Robin's Sketchbook (less annoying title!)

[robin-arielle]

BLAHBLAHBLAH and now for some whining that I did a couple months ago :p
I'm 18 now and am in my last year of high school now ^^ very excited since it's an art school (butalsopublicschool) :>

Hello, my name is Robin, today I am 17, and I will turn 18 in September. For the last 6 years I have been drawing anime/manga style with no help, technique, or improvement. So heres me trying to learn something.
I want to improve -alot- before the end of August (school starts!) so... here goes nothing!
BTW I'm new to the site, so if I'm doing something wrong, please let me know.

2-27-10
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err using figure drawing for all it's worth by Andrew Loomis. Started yesterday.

2-28-10
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Continued...For some reason this is really exhausting...Maybe at night I'll finish another page.

[Exon-Ion]

I'm glad you've joined CA, Robin, pretty much the same story with me, I've wasted far too much time myself, anatomy is a fundamental skill for any serious artist, you keep that up. :)

[Istmin52]

I completely relate to you. When I was 16-17, I was into drawing and I had my anime phase as well but I had no fundamentals skills. I got the impression from others that anatomy was too difficult to learn and the only anatomy book I had was anatomy for the artist. It has great drawings but the layout of the book confused me and I didn't really understand it that much so I stopped drawing from it. Your def doing the right thing so keep working on it. I would also try to control your line quality a bit and try drawing your figures from the inside out. Meaning... try drawing the skeleton of the figure first. I would really study the skeleton and you have a good grasp of it before moving on to learning the muscles. Good luck.

[robin-arielle]

Exon-Ion: Thank you for the first comment, and another thanks for the support! It's good to know there are others like me~
Istmin52: Thank you for the support! Glad to know that I'm off to a good start! Tried to take your advice with the line control this time, and used a mechy pencil so it would be so thick. As soon as I finish all these proportion exercises, I will definitely be working on the skeleton and then muscles like you said! It sounds so much more fun than what I'm doing now lol;;;

2-28-10
Just finished doing the stubby guy for Loomis. Tis pretty boring and exhausting to do these... But hopefully I'll remember where things fall when I'm done.
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from 2-26-10, Attempted to draw a ducky and on alligator/crocodile (can't remember which) but quickly gave up...
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2-27-10 (Yesterday) Thumbs up! Wanted to draw my hitchhikers thumb... This hurt a bit after a while...
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[oren90]

good luck with your current and future studies and welcome to ca :)

[robin-arielle]

oren90: Thank you for the support! And best of luck to you too!
2-28-10
Last drawing of February!
I'm drawing these because I have some stock images coming in my deviantART inbox, and I think I should actually use them...
ORIGINAL IMAGE HERE: http://senshistock.deviantart.com/art/Sailor-Mirror-9-155785354
I made her a tad chubbier than she really is... So sorry about that!
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[Blondebeard]

Really good start and welcome to CA!

To break up the boring times be sure to mix it up a little. Go do some light quick small sketches of photos of birds for a bit then go back to the Loomis study. I find tossing in some side stuff always keeps it interesting and refreshing =).

Looking forward to updates!

[robin-arielle]

Blondebeard: Thank you for the advice! After you said that, I immediately started to look for some reference photos of animals to keep me busy when I'm bored of Loomis!

Wow I waste a lot of time doing nothing...
Really it's been a week and this is all I have to show? Well, you can be sure that as it gets closer to April, and as I get busier and more frantic with my term paper, I will be drawing more to distract me from my term paper...Yes I am a terrible procrastinator and try to do other things when I'm under pressure!
Anyways!
3-1-10! first day of March!
My hand from observation, zipper pull from observation, and eyes from imagination (the eyes were done in blue ink, but the image was converted to black and white)
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3-3-10
Bored in chemistry, didn't want to draw more hands, so I drew some cloud like things, then added a face. All from imagination.
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3-4-10
Finally! I got tired of not drawing anything productive for a week, so I did another one of the Loomis studies (I have 2 more to go...)!
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[robin-arielle]

MORE STUDIES!!!!!!.... I'm sorry for whoever looks in here, this must be so boring for you! But it is very helpful to me... This is the last of these naked police-lineup/identity parades! But I still have one more huge one left to draw, but only frontal view. I hope I know where everything lands by now...
3-6-10
Loomis proportional studies Fashion height + sculpture/heroic height
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[strawhat]

I'm sure you've learnt something in those six years :) Even if it wasn't very structured.

