Life drawings of androids

[scottmcd]

Hi all! I'm a newbie here - first post and all that. I look forward to getting crits and advice and hopefully giving some out along the way.

I'm in my mid-thirties, and I'm a user interface designer for the National Institutes of Health. I live in Maryland and generally have a half-hour to hour to draw each day. Usually during lunch and the occasional boring meeting. (Kind of like boring classes, but not.)

I'm working on a comic based on the Arabian Nights story "The Sleeper Awakened." When I get it into production, I'll post it at ComicGenesis.com. (I have a very rough comic at http://scottmcd.comicgenesis.com.) I was concentrating on story and pacing more than art on that one, but I'd welcome any comments.


To start with, I'll post a couple of character designs I'm working on for the story. Harun al-Rashid is the Caliph in this story (kind of like a cross between the pope and a king). I liked the look of Alexander Siddig in "Kingdom of Heaven." Here's the reference photo and several attempts to pencil and ink it:

http://ffmedia.ign.com/filmforce/image/article/709/709399/siddig-kingdom1_1148065905.jpg

This was done during a lunch. I rushed the pencils and the inking, trying to do too many textures.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/398258520_20827a4cab.jpg (http://www.flickr.com)


Not happy with that version, I redid the pencils and spent more time on them. Then I scanned the drawing in so I could ink copies of it rather than the original.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/169/400078900_0798f08511_o.jpg (http://www.flickr.com)


Then came the next two versions:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/167/400753358_662dc0105b_o.jpg (http://www.flickr.com)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/97/401348049_447bc3dbc2.jpg (http://www.flickr.com)


Finally, a profile not done from a reference:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/382015632_c73ae58869_o.gif (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63925548@N00/382015632/)

I'll post more recent ones soon.632606975779

[scottmcd]

The main character is Abu Hasan. This is a study for his mother. Her eye is a bit crossed, but maybe I'll work that into the character. :)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/394440887_f00fa7c9f6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63925548@N00/394440887/)


And here is Abu Hasan himself. (Forgive the lined paper, this is in a notebook for the story.)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/98/389541497_112bec0c3a.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63925548@N00/389541497/)http://farm1.static.flickr.com/175/389539040_ac9daa5f49.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63925548@N00/389539040/)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/375622514_2cd5fe1a2e_o.gif (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63925548@N00/375622514/)


And finally, a guy unrelated to the story. I added the extra iris and pupil to each eye on a whim and managed to creep myself out. :)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/162/378905788_e4d923ef0b_o.gif (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63925548@N00/378905788/)

[scottmcd]

Just some curtains. Trying out the attachment feature.

[scottmcd]

This is from a few months ago, from a reference photo.

[scottmcd]

I did these during lunch today. The first is a gesture of the woman sitting at the next table, and the second is a sketch of Abu-Hasan waking up in the caliph's bed (!) after having been drugged the night before.

[scottmcd]

A quick inking job on the two above...

[scottmcd]

This is today's and yesterday's work from lunch. I've noticed that when drawing in the cafeteria I'm more likely than usual to get strangers coming up to me to start a conversation. That happened yesterday and we got to talking, and I wound up giving career advice to a doctor. :/

So, I finished it up today.

[scottmcd]

This started as a gesture, but I decided to finish it out and ink it. Not sure on the proportions.

[scottmcd]

These three sketches (cleaned up from lined paper) are from a work notebook that I doodled in. The most complete sketch is of a manager who was facing a fair amount of criticism from the ranks. Hopefully I captured the slightly uncomfortable expression. Then there's a guy from below and a boy.

Later I'll post some sketches I did today. I'm not wild about them, but if this is to be a record I should post a full range of stuff, right? >:|

[scottmcd]

The first of these is a set of sketches I did this morning when I was barely awake. At least, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. The only one I really like is the cartoony one.

The second is a lunchtime sketch of Abu-Hasan, still waking up in the Caliph's bed. He's a bit more aware and entering WTF-land. It's OK as an off-hand sketch, I guess, but I think the eyes are too iconic. I did the tilted head first and then tried to fit it to a body pose that didn't really match. Ah well.

[Unbreakable]

Sounds like an awesome idea you got going! I think that you should spend at least an hour of that hour and a half drawing for brigdman's constructive anatomy book. It will help you tremendously with you character designs.

Cheers

[scottmcd]

Unbreakable - Thx for stopping by. I've been meaning to pick up some Bridgman for a while now. I'll stop by Borders on the way home tomorrow and pick it up (or order it from Amazon if they don't have it). Great quote in your sig. :)

This is tonight's pencil drawing. Maybe tomorrow I'll ink it. I have a Jack Hamm figure drawing book so assembled the face from guidelines out of that, flipping back and forth. I decided to age her just a bit. I didn't intend the asian look at first, but there it is.

[scottmcd]

I inked yesterday's sketch during lunch today. Didn't get any other drawing done, but I did pick up Bridgman's anatomy and life drawing books, so expect to see studies based on those soon.

[Blade-14]

a very good basis for your style mate, follow thru with anatomy studies like u plan to and marry what u lern from them to what u've already got, i guarantee u will see improving results!

[DIMAGYAN]

nice start, i like the last version of Harun al-Rashid and his mother, especially the inking...
you plan to do studies of anatomy, so i have no comments on that matter.
you ask to me for some advice on inks, so a few things i considerate important:
no matter if you plan to do phisical(traditional) or digital inks, the thecnics are the same and also the principles...
first of all(if is traditional) have always a peace of paper next to you to do strokes for confidence and get off the extra ink on your pen nib or brush, also mantain another clean paper between your hand and your work.
you want to have a glass of clean water to clean the instrument from time to time (that mantain the pen or brush with out dry ink), the way you trace is important and depends on what part of your arm use as pivot(always is better use the elbow and even the hombro(shoulder?) then the wrist but is kind of hard) and try to do complete strokes. for indian ink i use watercolor brushes and simple pen nib, also some rotring pen, but there is other materials.there is some other things about dry brusk and water ink, if you want i can comment later.
i hope this isn't too big comment...

manten el buen trabajo...

[scottmcd]

Blade 14 - Thanks. Will do.

DIMAGYAN - The comments aren't too big at all. :) Many thanks! I do have some problems with confidence in the lines - I have to consciously make my entire arm relax before I get good strokes sometimes. I hope this goes away with practice and, as you say, by warming up (starting) with a blank piece of paper.


I did manage to pick up two Bridgman books yesterday, plus a couple of books for reference. One is of the nude figure in lots of poses, the other is for facial expressions. Over the next few days I plan to take references from the figure book and break them down into the blocks that Bridgman describes in his life drawing book.

Today's update has just some initial messing around with the concepts. On the second page I was trying to capture the Tai Chi move called "single whip." (For those who do Tai Chi, it's the Chen style single whip.)

[scottmcd]

So this is my first serious attempt at using Bridgman's principle of breaking the head, torso, and pelvis into blocks and establishing their position and twist. I also tried to pay attention to opposing sides and sets of muscles so that there's an active and an inactive side to most pairs.

The single whip presents a perspective problem because the arms and legs describe a gentle arc. The right forearm is foreshortened and I think looks OK, but the left forearm and wrist still need work. I'm going to let this sit for a day or two, make corrections, and then ink it. Any suggestions in the meantime?

[scottmcd]

This is the first inking attempt for Single Whip. I adjusted the fabric draping and the position of the left foot and hand. I inked this over a blue printout of the pencils and then removed the blue. I still need to work on consistent line weight. Other inks of the same image to come.

ETA: Shrinking the image down made it immediately obvious how bad the left leg is. I'm glad I didn't ink over the pencils - now I can go back and fix it. And now that I've seen it the thing looks like a weird, useless appendage, kind of like the pathetic little front claws on a T-Rex.

[scottmcd]

I'm working on the leg thing. It's better now, but I'm still going to let it sit for a bit.

In the meantime, here are sketches from the last couple of days, including several from the Bridgman book.

[scottmcd]

I definitely improved the left leg, though it's still not perfect. I also added more folds and drapes to the pants, though I still think the left leg isn't quite right. I found some ref photos of the pose to get the fold patterns. I stayed simple with the inks, not really doing any feathering to speak of and minimal shading. The shine on the hair indicates a light source to the front and above, but I didn't explicitly follow that through with line weight variation through the rest of the figure. Light source is an exercise for a couple weeks down the road I think.

[scottmcd]

Quick update. Still working on positioning body masses.

[scottmcd]

Think I'm going to do a pen & ink version of a picture of my dad for his birthday. Fortunately I have until the end of May, but I foresee many revisions. :)

Here is a preliminary sketch of the photo. I'm having trouble with the mouth in particular, but will later do a bigger study of the head to work out those issues.

:360_old:

ETA: An inked version of the preliminary sketch. This isn't the final - all comments would be useful, from composition and arrangement of light and dark areas to specific lines, etc.

[scottmcd]

I was experimenting with textures and plants with the brush, and this was the result.

[scottmcd]

Here are a few faces I've done over the last couple of days.

[scottmcd]

These are the pencils for a cartoon I'm working on. I worked it out with a circular protractor, right triangle, and french curve, then added in the reflection and the hand.

[Razorb]

am liking the skull pic u did further up :) the one with the mouth open.. oh and the last axe one is nice too ... only crit is to take it easy and make sure u get the anatomy and pose right before going into details when u get goin u seem very able :) so keep it up oh an good luck with the comic if ya still doin it :)

[scottmcd]

Razorb - Thanks for the comments. Much more anatomy work for me. :)

Here's the inked version of the axe pic, as the cartoon.

[scottmcd]

Not too happy with these, actually. I based the first on a posterized version of the picture down to 2 channels.

