Insatiable Curiosity

[ThomasM]

Please crit as much as possible and be as harsh as you like - anything that will make me learn is welcome!

Thanks,

Tom

1329027

[ThomasM]

first update I guess this was done yesterday and more will definitely come tonight - Ive been lurking around the forums on-and-off for a while now and thought I'd finally get involved!

Hopefully this thread is going to be a huge learning curve for me and as I've never had any art lessons or classes I would massively appreciate any criticisms and advice!!!

Thanks,
Tom

[ThomasM]

second day - using the tablet seems to be getting easier been trying to brush up on anatomy today with a couple of diagrams.. (which I found on the concept art wiki!)

I know its difficult to crit on only a few posts but I'll just keep them coming!!

Thanks,
Tom

[ThomasM]

this is just it after a few hours work and as finished as its ever going to get!

[ThomasM]

Heres a couple I did today, from what I'm hoping is to be a series called "Darwin's Night Out"

First theres a quick photo painting (quick for me is a few hours because i'm still getting to grips with using a tablet and have little idea of how to use colour!). Based on a black and white photo but I've guessed a basic colour scheme...

Second is entitled "Darwin' in 'da club" - name says it all really...

Tom

[ThomasM]

Heres what I've been up to today, first environment painting ever and to be honest not that happy with it... having trouble getting lines to be crisp enough to look half decent whilst being blended enough to not look cartoonish.... I'll post two, the finished one and the "in-progress" one so its easier to see how i came about the final product...

I took the idea from a youtube video with a VERY similar theme just because I wanted to give drawing an environment and painting rocks and textures for the first time with a good reference point.

As can be seen the bottom one looks (in my opinion) worse than the in progress one.. any explanations would be great :)


Tom

[PHATandy]

Hey Tom! Thanks for dropping your comment in SB, it was a pleasant surprise. Im not used to being an influence on anyone haha! I spend all my time being influenced by other peoples sketchbooks!

Looking good so far, some nice things coming through in your posemaniacs and muscle studies. I think my piece of advice to start with those is just simple simple simple, keep it simple to build a good foundation of basics around your figures. Just think about things in the most basic sense, which ever feels comfortable - line, shape, form. Just thinking about 1 thing and build the figures up. Always thinking about it as a 3d object - so thinking about how stuff overlaps, and how lines create a form. Id reccomend looking at some of Kevin Chen's stuff at character designs.com is awesome, this is kinda what im talking about (http://www.characterdesigns.com/bandaid/content/tutorials/73/124/tutorial_kevin_chen_0051.jpg) - just break down simple into form. Being able to think about things in 3d was probably one of THE biggest things that helped me. Theres loads more of his stuff right here. (http://www.characterdesigns.com/index.php?sitepage=tutorials)

But keep it up and make sure your always having fun! Hope some of this helps you out!
Cheers.

[ThomasM]

Yo, just some new stuff for today, and tonight will add some more posemaniacs stuff and some character design (i hope)

Here is the (slightly) reworked enviro from before which I am struggling with tbh but as it says above I think I gotta break things down more simply now - I feel im sort of trying to jump on in there and do breathtaking environments without really understanding colour and form ... and im left with this hahaha

Ok from today Its gonna be more simple stuff as I slowly build some semblance of artistic skills!

Tom

[PHATandy]

That definitely looks way better already. The simplification adds a world of clarity to the picture so its far more readable as a physical space, good stuff.

[ThomasM]

I think this is all I'm gonna manage to get in today - gotta sleep sometime between drawing and work!

Cheers for the advice PHATandy - I have been working this evening a little on what you recommended. Had a look at some of that kevin chen stuff and was really impressed by it (and shocked at the sheer volume of work that hes done, but if its what needs to be done then I guess im in this for the long-haul!)

Like you mentioned I'm gonna try and get hold of some bridgman stuff and some other classics which everyone seems to use on these forums. So i can really try and break the figure down into the component shapes and see how they interact

Anyway, before I slump into bed I'll post these two, just some more anatomy and figures from posemaniacs.

Tom

[ThomasM]

Here are some more anatomy sketches for today - Will probably add some more later and a reworked environ (I'm determined not to give up on that lava scene until I am at least the tiniest bit proud of it!!)

Anyway.. here it is.. some bridgman stuff this time.

Tom

[ThomasM]

Been working on the human face this week so here goes nothing - crit away! I have spent most of my time working on Andrew Loomis faces and heads and some are copied from his books "Drawing the face and hands" and "fun with a pencil" - some are my own.

Crit away! and please mention anything I am weak on!

Thanks,
Tom

[PHATandy]

Oh man im loving all this head stuff! Awesome

My only crit is to pay a little more attention to copying out the right proportions and shapes as much as possible - it sounds like an 'easier said that done' thing but Im talking more about stuff with specific reference to proportions. Like when your drawing out heads with all these contours and measurement lines - make sure your drawing out the measurement lines right and actually making the measurements, not just copying it.

Your getting a lot of distortion in widths and lengths of some areas etc. Itll help you get an eye for the proportions you should be looking for by having drawn them correctly right in front of you. Your more likely to remember the 8 heads rule if you can physically see it working- rather than a note that just reminds you of the rule.

Hope that makes sense :) Keep up the good work dude.

[ThomasM]

I'm fairly happy with progress I've made this week - I have never been able to replicate a head before from another viewpoint, no matter how simple and cartoonish!

...thanks man I appreciate the crit - as soon as you mentioned it I went back and realised that the vast majority appear distorted as you say, either stretched or too broad (mostly the first lengthways)... Definitely willl try and bring things into proportion more - and study more loomis/Hogarth this week! Here are a couple more pages ive done since, but before reading your crit about distortion and measurements.

Gotta keep on slogging away even if its only one person who has commented on this SB :) from a couple of hundred views!

More to come tonight...
Tom

[the ANGRY filipino]

Hi ThomasM!
Lovin the studies you've done man! Keep going and you will see improvement, no doubt about it!
I agree with what PhatAndy said though, watch those proportions..but I am sure you are working on that issue right now.

At this stage, I see that you are focusing on struture and how things fit together..thats cool, your broadened understanding of these 2 is evident in your recent updates.

[ThomasM]

Hey - another post for today, this time it'll be a fairly quick (for me quick is about an hour and a half) copy of a self portrait by John Singer Sargent - was trying to get that loose feeling that he had himself but it just looks really airbrushed and smooth. Also I havent even bothered with the jacket because at this point I think working on anatomy and sketching is probably more productive than just copying a jacket for another hour! I will definitely re-visit it though

Not very happy with it to be honest... any tips on how to achieve that rough look? I'm using GIMP at the moment to do these but wanting to branch into proper painting as soon as possible!

Here is the original: http://jagblog.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/sargent-self-portrait-1906.jpg

Gonna upload another set of sketchings tonight hopefully to try and get down some decently proportioned heads! - thanks for the comment Phatandy and Theangryphilippino, I appreciate the crits and I'll definitely work on those proportions! - gotta keep drawing!

Tom

[ThomasM]

Here are some more scribblings from the last two days - the first image is from the day before yesterday and the second is tuesday's work. I tried use the advice given and get the features positioned properly and the right sizes. Still feel like I do stupid things like give people tiny lips and eyes and it makes the whole face look huuuge! (especially for a woman)..

.. not feeling terrible about it though as every time I open a portraiture book I feel I learn something new!!

Crit away
Tom

[oren90]

hey man thank you for dropping by my SB and for leaving a comment :), your studies look really good, keep working hard :D

Oren

[ThomasM]

Thanks oren for the encouragement I appreciate it!

Here are today's scribblings..Ive done a little anatomy (just so I don't get too bored with portraiture stuff) and some facial features..

Finally I have done a few portraits to get into the swing of trying to convert something into a half-recognisable sketch. Never been able to do this before but after doing some recently I'm hoping they are almost recognisable! Anyway I've left a couple of them without names - feel free to guess who they are - in fact it would help me if I knew if people recognised them on some level (despite them being quite rough)

Cheers,
Tom

[oren90]

it's great to see you're not just scribbling and drawing but also taking notes and trying to understand what you're doing there :)

[ThomasM]

Thanks Oren, yeah I'm constantly making notes on what I've seen and studied - I find it helps me to remember important ways to try and recapture that look when I attempt it from imagination..

[jskotte]

Hi Tom, I can see your are studying, and I believe that is the only way to learn. Great Loomis heads, you might also want to check out his figure drawing book, I've found it very useful. You posemaniacs look a little stiff (I have the same problem), but the Loomis book get you to think about motion, or I think so.
And funny coincidence, I'm also a biologist who in the last 3½ months found out that art is so much more fun. But there's is so much inspiration in the animal kingdom :)

[jskotte]

Hi Tom, I can see your are studying, and I believe that is the only way to learn. Great Loomis heads, you might also want to check out his figure drawing book, I've found it very useful. You posemaniacs look a little stiff (I have the same problem), but the Loomis book get you to think about motion, or I think so.
And funny coincidence, I'm also a biologist who in the last 3½ months found out that art is so much more fun. But there's is so much inspiration in the animal kingdom :)

[ThomasM]

Here is another post for today, this time with some stuff from a little notebook that I have taken to carrying around sometimes... Almost all of it is quite cartoonish but then I feel like it matters less at the moment to me how realistic each feature looks and more that they are put in the right places..

Anyway here are todays scribblings from imagination....

Tom

[ThomasM]

after a bit of a break because of doing the brighton marathon this weekend I'm back and this time I have been out and made some canvases, bought some acrylics & brushes and had a go at my first real painting ever....

Its a WIP at the moment but will probably get there eventually. I'm not wanting to do too much painting at the moment until my pencil work gets better so its gonnna be a gradual process...

The lighting is a bit off but even so at least its an idea.

Tom

[PurplePlatypus]

Nice studies, keep them up.

I like your painting; nice to break out the acrylics sometimes, I think I like the eagles head on it the most. Stick with the pencil for a bit longer if you want to :)

[the ANGRY filipino]

Nice updates! I think on your painting..if you spend some more time on it..you'll be able to add more 'oomph!"..though I am hardly an expert on anything..but I'd love to see you push it as far as you can on that piece.

[ThomasM]

I definitely agree on that thanks Angry.. It also looks a bit washed out because the photo was taken with a flash and under a very yellow light...

I Appreciate the encouragement and thanks for stopping by to crit!

[oren90]

nice update man good to see you're working with traditional media :)

[ThomasM]

Heres tonight's post - its a mix of some older anatomy sketches that I have revisited today and tried to learn and a couple of new scrawlings... I've also got a couple of little portraits to put up but I'll save that for tomorrow as the camera's battery is dead!

Oren90 - thanks for the comment, appreciate it man. Had a little look on your SB today but didnt get around to commenting on it - tomorrow I'll revisit and give it a decent look again!

I feel its difficult to crit on studies (especially anatomy) but feel free to recommend me some good sources or texts or whatever, or any interesting styles and ways to develop the figure from the mind...

Cheers, Tom

[oren90]

good studies man :) keep it up

[ThomasM]

Today I've had a little repaint of that attenborough and eagle and taken a photo of it in a better light to show some of the (hopefully) improvements. Ive included shots from a couple of distances but if anyone has any painting tips feel free as I don't know what I'm doing!