Loomis is a good place to start. The studies look good. Try to work from light to dark and to keep the lines continuous.

Good luck!

[robin-arielle]

I'm sure you've learnt something in those six years :) Even if it wasn't very structured.

Loomis is a good place to start. The studies look good. Try to work from light to dark and to keep the lines continuous.

Good luck!


I think you left already, but when you say "Try to work from light to dark" are you talking about when shading, first do the light, then go to dark? Is that what you mean?
I will definitely work on trying to keep the lines continuous! I have so much trouble with that it seems, so thank you for reminding me!
Thank you for visiting!

[strawhat]

Oh yeah, I meant generally I like putting my lines down very lightly if I'm uncertain about the proportions. I go back later with a darker line to correct it and the ligther line will just appear as a background instead of having a lot of chicken scratch lines or eraser marks. I think it also helps with the concentration as you don't constantly keep erasing like a maniac (as I used to)

Continuous line comes with practice.

[robin-arielle]

Oh yeah, I meant generally I like putting my lines down very lightly if I'm uncertain about the proportions. I go back later with a darker line to correct it and the ligther line will just appear as a background instead of having a lot of chicken scratch lines or eraser marks. I think it also helps with the concentration as you don't constantly keep erasing like a maniac (as I used to)

Continuous line comes with practice.

ooooh okay thank you for clearing that up! I'll try that out now then!

[Kelp]

Robin, I saw the title of your thread and I just had to take a look. I think it's a very brave and mature thing to say that you want to make up for lost time, and you're saying it at a young age! I have a similar situation, I also want to make up for lost time. I'm 26, but the first time I ever picked up a pencil since my childhood was at age 18. I feel like I'm missing something by not being able to render the things I think up in the way that I want.
But the cool thing is, you're realizing this at age 17! That's a young age to become mature, and you have a lot of time still ahead of you! You could do awesome things with that!
Anyway, I second what Blondebeard was saying, take an occasional break from studying Loomis and draw something you like! Animals, buildings, or even something manga!
Note however that directly copying stock photography is something you should avoid. Many people do it, and they call it 'using reference', but that is a different process. In using reference you take some stock photo's of a single subject, make a few quick direct copies as an exercise and then make a whole new drawing of the subject in a different pose or from a different angle. By not restricting yourself to direct copying you become able to put a subject in a pose you want to see, which is hopefully also what the world wants to see! (I learned this only recently, from Seedling's Conceptart 101 (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81332) thread, which is a great read for starting artists.)
What you can also do is make a direct copy of a real-life subject, such as a plant or a building or pretty much everything else. This is harder to do than direct copying form stock photo's, because you're looking at a 3D-object, and your mind considers the whole thing as a 3D-object and not as a flat plane. The diffculty then comes in trying to translate a 3D-object into a 2D-drawing, which is something which has already been done in a stock photo. The camera slams the whole picture flat for you, which is a bad thing! An artist should be able to think of a subject they want to draw (from memory or reference) as a 3D-object (and thinking like this is something you also exercise when drawing from life), rotate and place the object in their minds in a position they consider best and then translate that to a 2D-plane using a pencil.

Anyway, I'm subscribing to this thread. Keep up the drawing, we're interested in seeing more!

Edit:
It's really cool that you posted that drawing of the alligator and the ducky even though you gave up on it! The goal is of course to be able to keep up the drawing and not stopping for anything. And the way to get there is to expose our own flaws to the community, so they can see what's going on. This kind of peer reviewing is an excellent way to get better!
And on another note, both the ducky and the alligator look really good already. They could turn into really something when fully rendered!

