end of sketchbook, come see my new one under the username AlexC

[blanquish]

hey there!
Firstly, I would like to thank all those who bothered to post in my old thread, however its time to shred the old, and begin anew.
My name is Alexander Carletti, and im 14 years old!(now 15:)),
and have been drawing for roughly 6 months.
Having been inspired in the first place, by the amazing mindcandyman, and starting the arduous task of drawing everyday.
I started a new sb, because i was embarrassed by my early stuff in my last sb.
Eh, beginnings are always ugly, i cant wait to scorn at this filth!
my old sketchbook (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=778922#post778922)
the following work varies from the last couple of days, to around a fortnight
GET TO THE LAST PAGE!!:)
NOTE, i HAVE ONE OF THOSE CRAZY LDC SCREENS THAT READS COLOUR DIFFERENTLY TO YOUR MONITER, ON SOME SCREENS IT CAN LOOK REALLY HORRIBLE, PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND WHEN VIEWING ANY DIGITAL WORK.


http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4292/5spsgi2.jpg
ago. From mirror, less than an hour!
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/4859/capture21082006210810vd1.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/2938/capture21082006211740zc4.jpg
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2813/capture21082006212455ty8.jpg
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/469/capture21082006215025id3.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/573/capture21082006221210ph4.jpg

another sp from mirror, less than an hour

steps
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/8015/capture22082006163342kt7.jpg
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/2988/capture22082006171542rq0.jpg
finally finished
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/5673/anotherdigitalselfportraitfinishedpn7.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7798/skulls2and3nq8.jpg
tell me what you think!

I have a long way to go, and any helpful critique is definately welcome.=, and i will return the favour to your sb!

[Lee W]

looking good :) keep up studies

[thevoid]

Pretty good, your shading ability is very good for your age, not trying to discriminate of course, but I like it. Keep posting, i wouldn't be surprised if you turned out to be a real good artist someday :)

[entdroid]

It's great to have a fresh new start :) I've already changed the link in my sig.
Now, let's see something NEW! :P
Btw, you shouldn't be embarrased of your older stuff, you should be happy (and proud) about making such an improvement in a short time.
Keep it up!
entdroid

[Seedling]

Good for you for drawing every day! Keep it up.

You've got a lovely grasp of how to shade with a pencil effectively. The best examples are the skulls and the last portrait.

With the digital painting, try painting as if you are slowly focusing the lens of a camera. Bring all the details into focus together, instead of focusing in on one part at a time.

[Meatsworthy]

Btw, you shouldn't be embarrased of your older stuff, you should be happy (and proud) about making such an improvement in a short time.
Keep it up!
entdroid

Yes, seeing progress is more inspiring than seeing good work.

I don't know if I've mentioned, but use a huge brush in the beginning. It helps not to outline, but build up shapes with big blocks of color instead. Pencils are looking good :).

[Noë]

hiya :) I have not much more to add, but well.. I'll just post a useless post then ^^
I really like your graphite shading technique, I always try that and fail again :P
I think the thing to work on most is proportions and colours :)
And most of all; everything! :P Just study as hard as you can and want, and we'll see much more progress than you already made (and your progress has already been huge)

love
Marleen

[blanquish]

thanks for ALL the replies, getting over the first hump is aalways weird.
Ok, today I went to my local art store and bought some cool stuffs!
I bought a tiny sb, to fit in my pocket, and a kickass Japanese brush pen.
Its not the type that mgs concept art dude uses(they cost about 20-30 bucks without ink, sheesh)
But its good for varying line width, i love it already, and on the other side is a small flat bit so you can get a varying line, and a nice steady one, it totally rocks so hard.
Just some spoot-
observational, wip, from life, anatomy, doodles, ref work OH MY(in no order)
Oldnoobie-thanks
thevoid-thanks mate!
entdroid, here ya go, new stuffs, and thanks for changing your sig!
seedling-thanks, i thought i was doing that? Any good examples i should see?
meatsworthy-good idea, huge brush is the way to go
noe- thanks a lot! Yeah ive made a lot of progress, expect a ton more, Im not gonna stop, stop, stop...

[oma]

It's cool to see you draw this mutch. it's just a superb that you are so dedicated to create some art.

you are realy practising a lot, and that pay's off! look you improvement.
Just 'keep' drawing as much as you can. .

it's a never ending development, and it keeps intressting. so much to learn and to do... just focus on study's and live drawings now. you are still young. and thats the basic!. if you know the basic's well you can draw almost anything you want!. if you getting older you know all the basic's and you can draw anything. you can focus more on the technique's.

I am a bit older, but i have to learn the basics to.. by studyíng and drawing from life.

Great to see you draw this much!!. and your digital SP's are GREAT!

[S.C. Watson]

Hey blanquish,

Really enjoying the self portraits - though I personally prefer the pencil work to the digital, it's all good.

About to start doing some myself in oils, any tips on colour, etc, would be appreciated.
What sort of things do you aim for in a painting, whats the difference between a good and bad one?
good stuff!

You know, I picked up this book http://www.amazon.com/Alla-Prima-Everything-About-Painting/dp/0966211731/sr=8-1/qid=1157729694/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7393004-0234343?ie=UTF8&s=books
(though I didn't order it from Amazon) about a year ago and it has become my bible. If you are even remotley interested in fine art, I'd highly suggest picking it up. It is, by far, the number one book in my library and is referenced constantly. Schmid has a very personal approach to writing and is dead on in all of his observation, and entertaining in an elegant way. Not to mention he's a terrific and beautiful painter. *Everything* you need to know is in this book and can answer your questions far better than I ever could.

However, that isn't to say that I'm not willing to try ;)

Cheers bro,
~Shane

[entdroid]

The first image is not new, and you posted it twice! Don't you trick me! :P
Faces and bodies in pencil: you should really try to get your features well placed and your proportions right before rendering stuff so tightly, sometimes you seem to focus too much on details instead of working first on the bigger shapes.
I like the markers stuff, looking good. I think these exercises are great to help you loosen up those lines and getting construction right.
Keep up the hard work and dedication!
Cheers,
entdroid

[smuli]

I like the marker sketches too. Some of the hatched ones look so good that I think you should try hatching with markers on more finished work. As someone said in your first sketchbook, you could brush up your contrasts and one would think that's easier to get right with ink. Keep working on figures and think critically about the proportions.

Keep up the fast learning :)

[jkior]

hey man thanks for stopping by! hmmm if I had one suggestion. . .I think it would be to echo oregono - I'm pretty much learning everything out of that schmid book right now; I can't even tell you how awesome it is. so, on that note, I'll rip something right out of it: first of all, *excellent* studies, I really think you're heading in exactly the right direction. But something that I see in most of your studies is kind of an 'outline' around the facial features. . .in most cases there is no distinct line around, say, the eyes - try to see the actual 'softness' of all the edges in your subject. . .most of the lines inside a face are going to be much softer in general but above all else you must observe!

Good luck man, hope this helps - like I said, you're definately doing the right stuff.

mike

[j a k e]

Hey dude. Didn't see you made a new SB. Great work with the SPs. Consistancy is the key. The values are getting way better.So are your figures. Pretty much everything has improved since your last SB!
Anatomy is getting better too bro.

[Spade]

cool stuff, great depth in those portraits, great effort all round actually... i have a feeling that your gonna turn into a total monster over the coming years. keep working hard :)

[Magic Man]

Good work mate, keep at it - and yes Meatsworthy speaks the truth, always use the biggest brush possible to do the job.

[blanquish]

Awesome, lots of replies to sink my teeth into!
Oma, thanks mate, i feel ive got the basics down pat in terms of proportions, forms and rendering, but of course, there is better.
Oregano! Thanks for the reply- yeah personally I prefer the pencils myself as well. Had a look at that book, and im willing to hunt around for it. I am serious about fine art, as The lessons you learn in colour theory cannot be matched.
Learning oils is a huge challenge, and Its not something you get perfectly right at first. Right now im mainly struggling with mixing the right colours.
Anyway, thanks for the awesome reply mate!
Entdroid- haha, just testing your observational skills. Well, maybe not, maybe im just a little stupid:)(ive removed it btw)
Yeah, its a bad habit that i dont always draw the entire thing before i render, and im trying to phase it out.
Smuli, thanks, you reckon the hatched marker stuff is good? I will do more then.
Jkior- thanks man, makes me feel good that im doing the right thing- and doubling oreganos post, i gotta get this book!
Jake, thanks, im noticing improvement in my anatomy, its paying off i say!
Spade-grrrrr, thats my best(lame) monster sound. Thanks mate, means alot to me!
Magic Man- If im working at 1500x1500, is 70 brush size big enough perhaps?
thanks mate.
Ok, today i worked more on the oils and some studies.
Im kinda in a love hate relationship with them. When i cant get the colour, get frustrated and angry but when i get it near enough its a joyous feeling.
Been studying Michelangelo, was just walking pass the book shelf and noticed 2 huge books, with giant photos of his works. WHat an amazing artist, his figures are beyond extraordinary, a feat every artist wants to accomplish to a certain level.
painting still wery wip, and rough, havent worked much on eyes, and mouth

[Neireth]

Nice last batch, you're making great progress. I especially like the last portrait. Keep it up!

[blanquish]

ok, not much of an update.
Went to a youth artshow today. All i can say is that i wished i entered:)
A 13 yr old kid won a 250 dollar prize worth of art lessons(painting and lifedrawing type of things) at the local atelier sponsering it. I know i sound like a bitch, but believe me, it was total and utter shit. Not because my sister produced better work at 4 years old, but because he displayed no skills at all and the prize is wasted on him, when more serious artists could use it to improve.>end bitch
Thanks Neireth-
todays crap- pen thumbs, aiming for quick stuff, 3rd one shows!- and Bammes anatomy which i downloaded in pfd!LOL(its in russian)(removed cos its boring)

[Dile_]

Hahha, yeah man, you should have entered, good stuff!

The ink stuff however looking really good! Want to see more of those, I be back later with some crits!



~Dile

[entdroid]

The Michelangelo studies are really nice. It would be good if you tried to finish the face and feet as well, it seems like you avoided doing them.
Those little thumbnails are cool! Watch some of your lines, some stuff appears to be a bit skewed.
Keep it up, you're progressing lots!
Cheers,
entdroid

[octopus_interphone]

Hey everybody has to start somewhere, if the kid had no skills then it is a good thing he won and now has some lessons to deveolp them. Why must you already be a serious artist in order to improve? :)

I just love your latest marker drawings, very nice to look at. you're showing lots of improvement, not to mention productivity. When you crosshatch try to follow the form more (with curved lines not just straight lines) so it not only helps decribe the values but the shape and form aswell.

[Craig Houghton]

the Michelangelo portrait really looks wonderful. The reservation of the bright whites around the eyes really impressed me. It's great to see you working with oils -- they're fantastic and infuriating. Be sure to try out an alkyd to mix in with your paints. They'll speed up the drying time to a few days -- m graham makes a walnut alkyd that is non-toxic and completely recommended.

also, with the marker-style studies like this one: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=20914&stc=1&d=1157721180 I recommend keeping it loose and quick but focusing more on the values and less on the contour.

congrats on the new sb btw!

-Craig

[Meatsworthy]

Nice updates! For those gestures, I found mentler's egg + cube approach really helps get some really dynamic looking poses... check his thread out :)

As for the question to Magic Man on brush size, I thought I'd offer an answer :). Working at 2048 res, I can go as huge as 400px. 200-300 seems to be about the norm for laying midtones in the block stage. By 'huge' I meant really huge! :D

[Magic Man]

Nice updates! For those gestures, I found mentler's egg + cube approach really helps get some really dynamic looking poses... check his thread out :)

As for the question to Magic Man on brush size, I thought I'd offer an answer :). Working at 2048 res, I can go as huge as 400px. 200-300 seems to be about the norm for laying midtones in the block stage. By 'huge' I meant really huge! :D

Agreed with my esteemed colleague here. But really, the question is kinda moot - its like saying "how long is a piece of string" or "if I walk how far will I go?", lots of factors.

Just use as large as you need to spread as much tone as possible in one swipe, this is to efficiently use time, just as you wouldn't use a driver to putt on the golf course, you wouldn't use a 10px brush to colour in a 1024x1024 canvas.

[demented]

sup blanq - great starting anew hey? fun stuff mate - those digital sp's are really going the right direction. Pay attention to the planes of the face though.

Last works are also cool and exciting - very promising.
keep us updated buddy!
ciao!

- d.

[Goog]

Wooooowwww, insane progress since I last saw your stuff a few months ago...great style and technique, your doing a superb job. Only crit is that the legs are lookin' a little stumpy, but overall, man, sweeeeeet stuff.

[Johnny Badass]

You've been drawing way longer than six months.

Some (read: most) of your (near)finished have really thin arms.

