Life drawings of androids

[scottmcd]

There are still some touch ups I'd like to do, but this is pretty close.

[scottmcd]

This is a picture of my cousin that I'm working on, half in pencil and half in ink. The dividing line, though, is the halfway part of his face, not the drawing. I'm considering using this on a business card depending on how well I think it comes out.

[scottmcd]

I've been working on a portrait of my cousin, as I mentioned in the last post. I'm not going to be using it on a card, but I am finishing out the pencil version. I made progress at lunch today, though I still have to define some details and spot the darkest blacks and the highlights.

As an exercise, I flipped it in Photoshop and put the flipped version next to the original. That shows me that the eyes are out of line and the forehead line isn't right. I need to fix the jawline based on the original - my cousin is 12, not the 14 or 15 I think he looks here.

[DIMAGYAN]

i see you are working a lot with figures. adding some books to the posemaniacs exercises could help.
i like the crystal ball, nice inks.the apsara character is coming very good. the structure of her body is pretty solid.there is some problems with left forearm(is too short) the hair and clouds forms are too uniform in my opinion, a bit of variation could be nice. but overall a good drawing.
your cousin portrait have some problems with forms and proportions, is done from photo or life? in any case more time watching the relation of measures and features could help.

keep working and have fun

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN: Thanks for dropping by. You're right about the structure of the apsara's forearm - it's off. I think I'm done working on it for now, though. Also, the picture of my cousin is from a photo I took recently. I made some adjustments to it on the plane to Comic-Con, which I've posted below.

As for books, I've mostly been working with the Burne Hogarth books and Force: Dynamic Figure Drawing for Animators. They've both helped, and I'm doing more practice regularly. Soon I'll get to others, like Loomis and back to Bridgman again.

---

I'm back from Comic-Con where I took a portfolio around to get critiques and did some drawing. I got a review by Tony Dezuniga! :)

Here's the current version of the portrait, as well as some other drawings.

[scottmcd]

A couple of quick sketches in Photoshop.

[scottmcd]

Lunch's practice today was eyes. I've practiced them before, but I think I'm finally starting to understand the difference between rendering and getting the foundation right. So, these were all quick sketches and - good or bad - I moved on to the next. Each sketch was a couple of minutes. This is reduced from 8.5 by 11.

[scottmcd]

Here's a picture that I'm drawing so that it could be an illustration of a character in a tabletop RPG like Call of Cthulhu or something.

Updated to include final pencils before rendering in ink.

[scottmcd]

Here are two renderings based on the initial sketch, one in ballpoint pen and one with brush and ink.

[Brun]

great sketches in here dude, keep at it

[scottmcd]

Brun: Thanks. :D

Here's the final of the good (?) professor. Title: Professor of Ancient Cthultures

[scottmcd]

This week's Character of the Week is to do Icarus in any interpretation except the original Greek myth. Here's my take:

[scottmcd]

I thought I'd do a Photoshop version of this guy for practice with digital painting. I think it's OK but not great.

[scottmcd]

Still not done, but after some good advice I've updated this one.

[scottmcd]

A friend of mine has asked for an illustration of a scene from a book he's writing, and this is a quick thumbnail for it. He'd initially asked for two knights and a troll sitting around a campfire, suspicious of one another. So, this deviates a fair bit from that, but while the scene may be tense in the book, three people sitting and looking at each other is harder to make look dramatic. So, we'll see what he says. This is what was in my head, and I wanted to get that out of the way to make room for other approaches.

[scottmcd]

Here are some design drawings and a thumbnail for a drawing of the troll and the other folks who're hangin' with him. >:)

[scottmcd]

Assignment for illustration class - life drawing of a tree.

[scottmcd]

Here's an alternate thumbnail for the troll scene. Experimenting with viewpoint.

[scottmcd]

Next assignment for Illustration class is to do a tree as a metaphor. This is the inkwork for that assignment.

[JFierce]

I remember seeing this SB a long time ago
and now your up to 9 pages :)

Well, although I'm not an expert on digital painting
I try to pass on this one bit of advice every time I see it
When digi painting you dont want to use the smudge tool

This forum explains it better than I could
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47859


But basically you have more control not using the smudge tool

[scottmcd]

Here are two versions of the tree, one with lines and one without. Of the people I've shown it to, about 2/3 prefer the one with lines. I'm leaning toward the one without lines, though. Think I'm going to prepare both to turn in at class and see what the critique has to say. Finally, there's a detail of the textures used in the ground and the tree, which both came from photos that I took a few months ago of mud and tree bark.

