Spartan Camp #160 - 50 gestures + Optional "Material Study"

[Anthis]

Spartan Camp #160 - 50 gestures + Optional "Material Study"

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 5th of December.

- The gestures can be of anything, human, animal, cavorting capybaras.... You can draw full figures, but you can also go for heads, arms, eyes, or anything specific. All media can be used, both digital or traditional. Coloured or black/white. Quick scribbles or long studies. Imagination or referenced. Clothed or nude. Specifics are up to you!

- In addition to this, participants can choose to do an Optional "Material Study", in any medium.
Additional notes on this weeks’ Optional Study:
Study one or several materials. Look around you and you'll see countless different materials. They all have properties and features by which you can recognize them. Reflectibility, softness, textures... Being able to accurately mimic the feel of these materials is both a challenge and a valuable skill as an artist! Wood, different metals, bone, plastics, stone, textiles and fabric, paper, glass, options are without number! You could use photo reference, do a still-live, or study the methods of another artist (master study).
Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Have fun! And feel free to ask questions!

50 poses is a challenge, but don't hurry or stress yourself reaching it! Focus on drawing, as practising is the main goal of this exercise.

Critting each other is highly encouraged!! Share constructive criticism, reference and resources!! Let's help each other get better!

Come on soldiers! Flex those muscles!!

HALL OF FAME - SPARTAN CAMP #159

shiNIN:star:
LJS:star:
kayness:star:
anthis
brambor:star:
aprat

[Karein]

Ohhh, I've been waiting for this to pop up, so I can try out my first camp :)
It's something for me to do while I am on holidays for the next three months. I've already done ten poses in the last few hours. All around 5 minutes, and photo reffed. I'll do some off the top of my head when I get to about 35.

[Tyea]

1112618
1112620

[Anthis]

Karein and Bethany K - Great work! I'll add some comments later on.

An apology for posting the new thread a bit late again. I somehow keep forgetting to post a new one straight away after the last one has ended. Need to get that into my system.
Will add some figures soon! also edited the optional study.

[BlackDelphin]

We appreciate your effort even as it is Anthis, you're great for keeping this open for us!
Always inspiring and gives one ideas of what to study as well.

Nice Start Bethany! Try to construct more, think in shapes.
I really like the first figures Karein, particularly the one with more curve to it.

I really found the optional study intriguing this time, so i will start with it.
A bit of skin texture as well.

[brambor]

Kerein: nice start, can't wait to see more of your stuff!
Bethany K.: good effort (some pictures from pixelovely are really hard), I think you should try to add more volume and more curve to your gestures
Black Delphin: nice skin, post more!

I decided to focus more on the face this time, and because I need more practice in value I'll try to do 50 b&w faces!
First some noses without ref:
http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/pp262/brambor/Spartan%20camp/spartan160a.png

And reffed faces:
http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/pp262/brambor/Spartan%20camp/spartan160b.png

[surus]

arms, reference was only this blog:

http://luziehtan.blogspot.com/search/label/Outfit

[shiNIN]

I have troubles with my brush settings as always...
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/20101129.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc160a.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc160b.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc160heads.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc160faces_v.jpg

[Masha Pikulina]

I'd like to join your ranks, dear Spartans! Or actually, I already have, secretly. I wanted to see whether I could take your pace first and it turns out that I can: right now I'm up to 45 gestures since the creation of this thread. Though most of them are scattered between my computer, which I can't access now, and my sketchbook. But here's the first eight, because I had uploaded them right after finishing, plus a quick material study.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f397/Nirves/gesture4.jpg

About 2 minutes each. You'll be surprised to know that they were referenced from my own left hand, despite some of these looking like mutant claws. (I'm looking at you, #8. Your shameful hiding behind #2 won't fool anyone. You are bad and you should feel bad.)

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f397/Nirves/gesture5a.jpg

Glass, paper and plastic! The dark brown glass, old paper and dull plastic of a Soviet era iodine bottle that was lounging about my desk, to be exact. Curiosities make drawing from life (even) more fun. Ten to fifteen minutes.

I'll dump the rest tomorrow.

There are some lovely studies here, keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to participating in these threads, 50 is not that big of a step up from my current/previous routine and having a place to put all those gestures provides so much more motivation for doing them.

[echo7925]

Karein : Nice Studies. I thought it's cool that in some of the figures, you just indicate the arms with line instead of drawing out the whole arm.
Bethany K. : Not so bad on the studies. Just hope to see more of the hands and the feet even if it's just an indication with simple line.
BlackDelphin : Nice environment and face. For the face studies, I would say just be careful with the angles of the eyes, nose and mouth. They seems a bit off. Other than that, I think the textures of the beard and hair are really cool.
brambor : Nice face studies.
surus : Cool to see that you're just focusing on the arms and hands. Clean line work.
shiNIN : I have lots of problem with the brush settings too. You faces looks pretty good. The eyes of the long haired girl with the grey background looks really nice.
Masha Pikulina : The hand studies are interesting. Nice bottle too.