Draw them some food or something (choips perhaps).

keepdrawinzkthxbilawlz

[blanquish]

sup all, wow, thanks for all the comments, appreciate it-
dile, thanks man, I SHOULD of entered, but the judging wasnt too good, they were looking for "originality" if you catch my drift!
entdroid- thanks, i am ignoring it, Im gonna do some hand and feet studies to make up for my ignorance.
octopus interphone-
cheers, honestly, if you saw it, you wouldnt agree that this guy had won.
I just cant see how this guy can go to a professional atelier with a bunch of professionals, or would be pros, and do anything. thanks for the comment nevertheless.
craig-
thanks man, im working with turps as my base. Gonna work this weekend and do a hell of work on it. Oils are the most fantastic and crazy thing, I think it will take a lot of practice before i do anything good, but ive still got a long way before me...

meatsworthy- THANKS a lot for the answer, I get what your saying. Thats the advantage over pencil, you can apply colour largely, while pencil your restricted to line,- will check out mentlers stuff soon- oh, and what thread is that, he has a few sbs?
Magic Man-
good point, Large is considered by subject matter, shape and a lot of factors, thanks for filling the void in my brain where digital should be!
demented-
thanks man, will do some bridgeman on planes!
goog-cheers man
yes, I Have also noticed that, but im working on it, its just a slight proportional problem.
johnny badass
-inserts choips into dudes arms like smack, arms enlarge, cya sam!

Ok, this is what i posted in the back to basics thread in the critique centre-
HEY, i was gonna bump back this thread, looks like someone beat me to it!
Anyway, take my words with a grain of salt, im definately not a pro but i do have something to say!
35:
1st tip- enter lots of art competitions either online, or in your neighbourhood, its good having it on a resume etc, and the prizes may help financial issues
2:Repetition is the key to anatomy. Dont expect to draw a figure once and be able to do it again perfectly. It takes a few tries to understand, and more to remember.
3: DO selfportraits. Its a valuable exercise and it beats ref stuff by a mile. Use a mirror and not a photo. Mix up some long ones with some quick ones.
4:Before you draw, learn to draw! Lots of apriring artists start from their head and miss out on the fundamentals doing so. WHat I mean is start by doing simple exercises like from ref, life etc. Learn how to get proportions spot on everytime, make rendering your strong point. Back this up with anatomy studies!
5:ALWAYS carry a sketchbook with you( You can buy miniature sbs that are big enough to squeeze into your pocket, but are big enough to draw in.
You never know when inspiration will hit you, most often or not your not prepared, and cant get the idea down quick enough, so you lose it. It is also a good idea to carry a camera, even if its just attached to your phone.
6:Experiment in different mediums: You can learn a lot from a lot of traditional methods that will help you in the long run. And you might find that one area isnt your strong point, but another is.
7: When you think your done, or are nearly finished, leave it for a while, perhas overnight and look at it again in the morning. Most often or not, youll notice a plethora of mistakes. Its also valuable to get someone elses opinion, because after staring at it for an extended period, you dont notice the subtle mistakes.
8: Suck up as many tutorials as you can. Whether it be from magazines, the internet, books, dvds. You can learn a lot of new techniques and styles in doing so, and youll learn about new tools/features of programs that you havent used before.
Last but not least- enjoy yourself, If you land a good job, you never have to work a day in your life!

some crap- well, all crap, quantity over quality
oh, and today marks exactly 2 months till I hit 15! There is so much stuff i want, but i think the massive black dvds are on the top, and perspective for the comic book artist!

give me teh crits, lol

[Lee W]

you're not even fifteen yet? dang, I'm jealous, such talent and potential at such a young age.

nice study of David's head and those figure drawing are coming along good too. The foreshortening needs a little attention though.

[entdroid]

The head study is very good.
Your anatomy is improving, but you still have some proportion issues. You have a tendency to do the legs a bit short.
The enviros have a nice sketchy feel, but their perspective is really weird, specially the one viewed from above, all those lines seem to be vanishing to different, random points.
Keep going!
Cheers,
entdroid

[blanquish]

thanks for the replies
oldnoobie- cheers mate!
Entdroid- ah, always good crits from you. Yes, ive noticed that as well, short and sort of stubby. Im just trying to gathr ideas and composition on those enviros thumbs, but yeah, theyre crazy:)
ok, not officially todays update, just something i whipped up-will finish davids head+anatomy tonight!-
Some creature- give me teh crits, I need em!

[Lee W]

nice sketch ... but it looks like its gonna tip over cuz his legs aren't in the right position for balance. Need more bulk in the rear IMO :)

[Zynic]

Thanks for dropping by Blanquish :)

You've got some really neat stuff here!
You're very good at shading, especially in the portraits!
I'll have to work hard to get that job at MB before you. ;P

Keep it up mate!

Oh, and that last sketch looks cool, but the balance looks a bit off. ;)

[TheGnoll]

nice work with this new sketchbook.Nice to see you've slowed down with rendering, it looks much cleaner.About your characters, make sure you aways try different designs, ages, ethnies, and sex, change poses and everything you can, otherwise the designs will always look the same.Enviros are messy, but at least you're practicing.About the last creature, nice rendering.Did you check out Neville Page's dvd for this?
Anyway, creature design will NOT work, if the creature doesn not have a beliavable anatomy.This one hasn't.Studies real animals skeletons and muscles before going into creature design.But keep practicing.

[Andy P]

New sketchbook is lookin good, man. This last creatue has a lot going for it, I like his back/backbone craziness, and it's rendered very well, but he feels like he's leaning forward too much. Also the foot the furthest to the right doesn't feel like it's on the same level as the others.
The drawing's definitely comin along, keep banging at it!

[tekdj]

Love the SB blanquish, there is a lot of really cool work here. Keep it coming, the more you do the better you will get :)

[blanquish]

holy schomo so many replies!
Old noobie- yeah your right, hopefully this one is better.
zynic- thanks mate- that job at mb is mine! well, probably not..
The gnoll- thanks for the reply mate. Right now im just trying to do as many characters as i can, and do the anatomy as filler to learn more poses and stuff.
The more I do, the larger my repetroire of poses/clothing will get.
Yeah, saw the N page vid, was awesome, gotta get more dvds!
Well, on the last one, i googled dog anatomy and used that, is it really that bad?
thanks for the comment, got me thinking.
ANDY- cheers mate, I feel a lot stronger with the rendering, thats for sure. Hope this one is an improvement.
Tekdj- thats the plan!
Ok, this was really just a doodle last night that i finished this morning.
Give me teh crits

[Lee W]

hmmm you know .... using the anatomy of an orangutan might be better than that of a dog.

[Cup of Joe]

1. Sorry for not dropping by for so long
2. Thanks for still coming to my SB regardless
3. Holyshitprogress!

Big steps man. Bigbig steps. Nice stuff going on with that brush pen. Enviros are nice, but a little busy. Check out HERE (http://basangpanaginip.blogspot.com/2006/01/downloads.html) for some sweet enviro books (and various other awesomeness, particularly Bammes and Loomis). I found the 'Rule of threes' particularly helpful.

As for the creatures, number one thing to follow for believable creatures is function. Every muscle and bone in it's body should be there or at lst appear to be there for a reason. Check the COW winners archive for examples. Yours look nice, but probably 90% of the muscles seem to have no purpose.

Another general rule of thumb is that you should have everything blocked out before you start rendering. This doesn't mean you can't block is shadows, just don't fully render a nose when you have'nt even started the eyes.

Keep it up!

[entdroid]

I like the last sketches, but the legs are not really working very well imo, they're too straight and stiff... I really like the textures you're getting with your pencil rendering though, really cool, keep it up, buddy!
Cheers,
entdroid

[blanquish]

oldnoobie- again thanks for the reply! Googled it but couldnt get anything good unfortunately:(
cupof joe
1-np
2-the pleasure is all mine
3-cheers
thanks for the link, wont dl anything 'cos im near the limit of my broadband.
WHats the rule of threes?
Its a bad habit that i start to render some areas before i block it out, but i generally find that If I dont like the head(in creatures and in humans) then I wont continue. And, highly muscular creatures look cool, and i struggle to think of anything else..
Entdroid.
Well, i did some animal studies and looked at mammals legs to get a better understanding of how they stand, cheers mate.
Ok. just finished this dude, never thought I would.
A valuable exercise that i believe everyone should do at sometime.
I learnt so much on values and rendering, definately a good study, expect more.
#cant be stuffed scanning in other crap, possibly post it in next update#

oh, and lol http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/2740/davidlolfp2.jpg courtesy of a mate

[j a k e]

Good progress mate, Keep doing what youre doing and life will be good.

[guitarjames]

hey sorry for the late reply (been away).
well yove improved lots and lots and all is well
although when doing creatures and charachters try doing some more dynamic poses and less profiles .etc(cant really talk myself:S)

last one's looking good only thing is the ear dose'nt line up with the bottom of the nose?

keep at it .james.

[sith]

your hatching is getting really damn good man

[Lee W]

the study of David's head came out really nice .. just wondering, how long it take you to finish it?

[blanquish]

jake, cheers mate
guitarjames, ty:)
sith, itsa not exactly where i want it, but the issues relies in my lack of light knowledge, rather than the rendering.
Oldnoobie 'bout 3 hours plus, not exactly sure though.
did some observational anatomy studies of myself from mirror on my arm.
ignore the shite line quality, it was real quick mind you.(done in a smaller than A4 sb)
been doing a lot of really quick stuff from my bus stop-in the city with pens, VERY rough, just trying to get down building masses tather than details, and working loose, its pretty crap looking but its interesting to do, and it opens your eyes up at the amazing things you dont notice when you walk around. Thats the thing about being an artist, you have to be observant and suck it all up.
-kinda semi happy with the creature, you decide.

[Magic Man]

Man! You have been working hard mate, glad you know how to run your hands more than you run your mouth ;)

That tonal study of the statue looks fucking brilliant mate. 2 things to keep in mind, be more gently with the pencil, feather things in and work up the tone after the tonal patterns have been laid out, and don't be afraid to push those values.

Also, start to learn how to define as much as possible with value, trust me, it will take you to another league, use line as LITTLE as possible, this is what i did for a few months, learnt so much.

Darren

[entdroid]

Cool studies, I'd like to see you get a more polished piece out of one of those little anatomy thumbnails though.
The creatures legs are weird, specially the front ones, animals usually don't bend their legs backwards thay way. I'll try to post some references later to illustrate my point.
Keep it up!
entdroid

[Dile_]

Hey man, thanks for replying in my new book!

Im really loveing that David's head, great one! keep it up, You could still refine
more on your Pencil renderings, You hatching the same whatever its Water or if its a stone, you see what I mean ? Like hurricane told ME, Try to feel the surface! Keep it up man, you makeing a very nice progress already, great improvement!


~Your friend Dile

[blanquish]

ok, thanks for the comments!
MM-thanks for the comment, Im really trying to master value on ref stuff, and im nearly there. I use a smudge stick to softer it up, so thats not an issue, and maybe i should just stick to 2b? Or use the 2b lighter. Anyway thanks, Im trying to get rid of line...
entdroid, cant wait for the photos! Thanks for the comment
Dile-
Thanks mate.

[archipelago]

nice :D

Keep in mind that less is usually more, dont go overboard on adding gadgets and details, in this one (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=25972&stc=1&d=1158843080) for example everything is way too cluttered with pointless buttons and markings, give your accessories some meaning, "why would my character have buttons here? would he need lots of bags to carry stuff or does he like to travel light?" etc... adding lots of techno gadgets everywhere dosnt nescecerally make it cool...

Anyway, keep up the hard work man :D cheers!

[asoir]

Nice. I'm officially the laziest teen artist on the forum.
SHIT.

[blanquish]

archipelago- yeah, i know its bad of me- im gonna concentrate on line, and strong designs.
Thanks for reminding me mate!
Asoir, lol, what about wolfbane, hes pretty lazy lol.
heres todays crap-worked hard

[asoir]

Christ! That last one is fucking SUPERB. I'm actually going to study. Seriously.

[dannE-B]

Ok i must say i am guilty of not visiting your sketchbook in a while, but wow man, you have improved a lot since i last checked out your stuff. I wish i was as good as you at your age...not only that i wish i was doing as MUCH as you are doing, if you keep studying like this you will soon be ahead of me, keep it up...really...keep Going.

[blanquish]

Asoir- haha, To be honest, I dont like it, but thanks for the props anyway, and start the studying boy, get on with it!
prophet- thanks man, :) I try and work hard
Eh, not been feeling too flash hot, just some observational gestures which i slowed down and shaded. At school, i do a lot of this sort of thing in class, eases the boredom.
Anyway, Im getting excited because Magic Man said that he may start a concept class. Nothing set in stone, but still, something to hopefully look forward to.
Today I kinda felt bad 'bout my drawings, just wasnt excited about it as I usually are. I guess Im just tired.
On a bright side, 1 more week of school then holidays
-dump from last couple of days..mostly observational.:S- did some sp studies, but cant be stuffed scanning in-no more updates till the start of new month, my internet is friggin slow###NOTE- due to slow internets, i cannot upload all the pics-pnly 2, so its just a shameless bump really:(##
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/825/anatomy14us5.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8068/anatomy15lu6.jpg

[entdroid]

I like the fish studies, though maybe they could use a wider value range.
The robots look really flat, keep working on those.
My fav is the SP, really nice.
And as I promised, here are some simple refs of animals (the first one has also cuteness purposes :P). Pay special attention to the shape of the feet, and their direction in relation to the whole leg. The shapes, specially on the back legs, are much more rounded than the ones of your creatures. Maybe you should try, not only with animals, but also with mechanical stuff, to do some reffed studies and careful observations of the subjects before trying to invent your own.
Oh well, I wish I could explain it better... you don't happen to know spanish, do you? :P Hope it was of some help anyway...
Keep it up, buddy!
Cheers,
entdroid
/edit: It seems we posted at the same time, so I didn't see that last update before. Great hand/arm studies, some look a bit rushed though.