JFierce: Thanks for dropping by. I've seen that advice about the smudge tool before too and rarely use it. Thanks for the link - great thread. :)

[scottmcd]

Here's the final version that I'm planning to turn in for class.

[scottmcd]

I made it to figure drawing today. This is 1.5 to 2 hours of work. I worked out proportions and contours lightly in pencil and then switched to ballpoint pen.

[scottmcd]

Sunday session again. The primary light was just behind the model's head, and the secondary light was in front of her off to her left. Since she effectively already had a halo, I went for the angel thing. This is a stiffer drawing that I'd like. About 2 hours.

[scottmcd]

First couple of pages for a webcomic. I need to build up a buffer, so this won't be out for a while, but I thought I'd post the first couple here.

[scottmcd]

Here's the final version of a political portrait assignment I'm turning in for illustration class: McCain of Borg.

[scottmcd]

The experiment here was to outline the areas of shadow and highlight with smaller contour lines and the main borders of body and limbs with thicker lines. Did it first in pencil and then inked. About 2 hours.

[scottmcd]

Illustration homework was to do some sketching/drawing on the topic of "the descent." So, I did this during lunch today. Never mind how there got to be a stone in the clouds. ;)

[scottmcd]

Here are some character designs (!) for a comic I'm working on for Illustration class. It's for Edgar Allen Poe's story "The Sphinx." Setting is approximately 1850.

[scottmcd]

Big one this time. It's another illustration class assignment. "The Sphinx" by Edgar Allen Poe.

[scottmcd]

Here's a chapter start sketch.

[scottmcd]

This is a chapter start drawing I did for a friend's book. Took about an hour over lunch, ballpoint pen. No reference, and I think you can tell. :)

[scottmcd]

This is another assignment for Illustration class. We had to design a wine label or related product label. This is mine.

[scottmcd]

... without reference.

[scottmcd]

For the figure, anyway. Still looking up battlefield pictures.

[scottmcd]

Glass and flower drawn in pencil, then painted in photoshop. I could be happier with the table and may go back to spend more time on it. This is the final project for illustration class, though.

[scottmcd]

This is a chapter-start drawing I've been working on for the last few days in between working on the illustration final. Time to kick these into high gear. Will do them all in pencil, then ink them.

[scottmcd]

These aren't sketches per se, but I've been working on them for a while. The color one is a book cover, and the second one is a chapter start.

[scottmcd]

This is about a half-hour in Photoshop. Mainly it's a values study - just playing around.

[scottmcd]

Another value study on a chapter start.

[The Whistler]

Hey Scott! You're really improving here, I loved your professor from the last page but I liked him more in post #259 than in the finished version, he kinda lost a bit of his appeal when you put in the black around him.

The rabbit in post #228 is also awesome, wow for ballpoint, mine rarely turn put this good :)

Keep up the good work!

[DIMAGYAN]

hey Scott. nice improvment, is a god thing to see the variation on your subjects and aproaches.the characters gestures and expressions are coming really well, just focus a bit more on structure and form.
nice label design!

keep the good work!

[scottmcd]

Latest chapter start pencils.

[scottmcd]

Here are some life drawings. The first one I did today and was about 2 hours. After that are a series of gestures I did from the same pose (mostly). Marker and brush on these. Finally there are some life drawings I did at a party last weekend. It was a middle-eastern themed party.

[scottmcd]

Sunday figure drawing, with mechanical pencil and black, white, and sienna pastel pencils. 2.5 hours.

[Sublimus]

Keep rocking those life studies man, they always pay off!!

[scottmcd]

This was a quick practice in photoshop to just try to get volume on a sphere. About 20 minutes.

[scottmcd]

At work I make user models called personas, and it's usually a pain to find pictures of people to go with them. I decided to draw them this time. Alice is a post-doc in biomedical research, and Alan is a doctor/researcher who is in charge of the overall research funding grant.

Alice took about an hour and a half, and Alan took about two. Penciled and inked, then colored in Photoshop.

[scottmcd]

Neither of these look finished because I'll be polishing them up in Photoshop. That said, here they are. The second one is modeled on a photo of Jennifer Connelly.

[scottmcd]

Did this last Sunday at life drawing. Need to start working bigger.

[scottmcd]

More experimentation with segmentation. Pencil, then brush and ink, then Photoshop.

[darthmarsh]

Hey buddy,

Thanks for the crit on my CHOW you sir are quite right! Some really good stuff you've got here, the Flower and glass still life I think stands out most for me and the line still lifes, simple and elegant. Keep it up

Cheers

Tim

[scottmcd]

darthmarsh: Thanks for the comments. I wish I had more time to spend in chow and critique center, because it helps my own drawing if I have to slow down and verbalize what I do and don't like about other pieces.

