Bad Sketchbook

[bad_painter]

Been trying to get back into digital painting with a Bamboo I just bought (since my old Intous tablet broke quite some time ago). Sadly, I'm still a horrible artist and need to improve what little skill these old decrepit hands can muster. Eventhough I did attend art school, I was more concerned with playing music than actually learning anything useful, so I consider myself 'self-taught' for the most part.

[Flanagan]

Those first three are very nice, reminds me of an old card game i used to play...

ANYWAYS, good stuff! Keep the updates going!

[strangedawn]

your work is great! i think you just need to lessen using softbrushes try using hard brushes so it will make the image more alive in color but the artwork is really nice keep it up sir keep posting=)

[citrusfrukt]

Definately like what i'm seeing, can't help with crits though ._.

You should update more often!

[OutOfInspiration]

you call that horrible :p good one... lol
i like the "black and white"-sketch more than the rendered one.

hope you will post more work, i'm curious.

And also don't stop playing music! I find it one of the best way to relax.

[bad_painter]

Thanks all for visiting, I really appreciate it! :hugsmile:

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

Okay so the whole WACOM thing is brutally frustrating and maddening to me! Granted that I haven't seriously drawn anythig in a few years, but jeez, it feels like there is absolutely no control with this contraption. Thus, Ive decided to re-learn how to draw using only the graphics tablet I own... a BAMBOO. In fact, I'm going back to the very beginning and starting with "Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain" and then work my way through the various other art books I've accumulated since college.

Ya know, it's pretty funny how one can easily fall out of the practice of drawing and assume that their skill will suddenly resurface within a few sketches. Well let me tell you, that is certainly NOT the case here... I've completely forgotten how to draw! :nohope: So, from this point forward, this sketchbook will be a log of trying to teach an old dog some new tricks AND hopefully I won't still suck as an artist at the end of it all... Sure-hope-the-old-man-got-that-tractorbeam-out-of-commission-or-this-is-gonna-be-a-real-short-trip-okay-hit-it!!!

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I recommend bleeching your eyes after viewing. :eyeloss:

[bad_painter]

Well I couldn't bring myself to do the 4 blind contour exercises in the book (think I may need new glasses cuz everything seems kinda blurry), so I spent some time doing a portrait. Ran across a photo of John Buscema and intended to make a quick color study of it... of course time slipped away and I wound up painting over 8 hours until my hand started to cramp, so I just gave up. :dur:

Anyway, there are a whole lot of things wrong with it, but at least I did something productive. :painting:

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[Jaytea]

Whoa, impressive. Do more of these finished works, they're awesome! :D

[Pixelwalker]

Yeah, the last finshed work is great! :)
Go on like that and perhaps do more sketches.
I think it would help u!

Silwynar

[bad_painter]

Jaytea & Silwynar: Heh, funny y'all say that... I had such a good time with Buscema's portrait, so I decided to do another one. This time it's of Stan Lee, which turned out okay, but the shirt seems a little flat. :/

I'm just winging it here, so any crits would be great!

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[Yang87]

Thanks for dropping my sketchbook:D Your finished works are amazing.

Cheers

[bad_painter]

Hi Waine, thanks for the complement, but I still have a long way to go to get my paintings from imagination to look even remotely close to the portraits from photo ref.

Speaking of crappy paintings, I caught "Shadow Of The Vampire" on cable the other night and it inspired me to do a tribute to ol' Nasferatu... just in time for Halloween! >:D A good exercise, I suppose, but it didn't turn out the way I was hoping:

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So then I tried to add some color to it by using some layers set to 'color' mode, but I just don't understand how to work them yet. :[

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Well, that's it for this update... I've been a lazy bastich. :nohope:

[sketchibo]

Pretty nice stuff.
Stan Lee looks pretty good, but watch out for making everything too soft. Right now your painting looks like its a little out of focus. Make sure you have some harder edges as well.
I'm liking Nosferatu. Maybe you could work in some other colors into the lights/shadows, because right now it looks like you may have just put a single color over each area.
Keep it up!

[sketchibo]

Pretty nice stuff.
Stan Lee looks pretty good, but watch out for making everything too soft. Right now your painting looks like its a little out of focus. Make sure you have some harder edges as well.
I'm liking Nosferatu. Maybe you could work in some other colors into the lights/shadows, because right now it looks like you may have just put a single color over each area.
Keep it up!

[bad_painter]

sketchibo: (heehee double post) Thanks for dropping by, man. :) You're absolutely right, I struggle with edges all the time and can never figure out where they should be used... but I suppose that's where endless amounts of practice comes in, eh? And yeah, I just don't get color layers in PS, are there any good tutorials out there for them?

At any rate, I spent the whole day doing the self portrait thing, so here they are in case anyone missed them... yes, I still suck! >:{

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Gonna try to do lots of sketching this week, so we'll see how that goes.

[witcrack]

Wow! Your realism skill is amazing! I knew there was something suspicious behind your nickname, you misleading devil! :D I especially like that portrait of Buscema. This is an enjoyable thread. No crits from me as i'm still at awe. Keep posting, man!

