Room for Improvement

[Halcyone83]

lots and lots of it...
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[polarRook]

Awesome start! I wish I'd decided to get my ass in gear at 15.. so much wasted time ><. Keep it up! I'd recommend some more studies and checking out some bridgeman/loomis texts if you're interested in figure drawing.

I'm really just a noobie too and the studies have really helped me!

[Halcyone83]

I finally made a sketchbook (it's so intimidating...), for help from the amazing artists here (and for getting a mentor :geekg: ) I'm 15 and I just fairly recently decided that I'd love to do art for a living. As I have no backup plan for a career, I had better get my ass in gear and PRACTICE (I hope 3 years is enough..). From oldest to newest:

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[/edit]

Thanks =) Yeah, right now I have the "anatomy for the artist" book by Barcsay... I'm learning a lot (hell yess!).

Here's the rest of the old stuff from my little sketchbook:

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the original, smaller version of the girl:
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soldier is from observation from a game:
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From now on, it'll be new stuff :lineart:

[tokionanase]

total good :)

[Warforce17]

No backup plan *laugh*

Your studies looks nice (backs are the best) and
Cartoonshand is too.

I am think I am not even on your level
so the only advice from me is that you should practice.

Wish you good luck :)

[hitnrun]

I don't have much work posted here, but I can definitely give you some advice.
1) Draw from real life
2) Get yourself the books by the normally suggested authors: Loomis, Bridgman, Sheppard, and any others.

3) Make sure you've got all the right tools for the job. Pencils, Kneaded Erasers, vinyl erasers, a good pencil sharpener, and a lot of sketchbooks. You've got potential, and a decent start, but like all starting artists, you still need a lot of practice.

4)Draw tons of life sketches, value scales, value lines (its just a line that goes from light to dark - couldn't be easier), and study anatomy - thats critical for drawing people. You won't be able to effectively abstract the form of the human body, or modify it in any way, if you don't know how it looks normally.

5) If you want to get really good at faces, it helped me out a lot to study the individual parts of the face. I believe this is common practice amongst most artists, if not all. Draw eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and even hairstyles. Learn to draw hair, and ESPECIALLY Hands - I think 99.99% of artists have a very difficult time learning to draw hands. The sooner you learn to draw hair and hands, the better.

6) 3 years to become a great artist, I think is a very unrealistic time line. I've been drawing since 4th grade, and I am now pursuing a Bachelors in Art Ed. I'm good, and up to a relatively professional level, but I still draw every day.

Yeah, theres a bunch of other stuff - but this website should really only be used as a supplemental resource. I love this site, and it's absolutely wonderful - but you probably want a live, face to face instructor to help you learn the basics. Once you know the basics, that is when most of the information on this website can really help (or at least thats my opinion). Study hard, you'll improve quickly.

If this seems harsh, my apologies. I have "room for improvement" as well in the "constructive criticism" department.

OH and two more things: Get yourself a bigger sketchbook - that small one isn't giving you much room and clean up your work because it looks very dirty (especially since it looks like you used photoshop or MSPaint to clean up some parts and not others)

[Halcyone83]

Thanks for the advice people, its appreciated!
3 years to become a great artist, I think is a very unrealistic time line
I'm probably just being young and naive, but we'll see in time =)

I will listen to all your other advice though! I borrowed The Secrets to Drawing Heads from the library, and it has tons of info inside, especially on how to (like you said) learn to draw the different parts of the face in different ways. I'll attack that book later, though >D

If this seems harsh, my apologies. I have "room for improvement" as well in the "constructive criticism" department.

NO WORRIES; No one will ever be a tougher critic than myself (I think 98% of the stuff is shit). Thanks for the crits, really :)

Well, today I tackled hands. Damn, our wrists have hella bones like wtf.

