Wrat's arts - | back to basics |

[longwrat]

Greetings everybody,

I'm a mostly self taught artist hailing from Australia but after a couple years of floating about with no real improvement and direction.. I'm considering going overseas for formal art training and to better myself in this industry that I've really fallen for. My next goal is to try and get into a good concept art school.

Beh.. enough blabbing.

Here's a bunch of art for you. Crits and comments most welcome!
A couple are finished, others are mostly quick paints. Big mixed bunch in here, I've got fanart and original stuff.
Can't say I've found a particular style that I'm most fond of working in yet. Only thing they all have in common is that they are all digital. I'm a Painter and Photoshop oh yes.

I'll progressively add more as I finish 'em.

thanks for stopping by,

Wrat.

[Sway West]

Great start! Welcome to the boards, also. : )

You seem to have a great understanding of anatomy, and play freely with various poses and expressions. What's more, you seem to really love your characters (I have frequented your dA account several times in the past!), and a think this is extremely important in concept design. It's great to see so much color in your pieces, as well- I think you've got the fundamentals down, but you need to do a little "tightening" to really give 'em the extra UMPH! :D

[Sanest]

Yea good start, I can't really crit sorry.

The archer and the priest are my favourite.

Keep posting!

[Delmar]

Good start
I´m really fond of your character-animal designs, they have all very good-chosen and readable expressions, nice...:)

Some crits would be.

- In some of your drawings you don´t seem to be carefull with the lightning. For example in the picture with the guy killing the rat, you have at least three different main light sources. I suggest to really focus on the light situation (direction of main light; rim lights; colors etc..) right on the start of the painting.

- Some of the paintings could use a little mor contrast between the lights and the darks now your color range is mostly more in the midtones, if there is a lack of contrast things tending to look kind of flat, for example the armor.

I know i´m way not the best painter on this board:^^;: but maybe you cand find something useful out of it :)

keep it up

[smid]

cool stuff man you have a good sense of color keep up the good work :)

[FactorZero]

i really like your stuff. I'm interested to see what your rough sketch stuff looks like. Please share some sketches.

[longwrat]

Sway West - Hey thanks for the kind words mate! They're really encouraging. :)

Delmar - You have a good point there about contrast, I will def try out colours that are further from midtones for my next painting. I'll try harder with the lighting too. Thanks!

Sanest, Smid, FactorZero - Thanks guys!



Here are some sketches from today. My hand skills have really gone down the drain since I discovered tablet drawing a couple years back, so my pencil drawings are suffering. I'm aiming to start doing one traditional rendering a day.

The rest are tablet drawings done in Painter. (green one was done last month) The landscapes are half-hour dabblings in Artrage.

[nilaffle]

Awesome start to the sketchbook! I've seen your work on DA (I watch you, actually), glad to see you posting here. Glad to also see you exploring traditional media. I'd love to see some figure studies in here.

Lovely use of color in those landscape studies. :) Can't wait to see more!

[longwrat]

Nilaffle - Thanks much!!


Going back to the basics.. now that I'm trying to learn anatomy properly I realise that my knowledge of them is pretty poor indeed. D=
Ew my pencil drawings are ugly.

[Merlkir]

Hi, longwrat. :)
Your art is awesome, now I appreciate your comment in my SB even more :)

I wonder if there's a way to bookmark threads here at CA.org...

[theredshoe]

wow man, a lot of nice works here. your digital pieces are very strong. your use of colors are great and you're also pushing your characters as well. you have expressions in them and good designs. any chance are you influenced by howl miyazaki (not sure if thats the right spelling)?

as for your traditional skills, you have a lot more room to improve on =p not really sure how you can be so good with the tablet and not even better with a pencil =p i dont know if this isnt said to you before but dont pet your lines. try to make it all in one stroke if possible.

cheers!