Here is my most recent figure drawing practice. It's my fourth time (or so) going with pastel pencils. I purposefully avoided detail work (no fingers, for example) and went with a light, medium, and dark tone.

[scottmcd]

Here are some of the final illustrations for my friend's book. He was aiming for a sketchy feel, so I didn't finish them as much as I could have. Mostly they're pencils with values done in Photoshop.

[scottmcd]

A couple of recent ones. One is a recent CHoW (Lesser Demon), and the other is a piece I did to test out a new Photoshop brush that I made.

[scottmcd]

Did this as a study with ink and colored pencil.

[scottmcd]

My wife wanted to go to Costume Con this weekend, and I took a number of potential reference pictures. Not as many as I'd thought, though. In the meantime, I did these drawings. Two are for a drawing I'm doing of a Sylph, and the last is based on my daughter. All of them will form the basis of Photoshop illustrations. (The colored ones are pastel pencils.)

[scottmcd]

WIP for the current CHoW - Absinthe (The Green Fairy).

[hungryan]

Because you were nice, I give you some advice. I don't want to look very clever or anything.

I think your best pieces are the ones made with ink, or generally black lines (the webcomic and those nudes). Your lines are nice, just try to relax when you make the shading with ink or pencils, and follow the forms with your lines, not just doing it fuzzy, because then they will start to work like strange forms. Do it like Rembrandt and Dürer did, I will give a link:

http://blog.eddadietrich.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/beten.gif

I hope you see what I mean. There's a post of a ballpoint pen drawing of a woman somwhere 2 or 3 pages back, there you can see this problem really much.
Also, don't really use smudging (in pencils and digipainting), because in my and lots of other's opinion, it produces ugly surfaces if not used properly. With pencils/grayscale it can get particularly something which looks like messy paper.

Also you might want to really loosen up, and start freely digitally painting some photos like I do, with a hard edge brush, opacity set to pressure, first looking at the big color blobs, and then refining the forms. It helps if you switch between these techniques a lot, and you can also learn a lot about colors eyeballing them this way.

And draw a lot, I know I should too.

[scottmcd]

hungryan: Thanks for the comments. I do need to do better about having the shading hatchwork better follow the form it describes. I'm still very much experimenting with pencil work, smudging, shading, etc. and I'll see how that goes.

Speaking of ink work, here is a landscape that will be a comic panel in a comic I'm working on. The ref picture is from a park right next to where I work. I haven't done a lot of trees and landscape, but I pulled out several things to look at: mainly Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise), Osamu Tezuka (Buddha), and Savage Sword of Conan. I should also have looked at Jeff Smith's Bone and still will.

[scottmcd]

These are my notes from a meeting today. I drew out a quick sketch in pencil and then cross hatched it with a blotchy pen. I tried to keep the lines going in one of three directions with only the occasional contour line to help out. All while everyone else was talking about bibliographies, eRA, who had access to which data, and lots of other nonsense.

[scottmcd]

I don't get to doodle much with the tablet, so here we go.

[scottmcd]

Been drawing but not posting here as much. For our anniversary my wife got me some watercolor pencils. I saw Charles Vess use them in a demo for the CBLDF at Comic Con in San Diego, and I've wanted to give them a go. Here's the first quick try-out. Drawn with the pencils first, and then washed with brush and water. It almost looks like my wife, too.

[scottmcd]

Character design for an upcoming comic. I also used the chance to practice with the recently acquired watercolor pencils, this time on bristol board. Never mind those coins in the background.

[scottmcd]

Pencils, inks, and then watercolor pencils. The final step will be to do the wash on the watercolor pencils.

[kev ferrara]

A lot of nice ideas and designs. And good image sense. I would suggest getting the Bridgman anatomy books and copying them into your notebooks a little each day. I think your stuff is lacking a bit of a sense of solidity... that sculptural feeling of light and shade and interlocking forms that all Bridgman student's seek out in their work.

Good luck
kev

[scottmcd]

Kev: Thanks for the look and the advice. I've done some Bridgman copying, but not nearly enough.

Here are a couple more of the watercolor pencil drawings, plus a sketch of a dog I did with ballpoint pen. The dog will end up as the basis for one in a larger painting.

[scottmcd]

Same model and pose, but opposite sides. Brush and ballpoint, about 45 minutes each or so.

[scottmcd]

This is today's 45 minute watercolor pencil drawing/painting from the session today, followed by a study I did of an obol - the coin people would be buried with to pay Charon for the trip across Styx. Ballpoint pen for that one.