And so, here's mine, Ref from posemaniacs, pixelovely, characterdesigns, and magazines

1115453

[aprat]

Karein - I like it. Very tastefully rendered.
Bethany K - I think your proportions are a little bit off. Keep an eye on the width of the body, negative spaces and angles.
BlackDelphin - Great values, but the face weirds me out a little bit because of the heavy texturing in some places and no texture in others. Also i think it's quite asymmetrical if you compare the angle of the eyes and mouth.
brambor - Good faces. I especially like 2, partially because you separated light and shadow quite well. I think some of the faces could use a bit more contrast though.
surus - Nice, crisp lines and expressive gestures.
shinin - Nice faces, especially the one with green hair. I think the problem is that you set your brush to a very dark color with very low opacity and build the pictures up with washy layers. Instead, i think that you should use several different shades from black to white and use a high opacity, at least 50%. It seems like you did something like that in the picture with four heads, especially the first head in there. It seems a lot sharper and better.
Masha Pikulina - I think you should try to think in geometric shapes a little bit more and avoid drawing flat contours. And take your time!
echo7925 - Good, confident use of lines. I like the animals.



Model drawings from life, 2 - 10 minutes, ink or graphite.
3 digital face studies.

[brambor]

uh, promised myself to do 50 but more important stuff came out and I've just come home from my 11hour shift at work. Managed to do only 6. But I'll do rest next week.
Thanks aprat, I really should make more contrast and widen my value range.
http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/pp262/brambor/Spartan%20camp/spartan160c.png

[shiNIN]

I wonder if it's okay I simply put everything in my SB lately put there... well they aren't actually big files to download...
A few Tegaki E face and more. I wanted to do a chiaroscuro face but I stopped after the fun "copy from one of my books" step and the face was done with a different approach...
No full body gestures, sorry :( And just a little optional, I planned to do more but I already rushed the second glass jar and you don't want to see my metal bowl.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc160c.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/indigo.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/boy101205.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/te_fuchsia.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/te_cream_r.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/te_indie2.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc160material.jpg

And I thought I barely drew this week too (well it's true, I'm much quicker than before)...

[shiNIN]

echo7925: That's actually Silver, my own character, male but you aren't the first one to think otherwise. He's kind of feminine and I sometimes cross the line, it's not so easy...
I'm bad at criticizing full body poses, I just see quick nice lines I envy and issues I don't. And I feel silly too.

aprat: I usually use 33% or 66% opacity (in PS, Tegaki is different because of its limited palet with no pale skin colors) and tried pressure sensitivity too... Low opacity annoys me but I rarely dare to use a really high one. But I do use many shades. I hope it will work out :)
Great gestures!!! I like everything except the first face. IDK why but tilted faces are difficult, at least to me. IDK why, again.

brambor: The third one has perspective issues. The last one is great (the ear is very low but maybe he has such one, who am I to know that?), the others are in-between, some slight issues but not bad ones. The one before the last looks like it's just sketchy but okay, like a promising start. Keep it up :D

[Masha Pikulina]

Here's the rest of the batch I couldn't post yesterday:

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f397/Nirves/gesture6.jpg

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f397/Nirves/gesture7.jpg

I like how between 16 and 24 I acquired a bit more sense of what a foot looks like. (In that one position. Hihaho. So much more to learn.)

I'll spare you the full view of numbers 30 through 50, there's not much of interest there. Partly because they would all be shown in these kind of blurry photographs (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f397/Nirves/2010-12-0602-09-51134.jpg).

shiNIN: Good work on the glass!
aprat: Thank you for your advice. I'm already utilizing that approach, it's important to me because I dabble in animation and thus want to have a solid understanding of 3D images moving in a 2D plane. However, I'm doing one thing at the time. This round, I focused mainly on lots of relatively quick contour drawing of hands and feet. Systematically simplifying shapes into geometrical forms or doing more elaborate studies will have their turn in later rounds. :) As will anatomy, perspective, and all the other things I need to develop more. One thing at the time.
Your gestures are great! I particularly like the middle girl in the last one.

[Karein]

First two pages are 5 minutes each again, but got bored and started doing animals. They are all 1 minute each, and I became a little obsessed with horse legs :P I didn't actually think I would finish this :D

[Anthis]

This is one hell of a round, need a little time for comments! They will be there later on. For now- new topic posted!

Clothed stuff from reference, then some quick random gestures, then some longer ones. I need to work a bit cleaner.

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb12/Anthis_/spartan%20trainings/160-1.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb12/Anthis_/spartan%20trainings/160-2.jpghttp://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb12/Anthis_/spartan%20trainings/160-3b.jpg

[shiNIN]

I can't stop wondering how low the sensitivity of photobucket...