Oh! and... That right brain drawing exercise looks quite interesting, i think i'll go and do the same :teeth:

[bad_painter]

Hiya witcrack, thanks for visiting my crappy SB. :teeth:

Quite honestly, working directly from photos is fairly easy, since all the information is right there and frozen in time... painting from life is much harder and I should be doing that instead, but I don't have a laptop and my computer is in the basement, so photos it is. :[

And yes, 'Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain' is a wonderful book to refresh the way you see things again... I need to get back to it soon. :scribble:

[gnilrE]

heya [/irony] Bad painter [/end]
thanks for droppping by my SB a little time ago :)
your works a quite amazing.
on most of the finished faces you drew i was sure i looked at a photograph at first :)

only one critique: your not confident enough about what you've done :D

[bad_painter]

Thanks for the encouragement gnilrE, but until I reach the goal I set forth for myself, confidence is a leisure I can't afford to dwell on right now. There is so much that I still need to learn and be adept at. But I do appreciate your kind words. :)

I didn't get much done today, even though the studies I did took forever and my arm hurts now. :scribble: I'm so frustrated with my graphics tablet that I went out and bought some regular pencils to draw with. I don't know if it's just me or if there's something wrong with the tablet, but I'm finding it very difficult to draw with any sort of accuracy... it's like the pen has a mind of it's own sometimes. :frustrated:

Anyway, here are the pathetic attempts at simple Loomis basics:

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[Hanny Honeymoon]

i like your stuff :) keep on! ♥

[Mayu_Zane]

Hey BP, I like your sketchbook. Keep learning, friend.

[Black Spot]

I’m going to second adding more colours, especially with skin. At the moment your skin is looking very dead being just variations on one colour. BTW I’m older than you and also trying to get back into the learning groove, but I don’t continually bash myself, because I know where I want to be and this is just the start of a great journey.

[witcrack]

Nice studies there at your last post. Keep it going, BP!

[Chris Saksida]

LOL oh man your negativity cracks me up, you`re WAY too hard on yourself and that won`t make any good to your progress; you mention that you suck in every post!, and I think you`re wrong; your stuff is pretty good actually! many people would like to paint like you do; keep it up!

But please, change your nickname and get a more positive attitude towards what you do; it will do you good, trust me :wink:

[bad_painter]

Hanny, Mayu & witcrack: Thanks, I'm tryin' but I get distracted easily by other things. lol

Black Spot: I see what you're saying, but I never really understood the whole rainbow flesh thing, other than to make the image more painterly. I may comprehend it more as I progress, but right now I'm more concerned with getting the actual values right. :painting:

Chris: I hear ya man, and I do know that I possess a little skill, but here's the thing... all my life people have been complementing my work and that doesn't really help me grow as an artist at all, so I choose to keep telling myself that I can do better. It's just something that forces me to improve. What you should fear is the day start agreeing with the praise... then we're ALL in trouble. :$

So with that said, here's a sucky sketch I did today (from imagination) instead of doing figure studies like I should. :dead:

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[witcrack]

Distraction is very understandable, especially for artists who continually searching, i do that often too :) and every time, i always say to myself to be more focus in current situation/project/study ... with little success :D

Anyway, about the sketch on your last post, don't you think the arm holding a spear is a little off (maybe too far from the shoulder?)? It's like a someone else's hand, in my opinion. Imagine it uncropped, check the relation between both arm and the shoulder, by drawing a simple bone structure on top of it to guide you. I hope this helps :)

[bad_painter]

Hey thanks witcrack, I knew there was something that looked funky about it, but I just couldn't put my finger on it... thus, it should be more like this:

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Then again, after I did the red-line, I decided to flip the image in PS and discovered many more fatal flaws with the whole composition... oh well, it was just a quick sketch anyway, I might redraw it one day. lol

For today's update, I'm still struggling with the tablet. I set the pen pressure a little lower, which helped a bit, but my thumb still starts to hurt after a while because I have to put a death grip on the pen to get any sense of control. It's becoming a major problem and slowing me down a lot. In fact, it took me over 6 hours to complete these two Loomis studies... I mean c'mon, I know I draw slower than others, but should it really take that long? :wtf:

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[coffeepyros]

heya, i also recently bought a bamboo and on top i also started reading "drawing on the
right side of the brain". expect me to come over regularly and check on your progress
and compare my results with yours. :D

i have the same problems with translating my improvement with pencil to tablet drawing.
it feels weird, the results are weird and i don't know what's the cause - maybe the
tablet size is too small, so little pen movements become huge on monitor. *scratches head*

anyway, i'll probably just continue with "drawing on the right side" with pencils and then
head over to loomis. maybe the tablet problem will get solved along the way. if you
discover any solutions let me know.

keep on drawing! :}

[witcrack]

Ah yes, the correction, that's more like it.
Nice to see you continue the figure studies and it looks ok! :)
Keep 'em coming, mate!

[bad_painter]

coffeepyros: Yeah, I'm thinking the Bamboo is a little too small, because any straight line I try to draw from left to right is all wonky. But like I said before, that may be due to being out of practice for so long, so I may go back to pencil and paper for a while.

witcrack: Heh, I plan to work through many books from cover to cover in the upcoming months... yay for free ebooks!!!

Just a minor update today... cold medicine makes me feel weird and it's hard to concentrate, so I didn't get much done. :[

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[DazDaryl]

your ability to copy photos is amazing, it looks like you could really benefit from doing a ton of thumbnail figure speed sketching, just like www.posemaniacs.com, or what i do is download a ton of full-figure referance and use a slideshow program to do quick 2-3minute sketches, like the initial stages of life drawing. Jason Manley recomended doing this with portraits, as do I. I think quick vehicle sketches is good also.

You did an amazing job on capturing Stan Lee's emotion!. :D.

[nexus x]

nice man ... really like the nosferatu ..what software do u use ..im asking coz im tryin my hand on digital