[Listing]

Some great improvement. Work on limiting your marks. Overworking is most visible in the Michelangelo bust.

[smuli]

Values just keep improving as well as the figures. GREAT work with the arm studies especially. :) Maybe it'd be time to start studying the underlying structure already? Understanding the pelvis bone and ribcage and its relation to upper arm bones could also help with the random breadth mistakes you seem to get occasionally.

[demented]

Hey buddy

you're coming along really well. Some of these, are, however, lacking in form and not really giving depth. The statue head wip, for instance - really nice rendering, you're developing a great style - but when I squint at it the face gets lost. Really try to establish a light side and dark side to the figure, even if it means diverting from the reference pic. You need some more darks around the eye sockets, to really give the impression of a depression. Also implement reflected light to add that extra form.

Studying busts and statues is probably one of the most valuable exercises. Looking foward to seeing more of them!

ciao dude!

- d.

[rmore]

really good especially like the shading! your stuff put mine to shame.

[blanquish]

hi guys!
Had to wait till the start of the month for my broadband to go back to normal, it got really slow!
entdroid, hi!
Thanks for the comment.
Yeah i know the robots suck, but I borrowed a book today from a friend finishing an industrial design course called design sketching(I think), which explains how to make things look 3d etc.
THANKS a lot for the reffed pics, And i put em to use today with one of my creatures.
No, unfortunately I dont speak Spanish, but your English reads great.
Anyway, thanks for the comment and pics- muchappreciated!
Listing, Im not exactly sure what you mean? Could you clarify?
Thanks for dropping by
Smuli Hi mate
Im not ready to do bones yet, because i dont have it in my anatomy book, + I wanna get a bit better first.
Thanks for dropping by!

Demented- hi mate:)
I did some eye studies and Agree, i need more darks(+ i looked at more wes stuff today, he has brilliant eyes)
Im not sure what you mean about the form and depth? Could you clarify a little. I know its a good crit, but im too stupid to know what you mean exactly.
Thanks for dropping by mate:)
rmore-
hey, dont beat yourself up about it, Im sure you can do things better than me in other areas.
To be honest, All I'm doing is polishing turds, all my designs are shit, and i know it!

I apologise for the terrrible scans and the terrible charcater!
Oh yeah, and im officially on holidays for the next 2 weeks, time to improve baby!

[Sartell]

Theres something I like about the linwork you've been doing lately, it gets a good variety of tones, but in the 50-80% gray range.
I'd like to see more clear highlights (for ex. guy riding the dog-like monster.) I just realized i'm echoing demented up there, but getting
that value contrast will really help you push form. Make sure you're looking at the full form of the creature or drawing and not getting
too caught up in the details. Keep it up you're clearly getting better~*

[blanquish]

Sartell: Hi!
Dammit, I know youre exactly right, and i made the same observation today.
Im really trying to sort out values right now, and hopefully today was improvement!

#apologise for the crapppy scans#
gestures from head

Main dude on large page from ref

[blanquish]

heres todays poop, more polished turds, well hardly polished.

Im kinda getting excited because I may have the opportunity to attend a class at the local art atelier. Its run by an anatomy whiz, one of those guys who has spent thousands of hours of studying anatomy and has a huge technical knowledge.
The class goes for 3 hours, one of which he explains underlaying-sp forms, mainly muscles I think, and the next 3 hours life drawing.
Im going to see an exhibition of his work this week so hopefully I will get a better understanding of what he does.

crap scans as always, and 2 scans put together for the top page

[Lee W]

nice arm studies .. I'm assuming those are reffed from your own arm?
oh and have fun at the class :)

[blanquish]

Oldnoobie-you would be assuming right, Those were done in front of a mirror!
Thanks for dropping by!
Pretty terrible drawing today, I feel quite ashamed posting it, but I need a bump, because i want some serious crits to get me on track.
Tomorrow Im gonna work on my teen-tdome entry, lots of thumbs and stuff.
I have the general idea, I just wanna make it "good".
My dad is gonna teach me watercolours, so that will probaly be my medium of choice-
-pooo
on bottom page, bottom dude is from ref

oh and you, reading THIS, GIMME SOME CRITS!:}

[vitaliyvladimirov]

Very nice work. My personal favorite are your ink doodles.

[DARAF]

Looking good man. Try loosening up a little. You have lots of time. If you keep going, by the time you finish high school, you are going to be a nasty ass artist.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78305
www.woundedlamb.com
www.level5tattoo.com
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2667075&page=1

[Zynic]

Nice work Blanquish!
You're making some sick progress.
I have to start studying lighting and tones as well, just like you I'm having some trouble removing the lack of depth from my drawings :)
Anyway, keep it up man! We're watching ;D

Feel free to add me on msn btw :)
cynical_coalition@hotmail.com

[Johnny Badass]

You rarely draw hands in your pictures.

You should draw more hands.

[entdroid]

OMG boy! I don't check on you for a few days, and look at you making such a huge improvement!!! :P
I looove that weird... thing from post #63 and the creatures are looking much better, I'm glad I was helpful :)
Arms and hands are getting there too, keep at those. I think your biggest problem now is legs and feet, and you shold try to apply more the things you learn from studies to the stuff you do from imagination, cause at the moment there's a very noticeable difference between the reffed and the non reffed stuff (specially on human figures).
Oh but don't mind me too much, I mean, keep these things in mind, but take one thing at the time, go at your own pace. You're doing just great :)

[Ryan DeMita]

hell yeah bro! these are looking very very good. big improvement. dont stop drawing, draw as much as you possibly can bro. i really really like what you're doing and it looks like you're starting to get pretty motivated. the only thing i noticed, and this will come with time, is becarefull of too much detail. it will can the drawing in a hurry. you want the form to pop out but you also want it to be a relatively quick read. detail is fun but use it wisely. eventually, you will find out what works and what doesnt. very nice render job overall though

keep at it
ryan

[Fishspawn]

Hey blanquish, thanks for dropping by my book. I can definately see improvement from your last thread to this one. You're doing all the right things, don't slow the pace!

[demented]

Sup buddy,

thanx for stopping by my book again mate!

K bout form and depth: currently I'm feeling some of these don't have clear enough form, that is some things that should be round don't quite read like that yet. So establish the overall form before getting into the details. Remember that pretty much everything must have a light side and a dark side. Establish these two sides and remember that nothing on the dark side is ever as light as anything on the light side, and nothing on the light side is ever as dark as anything on the dark side. Try to create the basic form before you delve into the details to make sure the picture reads well. If you're unsure, squint at it and see if you can make it out immediately. If not, tweak it until it reads right first time.

That said, you're making really good progress with your sketches. Some really promsing work, keep burning the lead mate!
ciao!

- d.

[Kan Muftić]

Hi,

You're one of those guys who gets better with every drawing.

Best regards,

[Tigermilk]

hey man, thanks for stopping by my SB earlier!
I like what I see a lot, you managed to study a lot, and still keep up the imaginativ work. I have a hard time doing both.. haha need to organize I guess.

Great stuff keep to it!
tiger

[asoir]

Well, shit!
*off to draw*

[heda]

wow. nice seeing alot of progress in your style.

I realy like the skullstudies of the animal. And those ink+marker sketches are realy inspirational. I have to test out that =).

[blanquish]

whoa, firstly thanks a lot for the huge support and the stars!!!
Massive motivation for me, and Id like to thank you all greatly!
vitaliyvladimirov - hi, how ya going? You like the ink poop? Funnily enough, that was done on the bus on the way to school in about a minute, sometimes using the city as reference.thanks for dropping by dude!:)

DARAF- hi.
You might wanna put some of those links in a sig.
~private messages-edit sig, copy and paste and voila
thanks for dropping by, ill be sure to return the visit.

Zynic, how are ya? great talking to you:) YEah, I suck at depth.
cheers dude:)

Sam(johnny badass)
Good point, gotta target my weaknesses. ZOne was cool the opther day, we shpuld go this week sometime.
Cya mate:)

entdroid.
Hi, how are ya? Did some legs just for you today, thanks for the reminder, thats what these sbs are all about, reminding me how to improve:)
thanks

Ryan Demita-
Thanks dude, I really like looking at your stuff, your going places for sure, and making big improvement too:)
Right now, Im figuring out what is working with values, and rendering styles, and light, and its coming to me.
I guess ideally I would likemy rendering to be like puddnhead, hes probably a personal hero for me right now. Cheers dude, muchappreciated!

Fishspawn, thanks dude, im trying to quicken the pace, I know I can work more!

Demented, hi mate, what you been up to? Just when I think Im on your tail, you make big improvements and blow me back to base!
Thanks for the tip, especially about the light/dark sides.
Do you know any good form exercises or is improvement just inevidable?

Chupacabra - hi, how you going?
I saw your work in imagefx in the pro sowcase section. Very cool.
I hope Im improving every day, nice to see someone sees it. Thanks!

tigermilk- hi, thanks for stopping by!
Asoir- haha, get to it!
heda
Thanks for dropping by.

mostly doodles today, trying out pen technique with copics, VERY QUICK, and Rushed, keep that in mind. A lot from life. From mirror to cafe, both rushed.
doing another bust study, for rendering and light purposes!
Leg study doing standing up, very hard to draw/balence for most of it.

[Bendragon]

Your pencil renderings are good but I think you should focus more on getting the proportions right first. The unforgiving pen can be a great exercise.

[Dile_]

Hey man, nice updates, you drawing soo much and kicking my ass even more, nice work man! really cool, however, im with Bendragon on the point of proporations, also, what pencils are you useing ? try to use an 4B pen if 2B isnt enough to get some dark in there, it reminds me of how see plants, "koralls" or how its spelled looking sometimes, especially your creatures!
The portraits/Arms, skin , looks very good! keep it up friend!


~Dile

[Zynic]

Cool stuff Blanq! :D
Those headstudies are kicking some serious ass, and I see that you've done some lifedrawing there :)
Is it at a café?

Keep it up mate ;D

[Fishspawn]

I like the copic gestures. I agree with bendragon, maybe measuring a little more would help you. Keep it up.

[blanquish]

hi guys, thanks for the comments, appreciate it.

This isnt really an update, but I'm at a computer, and i cant be stuffed scanning, so as a special treat :P I have a speedie I whipped up
bendragon- hi, do you mean the proportion of humans, or what? Thanks for dropping by.

Dile, hows iot hanging dude, I use 2b, does the trick. 4b is too dark, and limits me to really dark values.
Cya dude

Zynic, hi mate, actually I just took off my pants and looked in a mirror. LAWL, that sounds damn funny, but its efficint and the best i can do.
Yeah, thats a cafe, I had a great lunch, very filling :P, cya mate

Fishspawn.
Hi, how ya doing. Im not sure about measuring, but Ill keep it in mind.
speedy-30 mins, mins brushset

[j a k e]

Hey dude. I think a little more definition in the forms etc in the last speedy would help a bunch. Maybe also a bit more reflective light too. Keep it up dude.

[Dile_]

Crits ? its damn messy, and you abused bumskess brushes more then anyone else never done before in any speedpaint ever produced :P
With that said, its very flat, and as J A K E said,its got no real forms to look at :P I where to harsh ?
Ohwell, sorry for that, However, on some places I can see you used alot of opacity brushes, so I can still see the orignal picture behind! wich for now is WHITE :P Try to fill the canvas quickly with a base color, AND then set up your dominant lightsource :) Will help you alot my friend :) Glad you
working with digitals, even if the last one is a mees, although I hope there
will be an update on that one ? please ?
However, the speedpaint you did in before that, I love that one, doesnt looks like you really, in a good way man! Keep at it!

[DanielC]

HEy Blanquish!
Practice alot. Just that point would really help you at approaching your subjects in a good way.
I can't really crit your paintings for now since i'm also discovering colors, but about the pencils, i think you could work on larger planes when you're shading. think of the light source and the as a whole, not just small parts. So don't hesitate on doing huge strokes when shading large "flat" (?) areas.

[Chr]

I especially like the hands and the fishes!

Sometimes your eyes get very simplified, but in your statue studies you seem to correct this...

Use bigger brushes in your digital paintings.

[blanquish]

J a k e - hi dude, your kicking a lot of ass right now! I agree about your point about forms, let me continue this discussion in diles reply

Crits ? its damn messy, and you abused bumskess brushes more then anyone else never done before in any speedpaint ever produced :P
With that said, its very flat, and as J A K E said,its got no real forms to look at :P I where to harsh ?
Ohwell, sorry for that, However, on some places I can see you used alot of opacity brushes, so I can still see the orignal picture behind! wich for now is WHITE :P Try to fill the canvas quickly with a base color, AND then set up your dominant lightsource :) Will help you alot my friend :) Glad you
working with digitals, even if the last one is a mees, although I hope there
will be an update on that one ? please ?
However, the speedpaint you did in before that, I love that one, doesnt looks like you really, in a good way man! Keep at it!