Also I've done a few quick portraits and some more head practice to try and work on proportions. Had a look on 4oD today and found some life drawing videos which have been helpful - I did some to practice of course!

Cheers, Tom

[ThomasM]

Here are some sketches that I did today...definitely done in a couple of lectures from imagination when I was supposed to be concentrating on community evolution in communal species.. but anyway here they are... just some face from imagination and then a couple of portraits in "Lee vs. Biggins" - I'm going to start scanning pictures from now on if I can because the quality of most of my posts is horrible.

Anyway enough chat...

[UmpaArt]

Such dedication! Great stuff man!
You should try your hand at gesture drawing now that you have a lot of the figure down.

[PHATandy]

Your portraits are getting better dude, but a lot of the times your sliding features out of place or your shape as a whole seems wonky. Especially in the 3/4 views. Try and really plan out your heads with a clear cube in perspective and make sure your features line up with the cube. Or just spend a little time making the lines along the ears/eyes/chin and top of the head are in the right place. You know, parrellel lines etc.
Doing some perspective studies might help you with that.

Hope this helps, but just keep on drawing the most. Thats the best way forward.
Keep it up dude.

[ThomasM]

PHATandy and UmpaArt - Thanks for the critique and advice! - really appreciate it

Now that you mention my features being misplaced and I go back through the entries I see that this is almost always the case! I have never thought of using a square to compare the perspective - something I'll start doing now!... I have a few more to post tonight which will be some stuff I've done over the weekend, although not had much time because of a family gathering!

Tom

[ThomasM]

Here is some stuff from the weekend - all from imagination except for one or two noses.

Tom

[oren90]

good job man they look good :) although in the big female face the lips are a bit too narrow it looks as if you've put too much botox there, except for that the faces look great :)

[ThomasM]

great shout! Its funny you say that because I never realised until then how narrow they are - I really need to try and think about proportions and check with construction lines every now and then! Thanks for the encouragement

Tom

[Jamie Romoser]

sup Tom keep up those studies and trying to apply them to your imaginative work. If you havnt already would try and get the book from James Gurney called Imaginative Realism its a great read
keep it up hmm should try more still lifes to help train your eye
have a good one thanks for the visits in my sketchbook
-Jamie

[ThomasM]

thanks for the advice! I will try to draw more from life and as for that book - just ordered it from amazon so hopefully you'll see its influences in my later SB (probably 50 pages down the line but doesnt matter!)...

[erdbeerfeldheld]

Keep up the good work Thomas! I noticed your linework looks quite shaky.
Draw with more confident strokes and avoid scribbling! Try practicing drawing without resting your arm on the table and experiment with larger formats. Hope that helps =)

[ThomasM]

I'll try and work on that shakiness - I guess I'm a lot more feathery and shakey than I thought! I am trying to draw generally larger at the moment (on A3 usually) for exactly that reason. Thanks for the comment and I have checked out your latest posts in your SB too if you fancy a look!

[Tizzy]

Hi! Thanks for passing by :) I think you are definitely on the right path, go on like this and it will pay off, it seems to me that you are learning very quickly!

[ThomasM]

Thanks to everyone for the comments, really appreciate the encouragement and advice on how to improve.. Its only page two and I feel i'm starting to improve already (two HB pencils later)

Today I have done some more portraiture and even a few thumbnail sketches as I got bored of drawing rubbish faces! I have started reading Jack Hamm's "Drawing scenery and landscapes" and its really helping so far, although most of these were done before I began reading. Anyway here goes nothing...

[UrbanHermit]

Hey mate! I see some nice stuff in your SB you are making nice studies on the head. I will repeat what some else mentioned that you lines are looking scratchy which is an issue I have but have started to work on.

First you need to learn how to hold the pencil properly for drawing which is something I have only just realised myself. Here is a link for this http://chiseledrocks.com/main/musings/topics/how_to_hold_the_pencil.

Second you should draw from your shoulder not your wrist which is possible once you hold the pencil properly and begin to work on larger paper. Here is another link for this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YLOiIbQYFw

I hope this helps and keep up the hard work.

[oren90]

nice heads man keep workin' on 'em :)

[ThomasM]

UrbanHermit - thanks for the links, I've watched them and they were really useful! I used to draw more like that actually, but recently I've regressed back to bad habits. Also never knew that drawing on a flat desk was not the proper way to go about things...


Oren90 - thanks for the continued encouragement and making me feel like im getting there no matter how slowly!

[UrbanHermit]

No problem mate. I am happy to help people with what I have learnt from my own mistakes. With you studying Zoology at University you should have ago at doing some animals as well.

[ThomasM]

thanks to all for the help and criticisms, I feel its helping and thats half the battle. Anyway here are today's humble offerings to the gods of art! Not the tastiest of offerings but hey beggars cant be choosers!

[Jakers]

Hey dude keep going on those studies, exactly what you should be doing.

Human faces are NOT easy so once you have that down, you should notice improvement in how you tackle other things as well.

I always use parallel construction lines to make sure the features are in perspective. While placing each one, think about the 'roundness' in the face, especially for the lips. Generally, just keep doing what you're doing :)

Post #45 - last image. The bearded man looking up, has a defined plane on the side of his forhead that you've shaded in...I wanted to note this specifically as its very helpful to indicate, and is a major shift in planes of the front to the side of the head. nice!

[ThomasM]

Jakers - yeah I'm really trying to work on the "skewedness" (if thats a word) of how I place features. I think the studies are slowly improving how I draw the features themselves but of course thats only half (or less) of the problem of drawing heads... I hope that learning to think in a sort of comparative way about volumes in constructing the head will help me in other aspects of drawing when the time comes!

Thankyou for the encouragement and stopping by!

[ThomasM]

Here are today's "not" so tasties... Working from Jack Hamm's book on drawing the head and body and i worked today solely on hair and how it is achieved without drawing every strand (which I have proven doesnt look great for the amount of time it takes)

[ThomasM]

Heres some stuff from today - been working on hair again but starting to bore of doing solely that. Had some lectures on community ecology and something else but they were terrible so i spent my time working on hair!

Also started doing some animals after reading about how I need to reference shapes and things from nature in order to really create a "realistic or believable" imaginary object/creature... - couldnt help but put stupid hair on them though!

[oren90]

those hair and animal studies look great :) keep it up

[ThomasM]

Oren90 - thanks buddy I'm really trying to just churn out at least a couple of pages every day, think I'll probably do some more hair/animal ones tonight just becuase its good to learn shapes and forms from nature!! (and its fun)

[Jordan85]

I like the studies! u have a real dedication to learn.

[ThomasM]

Jordan85 - thanks buddy I appreciate the encouragement

here are todays offerings.. didnt get around to doing any yesterday because I had a couple of essays to do.. which inevitably ended up being done last minute due to too much desire to draw! Thought I'd get a bit of inspiration from some classic fantasy films so I watched the never ending story and a film called Willlow for some ideas. Also did some nose stuff and some silhouettes from the side..

[ThomasM]

Todays posts... Some drawings and three 20 mins colour studies. I thought that these might help me get my eye into the idea of identifying colour and value, which I often struggle with, taking several attempts to select a colour from the palette that is even remotely similar... Have been reading imaginative realism too recently, its pretty inspiring stuff but I am still extremely daunted by the idea of a landscape!

[Lakka]

Hey, keep up the hard work, it is paying off!

It is nice to see someone so motivated, and you seem to have a knack for this thing, so just keep working hard, I'm sure you will evolve quickly.

[NanoBlack]

Im loving your work on human anatomy, and teh first muscular work you did (early post) is a nice rough digital sketch of awesome :P

It's also nice to see some enviro work and some traditional! A jack of all trades is a rarity on CA :P

[Vatsel]

seems like your imagination work needs to catch up with your observational work

work more on that,
till next time.

[ThomasM]

Lakka - Hey man thanks for stopping by and I appreciate the encouragement, I really feel that some of the studies I've been doing are helping my drawing, and especially the way I try to address volumes....

Nanoblack - thanks for the commment and I'll post some more anatomy in that style tonight for sure!. I think doing rough sort of paints like that are really helpful because in attempting to make it look even slightly 3-d you have to try and figure out the planes etc.. helps me remember them!

Vatsel - yeah my imagination work is not as good at the moment but then I suppose i'll just add it to the list of things to work on. Thanks for the crit!

BOOM! 1000 views!! :O thanks everyone who has come to check it out and left a comment, I feel they are really helping me address my shortcomings, whether it be holding the pencil properly, sorting out the placement of features or just getting me to buy a textbook to suggest ideas and techniques. Thanks all!

[ThomasM]

something from this morning... finally motivated enough to do the bottom half of this.

[Froz3nRyu]

Great art :p now pay some attention in lectures!

[ThomasM]

and something from this afternoon - some sketches from dads army photos (great old comedy show if nobody knows what that is!) and a sheep and llama or two. Really trying to get my awareness of planes down, which is why i exclusively hatched that sheep rather than trying to render accurately..

.. at the moment Im just absorbing any text on art i can get my hands on, its all good!

[oren90]

there's nothing like good old llamas :)

[PurplePlatypus]

Nice portraits, never watched Dads army myself.
Hail the lama :teeth:

[ThomasM]

Oren90 - yeah llamas rule!

Frozenryu - I would do but art is so much more interesting than those friday morning lectures!

Purpleplatypus - Wow you are english and you haven't watched dad's army? thats a shock to me! I thought everyone had, that and blackadder at least!

Anyway.. here are todays offerings. Did a page of animal study and some cartoonish heads from imagination (just to work on placement of features). Trying to get into the habit of doing one quick animal piece every day (like the sheep from yesterday) to get a library of forms, references and ideas for my own character generation in future.

Also tried my first charcoal ever and I have to say I loved it! Such a fun medium to work with, even with limited knowledge about it..

[PHATandy]

Awesome progress dude, your definitely making good strides.
You seem to be simplifying things and just looking at core shapes and forms like in those lama studies and its paying off. It looks like your concentrating on nailing the right proportions etc etc.
The charcoal looks good, thinking in the same way. Just focusing on looking more than drawing and putting down basic blocks of tone!
I recognized the Dads Army stuff instantly too! Used to love watching that.

Keep up the hard work, its paying off :)

[Froz3nRyu]

nice charcoal study. i like the chicken, the shrew could do with some more texturing.

brilliant dad's army shizzle.-try varying your line width and weight a bit more, it all looks very similar.

[Sean McClain]

[QUOTE]Not very happy with it to be honest... any tips on how to achieve that rough look? I'm using GIMP at the moment to do these but wanting to branch into proper painting as soon as possible!
/QUOTE]

I Cant Believe nobody responded to this?!?... well if your using gimp stay zoomed out
and use big brushes, try to find some good Brushy brush downloads if you can,
one thing one of Sargent's apprentices said is that watching one of his pieces start to finish was like watching a blurry image slowly come into focus, but if I am in oils is I
will squint my eyes when I look at the subject, if your looking at an image on the screen
well then what I do is just shrink it down small and keep my image big and and zoom in the original more and more as I come along while keeping mine zoomed out. use big brushes...as big as you can possibly go even if its the pupil of the eye.
there is a pdf download of Sargent notes on Craig Mullins site in the Miscellaneous/how I work section here is the link www.goodbrush.com ...oh and do get some oils and do some studies because its sooooooo fuuunn
Cheers!:)

[ThomasM]

PHATandy - thanks man really appreciate the encouragement, I think that the ideas and way I think about volumes is really developing into something more 3-d than previously... and glad you liked dads army - was a great show!

