SigiLee's sketchbook (10/18 sorta sketching)

[SigiLee]

Hi all,

my digital sketchbook. I've drawn a bit over the years. Not that much recently though. I am picking it back up and want to bring it all to a much higher level.
I'm starting to explore different media: pencils (most comfortable with these), photoshop, 3d CG, clay (have to start yet, but very anxious to do so), possibly paints later on.
I want to apply for Arts school 3D animation and visual effects for the next school year.

My goals in scketching:

-to break free from standard style in pencils
-more organised drawing setups (use of primitive shapes etc.)
-anatomy
-improving stamina in drawing (I tend to give up too quickly)
-last but not least, to become faster and less hesistant


Feel very free to critique my works.


Some meager studies of mouth and eye:

[SigiLee]

I want to start sculping, so I made a little concept + ortho's. I am not to good at drawing the same thing or character again (from a different angle), but I think these ortho's worked out ok for my doing.
I need to study shading a lot though.

The horns on the front ortho are a no go. He will get simple smooth horns, more like in the side ortho and the concept.

[silvestri99]

Nice set of studies. Good shading and line control. Can't wait to see more!

[Zoio]

really cool studies man!
I like it!
Keep Posting

[SigiLee]

Thanks for the comments guys.
hope to be posting some new today (maybe some older stuff? from years and years back)

silvestri: I really need to work on shading though, as it most of the time doesn't feel very 'comfortable' doing. More than not I don't seem to know what I'm doing. That calls for lighting and shading studies I guess.

[Beershite]

Hee SigiLee,

Good start!
I see when you are shading now, you are working very subtle and fine. For studies it can come in handy if you work more rough, as in the second picture.
Don't be afraid of some pencil strokes.
It will save you time when you block out bigger shapes, and so you'll learn faster in a shorter period of time.

Ga zo door!

[Puck]

What beershite said; Start in big blocks of shading rather than concentrating on one small area at a time might make it a bit easier.

Nice start. I would like to see some line work as well without shading.

[SigiLee]

@Puck and Beershite: Thanks for the tip, I kinda felt it that way myself, but I never seem to be able to part from my current way of working. I guess that fits into the same category as me having to get more organised in the setup of my drawings like I said in my starting post.

Here are some OLD thingeys, from 2001 and back:

[SigiLee]

Here some stuff of yesterday and today:

some too silly doodles (not fond of em)

And some gesture like studies, but still trying to find a mode for doing gestures.
trying to find line of motion too on that last page. Critiques (prolly too rough for those) and tips very welcome.

[SigiLee]

Some more stuff today.

Thought I'd do some warmup exercises and just diddle lines, straight paralel lines, straight lines crossing in 1 point (trying to at least ;)), bent lines crossing in 1 point. Circle matrix trying to hit only the "surfaces" (edges) of the adjecent circles with the next circle. And then goofing around a bit.

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/warmup.jpg


Some gesture practicing, I still can't really find a fluid way of doing them. First two are from references (sports photo's mostly rugby... gee, couldn't you tell? :P).
Last one is mainly from the head. except for the top left one. trying to loosen up there and get cleaner linework

edit: by practicing gestures I personally hope to create better understanding of human motion (like doh!) and body "deformation" because of it. But I also hope to get a feeling for proportion through practicing this as wel as better line control. Thought that would be a useful addition to this post so you guys can post more specific tips (if you want to ofcourse :)).

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/refGest1.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/refGest2.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/Gest1.jpg

[SigiLee]

Did some more gestures.. Bastiges got my tea cold!

From references:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/18102006/refGest4.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/18102006/refGest3.jpg

From imagination:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/18102006/ImGest2.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/18102006/ImGest1.jpg

[SigiLee]

Something a little less tedious maybe, quick lines for a creature
I think I might need to shorten it a little.


http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/18102006/critter_1.jpg

[SigiLee]

Shaded the creature in, not too happy with the result. Kinda think I ruined it, but I tried to be speedy about it.
The shading of the area between the shoulders came out best I think (the few spines sticking out) It's not a lot, but it's something ;)
Hate the back paws....

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/18102006/critter_1_shaded.jpg

[Puck]

Hey SigiLee,

Nice dog/creature sketch. I think you could use more contrast in your shading to bring out the form; maybe leave some areas unshaded and have some areas alot darker.

And your figure sketches are great to see as well, keep em up!

The only thing i can think to suggest that might help is to try and break them up into 3d shapes like cubes and cylinders. I can see you've already done that a bit with the head and arms, and the centreline. It's a really helpful excersise imho. I find it especially useful to draw the torso like this (like it's a box or a sideways barrel, drawing in where the side-plane is under the arms for shape), that way, when it comes to shading, you can quickly block in the light on your character by quickly shading all the planes facing one way. I don't think characters drawn this way look as nice as flowing, gestural drawings, but it's a great way to get the underlying structure before you have fun with flowing lines.

[Chance.]

The best advice I can give you is to grab as many anatomy books as you can find. Learning structure will help you design realistic creatures. Your gesture drawings are excellent practice for learning how people move. Keep those up. One thing I find helps me determine what parts of the figure I need work on, is to do a bunch of gestures from my head first. Then as I draw, I notice what parts are giving me a hard time. This then indicates what I need to study in my books.

[Darktwin]

The best advice I can give you is to grab as many anatomy books as you can find. Learning structure will help you design realistic creatures. Your gesture drawings are excellent practice for learning how people move. Keep those up. One thing I find helps me determine what parts of the figure I need work on, is to do a bunch of gestures from my head first. Then as I draw, I notice what parts are giving me a hard time. This then indicates what I need to study in my books.

I completely agree with caddlewick, structure and form are very very important. Keep at it, keep drawing and it will come to you.

[brunopicinini]

really nice studies over here!!

i really like your shadings and all the gestual studies u made!
what i noted, and that has already been mentioned before, its that i think u should enhance the constrat between areas, that will definetly help ..

i found kind awkard finding myself giving 'advice' or saying what i think if i'm not even able to draw like that hehe

well, hopefully i was helpfull ... keep them coming!

[SigiLee]

Puck: thanks :). I was trying to block out bigger areas on that creature, but kinda got lost abour how it's surface "flows". I thought I ruined the line drawing with the shading, but didn't feel bad about it as it was probably good for practice :). Part of getting over the fear to just do stuff to drawings I guess. More 3d in the gestures might be a good idea, yeah.

Q: I got some great anatomy books, but haven't really gotten around using them a lot yet (except for some 3d modelling). I should really know anatomy better that I do because of the college study I did, namely human kinetics. We had indepth anatomy on the bone and muscle structure, as well as nerves and veins.
But I guess that kind of functional approach to anatomy is a whole different ball game than observational anatomy.
The books I have on anatomy are the Sobotta Anatomy books and Anatomy drawing school (fat book with lots of studies in it, also like 8 animals).
Will definately be looking more in those, but probably at a later stage, I think I'll try not to get busy with too many things at the same time, in order to stay focussed.
If parts are giving me a hard time though I think it couldn't hurt to dive into that specific part rightaway. Thanks for the advice! :)

Darktwin: Will do!

Brunopicinini: Thanks. I find myself awkward on saying some things on these fora as well. But even if we may not be as good as some others here, we can still help out with a (different) view on things. And you have been helpful. 8)


I will probably be posting some more stuff here tomorrow. I haven't been updating due to the lack of time and sometimes I'm just too tired from rowing to be productive. Tomorrow is sunday however ;).

Edit: Sorry I still haven't updated as promised, been a little busy with stuff and my PC decided to quit working yesterday! GGGRRRR So gotta put some time in fixing that.

[Puck]

Yeah, it's so important to get over the fear and stop being precious with your drawings. I mean, that's why we're doing this, so we can produce a good drawing on demand, and not have to forever cradle the one decent drawing we've made. If you muck it up, draw a new one...

I think i heard it on mediaartistsecrets (a podcast), don't be afraid of being bad... in fact, look forward to it. Know that you're going to have to get a lot of 'brush-stroke-mileage" to get half decent at this, which will produce a lot of crap. If you can accept that, then you can experiment and learn at a much greater rate. Like maybe, grab that dog drawing now and contrast it up the whazoo, just to see how far you can push it. (btw, i really like your line-drawing, it's pretty strong apart from the back hip which doesn't look symmetrical)

I'm still way too precious with my sketches... and it usually takes a few weeks before i can see how crap they really are. I was not getting anywhere with my art for soooo long, and then i said to myself; "I know I've got to get through at least 10 more of these sketch pads before I'll feel comfortable even showing people my drawings", and it's kind of liberating knowing that you're allowed to be crap.

brunopicinini: I know exactly what you mean! It's feels really wrong to give advice when you know that you're just learning as well. Like my previous comment of breaking it up into 3d shapes... I don't know if it's the best way to do it, all i know is that it's helping me at the moment. But i guess that's how we all learn together.

[Chance.]

I hear you when you say you plan on taking things one step at a time, but I didn't catch exactly what you are currently working on. I probably just missed it, because I'm really bad at reading the text that comes before I start posting.

If you want to hold off on anatomy for now, you might want to focus more on still life or landscapes or something like that. It's kind of hard to do figures and creatures if you aren't actively studying anatomy.

Oh, and please fix your pc, I want to see more art!

[SigiLee]

PC fixed!

Little doodle, sketched and coloured in photoshop cs. Didn't take too long.

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/SigiLee/15112006/weird-green-fat.jpg