Erm, I just wish to assure everyone I did see I messed up Indie's eye in his second portrait but it's not so easy to fix in Tegaki E... I played with it a bit:
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/indie2v.jpg
And with Cream too, still a looooooooong way to go and maybe she could use some not so random coloring. I can't draw hair, that's another problem.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/cream_r2.jpg
I won't spam more in this very topic :) Thanks for your patience ~

Oh and Karein drew wonderful gestures, I love and saved and tresure them. I'm the collector type anyway :)

[BlackDelphin]

I didn't want to flood this place with studies that seemed to me off topic lol
But i guess these would be appropriate, no?

Here's what i've done this week.
More portrait study, more texture study.
Felt like detailing some more, and not just study the 'surface'. It feels like that's all i can do if i don't vary them..

[shiNIN]

BlackDelphin:
The first one has a nice, mysterious atmosphere in its light part and it has some "I walked in the forest when I saw a magical clearing" feeling to me... It could be better I'm sure but I have no idea how, of course. I should draw enviros too, not always just faces. Even portraits need some background...

The second enviro has crowded and empty places and I don't really know what's going on there. The sunset one is the opposite: clear and there's everywhere something interesting.. maybe it's a bit problematic, there's no one main focus.

(I guess it's not obvious at this point: I kinda like your colored ones, I just think they aren't as good as they could be)

The face is strange, the eyes has contrast, full tonal range, the other parts are sketchy with low contrast.

I have no opinion about the last one.

[Anthis]

Well, pretty crazy round. I always wish I were better myself when I comment here. Either way, here's some thoughts! And a new round is up!


Karein - Looking great! You seem to have a very good eye for these. They are especially proportionally strong, which also shows in the (usually) tough, foreshortened poses. When you go too much into detail the pose sometimes loses its flow and fluidity. Careful with the pretty lines! Don't forget the feet and head if you can help it (can be tough on timed poses). Great work.

Bethany K.- Nice, straight for the tough reference! You made a good effort on these, I also like how you are exploring the shaded areas. When doing so, you can think of the forms that are there, rather than the 2d image you see. Also, you've drawn cubes for construction (which is great). Make sure you also actually USE them, and not just place them there! You have a good eye for some of the anatomical subtleties, keep it up!

BlackDelphin - They're somewhat appropriate, haha. Not like I can do anything about it - I'm just another user. Regardless, you did explore texture. I'd say you were most successful in the last two pieces. Notice how it takes just a little grain on the coat in the last piece. You can barely see it, but it's effective. I also like the house in your first piece. You picked the right values on the wall and roof, which completely sells the illusion of being 3d.

brambor - Nice noses, like the sideviewed one! Frontal one is more simplified. It's interesting how you cannot always reproduce a nose, even though you see noses every day and have one yourself. Those heads are coming along nicely. Careful with smudging though. It may be more practical (and a better exercise) to really look for those values and place them. One tone for planes facing away from you, another for planes facing towards you. As if are sculpting. Just a thought though, it somehow works for me.

surus - great arms! very thorough. The wrists are sometimes weak. Consider the mechanical function. Bones connect.. interlock.. twist.. Just thinking about it that way can sort of guide you in the right direction. Great arms, you can actually identify them as feminine. I love how you handled the straps of her top/bra too!

shiNIN - For me (photoshop) it's mostly opacity set to pen pressure. Size is manual (or [ and] ). You may want to keep an eye on the "Flow" (apparently, thats how much 'paint' is applied in a brush stroke). I somehow accidentally change that. Other than that it can be really healthy to work with bold, strong opacity. Pick values and colours accurately, forcing you to think about them, and place them carefully. Make marks count rather than refining over and over and over. A refreshing exercise, I think. Builds confidence. You produced a great deal of work and they feel more confident. You've really sculpted some of the heads.

Masha Pikulina - You're doing good (and welcome!). Great stuff. aprat raised a good point. There's different 'ways' of drawing. Yours are very observational, really getting a feel for how those hands are formed and what those organic shapes look like. You can also have a very constructive approach, building it up from the inside, using blocks and construction and flow lines to guide you. You could combine them too, or do this entirely different for all I know. I like what I see in your blurry picture though. Always be open for different methods!
Love the iodine bottle by the way. Interesting how accurate the paper tag is - there's just 2 or 3 values there!

echo7925 - Nice organic use of lines. Very bold and confident! Its a lesson for me, I get stuck in endless 'line patting' too easily. You seem to lose a little of the organic feel in the digital sketches, relying more on straight lines and definitions. Are you giving yourself enough canvas space? Just an idea, not sure if it applies.

aprat - Ooh, model drawings! Great job on showing those shadowed areas. You suddenly have the illusion of a 3d form. Your approach is really working for the larger, round forms. But the smaller forms like in the wrist/hands, face, feet seem to be more of a problem. Actually, the method you use should still apply, just on a smaller scale. I hope that still makes sense - don't hesitate to point it out if it doesn't. Nice faces, subtle values!