Froz3nRyu - thanks for the crit and compliment, I will try to vary it more although at the moment I find jsut the placement of the lines difficult enough without even considering their character themselves...

Darknight - thanks for taking the time to look through the sketchbook - not the longest I know but still.. its kind for people to look through a beginner's sketchbook. That PDF download was a brilliant idea, thanks for making me aware of it! Sargent seems to be one of the all time most respected artists around these forums, having influenced directly or indirectly almost everyone on here!

Got PS today so Ive been playing around with that.. and as usual it did the inevitable distracting me from actual learning and drawing.. but its good to know for the future and I have included a photo ref of a housemate of mine who I am doing a charcoal for their birthday (unfinished as of yet) on saturday.... I've included the pencil piece first which was scanned, and then the charcoal over the top.

Im a bit annoyed with myself because I read that when using charcoal and chalk you should be VERY sparing with the highlights lest it look shiny and overly polished. I then went on to ignore that and used way too much - oh well at least I thought about it afterwards I guess.

[AustenFM]

I thought I had already commented in here. Looks like you're working hard studying, as well as having fun with what you're learning, and that's awesome.

Your birthday card is coming along nice, just be careful not over work her face, try to keep it looking as smooth and feminine as possible, and don't emphasize too many lines on her face, which is easy to do. I dunno if I'm any help.

Looking forward to more!

[ThomasM]

AustenFM - thanks for the crit man, Ive since gone back and tried to simplify and smoothen the values of that charcoal piece. Always appreciate your advice because you are one of the people on here I aspire to learn from as much as possible.

Today I decided to give the charcoal a rest as I always feel guilty for not working hard enough with the pencil. I dont know why but I have this sort of old fashioned feeling that to be really good at art it is best to always revert back to the pencil.. as so much can be learnt from linework and value using such a simple tool. Getting a bit bored of portraits and face work so I decided to start upon the long journey to figure drawing well...

Opened up a loomis figure drawing book a few hours ago and here are the results... the plain coloured paper ones are mainly reference to loomis works and the coloured green and white are my own imagination.

Oh and also a good day for conceptart I finally managed to convince a friend to join properly, stop lurking and create his own sketchbook

[ThomasM]

Tonights stuff - more figures. Having read a little more loomis I tried building up from yesterdays (I thought quite successful in terms of dynamic movement which I have never achieved before) mannikin posings. Turned out to be extremely difficult for me. Im guessing this is because all the anatomy in this sketchbook was done some time ago and is not fresh in my mind - attempting to rectify that over the coming few weeks!

No fancy photoshopping stuff today, just basic sketches as I see them on the page...

[AustenFM]

Hey man, studies look solid, glad to see you rotating and creating your own loomis mannequins, it shows you're really thinking about what you're doing. Do more of these for sure.

It also looks like you're getting into studying the bones and muscles. Loomis has some really accurate drawings as far as that goes, but if you possibly can, maybe go out to a hobby store and buy a cheap little desk skeleton to use as actual reference so you can understand the shapes better. I have my own personal set of human bones that my dad passed to me (he's still in possession of his bones, don't worry) and they're what i use when i do my studies. I can take some photos for you if you're in need of reference and whatnot.

Keep it up!

[ThomasM]

AustenFM - Thanks for the encouragement man, I actually was doing some "Austen-loomis" anatomy from your sketchbook today (as well as from the text itself) before I read your comment. I'll definitely get out there and buy a mini skeleton for studying, and in the meantime I would love a couple of photos of your full size one if you have time!

Today I did some more anatomy and watched the empire strikes back (or most of it) in the evening while doing an essay for monday. Would have liked to do some more mannequins today (My aim is to do some everyday at the moment until I have a better feel for rhythm and vitality in movement) but its a bit late now.. and I dont generally draw when I'm really tired...

[ThomasM]

I'm afraid these are all I Could rustle up today - have a Spanish exam tomorrow and an essay due in on group selection in evolution...

The link for the original is here:

http://wallpapers-free.co.uk/backgrounds/nature/waterfalls/Landscape-Fall-Creek-Falls-and-Snake-River-Idaho.jpg

This looks like a really rough speedpaint but it actually took me an hour at least - It seems I'm just terrible at painting and I dont know why! The grayscale btw is taken straight from the colour (not done beforehand)

Any tips?! I really struggle to get depth.

[Konstruktion]

Yeah, Hogarth! Loomis! Looks like your doing them all, which is good. Enjoy the studies, massive amount of them. I think of drawing like being at the gym, "just one morrrre... graaah..... one more.."

[UmpaArt]

Your really plugging away at the anatomy! Love it man. Keep it up! Might wana keep working on that photoshop painting. :P

[ThomasM]

konstruktion - Yeah I'm really working my way through studies suggested by hogarth, loomis, civardia, faigin and Jack Hamm at the moment. When I'm not drawing I'm reading about them and trying to soak in all i can find on the subjects. Totally get what you mean about the gym lol, you know that its for your own good even though you'd rather be doing something else

UmpaArt - Yeh I'll definitely give that PS painting more attention. My main problem is that I just dont know how I can make something look like its in the foreground or background - it all seems to just blur into one depth layer as I don't know any techniques for making something seem close and something seem far... (I am reading about it at the moment but its slow going as I've done no painting before)

I will try and post more tonight if I get the chance but I have a presentation to do for tomorrow morning and had an exam this morning so.. (INSERT EXCUSE HERE).... even as Im typing this i realise its a total contradiction to my rule of posting SOMETHING every day. I won't let myself down so expect something later :p (something is a very loose concept lol)

[ThomasM]

Todays stuff - I couldnt bear to post nothing and I ended up doing a little more of the landscape today.. using the tablet is still not easy but I feel im slowly getting there. Also a horrible photo of some leg studies I did today with a couple of markers (yup slowly trying to incorporate all the mediums I can) - Austen/Loomis style

[Vatsel]

advice from me would be to (and Im not sure you do it) but learn to use the hard round brush only, with no soft brushes or other fancy stuff to blend - you dont want them to become a crutch

keep it up!

[ThomasM]

Vatsel - Thanks for the advice I tried it out today and it helped me no end! I really couldnt put my finger on it but as soon as you mentioned it I realised I was blending/smudging and using soft brushes for most of my work without realising :)

Tonights scribblings - have also been working on that photoshop landscape a bit more using the very helpful given to me! but I will post that another day when more improvement has been seen, I dont want to fill up this SB with the same WIP...

I watched return of the jedi today (well.. some of it) and also drew some skeletons, I'm trying to slowly build up from the basic loomis mannequin to the full anatomy (a slow process but its a start)

[Vatsel]

awesome you found it so helpful :]

doodles are too loose for me to crit (which isnt bad at all)

[ThomasM]

Today I did my first ever life drawing class - I usually draw from photo reference or from real life but on a far smaller scale. I found it to be quite difficult! Each of these poses took around 5-15 minutes although I really found that after about 10 often the figures didn't really noticeable improve...

anyway.. here are today's offerings..

[ThomasM]

Here are todays offerings - Have done a little more on that landscape and am going to leave it for now as I am more interested in pencil stuff for the moment (I generally get more done in the day if i stick to pencil).

I have also bought "The practice and science of drawing" - Harold Speed, which I have just started to read today but is pretty motivational!

Did some scribblings from lectures.

Also after almost a week of muscular study I attempted to draw some figures without reference in a variety of poses and including some arc lines with additional limbs. (there is one there that i copied from a loomis book (the top left male who is walking).

I'm actually fairly pleased with it - it seems anatomy does pay off after all! I was sceptical to be honest as I had seen no obvious improvement. After tackling some males I tried to do some women and found that a bit harder but still fun to attempt.

Anyway.. on to page four!

[HolyMane]

those are some nice studys keep at it man , still pay more attention to the shapes ! like those female studys you posted , have you tried that thing of looking at your drawing using a mirror? so you can see it in a diferent way, its really helpful when trying to find mistakes!

[ThomasM]

Holymane - thanks for the advice - I'll try and pay more attention to them! I've never actually tried using a mirror and looking at the drawing from other angles to see if it looks right, but I have read about it. I will try and incorporate that from now on!

[PHATandy]

Hope this little paintover gets my point across. But basically one the key things of doing any sort of environment (and almost drawing anything) is getting a good sense of depth, and thus creating a space. You can do stuff like perspective and atmospheric perspective, but with natural environments its pretty much a mix of perspective and overlapping that create depth. If you have clear areas where objects overlap - and then they are scaled correctly - it immediately creates the idea of the depth. The idea of overlapping - especially in your picture is the verticals across the basic horizontal of the river. Try to think of the river as a completely flat plain so all lines/strokes flow horizontally and then everything is jutting out of it so to speak.

You picked a pretty difficult picture in as much the left hand side of the picture is not very well defined, many of the rocks are of similar colour/tone and the tree in the foreground also merges with it. But your main objective should be simplifying out all the big basic shapes and establishing them in a space.

I know this is all pretty obvious but sometimes its easy to skip over the easy stuff. Sometimes its better to try and keep it simple.
Hope this helps you out... and makes sense.
This is over the original photo too btw.

Edit - damn, I broke a new page. Sorry.

[ThomasM]

PHATandy - thanks a lot man - really appreciate the crit! So essentially you are saying that next time I work on it I should try and accentuate those overlaps to give more depth to it? I'll work on that today a little more, to try and establish those overlaps.

You say its really obvious but to me its really not - I've never tried a landscape before (or really any painting other than the portrait posted in this SB) so it really helps me identify what I should be looking for straight away

Btw no worries about the new page - totally worth it! :)

Here are todays anatomy studies - the figures are drawn from imagination as are a couple of the feet but the rest is from Bridgman's Life Drawing.

[Black Spot]

Nice SB you've started. Still early days on the life drawing. Cross hatching with charcoal is one way to define the form and is probably a lot easier than trying to shade and smudge. Keep it loose to start with and then define a bit more when you're more confident.

[ThomasM]

Black Spot - thanks for commenting in here, I will remember to try and cross hatch first! I only really resorted to smudging because the piece of charcoal I had was about as thick as my thumb and each of those drawings is fairly small! Thanks for the comment and I'll try and include some hatched charcoal in here somewhere

Here are yesterdayys that I was too lazy to upload at 1 o clock last night! :p

[Tizzy]

you are studying hard, keep it up! I like the Sargent one!

[erdbeerfeldheld]

Good work Tom, rock on! Nothing to crit right now =)

[cgaddict]

Nice updates, you're linework has improved immensely since the first page. Really dig those Bridgman studies as well.

[ThomasM]

Tizzy - Thanks so much, yeah Im working hard to try and reach my future art goals!

erdbeerfeldheld - thankyou, really appreciate the encouragement and the visit to this little SB!

cgaddict - thanks for the compliment dude, I am loving doing Bridgman anatomy at the moment! I have a few more things to post tonight but I will leave them until later when I will have done a few more...