[scottmcd]

This isn't done, but it's last night's work of about 45 minutes. Will keep going and eventually ink it, but I'm working on patience. ;)

[nilaffle]

Hey fellow Marylander. :D

I've noticed that when drawing in the cafeteria I'm more likely than usual to get strangers coming up to me to start a conversation. That happened yesterday and we got to talking, and I wound up giving career advice to a doctor. :/
LOL! That stuff used to happen to me on the commuter train. It makes me really nervous about drawing in public.

Anyway, interesting story, I think your style suits it. This guy IS creepy, but that was an awesome idea for the eyes, don't think I've seen it before:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/162/378905788_e4d923ef0b_o.gif

That last one's creepy too. Ugh, eyes.... ;)

You've got some great studies here, can't wait to see more. It's obvious you're not afraid to challenge yourself. Might I also suggest doing some facial studies? Gestures of people's expressions, or even sit in front of a mirror and draw yourself doing various expressions (hah, I need to do this too).

And on inking - you mentioned consistency, but what kind? Actually, I think you might want to try more variation in your line weights! Thinner lines where there's a light source, thicker lines where there's shadow. It's not a must, this is really more of a style thing, but I find line variation can really make a drawing more dynamic.

Also, what technique are you using for inking? I've recently been experimenting with india ink and watercolor brushes... used to illustrate on 8.5"x11" paper before so this wasn't possible, but I've since moved to larger paper. I love it, I've found a new appreciation for inking.

Okay that's it from me :) great work, keep posting!

[scottmcd]

nilaffle: Thanks for the comments. I guess messing with eyes does have a tendency to get creepy. Like the Corinthian in the Sandman comics. *shudder* On this one I tried to do the line weight varation better.

Here's an inked version. I paid attention to darkening the lines away from the light source, placement of blacks, and using a series of short lines perpendicular to what would have been the main line. (Forehead wrinkles, for example.)

:eyeloss:

[scottmcd]

This is from a couple of months ago, but I've been meaning to post it here anyway. It's from a web comic (http://scottmcd.comicgenesis.com/d/20061030.html) I did based on a bedtime story I made up for my daughter. I wasn't concentrating on the art so much, but I liked this panel.

[scottmcd]

There's a good anatomical drawing site at the Atlas of Human Anatomy (http://www.anatomyatlases.org/atlasofanatomy/index.shtml). You can zoom in on them quite a bit if you have Quicktime.

This is the work of just over half an hour during lunch today. The proportions are off - I should have blocked out the whole figure first. Instead I started from the head and kind of just kept going. I also want to be more clear on how the muscles wrap over and around each other. I'll do a few sketches from Bridgman's constructive anatomy book for that.

[scottmcd]

I'm trying an online drawing class. It started this week. I'm a bit skeptical, but hopefully the feedback is good. The first couple of assignments deal with getting a good outline of things and breaking them down into their basic shapes. As part of it, I did a couple of "facial expression gestures," as nilaffle suggested.

[scottmcd]

This is a tree outside that hasn't gotten leaves yet. I didn't draw every last branch but instead tried to get the major branches and formations. I used a grid and measured with a ruler at one arm's length to get overall proportions and some specifics. I also used a straight edge and curves since I was concentrating on breaking things down to their base shapes.

The first version is the pencils, and the second is inked. I used two nibs - a Hunt 102 (small) and a Hunt 512 (I think - large). Light source is from the right, so larger lines are supposed to be on the left. I think I could enhance the depth by shading completely some of the branches in the back.

[scottmcd]

Here's another study of my dad in prep for the ink drawing. I still think the mouth is a little off, but it's getting better. Part of the point of this exercise was to see how using a grid would affect the drawing. Overall it helped, and I'll remove it once it's inked.

I'm going to print this as light blue and ink it several ways, then drop the blue out in Photoshop.

ETA: I redid both eyes and the mouth. I also added more highlights to his right side and put more shadow on his left - he should be squinting a bit more than looking angry. Second version below is actual size.

[nOtoRiuZ PiG]

i like your sketches.. i like the guy with the eyball in his mouth that was really neat.. keep up the great work!

[scottmcd]

nOtoRiuZ PiG: Thanks for the comment. Copy and paste makes the capitalization of your name much easier. ;)

Here are three inked versions of the pencil above. I printed it blue and then removed the blue (mostly) afterward. For the final version I think I want to hit an inking approach between 1 and 2.

:zzz:

[nilaffle]

Cool studies Scott! And y'know, this is weird, but I think I prefer #1 to #2. They both look good, but I like how the shadows and the hair are darker. The high contrast and simplicity of the design make it more interesting. But the hatching on 2 is good, cleaner than 3, so a mix of the two should produce a winning result. :) Keep the updates coming!

[scottmcd]

Nilaffle: Thanks. I agree and am going to try to hit a place with the high contrast and just a tiny bit of shading. I may do more detail in the background.

Today's updates are some sketches on anatomy of the back, from Bridgman and a couple of my own based on that. Then is a lighting & shade practice, and finally my daughter held still long enough for me to sketch her.

[Spats]

Cool project you have going on! I like your inks - keep doing those studies though, they'll pay off :]

[scottmcd]

Thanks Spats!

Here are a couple of panels and pieces of panels for the Arabian Nights comic. The first one is a door opening. The second one has three people: the Caliph (holding the torch), Masrur, and the sleeping Abu Hasan. My first take on the Caliph was so hideous that I whited him out. That didn't quite work, so I did a second version of him on a different page and spliced them together.

[scottmcd]

OK, time for a serious rough draft of the helicopter pilot picture. I'm taking my time with this, so what we've got here is an initial blocking out with a grid. For reference, I'm also showing the original (actually, a cropped version of it).

ETA: More detail work on the picture.

http://www.174ahc.org/images/jim-105.jpg

[scottmcd]

A quick lighting study of one o' them model hands. Single light source in this case.

[Kvick]

Hey, I noticed you posted in my SB 10 years ago but I'm saying thanks now anyways :P I've been pretty inactive in that thing. You've got a lot of sketches in a short amount of time which is great, I'd say the best way to improve so keep at it. As almost every jerk on this site will say, do more studies from life, work on doing quick gestures of figures to capture the rhythm and balance of the figure, look at the art of people that are on a higher level than yourself on a daily basis, surround yourself with art, look at someone else's art and ask yourself "how do I do that?" and never stop if you want to become better. These things I hear on CA probably more than anything else but thats because they're true just keep on going and you'll get where you want :).

[scottmcd]

Kvick: Thanks. You should keep going too. ;)

I updated the previous topic for my dad's picture with the pencils as they are now. I have to move the right hand (our left) up just a bit - or at least the top of it. At this point I've toned the paper where there's foreground or mid-ground. The background is white. Though it's not there in the picture, I'm leaning toward darkening the background around him to produce more contrast in the finished version.

For this message, I'm attaching a life-study of a woman at an Easter gathering we went to today. This was probably 15-20 minutes to pencil and then about a half-hour to ink. I think I made the back foot too dark - probably should have cross-hatched rather than completely blacked it out. Any thoughts? (BTW - her baby is due next week.)

After that are a set of doodles with the brush-pen. No pencils for these, they're just knocking around. The worm was an attempt at Wormie from Andy Runton's Owly series. If you haven't seen it, check it out at andyrunton.com (http://www.andyrunton.com/). Not only is he a good artist, he's a great visual storyteller. His comics use almost no words, but when my daughter finished the first Owly book tears had tracked down her face. Can't recommend it highly enough.

[scottmcd]

I've been having a great deal of difficulty getting through to the sketchbook lately, so I hope this update works. There are four pictures.

1. An update to the pencils I'm working on for my dad's picture (above).

2. Texture practice with the brush. These are doodles mainly, and reduced to about 3/4 size.

3. Figure practice a la Bridgman, also doodles with the brush.

4. Pencil drawing from when I'm too tired. :)

[scottmcd]

Inked version of the pencils.

[scottmcd]

I went to my first life drawing session today, so here I am posting the results. Nilaffle (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=90890&page=2) pointed me to the sessions, but she apparently wasn't able to make it. blu_grrl (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=94010) was there though, so I got to meet her. (Hi blu_grrl!)

First up are four gestures. I have trouble getting proportions right, especially in just five minutes. Hopefully I'll get better at that. Following those are two drawings of the same pose from two different angles. I didn't realize he was going to resume the same pose after the first 45 minutes, so I moved. Rather than move back, I just did a new drawing. The shoulder doesn't join right on the first one.

[blu-grrl]

Hey Scott, thanks for stopping by! It was great meeting you at the session. Your drawings turned out great, especially the long poses.

I will have to get one of those pens you showed me this morning. I really like the quality of your lines in your ink work :) I'll have to give it a try sometime.

[Envisor]

Nice Sketchbook. Great ideas. Ive seen alot of improvement from the beginning, especially on lines and proportion. Heres a link to some of Kevin [/B[B]]Chens figure drawings, awesome learning experience.http://www.characterdesigns.com/index.php?sitepage=tutorials

Here are the Loomis anatomy books free on the web.
http://fineart.sk/index.php?cat=1

Here are some articles by animator Glenn Vilppu on everything just about.
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&column=vilppu

Doing great, and hope these links help out.

[scottmcd]

.....

[scottmcd]

Envisor: Many thanks for the comments and articles. They should keep me busy for a bit.

---

If you don't know who Lady Cottington (http://www.amazon.com/Cottingtons-Fairy-Album-Brian-Froud/dp/0810932946) is, you should. Be sure to look inside the book. :tihi:

[erwangyang]

nice！

[scottmcd]

erwangyang: Thanks. :)

---

Here we have two sets of face/expression gestures. The first I left as penciled, the second I inked as well. These are from references found in the book "Facial Expressions." The ones that inked were done this morning while my daughter was in piano lessons at TFE in the morning.