[scottmcd]

It's the carnival/mask self-portrait. Not to the "self" part yet. No reference for this.

[scottmcd]

Don't know if I'll finish this one still, but I've fixed some proportions, added clothes, etc. About another hour or so, I guess.

[scottmcd]

Update

[scottmcd]

Here's today's. Graphite and white pencil. I made her look older in the face than she is - something to work on.

[scottmcd]

I first did this one back in March of 2007, here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1261522&postcount=33).

This time I spent a little longer on it. The head is wrong, and there are other problems, but it's neat to compare it to the earlier one.

Pencil first, then ballpoint pen.

[p sage]

Ah, Mr. Smiley :) Nice.

I like the contour-y feel of the last piece.

I do think proportion is in need for the last several pieces; it seems the torso area is fairly elongated in your figures... by almost an entire head.

I would echo what Kev Ferrara said earlier in your thread about Bridgman; I've learned quite a bit in a fairly short time just from trying to understand what Bridgman's lines were "saying", and then copying his stuff.

Without that attempt to understand it, though, it would just be useless busy-work. It would not be a study, in that case.

Good work here. Keep it flowing.

[scottmcd]

This is an illustration I'm working on for the same friend whose book I illustrated a while ago. This would be for the next book if it ever sees the light of day. In the meantime, I'm aiming for a portfolio piece with this one, though there are still miles to go.

[scottmcd]

Results of today's life drawing session. This was about 2 hours. First lightly penciled, then inked in an Art Nouveau style, then colored with pastel pencil. I'm pretty happy with it overall, except for the hand. I think the doctor's will be able to reconstruct it for her, though.

[scottmcd]

A long time ago I did an ink drawing of a guy with an eyeball in his mouth. I figured I could do better now, so I gave it a go as a PS painting. This is probably 4 hours or so.

[scottmcd]

Here is some lunchtime practice for the day. About an hour total. Ink and watercolor pencil. Based on a picture of my great-great-grandfather.

[scottmcd]

Yes, it is.

[scottmcd]

Haven't posted much lately, so here's a recent sampling.

[scottmcd]

Watercolor pencils.

[scottmcd]

Here are two of the recent figure drawings I've done over the last couple weeks. Both are ink marker. The second one, I used a brush pen for the heaviest areas.

[Jamie Romoser]

digging the Alphonse Mucha feel on the first post on this page
keep up the hard work and studies
have a good one
-Jamie

[scottmcd]

Omerta: Thanks - I was definitely studying Mucha to see how he solved various problems.

Here are a couple of sketches that may turn into more finished pieces in the near future. I'm going to crank out a bunch of these and then start over on a few of them to do them from the ground up.

[scottmcd]

Just finished the inks on this up tonight. Coloring in Photoshop comes next.

[scottmcd]

Working out values for the most part, but I threw in a quick color layer as a test.

[scottmcd]

Some recent work. The last is a Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) board I designed for an iPad app.

[scottmcd]

In progress coloring on the Squonk

[scottmcd]

Work leaves little time for digital art, but the lunch hour gives opportunities for drawing and inking. Here are pencils for a fairy queen. My daughter is presenting an egg to the queen, who is the same person as the Aerialist drawing I posted earlier. Plant reference came from life drawing at the National Arboretum and the Enid Haupt garden behind the Smithsonian Castle. There are positives to living near Washington DC.

[Falchion]

Wow, nicely done work. Keep it up!

[scottmcd]

... here, have some drawings.

[scottmcd]

.......

[scottmcd]

... was all about identifying blocks, eggs, cylinders, and the other basic shapes in the figure and shading them in accordingly. Started with the major shapes and then shaded the minor, embedded shapes once done with that. The pose could be more dynamic, but I think the form came through fairly well.

[Sean McClain]

nice drawings, is post 343 conte? I like red and white on toned paper, I prefer it on
the more eggshell color than the grey, at least when there is red, if it's on grey paper
I like the black and white on top. Keep drawing!

[scottmcd]

Sean: Thanks. It's colored pencil. I haven't really tried conte yet except for a couple of times in art 101. :)

[AlexTooth]

Hi!

Firstly thanks for crit in my book, it really helps and makes sense <333

Lets see, well I love the creativity and energy here - and your drawing skills are coming a long nicely, which is ones of those things we just need to keep practising :)

I'd say the weakest area is the coloured versions right now. Tough stuff, I can only really say what helps me in this area, and thats quick studies of photos and still lifes - often 20min landscapes can teach you a lot - much like gesture drawing helps the figure artist. I had a period where I did 3x 20min col sketches a day and I learnt a lot in that time.