I downloaded the student version of Autodesk 3DS max yesterday and have been running through some of the tutorials, I have to admit its an amazing piece of software and its really helping me think in more 3-d terms. I shall post a couple of examples of what I'm working on later!

[Emilmaxen]

Hey man, I you and I are quite the same, you have killer drawings but the colors is the hard part.
From what I've seen in your paintings I would say, use harder and bigger brushes, simplify and focus on the big shapes and then go into details.

And try to make gradients between the colors on the skintones. And don't use a soft brush with high opacity. It's obvious that you are confident in the colors themselves and that you know which tones go where. So it's mainly the brush settings and theory that need some fix.

Also use a soft brush with low opacity, pic a general color and stroke it gently over the furthest parts in your landscape paintings. That will create a haze, which makes it look awesome.
I myself is no landscape painter but I have a friend who taught me just that.

Now paint some more!

Cheers Emil

[ThomasM]

Emilmaxen - thanks for stopping by my SB, and for the critique and compliment! Also really appreciate the advice on the painting side of things. Although for the moment I am concentrating on just getting my pencil work good I'm also branching out on to some other things in order to get a feel for all sorts of mediums!

I'll paint and post some more in here, although generally I dont have much time at the moment (final year exams in about a week) so it will have to be after then probably. As i said earlier I downloaded the student version of 3DS Max yesterday and have been working through the tutorials (with the aim of getting good enough to be able to honestly put it on my CV when the time comes...). Here are just a couple of things I've done today and yesterday with some doodlings too... hope the attachment manager works this time (it didnt a minute ago)

[ThomasM]

Have not posted in ages because I have finals at the moment - after the 1st I am going to be working part time and concentrating on art!!

Just to put something up here is something I was working on before exams (its destroying me not drawing and posting stuff on here, and revising instead!) This is modelled in 3DS max (I havent just taken a picture of a cardboard box I swear!)

[erdbeerfeldheld]

The cardboard box is looking good, great attention to detail!

[jskotte]

your studies are looking really good, especially all the anatomy. Keep on working hard :)

[Black Spot]

Love the cardboard box, especially the masking tape. Excellent work.

[LORD M]

Great going Thomas! Really hard and inspiring work! :) And I must add it's really fun to meet another biology student here on CA!

Keep up the life-drawings, it will teach you how to see mass and how to pose the body better. I think you shloud watch out with the proportions, focusing on this will make your drawings appeal more. I learn't a lot about proportions from this thread by Menlter here on CA: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26748 I recomend you checking it out. :)


Keep it up! :D

[hippl5]

The wineglass, always always always one of the first things done in a 3D class.

I like the cardboard box, it would be fun to duplicate them and play around trying to set them up in certain ways.

[cgaddict]

Nice updates, the cardboard box is ace. Keep it up!

[ThomasM]

Thanks to everyone that has posted recently! I Will post a reply to everyone in two days (when my exams are over) but in the meantime here is something I did before the exam period started. I feel guilty not posting every day like before...!

Cheers
Tom

[ThomasM]

Im back baby!! BOOM!

After a break of at least three weeks (more like a month) for exam revision for my Zoology finals, I have finally finished Uni and now have the summer to really concentrate on Art!!! (wooh!)

Eerdbeerfeldheld - thanks very much dude, appreciate the encouragement

jskotte - thanks for the compliments about the studies, I actually am starting to enjoy doing them now that I realise they are slowly helping and each one puts me a little closer towards my final goals

Black spot - Thanks v much, appreciate the compliment!

Lord M - Hey dude yeah nice to hear from you, and yeah I will watch those proportions, in fact I have been on that thread of mentlers and saved a lot of his (massive folder on my computer) anatomy studies in order to learn from. Some are even in this post I think.

Hippl5 - Yeah what a basic thing to start with, but anything is better than nothing! And its such a complex program. Cheers for stopping by

Cgaddict - Appreciate the encouragement, I'll be checking out some of your stuff after this post!


Anyway, here are some anatomy studies and a portrait of patrick stewart which took about 30 mins and actually looks terrible now ive photographed it. If anything though I'm happy about this as the mistakes become more obvious!

Here goes nothing...

[the ANGRY filipino]

well, what can I say? I like where you are going...doing studies should never be underestimated..
I drooled over the box you did btw...

[Norris]

I tell you what, for someone who hasn't had any art training / lessons, you are seriously awesome!

Keep up the loomis and Bridgman work, it really has bought you a long way, and the enviros are getting better!

Keep up the good work and take care
Norris

[BluezAce]

Nice studies, ThomasM! Although your lines are very bold and stylized so makes them more like cartoon's, your drawings are very appealing :)

If I may give any comment, it would be that you need to work more on your proportion. This problem showed especially in your drawings that involving 3/4 views and also in foreshortening, where even little mistake in proportion would be really noticable.

As in my experience, trying to draw much much bigger would make you better at this. Let's say that you usually doodling in a small sketchbook, then just draw in A4 paper. Or as I noticed, you tend to "cramp" many figures in one page, then try to fill that one page with one figure only. Draw it big and detailed, while sometimes take some step away from the paper to see it from the distance...

Keep going, I'll be rooting for you! :D


Best regards,
Bram

[ThomasM]

Theangryfilipino - Thanks very much dude! Glad to have the support!

Norris - Really appreciate that thanks very much, I havent had any lessons but I have put in quite a few hours :p

Bluezace - Hey man thanks very much for the critique. Usually I do tend to "cram" the figures in the page (although my sketchbook is A3!) I will work more on proportion over the coming weeeks and months and hopefully you will see the change in ability! Appreciate the support too Bram!

Here is something else I have been working on tonight.. Has taken at least an hour (and I know it doesnt look like it) because I am SHOCKING at painting having no real idea what I am doing. I also paint a lot less but anyway enough excuses..

[Black Spot]

On the Loomis studies the hips are a bit narrow. A woman, unless a stick insect, has lovely curves and part of that is the hips.

The landscape is nice, but the branch on the beach needs a strong shadow.

Keep it up.

[BluezAce]

I don't really understand yet about painting, so I couldn't comment about technique or stroke or things like that. But your painting is so lovely, remind me of a beach I used to play with my friends. The calmness of sea, in harmony with the freshness of green leaves. I really like the colour of your trees... :)


And yes, enough excuses! Get back to drawing and painting, ThomasM! Hehehe :P

[Hellbeard]

Nice progress friend! Keep working and you'll get there! I see a real spark in your works.

[Mitze]

Good stuff confident lines. Some of the faces could be a bit better. Don't be afraid to put construction lines in measure the distances between eyes etc with pencil or if in photoshop use a grid. Great stuff more please.

[Jakers]

Keep on going my friend, those studies are going to do wonders! Figures are getting some good volume

[Gloominati]

good stuff man! diggin all the studies you do! just keep in mind that if you want to really understand muscle and thus the mass of the body, you NEED to understand the skeleton first. if you know that the rest is relatively easy since muscles "only" connect two points of the skeleton in a very logical way :) DO IT!!

[ThomasM]

Blackspot - thanks for the crit's - I'll bear that in mind next time I'm doing the hips in particular for women. appreciate it.

Bluezace - Haha yeah no time for excuses really, need to be studying more and chatting less. Thanks for the compliment, and for stopping by!

Hellbeard - Thanks very much, hopefully you will see some progress in the coming months (and years!)

Mitze- yeah I really need to remember some of the construction lines - particularly the more vertical ones like eye widths relative to nose and positioning of mouth/eyes..

Jakers - thanks buddy, I'm getting there one small step at a time

Gloominati - Now that you mention it yeah I havent studied the skeleton properly! Thanks for bringing that to my attention dude, I hadnt even noticed... I will put in some skeletal study in the next few weeks for sure!

Anyway these are from the last couple of days - I was away visiting a friend in Plymouth Uni but still managed to squeeze in these sketches while i was there. The first is some kids characters I did on the train. Second is Westbury station (was waiting for another train) - the photo of that one is shocking. The Third is some stuff from imagination (and a picture of asterix i drew whilst watching "asterix conquers america". Lastly, I wanted to test myself so I tried drawing a male head and face from imagination with an emotion to boot...

[Ivan Turcin]

Hey Thomas, nice sketchbook. And really cool updates. A cardboard box turned out really lifelike. Are you doing any more work in 3ds?
As Jakers already said, figures are getting volume. Keep working hard!

[ThomasM]

Ivan Turcin - Thanks dude really appreciate the encouragement. I haven't done much more work in 3DS max becuase its very time consuming and I'm very busy at the moment! I will do more though this summer when I get around to it!

Quite a big post for me now - Haven't posted in a few days (but still I have been drawing of course)...

[ThomasM]

Been away at Beach Break Live - had a great week but regretted not taking a sketchbook (Huge mistake)! Managed to leave it in the car. Anyway here are some that I did the night before I left. I'm working on a portrait today and cant be bothered to upload that until tomorrow. Good to be back.

Goatman and a weird asterix thing.

[PHATandy]

Hey dude, stuff is looking pretty good. Your getting some good clean lines and shapes in, but maybe start focusing on doing some more rendering in your sketches. Look at some techniques you like and study pictures with good light sources. Itll enhance your understanding of form even more. You gotta do a mix of line drawing with tone as much as possible to learn to the max!

How was beach break btw?
It was supposed to be down here in Cornwall last year but they moved it.

[Black Spot]

The last couple are a bit fun. Best way to go.

[BlackDelphin]

Hello Thomas! First of all thank you for dropping by my sketch book and for your encouraging words! :D

I see you doing a great job with that graphite pencil of yours, good lines, good anatomy, witch keeps getting better and better.
I see you experimented a bit with 3d max too, and a bit of envo, but i gotta say, i like your portraits more, from witch, i hope to see more :meow:

[ThomasM]

PhatANDY - Hey thanks for the crit man, I am just ifnishing reading "The science of Drawing" by Harold Speed and basically he says exactly as you did, that everyone should practice tone as much, if not to an equal amount, as line drawing. I have been thinking about how much I have been neglecting this recently so your post is very helpful! Beach Break was awesome thanks, had a great time and generally was very hungover and tired afterwards. Oh and I got back and I had graduated with a 2:1 on the same day so I had a great week!

Black Spot - Thanks for the encouragement, always appreciated!

Black Delphin - after I read your post I tried to do another portrait and combine it with some tone studying!

So with the demand for more rendering and tone as well as portraits here are some of the things I've done in the last few days!

A sketch of a child (relative of mine), a portrait study of the emperor from the film Gladiator, and a couple of landscapes with no reference that I did today and yesterday!

[BlackDelphin]

Wonderful! :D
I see you got on it right away :meow:

The envos have nice values, and that portrait too. Love the skin details and everything.
More wips are awaited!

[bharat]

hi....thanks for stopping on me , by the way i m doing drawing since 15 years,u r doing well... keep it up man...!

[BluezAce]

Hahahaha... I really laughed when I saw your "weird asterix" drawing! It's funny :D :D :D

The Gladiator's emperor portrait is great too. But somehow I keep wondering why some of your drawings are cropped... O,o

[ThomasM]

BlackDelphin - Thanks for the compliment and support!

