Yautja's SB! "4th Year CA Anniversary"Thank You CA!!!

[Yautja892]

Edit: Go to last pages for new stuff.

Hello to all, I have been lurking around here for quiet sometime. Looking at all the great sb's that are here, and I decided its time to start a sketchbook of my own. Most of the things I'll be posted have been done within the past 7 months to present. Hope you all like, any C&C are greatly appreciated.:)

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Some old portraits that I did.
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A self portrait of me ( the one in the hat )and my Fiancé
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First page of my personal sketchbook.
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That's it for now, will be updating this pretty frequently. :) :)

[Yautja892]

Some random creature sketches

I'm trying to keep most of my post consistant with old stuff to newest. Just so I can have accurate progression.I'll post some more recent stuff soon.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/Creatureideaface.jpg


http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/Creatureideafront.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/creatureideaside.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/Zombie.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/LostSoulideafront.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/WrathConcept1.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/WrathConcept2.jpg

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u58/Yautja892/crazymonster1.jpg

Thats it for now.. thanks for looking

[Yautja892]

Another update, Here are some more recent characters I did. I'll be posting some Life Studies, and anatomy stuff soon.:D

C&C always welcomed.

[Yautja892]

A random mix of some characters, and some anatomy stuff. I have been really trying to push myself with anatomy and started to do more stuff from life. Hope you like . C&C are welcomed.

[JoeEffect]

i like your first post's work...keep trying some drawings like those.

[Yautja892]

Here are some anatomy drawings and other studies that I have done recently.

[chilijapones]

looking pretty good. I think your drawings from life and references are probably the strongest. keep at that while you do your more creative drawings from your mind and you should progress really nicely with your monsters and things. keep them coming!

[Zombie_dla]

It's great that you're doing anatomy studies. Your first post is great, just keep doing those anatomy studies! You got potential

[Yautja892]

Zombie_dla: Thanks for all the kinds words.. keeps me motivated.

Chillijapones: Thanks as well, Yeah I have been trying to work on my anatomy and form more and hopefully will improve my own characters.

Here are some more studies, and some character concepts.:muscle:

[kawakaze]

it looks like you have great imagination, a lot of your characters are really unique in terms of concept. however they lack the depth which your first portraits show very nicely. practice on your foundations and understanding of form/proportions in order to really bring those guys to life. already from your figure drawing you are improving. great work, keep it up.

[Yautja892]

I did these a few months back trying to learn digital painting. These are really some of the first digital painting I've done. The first one has alot of problems both painting wise and anatomy but I learned alot from it. The second one also has alot of problems esspically the background, not sure If I will go back to it or not. Still a good pratice I guess. The third one was actually the most recent one that I did in I think November or so. I used Photoshop for all of them. I'm currently working on some illustration's now, using painter this time, will post some progress images soon.

[cgoz]

you got an scary and great imagination.there are some anatomical problems but hardwork pays off.im sure soon you'll correct them.your creatures are cool btw

[topiKal]

I really enjoy your studies. Keep working on improving your lighting and rendering techniques, and your creatures will improve as well. Great work.

[Listing]

Do more from life. You've got some great sensibilities, help them along.

[ronaldK]

Hey man! got some nice things going on! I like the diversity of creatures and approaches you make. I'd reccoment try working out the main shape first and then layer out the details. try putting some weight into them and you'll see how much life they gain from that.
Best of luck and keep going at it!! =)

[Lee W]

great imagination :) do more studies on human and animal anatomy, this will help a lot when creating creatures.

[viramz]

Nice works, i realy like the first posts. Man i realy need to start doing those anatomical studies to. Great progress your making man, keep it up!

[Yautja892]

Cgoz: thanks, yeah I've been focusing alot more on my anatomy as of late. I can see little by little the anatomy is improving. I look at is as a huge ladder, that pretty much never ends, always need to improve somewhere.

Topikal: thanks for the kind words, you need to start an sb man.... I' won't stop bugging you :confident

Listing: thanks for looking, yeah you are right I need to focus more on life. As of late, I have made a switch with what to work on. I need to get out of my comfort zone of characters/creatures, :rendered: its hard but I'm hopefully getting there.

ronaldK: thanks for the crit, I esspically need to think more about the weight of my characters.

OldNoobie: thanks for visiting my sb. I'll be updating soon of some anatomy work that I have been doing. I was thinking about getting a animal book recently to help with improving my animal anatomy, I should pick one up, Or maybe just go to the zoo all the time, give me an excuse to go somewhere.:wink:

Viramz: Thanks for visiting, yeah the anatomical studies surley help alot, you should deifintly give it a shot, if you haven't already.

[Yautja892]

Haven't updated in a month or so, figured its time for a big dump of stuff. Here is the first batch of random sketches :P Some old some new, probably should keep them more consisent to time, after this dump is all new stuff. :dur: C&C welcomed...

[Yautja892]

Here's another small update, figured I would just post some of my base sketches for some illustrations I'm working on. I aplogize don't have a scanner at the moment, so some of them are from a camera, might be a little blury. Thanks for looking.:dur:

[Yautja892]

Here is a big dump of anatomy/figure studies I've done in the past two weeks or so. :dur:

[Yautja892]

Another mindless dump of some sketches, C&C welcomed. :teeth:

[Zombie_dla]

Wow, I missed alot here! Great to se that your anatomy is improving. Just keep posting! :)

[Blade-14]

If u study the intricacies of the anatomical structure of anything u draw be it humans or insects or mutated things. U'll gain a much greater understanding of how to draw them, for instance, if u study indepth the muscle groups of human being or copy some good references for insect and possibly do some behemoth animal studies. U may get feel for concpetualising your own stuff sround those elements as u'd have ref'd from real lfe and then let your imagination run wild.

also blocking your image out in 3d shapes 1st will give your characters more of a solid appearance, give these things a go and see how u do. I can bet that u'll breed massive results. But still u have a made a really good effort on this book. I see big improvements coming! :D

[theredshoe]

hey man:

good sketchbook. i find that you're very good at life drawing studies. you are great with contrasting values. however, i feel that you need to apply your life drawing skills to your fantasy drawings.

cheers!

[schlichte]

it seems like you draw alot with your wrist ie not alot of long flowing lines try locking your wrist and using your whole arm to draw with it takes a while to get used to but you will be amazed once you get used to it

[d00dle]

hehe. you have a lot of imagination :) It's great. it will take sometime 'til u r good at it. keep drawing. draw what u like (like those monsters). If u have any favorite artist, copy him or her and u'll learn a lot.

[Moai]

Hey, fellow sketchgroup member! Nice beginnings of a sketchbook you have here. You cover a pretty diverse range of subjects, which is good.
My two main pieces of advice for you right now are to study form and anatomy. I see you're already studying anatomy and your work is already improving, so keep that up. As for form, study the basic shapes of things, what they look like when they overlap, point in different directions, and recede into space. For example, the human arm can be simplified into a couple of cylinders, and the torso is kind of a box that can bend and twist. Once you know the muscles and how they move, you'll be golden.

[amer-nazri]

Howdy Yautja! Glad to see all those anatomy studies, they will help a bunch! I see that you have no problem with coming up with you own ideas from all those creatures and monsters youdraw, which is great! Now it comes down to the technique: try to clean out your outline, and then start shading some. Itll add lots of form to your sketches. Also try to sketch an object under different lighting conditions, an soon you'll be proficient at shading anything. Keep at it!

[Katfayheirti]

Hey new SSG friend! 'Sweet SB you've got here! I really like your contours on that hand picture! If you want to branch out into studying form and value maybe it would help to think of things as basic shapes and planes. You could try setting up some still-lives with some basic shapes and a strong lightsource and drawing them. I know still-lives are boring, but they really help with understanding of value and shading. (plus they don't move or get angry with you for making them sit so long)

[Yautja892]

Here is a small update of some 3D works I did in the past. I've only been doing 3D for about 7 months off and on. Figured I would go a head and post what little I have. :(

[Yautja892]

Here are two creature sketches I did a few days ago, and also a pic of my armature for a sculpture I've been wanting to finish for awhile. I' think I'm going to be changing the concept a little though. Wanting to change the muscle structure of the creature a little. :dur:

[Yautja892]

Here is another big dump of some anatomy studies, and started doing some andrew loomis studies from one of his books.:wink: Thanks for looking.

[Yautja892]

Here's a progress shot on one of the four paintings I'm working on. Its pretty early progress shot, but still would be nice to get some crits on the overall image. :)

[Moai]

That's a pretty hefty update, Yautja!
Crits and comments, by post:
3D stuff- Those look good! The models all seem very accurate to what one would see in real life. What little modeling experience I have comes from CAD-related rendering programs. Anyway, your everyday objects look great. The monster and the spaceship some overly complicated, though; they have too many "things" on them.
Creatures- Your anatomy studies are benefiting your work already; the arm of the upper creature looks pretty good. However, both of these seem very flat, without much sense of 3D form.
Life drawings + Loomis- Look at what you're doing the third drawing down. You're drawing circles around the torso and limbs, feeling the three dimensional forms. This is what you need to be doing on all of your drawings, I think. Compare this to your other drawings, in which you didn't draw these lines around the forms, and see how much more successful this drawing is. Loomis will definitely help you with this. Glad to see you doing those studies.:rendered:
Painting WIP- My first and foremost crit of this is that you need to fill in the whole canvas with some much more solid colors. Get rid of those white spaces where the blank canvas is showing through, and give everything much bolder, more solid colors. My second crit is that the person's left leg should be farther back, so he looks more like he's walking and not just lifting his foot up. If walking, rather than standing and lifting his foot, is indeed what he's doing.:rendered: Aside from that, nothing jumps out at me at the moment. The creature seems to have a better sense of form and depth than previous ones, and has some decent human-snail hybrid anatomy.
Some marked improvements going on here. Keep it up!

[Katfayheirti]

WOAW-ZAs! That's quite an update!
It's hard to think of anything to say that Moai hasn't already covered, but I'll try.
I don't really know anything about 3-D modeling, but those look awesome! (especially the spaceship!)
You are definately coming along with those life drawings! Their believability contrasts with your monster drawings, but I believe that if you keep up with the life drawings and Loomis studies then drawing the rythm and flow of the human figure will become more automatic and will carry into drawings done from your mind (and as Maoi has noted, this is already beginning to take place.)

[Sirio_Brozzi]

Hey Yau, real nice last update. Really like that youre dabbling in as much as you can, keeps you interested..Your 3d stuff is looking pretty solid, your 2d and painting skills need some work..Keep at it with the loomis-hes got great knowledge to offer that will help you improve..Some studies every day if you can, the improvement will come quick. Keep it up! :)

[Turisas]

Uhg, how can you do this!!? So much to look, crit and comment and my fingers are already asleep. I don't type much.
Anyhow, I like where this is going. Nice job.
Even though I see that sometimes you seem to forget what you have studied before. Example; Proportions. They're fine on the picture you studied them. But when I looked down on the movement practices, on some the proportions are very much off. Remember to use your studies and... well, study them and learn from them. Even if you have already done it once.
I must also say that you should study off of some anatomy books even for hours on muscle structures. And why they go like that. Study the skeleton, and maybe, as you seem to like 3D modelling, get a model of a skeleton from somewhere and place muscles on the 3D program, and whn you've learned the basic stuff that way, try to draw by them, step by step.
Keep on posting.