[scottmcd]

We had the same model as last time. I only lasted from 10:00 to 12:00. My concentration was shot after that. This time I did the gestures while he did the short poses. Then, when he settled in for the long pose I did several gestures from different angles and then filled them out a bit. Here we go:

[Jazz]

Really awesome how you keep improving with the anatomy studies!! :D Oh yeah, and the guy with the eye in his mouth...I never saw anything like that. That was creepy! I liked it. :)

[scottmcd]

Unfortunately, it busy with things besides drawings. Not bad things - just other things. It was still bothering me though that I haven't been drawing. So, I finally had a lunch to myself so I cranked this out. It's not the greatest, but it's something.

The woman's face comes from the Facial Expressions reference book, and I added the hand myself, which is why it sucks. I'll be getting to hands, though. I'm trying to use thick, dark lines to establish the outlines. There was no specific lighting source for this one. I don't think I got the eyes in the mask to pop the way I wanted them too. I probably need to go bigger for that.

I plan to hit the life drawing session Sunday morning if my uncle can watch my daughter. My wife is going to an all-day Lord of the Rings movie-fest. I'd like to go to, but I'd rather draw and not be out so late. (All 3 movies, back-to-back, starting at noon.)

Finally, I'm having trouble getting the attachment in the first post to show up as an thumbnail on the Sketchbooks forum page. There was a network error early this week that seems to have frelled it. Now it shows up as blank, no matter what I have attached to the first post. :frustrated:

[scottmcd]

What's up with all these masks? Not sure, but there are some story ideas floating around.

This is this evening's work. As usual, I inked to soon after finishing the pencils. Had I waited, I'd have fixed a few things in the image. You know, put the eyes on the same eyeline or added a touch more volume to the back of the head. As with the last one, there's not a strong light source. I realized that I put the reflection highlights in the eyes in the wrong place if the light source is coming from the right, which it's supposed to be based on line width.

:lineart:

[scottmcd]

JazzW - Thanks for stopping by and for the comments.

Sunday again, so I was able to get to another life drawing session this morning. I still find gestures a bit nerve-wracking, but not so much as the first time I tried them. The first set is the gestures of the five minute poses, slightly reduced. Then come the first two angles of the long post, followed by the third angle. I stayed there a bit longer and finished it out a bit more. I'm still trying to concentrate on linework and making sure that they're in the right positions and proportions.

I've also started now on the actual drawing of my dad's picture. I won't be posting the step-by-steps here, though once the pencils are close to finished I'll probably post them in the critique boards.

[scottmcd]

I inked one of the poses from the life drawing session earlier today - the one from the back. Specifically, I was working on texture and shading. I have a long way to go on this, and I know I overdid it on this one. Or something.

Here are two versions. One is at original size and one is at just over half-size, which would often happen in a print context. I've also noticed that reducing images quite a bit often reveals the flaws in them. ;)

[Kvick]

Hey, I noticed in a lot of your gestures you have some imperfections and bumps as if you were drawing a real figure. This is normally alright, but with gestures you don't focus on anatomy, I noticed you were drawing genitalia on your male gestures, this isn't necessary. With gestures you aren't going for realism in the shape, you're trying to capture the essence of the pose: the rhythm, balance, you want to be able to describe the pose to the person viewing this with as few lines as possible, so to hell with anatomy for those!

Heres an analogy to what you're doing with your gestures; if you've ever asked someone what a movie is about, then they reply with things that happened in the movie and keep going on and on about things that happen in the movie but aren't really about the whole picture or plot, and you want to know what the movie is about! Not small parts, you want to know what's going on in as little as possible like a sentence or so, right now, you're telling me a bunch of parts that I don't care about!
Check out Glen Orbik's site, here's his gallery with some of his gestures in it so you can get an idea of what to do with your gestures. http://orbikart.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=6

Here's some in particular that I'm talking about:
http://orbikart.com/gallery/albums/1-2-5-min_Demos/normal_sarah_qs1.jpg
Look at the arms in this link below, figure on the right, he connects the arms with one line to create a flow, remember, AS FEW LINES AS POSSIBLE.
http://orbikart.com/gallery/albums/1-2-5-min_Demos/normal_qs_frank2.jpg
http://orbikart.com/gallery/albums/1-2-5-min_Demos/normal_qs1.jpg
Notice things like the legs and arms, he doesn't construct them so to speak, he lets them flow! A lot of limbs on his gestures go off the page even though they should stop way before.

[TheGnoll]

hey man

nice stuff here so far, but my suggestion is to work not just on copying refernced photos, but try n understand their internal construction first.Break up the human shape in blocks, twist them, bend 'em get the proportion right.
You should take a look at Loomis, Bridgeman or Hogart books, there's pretty useful.But anyway, life drawing is useful anyway.
Just keep the studies focused and you'll improve in no time :D

keep sharing ;)

ciao

[scottmcd]

Kvick: You're right - I do need to work on them. Thanks for the ones you posted - they're fantastic. Another friend of mine suggested I do them with the brush or pen rather than pencil, so I'm going to give that a try too.

TheGnoll: I do have a couple of Bridgman books and am working on blocking out, etc. I just need to do more of it, like Puck does on his sb. Thanks for the comments!

---

These posts are all about trying to block out a panel I'm working on in which Masrur, the bodyguard, is putting down another character in a bed while the Caliph looks on. Frankly, some of these are embarrassing, but oh well. Especially the first one. I have to laugh when I look at it, because it looks like Masrur is doing unnatural things to the poor guy. :nohope:

Though his body is a bit small for his head, I like the study I did of Abu-Hasan (the guy being put in the bed). I'm still working on a consistent look for the Caliph.

[scottmcd]

Some of these are copied from Bridgman's anatomy book, some are my own, and a couple are made up. Drawn with a black uniball pen.

[DIMAGYAN]

nice hand studies, some of them are well constructed.
i like the inked woman you have a nice transitions with lines.
for the figures try to do more straigth lines insted of curves, that help to block the drawing and get the form you seek also prevent a too soft aspect...
take this as a suggestion...
keep working and have fun...

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN - Gracias por su consejo. Lo haré. :)

---

This week's life drawing session. I concentrated on gestures, trying to keep lines fluid. I also did the gestures with my brush, which led to some that I hate and some that I like.

After that, I did a gesture for the main pose and then a more rendered version of the main pose. The gesture looks much more relaxed and natural to me, though a bit of that is that the model did stiffen up a bit further into the session. In the rendering, I tried doing some shading with hatch lines that weren't necessarily equally spaced apart, and I like how it turned out. See under the leg on the right side of the drawing. I don't particularly like the shading under the arm on the left side.

Yesterday I took my daughter to the school fair and did a bunch of gestures while she spent all her tickets in the Moon Bounce. I'll post some of them later.

Here is today's stuff:

[scottmcd]

Today's lunchtime sketching, courtesy of Gray's anatomy. The top one is pencil and pen, the bottom is just pencil - darkened a bit.

[scottmcd]

Today's lunchtime activity was this sketch. I like it enough to keep working it. For example, I want his left shoulder to be a little lower so that the elbow can rest more closely on the knee. His turban is a little out of balance also. What else do you spot that could be fixed? :wip:

He's supposed to be in conversation with Abu Hasan, listening intently and involved in the story he's being told. What do you think about having both elbows on the knees with the hands meeting in the middle?

[nilaffle]

Hey man, your studies are really developing. Love the hands. Brush is an awesome choice for gestures. You put a lot of emphasis on contour and your lines are getting more confident, but I'd like to see you doing more with value and creating volume, especially in those nude studies. The brush is perfect for this; use a big one and go for it. :)

The last sketch is a great concept, I think it's a good "listening" pose, though perhaps he could lean forward a bit more. But I like the idea of both elbows on knees. Try it out!

[scottmcd]

I finally got to meet Nilah. :)

The model was a bit late to the session, so we only had 3 five minute gestures. When she started the long pose, though, I did gestures from several angles, plus more boxy quick-studies. Then I settled in for a pencil sketch. I concentrated on the neck since I'd done anatomy studies on it recently. It's a bit over-rendered, but I was able to pick out all the surfance structures I'd worked at before. I also had trouble with the face.

Below that is Saturday's work. I was at an outdoor event so got to practice drawing foliage. The tree isn't actually broken, I was just lazy. :zzz:

Finally is an inked version of Harun Al-Rashid, listening as before. I experimented with some patch-hatching in the background of the chair, and I think I like the effect.

[scottmcd]

I did three gestures today at lunch based on some photos of Narah, one of our friends who is a belly dancer. Yep, those are candles she's balancing on her head in the first one. Here are the originals, followed by the gestures. I've got an idea or two for more fully rendered drawings, but I haven't decided whether to go further with it yet.

http://www.tribalbellydance.net/photos/fireofthesoul/Fire%20of%20the%20Soul%20-%20Washington%20DC/images/Narah%27s%20Candle%20Tray%20Dance.jpg

http://www.tribalbellydance.net/photos/Photo%20Shoot%202004/images/Fish%20Net%20-%20Floorwork.jpg

[irina]

Hi!

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook... I like the helicopter pilot drawing a lot! And I think the life drawing studies on the first page were coming along very well. Keep up the good work!

[scottmcd]

In keeping with the whole Arabian Nights thing, I figured I need to start working on architecture, cities, buildings, and such. This is a sketch of a city in the foothills of mountains. Below it on the same page is a sketch of some city gates based on the Bab Zuweila city gate in Egypt. This is slightly reduced.

[scottmcd]

Irina: Thanks - you too.

---

This is today's lunchtime sketch. It's time to start pulling together the various things I've been sketching lately into what I intended to be a thumbnail but then turned out a bit larger than I expected. I plan to finish and ink this one, then see if it interests me enough to do a larger version. As always, comments and crits are welcome. :hat:

[scottmcd]

So, here's the nearly finished version of the picture I'm doing for my dad's birthday. I have a couple of details to finish up, and I'm still looking at line weights throughout. I'm still researching what was on the patch on his left shoulder and the thing on his left collar. All those earlier ones were drafts and practice versions. This is the real thing, actual size. Eep. :$

[scottmcd]

Here's the finished picture of my dad, for his present. It's in being framed even now. I'm mostly happy with it, though one thing bugs me. There at the very end I added some texture to his face. The small lines above the eyebrow and on the right side of his face don't work. I added them based on one of the suggestions I received - a draw-over in fact. It looked good on the draw-over, but they didn't work on the finished version. I considered using white ink to get rid of them, but there's a difference between having white ink or white-out for scanning/printing and actually having it there in front of you. So, I opted to leave them in. When I color it and do additional prints for family, I'll remove the lines. Anyway, here it is.

