The quest of Ivan

[Ivan]

Inspired by all the other great artists here who's started similiar threads I tought I'd start my own. I'm hoping people will help me by critique so I can get better and that I will myself see the increase of skill in my drawings. I also think this will make me more eager about my drawing and that I will draw more. All my life I've wanted to learn how to draw but I haven't had the time to do it before now.

So I open this thread with my FIRST drawing EVER, my avatar! :) That's the fullsize. I know it's not much, but oh well, it's my first since I was like 6 years old. I sketched it first on paper, scanned it and painted it in Painter.

My GOALS for the moment:

First goal: Produce something on my own, i.e. not draw after Loomis' example, but rather use photos or life as reference to draw very basic faces.

Second goal: To be able to draw a selfportrait AND see the resemblence :)

Third goal: Use what I have learned of building and drawing methods to draw from my own imagination.

[Ivan]

I'm currently following the book "Fun With a Pencil" by Andrew Loomis. So here are the first drawings I've done from that book, some of them are drawn straight from his training example, some with a few "artistic" changes, some are drawn completely without reference, only using the "build" system. You can see which, it's the worst ones :)

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/1.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/2.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/3.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/4.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/5.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/6.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/7.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/8.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/9.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/10.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/11.gif
http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/12.gif

Wow, that number two from the top really sucks, and that was WITH a reference, LOL.

[gandalf]

hey ivan! i've recently started the same thread and wanted to do 2 things:

1) ask, how are you putting your pics online? i scan to a file, then post on webspace and link.

2) wish you luck. GOOD LUCK! :D

:chug:

[Ivan]

Hi Gandalf,

1. I scan them, take them to Photoshop and crop then resize and save to .gif with as few colors as possible to reduce filesize, and put them on a host. Same as you I guess :)

2. Good luck to you too! :)

[Ivan]

Well, here's my first attempt at an apple :) Took a bite, put it down at the table infront of me and started sketching, scanned and then painted in Photoshop.

This is so cool, it's all new, heh... Just like eating things for the first time in your life, only better :P

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/apple.jpg

[Epoch]

Hey Ivan.
Good start to developing your technique. The faces look great! (except for the bottom left one... he reminds me of Hitler- Bad nazi! bad!) anyway... about your apple:
1. Personally, it seems rather tall, atleast for its width, and the base/top seem too round for the apple to be believable. Seeing as this image gives me the impression as beeing seen slightly from above, i would suggest drawing the dip on the top of apples (atleast the apples i'm used to eating :D). Perhaps it even has that little twig thing poking from the dip, i dunno. Also, from apples that i have drawn in the past (all artists have to do a still life some time :p), usually the bottom and tops do not look round like a "(" on its side.. but rather like an "m" (well, not exactly, but i'm trying to convey that there are like hills/valleys on the surface; they are much smoother flowing than an "m" but... i only have so many letters on my keyboard)
2. The color job you've done looks good: good blending from dark to light values. I would suggest darkening the values on the bottom of the apple to make further suggest the spherical form of the apple, again with the "m" method.
3. Other than those insights, i like your "first attempt" very much. :) (i realize that i kind of skipped the bitten part of the apple, but i didnt want to preach to you how you "Should" draw)
Continue to draw Ivan, every day if possible! I'm sure your technique will improve greatly; i hope to see much more of your work posted :)

[Ivan]

Thanks for all the help Epoch :)

The apple does seem very tall now yes... :) I'm sure I'm going to be making alot of apples, for the next I will try to nail the shape and put the dip on the top. See if I can't make a better one, oh and about the bite, hehe... That was just to make it harder on myself, I think I made it too hard though. Or maybe I was just hungry, I'm not sure :P I'll try that another time instead though.

And I'm going to figure out what you mean by the "m" thing :) I think I know what, just have to check it the next time I draw an apple.

[gandalf]

keep it up Ivan! we'll do it!! :chug: :D

[envy]

am new to the forum but so far its cool good wrk and great ideas...:rolleyes:

[Ivan]

Thanks Envy! :)

What's up Gandalf, you're doing really good, keep it up :)

Here's my latest stuff, almost embarrassed to post these, I just don't seem to be able to draw on my own yet, maybe it's just too soon or I'm not trying hard enough. My spirit isn't broken though, but I'm going to work hard the next days to be able to post something I'm a little proud of.

I'm still working on comicfaces, trying to create some different expressions. I really want to be able to create comicfaces with ease, with alot of different expressions, before I move on to more difficult stuff.