Oh, and about the painting, the colours you currently have seem to be too bright/pale for now. Darken them a bit and give them saturation. It's easier to work with the highlights later.

[theredshoe]

hey man

just want to comment on your 3d modeling. with the gun, it seems like you have a lot of unnecessary geometry going on. also, this would be a pain to unwrap and texture. normally you would want to build off the whole thing from one piece and not having the tubes go through the geometry like that. it looks good now, but in the long run, you would hate yourself, or your texture artist would hate you =) lol.

your room looks great, and i love why you put other stuff on the desk like a tv and telephone. little stuff like these adds more the the realism of the scene. an advice to me was to look at my own room. is my room as clean as my scene??? nope. i have a whole bunch of crap in there. make a list of the things that you actually have, model it then place it in the scene. =]

hope this helps,

best,
red

[Yautja892]

Theredshoe: Yeah your crits on the character with the gun is right. It is very messy, and yes I would hate to unwrap and texture that thing :) I'm very far with my 3D haven't been doing it much, and really won't be focusing on it until It I think my 2D is up to level where I'm happy. :( Yeah for the room, models, those are actual models from parts of my school I did for an old project, and its pretty clean, but yeah I see where your coming from with the messy/random giving cluter to things will help with the realism, at least thats what I think you were talking about.

MonsterKill: Yeah sorry about the huge update, I tend to just update all at once. :) Yeah great crits, I really need to push and apply my anatomy studies to my imagitve drawings. I'll defiantly give the muscle studies a go :) Yeah I'll be posting another progress shot of the painting once I started building it up more. Thanks for all the comments.

Sirio_Brozzi: Thanks for visiting my sb, I'll keep working on my loomis stuides, and I'll give it a try with updating everyday or so. Thanks again for visiting.

Katfayheirti: Thanks for the comments, yeah thats what I've been trying to work with, getting my own characters up to par with my studies/figure work. I'm glad you liked the spaceship, was the second model I ever did. :) Yeah I'll give the still lifes a go sometime, I do need to work on my value, lighting and form more.

Moai: Wow thanks for all the crits, for the 3D works I agree the monster and the ship are overly complicated. Yeah the two character concepts I did are a little flat, need to focus more on my shading/ working with my lighting and really get the form on those guys. I'm working on a few characters concepts currently. I'll give it ago with those and see how it turns out. Yeah I see now what I'm doing right and wrong with the anatomy studies, from now on I will be doing it like those. For the painting wip, yeah that was my intention of the character walking, and just so happens to be stepping on the little guy. Yes I agree with the colors to, I'll be updating some more progress shots later this week sometime.

Amer-nazri: Yeah I need to work with adding more form to my characters and really bring out the lighting on them. Good idea with studing something over different lighting conditions, I'll give this ago with one of my sketches.

[Yautja892]

Hey guys, here is a small update of just a few sketches I did, I'm working on some paintings right now, so hopefully I can post some progress shots over the weekend. Also will be uploading some more figure drawings/studies as well. Till next time :)

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Oh by the way my friends wanted to give ridiculious names to these two guys. :bounce: haha don't ask....

Senator Mitchel Frog Head!!
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SlapMcHappyEggNeck!! (will be taking this guy further)
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[Katfayheirti]

Nice update. I love the names, btw. SlapMcHappyEggNeck!! :3 He's actually my favourite. I love the crazy look in his eyes. Again, your anatomy is improving. Try to keep in mind that the weight-bearing leg should always line up with the position of the head. (this keeps figures from looking like they're going to fall over)

I can't wait to see the paintings you're working on :3

[Listing]

Your anatomy is certainly improving but do draw more from life (without expecting or stressing a completed image). Keep at it.

[Zombie_dla]

It's good that you update often :) It's crucial that you do! Wish I would draw as much as you. I'm a little bit lazy :P Anyhow, good work and keep em coming

[Moai]

Notable improvement with this update! The rendering is better than in many of your previous drawings, especially on SlapMcHappyEggNeck. The linework is cleaner and the shapes have more form. I'd still like you to draw circles around the forms though, so you can start to see through them and feel their shapes.
See ya next update!

[Yautja892]

Here is just a small progress shot of the same painting, probably not worth posting yet but oh well. :( Also here is a progress shot of the SlapMcHappyEggNeck guy. Thats all for now :)

[Yautja892]

Moai : Thanks, and yeah I had him laid out in basic shapes but went ahead and erased some of the lines to clean him up.

Zombie_dla : Hey man thanks for visiting again, your not suppose to emit that your lazy :) keep plugging away, don't stop, keep working as much as you can. I suggest maybe you join a sketchgroup, that might help you work more. I knew there were some spots for SSG 43 not sure anymore though.

Listing: Thanks, yeah you are very right, need to work more with life, I'm going to be working on some still life studies and other things after I get through the set of paintings I want to finish, but you will be seeing some soon. Probably in a few weeks. Thanks again for visiting.

Katfayheirti: Haha, thanks I'm glad you like the names, yeah pretty ridculious. Thanks for the crit too, didn't even noticed that. :)

[topiKal]

Your painting is coming along well! Even though I've been watching you do it I thought I would comment anyway. Your life drawing has really been helping with your characters. Keep at it.

[RaistlinTheDark]

i think what would make u better is studying ur anatomy and proportions, but u did show some progress!

Cheers!

[Moai]

I had him laid out in basic shapes but went ahead and erased some of the lines to clean him up.

And it worked! Like I said before, SlapMcHappyEggNeck (?) is quite an improvement over much of your previous work, especially now that you're adding some shading. It looks like you're keeping a consistent light source in mind as you shade, which is very good. As a small crit for the shading, perhaps smoothen the transition from light to dark on his neck, so it seems more like the light is slowly traveling around a round form.
As for your colored piece, it's looking better. However I still have a couple crits: the person's left foot should be moved back, and the whole picture needs more value contrast. Open the jpeg in photoshop and press ctrl+shift+u. This will desaturate the image, making it all shades of gray. You'll probably notice that much of the picture is in similar shades of gray. Value, more than anything else, is what defines form. And keep in mind that the area of highest contrast tends to attract the most attention from the viewer, so you'll want to beef up the contrast a bit on your snail dude. And there's still some white from the canvas peeking through some cracks in the paint, I think.
Keep working on these pieces! They're pretty good, and heading in the right direction. See you next update.

[Katfayheirti]

Hmmm...I don't really have anything to say that Moai hasn't already covered. I like how your painting is progressing. Right now the middle ground with the foot seems to be popping out more than the snail guy, but maybe this is just because it's more developed. If you want to bring the snail guy forward you could try adding more contrast and detail to him and having his colouring slightly more saturated than everything else.

[amer-nazri]

Hey there! Cool painting! The only thing I can advise at the mo is that you should experiment more with your colours. If you look at the highlights of most objects, theyre never really completely white, theres always a hue of another colour or a reflected colour. Cya!

[Darktwin]

Keep those anatomy studies coming. Your drawings from your imagination are really benefiting from it. Keep up the good work.

Cheers ^^

[dorobo]

I see some progress already.. keep up those studies

[Slav]

i like the 3d stuff... i think its pretty strong in terms of modeling. good stuffs.

[Turisas]

Keep studying! Especially anatomy =)

[DragonSnail]

Great improvement! And a quite scary imagination - once you have the skills, you'll be a killer artist, so keep it up! :teeth:

[mentler]

Glad to see you hanging with the studies.
Thanks for dropping in and filling the water bowl.

[Yautja892]

Finally had some time to update, haven't in a few weeks. :( SSG, I'll be heading over to everyones sb's and also to everyone that has left comments I'll post back a little later to answer all the comments.


Finally a new version of my one painting, still needs some touch ups, but pretty much almost there.
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A self portrait, proportions are off in a lot of places, especially between the nose to mouth, ears, and lips are a little small.
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[Yautja892]

Topikal: Thanks, post some more of your stuff man, I know you have a lot more, and I won't stop bugging you :needle:

Rastlinthedark: Thanks for visiting, yeah I've been pushing for more anatomy and working with proportions, hopefully I'll reach the level I want, bleh long road ahead :)

Moai: Thanks man, really appreciate when you comment, and crit, apologize big time for the late update :(, I'll be heading over to your sb soon.

Katfay: Thanks for the comments, yeah I think the painting still needs work even now :( but its getting there I hope, I'll be heading over to you sb soon.

Amer-nazi: Thanks for the crits, I'll be heading over to your sb also. :)

DarkTwin: Thanks a lot for visiting, really love your stuff, Oh by the way were you in the insomina workshop documentary video, I thought I might have saw you in that. :)

Dorobo: Thanks, for visiting, yeah the studies are helping a lot. :)

Slav: Thanks man, yeah the normal objects are easy, but I'm still trying to improve my organic modeling a lot, still have tons to learn and do.

MonsterKill: Thanks, will do :) I'll be heading over to see your stuff soon.

DragonSnail: Thanks for the motivation and kind words. :confident

Mentler: Thanks for visiting man, your a big inspiration to everyone here, learn something new every time I visit your sb, keep on rocking.

[viramz]

Nice works dude, improving fast

[Turisas]

Keep on studying. Especially proportions.

This once worked for me (a bit at least) first, I got a photo, and put it under the paper I was about to draw on. I copied it by drawing the skeleton of the woman first, then the outlines. It helped me with proportioning at that time.
Cheers

EDIT:
Congratulations on the second page.

[Yautja892]

Viramz: Thanks for visiting, and the encouragement. :) Keep on pushing yourself.

MonsterKill: Thanks for the words, I really think I just need to work more from life. I'll be heading over to the zoo soon, spending a few days there, just sketching and observing. Also I've been getting into the habit of taking my sketchbook out with me to places, but I end up drawing something from my comfort zone ( creatures/characters) so I've decided to really switch it up and do more objects from direct observation, and more people. Oh yeah on the second page now wooo. :bounce:

Here is the final update on that one guy I was working on recently, didn't have a scanner big enough so I took a pic instead, kind of hurt some of the value. :( Was fun to do, really like it.