Dile- Hi Dennis, whats up? Maybe its just me, but you seen really stressed lately.
Firstly, Dude, "abused" is a strong word, and it hit a nerve, because unlike you, Im pretty new to the whole speedy idea.
Firstly, it was an exercise to practice colour, texture and composition.
I bedieve there is a certain etiquitte(sp) and tact to a crit, and you seen off the mark lately. Sorry if Im getting a bit tutchen with my reply, but EVERYTHING, is learning, because you experiment, and learn from your mistakes.
I filled the background with a base colour, and it wasnt white(except for the top left)
Anyway, thanks for being honest.

Danielc- thanks dan for dropping by.
I agree with your large strokes comment, its correct.
Thanks for the crits.

Chr- the hands? what hands?
Yes, people have told me to use large brushes for digipainting, and for I do, I just get smaller and smaller for detail in areas.

SO heres my awful update, very disappointing, I gotta pick up my game. Its funny, on the holidays with all the time on my hands, I draw less than on school nights. I feel awful for my laziness, I gotta work harder and harder! dammit

mostly pen stuff from city, and creature doodles.
#not all stuff was very quick, and the line quality is terrible, shoot me#

[Dile_]

Im sorry, I was thinking maybe you should wrote something like that back when I was first posting, but now when looking at what I wrote, I dont think I was that harsh really, I was hounest, but seriously, the whole comment was positive, Its just that I think you fucked up the last one alittle by drawing with to small strokes, and really putting down brushes without haveing any idea why..Sure
its a speedpaint, and I mentioned I was glad over you worked digital in my last post aswell, im still, I think you reacted wierd to what I wrote, sorry
man, but even if I sounded mean, that wasnt my real purpose, I remember I wrote a god damn long crit to you in your old sb, and you took it just fine, maybe your the guy stressed up ?
And man, you always tell me how good your at pencils, and how much Im lacking on em, and that im the better on digitals, I have never said your crit
was invalid cause of that, but as soon Im trying to help, [even If i was tired, but still hounest] you take it wrong..
You get amazing crits in your thread, so if you think im stressed up, and that what I said was just bullshit, ignore me man, you got tons to work on anyways! [and now im talking about working out crits!]

However, your speed paint- I still have no idea whats going on in there, and the fact you resized it , isnt makeing it easier for me, and also, you been useing
ALL sorts of colors in it, and it doesnt really work, Im just telling you man!
I have never seen any black and white work from you digital, have I ?
Attempt to make a b&w digital, and lets see how it looks man!


~Ohwell, no more crits then, I just tell you what you wanna hear~


The last pencil stuff is really nice man, I belive your alot more comfortable with pencils/ markers then you are with digitals, and the marker sketches is really looking good, wanna see more of those!
These ink drawings is really intresting since I attempted something similair while sitting in the kitchen just a day ago, I will keep doing those to get better line quality, and I hope you are aswell!
The drawing at the bottom-left, im haveing some troubles reading ?
Whats going there ?
Just keep it up man! You be alright!

~Dile

[Zynic]

Hey Blanq :D
The latest update is cool! Good pencil-stuff as usual ;)

Now, about that speedpaint that you posted, I agree with the others about the whole thing being a bit unrefined, and it's hard to get a good grasp of what's going on, if you know what I mean? :)
Anyway, I hope that it was a fun experiment, and remember to do a lot of those! It's the only way that will make you better :D

Keep it up man ;D

btw: Why haven't you been on msn lately? :P

[Meatsworthy]

Those pencils are really coming along nicely.

The speeds have a good sense of light and color, but some areas look overworked leading to visual overload. Good to hear you're using bigger brushes. The idea is stroke economy... if a stroke doesn't help in describing something, you could probably leave it out. In general, your strokes should get smaller and more detailed towards the central focus/idea of the speed. It takes some self restraint and I'm guilty of overworking too but leave uninportant stuff loose, big and undetailed... it's ok for these things :).

On a second look, I do see finer strokes towards the central focus. Just keep at it and try to be mindful, discarding the strokes you don't need to make... also give thought to composition and value (both for tonal arrangement and lighting).

[entdroid]

Hey blanq, thanks a lot for the legs! Hope to see more of those :)
I'm loving those marker sketches, specially the one in the cafe.
Speedies are good for a first try, the first one is very nice, composition and color-wise. The second one looks a bit messy. I am aware that speedies are supposed to be fast, but not necessarily rushed. But I'm sure you will improve in no time at those too :) Just try to be a bit more assertive with your strokes.
Keep it up!
entdroid

[blanquish]

back in form
dile- bah ,man, you with your long comments, stressign me out :)

I want more general crits, like, apply texture here first, then lay down etc etc.
the speedpaint was just a exercise to practice colour and brushes, nothing special.
Just forget it, k?

zynic- hi, eh, AUstralian times are crazy compared to Swedens, go on at crazy times and you may catch me as i scan and update.

Meatsworthy- hi mate, thanks for dropping by.
I get what you mean, more detail in the focal point. Im just figuring out compositions, and brushes, meh,
thanks dude

big update, lot from life, head and whatever, sorry for poor replies, im tired

entdroid-legs for you!
Thanks

[Cookiedough]

Fuck, you're just 14??? Dude, you ROCK. Keep drawing and nurturing your artskills. I love your patience to do all those studies. Great job, man!

[blanquish]

'nother horrible update
sorry for the horrible scans
thanks for looking
I luv fishes
oh, thanks cookiedough, you rock!!

[TheGnoll]

good studies lately.I think you need to think more about the 3d shapes when you draw those spaceship thumbnails.Check out Scott Robertson's stuff to understand what i mean.About the hands studies, you must study the internal structures, like the spheres and cilinders.Check out Hogart studies, i found them very useful.The creatures are looking much better, i see you started using ref, and thats good.But remember to draw them from different perspectives, not just the profile view ;)
Apart from that, you're doing a very good job, you asked for crits ;)

keep em coming ;)

ciao

[Dile_]

lol, ohwell, these last one rocks really hard, love the thumbnails! cool!

[entdroid]

Hey blanq, nice updates.
Good thing you are doing so many arms and legs, though maybe you shouldn't practice them alone so much. Most proportion issues don't come from the part itself, but of its relationship with the others... not sure if I'm being clear here, I hope you understand what I mean. Also, I'd like to see you take a quick, rushed sketch or thumbnail from imagination and take it to a more final drawing, 'cause now it looks like you're practicing the different part of the process separatedly and you should really try to merge them a bit more. Just my two cents, hope it helps! :)
Keep it up!
entdroid

[Craig Houghton]

The rendering on David is great -- it's controlled but soft.

THe arm studies, with the knife and the gun, are excellent.

The skull study on this page has alll the contrast I wished that the first ones had. Great work.

YOu ask for em, so here's a couple of in-general crits. Sometimes your contour lines or sketchy lines aren't as skillfully handled as your rendering -- your linework can be too feathery/choppy. Since you often do things that are stylistically partially rendered and partially left sketchy, even more confident elegent lines will help out. Also, you sometimes have a tendency to render with a soft even ambient style lighting style instead of pushing for more dramatic lighting. This is especially true with your from-imagination style creatures and freeform shaped things.

Really, really great work.

-Craig

[Fishspawn]

Hey blanquish. I'm loving the hundreds of thumbnails. Try using your markers on those instead of hatching. I think the gnoll, entdroid and craig were spot on with their crits, pay attention to them! And people aren't always going to be nice when they crit you, better just get used to it now and learn to learn from them anyway. Sometimes it takes listening to a mean crit to really understand something. Hope that made sense. Keep it up, you're way ahead of the game for your age.

[Cup of Joe]

Hey Blanquish! Thanks for stopping by my book!
Nice stuff! Loving those little space-ships. If I had to give a crit, it would probably be just general proportions. You know what your doing on a specific body part, but it get's a little wonky when you put everything together.
Keep it up man!

[blanquish]

thanks for the replies and crits guys!!
Well lately Ive been neglecting my sb to because Ive been drawing so much. About 4-5+ hours a day, plus cheese:D
Im not showing you all my work, only 60%
I do a lot of bus/class gestures that disappear in time, who cares ey?
Been doing a truck load of pen stuff, but its very messy and overlaps, Ill show you one to get the idea..

gnoll: your right, Im a one trick pony with a stiff leg and , thanks for the crits too!
Dile: rock on dude:thanks
Entdroid, LOL you are exactly right, perfectly!
I was chatting to fooxoo on irc and she was telling me the same thing. Ive worked on it, I hope you can crit me on this batch..
thanks!

Craig: Ive been working on linework a lot with pen stuff and it has improved, Give me crits on this batch, I wanna see if its better or in the wrong direction, cheers and THANKS for the critique!

Fishspawn: hey dude, Believe me, I dont see myself above any artist, and I take each crit seriously. Everyday I look in the mirror and say, your'e shit, youre shit.. and draw my balls out to improve.
I believe the best way to achieve in art is to target your weak points, be honest and dont be full of yourself and dont have an ego.
As the song says " the more you know, you know you dont know shit"
Thats true, I remember being a bit cocky when I was younger, and its not a gattitude.
Have you seen Wolfbane? He is 14 and his work is professional, and DIle has some mean badass skills as well. So I guess I'm just within the pack:P
Cheers dude

COJ- hey dude, see entroids reply!
Workin on it

gestrues from head, ones marked with an # are ref'd, more in next update

edit: I tried messing around with the contrast in ps on the head study but cant reupload it: oops:

[Lee W]

nice study of david's head, though the darks can be pushed more in some areas to increase the 3D look. Play around on photocopies so you don't ruin the original :) nice gestures too

[entdroid]

Cool fish-thing!!! I like it :D

The little gestures are getting much much better, but you still got some short legs (some are kinda thin too), and also some long arms, so keep an eye on those. You'll get great at it in no time, I'm sure :)

Great job buddy! Hope to see more.

[blanquish]

reposting the image I took down for ps enhancements( correcting crap scan)

Oldnoobie- Its just the scan mate, the original is fine
Entdroid- thanks, the fish looks terrible on scan, pfft crappy scanner
thanks for the crit--
which legs look short and stubby?, tell me so I know plz

more stuff soon:lens: :lens:

ugh, what a butt ugly scan:(
Everything I do looks like a turd when turned digital, aaaghhhghgg

oh, and my birthdays coming up, went to the artstore to get some of my presents,
Some more copic markers, a nice black pen and a whopping huge A2 sketchbook, lol, forget about scans :nohope:
I akso want to get the books- the skillful hunts man from design press, perspective for the comic book artist and the puddnhead gnomon dvd:) and some chocolate:D

[j a k e]

You got nothin to worry about bro. Everything takes time, you'll survive. Youre progress is awesome man. You're most definately in the right direction. What I do when I scan in a pencil image that may be too light(not that I do that with my method of painting) but I usually just up the contrast and darken it abit. That's if it's too light.

Pencil studies are going lovely my friend.

[Craig Houghton]

That's the right direction. When someone can look at something and really feel it and then look at every line and see it's a necessary and thoughtful part of the whole, it's pretty damned satisfying. I realize that I was talking about the contour/outline lines before, but I want to mention that the shading here has the utmost respect for the line http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=37816&stc=1&d=1161265288 Wherever I can see the actual lines (arm? for example), you've made them appear thoughtful, intentional. I like it.

I realize the pen stuff is rough and quick, but look for straight lines that have a vibration to them. THat's the sort of feathery look that detracts. --> http://www.leversandpulleys.com/uploads/line.jpg

-Craig

[entdroid]

I like the David head.
As for specific problems in the figures, as you asked:
#2, arms are long, legs are short (or maybe just one thing is short and makes the other look long :P).
#5 and #16's legs are thin compared to the body; or most probably the torso is too wide.
In some like #19 the crotch is too close to the belly button, should be a tiny bit lower.
The placement of nipples and belly buttons is very confusing (proportion-wise) in many of them (most nipples are too far apart), which makes some things look like they're off when they're not.
Hope this helps a bit :)
Keep up the hard work, dude, your dedication to improvement is truly admirable :cheerleader:

[asoir]

Nice, still my favorite teen artist on CA.
Apart from me.

Just kidding ;)

[blanquish]

jake, thanks a bunch dude, I did mess with it in ps, but I can change the contrast on the scanner driver so Ill mess around with that.
Thanks dude!!

craig
that pen stuff was done with a crap pen in the car, just messing around with stuff. Thanks for dropping by!

entdroid, thanks a ton for the crits, theyre definately valid(and correct)
Im gonna buy a new anatomy book soon which is a lot more advanced which should also help.
lol@cheerleader smiley, Im gonan use it now!:D

Asoir, lol, means a lot dude, especially since their is some amazing talent on the boards that own my ass. THANKS:D

You know how I mentioned the lifedrawing/underlying structure course?
Well, my parents think I'm too young to do that but instead Im doing a portrait drawing course starting next week.
Its a 5 week course, once a week for 3 hours.
Drawing from a model, should be fun and worthwhile, especially since its at a fantastic atelier where they know their stuff.

finished my 50 gestures(this batch is refd, the others are'nt)
some life stuff, another "dynamic composition" page, some more life stuff.
Oh, and Im starting a HUGE, michelangelo study from one of his paintings, started doing the lines in my A2 sb, should turn out good.

Plus Ive planned a portrait for a community gallery show on the large toned vellum paper I bought the other day.
thanks for your comments :yayca:

[guitarjames]

hey,
i like the first page, maybe do some more like that but with pen:). Im not sure but when you'r drawing from your head it looks as if your doing the outline and then filling in all the details, try working from the inside out on some ,of course i could be totally wrong. I also think your hands colud do with a bit of work, do some studies!:P

keep it up .james.

[asoir]

haha, show me the mini portrait! ;)
nice update!

[oma]

nice SB.
realy like your david portret. :). post some more :).

your creatures are getting better and better. Great WORK!!!

[Cup of Joe]

Nice updates. My favorite is that page with the scattered furniture.
Keep it up!

[Lukias]

keep up with the studies etc.. get some more fluid lines in there, the shade work seems to be a little patchy, yet of an even value across the board. Maybe try working with a darker grade of pencil and keeping your lights/darks more defined/seperate.
Looking real good:)

[Gleeson]

your work realy impress's me man. your over 4 years younger than me and your knowledge and study ethic kicks my arse. All i can say is i respect what your doing and i respect your quote from magic man, that guy says some pretty cool stuff somtimes.

[entdroid]

I think it's great you'er working more with lines like in the first image, or with simple values like in the second one with the furniture studies, those are really good to understand shape and volume further. I always find your dedication really inspiring, keep at it! :)

[blanquish]

Firstly, a huge thanks for all the replies and motivation, Ive been neglecting my (ca) sb lately because it takes so long to upload everything and scan:(
This is just some of my stuff, I do a truck more, but i am lazy afterall:P
I have lots of wip stuff that youll see in next updates, big stuff in my A2 sb, should be rockin!

for the past 3 days I have been doing digi self portraits, Ill show todays, going for the android look!
james, I was working on line so that may explain it, thanks for dropping by dude, muchappreciated.
Asoir, its coming, have a lol on me:P
Oma: thanks mate
Cup-o-joe thanks joe
Lukias, THANKYOU, I am truly honoured that you would post here! The shading is patchy because i need to work on longer strokes, and Im working on line now, again, I am honoured:yayca
thanks mate

Gleeson: thanks for the kind words, any your m=right about magic man, he is one of the most amazing, inspiring artists, and I owe him much thanks for the crits he gave me when I was a beginner, unfortunately he hasnt updated lately, which kinda stinks:( thanks mate
Entdroid, thanks for your ongoing support, and if you find me dedication inspiring, that just a bonus:D

note that some were taken with a camera cos my scanner is 4 times too small.

OH, and I had the portrait drawing course today, these were the best 2, The first one was 15 mins and the 2nd was 35 mins, both in charcoal which I fell in love with<3

crits appreciated

[Magic Man]

Wow mate, your work is coming along great, your graphite portrait is a far cry from your earlier works not so long ago.

I'd say just keep at what you are doing, you are doing all the right things and even though you will feel frustration, thats all part of the learning process, just to take that frustration in stride and just keep drawing even with the seeds of doubt plucking away at ya.

Hope things are well, Daz.

[asoir]

LMAO. Nice. Everybody, i'm the little head that's next to the text saying 'sorry' (third page) Great job. Keep at it.

[entdroid]

Charcoals are nice, I think this medium gave you some more possibilities to loosen up, which is something I think you were needing a bit, so I hope to see more of those :)
The digi sp looks a bit... chaotic. I think it's great that you experiment, and just be spontaneous, but it is just a bit too random at places, try to think more about your strokes, and don't use texture brushes if the texture is not adding to what you're trying to do, 'cause some of these brushes look a bit forced, not coherent to the rest of the piece. I think you are starting to get something there though, keep trying and experimenting. And remember to have fun!
You're doing great, man, I wish I had your determination and strong will when I was your age. Actually, I'd wish I had it now :P And thank you for your support too! :)

[Lee W]

The charcoal portraits are looking good :) keep up with experimenting with the different mediums and stay true to your commitments

[blanquish]

thanks everyone, appreciate the comments
Magic Man, thanks Darren, hope your bio is comign along well:)
Frustration is just another struggle I guess, ususally I draw to get rid of my frustration, but crappy skills=frustration.
Oh, I ordered some books from design studio press, which should come by my birthday(lets hope).
thanks mate!
asoir, lol, ty for teh thread spam!:P

entdroid, thanks, some more charcoal( and i did much more, but you will never see) the didgital is shit, I was just messing round, tring to learn something, thanks
oldnoobie thanks

Well went to my art store and bought some new materials-
2 mechanical pencils( 0.7, 0.3~ really thin and damn awesome), some 0.5 2b leads, a 0.1 pine pen and 2 copic markers which cost a fortune.

Well, cant be stuffed fotographing A2 sb so Ive been getting crazy with green paper(love the stuff) and doing some pencil, pen stuff on it
Im not sure how the green pages will look scanned:( who knows)

sb stuff, digital soon

[entdroid]

I like the charcoal sp, needs a wider range of values though, they look a bit too even right now.
The little landscape thumbs are nice too. Some of the profile faces here and there look a bit weird, you should focus on the lighting some more, 'cause it looks made up and flattens the drawing.
Keep it up! :)

[Andy P]

Yo man, beent too long since I've strolled around in yo new Sb. I dig the amount of stuff you're trying out. Cool to see how you handle charcoal and mech pencil differently. That green paper is indeed awesome, how'd you come by that? I really dig the characters on this one (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=43275&stc=1&d=1162376732), with the green paper you can start poppin some highlights in there.
Keep up the pace!

[blanquish]

entdroid-
the scan sort of washed out the values, and it was as dark as it the charcoal got. I blame the scan again for the profile stuff, but your probably right as usual.
thanks a lot
Andy P
Thanks mate~ the green paper is just normal green printing paper, it is an Australian brand but i got it in a pack of 100 sheets.
I got some highlights for ya!!

well lately Ive felt washed out, mainly because ive been sick. Maybe its a slump or something, I cant wait for it to be better.

I think Im going insane, literally.
I was doing a lot of self portrait painting in painter yesterday. SO I go to sleep and dream about painting in painter. My mum comes to wake me up and I tell her Im painting and go back to working in my mind. I wake up feeling awful and sick. Are computers taking over our mind, working in our dreams?
I feel crap:(

~the porrtrait from life in 30 mins, the features study from a model-
were doing film poster for school so i have some thumbs
crits on the self portrait painter one would be nice

[j a k e]

Man you're rendering is getting so much better, and your focus on forms is becoming much better. I can't say much that hasn't been said. Great that your'e constantly at it Blanq.

[Lee W]

don't worry about the feeling of being burnt out ... we all get those feelings occassionally, some more than others. So just relax, it will subside soon, actually this is a good time to practice drawing what you normally don't draw.

[tensai]

although the green does distract a bit i do like it and love these pen sketches you did on it
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=43274&stc=1&d=1162376708
some nice shapes and line work on there man. keep up all the experimenting..

[Mike Frank]

Hey man I like what you got going on in here. Latest head studies are lookin pretty good ! Would be cool to see you try to blow up some of those thumbnails and work out some scenes and stuff .. looks like you could do a good job with it. The ear in the last post seems a little flat, it should be set off from the side of the head a little bit.

[Spade]

woot, someone has been working hard :)
forms are indeed looking better, keep working on it. Impressed by your constant efforts !

[entdroid]

Crits on the painter portrait, huh? Mmmh, I'll try to help a bit with that. Many of these advices are those thing I don't always do, hehe, but I know I should :P
First, I think you would be better off starting with some color in the bg, white is no good, a medium value and rather neutral color helps you with you value settings, avoids those white holes between strokes and helps you beat the "fear of the blank page" if you have it. Your first strokes should be bigger strokes, setting loosely the basic shapes and values. I think you get lost too soon trying to define things and not focusing in getting the basic shapes first. I do that sometimes, so I can assure you it's not a good idea ;) Try to see what happens if you set some big basic shapes of flat color and start rendering from there.
Just some stuff to keep in mind, but you're doing great! You're pencil sketches are getting better and better :) I'd love to see some pencil linework from you some day, not rendered stuff... you know, getting out of your comfort zone for a bit ;)
Keep up the hard work!

[blanquish]

jake: thanks mate, i try my hardest to render well, Im not too happy wit it though.
oldnoobie(do you have a first name, i hate the name noobie 'cos youre getting quite good)Im back and better than ever!! Yeah, bad spots and highs, they come they go.
tensai thanks dood, love your pen stuff aswell, I got some more for ya, and yes the green does detract, but thats the scanners falut.
someguy: thanks dood, I hate working big, im just not good at it, the ear is unfinished thats why its flat, thanks for the crits though, much appreciated.

spade: :chug thanks
entdroid- firstly thanks for the long post; While I dont have the "fear of white page" your definately right. What would make a good colour? WHen i start i try and block it out, thats what really defines the outcome. The first recognisable feature of the human is the silouette of the head. Its how we spot a frien from 30 metres or catch a glimpse of the back of someones head. Sometimes when Im "feeling it" It will work, but other times i convert to doing the lines with pen.

As with the non rendered pencil, forget it:P, that what pen is for! ANd there will be much more of that i promise




Well, almost disappointedly I was voted with 1 star putting me down to 3 stars. I honestly dont care, but if your intention was for me to not get as many comments, well then Im disappointed. If you are going to vote me down wit a terrible rating, PLEASE justify this with a critique. I know I can do(will do) better after time, but till then, help me get better.
My only worry- lower stars-lower views-lower comments-lower crits

oh, and i bought a few 100 pages anatomy book with underlying structure, fun fun fun!!
studies when i scan em, ive got em

[Lee W]

kewl stuff ... bet you would love sketching on brown paper :) if you want to experiemnt with some really cheap paper, you can get a roll of painter's brown masking paper. It's kind of thin but its pretty smooth for nice tonal studies.

My name is Lee and thanks for the compliment :) though I am still very much a noobie, an old one at that :) I'm only back at this for almost 4 months.

[rodrigo!]

the studies are lookin pretty goood, i like that your using marker and pensf too! looks like your workin hard :) witht he self portrait, just remember if the heads tilted to the right then the left eye is higher, and the opposite. to me it looks as though its tilted to our left a bit, but the eyes dont show that. just maybe spend that bit extra on the conxtruction.
keep up the great work!

[smuli]

Nice progress as always. Your heads keep getting better and better and great to see some smoother shadings too. I think you could try applying more of your facial anatomy knowledge to your self-portraits too and not only trust the lighting as diffused as it sometimes is. The cheek and eye socket areas especially look sometimes a bit undefined in those.

I've especially liked your space vehicle designs lately. They look both varying and original... You seem to have a good imagination with those, unlike me (and I'm supposed to be studying industrial design :) ). Great cars too, though remember the importance of construction lines.

Keep the anatomy pages coming but my advice is still to get to the underlying things already - even if it could ever be too early, I don't think it'd be for you.

[Desperata]

Man, I love your creatures. You're very in-tune with unfamiliar alien musculatures! Keep going with those amazing human faces.

On another note, it's inspiring to me to see someone break all the barriers I encountered at 14. :) Keep posting.

[entdroid]

Good work on the pen and marker sketches! The cars are starting to shape up, I hope to see more of those. I will insist on the pencil linework though, hehe, def not the same :) Some of the features in the faces are a bit big, watch those out!
I also gave you some stars for your ongoing efforts, enjoy! :D
Cheers!

[blanquish]

Lee, thanks mate, hmmm, toned paper, Ill have a look, i need to buy a new sketchbook and leads so Ill see what they've got, thanks. Doin' pretty good for only 4 months:)
rodrigo, thanks very much, like your work too. Ill keep that in mind, I have some self portrait goodies today. Thanks.
Smuli-I swear Ill do some studies, serious!!
thanks
desperata: thanks, hehe I use dog anatomy(which you can easily get off the net) and make it up on some more extrmem creatures. Im not sure if my faces are amazing, but thats a big compliment, thanks!

entdroid: hehe thanks, btw the cars are ref'd from a book. Dont want to dive head first into the perspective yet.Thanks for the stars, hehe, i really wanted 4 stars before I turn 15 lol, even if i didnt deserve them.

small update, Ive done much more than this(like anatomy studies etc), and Ive lost some green pages. All is from life really. Crap scan on the first self portrait.
Crits would be nice

Oh, btw, I turn 15 on Tuesday the 14th of NOV, lol

[Lee W]

wow .. this one is really nicely done, some tight rendering
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=48262&stc=1&d=1163332665

and happy birthday in advance, I might forget :bashful:

[Hyver]

i think you're one of those people who keep progressing silently every day and then one day wake up and create one piece that makes every other artist want to jump off a ledge

[rodrigo!]

keep up the hard work! i should show you the shite i was doing at 14, youre doing great!

