BlueMech's Sketch Tome :: Book II, page110507

[BlueMech]

I'm starting a new sketchbook because my old one was way image heavy (200+) and had way old art, years old. Most peopel rumaged through the older stuff and neglected to comment and crit on my more recent stuff. With the advent of me joining an SSG I've decided it best to start anew. My old sketchbook thread can be found here. (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=25853&page=2) Also, ElvisMcVegas and I have a comic (http://www.gameforest.com/comic/) that is still early in it's life. It's not much but it's there.

Kind of old, but it was fun ro draw.
http://www.gameforest.com/images/sketchbook/sketchbook232.jpg

I drew the initial sketch a looong while back when I was spending the week at SOE before they came to get us for the day.
http://www.gameforest.com/images/sketchbook/sketchbook233.jpg

Drawn from ref, scan quality makes it worse than it really is. I'm getting back into the groove of drawing, even moreso of drawing on real paper.
http://www.gameforest.com/images/sketchbook/sketchbook235.jpg

Also from ref. I'm still pretty rusty and I need to fix this scanner, all these scans are crappy. It's an old scanner and it doesn't like my new computer much I guess.
http://www.gameforest.com/images/sketchbook/sketchbook234.jpg

[evildisco]

Whatever happenend to the Poke Adventure Friends...

Now I am sad...


Don't neglect your basics blue but I think you know that fully well.

[light]

Your ref work is improving so much, just keep em coming.

[BlueMech]

http://www.gameforest.com/images/sketchbook/sketchbook236.jpg

[magicgoo]

Nice reference poses. Use your arm a little more and your wrist a little less, so the lines are longer. Looks like you sketch with short little strokes. Try laying down more confident strokes and then darkening only the accurate ones. (Of course, I should talk, though; everybody's on me about my own line work!)

[BlueMech]

Yeah I was really noticing that today. I kept trying to do bigger strokes but these were prett ybad lines. My hand was being real shaky. I'm looking forward to my new moniter and I guess the set up I'll have in my dorm, I'll be facign the monitor more head on. Now it;'s crooked so it's hard for me to find a nice groove.

[MattGamer]

yay.. i think il'l be making a new sb someday soon... but until then - you have good lines - just practice is the key.... like practice whenever you're waiting for loading times on games and stuff like that. it always helps me... i drew TONS of stuff while playing QUAKE 4... because the loading times were like 2-3 minutes a pieces and i could chug out an image in between them. hehe

keep up the good work and i'm excited to see more stuff from you! be inventive and use the stuff you learn into stuff you'd like to see. that's what i try to do... haha try. keep it up and never give up!

[BlueMech]

It's been a while and I don't feel like scanning in my physical SB pages.

Here's some figga studies we did today. I say we because Elvis and I both were doing them at the same time. I don't know if he's going ot post his.
http://www.gameforest.com/images/digiSB/dsb014.jpg

[BlueMech]

Oops! I did it again. (quoting Mike Patton, not Miss Spears)
http://www.gameforest.com/images/digiSB/dsb015.jpg

[magicgoo]

Time to stop avoiding those faces, now that you're getting bodies down. Girl's fashion mags have great photos to practice from. Pick one up at the grocery market and punch anybody who calls you a f a g :D

[BlueMech]

Man, I wish I had all the cables to my SB. I've done a good smattering of life sketches and I wanna post 'em. Oh well. :(

Elvis and I did an SP contest to use only two colours. I win but either way the experiemnt didn't work out. Two bad colours together = bad colours together. Who knew?

[Chr]

the reason why those to colors dont work well together in you portrait is because they are of the same value. value reads better than colors. with only color left to make out the form you will get confused.... but you get an interesting effect.

but maybe you already knew that

[BlueMech]

I've been trying to do gestures but I suck hardcore at them. This is the latest batch that i didnt immediately destroy. I'm posting it to maybe find out where I'm am fail at.

http://www.gameforest.com/images/digiSB/gestures1.jpg

[Jackwhat]

I actually wondered where you had gone to, i remeber replying to your old thread many moons ago.