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[Moai]

Welcome back, man! I hope you're feeling better.
First of all, great progress on the painting. You solidified the colors and got rid of the little blank white spots, which is great. However, the contrast of the black and white shoes is still robbing attention from the snail dude. I'd suggest changing the color of the shoes to reduce the contrast, and then up the contrast on the snail, perhaps by adding small, fairly intense highlights. This would both up the contrast and give snailey the feeling of having a moist sheen. On another contrast-related problem, much of the picture is of a similar value. Check this out by desaturating it in photoshop (ctrl+shift+U on a PC). Ideally, painting should have well-defined darker and lighter areas. Your painting is very middle-valued, except for the shoes. Great job on the hairy legs and the mushrooms!
I'm glad to see you're doing some anatomy and life studies. Those'll really help out. I think your biggest problems have to do with proportions and foreshortening. For foreshortening, it helps to think of the limbs as simple cylinders. As for your self portrait, keep in mind that most eyes are not symmetrical almond shapes (this point is stressed in artistic anatomy books). Speaking of artistic anatomy books, it would benefit you to get one (I recommend Bridgman) and study up on the structure of the face.
Mr. SlapHappyMcEggneck is looking good! Did I get his name right?:P The textures and shading turned out really well with that one, though his neck and head tend to look somewhat flat. Nice job!
One more thing: I was randomly snooping around Wikipedia the other day, and I found out what your forum name means.:needle:

[Zombie_dla]

Thanks for still checking my sketchbook. Your comments are valuable :) I know it was quite some time since I posted in your sketchbook, though. But you should now that I check your progress from time to time, I just don't give you any comments every time. Anyhow, it's nice to see that you're making progress, keep it up! :)

[Yautja892]

Moai: Thanks for all the crits, will be going back to the painting soon. I have a few anatomy books that I'm studying from currently. I've made a switch of doing more anatomy, humans, and things from life more then just the combination of creatures. Trying to get out of the comfort zone. At least for a little while. Ha cool to see you found out what my forum name is from. I have always been a fan of the predator character from the comics and movies growing up and even a bigger fan for Stan Winston who did the effects/concepts for the predator films, he also has worked on countless of other things, Aliens, Terminator series, Jurassic Park just to name a few. The first predator film and the comics made a big impact on me when I was young, probably one of the biggest influences in why I got into art in the first place. So thats really the main reason why I use that name.

Zombie dla: I'm glad you keep on visiting, I'll definitely keep visiting yours and watching your progress. :) Keep on pushing your self always.

I'll be updating some new stuff soon, I'm working on a few projects at the moment. One of them is getting my website up soon. Keeping it pretty simple mainly using it just as a portfolio site. Also working on a sculpture that I started but never finished so I'll be getting back to it, and reworking the initial concept. Needed to fix the creatures anatomy a little. Need to finish the snail painting and also might start doing a painting over that robot painting sketch I posted earlier. Other then that just continue working on my anatomy, doing more stuff from life, also going to be doing more animal anatomy studies and lastly getting back into 3D again. :) Lots of stuff to come.

[Yautja892]

Some anatomy studies...... :rendered:

[Yautja892]

Working on some faces, probably should have fully rendered them. I'll update again if I do.

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Some random doodles.

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I kept this one in just line sketch, I'm thinking about coloring this one. Probably going to hold up on the robot painting sketch I was going to do.

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Slowly but surly trying to get out of my comfort zone. At least for awhile. :)

[Moai]

I'm glad to see that you're studying from Loomis. You'll learn a lot.:rendered: Just remember that no one anatomy book will teach you all that you need to know. I'm currently working from Bridgman, and I'm already seeing that once I'm done with him I'll have to move on to Hogarth or Loomis to fill in some of his blank spots. The learning never stops. Drawing out of your comfort zone pays off quite a bit when you find that what used to be uncomfortable for you to draw you can now draw with ease. That's always cool.:rendered:
As for your doodly sketches, just keep trying to "feel" the forms that you draw. I know you're working on that (and getting better:rendered: ) but some of your drawings still feel flat. Also, I'm noticing a bit of seemingly unintentional asymmetry, such as the umbrella-head's uneven shoulders. Watch out for that.
Keep it up, and have fun!

[Zombie_dla]

Good that you're doing some anatomy studies, I'm doing some Loomis myself :) Some of your creatures got a Cronenberg-ish feel about them. Are you a fan of his movies?

[amer-nazri]

Cool to see those studies mang! Keep em comin. It will greatly imrpove the realism of your own creations. Keep thinking about the light source, and the highest an lowest end of the value spectrum. Your linework also looks more comfortable. Later!

[Sealegs]

nice stuff you have goin here! really like your anatomy studies, and those strange creature designs...Keep posting! :)

[Yautja892]

Moai: Thanks for the crits, yeah still trying to work on the forms, and making them not look flat. Yeah with the anatomy books, I have few from different artist, just decided to start working with loomis, but I will go through the others as well. :)

Zombie_Dla: Glad to see your working with loomis as well. I didn't even know who you met by Cronenburg, but after researching him I can see where some of my designs have a similar feel with his movies. I would say yes I'm a fan of some of his films. :) I'll take that as a complement thanks :) :)

Amer-Nazri: Thanks man, yeah I can feel I'm having more control with my lines.

Sealegs: Thanks for checking out my book, keep doing what your doing, really enjoying your stuff. :)



Apologize for not updating in awhile, already started my summer semester:S. So not much of an update, will be going away for a week, so hopefully can have some more stuff done when I come back. Oh by the way any one know how I can fix my thread thumbnail, I had to edit the first post last week and now its not showing up on the thread thumbnail, even though I have it attached.

Some Hand Studies.
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Some random doodles again. :yawn:

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>:DRusty Mc Chinbot Deluxe Version 2-7 :bounce:

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Thats all for now, hopefully soon have some more finished stuff to upload.

[topiKal]

Looking good, Kevin.

Keep working. The new stuff is getting better and better.

Maybe someday I'll start updating mine...

[Darktwin]

OOO, those bridgeman studies are giving me goose bumps. Those remind me that I need to break out bridgemen again to work on my hands. I really think I gain a lot from drawing his hands. Its about time I give bridgmen another visit. Wow your really putting me to shame with your studies. Your effort is paying off bro. Keep feeding us :)

About the Massive Black video, yeah I'm in it a few times, both towards end, first I think I'm in sitting next to Wes and the second one is at the end mixed in with the interviews. Man what an experience. :)

[Moai]

I'm back!
Nice looking hand studies. The only crit I have for those is to pay careful attention to the proportions, since I'm spotting a few mistakes here and there. For your random doodles, it's good to see that your applying some things that you learned from Loomis to your own sketches. There are some anatomical errors in your googly-eyed guy, particularly in his shoulders. His right shoulder--specifically, his deltoid, the muscle of the shoulder--is too low, while he left deltoid is on the inside of his arm, when it should be on the outside. Just keep studying and practicing, and all this will come naturally to you.
I like Rust Mc Chinbot. It has a better sense of space than some of your previous drawings, with all the overlapping bits. Having the different things cast shadows on each other would give it an even better sense of space and form. If you decide to do that, just be careful not to make the shadows too dark.
See you next update!

[Moai]

UUUUUUUPPPDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!:xpld:

[Turisas]

Hey there. Love the studies, do those more!

[Yautja892]

Well finally back, apologize for not updating in awhile a lot of family problems, and school stuff to deal with but I'm back again.

MonsterKill: Hey man, will be coming over to your sb soon, thanks yeah I'm getting into the habit of doing studies every time I start working on something. They are helping me improve a lot, I'll make sure to keep doing more and more.

Moai: Thanks for all the comments on my last update. Oh and here is the update you are wanting. :)

DarkTwin: I'm glad you like the hand studies, and that I got you into wanting to do more hands. Yeah I really want to go to one of the workshops, when they come back to the States, I'll going to try and go.

Kevin: Thanks, you NEED TO UPDATE YOURS!!

Here is some stuff I've been doing as of late. Finally got my personal site up and running. Need to fix a few things on it but pretty much done. http://www.rosebrookart.com

Rough Paint over of my website creature.
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website creature sketch
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a random illustration idea.
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Skull studies
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Loomis Studies
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a another random doodle
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Thats it for now, I'm working on a painting and a sculpture right now, will be updating progress shots throughout the week.

[Zombie_dla]

Finally some updates! Quite an update I might add :) You still need to update more often though. Looking forward to your next update. Keep up the studies and show us some more freaky characters!

[Trashy]

Hi Yautja892,

Thanks for coming by my sketchbook. Lot's of real hard studying here. Your anatomy is shaping up pretty nice. Gotta work on that more myself. Keep it coming!

[Yautja892]

Just a small update of a few things. :)

Some more skull studies...
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Random Doodle.
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[Sealegs]

Looking good! Nice anatomy and figure studies, keep those up! They are more than worth it! :yayca:

[Yautja892]

Zombie, Trashy, Sealegs: Thanks for visiting. :)

45min study
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Quick Studies
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Random Creature
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Garbage Bot
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Playing with the same creature design
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Thats it for now.... need to practice perspective more.

[Yautja892]

New Painting WIP. :dur:


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Think the background is a little to chaotic. Going over the creature with a gray scale first then add the color. :)

[Katfayheirti]

Hey Yautja! The figure studies are really helping! Also, your designs are looking good :D Maybe you should move on to some value studies to help you add solidity and value to your forms? Try thinking of things in terms of angles and planes to help your subjects apear more 3-d.

[Lee W]

the figure drawings are looking good :) but you need to apply what you learned from that to the imagination stuff ... and btw, I think it is time to update :)

[Moai]

Hey, Yautja! Welcome back to the boards, man. Your art has definitely improved since the last time you posted. Here's just some general observations I made when looking over your posts. Your line quality has improved somewhat. It's more confident and nuanced now. This is especially apparent on your Garage Robot picture. Your sense of mass and anatomy are also improving, thanks to those studies you're doing. One some of the pictures from your imagination, you still have problems with flatness, and having figures that are rather asymmetrical and unbalanced. Keeping up with the studies and really looking at your own work with a critical eye will help with this.
Some more specific critiques:
-Website Creature: When you make a picture, ask yourself at the start: what part do you want people to pay the most attention to? In this picture, I assume that you want people to look most at the creature, specifically its face. However, a lot of attention is being taken away by the flower its sitting in. The reason for this is that the flower's colors are very bright and saturated, and the creatures are very dull. Also, the values could be a lot better. The link below is this picture completely desaturated. Desaturating a picture is a good way to see how your values are describing your forms, and how well your value contrast is working out. Since you're doing your latest creature in grayscale before coloring it, I think you already see the merits in using grayscale to fine-tune your values. Anyway, about the values in this picture, look in the grayscale image how similar the arms are in value to the flower. Increasing the contrast of the arms would bring them out a lot more, and help to make it stand out more from the rose. Also, add a little color and texture to the background. Not too much, though.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b320/metalukesurfer/website_Paintcreature.jpg

Your skull drawings: The main problem with these is that the proportions are off. Make a habit of measuring your drawings with your pencil and seeing how the different measurements compare to each other, and then check those proportions against whatever reference you're using. Since proportions seem to give you some trouble, this would be a good habit for you to get into, I think.

Latest painting: Good idea on getting the values down good in grayscale before moving on to color. However, this picture needs to be a lot more consistent in terms of light. Its arms are lit on top and shaded on the bottom, but its head, neck, and shoulder areas seem to be lit from the right, and its body doesn't show any directional light source at all. Don't get caught up in the details early on, and instead focus on grouping your lights and darks. Also, like you said, the background is faaaar too busy. It will distract too much from the creature in the completed picture. So, simplify and calm down some of that business, and also make sure the values of the creature and the values of the background won't blend too much.

See ya next update.

[Turisas]

Hey, nice looking updates. I like the studies, especially. Moai and others got all the things I noticed, as usual. Keep on practicing!

[Yautja892]

Katfay: Yeah I agree, I'll be doing some value studies in the not too distant future.Thanks

OldNoobie:Yeah I really do... slowly but surely. :)Thanks for visiting again.