[Gleeson]

cool studies man. On that last drawing where you have fractured the dudes face i like how you have left out some of the outline of the lips, the strength of the lightsource is realy hinged on that and its pulled off nicely. watch those eyes brows and tear duct areas though

[blanquish]

Well, Im officially 15, dont expect the same obnoxious, tactless hijinks of yesteryear:P
Lee: thanks mate:)
Hyver: haha, well Dont expect any ledge jumping art for a while, I have a long way to go..but thanks very much:)btw your stuff is looking fine:D

rodrigo!!!
lol, you should show me, could be motivating. But Im sure your 15 stuff tromps mine, dammit, you are so good:D

Gleeson, thanks again, In portraits, In males, you dont really put the bottom lip in, just hint at it. btw, really digging your recent stuff, looking damn fine!

Got some great presents:
3 Design studio press books( which havent come yet dammit)
milkshake maker:)
badmington rackets, shuttles
some monies
tshirt
+ I bought an xbox 360 with some saved money, in a pack with doa and pgr, and soon to be Gears of war:D

and i bought an a4 sketchbook
and now Im broke lol

well you'd expect some sort of improvement but this is a crappy update

[Maurizio]

It's interesting to see the evolution of your drawings. Actually I like the cleaner signs (related to the previous drawings). You should try to study more anatomy because it's still rigid.

[asoir]

dude, your shading is so fucking annoyingly good. next wes i tells ya!
keep it up

[Dile_]

Hey man, Sorry for not posting, nice updates, like the last one the most,
you improve alittle by every piece, thats nice!
Btw, you got these books from Design Studio Press yet ?
I dont know which books you bought, but the books i have are awesome!
(Concept 1 & 2 , and the skillful huntsman, haha you already know that)
Alright, congratz on your birthday! I was supposed to make a thread, but my net fucked up, sorry man , you are really one of these people around that deservs a Happy Birthday thread, Hope you had a great one anyways!
Keep at it! :)

[entdroid]

Happy belated birthday blanq!!! I hope you had a great day :)

I love this study, the fabric looks so real: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=48262&stc=1&d=1163332665
You're getting there with some of the figures, but remember to watch the proportions! I'm pretty sure the fifth guy (counting from the left) on the top of the last image is on steroids :P
Arms and elbows in the first image look really nice.
Keep it up!
Cheers,
entdroid

[Brendan N]

Yo blanq,

Good stuff!
Great that you're pushing yourself with the pencils like this, your progress is stunning!
Think the main thing troubling some of your faces is the eyes - work a bit on em, and these'll be cracking mate.
ciao dude!

- d.

[Lee W]

okay, we need to see a nice finished piece :) put all your studies to a test

oh, have you try using charcoal pencils, carbon pencils, or pastel pencils? they are great if you can keep them from smudging.

[bhanu]

yeah i think I agree with rodrgio, you are doing great for 14 year old. I drew shit at that time. Really good kid. Keep up the great work.

[blanquish]

kublay: thanks, nice too see a pro here:D
asoir: I like the sarcasm:P One day maybe..
dile:thanks, i ordered the skillful huntsman, concept design one, and mas creaturas(not sure what its called), should come this week :fingerscrossed
entdroid: thanks, I had a great day, I forgot to mention: they were all studies, from bridgeman and michelangelo, my figures arent that good, lol. But yes, he is on steroids:P thanks

brendan: eye studies for you coming up, thanks:)
Lee: finished piece here, hops its good enough:)
bhanu: Im actually 15, as of last tuesday, but thanks:)


dammit, im getting lazier, I blame xbox360 and splinter cell double agent.
really, really crap update, sorry, better stuff next, working on some wip stuffs
thanks again for all the comments:)

[blanquish]

the finished stuffs
from life, 5 hours
the photo really flattens it
from the portrait class, everyone said i had the best likeness:) , but my fav was by an older lady, absolutely brilliant, but the angles didnt capture the likeness well

[rodrigo!]

nice stuff man! i like that its really expressive. i think in this forum the emphasis is always on an academic style but i like to see different stuff. that said, the ear may be too far from the eyes, looks like her cranium is a lil too big :)

[Lee W]

good job on the life drawing, but as rodrigo has mentioned, the skull looks to be a bit too wide. It looks like it was drawn with vine charcoal.

[blanquish]

no design studio press books yet:(
I bought Gears of war today, top game, the emphasis is on fun, and it succeeds in a lot of aspects.
Havent got xbox live yet, but will eventually..

rodrigo!
hey mate, personally with the freedom with charcoal, the "overly tight" render doesnt appeal to me. To really flesh out a personality in a person, I reckon you need to enphesise certain features in the face(eyes especially), to capture something.
My teacher said that her best portraits were the ones when the person looked like they were about to talk or laugh.
In terms of portait artists, Lukias and Andrew Jones are my favs, because of the creativity they possess, David Kessan and yourself:P round out my fav 4.:)
The reason some of it is loose is because I ran out of time, but I also wanted the emphasis to be on the face, not bogged down on the figure.
I agree 100% on the skull. Glad you picked up on it, because it kept nagging me throughout the entire portrait.
I think that its because I lack consistency. Some areas like the right eye I though were good, but the other eye and ear let it down.

Lee: I used a lot of different charcoals including a hb and 2b charcoal pencil
and white and black conte for highlights and dark spots.thanks

really pathetic dump, some from ref/life, gotta fill the pages more
0.5 2b mech, 0.3 b mech and 0.7 2b mech, on a4 paper
besides that I have been experimenting with watercolour, gotta practice to get out of the crap beginning stage

[entdroid]

Hey man, you just keep getting better. I really like the eye studies form the first image. It's really helpful in those kinda studies making the whole eyeball, you should try that out :)
The sp with the hat in the last one is great! Just watch a bit the eyes, they're a bit different. The lady's back is looking nice too, but her shoulders and neck are too wide, which is the most frequent flaw in your figures, so I think you should be specially careful with that...
Keep it up!

[Lee W]

good stuff as always :) I like the shark and octopus ...

[rodrigo!]

nice sketches man, the sp's still look good as a drawing on its own. the girl back view- remember to consider the rib cage ! think of the barrel form then the cylinders of the spinal muscles as they go down to the waist bone.

[blanquish]

damn; still no dsp books, im gonna email them and give them a piece of my mind!!#://
anyway, I have been slacking. Gears of War is the most fun Ive had in a long while, and I got live up and running//My gamertag is steak fat, if ya wanna join me to your friends list, ill gladly give you a game.;p
Last saturday was the last portrait drawing class. We worked on tone paper, mine turned out crap because i smudged it, had a crap angle and the whole face was lit up on that side so it wasnt very interesting. I did 2 thumbs on cheap paper which I really liked sketching on, but My mum chucked it out =(.
some ref/life/head

entdroid- hi
the eyes are purposely crosseyed lol, Im gonna do more studies, but thanks for pointing it put, gracias:)

Lee thanks a bunch
Rodrigo! thanks, as i said, more female studies to come.


ok, ive come to a stage where Im not sure where to go with my art. I think I would like to do more portrait work, and more industrial design bots and ships. I would like some indepth crits on what is my weakest stuff( dont hold back, if its shite, tell me its shite) If there is something you would like me to do more of, holla, k?.
I know I far from perfect and have a huge journey ahead of me, in a few weeks I have long holidays(6 weeks) and i want to knock off a ton of work and improve a lot,

[Lee W]

I would like to see the rendering pushed further along with more in-depth portrait/figure and animal/insect studies.

the paper used for these sketches .http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=54860&stc=1&d=1164616524 .. is that painter's masking paper?

[Israfel856]

Hey Alex, guess who? I have to say, I'm impressed. Your skill at drawing has increased drastically since I was around. I guess all the hard work is paying off. Anyway, I guess I'll try give some crit, but I'm not an artist. Here I go....

Although your self-portraits are becoming more like yourself, they still aren't quite there yet. I'm not sure how you could improve this other then practice. Still, drastic improvements have been made. You're making me feel bad about my lack of progress in English! (Which I should be working at)

In other news, I've added you on my friends list. Why didn't you tell me you had Xbox Live, nay, a 360? I know I haven't exactly been keeping you guys informed regularly either though. Please excuse my laziness! I'll have to play Sam and you at Gears of War sometime.

Anyway, keep up the good work! You determination is commendable.

By the way, if you hadn't figured out, it's Ben.

[Zynic]

Hey there Blanq :)
My apologies for being so "not here" lately :P I've been doing some other stuff.

Well, let's get to business.
Your stuff is looking great, as usual :) But since you said that you were a bit undecisive of what you wanted to do, I have a suggestion.

Make a project of your own :)
It could be anything, a game idea with which you create concept art, a portrait, a landscape-painting. Do whatever you want to do.

Come up with an idea, plan it and execute it using all the skill that you've collected so far.
When you're finished, put it up and let us crit it :) This way you'll most likely find out your weak points, and at the same time you might have something to add to a portfolio? ;)

Ah well, it's just a suggestion :P Have a good one mate!

[Johnny Badass]

Hello alex,

I reckon that latest self portrait in blue looks more like you than most of the others do. All in all everything looks pretty good except I have to say that I find most of it to be kind of samey. You should do more varied pieces in different mediums, use darker lines, more stuff in pen, etc.

Although, I still stick by this,

You rarely draw hands in your pictures.

You should draw more hands.

Gewd stuffs.

[blanquish]

haha, dsp books arent here.
Been playing a lot of Gears of war, its a great game, finished it but will replay it- co op of course
oldnoobie- I was trying to work on line so please excuse the crappy rendering. Sometimes I dont push it hard enough even though I know I can.
the brown paper was cheap paper that they used to wrap up the expensive paper I bought, it was free basically, but i got a kick out of using it, great stuff:)
israfel. hey ben. hows Wales treating ya?
Self portraits are hard, one thing I lack is consistency, and Im not a great draftsman, well compared to some members here Im pitiful lol( rodrigo Im looking at you lol)
play you over gow if your ever online
thanks
zynic; hey mate, excellent idea, and I am(will) start a project very shortly(check some pre-lim sketches of creatures in this/ upcoming posts
Ill explain a bit more about it later, and I want to do a lot of brainstorming now, but I already have some ideas, and inspiration sources.
thanks

JohhnyBadass: haha cheers sam, the blue one looks like me?
I know, consistency!!!
hands for you, you stinky bastard#!!

[entdroid]

Your fabric studies are really cool.
On the portraits, you should really start considering getting the construction and proportions right before rendering. Well, that applies to everything really.
On the digi sp, a base color of medium value (it can be any color, depending on your chosen palette, in this case blue or cyan would've done) would have helped. And some of the textured brushes of the bg don't really add anything to the piece, they just make it look random and unfinished. But it's really nice that you're experimenting with non-realistic color schemes and a palette that's pretty monochromatic, which lets you focus on the values a bit more, you have a range that's a bit too wide there, but it's a nice start.
I don't know much about industrial design or stuff like that, but t would be nice that you do some more studies of those kinda objects you're interested in, trying to draw it from different angles and views. You could also try to do different flat views of a design (like orthos, sort of) and then try to do rendered images of it.
I'd also like to see a final image, fully rendered from you sometime.
Keep it up blanq, you're constantly improving :)

[Zynic]

Hey hey hey ;D
Cool update once again :) Lots of fun stuff!

Just keep drawing ^^ Always improving!

[blanquish]

ha more regular updates, who would have though
entdroid- i agree on all of those crits, Im starting a series of landscapes, not exactly finished because they will be speed paints..
Im waiting on the design studio press books, which contain a lot of tech stuff, so that should help, and ill have a look for some references. Thanks as always

zynic thanks:)
these are some characters for my project.
SOme inspiration taken from the book faerie, a book i found on my bookshelf with amazingly beautiful illustrations.
the other page is a bus page, but the face on the left from my mind, the rest from life, and the last a speed landscape paint, using several refs( my dad has literally hundreds because he is a landscape painter), expect more, i learnt a lot from this. CLouds unreffed

[Zynic]

Nice mate :D I'm glad to hear that you got started on a project ^^
Cool ideas for the characters, the guy with a mushroom on his head looks a bit stiff, but since it's just a preliminary sketch, it's probably allright :)

Nice digi btw! It has a nice oil-feeling to it ^^

Keep it up!

[entdroid]

This one (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57221&stc=1&d=1165014755) is gorgeous! I think is the best digi I've seen from you. Some of the brushes are still a bit random, but overall they're much more assertive than on the portrait stuff, most of them are actually contributing to the feel of looseness and expressiveness of the piece, and this is a huge step! :)
Keep it up!

[blanquish]

zynic; thanks bro:)
entdroid: thanks, I enjoyed that one, it was after a day of no drawing and I needed to satisfy that last minute pang of joy before the day ended. Im working on another one, however painting grass is kinda hard digital.
This is some project stuff-
the reason for all the white spaces is because I'm going to write a description/story.
Im really glad Im doing this.
So far Ive written a explanation on what its all about, and Ill write more(type), it up in the holidays.
some sketches and studies as well:) really enjoying sketching with pen( 0.1)
its worth noting that they are all crap scans, especially the frog dude, it moved a bit while scanning =(

[DARAF]

These studies are looking good man. Frog dude rocks

[asoir]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57221&stc=1&d=1165014755
where the fuck did that come from? saved!
awesome.

