Dementist's 2-Year Anniversary (with new sketches!)

[Dementist]

Well, it's that time again. Time to reflect on another year of consecutive doodling! Its always nice to go back and reflect on what we've learned, so join me, won't you, on a journey througha world of development...

(My best piece from last year)
http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/lordoftheundeadsmall.jpg

The Wizard Ardanian

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/wizardsmall.jpg

This piece was done almost exactly a year ago, and I think it's one of the best of this bunch. Somewhere in the middle of this piece I decided that I should try shading with an HB pencil instead of a mech one, an important technical advancement. I've also been trying to get away fromt he anime style this year, which didn't really work, unfortunately.

Merry Christmas from Racoon City!

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/rexmas.jpg

Last year's Christmas card. I'd like to think that this will be the year that I finally make a beautiful, touching Christmas card... but it probably ain't gonna happen.

Speedpaint 2

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/speedpaint2.jpg

Ah, the creative wonders of speedpainting. My two official resolutions for this year are
1.) DO MORE SPEEDPAINTING
2.) Learn to use painter
I'd love nothing mroe than to paint something every day. I think it'd be an immense help to me, so I really will try to work on this one.

THE BEASTIE

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/lalala2.jpg
(lines)
http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/beastiesmall.jpg

Ah, the beastie. A monument to my lack of productivity, this has been an ongoing project since May. I could never sit down and work on this more than an hour at a time, so its going unnaturally slowly. Some day, beast, some day.

The Hangar

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/hangar2b.jpg

Pen Drawing which I felt inclined to include since its one of my very few pieces of conceptual work.

The Legendry Korean Potty Demon

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/koreanpottydemon.jpg

Well, the name should say it all. There's a great story behind it, if you'd like to hear the tale...

Nightmare Zombie

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/nightmarezombie2.jpg

Just a sketch that I'm rather fond of. It's a lot of fun to just let your pencil wander.

Demi

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/deminew2.jpg

I just can't get away from these anime people. Oh, well. A bit of character design.

The most boring man alive

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/semple.jpg

Yes, it IS in fact my High School English teacher!

My irrational zombie love

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/nickzombie.jpg

I scared my friend pretty good with this pic of "zombie him."

Magic: The Gathering Demon

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/demon2.jpg

Recently, because of school, I find that the only time I can draw is during very boring classes. Obviously, Astronomy is one of them.

Merv

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/merv2.jpg

Happy Halloween to all!

Hobo Zombie

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/hobozombie.jpg

And lastly, my most recent work.

Well, those're the highlights, folks! For next year, I hope to have myriad colored concepts in painter to show you all, instead of the standard B+W characters with no background.

I really do wish to improve my skills, so if anyone out there could give advice to a fledgling artist, please do so.

Cheers, everyone!

[Prometheus|ANJ]

It seems that you draw a lot from your head, which is fun, but not so good for learning. If you wish to improve you should make studies, studies and more studies. There is no other way.

I like making quick pencil studies, fast thumbnail ones (20-40 per paper) or slower larger ones (2-4 per paper). I also make digital studies, which are in color or greyscale (PS).
Study material (ref) can be anything, photos, stuff on your table, buildings, animals, friends, strangers, anything... Just keep diverse and don't snow in on a certain subject.
I'd recommend doing about 0-20 sheets a week, for 3 years. If you do that you'll get very good. You'll probably notice significant improvement after a couple of months.


You go from black to white a lot on your pencil shaded stuff. That's not so good. It's hard to briefly explain values, but if you do studies you will understand better what values to use where. (Values = brightness of a color in greyscale)

[DanSTC]

Yeah, definately do more studies.

It might help to find some good art instruction books to study from too. (No, not "how to draw manga" crap. I'm talking bare-bones straight-up figure drawing and the like.)

[Dementist]

Wow....thanks a lot! I was beginning to think that nobody would reply!

Promethius: THANK YOU! I don't think anyone has ever takent he time to just give me some nice, simple advice like that. I'll try that "20 little pics" thing right away. As for the value, I never was very good witht he "technical" part of art. I take it classes would help with that, right? I also think that if I can find some tasteful nudes for anatomy purposes (dont get many opportunities to have models come to the high school, alas) that would greatly help. I really appreciate your counsel!

Dan: Will do! I only have one "real" art book; "Dynamic Figure Drawing." Its good, but I've never actually gotten through the whole thing. I inheritted many art books from my late uncle, so I'll try to sort throught hem and find some worth reading.

My deepest thanks to both of you!

[Shadowkiller]

amazing work. What do you like better the hb pencils or the mech one. Just wondering because i haven't got to try a mech pencil just yet?

[Dementist]

Well, This is the blind leading the blind, but I'd say normal HB pencils because you have much more control over your tip size and the line thickness.