Moai: Thanks a lot for all the crits man. Everything you said is right, yeah for the website creature I started really trying to flesh him out on the top, then gradually just decided not to clean him up. :( Probably should have, even though he's pretty small on the website it still shows. Yeah I'll be doing a lot of changes with the latest painting and will make sure to look over everything you said.

MonsterKill: Thanks man will do. :)

Really not much of an update, decided to hold off with the painting for a little bit. Summer finals is coming up soon so going to hold off the big projects just for a little while. Instead focused on some quick gesture studies ranging from 1-10mins.


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[Fuse06]

Lots of Great ideas in these sketches man. I love em. I enjoy the skulls aswell.. I would just recommend keeping up the practice on rendering. =]]

EDIT: Hehe, first post on fourth page. =D

Would you mind leaving a comment in my sketchbook?

[P E N Ricklund]

Hey there Yautja. Really nice to see that your keeping the anatomy studies up. Loomis and bridgman is a good mixture.
What makes me more happy to see is that you're still playing with the imagination besides just doing studies. It'll paly off in the long run. Just keep at it.
Try to play more with the values, getting the really dark ones in there and working towards the lighter ones. Even when painting you got to get the values right. It'll help the viewer to read the form and depth in the painting.

good luck.

[Lee W]

this site (http://www.posemaniacs.com/pose/thirtysecond.html) is great for doing quick gestures ranging from 10 to 90 seconds.

[Alex Baer]

i see a nice steady improvement in the anatomy studies, but i would honestly like to see more of your 3d work. what you've shown so far has been very interesting and i hope that you keep at it and post some more soon. keep at it man!

[Yautja892]

Fuse06: Thanks for visiting my book. Keep working on everything. :)

Pencilator: Hey man, I'm glad you've updated your book, and thanks for visiting mine. :) Means a lot. Yeah I'm started to really focus on my values more. Will make sure to watch your progress.


OldNoobie: Thanks a lot for the link, I'll have to give it a try sometime.:)

Dabaers: Thanks for visiting. Yeah about the 3D work, I'm really fighting on what I really want to focus on. Part of me really enjoys concepting characters and creatures and illustrating, and another part really likes 3D modeling. My original focus back in 05 I wanted to do 3D, but I realized early on I really needed to focus on my fundamentals and push my 2D more. After doing it for awhile I started to really enjoy it. I'm probably going to make a transition into 3D in the next months or so and try it out again and see if I really want to do it. I guess we will see what happens. :frustrated:


Have a random mix of some creature drawings, trying to push my values more and practice shading with the pencil. Also did a couple of quick sketches of two of my roommates. Then at the end some Loomis studies. :)

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[Goog]

Cool stuff, great progress throughout this sb. I wanna see more anatomy studies! more skulls, and bones! Maybe some pirates! Seriously though, I think a skull study or two or three would really help your faces, right now I can't really make out their underlying structure. Anyways, cheers, keep it up!

[themissinglink]

thanks for posting in my sketchbook. your work has really improved from your first post. keep up with the anatomy studies, your drawings have already gotten better because of them. Though when you are doing those studies check the proportions, some of your studies have arms/leges that are either too big or too small. some of your drawings are on the stiff side, try drawing people moving and walking around to learn how to draw the body in motion. do some more painting still lifes, the painting of the bananna was awsome, do more like that. keep up the good work.

[angelo cordon]

hey man,

good post. keep up with the practice! in terms of values, i dont feel like you have enough going on with them. maybe you can try playing with charcoal or a graphite stick; anything thick and not pointed like a pencil. if its a pencil, draw with the side of it and not the point.


hope to see more!

cheers,
angelo

[Moai]

Hey, Yautja! It's been a long time since I've posted in here. Sorry about that, man.
As always, I'm seeing improvement in your latest work. You're applying what you're learning, which is what you should be doing. So that's good. Your figures are also getting more balanced, and the problems with asymmetry that you were having earlier (characters with one shoulder or arm way bigger than the other, etc) is much less now. It's still there, a bit, though. Take the back view of the whole body that you drew from Loomis. His right shoulder is quite a bit bigger than his left (and quite a bit bigger than a normally-proportioned human's shoulder should be anyway), and his right leg is thinner than his left. Keep an eye on that.
Nice progress. See you next time!

[Yautja892]

Goog: Hey man thanks for visiting, and you are right need to do some more skull studies and my faces need a lot of work. I kinda did two out of the three things you asked. So here are some Anatomy studies, and sort of a pirate, more of a pig pirate thing... :)

themissinglink: Thanks for the crits appreciate it. Yeah proportions are something I'm still trying to tackle, and there are proportion problems in this update. So its defiantly something I'm forcing myself to watch out for. Also you are correct need to work on my poses as well. As for the still life paintings don't worry I'll be getting back into doing a lot more color work very soon.

redSpade: Hey thanks for commenting, yeah I've been making an effort to push my values more, and I'll be doing some charcoal portraits soon. For some reason I find it easier to render in charcoal then pencil.

Moai: Its all good, thanks always for the crits, yeah this is something I need to keep an eye on and fix. Have this problem again in my loomis studies, the leg in the muscle studies is too large.

Thanks again everyone for all the comments.


Some Anatomy studies, which have some proportion problems. Especially in the Stomach/Pelvis area, a lot of them are too long. Next month making changes on what I need to work on and do. I'll be getting into watercolors and pen, and also working on my perspective and doing some environments and just overall more color work. Also going to be changing the subject matter, and pushing myself to do more from life as well. :)

Apologize for blurriness, need to start scanning instead of using camera.


Studies, ranging from 1-10mins.
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[Yautja892]

Some Random sketches, and loomis studies....


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Thats all for now..... will be working on two projects, reworking my previous painting, and reworking an old sculpture. :)

[angelo cordon]

september is your one year anniversary with conceptart!!!! or so it says...


good update - good to see you're studying anatomy. i say you should get back more into life studies like on your first page. you should vary your values more as well - try out having high contrasts and see how you like it. =]

cheers for updating!

[Yautja892]

redSpade: Hey yeah it is one year anniversary, Also during that same time when I started to push myself more with my art. Feb is another milestone mark for this sb. Yeah about the life drawings I need to find an open workshop somewhere so I can get back into them. Its pretty sad my school isn't offering one this semester, should offer it all the time. I see your pushing the other ssg members to update, which is good. :)


Weak update, just some more boring anatomy studies, and an old drawing I forgot to update last time. I'll be doing some projects soon and will be showing progress in the next week or so. C&C always welcomed.

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[amer-nazri]

Hi there! Sorry for the very long delay in posting, I'm just back from vacation. Massive improvements here, really nice seeing your studies of the muscle and skeleton, I really need to do that, but seeing yours have educated me and make me realise I need to do that now!! Your drawings are improving alot, and I'd like to suggest drawing/observing a simple object such as an apple (or anything else) under two light sources, and spend some time studying different surface textures, and how it reacts to light. This will improve your visual vocabulary and memory, so that whenever you draw from imagination, your surfaces will come closer and closer to having a more realistic quality.
See you around!

[Turisas]

Hello there.
You've greatly improved lately I have to say. I'm impressed! The anatomy studies are amazing, keep doing those.
Also, as I've noticed that you like doing all kinds of mechanical stuff, and other. Follow amer-nazris suggestion, and also, draw mechanical structures like dozers or buildings in progress.
Anyways; you're doing great so far. Keep up the great work!

[Yautja892]

amer-nazri: So glad your back man, hope your vacation went well. Can't wait for your next updates. :) Great to see I got you back into focusing on the studies, slowly they are helping me. Great suggestion with doing some still life studies with the different light sources. Will make sure to focus on doing some studies for that.

MonsterKill: Thanks man, yeah I've been in a mood to draw mechanical stuff lately. :) Yeah I will be working on amer's suggestion for sure,hope schools not killing you to much.


Here is a new painting WIP of the genie painting I worked on previously. Need some suggestions on this one. Still needs more contrast, need to bring out the colors more, lighting is little wonky and flesh out the floor, and background more. Also some character sketches and some anatomy.

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Just recently got a few art books(watercolor, anatomy, perspective) ,some new supplies, and Marko's DVD. The DVD overall was really great, was worth the money. Learned quite a few things that I didn't really think about.

[BobbyDash]

Pretty cool stuff man, nice studies. Also, mind if I ask where the name Yautja comes from? I know a guy on xbox live with that name. Just curious.

[Yautja892]

Thanks for visiting Bobby,the name is the race name for the predator films, and in all the comics. The reason why I use that name is because in many ways those comics and the movies push me to get into art and to draw when I was growing up. They were the first serious inspiration I had when I was young.

[BobbyDash]

Thanks for visiting Bobby,the name is the race name for the predator films, and in all the comics. The reason why I use that name is because in many ways those comics and the movies push me to get into art and to draw when I was growing up. They were the first serious inspiration I had when I was young.



Ahhhh I see. That's cool. Predator is the shit. :wink:

[Yautja892]

Just an update on my painting..... needs some suggestions on this one. Not sure about the overall color scheme, and the lighting. :wip:


Painting WIP

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[angelo cordon]

your works have always been crazy weird. its not a bad thing, its great that you're exploring this kind of genre in your pieces. however, i want ask - what are you trying to show your viewers in your illustrations?

so after scrolling up and reading your first post about this, its suppose to be a genie. why did i not see it as a genie the first time? (thats very crutial for an illustrator - you want your viewers to recognize your pieces right away)

so when i think of genie i think of:

alladin
magical lamp
smoke
wishes
three
middle east


hope thats a good start for you.
cheers,
spade

[Goog]

ey bro, those last arm studies are reeal nice. I think youre only problem is not that you're not doing enough studies, it's that you aren't applying what you learn in those studies to you're imagination. Really try to get the most out of your studies by really paying attention to not only what you are drwubgm byt why it looks that way.

[Alex Baer]

it's good that you've been doing studies of muscle and bone along with the nude studies, i think post 103 is a nice example of your improvement on the human arm. now you should do more of these type of repetative studies for the rest of the body because most of your figures are out of proportion, especially around the torsos. As for the genie... i'm not sure if that's his skin or clothing, and it looks like his flesh has pealed of the middle of his torso. and i agree with redSpade about not being to identify this character as a genie... perhaps you could explain your ideas behind him? actually i think you could benefit putting this in the crtique section and get some suggestions and help from other people as well, anyways keep pushing man!

[Darktwin]

whats going on yautja, been looking through your sketchbook, good anatomy studies, keep it coming man, :)

[Moai]

Damn! I had no idea that it'd been so long since I commented here! So sorry, man. Really, I am. Hopefully I can make up for it with this critique.
So yeah, I heard that you were thinking of going to the workshop? I just bought my ticket a few days ago. Hopefully I'll see you there!