[robin-arielle]

Kelp: Wow you don't know how much your comment means to me! It makes me so joyous to join CA being surrounded by amazing people, that are also very helpful, kind, and encouraging like yourself! People like yourself make me extremely pleased to be part of this community, so I am grateful. Thank you so much for the advice and for letting me know that, I will definitely keep that in mind for the next time!
Hehe and the reason I actually stopped the alligator drawing was because I wanted to end the little scaly things where I had ended them, but I wasn't sure what kind of texture would be good for the rest of his face...I might just have to finish that one up now, so thank you for the encouragement! Err and a little side note, could you please explain to me what "rendered" means?
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Wow I am officially all kittied out. This was for a french project and it took all of 8 hours. Yes, I am slow, but to my defense, 4 of those hours were more than likely spent eating, bathing, texting, trying to find pictures online of cats, sunflowers, bees, and trees, and being on facebook/internets. I get distracted easily by the internet.
Now for the credits! First cat is from http://cotystock.deviantart.com
(http://cotystock.deviantart.com/art/White-and-black-cat-07-50586969)
All other kitties are from http://Eirian-stock.deviantart.com (http://eirian-stock.deviantart.com/art/Cat-Package-154063031)
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[Baldimor]

Cool SB, you seem extremely determined! Just like you for the past 6(+4) years I've been drawing a lot (comics and cartoons for me) but with no proper guidance. It's nice to see that there's a good number of us here trying to make up for "lost time".

[Talo]

Yay making up for lost time! Pretty similar situation here, except I mostly drew animals without really learning their fundamentals.

Anyways, pretty good start! Only thing I have to suggest are some skeleton studies. Otherwise you might do what I did and fall into the trap of drawing stiffly because of minimal skeletal knowledge :( Skeletons really help you create poses as well as build form (and they get pretty easy to draw).

Keep it up! :)

[Kelp]

Anytime Robin. And 'to render' means working out all the details and textures. First you sketch, then you draw the outline (is that a step? I'm not sure...) and then you render.

[robin-arielle]

ROFLCOPTER Well that was a long pause, a few months? I'll just upload a few sketches from my actual sketch book since I have absolutely no idea how many scrap cartoons I've done in my school binders, and I don't know where they are.
To Start:
3/7/10?vvv I never finished or uploaded this before I left. Loomis drawing practices, Adult and 15 year old
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5/31/10.vvv Errr this would be an exercise from "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brian", where you are to draw a crumpled paper for about an hour? This was probably done in 20 minutes (I have no patience...And I already know an art instructor told me I need some if I wanted to do well next year)
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5/31/10.vvv From imagination, I got tired of drawing the crumpled paper and drew this instead.
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6/4/10.vvv Some flowers in my backyard :) From observation.
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6/6/10.vvv From a picture. It's small because its a terrible drawing, but it's still part of my sketchbook so it goes up!
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6/8/10.vvv Today! Retried the Loomis drawing practice, goes from adult, 15yrs, 10yrs, 5 yrs, 3 yrs, to 1 yr. Turned out better than the one from the beginning of March!
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I'll make sure to reread everyone's comments again because I have completely forgotten what they said.
Thank you again for anyone who is looking into this, your comments, suggestions, and critiques really mean a lot to me!

[robin-arielle]

Two for today (6/9/10)
More Loomis studies!
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It was raining all day, so if its sunny I'll try to go outside tomorrow and draw some more flowers~
I have to get a birdbath so I can draw the birds also...
Suggestions for anatomy studies are loved and taken to heart!

[Katan]

Wow! Very diligent studies! I see improvement in such a short time :) Keep it up! I'm the same way too; I'm trying to improve after years of drawing silly stuff.

[robin-arielle]

Katan: Thank you very much for dropping by and for the encouragement!

Woosh my brain is super exhausted! Maybe a little too much drawing for one day...

First is an "Assignment" that Kelp had linked me to (in observation to imagination)
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next are all Loomis studies

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Truthfully I have probably drawn more figures in the last 2 days than I had all of last year! (Wasn't very productive last year now was I?)