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This is pretty bad:
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[noche]

that left hand is amazing

[Halcyone83]

hey, thanks noche!

my first posemaniacs attempts (not all are the 30sec. ones):

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still studying arms and hands in my anatomy book:

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scary/wonky ass shit O_O. eyes and nose not aligned w/ mouth... but hey, it was my first self portrait from life ever =\..
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arms from book, foot from moi:

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mah momma:

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I'm content w/ all this for now =)

[Halcyone83]

damn practices running from 3-9...holy buhjesus. well, it'll be over soon ;). Went to the art store today and bought some charcoal and pastels... I'll see what I can come up with next weekend.

omg, what a horrible, flat eye =O
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[Sunseaker]

You've got some nice figure studies here, the latest ones in the larger(?) book are looking better already, wish I had started practicing when I was 15, keep it up!

[Halcyone83]

thanks, yeah i pretty much dumped the tiny ass sketchbook for now, and I got a biiig newsprint pad for 30 second posemaniacs 'session' >D. This is the rough concept sketch for a contest I'm entering; the topic is Good Vs. Evil. I posted it up in the Critique Center, too-- i'm really set on making this good...

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http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=155126

^It pretty much says everything there^

[Halcyone83]

springbreak, bish. :geekg:

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[Halcyone83]

downloaded the CorelDRAW trial... SO MANY BUTTONS O_O. very cool.

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[Halcyone83]

big shitty art(?)/doodle dump.

3 Things I noticed when scaling these pictures down that I didn't notice while drawing:
1) I need to fill up pages more before going on to the next one.
2) WTFFF, I need to be more careful about smudging
3) Quick, chicken-scratch shading is NOT attractive. I need to get out of that habit.

Avert your eyes!

hmm, something's wrong w/ the image uploader. If this posts with no images at all, I'm not about to do it all over again :'-(. I'll just edit it with something new...

edit: ah, it's so long! D: (TWSS not intended) forgive, forgive.

[hitnrun]

I'm already noticing an improvement. You're catching more of your own mistakes, which is good. The smuding thing yea, you've got to work on that. Simple solution though is to put a piece of paper under your hand (typical sheet of notebook paper works fine) and it'll prevent smudging in so many wonderfully tasty ways. The only pain in the ass is that you have to keep lifting the paper to see how the overall work looks. Acetate might even work, I haven't used it much though.

Oh and by the way, your work is progressing nicely, in fact some of your studies are quite good! Keep practicing, you're improving from post to post!

[Demon Lizardman]

I do see some anatomy mistakes, but I see that with every drawing you're improving, so keep up the good work and never stop practicing.

[Halcyone83]

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[Halcyone83]

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[Halcyone83]

There's really too much to post all at once, so I'll split them up by session from oldest to most recent (and hopefully improving a bit). Even if I haven't, I'm starting to notice more and more anatomical mistakes once I get home and look through what I've done that day... now I just need to notice while I'm there, hahaha
From weekly life drawing classes at the Art Students League in nyc :)
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the real scratchy ones are 5 minute poses, then some 10 minute and others 20.

[Aresa]

Your gestures are really improving. Keep it up! Just keep drawing from life and look at anatomy books. You're doing great so far! Don't stop! :)

[Halcyone83]

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Thanks for taking the time out for some encouraging words, Aresa! I hope to work harder in the future :)

[Halcyone83]

From week 3. This model was just so great... built as hell for someone well past her 40s but not so much that the bone structure was completely hidden... idek. I see now I went overboard with the curves a lot (especially w/ her hips?). It's such a pain in the ass to fix n' erase on newsprint though; I think I'll stop taking that to the figure drawing classes and just save the remaining paper for posemaniacs practice.
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v got too caught up in the 'details' and didn't finish,
but I'm happy with how her stomach turned out
hehe. really trying to construct the figure instead of
going right in w/ contour and having proportions way
off later (still working on it)v
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10184581018459<just some practice for the long pose in the first post up there^^^^^^

posting week 4 in a sec

[Halcyone83]

determined next week to work faster with the time we're given; i'm tired of having half done drawings as a result of 5+ hours drawing.
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v We tried linoleum block printing as our last project in art this past year, and I have to say, I like carving almost more than drawing. First one done in both classes because of how obsessively I carved lol. I was real happy with the result, the birdie looked so cute on paper!v
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[maanas.93]

you are improving a lot ... awesome ... i am at your age but you draw awesome !! .
you are applying to ringling for 2011 isint it . i am also applying for the fall 2011 .. wish you good luck