From what i can remeber, it looks like youre doing better with your real life stuff now... (sorry, its late and i cant be fucked to load another webpage - i browse with tabs and im trying to like get through them all before i pass out on my keyboard, hell i shouldnt really be writing this but i want to)

I know how you feel with gestures, i often find it less stressfull to just use a medium sized black brush then just rub it everywhere (..the brush), after that i normally just delete shit with the eraser. That is, i find it more relaxing to just slap shit down then erase it in a fast haphazard manner. But thats me and youre you so each to their own!

(Yes, i am liking your recent loada-stuff from 8 onwards, and not just because it has girlies)

[Mag-Neo]

-nice pencils & female figures.... Keep more posting.... GOODLUCK..... :yayca:

[Cwn Annwn]

Well time to do a zillion more gestures then. I'm in the same boat. Gestures win over me.

:) Keep it up though, don't be lazy like me.

[BlueMech]

Hah! Unfortunately, my server/website is down and I don't know when I'll be getting everything back. (long story) I suppose this is why Manley implemented the attaching images deal. I don't think you can comment on them proper like I had been doing though. Either way I'll go back and add them when I have time.

Here's some life work, a Pteradactyl fencer, and my sketch for the Nov 1 event today. I'll put up the finished version onces its uhh... finished.

[magicgoo]

Really nice SP, blue. You look like a spaceship captain with that neatly trimmed beard.

Loooove the pterodactyl sketch! I think his legs are a bit off and teh feet too. I would give him more animal-like feet. Like dogs, where they stand on their toes and their tarsals are all elongated.

[BlueMech]

Yeah I had a hard time changing the fencers feet and feet position into weirdo pteradactyl kind.

[BlueMech]

Website is down so all my old images are gone for now. Total bummer and I don't feel like uploading them all to CA. Anyway, here's a portrait I did today experimenting with opacity via Wacom pen. I think I'm quitting on this one but I'll start another soon.

[BlueMech]

In a wiser move, I'm going greyscale. I'm too rusty for colour, and even at my oiliest I'm not skilled enough to do colours proper. Here's my first WIP. I'm trying to avoid eye-dropping myself as much and trying to not overblend, leave it more brushy.

[BlueMech]

I'm having troubles rendering les Breastes. I'm mainly worried with the form right now, I might attempt the texture of the shirt later.

edit: 3rd WIP added

[ElvisMcVegas]

its looking good dude, one big thing i see is that her left eye is pulling a paris hilton and it looks off. Your coloring looks good except on her lips, the left side looks like it gets bigger

[magicgoo]

I think you've got all the basic shapes down on the girl. Even the bewbs look just fine to me :} Now, just take some time and render away with details.

[BlueMech]

I messed with her eye some and rendered her boobs more. Her jacket and the right hand have also been rendered. I'm getting there. I'm worried about fucking up everything with the hair.

edit: Messed with stuff here and there. Working on the jeans.

edit2: removed previous 2 WIPs, I plan on making a gif afterwards anyway. I did the jeans and all that's left is the hair. I put it off until now and I'm really afraid to fuck it all up now.

edit3: last WIP gone too. Here's my current revision and the greyscaled photo I'm drawing off of. I'm looking at it now and I'm seeing a lot more differences. I'm going to keep working on it, discouraged as I may be. I'm mainly going to concern myself with fixing the smile now and finishing the hair obviously. The lower left shoulder and smaller inside of the right-jacket I don't think I'll get around to.

edit4: Almost done? Help?

edit5: trying to break it now

edit6: I guess I'm done now. Now on to other projects! Here's the final and I'm going to try and upload a gif or swf of all the WIPs together, those are fun. The gif is above the limit and I don't think we can upload gifs. OK, link to the .swf here! http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j182/BlueMech/_eaWIP.swf

[BlueMech]

OK wow Painter is hard.

[chaosrocks]

heheheh
yep easy to get distracted withthe bells and whistles and not think about the art. BTW you should try to paint your GF from life rather than photo... it'll have less of that stiff plasticine look about it and more feeling. If you can get her to put up with it

more Art....faster!
chaos

[BlueMech]

~`~`~`

[light]

Ahh, I like these new paintings alot.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=70131&stc=1&d=1167512599
That one's a huge improvement, dig the rendering on the jeans. A problem is the sharp and dark lines on her face, it brings out parts a bit too much and doesnt seem natural.

