excuse for not posting anything in the past week
but I'm posting stuff now so whatever. Most of the things below are hand
studies, the two characters were just quick sketches of some characters that
came to my head. I'm going to try and force myself to do a sp tomorrow.
Any crits would be much appreciated.

[Diego]

hey man, keep it up with those hogarth studies, also keep on drawing from life, set up a still life with some objects and draw from them, it will benefit you and your eye, you'll learn to compare, measure distances and negative spaces between the objects, how they cast their shadows, and how to handle simple shapes to form more complex shapes.

Keep it up dude.

[_Forrest]

Diego Thanks man, I'll try

So obviously i haven't been posting things, but I'm still drawing. This is just
some stuff I've pumped out today and it includes a *SELF PORTRAIT* yeah,
it took me awhile to finally just sit down and draw one. Unfortunately I have
very sweaty hands and so there are quite a few smudges, I'll probably get
gloves or something soon to solve that problem.

[SamC]

Render from left to right if your right handed or right to left if your left to avoid smudging. MORE!!!!!