ETA: Mishra, over on the WIP board, pointed out over the weekend that his right arm is resting on a half-opened window. Amazed that I hadn't seen that, I added in a suggestion of the window and removed the three reflection lines that had been above his arm.

[scottmcd]

The inked version of the spirit over the city. What's going on here? Good question - I'm still working it out. In the meantime, I may try a larger version in a little while, but not right away.

How would you portray this as a twilight or dusk scene using ink?

[scottmcd]

Starting to work out the Soul Collector chow. It's got to have a device it uses to collect the souls, can be male or female, and should have some facial deformity.

ETA: Inked version over lunch on Friday. Maybe I'll get to coloring it, but probably not.

[scottmcd]

I gave my dad his present today, the framed original of the most recent version I posted. I also scanned it at 600 dpi and gave him that on CD, along with the various preparatory sketches and pieces. He really liked it and said it was one of the few drawings of him that he thought actually looked like him. So, good deal there. :confident

While at their house, I took a quiet moment to sketch a glass candleholder and candle, first in pencil then brush. That's today's sketch.

[scottmcd]

This is a doodle from me own head - working on proportion and lighting. I know that her right arm is a touch too short. I'm going to lengthen it before I try inking.

I also have a hell of a time drawing heads from below or when they're tilted back, as in this case. Any advice for that kind of thing?

ETA: I've inked part of it, and I find that I like the mix of ink and pencil. I do plan to erase the pencil and continue the inking, and I'll post that when I've done it. - Done now. Still not happy with the face, but I like the contrast in it. I'm thinking of adding a background in pencil and then inking it in a similar style. The only question is, what background?

[purplerose]

Keep up the gestures! Try to do random exercises with your ink as well. Just practice rendering different lighting scenes and objects so you can tackle bigger projects with more ease and confidence. :)

[scottmcd]

In honor of my recently re-sprained ankle (twice in about a month!), here are some anatomy studies:

[scottmcd]

Harun al-Rashid, for the first panel on page 2 of the comic. I'm still considering the background. It's supposed to be somewhat dark, lit by a couple of sconces, so I could do a simple cross-hatch background and leave it at that, or I could put in some of the room he's in - his bedroom in fact. But, here's the first part. This was about a half-hour's drawing and a half-hour's inking.

[ped454]

i really enjoy your graphic style. its very...well graphic. it reminds me a lot of comic books....and i really love it when people do studies of muscles....only leads to better drawings. :)

[Macar]

When I look at a lot of your work, I feel that less is more. Your more minimal stuff is quite excelent, but you sometimes hurt the quality when you add more lines. Post 38 is an example of what I mean

[DIMAGYAN]

hey nice improvements, i like this- http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=138098&stc=1&d=1179100922
the arabian nigth theme looks good. your last post and your dad draw looks good.
for the twiligth or dusk scene (is like penumbra u oscuridad rigth?)
if you want to do some atmosphere you could make the sky black with horizaontal lines and some withe spots for stars or clouds and the sand with dots with diferent shapes and sizes, or shadow the casttle perhaps? in any case try in another piece of paper(trace loosly your original drawing) and see what work the most...
keep the good work and thanks for the words in my sb

[scottmcd]

The Character of the Week this time has been absent. Or rather, the person who is supposed to supply the topic has disappeared, so the topic remains "TBA." A number of people there have been doing their own version of what TBA means. Here's mine: Teddy Bear Asylum.

BTW: The life drawing sessions at MCC start back up again this week, but at looks as if I'll have to miss this one. :(

[scottmcd]

I practiced profiles this evening, trying to work out proportions and such. I often misplace the ear (as I did to poor Estelle, below), and I sometimes have trouble getting the mouth right. Particularly in the more elastic expressions where it's doing something interesting.

Also, I've been working mostly in pencil and then inking. I decided to do these pencil only and start re-familiarizing myself with shading. (15 years ago it was about the only way I drew faces.) Ralph was the result of that one.

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN: Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give it a try.

Macar: You're right. It takes more work for me to get to the minimalist stage, but it's worth it.

ped454: Thanks. I am coming from a comics perspective. At least, my current goal is to get good enough so that I can avoid embarrasing myself as I draw whatever stories I have in mind.

----

Today's gestures and long pose from the life drawing session.

About the pose, The leg proportions are about right, but I misplaced her left knee. She's quite tall, about 6 feet. I also didn't do the face as well as I'd like. I experimented with using both ink and pencil for the shading.

[scottmcd]

CHOW 74 got cancelled, but it was going to be "Ghastly Apparition." The current one, "Demonic Pirate," doesn't do much for me, so I think I'll keep working on the one I was going to do for the apparition.

My idea here is to do a brush and ink drawing, with everything that you can see through the ghost being in rendered pencil with shading. Here's a WIP. I'm still working out what should be in the background and what to do with the ghost's face. At the moment, it's supposed to be fairly mask-like. I had a ref for the ghost, and not for the guy lying on the floor.

[scottmcd]

There are a number of things wrong with this, but I'm finding it interesting enough to keep going. There are several tangents, for example. I like, however, the effect of th exaggerated line weights and the pencil inside the ghost. I'm still deciding whether to do a background. Even an abstract pattern that guides the eye from the upper left down toward the center of the apparition's crouch would probably help the composition. So here's WIP number 2.

[scottmcd]

This is a failed experiment, I think. :S

At least, there's a lot I don't like about it and a lot I learned from it. It's the first time I tried to do a cross-hatched background, and I don't like the way that came out at all. I did it with the brush and was way too coarse with it. It's also an experiment with reduction. I'm posting the full-sized, half-sized, and quarter-sized versions. I think the half-sized came out the best of the lot. Anyway, at least it's done now and I can work on other things. :)

[scottmcd]

Every time I say I'm not going to make it to life drawing session, it turns out that I do. Well, not next week - we're going to southern VA to visit my in-laws. Unless, of course, plans change.

For today's session I focused on pencil only and on values. I also got a couple of additional pencils that I used - a 4b and a 6b. Before this it has been primarily mechanical pencil. First up are the gestures, and then the long pose.

[scottmcd]

Some face studies/doodles from last night. They're a bit stylized, but I think the top left one suffers from the chopped off syndrome anyway. I like the one in the lower left corner and will probably try inking it.

[LePompadoriousFohawk]

Great stuff! Thanks for the comment on my book! :)
Also thanks for the link to the Tutorial online... I am reading it right now and it's super informational. I think everyone should read that just for reference. Again thanks! It was a big help :D

[scottmcd]

WIP for the Puppeteer CHOW. Will ink it tomorrow. Composition-wise, I'm planning to have a black background diagonally coming in from each side toward their hips. White background on top, black on the bottom. Any quick suggestions?

ETA: After some good comments in the CHOW thread, I'm going to add the other leg to the guy. The other comment is harder to fix now, so I'm not going to on this one - namely that they're static poses. I think that's more true of the guy. I may try another version of this later that has both of them being more into the embrace. Here's version 2. And then the final, and because it's required for the chow, the outline version.

[scottmcd]

I couldn't get to the life drawing session today, but while at my in-law's I was able to do this sketch of my sister-in-law's mother-in-law - one of those relations that people usually just group into the overall heading of "kin." I'm reasonably happy with it since it actually looks like her. :dur:

[scottmcd]

Lunch practice today was to do an ink version of the pencil portrait I did yesterday. Did it work? No, I don't think so. While I understand what cross-hatching is, I don't think I really understand how and when to use it. Does anyone have any suggestions for learning more about this kind of thing? Practice, practice, of course - and I will. I think I need to take up the earlier suggestion of just doing basic objects with all kinds of rendering techniques.

[scottmcd]

I'm considering the CHOW this week: an Ice Druid. I did this as a quick thing at lunch today to work out a possible approach. I'm not sure, but I think he's a lush.

The smudges are a result of erasing the pencils too soon after inking. Must learn patience!

ETA Thursday's lunch progress. After some earlier thumbnails, I blocked this out at lunch today. I'm putting it over in the CHoW thread for comment, but wanted to stick it here too. Friday's lunch cleaned up the foot and leg, arm and robe, and other details. It's about ready to ink, I think. Saturday - Pencils are done.

[scottmcd]

Here's the final of the Ice Druid, posted over in the CHoW thread. I used actual brush and India ink for the staff and background, my regular Aito brush pen (which is darker) for the figure, and a technical marker for the trim and a few touch ups.

[DIMAGYAN]

hey scottmcd you are working a lot.i have a comments on the ice druid: try get a general feel of the figure before drawing details, make some general forms and if you don't know how something looks search for references and look to your own body(like hands for example).the head is good made but you have some problems with the left arm and left hand.for the composition i think it could help a less symetrical background, but this is maybe a personal taste. take all this as a suggestion.
keep the good work and have fun

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN: Thanks for the comments. I did have trouble with the left arm and hand, but didn't really have time to find a good reference.

---

So here's the idea for a values and rendering exercise. I drew a fossil skull from reference, outlining everywhere there seemed to be a value change. That's the first image. I then color-shifted it to blue lines.

The second image is the practice. In the six boxes at the top I put what I'm going to use for 6 values, from dark to light. Then, I use those patterns to do the skull. Then I scan back in and remove the blue parts (this didn't work as well as I'd like, but oh well.)

I'm going to repeat this with different rendering techniques and in different media (graphite being the obvious other choice at the moment). This one was cross-hatching with the brush-pen. Next up will be stippling, I think. Or maybe patch-hatching.