[deadred]

very expressive sketches! i like your strong sense of form. perhaps slightly enhanced shadow/light contrast would emphasize your characters even more.. i really like the priest and the hunter with the boar over his shoulders, and the pyramid head lady is giggle inducing :}

[longwrat]

Merlkir - Hey thanks for stopping by! :)

theredshoe - Yea, I'm a huuuge Hayao Miyazaki fan! I've had this really embarrassing handicap of not being able to use traditional methods properly ever since I started doing digital art about 5 years ago.. it's pretty bad because I've gotten so used to drawing with the tablet I forgot how to draw well on paper. I hadn't sat at my drawing table for a couple of years before I started this sb here in CA to get into it again. Thank you for your advice, I'll pay more attention to making my lines on paper stronger and less hairy.

deadred - Someone else pointed out the point about how I could use more shadow and contrast too, I'll be keeping an eye out for my next painting. Thanks for your tip, much appreciated!




Today's bits and pieces:
a Loomis proportions study on paper
a nib pen drawing I completed over two days(gillott 404 nib)
a couple of quick unreffed heads in Painter
and a 20 min doodle in Artrage.

[nilaffle]

Heya! This last update is looking good. :) That's a helpful exercise in proportions, I should look at Loomis at some time. And the ink drawing is most impressive; good contrast and detail. I can imagine that took two days!

Also, I want to say thank you for your comments in my sb. I think that's an excellent suggestion you made, doing daily color studies. Amusingly enough I think we've got the same struggle, but in reverse. I hope to get to your level of digital painting somewhere in our next 20 pages :) I'll be keeping an eye out here, keep posting!

[longwrat]

nilaffle - cheers once again! :D


Just a small update this time round, Easter holidays messed up my drawing routine and I didn't get to draw as much as I should have.

[Sway West]

Really glad to see you're still posting, longwrat! You've got some great studies up-- I'm really exited to see how much you progress in this SB. :D

Also! Do you have any rats at the moment? The last of the three I had most recently died late last year, and I always swear that I quit rats after they go-- it's just too painful! But now I'm itchin' again. :3

[longwrat]

Sway West - Yea I've got 7 rats right now. :D People tell me I'm crazy for having so many, but I can't help it, they fascinate me too much. Are you getting more? :)



Updates for today.. a bit of bone studies from the Sarah Simblet book and a WIP:

[JERI]

Hey longwrat nice SB.

I personally reckon that some of your colored images could use stronger contrast, but as most of your subject matters are Asians, I think the washed, muted look is pretty appropriate.

This one is my favourite http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=112687&stc=1&d=1174738668

[perilous]

Thanks for the kind words! First comment for me ever! Great work! especially the tablet stuff. great color. makes me want to go buy one, as im still working with basicly just pencils (and just getting into paint and ink). I think its time to make the leap. cheers. dyl.

[maxetormer]

cool stuff bro.

[longwrat]

A few things, all done in Painter ~

[Utum]

Going through your sketchbook is a really pleasing experience. Your work with the tablet is very inspiring. I really find it strange to compare your pencils with the paintings. Regarding colors I can not crit, its really good. About the tablet, what size is it? The smaller tablets force you to work indirectly, a small trace produces longer stroke. You just need to get used to pencils, so practice a lot.

[longwrat]

Jeri, perilous, maxetormer - Thanks guys! :D

Utum - I'm glad you took the time to have a look at my sb, and thanks for your comment. My tablet is an intuos2 6x8, and my monitor is a 22" widescreen lcd. So yeah, quite a difference in size between the two! No wonder it was such a strange sensation working in pencil again.

==

Couple of things:

Bottle was done in ink, some pencil sketches of arm studies, and the rest are digital stuff done in Painter. Last one is my COW from a couple weeks back.

[longwrat]

Some pencil sketches, and some digitally drawn ones. Can you spot the difference? haha. I still have a long ways to go to bring the raw stuff to the quality of the digital stuff..

[nilaffle]

Cool studies as always. Love post #17, the skeleton and that last painting, very dynamic. Solid anatomy in the last post too - the lady's legs are a bit big, but that might be a style thing, and she still looks cool. Your pencil strokes are getting more confident. The sketch of the kissy dude (and the kissy chick ;) ) are great; awesome faces and angles. I'd love to see more fully rendered pencil drawings. :D

Awesome paints as usual, especially how you handle fur and hair.

[Merlkir]

cool updates, I like the couple by the stream in a forest..

[iMaiM]

Great stuff! I especially like the guy with a mouth for an abdomen in your first post. Another great self-taught for me to watch! Keep it up, man.