Post #100- You're increasingly thinking of the form as a 3D shape, which is excellent. Keep doing that. In addition to seeing through the figure and drawing lines around it, try to reduce its segments into simple shapes. For example, the arms are kinda cylinders, and the ribcage is kind of an irregular oval. Simple shapes are easier to imagine as 3D than a complex, bumpy, organic form. Also, pay more attention to the proportions. Constantly measure with a sighting stick to see that your lengths are in proportion with each other, and that the angles on your paper match the angles of what you see. Also, watch out for asymmetry. Some of your figures have thick right legs and thin left legs, for example. And pay special attention to how the joins behave as they move.
Post #101- Nice Loomis studies! They seem pretty accurate and proportional, except that the muscle guy's legs are a bit squashed, and skeleton man's head is a bit small. And you're applying what you've learned with your figure drawings to your more imaginative drawings. One example that I'm especially noticing is the somewhat foreshortened arm on that female being. There is still quite a bit of flatness, however. Just keep trying to force yourself to draw 3D shapes.
Post #103- Anatomy studies are looking good. The same crits that I mentioned before would apply here too, though.
Genie- This has improved loads from the chaotic mess that it was before. The cool (color temperature-wise) green/red color scheme in most of the image is really working for me. The yellowish glow down at the bottom not so much. It just isn't harmonizing with the rest of the colors, in my view. As for other considerations, remember that the eye is drawn to contrast. Not just value contrast, any kind of contrast at all. What do you want people to look at most? The genie's face? If so, then make it different from the rest of the picture in value contrast, color, detail level, or a combination of different things. Just don't make it so different that it doesn't seem to belong in the same image anymore. The outline of the genie could use some softening, especially in the shadow areas. That'd make if fell more a part of its environment, and less pasted on. And apply some of your anatomy learnings to its arms and torso, which are rather formless and squishy.

Now, post again! It's been too long since either of us posted here.

[Turisas]

May I suggest you add some golden accessories on this genie of yours. As it is, gold with certain middle-eastern clothing make great detail and gives more of the nature of the genie idea. And it gives more of a concerntrated focus point on the genie.
Propably the easiest way to make it look like a genie is to add a huge hat with a gem in front that has a feather attached to it.

I also figured that genies are supposed to be smooth and they would look as if they 'floated' through time and space all the time, even if they stood still, so your hard edges may need some smoothing Now, if you 'traded' the smoothness from the top with the harshness of the bottom, it would look way better. Doesn't need to be too smooth, but as it is, below the torso everything should be smoother than the rest.

Not sure if this is helpful, I'm quite tired from all the reading for school. So don't trust on this one too much. But try it, perhaps? Maybe not on the actual piece but try playing with the colours on something else.

[jdeegz]

you should keep form in mind more, your drawings are all pretty flat.
think of the basic shapes that make up your figures and use contor lines to show the round, or sharpness of the shape.

in digital images do not use white and black for highlights and shadows, it doesnt look nice.

your arm studies were gettin good, just keep drawing and your minds eye will catch up with your hand eventually.

[amer-nazri]

great to see more anatomy studies, they look great! make sure to keep repeating them, remembering their shapes and relearning them constantly, and it'll become muscle memory (dont mind the pun). I cant help but ffeel that your colours are a little grey and muddy, and more high chroma colours to your palette, and some umphh to them. also remember that where there is sunlight, there is warmth, and your colours need to reflect that, by adding a bit of orange/red in areas where he is exposed to sunlight. Great improvement, keep it up!!

[Yautja892]

Thanks everyone for the Comments, I'll finally be returning the favor and checking out your books soon. I''ll respond a little later.


Wow it's been almost 3 months since I've updated. :nohope: Finally done with school now, well at least I think I am ... still waiting back for the grades and finalizing everything. Apologize SSG guys... for the inactivity for awhile but I'm back for good. No more distraction from school now just work. :)

Well before I show my large update. I have a New Years Resolution and thats to have 2008 be the year of major improvement for me. Hopefully now without the distraction of school I'll be able to focus on my art fully.

For the art update its a combination of some sketches I did for different classes. The Graphic Design stuff was for my Internship I had over the past few months. These are some of the things I had to do. All the sketches have major problems in them so by all means give me crits. Sorry about the large sizes should have shrunk some of the images. References were used heavily for the soldiers since they had to match historically. Well enough blabbing...

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[Mochachinoprince]

Finally got a chance to visit your sb again...everyone here is right...your improvement has been tremendous...

It's just awesome to see how helpfull people here are...the criticisms are very constructive and to the point...

Dude, I know you have a very great work ethic...so as long as you keep on cranking out those studies and sketches (and I know you will) then your improvements should be skyrocketing...

I know it can be tempting to go right into rendering but construction lines really are a must...and a problem I used to run into before was that I wouldn't understand any of my construction lines....lol but really just thinking of the paper, canvas, etc as a window to your own world (as cheezy as it may sound) was a really neat mental trick into seeing 3d objects instead of 2d lines...

the studies and sketches are coming along great...i noticed though that some of them would be askewed...

I used to run into this problem but i noticed that it was more of a postural problem...either i'd draw with my face hovering like an inch away from the paper or way of to one side or in a weird angle...

see if you may be doing one of these things...

i'd also like to see more construction lines in your sketches...don't commit too much to the final drawing and focus more on the primary shapes of what you are trying to illustrate...

more power to you man, and happy sketching ^_^

--Tommy--

ps

Dude...I didn't even know that UAT did those kind of contests...more contests like that would be a great start into solidifying an art community there...was I eve there when they did that? damn..coulda had a tablet or sumn' hehehe :D

[Turisas]

Hello there Yautja.
You're doing good so far. Those poster illustrations hit me as a surprise. Those are great! Also, your figure studies are good, as usual, but you still seem to have trouble with using the knowledge in your own works. Or, at least it's not coming along very quick. My tip would have been exactly the same as Tommy's, so I'll give another.

When working on something, construct the base, like Tommy Said. I believe you do this, but it's a base. Then, when starting to work out the anatomy on the construction, draw certain things from reference. Example. The base of an arm. Simple and quite surreal if rendered directly. Instead of rendering it and fleshing it out with shades, build it up with sketch lines using reference pics. When done, erase the constructional sketch and THEN start to render.
This practice was very useful to me and I started to learn anatomy in a matter of weeks and days instead of months when I used it. Even though, everyone learns differently, so I won't guarantee anything. But maybe you should test it out sometime =)

[angelo cordon]

somebody needs an update :p you're almost 30 months overdue!!! :)

[Yautja892]

Monsterkill: Hey man thanks for the comments, you and tommy are both right I need to push my construction and really work from reference when I'm stuck on a certain part.


redSpade: Hey man thanks for pushing me on updating. I'm still in the process of moving from AZ to OH and have only have limited access to the internet right now. Soon I'll have frequent updates for you all.


Some works from the past two weeks..... have another large update I'll post tomorrow. Crits and comments are appreciated. Apologize for the quality, a little blurry. Had to use a camera, don't have access to a scanner currently. :oneye:



Some imagination sketches:

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Some Skull Studies:

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Next update will have lots of life drawings and studies.... :yayca:

[amer-nazri]

Great to see the anatomy studies dood, keep em up!

[Yautja892]

Amer: Thanks man will do. :bounce:


Life drawings, of random things..... my pets, people, objects etc and some simple perspective studies.... going to be pushing both of these things a lot. Most of the pen sketches range from 2-4 minutes.

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[Yautja892]

Some more life sketches mostly of people. Thanks for looking...

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Have some bigger pieces in the works will show when I have some more progress on them. :yayca:

[Yautja892]

Today marks my :yayca: One Year Sketchbook Anniversary!!!!! :yayca: Just wanted to thank all of the SSG members for their critiques and support over the year and to everyone else that has commented. I look forward for 2008 being the biggest year for serious improvement for myself. :pump: Thanks again for everyone visiting and for the comments.


Some more Life and Perspective sketches... and a random little creature sketch. Some more finished works coming soon. :bounce:

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[Yautja892]

Here are some life sketches, some imagination sketches, and studies.... Crits and comments much appreciated.

Demon Sketch, currently reworking his leg anatomy, and pose. (wip)

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Life Sketch

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Some faces from imagination

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Random creature scene (wip)

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A perspective sketch.... will be doing a lot more of these and getting into some envior's, vehicles, and hard surface objects... like bots, machinery etc...

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Next update will have some portrait sketches, and two personal pieces I'm working on. :muscle:

[Sealegs]

Hey Yautja892, How u been? I need to check back here more often... Looks like u have been learning,i definitely see improvement... Nice skull studies... I noticed, that ur sketches from imagination and study, have a much more "confident" line, than your life sketches...(that seem to have a less confident, hairy line) Try to bring that confidence over to your drawings from life, And keep things simple, don't worry about the little details, thing of the big shapes and forms, then you can get more precise. You are looking good tho, keep it up! :} I want to see more!

[Moai]

Yautja!!!! Sorry it's been so damn long, man! And sorry that I have to being each post with apologizing for being so long! I am such a damn procrastinator. I've been pretty busy, though, but there is still a significant element of procrastination.
Anyway, your images.
Post 119 (http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1574161&postcount=119)- This is easily one of the best posts you've given us, if not the best. The critter doodles and the posters are particularly good.
Here are some pros and cons.
+The creatures look cool. There's a lot of variety in them, you're incorporating elements from many different kinds of animals, and your technique and line quality looks pretty good.
-Your knowledge of anatomy and form could be very much improved. I can't remember if you've checked out my mentoring thread or not, but anyway I posted quite a bit of material on the features of a generic mammal skeleton that people seem to have found useful.
+Those two historical soldiers and the modern soldier look great! Those are the best humans you've drawn yet! Are they studies from reference? The line quality on the two historical guys is quite an improvement for you.
-The line quality on the more modern soldier is rather fuzzy. There are some small proportional and foreshortening errors on these guys, most noticeable on the Roman guy.
+/-I can see that you're still having difficulties applying what you learn from your studies to your work from imagination. This is something we all deal with. Keep studying, and try to really learn anatomy and form and whatnot. If you can draw a correct image without reference, then you know you've succeeded in incorporating that particular information into your brain. If you try to draw something without reference and you find yourself at a loss for how to draw a certain thing from a certain angle, that means you need to study more. Despite what I said about you having difficulty applying your studies, though, that thief guy really is an improvement from your previous work.
+Your robots and creepy freaky guys are looking better. Your line quality and handling of shading and texture has improved.
-You're still having trouble imagining these guys in three dimensions, and it shows in the poses you put them in and how you draw the forms. You also have a lot of nonsense details, lots of little lines and facets and gizmos, that don't really make sense of have an obvious function.

Regrettably I must go off to work now, so this crit is a WIP.:rendered:

[Yautja892]

Sealegs: Hey man thanks for coming around and visiting, yeah I agree my line quality is a little messy, and with this recent update I tried to keep the lines clean and simple with the two life drawings. I'll be trying to watch that from now on thanks for the comment. I'll make sure to keep watching your progress. :)

Moai: Thanks A LOT for the crits. I agree with everything you said. I'm especially working on my perspective, anatomy, and form. As for the historical drawings yes those were references heavily, I put that on the header when I updated those just to clarify things. Yes I also noticed that some of imagination sketches don't have a function or purpose and a lot of gizmo's. The past few weeks I've been going through panda's workshop notes and everyone else's and I see a big part of my problem is I don't fully think when I'm sketching and just mess around with ideas and play with shapes, or get carried away. One of the big comments that struck me was this one by Lorne Manning. " Allow your artwork to portray and explore your general outlook on life". "Base concept art off of a message, things that people don't usually see or think about." Pretty much the entire workshop notes has changed my outlook on art a lot. Thanks again Moai. :)


Art update- A small update, A large collage piece I did for my fiance for Valentine's Day. Some more life sketches, a quick still life, and a random 3 AM sketch. :bounce:


Valentine's Day collage 18X24 in ( obviously used a camera, and killed the values, even after editing in Photoshop and some closeups.