[scottmcd]

Today's lunch's handiwork. The top one is done with brush and the bottom with different pencils: 6B, 4B, and Mechanical. I did a pencil version last night, and I'm still not happy with the range of values I'm getting. It seems a bit muddy.

The second picture below is the same as the first, but this time I used the Levels function to make the background white and expand the value range a bit. Finally, the third picture is the top skull reduced by half to get a sense of what reduction does to it. :blah:

[scottmcd]

I sketched the trunk of a maple tree at my sister-in-law's house today. The house was built just over a hundred years ago, and this tree was already there.

I sketched out the form with mechanical pencil, but then started in with the brush for the texture. I still have a long way to go on controlling the line consistency. I scanned it in with the black and white setting. Think I like how that came out.

[ccsears]

line is the first thing everyone learns to use when they draw. now you have to start using shape and mass. even if you're still using lines to mark out a shape, think "shape" in your head, not "outline."

[scottmcd]

ccsears: Thanks. I'm not always sure how to translate that into practice other than more practice. I do try, but you're not the only one to say that so I'll keep working at it.

---

Here's the current WIP for the Character of the Week. This is to be a Navigator. Here's the description: There's a small island somewhere in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Italy. Strange things happen on this island. (If you look behind Sad Mary's Bar and Girl you might find an alien. He was an observer once, but he fell into the party scene and now is just a wino.) The uninitiated require guidance in this place where the psychic is ordinary and a ticket to the ethereal plane comes cheap. That's where the navigator comes in. Whether you want casual sightseeing of the supernatural or an expedition to capture a psychovore, these folks are your guide.

[scottmcd]

Decided to do a new post for this one. Still working on the chow.

[scottmcd]

There are a number of things subtlely wrong with this piece that I'm not going to be able to fix. The perspective of the wall doesn't match the people, for example. I shortened his legs and feet since that was off, which now leads to the God's Eye at his feet being in the wrong place. It should really be in front of his legs, but I'm not going to fix that I think.

That said, I'm still having fun inking it. Since it's already mucked up a bit, that leaves me more free to experiment with inking techniques.

[scottmcd]

final version:

There's a small island somewhere in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Italy. Strange things happen on this island. (If you look behind Sad Mary's Bar and Girl you might find an alien. He was an observer once, but he fell into the party scene and now is just a wino.) The uninitiated require guidance in this place where the psychic is ordinary and a ticket to the ethereal plane comes cheap. That's where the navigator comes in. Whether you want casual sightseeing of the supernatural or an expedition to capture a psychovore, these folks are your guide.

Each navigator uses an item to focus their transition to other states. While there, their tattoos serve as signposts and tools. The labyrinth confuses foes and diverts their attacks. The sephira makes it easier to move to other places. And, of course, the compass points the way to your goal.

[scottmcd]

I've had very little time to practice this week. People keep sitting down with me at lunch, which is nice socially but means I don't get to draw. I did today, though, so here's the practice I did from Bridgman's Life Drawing book, the Light and Shade section.

BTW - I'm going on vacation for the next couple of weeks and will be offline. One of the two destinations is Comic-Con! :D

[scottmcd]

Finished the first part of vacation and am now getting ready to head off to Comic-Con. During a trip to the mountains with family, I tried doing Brigdman like figures, trying to get a sense of weight and mass. That's the first attachment below. Second is a set of heads on which I was working mostly on planes. Finally there is a page from the Arabian Nights comic - a story within a story. More will follow, though this isn't a finished for publication piece.

Only one of the figures was reffed, and none of the faces.

[scottmcd]

Comic-Con was great fun. Here are a couple of drawings I did while there. Some gestures and comic pages are also coming soon.

For the figure, I chose to leave some of the shading as pencil rathern than ink it all in, and I like the effect. I finished the inking and then did the face on Saturday night at the "drink 'n' draw" at the Marriott next to the hotel. At least a hundred artists gathered to hang out, sketch, and chat. Both of these are from my head.

[scottmcd]

Done while waiting for my flight back from San Diego.

[scottmcd]

Here's some work on cross-hatching, shading, and faces. The first one is a doodle from work. I don't normally post these, but I like how this one came out. I basically started from the eyes and went from there, without blocking out the whole thing first.

Next up is a guy eating. I borrowed a couple features from some people at the Taco Bell where I was drawing, but overall it's not done from reference. Neither is the third one, which I did at lunch today. Again, I borrowed some features from other people in the cafeteria. One woman was reading a newspaper at a funny angle, and that's what inspired the pose. But, she moved after a few seconds so I didn't really get to ref it.

Finally is a sketch of Patricia Tallman, who played Lyta Alexander on Babylon 5. I got a signed picture of her at Comic-Con. There's plenty wrong with it, but some things that I like too. I thought the hair came out decently for a cross-hatching experiment. Overall though, I think it's funny that the one I'm least happy with I did from a ref. My excuse is that I was very tired and I was looking at the picture from an angle rather than straight on.

[smugbug]

Hey Scott! This is Patricia. Thought I should stop by and yell, "HI!"

:teeth:

[scottmcd]

creativesmugbug - Hi! Glad you had a good Comic-Con too. :D

---

Here's page 2 of the comic, though without dialog.

[scottmcd]

I posterized a picture of Dr. Who down to 4 channels and am using that as my ref. I started this morning...

[scottmcd]

Total time here is probably about 1.5 hours...:ninja:

[Evxyza92]

That last portrait is a little awkard, the hand seem to be bigger then face, and it might need some resizing.

[scottmcd]

Evyxza92 - Yep, the hand needs work. I don't have as good reference for that part, and I'm still looking to pull that up. In the meantime, I've revised a little bit here...

[scottmcd]

I think I'm about done with this. The possible exception is his left eye. I'm having trouble getting that right. In the previous versions it's all been too low. I've moved it up now, and it's in the right position, but it may need to be lengthened a little bit still.

It's frustrating that I don't see such a major structural problem until well into rendering. *sigh*

On the other hand, someone came up to me in the cafeteria while I was working on it and asked if I did portraits for other people. I said I never had, but would be open to it. It would be weird if I wind up with a commission. :angel:

[DIMAGYAN]

hey, good practice with the skulls.a comment about the comic page: in that page you have problems with the narrative, because a breake in the camera direction.the first panel show the character viewing to rigth and then we see the food market(in the left side) but then in second panel he's watching to the rigth(that make a hard transition and is confusing) and in panel three we see his face from the opposite angle(again is not clear what is happening, i think that panel is not necesary) the rest of the panels are fine(in fact the last two are the best in storytelling).
the portrait is nice( i think the rigth eye can be better)
take care

[scottmcd]

I just put together a set of references for drawing eyes and posted it here:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1425673#post1425673

[scottmcd]

Here are the first three studies from the set of eyes I posted over in the other thread (link above).

I'm curious about how others get such a finer render with pencil than I seem to be getting. Let me know if you have any suggestions...

[scottmcd]

I accidentally left my eye references home this afternoon, so I drew both of these without reference. The first one, eh... the less said the better. I thought the second one came out OK. I didn't block out either of them first, just started drawing.

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN: Thanks for the comments - particularly the storytelling ones. I see what you mean, but will probably reply in your sb with a couple of other questions whenever I get time.

I did today's eye study in ballpoint pen over lunch:

[scottmcd]

This is the final posted for Chow 85: Robotic Gigolo. It's a page from an instruction manual found in a garbage can outside a run-down building. I assembled it from various bits, but didn't have time to scan them all in separately and post. I was going for both creepy and amusing at the same time.

[scottmcd]

Here are two recent eye studies in ballpoint pen, and this evening's sketch of a woman enjoying a shower. No reference for the shower one, and I think she may be a bit too skinny. I adjusted the contrast using Levels to bring it out a bit more, but I'm going to ink this one too. I'll post that later.

[Evxyza92]

Heh hat robot gigilo is mad funny, a brochure ?

[scottmcd]

Thought I'd post the full-sized heads and figure I did for CHOW 85. I don't think folks there know quite what to make of it, and it wouldn't surprise me if it gets bounced for not being enough of an illustration. We'll see. For the first head I used a couple pictures of Dan Radcliffe as reference, and for the last one a couple pictures of Brad Pitt. Weirdly, I think the Brad Pitt one is more recognizable when it's small.

Anyway, here they are:

[nilaffle]

It's been a while! Looks like you've been busy this summer, I can see the improvement. Your portraits and facial features are getting more confident, as well as your pencil work (graphite, whoo!). Keep up with the figure studies, your hands and feet and their relative proportions could use a little more attention.

Looking good here. I'll be back. :) Keep posting!

[scottmcd]

Inked version of the shower...

[scottmcd]

Evxyza92: Thanks. :) It seems to be fairly ignored over on the character of the week thread, but then it's not your traditional rendered piece there.

nilaffle: Glad to see you're back and settling into school down south. Thanks for the comments - hands and feet are definitely on the list to practice.

---

Is there an equivalent to the gesture in landscape/background drawing? I don't know if it has a name (or the same name), but that's what I tried to do during lunch today. It doesn't make sense to do the curves that you often see in a figure gesture, but I suppose it makes sense to block out the scene composition and do basic shapes. Anyway, here's a first attempt:

[scottmcd]

Here's a quick first concept for a junk collector (this week's chow). The inset is a possible composition for the drawing. This guy is opening a shop named "One Man's Junk." He's showing off the banner and the contents of the shop window which will be on the right. The twist will be that the items shown in the window actually are treasure - crowns, scepters, coins, etc.

[scottmcd]

I got more drawing in while my daughter played in the pool this afternoon.

[scottmcd]

An inked version. I'm going to have a go at coloring this, so wish me luck!