[gauss]

listen to what prometheus said, and judging from the pieces here, i'd say try and pay attention to varying line weight (look at good lineart, pay attention to what's thick and what's thinly lined) and also try and make a conscious effort for longer, more confident strokes. the confidence is only going to come with experience, i guess, but some of your drawings have a 'hairy' look to them that can be alleviated by making drawing longer lines.

and yes, get away from manga-style art. all your favorite manga artists could render well in traditional, observational drawing style before they brought their distinctive touch to the page, and you should do the same. and i found it interesting that one of your drawings is labeled 'the most boring man alive'--your english teacher may be a really boring person, but his features are interesting. in fact, once you really get into figure drawing, you'll find yourself endlessly fascinated by peoples' faces, noticing little things you never payed attention to or noticed before (she's got really small ears... hey, he's got some funky-shaped nostrils). the fantasy and science fiction-y and zombie-type stuff is fun to do, but once you really get your observational drawing skills down all of that stuff will be 1000x better.

[Dementist]

Gaus: "you'll find yourself endlessly fascinated by peoples' faces" I may not be much of an artist yet, but I find myself doing this all the time. Just yesterday, I was watching "The Crucible," and said to myself, "WOW! That guy has a really interesting face! I should draw it!" So I guess that means there may yet be hope for me.

And you also hit the nail on the head with your comment about line strokes. I desperately need to learn how to vary thickness and make my strokes longer and more confident. Could you recommend any specific excercise to help with this?

[gauss]

well, i'm not really aware of specific exercises for line weight, but i will pass along some advice from my figure drawing instructor that i found immensely helpful in my own observational drawing skills. when drawing a figure, we'd set down the usual guidelines and measurements (measure how tall the figure is in head lengths, then sketch out rough forms). keep your first marks light and loose, concentrating on nailing the proportions right because it's the only time you'll get to fix them. if you start with bad proportions and render it up, you're going to get a nicely rendered bad drawing. so take time on proportions.
anyhow, the relevant bit of advice: once you've gotten your proportions roughed out with soft lines, then your brain needs to switch gears. it's amazingly simple, but effective way to draw from observation--try to look at a given feature NOT as a collection of lines, but as values, tones. stare at a person's face (the ol' squinting trick to check contrast helps here) to pick out where the darkest darks and the lightest lights are. you'll be surprised to notice some things--only a few if any features have any really deep darks (nostrils quite often) and even the 'whites' of the eyes are, quite often, not actually white! this will help your line weight because you shouldn't be thinking in terms of lines, only in lights and darks. drawing then becomes an exercise of figuring out, relatively speaking, simply what value goes where. to me at least, this really made my drawins easier, more accurate, and more realistic. by way of illustrating what i mean, let's take a 'difficult' area to draw, the lips. two drawings without reference:
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/gauss/req/lips.gif
i'm not trying all that hard, but we all know how difficult it is to get a nice looking pair of lips by drawing the outlines, right? the lips on the left are drawn in 'line' mode. the second drawing was done with minimal use of lines; instead, i tried to concentrate on expressing the form through value. my crosshatching honestly isn't that good, but see how much more realistic it by building up tone to represent values? this is why i included the smaller version of both drawings, notice how much more the second one 'reads' better at a distance.
this is not to knock line, of course, some of the best artists are masters at using just lines to convey just about anything (geof darrow, one of my favorites, is one such example) but that's a helluva lot harder to master and just won't yield as realistic results.
so i hope this helps some, because it really helped my figure drawing out when i was told to consider value over line. you should be able to better sort out line weight in the process as well, because it's kind of inherent to building up values as opposed to linear elements.

[Dementist]

http://mbnet.fi/zenbie/uploaded/presketch.jpg

Ok, here're my attempts at drawing every day. The last three (Weird Al, Mao Tse Dong, and "breakfast") are attempts at using value. The resolution is a bit small, (the Al pic being about 3 inches wide) but I think I got a bit of detail in. Any crits on my work so far from Gauss or Promethius would be great!

[Form]

i like your stuff...were at about the same place with our art, i think we make a good td7 matchup

keep it upski
-form

[DavidCousens]

I've got to say that I'm impressed with your attitude, Dementist.

You really listened to what Gauss and Prometheus said and took it to heart. Keep going with the same mentality and you'll find that you will improve leaps and bounds over the next year, and I look forward to reading that thread!

Nice one :chug:

Have fun all,

Dave(The Original) who just loves tha 'atmosphere' of these forums.

[Dementist]

Thanks, Form. I'm still gonna kick your sorry arse, though.;)

Thanks to you as well, Dave. I try to learn from my superiors. However, I have the severe handicap of being vursed with both procrastination genes and a somewhat limited attention cpan. Coupel that with school,a nd it adds up to not much drawing time. However, I'm still drawing SOMETHING every day. After the holidays I'll try to get my weekly sketches on more...well.... weekly schedule.

[Form]

oh YEAH?? well...well....im doing a self-portrait a day, and...and...lots of sketches....and yeah!...and plus im finished school so im olderthan you!!!.............so um YEH! Bryng it ye olde schoole style!

Nah seriously tho, top effort, keep up the good work munchkin!