[alex_86]

I'm sure the book is a nice guide, but the key to learning (quickly or slowly) is recognizing previous mistakes and avoiding them from that point on. Otherwise you just make the same ones over and over. I would suggest for you to get some tracing paper out and revise your first attempts whenever possible. You could use your own knowledge and make minor adjustment markings over top of the original sketch. Or you could recreate the sketch entirely on tracing paper and compare with the Loomis reference (just don't trace Loomis!). Then take mental note of what you're doing wrong, and stop doing it that way.

Also try to avoid drawing extraneous elements. If you are trying to get the human figure down, you don't need to draw the face completely. A few scratches here and there will do. Speaking of which, small markings help in a big way. Sometimes when you put down a few marks here and there to indicate key areas of the full figure, you already can see what you've done wrong by just using your imagination a bit. At that point, there's no need to spend extra time rendering the entire figure. You can save yourself minutes per sketch, and hours upon hours in total, by making adjustments before you have the full thing down on paper.

Good luck. Hope this saves you some time :)

[robin-arielle]

meDrawUC: thank you for the advice!

I just want to let everyone know that I do take the advice you give into consideration! It means a lot to me that you visit and make suggestions! I'm just a little slow in taking it all in, so it might not show but I do think about what you have said. Anyways, on to the show!
Majority from Loomis studies
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more studes + Riley from boondocks fanart >3< and a face~
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studies studies everywhere~
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continuation of the studies and a guy running because I wanted to take up the space and I thought the poses were fun~
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Studies from today and yesterday...
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(imagination)sketch supposed to be of a girl eating at school... didn't like it so dropped it.
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(Imagination)Sketch from today, would have had Arabian nights sort of feel, and I like the first part of drawing it (it started off as a couple squiggles on the paper for inspiration), but dropped it because it was too masculine and the hair was annoying me...Lots more that I didn't like but what ever!

I need to stop dropping sketches...

[robin-arielle]

Just a bit more tonight.

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More studies from loomis!
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Loomis type studies, but with made up poses, twas fun so I managed~.

[monsi]

keep up the studies man. Try really REALLY hard to replicate what you're copying as perfect as you can . It'll take ages at first and in time it'll get quicker . Always push to do it better than you did before.

Good stuff!

[robin-arielle]

Monsi: Thank you for the advice, I'll try!
~~draws:
This was for someone who seems to have dropped off the face of the internet before I could get off my lazy ass and draw it, I would color but...uggg w/e. I obviously reallyyyyy need to practice with pens.
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aaand more studies! wooo~
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Haha what a boring sketchbook!

[robin-arielle]

Two more from last night:
My hand, wanted to practice inking and observation while I was at it. Ribbons and black cord added afterwards. Anddd it says bland because I really don't like this style of "Art". OH and if that hand gesture means anything err offensive, I'm sorry.
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More studies~
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[SageTso]

great studies, keep up the good work man

[robin-arielle]

SageTso: thank you! And thanks for visiting!
~~~
I probably should have waited till I had more to post, but what ever...
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Draw of dresser drawer handle (from observation) and cecero from "Sacred" manga (just needed the clothes and hair down for the next part~)
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Cecero (from Sacred manga)! x4! (hopefully will be x8!) just wanted to practice...animation...very roundabout way to do this, but I am definitely learning what not to do for next time...
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My room (from observation). Girl is obviously from imagination. It'll be the first thing I have finished, complete with a background, in many months...(I don't think I've drawn a background in years actually...) I really like drawing this style of messy backgrounds... :) And that's all for today!

[robin-arielle]

Huuuge update
Since I haven't updated since July, and it's already September D:
Unfortunately not in chronological order, but they are from the last pic I posted in July-present (so nothing before July)
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[robin-arielle]

continuation of previous post because I thought it had a limit, but I guess it might not... (a file wasn't uploading...)
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[robin-arielle]

Uhh from 8th-today (so four days?)

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[robin-arielle]

Huh..I'm very confused about the attached image x___x
anyways
from the 12th of september (I guess...) - through october 1st
not much of an order again
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[robin-arielle]

some of the images in the last post aren't showing, so uploading them here
(sept 17- oct 1)
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