[scottmcd]

So, here's an in-progress on the color. I've stayed mainly with primary and secondary colors. I've adjusted saturation and brightness as needed, but usually to either 10%, 20%, or 50%. :xpld:

[scottmcd]

Apparently there's a 5 character minimum to post. Thanks to ikuru and DIMAGYAN for their suggestions on this over in the chow thread.

[scottmcd]

En event in which people lie around, chat, and put henna on themselves and others is a decent place in which to do gestures. The first of these was a sketch when I was working out the junk collector. I inked it yesterday as practice with shading.

[scottmcd]

Did these with ballpoint pen. The top one I penciled in lightly first from a reference photo. The expression changed subtlely from mildly aggressive to worried.

[Edmundantes]

Its really lovely to watch your progression from page 1 to page 5. I think what I like best about your style is the line work. I struggle with inking, so its so cool to look at your stuff, because your style has such nice, often really characteristic line work. Your anatomy is improving, and I'm excited to watch the continuation of that improvement. Thanks for sharing!

[scottmcd]

Today's lunch exercise: from a picture of a guy at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.

[scottmcd]

Here are several gestures of the same tai chi pose. The original picture is also below. All were done with brush & ink. For the heckuvit, I put them all together and then inverted the picture. (The troubador is left over from last time, and I like this one better than the gesture in the last post, where I used a different main force line.)

http://www.chipellis.com/Pictures/Tung_Hu_Ling/THL%20Beginning%20of%20Deflect%20Downward%20Parry% 20and%20Punch%201960a%20small.jpg

[scottmcd]

Today I worked on a sketch of the Tai Chi pose from last time. This is a little more detailed, and it's in preparation of a much more detailed drawing.

[scottmcd]

From a picture we took of some friends at the Maryland Renaissance Faire. Done at lunch today - just getting a feel for the image.

[DIMAGYAN]

nice studies and gestures. the chow colours come better, but to be honest still need work. when do colour try to make some tests in thumbnails to see how work diferents combinations of colours and values.
the last drawing is nice.

keep working and take care

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN: Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. The color certainly needs more work. I think for now I'm going to put that off and concentrate on inking and values, which appeals more to me anyway.

---

The life drawing sessions have started up again. Despite construction in the room below us, we got most of the session in. Three times, though, they drilled up through the floor!

This is the same model who was at my very first session, so it's interesting to go back and look at the drawings I did of him then. I did gestures, but they weren't particularly good, so I'm not posting them.

Here's a link to the first one I did of him, followed by today's.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=123229&stc=1&d=1176665129

[aztec_mex]

can anyone help me learn more bout how 2 work this thing cause i have no idea.....
and does any1 have a forum bout any indian from india type of drawings.


thanx

[Evxyza92]

You are defininetely getting better, and I notcied with teh junk collector Chow , you have one of the gigilo heads in the background, I notice stuff. On your second to last piece, the both have the 3/4 view , try to change up and and some more values to it , and the positionsing of the head won't be so similar.

[scottmcd]

Here's the sketch from the figure drawing session yesterday, finished out a bit more.

[scottmcd]

Evxyza92: I'm glad you noticed the 'bot head in the collector's window. :) I'm doing a new version of the other one you commented on (the portrait of some friends at the renaissance festival). In the new one, her head is tilted a bit differently to better show that she's playing the fiddle.

Here's a WIP for this week's CHoW (mis-scanned at the top):

[scottmcd]

I wish I had more time for this one. Maybe I'll get back to it for color or to soften the lines. I scanned using 600 dpi and the black/white setting. In the end, I think it may have been better to go with greyscale. Anyway, here 'tis.

:zzz:

[scottmcd]

A coworker wants me to come up with a mascot for BLAST, which is a molecular biology product that matches DNA sequences. The mascot is to be a beagle in honor of the HMS Beagle that Darwin sailed on. So, I found some references and started drawing a few beagles. These are probably more lifelike than she wants, but I figure it makes sense to start like this and then make them more cartoony.

I haven't really done animals much before, so this is new. I took a look at some skeletons as well.

[scottmcd]

If it comes together I may submit a CHoW this week. Don't know if I'll have time, but the topic is a mobster and his moll. This is the sketch I did at lunch today. The general seated posture for both of them comes from a reference, but the clothing and details will differ.

[The Whistler]

Hey Scott :) Thanks for replying back at my sb. As for your work, I definitely see much progress since your first post, I think you're somewhat better in faces than anatomy (my case too) but you'll catch up, no doubt about it.

Oh, and as for digital work, check this out http://www.carloscabrera.com.ar/tutorials/ very VERY helpful, at least in my case :)

Cheers and good luck

[scottmcd]

Whistler: Thanks for the tutorials and comments. :)

--

Here is a first cut at a beagle for a mascot. I'm actually thinking it should be a bit more cartoony, but we'll see. I doubt this will actually make it onto the web site where I work, but it would be cool if it did.

It's reduced from full 8.5 x 11 size.

[scottmcd]

If the beagle was an exercise in simplicity of line in inking, this one is an exercise in values. I printed out the last figure drawing I did very dark and then placed a piece of computer paper over it. A light box sure would have been nice, but I was able to see well enough. I usually use the brush pen, but this was a Hunt 102 nib pen.

Notice what filling in the space between his arm and torso did to the paper. Being just crappy printer paper, it warped the whole sheet, giving it a pretty interesting pattern that I decided not to Photoshop out.

[scottmcd]

Here are some gestures and the long pose from this morning's life drawing session. I don't mean to cut off the feet on these gestures, but I still run out of paper (these are reduced). As for the long pose, I'd still deepen the darkest darks and better establish the highlights, but the basic image represents about an hour and 20 minutes.

[scottmcd]

Here's this week's chow...

[scottmcd]

I went to the Small Press Expo here in Bethesda, Maryland this weekend. Then, I did this during lunch today:

[scottmcd]

This week's chow: the apple gatherer. Dunno if I'll finish it. It'd be nice...

[scottmcd]

Nearly final version of the Apple Gatherer for the chow.

[scottmcd]

... and the final.

[scottmcd]

This week's drawing - done in ballpoint pen after a light pencil sketch. I didn't get the hand on her hip in the right place, and I keyed her navel off of that. Only later did I realize how far off it is. Otherwise, though, I'm fairly pleased with it. Did a number of gestures too, some of which I may get around to posting.

[DIMAGYAN]

hey scott. nice work on the last chow, good character.

as for the miners daughter, i think is very good. what i think you have to do is not have fear with black and white. make some test to see what works. emphasize what is important. and keep in mind the "order" of the page lecture (follow a z path from left to right). the frame inside of the page is a bit distracting, i think. i made a couple of quick sketches to show you some ideas of what im writing about b and w render. (i hope you don't mind that i post the images, is more easy for me that say with words. tell me if you want i take it off the images from here.).


good works, keep drawing

223460
first test
223464
second test i move the woman a bit to the right
(just a couple of ideas for b&w)

[scottmcd]

DIMAGYAN: Thanks very much for your critique and draw-overs. It's perfectly fine to keep them there. I definitely appreciate it! You'll see that I experimented with blacks in the figure drawing I did last weekend, and I'll keep working on it.

-----

Here are two things. The first is a figure drawing from the life session last weekend. He's leaning against a chair that I didn't draw in, though I may add something there if I get around to it. The second thing is a WIP of the pencils for the first page of a 4 page story I'm working on. The pencil is light so I enhanced the contrast quite a bit. In the story, the Caliph is having a dinner for the members of his court, but the court storyteller is late.

[scottmcd]

I see a lot wrong with this, but in the name of actually getting things done, I'm going to call these pencils finished and begin inking later tonight or tomorrow. The figures along the table in panel 3 were harder than I'd thought, and I completely winged the perspective throughout. Anyway, once inked and in the computer I'll add words and move on to page 2.

[scottmcd]

I did the inks over the weekend. After this is done, I think it's quite possible that I'll re-do this page, but for now I'm going to go ahead with it. I like panel 2 and think that came out well, except for his hands. I need to find a reference for that hand position and go from there. Next up are words and titles. This is reduced from 9x12.

[scottmcd]

I took care of the lettering and such for page 1, which is below. Stylistically I may want to re-do it after I finish the others, but we'll see. I like the caliph in Panel 2, but would like to fix things in the other panels.

I'm penciling page 2 - made decent progress last night and today at lunch. I had my wife take reference photos of myself for panels 1 and 3, and I think that helped produce better poses. The hands are better also. Panel 2 will be an up-shot of Harun Al-Rashid reacting to the fact that that Abu Hasan is late, and having an idea. He orders an egg to be given to each member of the court and instructs them to sit on them carefully, then produce them when he gives the signal. That last part will be in the caption at the center of the page and possibly a caption in Panel 3.

Other thoughts. The line of the table in Panel 1 was initially going to lead to the table line in front of HAR in panel 2. It will lead to something else compositionally now that it's going to be more of a close-up, and I'm still deciding what. In panel 3, the arches in the background serve to delineate and highlight the figures. I'm thinking of having the background of the arches be black, which will frame the second figure heavily. It's not that I want the whole room to be dark - there's ambient light coming from all around actually. Compositionally, though, I don't want to fill up the background with detail. Plus, I do think it would be effective to frame the figures.

[scottmcd]

We had a great model today. She had both stamina and interesting poses. Her husband was just deployed to Iraq, so she's back in this area, which is home, while she goes to Howard University. I hope she can come back.

The gestures came out better today than the long pose. The gestures are all reduced, but each filled a 9 x 12 sheet. For the long pose, I started off in pencil and then moved to ink. At the beginning of inking, I was going for solid, clear blacks and whites. After I finished the arm and shoulder, though, I started wanting more gradients for the chest and abdomen. That's how I finished it out, but I think I should have stayed with the bolder style throughout. As it is, the shoulder area is just this black hole that draws the eye away from everything else but doesn't define much shape by itelf.

I took a photo of the pencils before inking started, so if I get lightbox for Christmas maybe I'll have another go.