Bharat - nice - just wondered how long it took to get to that level!

Bluezace - Lol glad you found it funny, it was just a weird drawing I did when I was watching one of the films! Why some of them are cropped? Because of the size of the page. I want to concentrate my efforts on the face and if I didn't crop it then I would have to make the face smaller...

Here are a couple more from today - Landscape stuff and more from Jack Hamm. I am fast becoming a huge fan of his because his landscape stuff has almost no line work, just values!

[xbert]

love these compositional studies - jsut looking at these last post of your sb had just a educational effect to me - great ;) !

[BlackDelphin]

Landscape studies look good.
Looking forward to see you apply them :)

[RandAlThor]

Good stuff in her man, and nice progress, looks like your really absorbing the info. Is that Jack Hamm stuff from a book of his?

[RandAlThor]

Good stuff in here man, and nice progress, looks like your really absorbing the info. Is that Jack Hamm stuff from a book of his?

[Novbert]

Those landscape and composition studies look great. Would be good to see the same depth of analisys when it comes to figure studies. Your previous skeches suggest that you're yet to discover all the basic three dimensional shapes (and their intersections) that build up the human figure - that makes your figure and portrait renderings kinda flat.
But again those composition and tree studies look really promising. Don't stop doing them!
:yayca:

[Black Spot]

Those trees are coming along a treat. The last few are miles better than the first couple on this page.

[ThomasM]

Xbert - Haha glad you liked them, they have been obscenely useful to me! Before reading this book I had no idea about composition or landscape drawing. I still don't really, but at least I know one or two tricks!

BlackDelphin - Thanks for the compliment, I have tried to apply them in a piece today I called "The Road to Asgard" (the one with a tree in) where I include a tree and some evidence of depth (I hope).

RandalThor - Yeah this is all taken from the Jack Hamm book called "Drawing Scenery: Landscapes and Seascapes". Its a really brilliant book I have to say one of the most useful I've read so far!

Novbert - Thanks for stopping by and commenting, and yeah I'll certainly keep them up! Glad you like the landscapes and yeah my figures leave more to be desired, but then its the ultimate goal of any artist so I'm not too disheartened!

Black Spot - 4k comments? You must have spent literally weeks and months on here commenting on other people's sketchbooks! Glad you did though so I'm not complaining!


Today I did "The road to Asgard" as mentioned above (bit of a pompous title for just a sketch but whatever!) which was supposed to be a no ref landscape! ( very proud of that to be honest) and started an acrylic of a hammer which is a WIP due to it being too dark now! Also I have included a photo of all the pencil shavings I have collected in the past couple of months! It doesnt look like much but believe me there are about 5/6 whole pencils and many more parts of others in there.... I plan on collecting them throughout whatever sort of "art career" I can throw together over the coming years!

Here goes nothing..

[Abrodos]

Good studies so far! Cool that you're working so much in landscapes.
Keep at it!

[BlackDelphin]

that hammer seems to be a bit shaky towards the top
still, good study :)

the envo study came out well too

looking forward to see more of your work! :D

[Jonas_J]

Really good landscape, yes you can be proud of that ;)
The hammer is well rendered, the only problem i can see is that it looks like the handle and hammer-head are abit skewed from each other. they dont line up.

[ThomasM]

Abrodos - Thanks man, and yeah I'm trying to do some landscape stuff at the moment, its fun and to be honest I don't find much landscape pencil stuff on here, which is a shame! Are you from barcelona btw? I lived in Gracia for a month or two last summer and had a great time! I can speak a little spanish but no catalan :(

BlackDelphin - I have worked a little more on the hammer today, trying to get it a little better (hopefully it shows). Its still a WIP but in a few days I should be done! And the environment was from imagination... does that still count as a study? Im not sure lol!

Braintree - cheers :) I was looking at it today and I tried to rectify the handle and the hammer head, straightening them up more.. Unforunately just as I uploaded this picture I realised there is another that makes it look wrong. Will correct that more tomorrow! So far am fairly pleased with this, being my first still life...

I've been working today on that painting more and done a few studies of rocks and trees! I have finished uni now and considering what to do in terms of my ultimate goal of becoming a concept artist. I am going to work for a year to gather enough money to afford more studying. What would anyone recommend in terms of the best way to head towards concept art. At the moment I'm considering doing a foundation year/Diploma in Illustration at perhaps falmouth, bournemouth or Brighton...

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[BlackDelphin]

Rock n trees look good. I really like that little three thumbnail you did in the left corner.
I think they still count, yes. You are applying what you have learned, and combining it with your imagination..basically you're still learning, but you're testing yourself too..i'm not sure now lol

Hammer looks good! :D
But that middle section still seems a bit thin and wonky to me. Perhaps it's the thin shadow around that area.

Looking forward to seeing it finished.

[ThomasM]

BlackDelphin - Yeah tell me about it, that middle bit is really strange. To be honest though I have been attempting to correct it but if I make it any more broad it won't look like the original hammer anymore! The hammer itself has a really thin section which is odd..


I have been working on it for an hour and a bit this morning, and hopefully the main section and handle look a little better now. Could you please draw me a little paintover showing how it is wonky? I'm struggling to realise why

Thanks :)

[ThomasM]

Here is what I've been working on today! Now that I have loads of time between Uni and Working life (next week) I am really trying to concentrate on painting and other traditional media that take a little more time than sketching!

Anyway I'm gonna try and get at least a few done this week, and here is the second one so far...

Its a copy (very close to at least, not exactly the same) of a Paint that I saw in "Trevroooooar"'s SB which pretty much blew my mind. I think I have learnt a lot about painting today doing this, and its still a WIP... Anyway more tomorrow!

The first is earlier today and the second is this evening's..

[ThomasM]

Pretty much finished. Have spent another couple of hours on this today. Took me four hours (I estimate) and looks like it was painted by someone half decent in about 10 mins :p - still.. Im fairly happy with my first acrylic landscape.

[Black Spot]

I like the Sergeant picture. The rest of the studies are coming on.

[ThomasM]

BlackSpot - Thanks, there is something odd about it that freaks me out a bit though!

Here's a concept car sketch inspired by scott robertson who was linked in PHATandy's Sketchbook. That guy is good! (understatement of the century)

Anyway.. just a little something

[Jakers]

Oh man don't be too hard on yourself for the neat fantasy landscape image there! Such a good effort and its neat to look at, so you should be proud as well.

I have a weakness for trees and rocks sometimes too, so those are awesome. Its great that you are thinking about, and taking notes, for basic planes and shape and spacial design. Sooo key to practice before you get ahead of yourself (like I like to do :))

[BlackDelphin]

Oh man don't be too hard on yourself for the neat fantasy landscape image there! Such a good effort and its neat to look at, so you should be proud as well.

I have a weakness for trees and rocks sometimes too, so those are awesome.

Well said! :D
And might i add on the hammer that technically looking at it, it's good, so the only thing that could have been wrong with it, it's the shadow, but then again nature has its odd things so you can call it a successful study and move on to the next one :D

[element1988]

[QUOTE]Not very happy with it to be honest... any tips on how to achieve that rough look? I'm using GIMP at the moment to do these but wanting to branch into proper painting as soon as possible!
/QUOTE]

I Cant Believe nobody responded to this?!?... well if your using gimp stay zoomed out
and use big brushes, try to find some good Brushy brush downloads if you can,
one thing one of Sargent's apprentices said is that watching one of his pieces start to finish was like watching a blurry image slowly come into focus, but if I am in oils is I
will squint my eyes when I look at the subject, if your looking at an image on the screen
well then what I do is just shrink it down small and keep my image big and and zoom in the original more and more as I come along while keeping mine zoomed out. use big brushes...as big as you can possibly go even if its the pupil of the eye.
there is a pdf download of Sargent notes on Craig Mullins site in the Miscellaneous/how I work section here is the link www.goodbrush.com ...oh and do get some oils and do some studies because its sooooooo fuuunn
Cheers!:)

lol i was just going to reply to that and was looking to see if anyone else did lol. But to add to this i would just say make sure you always use 100% hard brushes, soft brushes are the devil!!! they make everything all airbrushy and blurry, if you don't know how to use them that is. Instead just block in your big shapes and then get a lower opacity and paint in between for a softer edge.

[ThomasM]

Jakers - Thanks for the comment man, really appreciate it. Its comments from people like yourself that really keep me going in what feels like an epic struggle against being crap at art :p

BlackDelphin - Thanks dude, yeah I think you are right about the shadow, I looked at it loads but it just seemed so odd. Right, I think I'm gonna agree with you and call it finished and move on. I have learnt loads from painting the last few days. The most important thing I have learned is that handling the paint, brushes and mixing paints is not as easy as some people make it look!

element1988 - Thanks for the advice, really appreciate that. I think I will try a landscape tonight on photoshop and just see how it turns out. I generally used only soft brushes for all the PS stuff I've done so far, so hopefully itll help me out a bit! cheers :p

Will post more either this evening or tomorrow, but for now nothing as I am cleaning my house and moving out tomorrow!

[ryan mcshane]

awesome work man! thanks for stopping by :) appreciated
keep drawing!
ryan

[kingkostas]

very nice studies mate.Specially the landscape studies, with these lovely tree sketches!!!
You already have very nice lines.Keep up improving mate!!you are on the right track

[ThomasM]

r y a n o i r - Thanks very much dude, and no worries I love browsing the sketchbooks of other people, looking for inspiration and to see how other people improve!

Kingkostas - Thankyou :teeth: I really appreciate the kind words, especially from someone so much more advanced than myself! I will keep on posting! More trees and rocks guaranteed!

It has been three months since I started this sketchbook. Posting every single day excluding when I was either away from a computer or couldn't. In these three months I feel I've learnt LOADS and hopefully will continue to do so from studying more texts.

I hereby swear to continue uploading every day I can! I will be an artist if I have to dedicate three hours a day of my life (What I'm currently averaging lol)

(excluding today I'm afraid because I am currently moving house and am staying at a friends with no camera or scanner. I'll still be drawing though!)

Thanks to all who have helped me improve and given kind words of encouragement!

[N E X T]

hey man, thanks for the comment

nice paintings so far ! i like the still lifes

one question: you reading Jack Hamm - as i see you are copying "pretty much" from his book - is it wise to do that ? ( takes a lot of time? )

but probably it's easier to remember the things that way :D

anyway keep it up :)

[ThomasM]

N E X T - No problem dude, and thanks for the comment. Yeah I am reading his book on landscapes and seascapes, I mentioned it on the last page once or twice. It isnt very fast to do so many copies but it is extremely useful for me at the moment. I am also doing some of my own works based around what I have learnt (not all posted). Making the copies isnt essential no, but then if I draw the points that he suggests as I read them then it really helps me remember his key suggestions.

I wouldn't advocate copying exclusively, but in combination with works from imagination I am learning fast!