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Quick Still life sketch and a close up.

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Some life sketches

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Lack of Sleep.... :shrug:

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[Moai]

Hello again, Yautja. Sorry for not finishing my previous critique. In order to save myself some time, I'll just lump in some things I've noticed from your previous posts into my critique of this most recent post.
+Your rendering skills have gotten a lot better. Those skull drawings at the top of this page are an amazing achievement for you. It's obvious that you spent quite a while observing and measuring your reference, and were patient in your rendering. Another thing you might have noticed from the workshop notes is the emphasis on taking your time to get things right. You did that with these skulls.:thumbsup::rendered:
Your improved skills are also apparent in your Valentine and still life from this most recent update. Cool idea drawing those shapes and only rendering inside the shapes! You'll probably want to practice more with completely-rendered images, but that's still a cool idea.
To take your renderings even further, make a point to study the pencil techniques of other artists. One of your main jobs as an artists is to absorb influences, after all. Two sketchbooks that I've subscribed to with some good examples of pencil techniques are those of Alex Alexandrov (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81143&page=31) (formerly known as Whiteeeeee, linked to the last page because his earlier pencils aren't as good), and Steak-Tron (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35191). Jens also has some neat pencils, but I don't have a link to his sketchbook handy. The Massive Black thread in the Finally Finished section also has many great pencil examples (Marko Djurdjevic and Wesburt are also very good pencilers [and I got to look at Wesburt's sketchbook at the workshop!!!!]). Many of these artists use hatch marks to describe form and create value, which is a handy and fun technique.
+Your life sketches have improved just in the different posts on this page.
-I've given you this critique a time or two before, so I apologize for repeating myself, but you have noticeable difficulties when it comes to applying lessons learned from your anatomy studies to your drawings from imagination, and even your drawings from life. Many of your people from life have little to no hint of the bone and muscle structure underneath. The life drawing from your most recent post is better, but it's still somewhat lacking. How can you improve this? Hardcore study of anatomy and the human form is all I can recommend. Figure out where the bone is directly under the skin and where it is underneath a layer of muscle.
-Also, in your drawings of people, you are using symbols instead of actual forms. Now, all art is composed of symbols; it's only different colored and textures on a surface after all, and our brain interprets it as something it recognizes. Thus, it's a symbol. However, your symbols are more primitive and less well-observed than they should be. For example, in the picture of you and your fiance (or finance, as you called her :P), you used simple almond shapes for the eyes. Real eyes are more complicated than that. The curve of the lids are asymmetrical, and the top lid and the bottom lid have different curves, and you must imagine these curves as they travel over the spherical form of the eyeball. This all takes place in an eye socket, the bony structure of which greatly influences the form of the brow and the area around the eye. Your noses are also based on primitive symbols, not taking into account the complexity of the different planes and the different pieces of cartilage that form the nose. Your lips are also noticeably the lips of a beginner. You drew an outline all the way around the lips, when in reality lips are almost never that well-defined. There are lost edges all over the place on lips. And even when lips are that well-defined, you should try to show that definition with value, rather than just line.
Now, I'm not saying that you should completely define every plane and bony structure of the face. That would make the face look weird. Just expand your knowledge of these forms. In short, keep on studying!:rendered: The progress is noticeable, man. Keep it up!

[angelo cordon]

i think you should try using a brush pen. it will help you improve your line weights. ive noticed that you feather your line work on some of your sketches, mostly on life studies and then you're more confident with your imagination studies. which makes sense but you should also be more confident with your life drawing.

[Turisas]

I really haven't got anything new to say. You're doing good with studies, moai got most of the stuff I noticed, and so on. And I'm lazy. Yeah.
You're doing far better than I when it comes to studying and practicing. I have lost the touch on it. Keep your grip and keep up the good work! See ya next update.

[AndresArias]

I miss those sketch sessions drawing from life...really help! Dude I Love the collage piece I like the pencils but I think a colored piece could look very very awesome

[angelo cordon]

lol black velvet is an essential piece to a contemporary still life :p

update!

[Yautja892]

Moai: Hey man thanks again for all the crits. Yeah all of the artist that you've mentioned I have checked out and studied quiet a bit. Especially Marko and Wes I have a large collection of their works, and I have Marko's DVD which has helped tons. Maybe haven't studied enough of their works. Could always try do some direct copies of some of their sketches to help gain the experience the apply that back into my own sketches and studies. Yeah form, and anatomy is a big area I need to push, I guess slowly but surely I'll get it.

redSpade: Yeah I agree my life sketches don't have that confidence compared to my imagination studies, I'll have to check out some brush pens when I get the chance. Thanks. :)

MonsterKill: Its ok, thanks for the encouragement, there are plenty of mistakes in my work. Don't worry about being to hard, or anything I want you to be. :)

TwoAsix: Hey man thanks for finally giving me a comment..:) I'll return the favor when you get your book up. Yeah a color version of the collage would have look a billion times better probably. :bounce:

redSpade: Ha, yes of course.... :vodkamachine:


New update, Have a mix of some imagination studies, two quick life drawings, and some simple but very informative loomis studies. Have a lot more but really not worth showing, mostly a lot of perspective things with my notes, not the best thing to show on here. The past week or so been trying to really push my values, and lighting. Still having some problems in having the lighting read correctly. Also been really trying to push my ideas more and have real meaning to them. Next update will have some progress shots of my old revised sculpture, and some color studies.


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[angelo cordon]

Also been really trying to push my ideas more and have real meaning to them.

agreed. sometimes when i really just dont know what to draw, i would look in the dsg threads and pick one topic and go for it. or have a random person give me a random word. its a great stepping stone to figure out what you're going to draw and from there on, you can think more about it.

[Yautja892]

redspade: Yeah one big thing I've used in the past for idea generation is play music, and then out of the music ask yourself what do you see and try to put that down visually. Usually for me ambient and movie soundtracks are great for that. Justin Lassen, Random Rab, and Fearless soundtrack are great ones that come to mind. Not sure what your music taste is , but you might like them. Here is a link to some of Lassen's work.... http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3563


Art update: Holding off on my sculpture for now. I realized that one big problem is that I'll do studies and only remember say half of the shapes, names etc... Then I would have to go back or look up references to make sure I get it down right. So I decided that every future study I'll do the study then do multiple more of the same studies until I get the shape, and bone names down and then redraw them from my own memory to make sure I get them. So I did that for the skull, now I can now feel more confident on recalling it from memory now. Also did two quick color studies, and yes both have proportion problems especially the flower one. Eyes to small and or the space between the nose and eye is to large. So anyways enough blabbing. :)


quick color study, about an hour.
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another quick color study, about 40mins.
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Studies......

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[RandAlThor]

Hey Yau, def improvement in your later pencils, keep pushing it dude ;-)

[Trashy]

Hi Yau,

It's been awhile man. Sweet improvements and your linework is looking more confidant. Those skull studies on 123# are fantastic. Those color studies look good also, your hard work is paying off for sure. Nice updates!

[Yautja892]

Rand and Trashy: Thanks guys for visiting and commenting, means a lot.


Long overdue update, kind of slowed down over the past few weeks, here is a couple of things. A Character Design sketch, thinking about pushing him further and doing some color action poses, and putting him in a scene of some sort. Also pushing further from the skull studies I did earlier and doing lot's of head studies from Loomis. Also wanted to post my new art schedule and wanted to get comments on it. Maybe trying to do to much, not enough, missing things etc... Crits and comments are welcomed. :)


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2008 Art Schedule

Sunday- Visual Library (Day of research) search and do studies of said topic of choice. Gather references, read over techniques, history, fashion, animals, machinery, many topics as possible. Go to library, museums, zoo’s etc. Topic could be broad to specific in nature. Do said topic for 2 weeks at least.

Chosen topic: N/A


Monday - Human and Animal Anatomy studies and redrawing from memory. (Loomis, Bridgman, Peck, Life, photos, etc)


Tuesday – Life/Figure/Self-Portrait Drawings and Paintings, (objects, people, anything from life)


Wednesday – Perspective and Environment Drawings and Paintings (Studies and Imagination) Try and keep it specific. Do multiple views/angles of same object. Ex. 1, 2, and 3 point perspective of same object.


Thursday- (40%) Color and (60%) Value Studies from life and imagination (Digital, traditional mediums) also use day for learning new mediums, and experimenting. Watch tutorials, learn new techniques etc. Focus on technique.


Friday - Free for all day (Imagination) apply what I’m learning from every other day to my own creations: characters, creatures, bots, environments, vehicles etc.


Saturday - Day off (Use for relaxing, hanging out, watching movies, cooking, learning new things etc.)

[angelo cordon]

awesome schedule man! i think i might have to do the same exact thing since im trying to get back into my fundamentals. and of which, i asked this question and bookmarked it a whlie ago and i think it will help both of us out: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=119914


good luck!

[amordecosmos]

I think the anatomy of your drawings is definetly improving! I like your cartoony drawings, like your first two digital paintings on page 1.

[Yautja892]

amordecosmos: Thanks for the comments and visiting. The paintings on page one are actually Large charcoal drawings. Thanks again.

redSpade: Thanks, yeah the schedule for me is mainly to push my fundamentals and I have some major milestone's that I want to have done by years end that I didn't uploaded. One of those is to have a solid understand in my fundamentals of perspective, form, anatomy,lighting, color, composition etc etc.. Yeah I checked out the link, creatix gave some great suggestions. Proms tutorials are really great, I'll check out the other links for sure. :)



Art update:

Pushing further on the loomis studies, and then trying to do some of my own. Waiting until next week to start my schedule. Also will be finally finishing my sculpture. So next update will have sculpture pics.


Trying some heads of my own.
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Studies...
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[Turisas]

Great job on the studies, I like them. You have got some trouble using the knowledge you gather yourself on your imaginative work, but I can clearly see progress. Keep on studying and doing imaginative work, that's my only advice for now. As it is, I'm not entirely sure how to help with getting these studies down to memory, as I can see nothing you would be doing wrong.
Maybe try this for size, might work. Even if it doesn't, it's good to try, right? Anyways: For example, study different parts of the face. Muscles, bones and such. Obsever the images you've done and try to build them together in your mind, grab another sheet of paper and try drawing a face following the thought you have. Have another observation moment to your studies, and try again. Repeat a few times. After this, relax, do something else. For a long time. 2-6hours. Then try again without observation to your studies and compare with your older work to see if there is any clear progress with your skills. Please do tell when/if you try this and tell me the results. :)
I have tried this a few times and for me there was a bit of clear progress, not much, but a noticeable amount. Lets see how it's with you, as everyone learns differently.

[Yautja892]

MonsterKill: Hey man thanks a lot for the comments, I'm actually sort of doing that right in away. I guess not really focus on one actual thing but I'll try give it a try the next time I work on some more heads/faces or anything for that matter.