[gmags]

Hey Longwrat, thanx for your comment! I really appreciate it and was wondering if you would have any tips for a rookie. I really enjoyed those digitals. A lot of good stuff in here. Keep postin more cool stuff! :)

[longwrat]

nilaffle- No it wasn't a style thing, it was just me drawing her legs too big ^^; I still need to practice on the ladies. Thank you!

Merlkir- Thanks Merl!

iMaiM- cheers man!

gmags- Thanks mate, I'll pop by your sketchbook!


==

updates this time:

- quick pencil sketches of my hand
- a 15min speedpaint in Artrage (eyeballed some ref)
- rough paints of a pair of commissioned samurai characters
- attempted to colour the kissyface ogreman but this was as far as I got because I can't get the colours working right. bah

[longwrat]

A few things~

[Izu]

Hello,

Thanks for commenting in my sb. :)

Damn you got imagination going on here. So much fun to look at.
Good to see you doing some traditional media like pencils aswell. :D
I especially liked the image named 050407b.jpg
The way you gave the head form with lines, awsome!

Keep it up!

[dtran]

A very enjoyable SB you have going on here. I am a fan.

-d

[longwrat]

Izu & dtran - Thanks guys!

[kingkostas]

You are a great artist Longwrat. Keep up your works, i really enjoy watching :D

see ya

[gmags]

Great update Longwrat!!! I especially like that guy with the cat piece! Keep em comin bro!!

[RaistlinTheDark]

great SB!

[longwrat]

Thanks everyone!


Couldn't sleep last night so I doodled a bit in my sketchbook. I didn't use ref for these. It probably doesn't look it, but this marks progress for me because for years I haven't been able to produce freehand sketches on paper that I'm happy with. I'm slowly weaning myself from using the tablet for everything!

[longwrat]

Sketches and a referenced paint.

[maxetormer]

food is hard to render... kudos for selecting such a hard subject of study ;)
nice hatching as well, a little messy, but nice.

[longwrat]

picdump

[longwrat]

Some original character designs and environments.

[longwrat]

Some more digital stuff, I've been bad and not drawing much on paper these coupla weeks..

Some 15 minute quick draws, and the others are longer pieces. First 4 were done in Photoshop, the others in Painter.

[Merlkir]

very cool updates! I haven't been here a while :) I love the soldier girls ;))

[ped454]

you've got quite astounding colouring skills...and your anatomy is just top notch.

How did you approach as to studying clothing and how it looks?

love to see more. lata

[ShiroNami]

WOW your stuff is amazing! Its really inspiring.... My favourite is the one from kino no tabe! its really cool!

[longwrat]

Merlkir - Thanks man!

ped454 - Thanks, but I still got a long ways to go in my anatomy. :) Hmm with clothes I still go by memory, for trickier stuff I try out the pose myself in front of the bathroom mirror

ShiroNami - Thanks!


Ooops I haven't updated in quite a while, I got some more digital paintings and I've started life drawing classes once a week! Yay!

[savant]

Great stuff here, I especially dig the pieces in post#41, lot's of nice little detail. Btw, is that last piece from the latest batch from ref? It's dope!

[longwrat]

Savant - cheers! I used a life ref for the bowl and towel, photo ref for the gramaphone, and myself for the arm and hands.


more updates...

[Zoroko]

crap! I adore your work! Love how you dabble in different styles, anything from cartoony to anime to realism. great woork!!

[Robo Jing]

gwah I'm such a fan of your stuff. I'm in awe.
You seem to have a good range in everything and you have many styles! Your work is just so inspiring <3

You must sketch constantly! Just...wow
Do you keep a regular sketchbook?

[longwrat]

Zoroko - Thanks!!

Robo Jing - Thank you! I don't usually sketch very much(a bad habit I am trying to break), but I have started doing weekly life drawing sessions which is helping a lot. I do have a sketchbook which I pull out from time to time to scratch in, but I mostly spend all my drawing time in front of the computer. =p

==

I spent all day at the university library perusing the wonderful photo artbooks, and I did some sketching in my sketchbook. I need to keep working on those figure drawing skills...
Also below some digital work I've finished over the last couple of weeks.