This first one is from one of Loomis' examples.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/13.gif

Second one is loosely based on a photograph.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/14.gif

Third one also loosely based on a photograph.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/15.gif

[gandalf]

Ivan, nice work man! Don't get YOURSELF down; you seem to have a grasp on the "volume" that things have. That will help greatly when trying to achieve depth through shadows/light.

:D :cool:

[Ivan]

Thanks Gandalf, you're quite right, I shouldn't get myself down, I must stop doing that :)

Well, here's my latest thing, another apple. Something turned out weird about this one as well, but I think it's better than my previous one.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/greenapple.jpg

[Ivan]

Here's my first portrait, it's a friend, used photo as reference. I think I'm going to work more on this so that I maybe can paint it some day, if anyone has some tips I'd greatly apreciate it. I'm having some trouble especially with the hair... he's almost bald, only like 2mm hair. And I've got some proportionsproblems I guess, but I can't spot them, at least not right now.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/portrait1.gif

[gandalf]

Great work Ivan! The only thing that really caught my attention was the ear, it seems too round. I don't know though, because as you know, i'm in the same boat as you! Keep it up!:chug:

[Ivan]

Thanks, you're right man, it is to round. Will try to fix that :)

[gandalf]

not bad at all for your first portrait!

[Ivan]

Gandalf, thanks, you're the eversupporting :)

Tried to make a few changes to the portrait, not sure if it's an improvement. Shading isn't exactly my domain yet.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/portrait2.gif

[Ivan]

Another update... can't seem to get the hang of shadowing.

http://home.no.net/odex/cadrawings/portrait3.gif

[Ivan]

Ok, I'm working on painting this one digitally now, it will be either Photoshop or Painter, would be great if anyone had some tips on that, never painted anything of this size before. An apple was fine, hehe, but I've been spending some hours on painting this now and it's a bit different :P

I'll post some results soon though.

[gandalf]

painter is not my area! lol. (not much is) you're sketch is looking good; shading is very difficult for me also!:rolleyes:

[talmir]

dont mean to be cruel.. but here we go:

I would suggest that you keep on doing the loomis excercises.. Its like drawing boxes.. you might not see the sense in drawing a bunch of balls and making faces.. but its a great excercise in
1:Drawing good circles.
2:Seeing where features fit (gettins some sense of where the look good and feel "right")
3:Later on you'll be drawing a whole lot of circles and 3d shapes. This helps you visualise and construct the head and figure.

Now then.. one of the rules of drawing is "Dont fall in love with your picture". The picture of your friend there is pretty well done for a first drawing from ref but there are still some things fundimentaly wrong with it. The ears all round, the lips go across to his cheek. Theres a huge angle on his forehead The jaw usually ends, not going all the way to the ear. Ok, these are just errors that you can fix. And just to show an example heres a pic I drew 2 1/2 months ago
http://img12.photobucket.com/albums/v31/talmir/demojunk.jpg
and I actually thought it was pretty damn good but with two months of drawing circles and studying and never really going back to the same drawing again I've gone to this
http://img12.photobucket.com/albums/v31/talmir/misc1.jpg
Ok, I'll grant you that it isnt perfect but its a lot better than what I was doing before.

Shading really just involves seeing where the light falls and putting "volumes" on it.. basically volumes is usually just four or five different shades of gray or some other color. Ranging from almost black to light gray and applying them where they feel right. Dont worry about that. It comes with practice :)

Now then for some links
For portrait drawing (Heads and its featuers) the best site imo is http://portrait-artist.org/
For anatomy I recommend Bridgmans books. And also be sure to get "drawing on the right side of the brain".

Ok, fingers gettin tired now. Think about what I said and keep drawing.. Draw at least a page full of figures/heads/stuff every day.. make it your duty and have fun at it. That way you'll improve alot faster.

Cheers :chug:

[talmir]

btw, sorry about my engrish.. English isnt my main language.

[Ivan]

Hehe, no problem man, you're not cruel at all :)

Thanks alot for your insights, love how much you improved in short time, I like your last drawing.

I think you're right about doing more basic stuff first, and I assure you that I am not happy with my drawings for more than 5 minutes after I've drawn them :) But I'll post them anyway, the real reason for painting that portrait digitally isn't because I tought it's good, just for the sake of the painting exercise really.

I will do like you said, just continue with Loomis' exercises and drawing at least a full page of faces / figures (when I get to figures) every day.

Thanks again :)