All the best!

[scottmcd]

Two recent figure drawings and my in progress iBall.

[am●na,☼nafa&Kash☉fa]

cool stuff in here

[scottmcd]

Finished up a companion to the art nouveau painting at the top of the page.

[scottmcd]

Been working on stuff. Here's some of it. There was figure drawing today and I went, and the other stuff is random things of late.

[Egg0]

I love when drawings are more than just lines and shadows, when have something to share, a tought, or an idea of something. You are one of mines! Really nice Sb mate !

[scottmcd]

Meh. Misread the deadline time for CHoW this week, so missed the cutoff. Oh well. Here's the Horrible Experiment picture. I only spent parts of yesterday and today on it, so it's really a speed work anyway.

[scottmcd]

Today's figure drawing practice. The eyes are... off. Another 30 minutes and I'd have gotten the hand. I also tried to make her look less bored than she actually did. ;)

[scottmcd]

This was about an hour this evening in Photoshop, based on this stock photo from DA.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs35/i/2008/289/4/a/Happy_Halloween____by_chamberstock.jpg

[scottmcd]

I'd meant to use this in the portfolio, but in looking at it that won't work. The grass is one style, the wood is another, and the fairies yet a third. It doesn't gel. So, I'm calling this a study and now working on the "real" one. ;)

[Mr.Pryminista]

Hey there scottmcd!

Thank you for you input on my bounty hunter character! It was quite helpful!

I looked through the last few pages of your work and I can tell you what I perceive your strengths and weaknesses to be. Let's start with your strengths, you're quite adept with line work and designing flat images. Keep working on this strength since it could be stronger, A LOT stronger. You need to take your understanding of line and how to design with it to the next level. Look to the masters and look at the way they designed an image with line. Gustave Dore is the first person to come to mind. Look at his images. They may be etches but it was still made with line. A contemporary master that comes to mind is Bernie Wrightson. He's amazing. Study his work. Both Jeff Jones and Frank Frazetta made pen & ink drawings. Study their work too. You will A LOT even if you only studied these 4 masters. I would also suggest looking into your favourite artists, the ones who inspire you (assuming they are none of the above mentioned) and looking at their work and finding out who inspired them.

Your weaknesses seem to be making realistic looking images. If I had to guess I'd say you dont spend enough time studying from life. I bring attention to this because you have enough material here that suggests that you take interest in being able to render realistic looking images, or, I should say, images that have 3D looking form to them. The only remedy for this studying from life and doing it A LOT. You had some images that looked like the beginnings of an illustration. Look into the masters of illustration. Look at illustrators like Norman Rockwell, NC Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Leyendecker, and Dean Cornwell (and then some). Study their work and see what they did to make a successful image.

Another critique is that there are rather large gaps of time between updates. Maybe art is more of a hobby for you than something you want to pursue as a career. If that's the case then this criticism doesn't apply. If you do want to make it a career, then I'd make sure that I make time for more practice.

Hope this helps :D Take care!

[scottmcd]

Mr.Pryminista's: Thanks for extensive comments! I agree with you on both the strengths and the weaknesses and will be working with both. I could certainly stand to do more life drawing, though I continue to do a fair amount.

I've been drawing a lot more than appears here - I stopped using this sketchbook to record everything a couple of years ago. It may be time to start again, but the lack of posts doesn't mean a lack of drawing and painting. I'm also in a different place career-wise than a lot of the people who post here. I'm in my 40's and have a full-time job, wife and daughter, house, and all the things that go with those. I still manage to draw most days, but sometimes it's like fighting for the time. I do plan to look at freelance work over the next few years, but until I get our daughter through college it certainly won't be the full-time career.

Here's a sketch I drew last night at a piano concert and the gestures and drawing from the figure drawing session I went to today.

[scottmcd]

Today's figure drawings. The first was tough - the light was right behind her and there was very little value variation. Each of these were 20 minutes and the focus was to get the figure blocked out without using outlines first. Secondarily it was to get a sense of mass. I'm pretty slow, so it was also an exercise in not taking too long to get the foundation down.

[scottmcd]

Here are three Celtic knotwork studies. The top one shows Old Man Storr, a rock formation on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The second shows the Twin Trees in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and the last shows some of the Cuillan mountains on the Isle of Skye. The writing in the top one is Thai for "Scotland" and "Ireland." The second is a Tengwar transliteration of the English word Scotland.

[scottmcd]

Here's a recent finished one and a second that's in progress. I've been practicing a lot of Celtic knot work lately if you couldn't tell. ;)