[Dave_Lynch]

i love the stuff you inked in photoshop, how closely do you zoom in when you do that? what sort of brush do you use?

ever fool around with vector illustrations and the pen tool?

[Merlkir]

Woot! I haven't been here a while, I'm loving the digital ones! cool work.

[nilaffle]

Hey! Glad to see you're still around here too. :) Awesome stuff, as usual, and hey, glad to hear you're doing life drawing classes (or were... but still!). All I can say is watch the proportions, but your more recent studies are much better on that end. How do you do your proportions, do you use head measurements or just eyeball it? Anyway good work, your hands and feet are especially solid. And the paintings are brilliant! Love the lighting on this one (http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=182894&stc=1&d=1186682753), and this (http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=194996&stc=1&d=1188564951) just amuses me. :]

Can't wait to see more!

[longwrat]

Dave_Lynch - I use the default round brush for those photoshop inked pics, but recently I've been using an angled brush and I like it much better. I work in about 2000X2000 size and zoom at 50% when I'm inking. I haven't tried vectors yet, I'm not sure where to get started!

Merlkir - Thanks!

Nilaffle - Thanks :D Great to see you too! Yeap I'm still doing my life drawing classes, I'm glad I took them up, they're really helping me and I enjoy it a lot. I eyeball my proportions and I still need a lot of practice on that, how do you do yours?

===

Couple of concept stuff done in my new tool, Photoshop CS3

[DARAF]

Great stuff man, keep it up.

[longwrat]

cheers Daraf!

WIP of a Coelophysis I'm currently working on.

[Dreamworker]

Nice stuff! I really like your digital paintings in particular the last image and this one (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=182893&stc=1&d=1186682739)
Keep sharing, ciao :)

[longwrat]

Dreamworker- Thanks!

Some traditional sketches; just some life drawings and referenced pencil and ink studies.

[longwrat]

Some pure digital works, some have been left pretty rough.

[AnthonyFoti]

what's the time span between those first few drawings vs. te last ones. Your level of skill is increasing so fast, really great stuff.

[longwrat]

AnthonyFoti - Cheers! The large picdump in the very first post contains works that was done last year.


==

Here's a creature design I started some days ago and finished today.

[longwrat]

more Photoshop CS3 work

[Lot]

Your drawings are awesome, nice rendering, and the caracters wow¡¡

[undergroundsean]

wow that swamp is so cool !! look pretty scary . keep drawing ~~

[Merlkir]

tattoo guy cool, swamp troll cooler :)

[longwrat]

Hey thanks guys!

Pencil studies from my sketchbook.

[longwrat]

Digital illos I've finished from the last few weeks.

[longwrat]

speedpaints from today, done in photoshop. both referenced.

[longwrat]

Here's the WIP from before, all finished now. I learnt quite a bit from doing this painting, but I still got miles to go yet. Did this in CS3

[longwrat]

Two CHOWs, First one is #93-The Apple Gatherer, the second is #94 - Yin and Yang.

[longwrat]

Some quick Photoshop and Painter pieces from the last two days. All done without ref, bad me.
I need to get an A3 scanner, I'm still doing life drawing every week but am too lazy to scan them because they're too large to fit in my A4 scanner in one piece... =P

[Merlkir]

great!!! great updates! :) I love the variety of styles, the last landscape is heavenly and I like the portraits and the action scenes...you're a god :)

[longwrat]

Here's a reaaaally random selection, all doodled today with the tablet in Painter/Photoshop..

[joaKimArt]

A lot of nudity! Nice! Cool things. You seem to know the anatomy pretty good. Looks awesome. The paintings are great. I like the style and colour. :rendered:

[longwrat]

Thanks JoaKim! I still got a long long ways to go.



I painted this today, 2.5 hours in Photoshop, no refs. I find it hard to get the correct sense of scale and depth in my environments. My perspective skills suck so hard, I really want to improve on that the most.

[Euthyphro]

Wow, your last few or so posts are stellar. The one with the giant coy is rockin'. All of it really. Wow.