[Soja]

Hey Blanquish!

Really enjoying ur ink quick sketches...think if u do more of them u'll improove pretty fast! Keep u away from thinking too much like when u use a pencil!
and like asoir! the color one ist brilliant!!!
Keep on goin!!!

[Dile_]

I feel sorry for the guy who bothered voteing you down to 3 stars Blanquish, however, im to down
right now to write a comment with real crits.. all I can say is that your stuff has become so much better under the last weeks.
My crit, just genereal thing would be to length your strokes! dont be so tiny when your shadeing ;) good shit man, and I havent voted you up yet I think, maybe I have... but whatever, I want you to know your one of few teenager around that deservs 5 stars... keep it up friend :)

~Dile.

[Craig Houghton]

man.. I've missed out on a lot of serious evolution. not only is there a lot of great stuff on this page in terms of the technical stuff, but more importantly you're really communicating. The reclining male in #155 and your shark sp in #147 are perfect examples of a raw beauty (there's a growing edge to it) that I bet will come to really characterize your work.

Also, I can definitely see that you discovered Froud's work. It's actually great stuff. I think he's had a huge trickle-down influence in illustration.

In the latest update, the lines on that horse-head are fantastic.

Fantastic work.

-Craig

[Lee W]

I was going to ask for more animal sketches but I see you are doing that already :) the tree with the faces looks interesting too and the horse head came out nicely.

[blanquish]

thanks for the replies:)
daraf; glad you like
asoir: thanks, and to quote napolian dynamite " theres more where that came from if you take me to the dance", well Im working on another..

soja; more pen eh, can do:)
dtran; thanks dennis, I agree 100 percent abput the strokes. is this any better?
5 stars eh? what moniter are you viewing these on?:Pthanks
craig houghton
yes, brian froud is a huge inspiration. His stuff is beautiful. very much appreciated:)
Lee, thanks:

well its been stinking hot these last couple days.
Last 2 days have been 40 degree celcius days.
Its hard to muster up the strength to draw in the heat, and overally I didnt produce a lot, mostly pathetic doodles.
ANd I finally got my design studio press books( thank God)
they are-
concept design 2
Skillful Huntsman
and Mas creaturas
all great books, and very inspiring

note the figures are studies from kevin Chens class
and note the scan zoom lol

[asoir]

Interesting update, I also study from Kchen, ownage stuff.

[blanquish]

asoir, yes kchen is great, im off to study him right now infact
another stinking landscape, crits appreciated, ref used

actually Ill call it a wip because vertain areas look like crap

[Qxzi]

Wow,

your 15 like me? And your much better than me, no fair :D Great stuff, really like your imagination stuff! I love it, much better than mine lol. Thanks for the great tips in my sb! Thanks!!!!! Ill be back!

Qxzi 8)

[blanquish]

thanks qxzi, hey, your doing great, much better than me, what are you talking about
well I bought a moleskin sketchbook.
I love it, the paper is so smooth and it makes drawing a pure joy.
Its a pretty small sketchbook, a5 i think, and i still have my white a4 sb.
Unfortunately, it doesnt shade well, because its so smooth.

in other news, this is the last week of school, and some mates and I, are putting together a small film. Its interesting work, but sometimes stressful and boring, but we are co-operating well, and it should pull together nicely.
just some average sb pages

[j a k e]

Woohoo anatomy, faces, and colour studies! Who could ask for more?!
Great progress blanq, really. Keep it up with the faces and figures, can never ever get enough of those babies!

[blanquish]

j a k e: as they say, variety is the spice of life..
thanks bro

only 1 more day till the holidays!
somehow I think my report card wont be that great. Ive sacrificed study and marks for my art.
some sketches, most no ref, or life

[Dile_]

"somehow I think my report card wont be that great. Ive sacrificed study and marks for my art."

Ditto :D

Oh man, I love the stuff you've posted since 185, I somehow belive you improved your render, cause , the normla,"patchy" rendering isnt there, some pieces still got it, but overall, these are a lot better then your old stuff me thinks ;) just one crit, study the facials from an anatomy book, because
right now some of your stuff (portrait/faces) looks "dead" no life kinda in it,
this happens when the facials are over worked, or when theres no thought behind how the muscles work in the face , ( I belive the first option fits you, overworked) just a general crit man ;)

Keep it up, you getting better.

~Dile

[TheGnoll]

rendering and portriat skills have improved a lot, so good job ;)

about the creatures, i stil think it would be better for you to first study the basic structure, instead of going straight to rendering something wrong.But anyway, great improvement ;)

keep sharing ;)

ciao

[Craig Houghton]

On that new landscape, there's so much contrast in the distance that it brings the back forward and thereby flattens the image. If you cut down on the value contrast, especially with the trees, and you beef up the foreground subjects I think the landscape will really work.

Some of your abstract creatures really grab me. I have to look close, but then they really grow on you. I did notice though that they're usually in profile. I suppose that's something to try and mix up a bit.

As always, I'm looking forward to the next post.

-Craig

[Lee W]

I think experimenting with some color mediums would greatly be a benefit, and I don't mean digitally :) some pastel or prismacolor perhaps. it doesn't require a lot of colors, 3 or 4 with white and black will do.

[blanquish]

HOLIDAYS!!
6 weeks of un interrupted 7 hours a day drawing, excellent:)
dtemp; lol, yeh my report card was horrible. hehe I got a D for Maths:P , which is better than I expected, I do NO work and draw the whole time lol. Hope your report card wasnt as bad as mine, my parents werent pleased.
my rendering has improved because I discovered a great pencil which is quite thick.
Ill do some muscle face studies, but I dont "get" the theory behind it, if you know what I mean

The gnoll; thanks ryan!:)

Craig Houghton; I agree 100 % on the crits, I will fix it in due time, and your definately correct, I think I might put a tree in the foreground.
the creatures are all. not profile now, Im trying to spice things up a bit

Lee; hey, im planning on busting out the acrylics( a self portrait from mirror) soon. Stay tuned..


Ok, venting here..
On my report card I got a B+ for art for the 4th semester.
And all this year, + last year I've achieved A's or A+'s.

The thing that pisses me off, is that my teacher is an utter dickhead( and Im not the only one who thinks that).
He has shown a particular bias against me and my friends, and has given them below avarage marks as well.

The one particular time that pisses me off though happened during the 2nd to last lesson.
He had photocopied a whole bunch of sheets for us to colour in( with colour textas and colour pencils, aagh) and a crossword.
Now Im sitting at my desk drawing in my sketchbook, overall enjoying myself, when he comes up to me and tells me to stop drawing and do the "work" he has set or else he will give me a detention. Dear Lord, this guy looks like a complete ass too, he looks like he has a toupe lol
[end vent]

crits on the creatures would be nice, the legs are totally screwed on the 1st one.

the jacket with the apple is the sketch for a painting I will begin soon, I feel like I need to get into illustration for people to take me seriously .

Ive done much more stuff than this, but the rest are just doodles on cheap paper.

[asoir]

hey man, i'm a B+ in art too, no worries though, this stuff is looking cuh-rispy!

[Dile_]

eh, dont give a shit about that loser.. I know its probably no-one in your class that is better then you, so you wont have any problems getting into an art class, no worries, keep working, ;)

[TheGnoll]

hey dude, nice work!
creatures have already improved a lot.My only suggestion is to first work on basic construction, then add details in a simmetrical way.Sometimes i've noticed your creatures miss a basic skeleton and basic muscle groups.Check out the way people like whiteeeeeee or artkitty build up shapes to build creatures, i think that could help you.
Talking about the rendering, i have no crits at all, i admire people that have the patience to actually work on it, i'm just too damn lazy.
Just keep it up at this rate and who knows what you'll be able to do in a few years :)

ciao

[blanquish]

asoir: with extra cheese on top and fries?
Get outta here man, you deserve an A

Dtemp; man if you had a look at this guy you would be laughing, from the moment you see him you know he is an asshole, its the hair cut, lol,

Thegnoll
hello
yes, the creatures do lack some obvious things( like muscles and bones:nohope , but some were intended to be insects which have a different anatomy.
thanks, ill check out whitteeee+artkitty some more:)
thanks for all the comments guys:)

I am beginning to love my moleskine

[asoir]

OK OK JEEZ ILL BUMP UP YOUR SKETCHBOOK, no need to bump me, nag me on msn, PM me, call me up and start hurting my postman for it though.
christ almighty, this guy's sick, dont let him add you on msn or contact you at ALL. he's insane.

anyywayyy....
nice lines, last page is T bomb.good to study heads from other angllesss.
but man, the model you sketched in the last pages could be a bit more better looking...LOL just kidding man
STAY SAFE

[blanquish]

ASOIRl you whinging pom you!
jeez man, lay of the nose candy;p

some crappy sketch pages from yesterday

[oma]

your creature's are improving with light speed. keep that rate off improvement up :P. and you will become a master creature designer!

Great work here.

[j a k e]

Dude the SPs are rockin! Rendering is getting SO much better...Keep doin that and you'll be the talk of the town in no time!

[Tigermilk]

I agree with Jake, man, I allso love those imaginary creatures you com eup with. :)
cool stuff!!
tiger

[Dile_]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=65320&stc=1&d=1166569177
Nice page!

You only doing selfportraits ? Icant tell since they all have the same hair cut , but very different facials, whatever, very nice page though!
Not much to say, just keep it up, and try to study animal anatomy, right now your creatures looks kinda unstable- wierd looking (like nothing constructed of this world.) to me, but yeah, thats me.

Keep it up!

~Dile

[Lee W]

creatures are getting better and better :) doing those animal sketches has something to do with it I'm sure :) keep them coming.

[Deverion]

I just got done going through all the pages in your sketchbooks...and I must say I am incredibly impressed. I really wish I would have gotten started being serious about art at your age (or even younger for that matter, haha). Keep up the good work mate.

[blanquish]

oma; thanks dude
jake; haha, im nothing to talk about, but you.. youre work is stunning!
thanks mate!
tigermilk, thanks mate:)

dtemp; when You radically change an angle, its hard to recognise a person, those were some obscure angles, thats my excuse, thanks

Lee; thanks again for your support:)

Deverio
wow, thanks for checking me out:) thanks mate

digital selfportrait, painter, its not perfect, but it was fun, cheers!( done from mirror)

edit; updated after some crits from dtemp(dile)

[j a k e]

Oo cool stuff with the colours dude. The eyes are a tad crooked I think. Either that or the nose hehe. What I tried to do when I did my digi SPs, is try and eliminate all my lines. Your still have some lines around the nose, and adding just the right tones around there will allow you to kill em!

[blanquish]

j a k e ; yeah, its riddled with flaws, unfortunately,i will be doing many more sps, so watch this space...

pile of fodder

[h2rra]

Huge improvment since my last visit! It's nice to see you doing self-portraits. I hate doing them because I never recognize myself :(

[blanquish]

h2rra; hey thanks mate! its funny, my dad reckons it looks like me, and so do I, however my friend doesnt. My appearence and age are deceptive, and hard to capture, and photos dont even look like me..:nohope:

Self portraits are good practice though, excellent for.. improving form, light knowledge, features and angles of features, rendering, observing, and overall good practice! Go a sp today!

1st one inspired by hurricane
2nd ones just stink
3rd inspired by carlos huante( the feet on the zebra like creature)

[archipelago]

very nice sketchbook man, you are doing all the right things.
Id like to see something for finished though, perhaps a longer SP or something from imagination.

good stuff anyway, keep it up!

[entdroid]

Hey blanq, sorry I haven't checked in a while, looks like you've been busy anyway :)
Your work is improving all the time, I love the guy with the pointy ears and the creature on the last post. The jacket on post #192 is great! Your pencil rendering is getting truly awesome. You're getting a good grasp on volume and shape. It's really impressive :)

That being said, I think you should really focus on color now, it's your weakest spot as many of the color pieces look rather flat. You have achieved a good understanding of values on your pencils, but somehow your not being able to translate that to your color work. Play with color a bit more!

Keep it up! :D

[Lee W]

did a great job on the shirt :) still waiting on that acrylic SP though

[Dile_]

Hey man! nice update =) I like the first one, looks like it has a structure afterall, wich is very good to have on your creatures, and they start to look really good ;)
Also the creature/skull, is looking way good! as I mentioned on skype you know! =) good stuff from you this time, i mean, nothing "bad" at all =) it just looks cool over all ;)
On the jacket one, I would like to see some darker values in there, otherwise, nice aswell =)
And last one is just awesome ;) nice man!.. structure into that one aswell, wich is very good, and also, the rendering of your latest stuff is looking way good!

keep it up, nothing to complain about, just good stuff =)

~Dile

[Ben_Olson]

Great sketches. And I love your weird creature ideas. Just thought I would give some props.

[blanquish]

archi; thanks dood, maybe later;D
entdroid; hey thanks for dropping by, much appreciated as usual.
Hmm, im working on some colour pieces, but I dont really want to do colour studies;p
thanks very much, btw you updated?

Lee; thanks mate, I think ive screwed it though, aahh real paint is haard:(
Dile; thanks Dennis, awesome speaking to yo over skype, lol@Swedish accent;p, your english is getting really good!
I wanted to keep the jacket pretty light, 'cause it was a white shirt, thanks again dood

Ben Olsen; thanks mate, props from the most original creature creater around, wow, thanks again!:)

erm, getting lazy, biggest wip ever, teen0rs challenge, soo many great entries thus far, I have no chance, still..( so many commas, lol)
sorry for the small size, my internet is slow, I have to resize them to upload

[bloopatone]

I like how your horse is going. The front legs look a little off. I've been starting to draw animals as well. i found this book very helpful. It was reccomended at the Ian McCaig lecture at Gnomon a couple weeks ago. Its cheap and easy to find:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Animals-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508023/sr=1-1/qid=1166887204/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8228813-0562405?ie=UTF8&s=books

[oma]

hmm, the pencils of you > they are improving at light speed.

i agree with bloopatone, that horse front leg looks a bit of. but you can fix that.

[Dile_]

yeah man... I really felt rusty over my english when I began :P felt better
at the end though, still need alot of practice here ;)

Nice digtal, looking way good =) I'd still say the legs looks alittle wierd, but still not sure about what it is :P sorry
However, I belive it would be more cool if the horse was black, and the rider looked more "dangerous" haha, it looks like he is just out for a trip right now on some kinda horse field !

Ohwell, keep it up!

~Dile

[blanquish]

bloopatone
whoa, hollywood in my sketchbook, classy!
thanks for the link, dont have a credit card unfortunately.
Im not quite sure what you guys mean about the leg though, paintover plz.
thanks mate:)

oma; thanks, actually I feel like Im going backwards, Im in a pencil slump now unfortunately, thanks again xD

Dile; ha thanks buddy, your english is pretty damn good for a 2nd language, the pronounciation is generally spot on except for a few words

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR:)
a wip portrait in painter no ref, still needs lots of work+ bg, and the eye on the other side as well+more texture, although crits appreciated.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=67509&stc=1&d=1166960613

[Zynic]

Hey dude :)
Nice stuff that you've got here, you're quickly improving :P

Some crits on the creatures:

1) When designing a creature, ask yourself a lot of questions.
How should it walk, eat, fight, run etc.
Make sure that it is balanced, and that it looks believable.
On this one (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=66341&stc=1&d=1166740035) , the legs aren't looking believable at all to me.
They look like they would break as soon as the animal put its weight on it :P

2) Make the designs a bit more flowing.
The legs on this one (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=65773&stc=1&d=1166654227) are very stiff, and they look rather weak at the moment, sort of like the one that I talked about earlier.

Keep working, and study some more creatures from life.
What's most important is that you understand why it works, and then use that understanding to form your own designs ;D

edit: Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[Qxzi]

Hey,

hows it going? Looking good though, good drawings and digitals! The creatures are amazing, keep them up! Wanna see more, OK! :D

Happy Xmas!

Qxzi 8)

[Sartell]

whooah, seriously something must have clicked for you in the last couple months, these recent sketches are fantastic, your doing things w/ texture on your creatures that i've never been able to achieve. It also looks like your blending your practice into your conceptual stuff which is suuuper important. Your digital stuff is still lacking, I think its because your color theory isn't as developed as your tonal variety, and your linework/pencil rendering is just much more pleasing (I suffer from a similar issue~*.) I'd love to see more color studies, and maybe some more environment studies too that would be awesome (OHHH do them in pencil AND digital:) ) Keep up the improvement, great work~*

Joel

[entdroid]

That horse is looking good! The little bit of the rider done is still a bit weird though, I hope you finish it! :)

The colors on the digi look a bit random and it has too many specular highlights (or white things that look like highlights), maybe you should try to do something with a more restricted palette. And he needs an ear. And you should really START WITH A BASE COLOR (or texture, or gradient, but not white!!!) Sorry for the caps, but you should really really really try that out. I would help a lot to define your values and making your stuff look less empty.

Cheers! Keep it up! :)

[Dile_]

haha, thanks man :P everytime i speak I feel more comfortable with it ;)
Get on now dude =) its a lot fun to speak with voice instead of keyboard !

I really hope you had a great christmas, I had however ;) so merry christmas to you (bit late ? hehe)

Ohwell, I agree 100% ish with Zynic on his second point. Try get more flow into your creatures =) you manage to do that pretty well with characters , now get it into your creatures and they be lot better =) (/they already looking very good, so no offence ;) )

On the new portrait, it got some Alex-Facials into it, and I can understand
that cause its what you've been focusing for quite a while, selfportraits, so
just keep up the variations now, and if you feel frustration or anything, its
just because your not comfortable with it ;) then , do a few more, yeah
you know how its like =)

Keep it up, and I hope to see you on IM now when christmas-rush is over and I can stay up ! at least for a few days... school start 8th ;( a lot sooner then I expected =(

~Dile

[j a k e]

Hope you had a sweet xmas dude.

[Magic Man]

Hey man, sorry I haven't checked your stuff for some time, many you have really improved! I still can't believe how much you have improved since your first post.

I hope you had a great xmas - btw, is there any stumbling blocks your encountering at the moment? If you are I'll try to give you some pointers if I can.

But overall, you've improved in all areas, well done!

Darren

[blanquish]

thanks for all the replies!!!
zynic;thanks for the crits!!
qxzi; thanks, and merry christmas to you to, ill get baack to your sb soon, i promise
Sartell; aw thanks for the nice post, yeah id love to dig deeper with environmental stuff. Im gonmna go to the library and get some "National Geographic" books to do studies from. thanks again:)

entdroid; yes yes your right, bam I am pathetic!; This had base colour(well texture) are you happy now:P
thanks Victoria(forgot your last name)
Dile; haha your exactly right, my lack of facial knowledge is killing me; thanks

j a k e: you to, and i will get back to you soonoon..

Magic Man; thanks Darren, Yes there are lots of stumbling blocks. Mainly colour and light. I have problems with digital painting as well.
(and it doesnt help I had an art block which I'm trying to get over)
anyway thanks:)

crappy enviro inspired by Magic Man( back a long time in his sb)
why am i even showing this crap...
its not wip, but its not finished, so yeh
Got a whole bunch of sketches up tonight, watch this space

[blanquish]

some really really crappy sketches which shouldnt be posted#sigh

all from ref exept the portraits, rest from imagination or life(on the pen study page)
damn art block/slump

[DARAF]

This last updates rocks.

[blanquish]

DARAF; thanks mate, too kind:)
Im sorry for the last updates, hmm, they really suck
finished my teen challenge entry, which is better flipped(2) or non flipped?(1)

some really great entries, I have no chance of winning, but it's good to do some finished work I suppose. Be sure to vote for your favourite, find the thread in the challenge arena in the thumderdome forum.


Happy New Year for tomorrow!!!

[BlueMech]

I'll need to see it fleshed out more but the head just looks odd to me. I can't tell what it is doing. Horses body still looks a bit tallish because of the area between his front legs. Good improvement from the last one though!

[stalsby]

really good stuff for only drawing for 6 months bro!!! i see a lot of improvement from the first page to the fourth!

[entdroid]

Nice updates blanq! I'd like to see more real animal studies, paying special attention to legs and feet (or whatever animal "feet" are called in English :P) and the way they move and connect to the main body when doing them I think could benefit your creatures a lot, as these are your weaker spots I think.

In your teenage challenge image, the horse looks really good but the rider is just awkward. The head looks wide and "neckless" and he doesn't seem to sit right on the horse (looks as if he's gonna fall to the side), the feet are really rough and the saddle and scabbard are very flat. And the rendering looks so different from the one of the horse (which I really like, btw), so they don't mix very well. You should consider getting a reference for it. I'm sorry if I sound harsh (not the intention), but I seriously think you can do much better that that. I really like the color palette though.

Keep it up!

[Ben_Olson]

I like the painterly look of this horse and rider. btw, thanks for the links. Those guys are amazing.

[blanquish]

2007.
Id like to thank a lot of my friends and peers for their comments and crits, thanks everyone.. with a big nod to Dile, Entdroid, Magic Man and everyone else :yayca:
bluemech; your probably right, oh well, i wont win, but it was a good experience, my first fully fledged illustration.

stalsby: thanks, too kind mate, well its been over 6 months now, about 9 or 10.

entdroid; thanks for the comment, I believe you mean paws( animal feet) :P
I think the problem was that i did the horse in Painter, and the rider in photoshop(and bg), I wanted to utilise both, and im just figuring the kinks of both programs.

some no ref digi stuff, and some sketches(the dude is from ref, sitting down)
Ben Olsen; thanks mate, yes Flex Matthews and Killing.people are badass artists, I knew you would love them.

just some avarage sketches

[Zynic]

Nice stuff blanq ^^
The features on some of your faces aren't well placed, but on others, they're perfect :P So not sure what you should do about that, just keep drawing SPs and it'll become second nature.

Nice work on the second digi, and the sitting guy( pencil ).
The first digi is very muddy, and because of that it doesn't show the form as well as it could have :)

Keep it up ^^

[blanquish]

zynic; the first one was quick ass.thanks

here is some more holiday crap, sorta inspired by flex matthews

[Haxxxor]

nice studys!
i like the way you do the shading.

[blanquish]

Haxxor, thanks pal, btw happy birthday for yesterday:P, i saw your name on the bday list.
a davinci study( the figure), a character, lol Nerd, and some hobos from ref +imagination+ some hobo self portraits lol, quick ps face for lighting and value practice

[bumskee]

Alex! :) so finally I get to spam ur sb. hehehe.. :) nice pencil work! tho I do notice that they are all slanted slightly to the left? or is it just me? love the hobo(?) drawings.. keep scribbling mate. cheers, Min

[Mitchell]

pretty good stuff in here. Just always keep in mind your proportions when doing portraits. think in terms of negative space, how wide is the space from the edge of the nose to the outside of the cheek?, the bottom of the lips to the bottom of the chin? make sure it is exact and take your time. The slightest error could drastically change the apperance. Eventually you'll begin to automatically think in terms like that, and your speed will progress. These are some tips that have helped me.

Your doing exceptionally well and have inspired me to draw more. Keep it up.

[j a k e]

I agree with Skeiff. That aside dude I think it's awesome that youre constantly studying etc. Your pencils are getting awesome, I really liked the sketch of the horse from the TC. And I think the pencil challenge or whatever is coming up so that should be good!

[blanquish]

Bumskee; MIN, haha, howve you been?
I think its the scans, wobbly and all.
hobos unite!
Skeiff; thanks mate, heh, its so much easier with ref, and most of these are crummy imagination. Thats great I have inspired someone, I hope you do draw more, you really need to draw more, especially in the holidays, Im drawing about 7-8 hours a day( I do more than you see here).
thanks mate:)
J a k e ; thanks mate, the teen challenge is gonna be hard, bloody book challenge, I dont read much, maybe Ill cop out and do a book with a movie for inspiration, which is probably cheating lol.

#fingers crossed, Ive recieved information about the David Kessan Workshop, and I have to persuade my parents to let me go, the price is reasonably( I was expecting more), and it looks really good, David is an amazing artist, lets hope for the best

random crap, picked up some national geographic mags from the library which are great, ref+imagination+ davinci study
+robot for IRC contest with Min, davi,eriboss, and slash

[bumskee]

Yo! :D what's this david kessan workshop?

[blanquish]

Min, the David Kessan workshop is being held in Byron Bay for the blues festival, its 5 days, 400 dollars( good value), and we get to see him draw and paint. Find David Kessans sketchbook and give him your email adress so you can recieve emails from the lady in charge( trisha I think).

I m hoping i can go

[bumskee]

byron bay isn't too far from where I am think.. woop it must be like a driving distance. NICE! I will do that give out my email and see. :D Thanks for the info mate!

[entdroid]

Nice updates Blanq! I like the robot thingie. The head not so much though.
The studies are nice too! Your animals are shaping up some more.

I have a complain to make: where's the Technicolor, dude? You fooled me, I thought you had posted some color stuff. I hope to see some of that soon, huh? :P

Keep it up! :)

[rodrigo!]

yo man thanks for the tip ill definitely look into it!
good sketches comin out of the what looks to be a daler-rowney. shame they dont make the "daler" ones they were the ultimate.
=definitely seeing some improvement too, i like the looseness of the robot. cheers man!

oh yeah, im not going to the kassan workshop yet. but if i get another job and i can afford it i'll definitely try to make it. also its more geared towards those who are painters, and ive only just started that shit. lemme know if you go man!

[j a k e]

I was actually told by my parents I was allowed to go to David's workshop, but it was in the middle of some important school stuff. UGH. Damn that would have been amazing, he is such an awesome painter. AAAAaannywho, Blanq I haven't finished a whole book since year 5, so I'm in the same boat as you. Haha.

[armando]

I can hardly believe the progress you've made, incredible. I must admit that I'm jealous, but well you've earned it.