[scottmcd]

Here's page 2. I'm generally happy with the postures, which are from reference photo my wife took of me. I'm not happy with the upshot of Harun Al-Rashid in panel 2. I like the effect of the arch framing the guy on the right in panel 3.

[scottmcd]

Today's life drawing session: ink and grahite, about 2 hours. Both full size and reduced.

[scottmcd]

I'm still working out placement of blacks. The "x"s around Abu Hasan in panel 1 indicate blacks, and there will be clear shading of the people. Considering blacking the background of panel 3 (the hand). Probably hatching as a background for the inset panel at the bottom. I hope to finish up over the Thanksgiving break.

Oops. I still have to add the food to the feast table.

[scottmcd]

Here's page 3, and also the first self-portrait I've tried. It kind of wavers back and forth between looking like me and not. It's from a reference photo my wife took for the first panel in page 3.

[JL.Alfaro]

Hey man, been looking through your sb, you been doing good progress, specially with your newest life studies. If i can crit you on anything it would be your rendering technique. You need to improve on the way you sketch your shadows and mids in. Most people choose either a cross hatching or single stroke technique, but in some of these you go back and forth between the two and then throw in some squiggles in there. just stick to one techniques is what Im saying.
Also, on some of these, there is little variation between your outline and the actual rendering on the inside. You might want to push into getting rid of that out line and focus on creating the shape with the interior rendering instead.

keep at it man! :asspat:

[scottmcd]

JL.Alfaro: Thanks for your comments. That's just the kind of thing I need for rendering. I experimented with shading w/o linework for a couple of these doodles.

These are some preliminary sketches for the next page. I drew them while watching "The Brain That Would Not Die" with a sick daughter home from school. :)

[scottmcd]

Here is today's life drawing long-pose (1.5 hrs), plus a drawing of my daughter I did last night (20 minutes). She was reading a book, and the two light sources were on either side of her, slightly behind. All in graphite this time. I was working on de-emphasizing the line work and improving the rendering. The figure's head is wrong, but not as wrong as you might think. The guy has a weird head. Finally, a couple of hand studies.

[scottmcd]

This is a digital drawing done with mechanical pencil and 4b. Get it? "Digit"al. Yeah, ok. Never mind.

(My wife says this looks like her: :geekg: )

[scottmcd]

Today's Sunday, so I went to the last life-drawing session of the year. Good model this time - a skinny, slight woman. I spent extra time on the proportions, which I think I pretty much got. The rendering needs work, but that's OK. Below are the gestures and then the long pose.

I'm also including some prep sketches I'm doing for the last page of the comic, which I plan to finish penciling today. It's kind of hard to find good refs of people either stifling laughter or just full-out laughing. The Faigin book called Facial Expressions helped, especially with the stifling laughter one.

[scottmcd]

Had computer death this morning, so I'm having to scan this in from somewhere else, which has a worse scanner. Anyway, after some minor tweaking and reducing, here's the WIP for the fourth and last page of the story.

[scottmcd]

Here's the final, inked and lettered. I use the term "final" loosely, because I'm actually going to re-do the lettering, fix some inking along the way, and do the production for print. This is going to be the first half of an 8 page mini-comic.

[scottmcd]

Here are some studies of the elbow. I'd been having trouble finding decent reference for this kind of stuff and then had a blinding flash of the obvious -- I work at the National Library of Medicine. Quick trip to the reading room finds many great atlases, including some of the Netter books.

These, however, are from the Stephen Gregory Peck book, which I have.

[scottmcd]

More in the arm and elbow anatomy studies. I'm going to do a couple more of these from different angles and positions, as the Peck book has them. I'm starting to get that mental model of how the arm is put together. The brachioradialus was something I'd noticed but didn't know how to put into a drawing.

[scottmcd]

These are some hatching studies done with my brush-pen. It's much easier to do with a dip pen - Hunt 102 works well for me - because it's easier to control the flow of the ink. The brush has a wider variety of line to produce, at least for me right now, and requires a lighter touch. So, the first one was just abstract practicing, and the second one was a basic face. I'm showing them at different sizes to see the effects of reduction.

[scottmcd]

Two more practices at cross hatching. The blue is ballpoint pen and the black is brush. The one with the clouds has been somewhat reduced. Finally, I did a couple of practices of walking people. I took lots of photos at the Richmond Scottish Games, and these are from a couple of the pictures. About 5-7 minutes each.

[scottmcd]

I've been totally sick, which means I've had some opportunity to practice. I've been copying out of Burne Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing," specifically in the distribution of masses. These are reduced a bit.

[scottmcd]

Got a lightbox and a couple of Windsor & Newton Series 7 brushes for Christmas, so today I tried them out. The sketch is from lunch, and I then inked it this evening. These are the pencils scanned side-by-side with the inks. The background is dry-brush, but I'm only starting to get my head around that technique so it's mainly just swirly rather than textured. Here's the original scan followed by a reduced and cleaned-up version.

[scottmcd]

A friend came up with an interesting story, and this is a character concept for the narrator. The story doesn't set a specific time and place, but I'm thinking steampunkish. The last picture was also a doodle in this direction.

[scottmcd]

This is prep for a drawing I'm working on. Specifically, I want to draw a convincing braid and figured I should see how they work. Did this over lunch today.

[scottmcd]

Just blocking out the basic poses before moving to details like clothing and background. I have a few thumbnails for background and overall composition, which I'll post later. :medusachow:

[scottmcd]

More Medusa progress. These are rough pencils, and as you can see from this scan, where I left in the spiral bound from the sketchbook, I started too close to the edge of the page. Probably a classic beginner's mistake. Anyway, Once I finish working out the background, I'm going to use the lightbox to produce a clean set of pencils (centered on the page) on 9 x 12 bristol board.

[scottmcd]

I rendered this way past where I should have for a rough, but it did help me work through some things that will come up when I do the real rendering.

This is the finished rough that I'm going to use with the lightbox to produce the clean version. That's next. I'll only post it when it's pretty much done rather than do a set of incremental updates.

[DIMAGYAN]

nice works. is good to see you are doing studies. the figures are better, still work more on the relation beetwen forms. try to mix some straigth and curve lines. the medusa piece is very nice, as advice i think the head is a bit small.

keep working and have fun!

[scottmcd]

Here are some exercises in shading. The leaf and branch are from life - though they're artificial plants. The sphere and face are made up. I'm also experimenting with toning the paper first and smudging.

[scottmcd]

I've been busy lately. Among other things I started a graphic design class at the local community college. Assignment 1 is to come up with 16 postage stamp design thumbnails. The theme can be either (or both) of "Love" or "Black History Month." Here are the 16, most done in ballpoint pen, but a few done in pencil. Next week, we're going to pick one to do in-depth.

[scottmcd]

Thumbnail for a cartoon I'm working on. Or maybe it's a rough draft, if you prefer. Final will be 8 x 8, and the punchline will be supplied by a collaborator. Will be fixing angle of the sidewalk lines, making the woman walking out of frame less stiff, and moving or re-doing the suggestion of the brick pattern between the two heads. I want to draw the eye to homeless guy, then down him to the sign, and finally over to the woman leaving. The bricks provide an alternate eye path that I don't think should be there.

[scottmcd]

Today's model had been there once before, and she's a good one. She picks good poses. The three drawings here are from today's session. I'm also throwing in a WIP of the stamp for my Graphic Design class. I might also do the beagle and compare the two in tomorrow's class to decide which to finish. I don't like the hands on this one, I think they should be a little more iconic and less realistic. Plus I'd need to find a good reference of that particular gesture.

[scottmcd]

Here are the inks. I'll take it from here in Photoshop and possibly Illustrator.

[ItalianHorsey]

Cool stuff here, I like your cartoony style. Keep working on the anatomy though. Keep drawing!

[scottmcd]

Quick stamp update

[scottmcd]

Italian Horsey: Thanks. I will.

Here's the final of the stamp for the graphic design class.

[scottmcd]

The model didn't show this week, so one of the younger guys took his shirt off and did model duty. He reminds me of Cary Elwes in the Princess Bride. I'm happy with this one because it actually is a good likeness.

:scribble:

[scottmcd]

Forgive the lined paper. There was a long meeting at work today that I used productively to practice cross hatching. Specifically, I wanted to work on layering cross hatch patterns to create form and depth. This is all with ballpoint pen.

Also, the A logo is an actual logo. It looks perfectly fine until you see the hideous reality of the logo. Then you can't un-see it, and you need brain bleach.

[scottmcd]

We had two models today, and I focused on the woman. After last week, I got suggestions over in the Critique thread, so I did the same kind of portrait to test them out. Here's the result.

[scottmcd]

Back to the Medusa picture. After the previous version I did, I used the lightbox to produce a cleaner set of pencils and then started shading, blending, and so on. This isn't done yet, but it's getting close. The main thing left to do is the man's feet and the marble flooring. I'm at my in-laws now, and my reference for the sandals is at home, so I'm going to finish it up early next week.

[scottmcd]

Working out of Burne Hogarth's book on light and shading, I did a few silhouettes of things around me.

[scottmcd]

Here's the "final" version of this piece. It's in quotes because I expect to make one more round of tweaks after any feedback over in the critique threads. I'm considering making the background a little brighter also. But, for now, this is pretty much it.

It doesn't live up to what's in my head, but I've learned a lot from this piece.

:medusachow:

[scottmcd]

Today I worked on building volume through cross-hatching with pencil and then blending. This took about 2.5 hours, though I had two false starts.

[scottmcd]

Here's a second self-portrait. I've used Levels to make it a bit easier to see. It's light because the pencils are really just there for inking. I'm happier with this one than with the last self-portrait I tried.

[scottmcd]

I took the scan, printed in blue, and inked it. After scanning the inked version, I removed the blue. This is the result. I might do it again with less hatching and more emphasis on the lines. It did lose quite a bit from the pencil version. I'm not really that happy with it.