Vale-

[nilaffle]

Wow on post #76. Have you heard of that new movie coming out, The Waterhorse? And haha yeah my perspective skills suck too, I'm terrible at environments. But you get a lot closer than I do. Can't wait to see what's next. :)

Really digging that last one in #68, with the lion and the tiger.

Oi... I'm such a slacker, I've been totally MIA. To answer your question from ages ago, on proportions... usually I just eyeball too. Occasionally I'll use a pencil as a ruler or use negative space, but generally I just eyeball and hope for the best. :)

And hey, back to traditional media! Love the pencil studies. Dare I say you're getting more comfortable with pencil and pen? What did you reference for the middle scan in #67, with the marketplace?

Have you been doing any work in traditional paints as well? I ask because that lion/tiger one looks like it'd make a great watercolor.

[daestwen]

Aw, man, I knew I wanted to come check this out. :) Looking great, man. I really like the one on the last page (or two pages ago?) with the three male characters in uniforms (and the one with the star on his eye). I'm not sure why, I just really like those guys. They seem like they could kick a lot of ass.

[zephyri]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for dropping by and thought I'd return the favour! Another awesome sketchbook to visit too!

I love the tattooed grey-skinned mercenary, he has such a gorgeous sense of character about him. Your environments are coming on nicely, I think perspective baffles us all at the best of times! The misting in the background of the lochnessy one strikes me as a bit bright, i'd like to have seen the outlines of the craggy hills/mountains, but I know that overcast skies like that can indeed blot out the horizon if you can see far enough.

I'm also curiously drawn to the badger too, probably because it reminds me of the Wind in the Willows.

Lovely stuff though, keep at it!

[longwrat]

Whoa, I totally forgot about my sb, my bad
Thanks for the comments guys, I'm flitting over to your sb's now!

some bits and pieces:

[longwrat]

fox studies, and a painting from last night.

[maxetormer]

Really great characters http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=276208&stc=1&d=1199856550

[DoktorNo]

I liked your pses studies, whereever I see them, I remind myself, that I also should done some of them.

[longwrat]

maxetormer- thanks mate!
DoktorNo- Thank you! reminds me I gotta get right back into it too.


Not-so-speedy speedpaint from today, about 3-4 hours hm...

[longwrat]

Velazquez study in Painter

[longwrat]

couple of sketches and some love for the Twenties

[mythwork]

Greay stuff man, especially the lochness...the lillies on the water, cool! It's art like yours that makes inspiration.

[lalovergel]

Wow, really cool work, but for some reason your first post thrileed me the most. My respects for your figure studies as well. thanks for showing your work!

[longwrat]

mythwork - Thanks man!
lalovergel - Cheers, yea I'll just have to keep them coming then ey :)


some more work, mostly finished art but let's start off with an enviro speedy...

[Erick Willand]

dude, your stuff rocks. reminding me once again how much more I still have to learn.

[longwrat]

long time no post. Just stretching my muscles in more enviros..

[longwrat]

another one I made this evening, 1.5 hours

[longwrat]

have some milk :)

[UnSharpened]

Thanks for dropping by my sb:D.
I like your characters, and I felt that you're shifting your anime style to another direction, which is interesting to me. Comparing the characters, your environment seems can be improved, but I've already seen great progress here. way to go man. And, really love the milk one:P, some interesting detail there.

[DoktorNo]

Whenever I see speedpaintings like thise ones, I envy the skills. Is there any tutorials that you could endorse for beginners?

[longwrat]

Unsharpened - Thanks! :) I started off drawing a lot of anime styled characters, it's been hard to shake it haha. Am aiming for a slightly different direction now.

DoktorNo - I highly recommend checking out IdiotApathy's sketchbook: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56810&page=35 he also has really cool videos on how he does his environment speedpaints.

===


A batch of life drawings, just some of my favs. These date from December til today.

[longwrat]

Hi CA, it's been a while. More later:

[Huey Yeng]

THREAD RESURRECTION-

Nice to see your sketchbook here. I always love your black and white work. Remind me of the good old illustration found in those gamebook in the 80s.

Keep us updated!

[longwrat]

HY: Man I am so ashamed, I have not been around here for ages... belated thread resurrection :x

I bring some studies and sketchdoodles, and of course a Nibru. :)