[MattGamer]

Keep up the art! Good stuff... practice, practice, practice! ;]

[magicgoo]

I LOOOOVE how the girl came out. The hair, face, and clothing looks beautiful. But those hands need some help! I know hands are horribly difficult, but zoom way into your reference photo, and (as hard as it is not to) try NOT to think of them as hands so your brain can use the reference better. Yeah, I know I know yada yada, but it will work if you can get it down right. Some people flip the reference over and their art, and try to draw it upside down so that they can get down the accuracy better.

[BlueMech]

Finally have some time to work on this for seriousness.

[BlueMech]

Here's my WIP for a design project. Inner Self, Outer Self, fill with cell shape blah blah blah blah.

[Texahol]

the self portrait one is coming about pretty nice, but you need to pay more attention to detail on the spartan, especially in the stomach area. Remember with acrylics that you can water down, and do lots of layers to make soft transitions of form. also painting from dark -> light can help a lot, especially when using layers of buildup.

show this sucker some love and really work hard on it.

[Dished]

Dude that new portrait is tight. Cant say more than texahol,but yeah, the dark browns make the abs stick out too much. The blue one is great though! Got the expression down there.

Is that masonite? Oil or Acrylic?

[BlueMech]

It was Illustration board and Acrylic. It turned out OK, one of the better ones in the class I think. It's still nothing I'm proud of particularly. I'm hoping to get it back tommorw and I'll show you the final.

[-sideshowbob-]

skohl :D ur simple figures look cool :D dunno why but i like em alot D;

i found a link that might helps with ur digital stuff

http://www.carloscabrera.com.ar/tutorials/

keep posting !

[BlueMech]

Here's a sketch dump. Selected ones. Taken with a digi-cam because the Uni's scanner likes to pick up pages behind the one I'm trying to scan. So, yes, poor quality. Nothing really good in here either, ART CLASSES take up all of my good drawing time while simultaneously not improving my skills much.

Oh, thanks for the link bob, I'll check it in the morning.

[chaosrocks]

FOCUS!!!!!

in every sense of the word
visually and mentally
<3
c

[ElvisMcVegas]

yeah, hold the camera against your stomach when you take them and they'll be more in focus.

[Sorknes]

Omg. Please make a focus, indeed. :p

Except for that, I think can push only one thing after the girl image. Depth. get some more depth, man. It comes off a bit wrong, not in values nor proportions singlehanded, but values and proportions together. Get the depth in there. Don't know if you understand what I mean. But there's a lack of depth.

[BlueMech]

Here's a painting I'm working on for our 5 year anniversary. I'm having trouble. It's based off the reference photo, but I 'm trying to update our looks from however long ago that photo is from. Ignore my old embarrassing room.

edit: OK I uploaded my latest version. ugh.

[ZapRadon]

I see one item, blue--study the triangular shape formed by the bridge of her nose and eye--you'll notice that it rises much farther than you've shown, and her eyebrow also slants down a bit more. I'd turn the whole pic upside down and study it--your head is trying to 'straighten' everything up.

[Cwn Annwn]

You're getting there Blue.

Dunno if it's your camera, but a lot of your sketches look stuck in the midtones.

Keep it up dude.

[BlueMech]

Welp, I have not been drawing as much as I should. I've resolved to fix that. There's plenty of stuff in my SB I have no way of getting onto a computer but I did do this today. It started out as a spacefarmer but now its just some regular farmhand. It's been so long since I've done anything serious with a tablet (non doodling I mean). It has issues and I don't know if I'll take it any further.

[light]

That's a pretty big improvement anatomy-wise. His left hand seems big, and he might be a bit short but great work.

[BlueMech]

Hey! I've been drawing and such a bunch lately, just don't have a good way to get any of it on the computer really. I do have this little project due tomorrow. Double self-portrait. One normal, one more "inner-self" and all that.

The first one is from a photo where I was trying Tiramasu for the first time so I was enjoying it but I had a small hint of distaste in my face. I know not to work from photos but I did.

Second one was originally going to replace my first one but I am pressed for time. The eyes were too small and far apart and my nose was too long in it. I'm now going to give the right eye a beat up eye to match the one I have right now. I'm also going to have it sort of like I'm being shot/shooting myself in the head with some explodey head action. I'm going to have it stylized so I don't know exactly how it will be done right now. Maybe some art neuvouish effect with some hidden symbolism.

Apologies for the terrible photos.

[BlueMech]

I finished the second one, not satisfied but oh well. Better luck next time.

Damn. So I did another one and I'm to the point where all that is left to do is the BG. It'd look good if it weren't for the eyes. I made 'em too small and/or too far apart. So it looks like I have downs or something. Shameful. :-(

Also there's a picture of something I had to make for my Design II class. Post-apocalyptic Warrior-Shaman Pikachu and his personal mechanic.

edit: Damn the eyes on the second one are so bad. Geezus.

[Alzorath]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=233968&stc=1&d=1194349880

That one is my favorite of the portraits, the only "real" issues I see with it are the eye closest to the viewer appears to be slightly too far away from the nose, and the tip of the nose seems somewhat skewed compared to the rest of the face. While the top of the skull is a bit small, it is far less noticeable to me than the 2 issues I mentioned (although yes, the cranium should be larger considering the size of the jaw).

I have to say the hair and the mouth are the best of the 3 versions in this particular image. In the other two images they seem to read as symbolic "hair" and symbolic "lips" (ie consciously thinking "these are lips, they must be noticed") - where as in this 3rd one, they feel much more integrated into the form, and read better.

The overall values in this 3rd version are also significantly stronger than in the prior 2 versions - more transitions from light to dark, and a much stronger sense of form.

As for the Pikachus, I want to see them fight Mad Max :).

Keep up the progress.

[BlueMech]

Man, it's been so long. Well I'm not dead, just been neglecting CA. I'm on a completely new SB which I've almost filled and I'm currently without scanner. I'll maybe scan in some of the better pages of my current SB later. For now here are some paintings I've done in my painting class this semester, and a self-portrait I did on my own. These are my first paintings and I'm finding I really enjoy it. I wish I had started painting sooner in life.

The blue one is a monochromatic recreation of an old dutch painting. The second is a bit confusing. The assignment was paint something far away from you, and then painting something close to you, in the same painting (many students opted to just split their paintings in half or whatever). I decided to paint what I could see outside of the window and the wall itself. Then for my close up view I painted my own painting in progress (which actually ended up leaving me to paint my drawing of my painting in progress painting).

It's finished now and I'm about to pull it off the canvas to reuse the stretcher and I know most of the issues. Feel free to critique it though in case I've missed something. The "tape" on the painting is paint, not real tape. In person it's by far the most successful part of the painting, in fact most people thought it was real tape and thought I was trying to turn in an unfinished work. The green bag and yellow thing in the foreground are absolutely terrible, especially since they were there only one day of the painting so they are mostly improvised. I didn't get around to repainting all the too orangey bricks the most brown-yellow colour and I'm tried of typing out the issues, they are all pretty apparent.

[ZapRadon]

Dude..you're improving by leaps and bounds.

Heh..I like the second one, took me a sec to figure out it was *all* painting.

[BlueMech]

This was actually from the end of last semester. There is also a painting of my gf I did in acrylic but it's completely scary so I'm trying to forget about it.

The drawing were from other masters' sketches or drawings. The head is my head and just drawn from a photo. I know Kevin Llewellyn is the arm on the right and I can supply the rest if anyone is curious. I just can't recall them from memory right now.

[shamandalie]

You've got some solid work here dude! But i really really like the Post-apocalyptic warrior-shaman Pikachu and his personal mechanic. No kidding. I think i might do that to my old stuff toys too. :D

[BlueMech]

Painting I'm working on. I am going to paint a few roaches using gel medium coming out of her genital area. It's a series I'm doing related by these 3d roaches on them. Acrylic Painto

[Dorkthrone]

I am seeing drastic improvements here. Keep it up.

[BlueMech]

Got tonight and tomorrow night to polish up and make one new painting. I'm going to try and finish work on this one tonight specifically. Or that's the plan for now.

[BlueMech]

Messing around with photoshop on a lazy Sunday. I'm going to do a painting based off a Klimt painting in the following few days hopefully. Digitally I think it's too much of a hassle to get the proper look in photoshop, at least. Other paintings were a series revolving around acrylic roaches i painted and made/sculpted with acrylic medium. One roach even crawls off the canvas and I fashioned antennae for it out of wiry beard hair.