[scottmcd]

I just did three icons for work. Not having done a lot of icons I think these came out OK. I realize it's not the usual thing for a sketchbook, but here they are anyway. The first two are a toggle that shows an on/off state for locking in search criteria, and the last one is an icon to bring up an index of search values.

[scottmcd]

I'm re-doing an earlier project that before I'd just penciled. Here's a version of the original and a current version. This too will likely become a mini-comic.

329661

329662

[scottmcd]

Here are a couple of pieces I did for my graphic design class. The first one, of the party, isn't as finished as I'd like, but its what I have time for. The second one I spent a little more time on. It was still fairly quick, but I spent time working out the coloring and learning a bit of blending. There's not much in it, but it's there. One problem I ran into was that I used channels to pull out the linework. Since I put the linework in an alpha channel, it didn't show up in the final printed version. I think I might continue to use layers until I figure out the channel thing a bit better.

The project is for a new drug for depression: Damitol. With the first drawing, it has the headline, "Ever feel like you're not quite there?" It's a print ad to drive people to the web site. The web site shows a progression of the drawing from rough to the finished version below. Her smile is a little too wide and on the edge of creepy. Oh well. :)

[scottmcd]

These all have text beneath them, and that's not there in the artwork. Second strip.

[scottmcd]

Current assignment is a 3 panel storyboard that shows "The Accident." Panel 1 is the setup, panel 2 is the accident, and panel 3 is the aftermath. We can interpret "accident" any way we want. This is my first thumbnail for it. I used reference from the X-Men for the guy holding the gun and the guy on the ground.

[scottmcd]

Figure drawing started up again. I'm reasonably happy with how this came out, but I need to get a bigger sketchpad for these sessions. I'm still working on the cross-hatching and blending method for building forms. I also spend the first 20 minutes just getting the proportions right. I think that helped.

[scottmcd]

Figure drawing started up again. I'm reasonably happy with how this came out, but I need to get a bigger sketchpad for these sessions. I'm still working on the cross-hatching and blending method for building forms. I also spend the first 20 minutes just getting the proportions right. I think that helped.

[Sublimus]

Watch some of your proportions here. The eyes on that color portrait are huge! Also on that one, the way the neck is attached is kind of strange.

Keep up the hard work!

[scottmcd]

Second version of the BloodBath & Beyond cartoon. I'm thinking of putting a gradient behind the linework.

[scottmcd]

I'm doing the 3 panel storyboard called Violence at a size of 14 x 19. I scanned in pieces, stitched it together as best I could, and adjusted the levels and such. These are the pencils.

[scottmcd]

Sublimus - Thanks for the comments. :)

Here are inks for the storyboard. I'm happy with the use of black in panel 1 on the figure and on the buildings framing the figure. I'm not happy with how the fact that the bullet from panel 3 hitting him in panel 1 gets kind of lost. Maybe the larger figure in panel 3 doesn't work. I also need to fill out the back of his head there. I did the inks in 1.5 hours because this project is due sooner than I thought it was.

[scottmcd]

This was a doodle yesterday, then inked very quickly last night. It's stylized on purpose - hopefully that comes across.

[scottmcd]

For the first time I tried figure drawing at bigger than 8.5 by 11. I got a sketchpad at 14 x 17. I'm not fond of the model we had. He's a nice enough guy, but he doesn't pick very interesting poses. In this case, I bulked him up some since I was doing the troll thing. One thing with working bigger is that I don't have as much time to get to the entire figure, so the torso is the most refined and the legs the least.

[Micaiah Nelson]

I the feel of every picture. Same goes for the comics. Yor proportions needs a work. Don't be afraid to draw lines to match thing up. Get into some anatomy and more figure studies.

[scottmcd]

From a picture of a woman in a yoga pose. A fun light study. I'll ink it next.

[scottmcd]

Here we go...

[scottmcd]

Here's a rabbit I drew during lunch today and after dinner tonight. It's from reference, and is ballpoint pen.

[scottmcd]

The length of her forearm is one of those things you look at as you're winding it up and go, "Oh my God how did I not see that before?" In this case, I blocked it all out first, checking proportions as I went. When I got to that hand, she'd moved in since the time I did the blocking. I just erased it and drew in the new location and went right on trucking.

[scottmcd]

A random doodle in ballpoint pen from a meeting. I made him up as I went rather than blocking things out first. Bad artist! ;)

[Novbert]

thanks, for commenting on my sketchbook
I can see some nice improvement here, but you surely can do it even better:
Some suggestions:
- Stop inking! It's time consuming and totally pointless if the basic drawing is off. I think you should do TONS of figure sketches, quick ones! You did some nice Bridgman studies earlier. Don't stop drawing them! Doing one minute sketches is one of the easiest and fastest way to learn many things about human anatomy and proportions. You can find as many references as you want here (http://www.posemaniacs.com)

- Focus on underlying structure! Figure and portrait drawing has its laws you must follow to produce working images. I think that the problem with most of your drawings is the lack of structure. You seem to focus on contours too much, and not on the bones and muscles which actually build up those contours.
Loomis books are great to learn things about the structure of heads and figures. I recommend "Figure drawing for all it's worth" and "Drawing heads and hands". You can find them here (http://fineart.sk/index.php?cat=1).

- Push shading as far as possible! Use the darkest darks and the whitest whites! Use many different kinds of pencils from 9B to 6H! This helps a lot to make your images look more three dimensional.
That's all.

Btw I like that bunny rabbit in post #228 is really nice.

[scottmcd]

Novbert: Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll use Posemaniacs to do a "100 Figures" exercise by setting it's random feature to 60 seconds and doing 10 a day, starting next week.

Here is the latest version of the Yoga drawing. I'm going to have some stuff in the art show at RavenCon this weekend, so I'm preparing this one and some earlier things. Should be fun - it'll be the first thing like this I've ever done. :)

[Sublimus]

This last one is nice!

And Im glad to see you found some life drawing for figures, that should help a lot.

[scottmcd]

This is a preliminary sketch to work out an illustration of an Asparas - kind of like an Indian water dryad/muse/fairy/handmaiden at Indra's court. It's ballpoint pen.

[humanNature6115]

Keep pushin


=================================
:mittenbop: :mittenbop: :mittenbop: Sketchbook:mittenbop: :mittenbop: :mittenbop:
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120761

[scottmcd]

Pretty much there...

[scottmcd]

Sublimus and HumanNature - Thanks for dropping by. :)

I've started the exercise with Posemaniacs to do 100 figures or so over a week's time. Here's the first batch. I've done a second round too, but don't have time to scan it in right now. They're bigger, of course, but are reduced and Leveled here. Each one is a 60 second drawing. I didn't realize until I started all the different angles, and the first one started off from directly below.

[humanNature6115]

Puuuuuuuuuush
Haaaaaarder.

=================================
:mittenbop: :mittenbop: :mittenbop: Sketchbook:mittenbop: :mittenbop: :mittenbop:
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120761

[The Whistler]

The bunny is too cute :)

I also like the guy running in the street with a gun though I think your perspective is a bit messed up on the other side of the street, looks like too much of the sidewalk is showing and that makes the buildings look like they are on a higher level. Still, it looks great, you're improving :)

Cheers!

[Novbert]

Thanks for commenting on my sketchbook again. I'm glad to see you started using posemaniacs. Those sketches are pretty nice 60 second ones, with solid linework (I esepecially like the 3rd and the 12th). A tip: if you use the 30 second drawing feature of the page for practice and uncheck 'advance mode' then it gives you poses viewed from some less 'challenging' angles. ;)
Keep practicing!

[scottmcd]

HumanNature: What, am I giving birth here? :) Work continues, of course. Have any particular suggestions?

The Whistler: Thanks for dropping in - I'm glad you like rabbit. :) You're right on the perspective, too. Thanks for pointing that out.

Novbert: So THAT'S what the Advanced option does. I couldn't tell. Now that I've used it, though, I think I like it. It makes you focus on the shape that's there rather than how you think the body should work.

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Here is the next batch from posemaniacs. First I try to place the lines of force, then I try to identify the major body masses and build the arms and legs off of them. I tend to get to the head last, which means sometimes it's gone. :)

[scottmcd]

More figures coming soon. In the meantime, this is a WIP of an Apsara - a Hindu spirit/handmaiden to Indra/muse/siren/dryad. She's coming down to tempt some poor ascetic who has his mind set too much on meditation.

[scottmcd]

I have more gesture drawings to scan, but I've been doing this the last couple of days at lunch. It's anatomy practice, then inking and hatching practice.

[scottmcd]

I went to Balticon this weekend and produced these sketches, among others. The first is without reference and is of Charon. The second shows a few concepts and doodlings for a picture of the Nasnas - a monster that the left or right half of a person. It also has a tail and hops as fast as a man can run. Finally, there's a sketch of a tree that I did last weekend.

[scottmcd]

Still been drawing a lot, but not posting it here so much. Here's a WIP called Sufficiently Advanced Technology. Man, the keyboard was a time-consuming. I used a 005 Prismacolor marker for it to get the control that I don't yet have with the brush.

[scottmcd]

... except for a few cleanup details (smudges and the like) to white out on the original, and some pencil erasure.

[Justice Von Brandt]

Hello :)

Love you cute bunny drawing.

I'd say to really refine your drawing as much as possible and then start to ink it.

[scottmcd]

It's been a busy time, but here's an update of Yoga II. This is the version I plan to include in the ComicCon portfolio.

[Geoth]

"Yoga II" is looking really good.

Your sketches from posemaniacs look really clean and nice. My recommendation would be to run the "random pose" so you have no time limit and draw for 3 mins super super lightly then spend at least 10mins shading in use the shadows to define your figure not outlines.

[scottmcd]

Geoth: Thanks for the comment - that's a good idea on the posemaniacs. I'll give it a shot.

Later I'll post the color version I've got of this, but these were the pencils I scanned into PS to keep working with.