Art update:

Have a mix of some still life's, some imagination sketches, some early wip's, and some anatomy stuff. The droid design is revision of an older design that I did awhile ago. Still a wip, have to clean it up a lot, fix some perspective issues, and other things on it. Will paint it him later on. Also going to do some orthographic views for him as well. Also a wip version of my sculpture, just starting to block in the muscles on it. Have a long way to go with it. For his lower and upper body, I'm going with some type of fish scales for the bottom and some more reptile like scales for parts of the top. For some of the imagination head sketches I'm actually happy with two of the heads, still a long way to go. Oh also just recently watched the Frank Frazetta Biography, El Coro Weapon Design , Andrew Jones Z brush Thumbnails, Jason Chan Painter Sketch, and Feng Zhu's Environmental Thumbnail DVD's all were great, and I would greatly recommend all of them, especially Feng's DVD. Learned a lot from that one.

New Revised Droid (WIP)

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Rough Droid Thumbnails (Finding Pose/Angle)

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Still Life...

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[Reject-D]

nice improvement from your first page!!

keep it coming! and dont stop those studies!

[Dorkthrone]

There's some definite improvement here. Keep it up.

[dorobo]

hey man dont stop if u realy want it ;) i see you can do this. i think u know what i mean

[Yautja892]

Reject_D, ninjacat11,dorobo: Thanks guys for visiting and leaving comments. I left some comments in your sb's.


Art Update: Well for this art update mostly a lot of sketches and studies. Some Imagination sketches, anatomy studies, some still life's, and two quick value studies. I'm currently working on three bigger projects and will show progress when I get further on them. One is a droid painting with ortho's, a Illustration, and finishing up my sculpture. Also currently learning watercolors so expect some more color in here soon. :blahblah:

As for my art schedule, I'm going to be adjusting it a little bit. I think I big problem with how it is currently is that I'm switching up my topic to much to fast. Instead of doing a said topic for one day and then switching I'm going to try for doing a said topic for a couple days or maybe a week then switch to something different. This way I'll be able to retain the information more and can recall later from imagination. Enough blabbing, here's some art....:lounge:

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[AndresArias]

Solid update with lots to see: I dig your imagination pieces, very emotional stuff
I like the head studies mixed with the imagination heads but I see a lot of proportional issues…do not be afraid to map out where features on face go with dots and lines.
One major issue I am seeing in all work is lack of line quality or line variation, I have a similar problem when sketching. What I like to do is create the initial sketch then copy that sketch either with tracing paper or freehand but strictly concentrating on my line quality and making sure my stroke has intention if that makes any sense. That technique has helped me but I would definitely research as I am still light years away from becoming a drawing expert!
Overall great update showing improvement! keep it up!:yayca:

[Yautja892]

twoAsix: Hey man thanks for the crits, yeah line quality is something I need to pay more attention to even when sketching. Hope to see you get a book on here when you get time. :)


Art update: Just a few self-portraits... they all have some proportion problems and the likeness isn't completely there. They all seem to have a different feeling to them. Kind of like the line one, even though it doesn't look like me.

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[Yautja892]

Some thumbnails and a design flyer I did awhile ago. I know not the most interesting thing, but it was for an art test. Was for a design job.


As for the thumbnails some are ok, some aren't. Did a mix of digital and analog. Still getting use to the copic markers, and it shows. Seems the digital ones are a little stronger. Kind of feel behind on my schedule, and slowly working on my bigger projects in the works. Life gets in the way I guess. :wtf: Next update will hopefully have some progress shots of my driod painting, and some more progress on my sculpture.


Thumbnails....

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I know not as interesting as a monster or something, but I've found that graphic design can really help my other areas of art.

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[Moai]

Hey there, Yautja! It's been a while since I was last, here, huh? I'm so sorry about that. Life has been busy for me lately, plus I'm a terrible procrastinator. Most of my critiquing energy has been directed towards my mentoring thread, as well. Anyway, I'm really happy to see all these studies you're doing, and how seriously you are about improving at your art. You have already grown a lot since the first page of this sketchbook.
I'm only going to critique and comment on the last one or two posts in this sketchbook, because there's been so many updates since I was last year that I'd never be done if I tried to critique all of them.
I think the practice schedule you posted a while back is an excellent one, by the way. I read that you've changed it up a bit since then, though. Just find the schedule that works best for you, and stick with it! It takes will power!

Here's what I think of your thumbnails. Doing thumbnails is all about being loose and quick, and trying to create as many arrangements of shapes as possible. It's kind of the nature of the technique that you'll make many unattractive thumbnails in addition to the few that catch your eye. I'll go through these and tell you which ones capture my eye, and try to explain to you what I think it is that makes them more successful than the others.
In the first image, #3 is by far the most interesting to my eye. It has some nice rhythms and repeating shapes, and suggests a good personality. Notice how the upper limbs and head are broad at the bottom and angle upwards to a point. The lower limbs and tentacles are also broad at the bottom and angle upwards towards the being's waist. Having repeating rhythms like this seems important to making a unified design, and it's something that I've been experimenting with in my own designs lately. The tentacles on the lower body and the fin-like shapes on the upper body, coupled with its large, blank eye, give it an eerie, otherworldly personality, something that is intimidating simply because we don't know its intentions or abilities. The character/personality that design choices create is another extremely important aspect of design that I've been thinking about lately.
#4, with its thin frame and blowing rags, has a good personality. Some sort of corpse bride type character. The shapes aren't too good, though. The arms don't really have a realistic human arm shape, and are too thick, and the lower body does not suggest the presence of a pelvis or legs. #5 has some good points about it, too. Its weird head and the shape of its shoulders and upper arms are kind of mirror shapes, and using the same shape multiple times in a design is good. The shapes and pose suggest a sort of brawny, hot-headed space cadet type character. The rest of the thumbnails on this sheet also represent interesting ideas, but they aren't really composed of good shapes and rhythms. I think one of your problems is that you're using lumpy, sort of random brushstrokes. Try sketching in cleaner, more geometric shapes, and as always, go from the larger shapes to the finer shapes.
The second thumbnail sheet is perhaps the strongest one. #1 is interesting because of the heavy, pillar-like body, and how that contrasts with the light, floating head. the shapes are attractive as well. In #2, the head and the torso/belly are the same shape, only inverted, and as I said repeating shapes are good. The diagonal lines on the side of the body and head are also good repeating elements, and they strengthen the general trend of the shapes to sloper upwards toward the top. #3 has a great gesture. It has sort of a vindictive, defiant stance and a hard glare. The shapes don't make it clear exactly what this character is, though. #15 has a great, needle-like shape, and all the details complement the general shape nicely, such as the little lines angling upwards from the shoulders. The dome shaped head and the wild hair provide contrast from the rest of the design and a nice focal point. #18 has a good stance and shape. Its shapes are subtle, not as obvious as #2 or #15, but they work well together. #19 has a great sense of character and action. You can tell he's a tall, lanky cowboy, with his upper body bundled up, and I get the strong impression that he's reaching for the guns on his hips. He has a tall, ominous feeling that suggests a villain, or at least an anti-hero. The shapes he's composed of aren't the best, but he's a good character nonetheless. I like how #23 is such a solid, rounded, column-like shape, and how you the rule of thirds when deciding its proportions. These are the thumbnails that I think are the best on this page. Pretty much all of these could be refined into very interesting ideas, but many just don't look good right now. Here's some that I think are not really successful, but are interesting nonetheless: 8, 14, 16, 22, 25, 28.
In the next image, #5 and #6 both have interesting shapes and proportions, and #10 has a lot of potential. The rest I don't think are successful, and seem rather careless. As with the other thumbnails, though, with some further refinement every single one of them could be improved.
#6 is the only one that strikes me as being somewhat successful in the next image. Many of the rest are too distracted by small lines and details. Avoid those in thumbnails.
None of the thumbnails in the last sheet strike me as successful, I'm sorry to say.
For the graphic design image, I really like the colors and layout. The shapes are strong, and I like how there are many diagonal lines leading towards the open door in the center. This and the warm colors in the doorway really invite you in, which I'm sure is the intent. The only flaw is that those grungy shapes and forms in the borders of the text boxes feel really out of place. They look cool, but those textures just don't belong in a real estate company.:rendered:
Excellent work, man. I've taken much too long already, so unfortunately I can't go back further and critique earlier posts. I'll be hear for your next update, though.

[Turisas]

I see mighty progress here. A noticeable amount, at least.
Still love those studies and such, but there's still problems I've mentioned earlier. And I think it's not necessary to say, but still, I must say that you have conquered some of them. Good job. =)
Moai pretty much got everything I was about to say of your recent work, but as usual; with a lot mroe I could handle typing at a time.
You sink us in your shadow, Moai. Shame on you. =P

[aedman]

Nice progress happening in this sketchbook, I like seeing the various directions- studies from life, self portraits, anatomy, concept design, graphic design- I think variety can bring some surprising elements to areas of art making that don't seem directly connected. Keep up the good work and keep posting your graphic design stuff if you feel like it, it's nice to see something out of the ordinary in these sketchbooks.

[Yautja892]

Moai: Thanks for the taking the time to crit the thumbs and Design piece. I agree with everything you said. Yeah I should have probably taken the texture effect on out the design piece, that or made it a lot more subtle. Anyways I apologize for being a way for soooo long. Look below for the explanation on that. I noticed you moved to Oregon was it ? How is that gong for ya ? Well anyways I'll stop by to your book as soon as possible.

Turisas: Thanks for the comments man, I'll make sure to come around to your book as soon as possible.


aedman: Thanks for kind words, I'm really enjoying what your doing in your book as of late. I'll make sure to stop by soon.



Start of Rant….Well it's been about 2 months since the last time I've updated. Lot's has been happening since then. For the past say 5 to 6 months, things haven’t been going well. Moved back to my hometown in OH, from AZ ran into lots of problems with jobs, relationship, and leaving friends behind. Basically changed everything I was doing and knew for the past four years. I allowed things to bug me way to much, to the point where I didn’t even have any motivation to work on my own art. Once that happened I realized that I made a bad choice on going back to OH. I needed to do what was best for me, and not what others thought, so I decided to return to my AZ for good. At least here, I have other friends and artists to work with and that share the same mentality that I have with art, and to constantly push each other. Back home I had my family which is the only positive thing I can say about my hometown. I can say that I’m myself again, and to anyone that is having problems with say work, relationships, and or anything else that is affecting what makes you happy in life, you need to tell yourself it’s time for a change. I know it’s obvious, but I a lot of people just settle, never settle. Keep working towards your goals, whatever they might be and do it. End of rant….:lounge:

Art update in next post....

[Yautja892]

Creatures Sketches....