[TheGnoll]

nice studies man!
you've already improved tons since you opened this sketchbook! kudos for studying from a book a nd keeping at it, jack hamm's book is awesome.
About the latest car, keep in mind its mostly about what is under all the bits and patterns and things that counts-dressing up a wonky base will not make it work, so and the jack hamm book shows as well, get the 3d shapes right, and only then dress them up! second-especially if you decided on going for concept art, its really important to think about the bits and pieces you put on top of stuff, form and fuction must be linked, and any bit i could point out must have a meaning, a reason to be there, even if its simple ("cause it looks cool" only works to a certain point).
Keep hammering the basics as much as you can, as skills slowly build up they will unlock a shitload of possibilities, just keep in mind mileage counts as well as effort, and keep at it!

[ThomasM]

TheGnoll - Thanks dude, really appreciate the comment and support! I'm glad you can see some improvement too! You are so right about that concept car thing I did. It was really rushed and I gave almost no thought to the practical applications of things I was adding. For the future I will always bear that in mind!

p.s. I didn't really understand what you meant by "mileage counts as well as effort"? Thanks!

Here are some sketches I've been doing the last few days. The first three pages are stuff from Jack Hamm's book (with the odd modification and addition of my own) and then there are two pages from a new sketchbook I bought the other day. I am going to try and fill that one within a month, but for now it has two tree-sketches I did on southampton common the other day....

[Blizzard5291]

So much hard work, and it's really paying off!

[ThomasM]

Blizzard5291 - Thanks buddy, I appreciate the comment.

Here is todays stuff. I have been working on a painting of Jackie Chan (Quite big) in acrylic as usual and I am loving it so far. I have reviewed my style of painting a little after some useful tips from a friend, although unfortunately they came after I had begun painting so were a bit late!

There is a sketch of a tree by a river, and two attached WIP's that are still in the process of being refined and modified quite a lot!

I was also thinking of adding a sort of maroon background colour but not sure yet.

P.S. I have also uploaded a photo of a table-easel that I made after sawing up a broken chair that belonged to my housemate. If you can think of any additions I could make to it please comment

[ThomasM]

The Jackie Chan further painting and a sketch from yesterday (Day 93 since the start of my official drawing career!)

Here it is! (Oh and a speedpaint done this evening) Took about 30mins (not sure exactly but about that)

[Black Spot]

I think you've nailed trees. Great to see the progress.

I would have left the characters off the Jackie Chan study and concentrated more on getting the shape of the coat with its folds looking right first. Face is coming on well.

My post count is high because I tend to natter a fair bit.

[ThomasM]

Blackspot - thanks for the comment. I took your advice and did a few grays on jackie's jacket before I did any characters over it. To be honest though the photo I'm working from has very little to suggest that jacket is anything other than flat (Its basically all black in the photo). More work to be done on that another day.

Here are today's offerings to the gods of Art! My little sketchbook is becoming something of an obsession to me these days, and I have to say I might have just graduated with a zoology degree but I know that something to do with Art is the field I really want to be working in! (druels at the thought of it..)

I have been working today on more of the painting of Jackie and comparing angles (something I heard I should be working on in a download I paid for earlier by Daarken. Anyway its starting to look a lot more like him I feel!

And here are yesterday's drawings (and today's). I am really trying to get some differing line width and darkness in my drawings in order to break away from the current amateur style of mine!

[Joystx_]

nice sketch.

[Exon-Ion]

Hey dude, your sketchbooks going strong! Love the painting of Jackie you've done in acrylics, I've never touched that stuff. Keep it up, oh and that little table/easle you've constructed out a broken chair? pretty ingenius. :D

[cgaddict]

Excellent work. I really like your sketches in particular, those Loomis studies are A C E!

[ThomasM]

Joystx - Thanks amigo

Exon-ion - Haha thank you man, yeah I was pretty pleased with it in the end!

cgaddict - Thanks and I appreciate the comment and encouragement. I am concentrating a little on hands for now as I have never tried them before. I'm finding them great fun!

Here is a sketch from last night: we were watching Hellboy! The film is alright but I love the character designs, particularly hellboy himself. Anyway tried out some colouring pencils today. They pretty much blew my mind... soo great to work with! I'm definitely going to head into town tomorrow and buy a decent set (not my woolworth's ones which I've just worn out in one night!)

Here are today's things. I've been sketching my own left hand for reference and its been fun. Also did some jack hamm wave studies but they look awful lol

Art day tomorrow!

[ThomasM]

Joystx - Thanks amigo

Exon-ion - Haha thank you man, yeah I was pretty pleased with it in the end!

cgaddict - Thanks and I appreciate the comment and encouragement. I am concentrating a little on hands for now as I have never tried them before. I'm finding them great fun!

Here is a sketch from last night: we were watching Hellboy! The film is alright but I love the character designs, particularly hellboy himself. Anyway tried out some colouring pencils today. They pretty much blew my mind... soo great to work with! I'm definitely going to head into town tomorrow and buy a decent set (not my woolworth's ones which I've just worn out in one night!)

Here are today's things. I've been sketching my own left hand for reference and its been fun. Also did some jack hamm wave studies but they look awful lol

Art day tomorrow!

[xbert]

if your going on with working that hard you will become a succesful and very good artist/graphican im sure - just dont let anything hold you off from continuing this way

very promising thread!

just dont let those sudies keep you to far away from some more imaginative/fantasy/fun stuff, i think creativity is as important as technical skills (yes, their both important :) )

[ThomasM]

xbert - gracias amigo! I will definitely continue working this hard and I really intend to be an artist no matter how much work it takes for me to get there!

You are right about working on my imaginative stuff too, and I will work on that in my next few posts hopefully to show Im not just about studies and sketching whats in front of me!

I have just received three new books today, all of which are amazing. One on perspective, another Jack Hamm on drawing animals and finally one about drawing fantasy robots and creatures (I wanted tips on more conceptual designing). I am really pleased with these three so have posted a picture if anyone fancies giving them a try (I really recommend them!)

Also I recently bought a Daarken video tutorial and I have started to work through that today in order to get some much needed knowledge of the workings of photoshop...

[ThomasM]

Tonight and yesterday's stuff (Been very busy I'm sorry). Very drunk now so won't type more

[ThomasM]

something more from this morning...

I have taken a sketch from earlier and coloured it with markers into gray and then added a tint and color dodge/burn etc to give it some colour. It is a sort of energy/tesla-tank and this time I have attempted at least some "feasible" explanations of why things are where they are. For example, there is thick rubber-tarpaulin on top of the cabin in order to shield the driver in the event of emergency, as well as to limit the blinding power of the tesla above. I really need to incorporate more "why is that there" questions into my design process...

Not particularly happy with the design but learnt a lot about photoshop this morning and using mixed mediums (markers/pencil/PS) which was fun!

[ThomasM]

Went to town today in my hungover state and bought a cheap set of oils. Tried them out on a still-life of a tomato and to be honest I fell in love with them! So much better than acrylics. Anyway here it is!

[Seraph Fawkes]

Hi there ) You are hardworker and this is great. You making quite progress and I have no doubt that soon you'll do serious stuff. Keep on those anatomy studies (actually you should never stop practicing). And filling up your art vocabulary is a great decision. I'm quite lazy to do alot of landscape studies, and sometimes it hits me back. And a quick tip (I don't know do you know it or not) - when you painting with classic materials use mirrors to check if your painting not skewed.

Cheers, and keep it up!

[ThomasM]

Seraph fawkes - Thanks very much man, nice of you to stop by! Yeah I'm really working hard every day to be the best artist I can be! I am starting a self portrait in oils today (and hopefully finishing) so thanks for the tip, I will use mirrors for it!

[Black Spot]

Nice vehicle design - looks a lot of fun. Oils are great to use; wish I had a space without pesky kids around to indulge, I'm very envious.

Sometimes if you desaturate a photo more details will emerge to give you a better idea of what's actually there.

[ThomasM]

Black Spot - ha yeah I have to say in the 24 hours that I've tried out oil paints I have learnt two things from them:

1/ they are incredibly versatile and fun
2/ they are incredibly difficult to clean from anything and involve a lot of setting up and packing away time.

RIGHT THEN - BIG UPDATE TIME!

Anyway, I woke up and grabbed a massive mirror and my oil paints. Went out into the garden and started my first self portrait. About 5 hours later and Here it is. First a sketch then a burnt umber tone marking. Then work in progress and finally the finished thing. I don't really know how to photograph it to do it justice (the real thing seems so much better in terms of colours and contrasts). Painted outdoors in the garden so I gave it a generic outdoor background. Really happy with it considering it took 1/3 of the time as jackie chan and looks about twice as good...Probably about 5 hours in total (including sketch time)

Also there is posemaniacs stuff (30 seconds each) and a few bear doodles I did from Jack Hamm's book on drawing animals. The oil painting and the 9 pages of posemaniacs were all done today (ive been busy!). I have to admit I found sketching an entire figure in 30 seconds REALLY difficult so some of them barely look like figures. But then I guess the point of gesture drawing is to put yourself in a situation where you aren't working at a comfortable pace, to improve. I have also done some 45 second ones and a couple of pages of using pigment liners because I think they help me gain the confidence to just throw down a line and not worry about it (because they are so permanent)

edit: I have NO idea why I'm making that stupid face, its just that I was consciously trying not to get the teeth involved in the painting!

[equilerex]

This thread was fun to go through! ^^
lots of different mediums and constant progress... the nature/environment drawings are my favorite ;)

The poses are great btw! i never last over 3 of them, i start taking more and more time with each round and some of those figures are really twisted!

[Exon-Ion]

Your oils are coming along nicely, keep going....and i like your beard!

[ThomasM]

WOOOH PAGE 7!

equilerex - Thanks amigo! Haha yeah its hard to resist taking longer, but then posemaniacs forces you to move on becuase theres no way of pausing it (that i've seen!).

Exon - ion - Haha thanks the beard is not quite that solid in real life (Its getting there though) and the oils are SERIOUSLY FUN


Anyway more posemaniacs (~60 or so 30 sec and 45 sec poses) and also a portrait of a friend I have done today for about an hour (or maybe an hour and 10 mins)

Also a little colour work and mixing practice was done today. I have been reading some books on oil painting recently. After reading that in order to desaturate a colour you can also add its complementary colour rather than adding grey. After this I also mixed the primary colours and their complementary colours into a fuller palette.

[Ostroponis]

ah man i love mikes work (daarken), hes my
main inspiration , keep the sketchbook going :)

:yayca:

[Sweron]

:) Your environment images are good.
Keep those Loomis and other studies and keep updating more often, :) You are here 3 years ? :) It will help you improve faster ofcourse when you do your studies more often.

[ThomasM]

Ostroponis - Thanks dude

Sweron - Gracias amigo. By the way my join date is 2007 but this SB is only 3 months old (and I've posted almost every single day lol, sometimes twice :p)

Today I have been working on a 7 hour shift but still had time to squeeze in 50+ posemaniac studies and a portrait. I decided that it would make for a pretty uninteresting SB to just scroll through thousands and thousands of posemaniacs so I will be putting each day's in one big image file from now on and posting at the end of the day (rather than page by page).

Edit: The portrait took a little less than an hour and I think it shows in that its of a lower quality than yesterday's which was around 20 mins longer... Just a note to self!

[Luk999]

Nice studies man! Good to see you studying bridgman and loomis.
keep it up!

[ThomasM]

Luuk999 - Thanks for the encouragement, its always nice to have someone stop by just to reinforce that what you are doing is helping you get somewhere!

Didn't have work today so went to B&Q and bought a stapler gun and hammer etc and some wood and went about making some more canvases (I had run out). Managed to get 5 done and 3 primed so its a pretty productive day.. and also another 60 or so posemaniacs. I am on a mission at the moment to do 1000 posemaniacs in a month. I'm aiming for 50 a day for 20 days at the moment on top of any other artistic things I can produce. Really trying to hone my eye in on measuring proportions and learning some muscular landmarks. More to come later probably (or tomorrow morning)

P.S In the last few days I have racked up 237 poses (to give you an idea of where I am at the moment). This isn't to replace studies, but to supplement them

[ThomasM]

Erm yeah.... some studies from Jack Hamm's book on drawing animals. Hes a genius, these books are so easy to learn from and every time I read a new line I feel I have learnt something essential!

Can't stop drawing.... Its definitely becoming an addiction!

[Seraph Fawkes]

Can't stop drawing.... Its definitely becoming an addiction!

Then just keep going mate) Simplification to a basic shapes is a good way to understand complex form. But if you going that way, always practice your shapes, especially in perspective view. Train so hard, so you could draw flawless circles, and you squares were superstraight (not a gay-joke)!

[ThomasM]

Seraph - Thanks for the comment dude, I'll give some practice to shapes in the future.

Today it was raining and I sketched pretty much all day. Another 40 or so posemaniacs (boring) and some Jack Hamm animal studies and Loomis and Bridgman Hand and Figure studies. As well as that I managed to cram in my first creature design.

Anyway... I really feel like no matter how tedious I sometimes find doing 50 or so posemaniacs, its really helping me "get my eye in" and really compare lengths and angles etc. Helping me copying out studies no end, which means I can get more done in a day (as today has proven)..

[ThomasM]

Been at work, just got back and done a quick rendering (in grey) of my beast from yesterday

Edit: spent a bit more time on it and decided to colour it whilst watching an ImagineFX Workshop DVD...

[Black Spot]

I like the way on your picture of your friend with glasses, that you made his hands look more like they were touching the frames than the photo.

[ThomasM]

Black Spot - Thanks very much, I'm glad you noticed actually because that is one of the things I'm working on at the moment. Portraiture and altering a photo or life study to emphasise certain points.

Today I did some very hardcore studies (I really tried to employ everything I've learned so far, including line weight and width and hatching) and an oil portrait of a friend of mine. Not that happy with it at the moment (I stupidly rushed the pencil stage a little, which is never a good option!) but its a WIP!

[Jakers]

Few things my friend! I like that your digital work has a lot of opaque brushes used, as its much better than having a very blurry soft image...I think it speaks with more confidence to paint in this way and later blur our edges, rather than repaint them to make them more sharp (as I often feel like I do :P)

Good call on the pose maniacs on one page - its great to show the volume you are doing without having it take over your SB. One thing I would suggest with these, is try drawing 'through' each shape even where it would be blocked by another. Don't just do the contour, but lightly draw overlapping shapes all the way through; imagining where that background leg joins the hip on the other side. I find I get better volumes or more accurately placed shapes when drawing more loosely like this. perhaps similar to your first page of animals in #187.


Lastly I think its great you switch up your reference material a bunch (bridgman lately). Try and draw his work very loosely. I like paying attention to curved vs straight lines while looking at his work :) Hope something helps

[ThomasM]

Jakers - Wow thanks for the great crits! Really appreciate that post as its something I can really work with and use. That sort of knowledge is invaluable!

Don't just do the contour, but lightly draw overlapping shapes all the way through; imagining where that background leg joins the hip on the other side. I find I get better volumes or more accurately placed shapes when drawing more loosely like this

I'll try and build on your advice tomorrow (I'm hoping I won't have to work too many hours (if any) tomorrow!) and you should see the difference!

[ThomasM]

Bought a couple of editions of ImagineFX magazine today - one on anatomy and one on creating fantasy creatures. Learnt loads from what I've read of them so far! Here is one of today's things I was working on - a couple of torso studies to really get those muscle groups stored in my brain! (get in there damn you!)

[ThomasM]

Been really trying to get some observational sketches in recently! Here is some stuff from yesterday with a group of friends on Southampton common and today at the beach at Lulworth Cove! (It was great fun!)

[jskotte]

Lots of great studies here, you are working hard. I really like the drawing of the guy with the glasses and all the animal anatomy looks great.

[ThomasM]

jskotte - Appreciate you stopping by again, I am definitely working hard! I'm just treating this summer like some sort of hardcore art camp: buying and reading art books and doing art pretty much all the time I can! I have left a comment in your own sketchbook too.

Here is a sketch of a friend from yesterday along with a concept creature design that I was inspired to do by reading more ImagineFX articles that I bought online. Coloured in PS and I think its a fair bit better than my first attempt at colouring a character (thank god)

Beware the Croctopus (or is it Octocroc!)

[ThomasM]

Graduated from University today - got a 2:1 in Zoology. Big day, but just the start of another adventure!

Here is an oil painting I did last night and this morning before the parents arrived. Its of my dad and I'm fairly pleased with the likeness, although I think the colours are a lot less interesting than my other portraits done so far. Oh well!

landscapes tomorrow!

[ThomasM]

Today I have been painting digitally for a change and loved it. Each landscape took about an hour an 20 minutes (I estimate)..

[jeremygordon89]

Hey man, great work so far! You're going in the right direction with your studies I'd say, and you should also try doing something like daily self portraits; it's fun to see yourself improve at the same subject over a few weeks and really notice the improvement, it's motivating. Also yeah, value studies would be helpful, and my critique is to use cleaner color in your studies. They look good, though I think more bold shapes of color would be better (probably just my opinion though, either way works) Keep up the good work!

[jskotte]

The coloring of the creature looks good, maybe try to refine it even more. And very nice landscape studies, colors look good.

[Black Spot]

Landscapes looking good. Did your Dad (or more important - your Mum) like the portrait? Neat creature.

[ThomasM]

JeremyGordon89 - Thanks for stopping by and for leaving the useful crit, I will try and bear that in mind. Sometimes I need to realise that leaving some larger blocks of colour is fine. Yeah the daily portrait idea is a good one, although I have stayed away from it so far as I also work and prioritise anatomy at the moment.

jskotte - Thanks man, I left the colouring very rough but I think I might revisit it and try and tighten it up a bit...

Black Spot - Ahh yeah he thought it was ok, although I wasn't surprised - its not great! I am going to revisit that one to sort out the colours.. I painted it from a photo with lighting from head-on. Because of that it has no depth I feel. Not sure how to sort that out!

Anyway today was a 6 hour working day so I have only done a couple of pages of study. Tonight I will do 50 or so posemaniacs before bed (I've been slacking for the last few days!)

EDIT: Just added some marker studies of shoulders and upper arms..

[PHATandy]

You covering so much ground I cant really give any crits! Just keep going, dont give up and have fun and youll keep learning as much as you can.

Everything is looking MUCH stronger, your really moving on.
Keep it up!

[monotony]

wow, you're making huge leaps in such short time, Thomas.
you sure got the dedication it needs! I really enjoy the landscape and tree studies on the last page. and the newest update has superclean lines in these studies.
really got nothing to tell you :S just looking forward to where you will go from here!
keep it up, man!

[ThomasM]

PHATandy - Thanks man, it means a lot to have someone be so encouraging. This SB is really motivating me because of comments like this, that remind me that all this hard work I put in every day is actually getting me somewhere!

monotony - Also thanks to you, hopefully it will keep improving and in 10 or 20 pages time I will have learnt as much as I have over the last 7 pages!

Today I finished reading a book on perspective and started reading ICON (the frank frazetta book). Also did another 25 or so posemaniacs. I am wanting to focus a little on some animal and landscape paints for the next week at least. Seeing as I love animals and art, it would be nice to combine the two in some form of study!

The turtle paint is pretty much done, from a very low quality image (But I quite like that, it really helps block in the colours). And the elephant one was done this evening and is very much still a WIP!

Oh and LIFE DRAWING TOMORROW WOOOOH! have myself booked in for a 4 hour session tomorrow, which should be great!

[SirGreenSock]

Good to see so much varied studying. You seem to be picking up from your studies pretty quickly.
Get better reference for some of these portraits you;re doing. Photo-flash really flattens things out and leaves you with very little to work with. Also, I wanna see lots more life studies. You can only get so much out of a photograph anyway.

[ThomasM]

SirGreenSock - Yeah definitely agreed about the life stuff.. I am going to focus on some value studies in the immiediate future to aid with painting and drawing... Cheers for commenting

Today I went to a 4 hour life drawing class. Seriously fun, and would definitely recommend it to anyone unsure about going!

Here are todays offerings then, ranging from 3 minutes to an hour (ish)

[Exon-Ion]

Your paintings look great, especially digging the turtle one, and it seems as if you learnt alot from the life drawing session, i really should start attending them myself....

[ColorExcursion]

Yay for gestures! Diggin' your paintings, post 192 is lovely

[ThomasM]

Exon-ion Thanks for stopping by again, I see your own SB is coming along nicely too! I definitely learnt loooads from that life drawing lesson, and have booked myself in for another one in a month's time!

ColorExcursion - Thanks! appreciated

Today I have been working so havent had much art time. Managed to squeeze in a good two or three hours at least though and here are some of the photos I remembered to take before it got dark. I'll post the rest tomorrow morning. I have been learning looooooads about rendering styles recently, and also about using contrasting pencil weight to create depth and rhythm in an otherwise boring sketch! Here are two master studies, about an hour for the first and around 45 mins for the next one (if that). I read about using these construction lines to measure distances and angles, and I have to say that it really worked for me!

[ThomasM]

Things I've done since my post last night before bed:

Life study of a girl's legs, study of figure from a book and japanese monkey paint in PS (About an hour and a half). Learning LOADS about PS at the moment and its really helping me with painting and just general speed using the program. Definitely recommend to anyone buying a manual or a "for dummies" type book.

[the_original_sean]

you really dove into the digital paintings quick, and did a great job. that captain picard thing looks great. as i was going through i was thinking you need to check out the jack hamm landscape book and then you did. pay attention to the first chapter on composition. that's the simplest explanation i've found. apply your studies to more imaginative drawings. all work and no play makes thomas an axe murderer. oh and jackie chan's neck is driving me crazy. get some more value in there to push it back behind his chin and get rid of the solid black shirt. too distracting!

[Jakers]

Those landscapes back there were great! You gave yourself a reasonable time to get in there and analyze them, also great for general practice.

The last creature you made up (with tentacles) became less appealing to me when you started with super heavy darks - try to leave those for the very end if they are necessary, or if you need dramatic lighting. If you are trying to show your design its probably best to keep it very visible.

Its great you are doing traditional paintings. I was thinking quickly for the elephant that it almost needs a little more punch to get him to pop off the page, such as even brighter light on his back, but I believe its mostly the awkward placement of the treeline and how it is tangent to the back. Its usually better to either silhouette or fame the subject? It might be done, so don't sweat it, just an observation.

Monkey is awesome, love how they chill out in the hotsprings (right?)

[ThomasM]

The_original_sean - Thanks for the comment man, and I hear you loud and clear. This thread is in DIRE need of some imagination and so I will attempt to post loooads of imagination stuff in the next few weeks. At the moment unfortunately I'm really busy trying to do animal paints and sketches from reference as I have applied for a job doing animal illustrations and need something to send them as a mini-portfolio!

Jakers - Thanks for stopping by again dude, its always useful when you do!I think you are right about the heavy darks. You have made me realise that I was making up for design errors (the torso was a crappy to be honest, I couldn't get the join right) by juts concealing the area rather than fixing it! Cheers :) Also I will come back to the elephant very soon, it was just a very rough paint, but I think it has potential to look quite nice despite the strange composition. Haha yeah you're right its one of those japanese macaque's that loves to chill.


Anyway this morning I'm fairly hungover but have been pretty pro-active and managed to get this rhino sketch that I did yesterday partially coloured. Also at the moment I am reading several books on digital painting and learning about overlay layers. I realise that they are considered a bit of a "cheat" by some, but just for the purposes of this post I was playing around with them, not having done before.

1 = Sketch
2 = Rough paint
3 = Stylised with texture overlays added and saturation etc played around with. I like the effect of the third even though its by no means meant to be a serious paint! (before people start going "you should learn to paint first before you do things like this")

More later amigos!

[ThomasM]

A WIP currently that I will be sending in as fan art to Blizzard. Used to love playing World of Warcraft, until I realised I was playing it waay too much. I'll settle for one day working for them I hope...

Give me a shout if you see any obvious mistakes (or even ones that aren't obvious)

EDIT: Finally! A piece from imagination!

[tivz88]

nice work bro, serious improvement throughout the pages!

wicked ogre pose, how did you come up with that, was it from reference?

The rhino looks great, but you can see the light and dark patches standing out in straight lines on the texture of the skin.

nice life studies too, keep them up

[ThomasM]

Tivz88 - Thanks for stopping by man, I'll drop by your SB later on and check out the new updates. Ogre pose was from reference yeah, I had a housemate of mine do a little ogre "photoshoot" and we were playing with some ideas of poses and things. He had a pillow up his tshirt for extra character immersion!

Oh and yeah the rhino square texture images was intentional, rather than trying to go for a realistic texturing I was just playing around with experimenting with the textures having different saturations and layer settings like "multiply" or "overlay". More of a learning experience for myself rather than trying to get a polished image out of it!

I didn't post yesterday (altho I did go back and repost the ogre so technically I did put something up!) but here is what I was working on:

First a technical drawing of a piece of Fucus vesiculosus which is commonly known as "bladderwrack" and is a seaweed found on the south coast. Second is two pages of animal studies, some from Jack Hamm's book on drawing animals and some from references in a wildlife magazine! Anyway I'm off now to the library to try and sketch some people whilst reading, and also read some more on painting techniques.

EDIT: Some Creatures from imagination and some stuff from the library..

[Sweron]

And I love your animal & figure drawings :D
Paintings aren't bad either.

Especialy love the animals, sharp & clean lineart :)

[ThomasM]

sweron - thanks buddy!

Here is an environment from this morning which is just a grayscale image from imagination (which I'm trying to focus on at the moment)... Its a Work in progress!

Also I'm going to get back to portraiture for a little while, just because I have done very little loomis (or any other studies) for a month or two and I still haven't managed to get the knack of characters from imagination!

[jskotte]

I love that Japanese snow monkey. Rhino also looks good, but don't overdo the textures. And animal sketches are as good as ever :)

[ThomasM]

jskotte - Thanks, appreciate the encouragement, I really am loving this learning process!

More from today... been doing a few babes in pencil and doing some imagination females (which are terrible)

[Black Spot]

I like the ogre. Who made him dress up like that?

The over texture sort of suits the rhino. Nice creatures - like having their noses scratched.

[Pigeonkill]

Those loomis studies are coming nice. Be sure to experiment with the way you hold your pencil so you get different line weights.

[ThomasM]

Black Spot - Again, thanks

Pigeonkill - Thanks buddy, and yeah I'll keep experimenting. Sometimes I think I really should invest in a scanner. Currently I'm just photographing them when light conditions are sort of ok (sometimes even when they aren't). It flattens them quite a lot :(

Anyway I have had very little time for drawing today! I have applied for a job doing Illustrations of animals and was asked to provide some recent paintings or sketches. I made this website to try and demonstrate some of my work. Fairly productive day. Its only basic, but hopefully they won't have many other candidates!

My new website: www.thomas-fox.co.uk

[ThomasM]

Two pages of animals. Working today so not had much time, but will post more tomorrow (day off!)

[ThomasM]

Not posted in 2 days - terrible. No excuses really, just been doing loads of sport and swimming so not really been bothered to upload!

Got to get back into the groove now after that lapse. Here are four pages from my current sketchbook

[ThomasM]

Struggling with motivation this week - being TERRIBLE! Tonight I am going to give myself a bit of a kick up the backside and try and get at least three pages of sketches done before bed...

Some sketches of my housemates whilst watching a film and some anatomy studies to try and simplify the female form

[PHATandy]

Oh man Tom your stuff is getting so much better. I can see just your basic control of line and shape is really improving.
If anything try and work on your rendering a little more. If your going to render something, make sure you spend time on it, otherwise it can ruin a good drawing. Really consider everything and be careful about where you put tones and specifically HOW you put em down. Rendering is all about being careful until you can do it subconciously, I always find rendering is where developing that 'artists' touch comes from, being able to put down a really fine 'light' even layer of tone and stuff like that.

Just some more stuff for you to think about :) Just incase you werent already!
Keep it up buddy, loving your hard work dude as always.

[ThomasM]

Andy - Thanks so much for commenting amigo, I really needed that little boost - I've been a little demotivated for the last week. I think you're absolutely right about the rendering, I often put down some linework that I'm really happy with then just scribble and smudge it a bit, which usually ruins them.

I have been trying to develop a more subtle style of hatching recently, but I think I will do some more studies and some half-decent rendering for the next few weeks. Thanks for the boost in confidence, now its time to get back to work!

[Lang Oulk]

Hey man really nice, sketchbook! The master Copy's are friggin amazing, keep it up dude!

[ThomasM]

Lang Oulk - check your SB buddy!

Last night's drawings (before the comment about focusing more on rendering was seen) of the housemates. I'm really trying to focus on sketching them whenever I can. I desperately want to get the ability to sketch people recognisably and rapidly, for everyday purposes.

[ThomasM]

Definitely need to work more on my rendering - these are some loomis copies and studies of the planes of the face (I don't think I can really do these TOO MANY times)

Bleugh.... art (sort of) - lol now that I've uploaded them I really see that all three guys have really weird eyes in my versions - I will try to focus on getting the eyes right in the future

[ThomasM]

day in the life of hamilton esquire

[Loathsome]

Hehe I see some studies I recognize. Did you by any chance get your hands on Warren Louw's tutorial :)?

Cool studies, man. Keep pushing those, and also remember to draw from imagination afterwards. Personally, if I don't do that everything won't stick in there as well.

[ThomasM]

Loathsome - Nope not gotten my hands on it? Whats its like/where can I get it from! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.

Here are some heads from imagination - I DONT KNOW WHY THEY ARE SO CRAP! I feel like my drawing style is really coming on from reference, but without it I am like some sort of floundering fish. Can anyone give me some tips on improving my no-ref heads (please)!

[SirGreenSock]

Id say start with figuring out/drawing the structure of the head first, your placements and proportions are all over the place right now.
Do some drawings from life and break the heads/faces down structurally, identify the planes and lines of the form. Think about perspective and the underlying bones and muscles.

[ThomasM]

SirGreenSock - you are so right. I have spent weeks going through loomis (and others) books and learning what should be relative to what and what angles etc. But when it comes to actually drawing a head I completely disregard it and throw the proportions and placement out the window. The result is hideous, with freakishly large eyes or lips and huge chins on a flat face. I am going to focus on this all today and hopefully I'll get somewhere by tonight!

and thanks!

[ThomasM]

Started drawing in a moleskine today (or a very close approximation!)

Also had an influx of Bridgman books which although not everyone's cup of tea were very cheap, and theres bound to be some great info in there somewhere!

[Jakers]

haven't been here in wayyy too long, I apologize.

Ok lots of little things browsing through. I might be biased to animals based on my recent studies, but man is it nice to see your sketches in such variety and looking clean on those...great exposure to all the shapes in our animal kingdom.

Some of the recent faces feel too 'tall'...too elongated. http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1038182&stc=1&d=1281457583

I think your linework is getting stronger with all the bridgman and other studies you're doing, keep em confident and your base construction light.

Rhino painting - looks like you needed better skin resource images to try this approach. I think the 'scale' of the pattern is too large, and the largest problem is the texture isn't wrapping around the shapes. Find some images with this happening and watch just how important the perspective of the texture on a surface is.

My suggestion for you in order to improve something like your ogre painting - do longer studies from life/photographs with what you feel is good lighting. Picking good material is important - find lighting that makes the forms very clear so you can understand what you are studying, with a nice range of tones...and keep it greyscale. Do some of these and take your time, you will be hitting a whole ton of skillsets with one stone.

[ThomasM]

[B]Jakers[B] - as usual man really helpful stuff and don't worry about visiting too often, I love to browse other people's works because they are interesting and I get some learning out of it, you aren't getting any learning from viewing mine! :p

Today I have been busy again but managed to rattle off a few pages as usual! Still working on portrait and head structure and I think I had a bit of a breakthrough tonight. I hope that in 2-3 days I will have the loomis sort of style of construction down (which would be incredible). Anyway the hard work continues!

[jskotte]

Nice updates, but keep working on those heads, looking forward to seeing them in 2-3 days :)

[ThomasM]

jskotte - thanks man, hopefully we'll see an improvement!

Here is this morning's work - a value study. God I'm being slow today, time to get myself in gear and do some work tonight!

[cgaddict]

Nice work here, great to see I'm not the only one practicing Loomis :D Keep going!

[ThomasM]

cgaddict - oh yeah man loomis all the way, although I have to admit I have been struggling with portraits recently (as usual) so I am going to have to work harder!

here is the other value study from today, which I struggled with more as the wet effect meant I couldn't just smooth the skin over!

[Black Spot]

Great studies. Keep it up.

[PieMonster]

Good stuff man, really liking the studies. You should take a bit of time to work on your line quality though, the last 2 studies seem rushed when it comes to the initial drawing. Also, try not to go too soft on the rendering, try to really think in terms of planes and how the forms are built. Anyway, keep up the good work, you're getting there! :D

[jskotte]

Nice work Tom, I think I like the second value study better, the first one is a bit smooth for my taste.

[ThomasM]

Black Spot - thanks!

PieMonster - Yeah definitely agree with you on not rushing the initial drawing, I was just too eager to get started... I definitely need to work on planes too!

jskotte - thanks, yeah thats partly a result of the photo the study was done from. The first has a sort of ethereal glow around the lady which has meant my paint of it is really soft and smooth too.

Here is today's Loomis so far... working on imagination and more characters again and thinking more about the simplification of the features (thats a key problem of mine at the moment). I feel I'm making progress so a good day in all

And by the way, thanks for the great feedback everyone, its really helping me on my way!