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Random sketches..
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Some Studies....
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more stuff to post later..... :yayca:

[Moai]

Hey there, Yautja! Sorry for leaving that last update sitting there so long without commenting on it.
As usual, nice progress and improvement in your images. That last set of anatomy studies is great. Keep up with those. I'm happy to see that you're paying attention to the skeleton. There's an endless amount of things to learn about the skeleton alone when studying anatomy. I've been studying the skeleton for about eight months now, and I still don't feel ready to move on to muscles!
For the next image up, I'm also glad to see that simplified human figure. You're breaking things down into more basic shapes and visualizing them from all sides, not just the front. For the female figure on the right, it's a good attempt to apply what you learned, but it has issues. The neck is too long and the arms are different lengths. When you next draw a human figure, measure the proportions carefully. Once you've measured proportions often enough, they'll be internalized and you'll be able to "eyeball" it more successfully.
I like the little purple love alien. Nice foreshortening on the hands. Did you use reference?
For the top creature, nice lighting, especially on the face. There are some issues of asymmetry and flatness going on, though. His right eyestalk, the longer and thinner one, looks great, but his left one, the thicker one, is flatter and isn't even with the other. The arms and the shoulder area are somewhat flat. Apply what you learned with that simplified figure that you drew. The area where the neck and shoulders meet the upper torso is a challenging area on the human figure. Pay special attention to it. The bug-like lower body looks good.
The next freaky creature is not lit quite as well and is a bit more flat all around than the previous creature. Nothing really new I can say about that, just the same old thing about imagining it first in simple shapes before drawing details over it.
I'm glad you're back in a happier place in life.:rendered:

[MJ_Alcazar]

Wow, some really cool stuff in here. I see you are improving a lot. Nice stuff with the skeleton studies, I should probably do some of those too to help get my art better. Keep it up, you're doing well!

[Moai]

Merry Christmas, man!

[Yautja892]

:dead: BACK FROM THE DEAD :dead: ...... got my ticket for the workshop, can't wait !!!:yayca: Hopefully see some of you soon.


Life and Reference .......


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[Yautja892]

Other stuff......:rocker:


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A gift for my dad!

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WIP
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Lot of emotions + Drum&Bass + New Markers = don't know :lounge:
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[AndresArias]

yo yo yo...bout timmme sir! studies are coming along...love the silhouettes thumbs.
i can see Dan n your observation sketches which although are done quickly could use a little more measuring for proportions i.e. arm length etc..
n the other stuff very interesting looking bunch of characters...like to see those developed more to find out their back story if any. the truck piece looks a little off probably due to the bend of paper...probably to big to scan.

digging that wip, crit on that is to watch the eyes and nose not sure if you are using reference pic, but those areas look a little off.

Anyway keep it and see you in the Big D!!!

[dorobo]

woot! huge improvement since last visit mate, keep goin :mod:

[Trashy]

Hey Yautja,

It's been awhile how are things man? Dude lot's of improvement in here and I like what your doing with those human figures. Gotta get back into that myself. Also I like that pen and marker study. That semi look great. Keep pushing man and way to go!

By the way check your inbox, I sent you a email:)

[angelo cordon]

that ideation page is pretty sweet! Would love to see more of those and you developing those thumbs further!

[LumoGraphite]

KEVINN, like those gestures ya got going there, keep those going and your anatomy studies. I know you have a lot of projects going but make some time man! Focus on your shape relationships, remember shape and value depict reality not detail :)

[Liz Edwards]

Great progress! Keep those anatomy studies up, you're getting there :D

[Auren]

Your practice is really paying off! Keep it up! Those character thumbs are pretty neat. I like the hands too. You've really improved a lot with them.

[Moai]

Lookin' good, man! Your rendering skills are improving, your sense of shape and mass is getting very strong, and your designs are just as weird and wacky as ever. Keep it up!

[Yautja892]

Wow long time no post, still chucking away....... :painting: Thanks for the comments everyone.


Andy: Thanks for the crits man! Reverie was such a blast! Was a life changing experience! Many good memories. Miss ya buddy, Nice talking to ya the other day and I'm sure I'll see ya soon.

dorobo : Thanks for visiting, and I can say the same to you. :yayca:

angelo cordon : Hey man, glad to see you around. Thanks for visiting. I probably will develop them down the road. Working on other stuff currently. I'll pay you a visit soon.

Trashy : Thanks! Also thanks for the email, I still want to get our group together in Tempe/Phoenix. Let me know how your schedule is and if you ever come up to the area. Would be great to meet and sketch.

sPCLaW : Will do man.... Let me know when you want to work on the barge drawings. Oh and 4 more weeks...... time to FUCK SHIT UP!!! :pump:

Liz Edwards : Thanks for visiting, and I will surely do. :)

Auren: Hey thanks for the comments. Was nice meeting you in Dallas.

Moai : Thanks for visiting old sketch member! :teeth: really enjoying what you been up too as of late. Really liked the portraits you posted recently. I'll have to pay you a visit sometime.


Here's a small update of some stuff.... working on some big projects and doing alot of studies. Getting into more perspective work, some portraits, and a long overdue personal piece. I'll show progress of those soon.



Some Life sketches & Studies...

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A Pencilator study. Always a big inspiration looking into his sketchbook. Was one of the first threads I visited Here back in 06. It totally changed my perspective on things. check it out if you haven't.

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Some imagination stuff.....

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Hopefully show some updates from my projects. Going to try and keep this more updated.

Until next time CA!

[kingkostas]

Hello mate, you have an interesting sketchbook because you have some nice progress here.Your pencils have become a lot better in overall :)
I think you have to keep up with understanding the human body more and more, to make your characters more functional in overall.But that will come as long as you keep up the practice.
So keep up and thnx for stopping by my sketchbook :)
see ya

[Michaelsama]

Yo droppin bye to check out your updates! I didn't know that you had been working on 3D as well. Next time we hang we need to work on some o' that stuff as well!!! Oh btw!

I'm bout do drop a big ol' update on CA!!!!

[jatherip]

the pencils are gettin so good! from update to update (probably because you update so little.....)
UPDATE!

[Yautja892]

kingkostas: Thanks for visiting! yeah will be attending some figure sessions soon, so that will keep me focused on my anatomy. It surely needs it. :lifedrawing:

Michaelsama: Thanks for dropping by mike, I'll be looking forward to that big update! I miss our coffee meets, we need to do some more!!! :wtf:

Jatherip: Thanks, Ha you are right I need to update more often, I'm bad about that as of late. I should join another SSG group, that always helped me stay updated more. Thanks for visiting. I'll have to stop by and pay you a visit.



Just a small update on some family portraits, still work in progress have to add my aunts and uncles still. Also some sketches. Studying watercolors currently and doing some personal projects as of late I'll show more progress on those soon.

Grandma Painting, WIP...

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Sketches.......


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[LumoGraphite]

grammy!

[Yautja892]

LumoGraphite: Yep good old Grammy!!!!



Here is a small update of some imagination,life and studies. Getting ready for the Discovery program coming up can't wait! :yayca: Have some more work to scan from recent figure sessions, will post those when I get a hold of a camera. Too big for the scanner.


Creature Sketch

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Head Designs for a personal illustration called " The Source". Been planning this project for too long and need to just start it! It's a being that is the source of everything. Will show more when I get further along. Will contain a lot of metaphor/symbolism that I believe is most important to express, such as life, death, love, despair, fate etc.

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Still life ... WIP
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Life sketches
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Good old Bridgeman and Peck studies

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Blarg time for sleep..... :blah:

[Yautja892]

Some more family portraits I'm working on...


Have a big family, grandma portrait is finished. Now on to aunts and uncles.

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going to try and keep this updated more frequently !


Also wanted to link this thread in here, check it out! Some great music links

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=161476&page=1


If you not familiar with Somafm, check it out! Free internet radio.

http://somafm.com/


Getting into alot of podcast over the past year or so, check them out if you haven't already.

http://www.sidebarnation.com/my_weblog/

http://www.wippodcast.com/

http://ninjamountain.blogspot.com/

http://illustrationparty.blogspot.com/

[Amanda Kate]

Cool sketchbook here, try to keep your lines and forms organized. Keep studying and practicing! :)

[spawner187]

Hi Kevin I just saw your SB, is very cool, some stuff remind me Fellini a lot improvement, so are you joining to the DSG? see ya, keep it up.

[Alex Baer]

hey man, there's definitely been improvement with your studies, keep at it, but you should use more reference when it comes to your creatures and characters

[Yautja892]

Overdue update, here is some recent sketchbook stuff and wips.

Tattoo Project, still work in progress. 18X24 graphite
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Sketchbook doo dadssszzz:
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More Head studies for a personal project.
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Demon Lord Head Studies
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Demon Lord for Sketch Theaters monthly contest.
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some life and figure stuff coming soon! :bounce:

[Yautja892]

Some recent life and figure stuff.....


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Sketching at the Renaissance Festival
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Gestures

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[Yautja892]

Update on Tattoo Project:

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Some more sketchbook stuff:

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... until next time :bounce:

[Yautja892]

Here is a small update of some older scans I forgot to upload. Some more progress shot on the tattoo project and some life sketches and logo designs.


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Logo design sketches for a friends film/video project. Will be vectoring one soon.

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Life Sketches
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Crow and Tom Servo ! ... had a little too many drinks I guess. :vodkamachine:
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Getting back into some more color studies and just more studies in general very soon. Until next time ca. :yayca:

[Yautja892]

This month represents my 4th year Anniversary on CA! It's been a strange and crazy 4 years. I know my post count isn't that high considering I've been here for awhile and I haven't updated as frequently as I want or should but to be honest I don't believe in updating unless it's an update worth updating really. I have taken a break from here for quiet sometime, not sure why though? At least I keep this sketchbook going for my own documentation and journey. I really want to thank the community, anyone that has gave me suggestions/critiques over the few years. Everyone that was involved in the workshops and discovery program, downloads etc, thank you!! I also want to thank two people in particular. First one is Moai! Thanks for all the really great critiques when we had the old sketch group! Really missed that group, we had a nice one going on there for awhile! :( That helped me tons! The other person I would like to thank is Andy (Andy Arias on here). Thanks man for everything, you help me out many many times over the years be it art related and non art related! I would surely do anything for you man! You have been there for me when I needed help and I will never forget that! I feel honored to have you as a friend! Your surely like another brother to me. Thank You for everything!


Well guess I should show some art huh... :lounge:

Here is the finished Tattoo Project I've been working on. The tattoo is for myself, the tattoo will probably look slightly different then this but it is a base to start from.

I dedicated this piece to you MOM!

This piece is for you, for always being there for me! If it wasn't for you, none of this would be possible. I owe you everything. If it wasn't for your upbringing and providing the best childhood I probably wouldn't have found my passion in life. You will always be my biggest inspiration! With much love Kevin.

This piece is all full of symbolism and metaphors! Most of this is a reflection of my childhood and my mom fostering my love for art when I was growing up!


18 X 24 Inches, Graphite
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Closeup shots

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CA!
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Here is a recent logo Design (Vector) I did for a few friends film/video project they are shooting. You can view some of there video's here:

2010 New Year's Eve Marketing with Tipping Forties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywqKCg5kFs0


Lunch Break: Official Trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0wM3QqpgnY


They have two separate projects they work on, one is LP Grab Bag, which is kinda of like Mystery Science Theater 3000 but with Video Games instead of cheesy B Movies ! The other is Lunch Break which is the web comedy show! You can view some of the LP stuff at the offical site here:

http://www.tippingforties.com/

Logo Design
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Laura Portrait Study from life (work in progress)
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Recent Figure Drawing Session 2 - 20 minute poses
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Sketchbook Pages
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Nintendo Pen & Ink from life.
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Here is one of the first sketches I did when I first found Conceptart.org back in Sept 2006 Just to show from then until now.
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well until next time CA! :yayca: