mentalSherpa_sketchBook

[mentalSherpa]

Hello all. I'm gonna do my best to update this everyday or so, if even just a small quick sketch here or there. I really lost the time to draw much during the last year of school, but now that it's done, I intend on picking it back up. Hope you enjoy the images and any c&c is greatly appreciated.

thank ya:wink:

[mentalSherpa]

morning sketch:

[JudoJoe]

nice work. good coloring techniques. interesting concepts. keep it up.

[SEVANS]

Good start to your sketchbook. Have to say that the monotone armour sketches are my favourite.

Keep posting!

[Konstruktion]

The last one is sweet, as is the ones that looks like they've been painted to masonite. This (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=119781&stc=1&d=1176060596) one is really sweet too!

[mentalSherpa]

Thanks for the praise guys. I really dig the monotone ones too. It's really fun to do, but I'm trying to add more and more color to things. Slowly but surely. I'm gonna try and hit up the Met for a drawing trip tommorow, so if things go as planned, I'll have a nice update after I get back.

thanks again!

[Anurizm]

nice sb you have going :)

[spartiate]

I really like the armors. Great skill in designing them, as every part fits nicely with the other. I love your work, more please..

My sketchbook (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=88534)

[mentalSherpa]

Thanks guys!, Due to work(bah!), No Met trip yet. But i do have a couple of small studies... :)

[mentalSherpa]

just one word...

"skulls"

[mentalSherpa]

Wow, two weeks for an update...uncalled for... but bills must be paid! Here are a couple of paintings I started:

[mentalSherpa]

finally had time to sit down and paint a bit. Did a small light study:

[mentalSherpa]

some life studies, enjoy!:

[MilesNoctis]

I like the muscles in http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=121003&stc=1&d=1176303630 (this) picture.
Also the shortening (hope its the right word) is nice.
All in all a good sketchbook
5
4
3
2
1
...suscribed to the thread =) :P

[mentalSherpa]

thank ya much miles

[mentalSherpa]

did a 3d paintover from zbrush, figured i'd try to work on my 3d and my 2d at the same time, er, kinda.. Having quite a bit of trouble with the value of the eyes ...

[funfetus]

Very nice stuff! Like everyone else, I love the armors. The life study of the woman is really nice as well. Welcome to the 44th! I look forward to working with you.

[Sheavolution]

Hello mentalSherpa. Came here to check out who fetus invited for the #44th, it's a pleasant surprise! You have some great work here, of course I like the armors but my favorite is

http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=141809&stc=1&d=1179755473

I'll be back!

Shea

[funfetus]

I didn't invite him, he asked. But yeah -- I was impressed.

[mentalSherpa]

yea, i popped out of the woodwork and <POOF> "can I be in your group?!?!"

[brunopicinini]

hey bvuddy ... how are you?

nice start for the sketchbook ... I personally like the armors

now some crits =D
I would like to see some of those "floating armors" in action ... sometimes is not "that hard" (for me it is, even easy poses I wouldn't draw as good as you =D) to do when they are facing us in such a normal pose ... try to do one with some action going on, like the dude sitting on #2 (is his head too small? dunno)... I bet you will come out with something good

Hands: your hands I think are the weak point. They are usually just closed or just open, without a good expression to them

post #9 is nice, but I think you are way better with the pencil then wacom =D hehe

post #11 is a little strange ... it seens there is so much stuff going on, but at the same time nothing really showing hehe ... I believe you could work some more on that ... That dude with the glass seens to got potential

the "ladies" on #13 are really good ... although the drapery doesn't "feel" really well ... like they don't seen a real cloth ... I have a bad time with drapery as well =(

but all in all I think you got a lot of talent and you are on the right track... it is just mileage that you need =)

well, hope that helps and if I had been too harsh just let me know =D ... I prefer when people just say what they really think in my SB so I can improve much more ,)

best regards

[McLean]

hey, you said the value of the eyes was bothering you- but I'm thinkin its really the temperature. they don't need to be the same warmth of the skin, but they are almost blue in comparison, warm them up, show us that there's some blood in there. Even just working the skintone in as reflected light would work to put those eyes back in place.

[mentalSherpa]

thanks for comments guys!

Bruno: (mind if i call you bruno??) Your absolutely right! I had the same kind of experience with dropping my drawing(and almost everything 2D) when i was school. I got crazy caught up in 3D. And after i was done I realized I'd had the same sketchbook for 3 years, and I saw all the gaps in what I knew. I also realized that I had pussed out on almost every attempt to learn to paint (or at least use color) in the past. Both of these things are severely limiting my 3d work, so these posts are my baby steps back into 2D.

The armours actually are that static for a reason. They were never meant to be finished, but the point was to design the pieces for modeling and work out the interlocking and connectivity of the pieces. And, you are right, it is always easier to draw those kinda of things in simple poses.

you're right the drapery on the woman is weak.

I'm workin' on the human parts as we speak :)

Mclean: Thanks man, I'll try that.

[mentalSherpa]

heads

[mentalSherpa]

another page of heads, trying figure out how that upward angle works with the neck and the bottom of the jaw and chin.

[Jazz]

Hiya!! :D Very nice studies you have going!! I can't really critique tonight, running out of steam.

Though, one thing I recall about tilted male heads was that the adam's apple will kind of "hide" more as the head tilts forward.

[kawakaze]

great work. i really like your line work and use of values particularly in your sketches. it would be awsome to see some of your more abstract pieces like in the first post.

[MilesNoctis]

Nice heads,
lol I also try to figure out how heads look when viewed from down bellow

[Sheavolution]

Heya, great studies you got there. The heads are looking cool, don't overdo the neck muscles tho. Also, almost all of these heads are men, try to get in some ladies as well ! :)

[funfetus]

Your head studies look good. That's a tough angle, I have trouble with it as well. Neck anatomy is a big hole in my knowledge, too. The only crit I have is that it looks like you're kinda overcompensating, and making the necks too short.

Do you do much underdrawing?

[mentalSherpa]

kawakaze : thanks! It's good to here that there people here who dig abstract work, cause i really like doing it. But I've kinda put it on hold for the time being for the sake of "academics" It's a bit to easy to run into the situations you have trouble with and "skip" over them, then just call it "abstract".

Sheavolution: zee ladies are on dee way, i promise!

funfetus: Danke. What do you mean by underdrawing? gestures?


started *another* painting, and some skteches...

[Act.Appalled]

Good stuff going on in here, keep it up, looking forward to more updates....

[brunopicinini]

hey buddy!

nice up .... I like the way you are playing with the shadows ... they are coming out raelly good!

your heads studies inspire me ... I will try to do more realistic heads ... I was usually just drawing cartoon/anime/comics heads (no wrinkles, perfect face, etc etc)

keep up!

[funfetus]

Good update! Your armor continues to be awesome on that new painting. Do you start in grayscale, then colorize? I've never had any luck doing that. It's off to a great start, though. Your figure studies look good, too. Great shadows and anatomy on the colored figures. That one in the foreground, though -- his forearm looks a little too curly. :) By underdrawing, I mean all that stick-figure, circles, cylinders, beanbags, sketchiness stuff. Do you do any of that to work out proportions and shapes, or just go for it?

[mentalSherpa]

Act.Appalled: thanks man, I checked out yer sb and You making great progress with the self portraits, keep it up.

brunopicinini : thank ya!! the only thing i dont like is my desire to start adding shadows and playing with light before i should...then i never get to the rest of the drawing....

funfetus: thank youu! I really dig creating armour. I just do. About colorizing grayscale.. Do it first in grayscale to work out the value and exposure? YES. Colorize the grayscale afterwards? NO. I try to treat it like an underpainting. I think ben mathis has the right idea with colorizing grayscale, since people tend to end up just mixing the grayscale with their color, thus just creating a muddy mess. BUT, I've had lots of luck creating an overlay layer with middle value colors(like your skintone for example) and it will retain your grayscale without evaluating everything to white or black. THEN you start to add in the color highlights and shadows. But alas, I am but a novice.

About the underdrawing, yea I do, but not so much boxes and cylnders and stuff, just rough blocking of random shapes, much like the way alan lee does, if you've ever seen his sketches(HAH, as thought there are people who haven't at this point)

And it's a lady for SHEA, actually i just wanted to draw something pretty, too bad her face looks like an ape, but hey, isnt it just the body that counts anyway?!? :) <looks around to make sure wife is not in room>

and I took Bruno's advice and tried to design a suit of armour on a "gestured"(if it wasn't a word before, it is now!) figure, and managed to screwed up several parts of the anatomy, but im in the process of fixing it...one..small...toe..at..a..time...dammit.

[purplerose]

I think the shadows on the lady could have used some darker tones. Nice work, keep it up! :)

[vimmel]

I just love the first ones. The armors are awesome.
Great work man! Keep it up!

[MilesNoctis]

wow the warrior looks very good
*searches for the anatomy failures*
hmm not much to crit from my side =)
I like the armor
argh... should start sketching more instead to look at the brilliant stuff other ppl produce ^^ :)
keep up the good work

[mentalSherpa]

i wouldnt have posted the original had i known it was gonna be one of those "go to bed and stare at the ceiling for an hour" nights, so here is more:

[funfetus]

The lady looks good. I like the skintones. Nothing special, but they look nice. Her right foot looks tweaked, though. The foot seems to be at such an angle that the side of her knee should be resting on the ground. The armored warrior looks cool! You know about the anatomy issues, so I won't nitpick, but he's got a cool pose going.

I checked out Ben Mathis (poopinmymouth...jesus...). I've always noticed exactly what he pointed out when I've tried to colorize grayscale stuff by adding an overlay layer. It gets that really flat look. I've usually given up promptly whenever I tried it. So you're saying you paint in grayscale, put the colors on in an overlay layer, and then (after either flattening, or creating a new normal layer) you paint in all the deep shadows and highlights? I will experiment with this.

Also: I haven't seen Alan Lee's sketches. Care to provide a link?

[Sheavolution]

And it's a lady for SHEA, actually i just wanted to draw something pretty, too bad her face looks like an ape, but hey, isnt it just the body that counts anyway?!? <looks around to make sure wife is not in room>

THANK YOU! :D Feels good huh? Would like to see more woman, this "ape" (as you call her) looks cool to me. Her left hand is a bit long for my taste but thats about it. Keep it up

Same as Fetus, haven't seen Alan Lee sketches..sooooooo!

[funfetus]

Ack, looks like you posted that when I was posting. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and make the crit: It looks like his left leg is growing right out of his crotch! :)

[Jazz]

Wow, that blue guy and his suit of armour are lookin' AWESOME! I love his face, his muscular legs, and of course, the armour itself! It really "LOOKS" sharp, like I could just touch the screen and get a shock!

The woman's face did strike me as odd, but it makes her look rather peaceful, too. Nice work on it!

[MilesNoctis]

Yeah, coloured with that light blue makes looking the warrior even better (ouch the grammar in this sentence sux).
Would be cool to see this with a backround *hint* ;)
I m also one of the "i havent seen alan lees sketches" guys
LINK! :P

[mentalSherpa]

Alan Lee was one of the two lead concept artists (John Howe being the other, abd there were lots of others with incredible work too!) on the LOTR movies. I dont know of any web links, but they shouldnt be hard to find. The movie "art of" books are full of their stuff and Alan lee has a published sketchbook from the movies.

funfetus: yes, exactly. There are probably better ways of doing it, but i've had luck with it.

a couple of small changes and the "hip in the crotch" fix:

[Jazz]

Oh, that looks better!! :D

[funfetus]

Yeah, that's perfect.

[Sheavolution]

Looking much better this way sherpa :)

[kawakaze]

very true, i tend to do that=X anyway again i love your lines, your traditional skills are very strong and you seem to be making the connection over to digital very smoothly. w the last piece, overall it looks really good. i cant really pinpoint what it is but to a degree he feels off balance w his proportions. perhaps u could define where he stands in the environment and how his weight is being distributed. awsome work though

[brunopicinini]

man this last guy seens really nice!


the anatomy, the clothes, are really well done!
maybe you could just add something blurred on the foreground to suggest what is he lookinh ... is he at war? is he looking at a naked girl? something really subtle just to give an idea ...

keep drawing!

[Clocks]

I like the ogre-guy drawing, the anatomy is looking spot on!

One thing I thought I would bring up is that I can't tell if he's terrified of something, trying to block with his shield and run away, or if he's pissed and about to kill some people. I think if you did something with the eyebrow, like raised it more or lowered it more, then it would make it clearer which it is.

Other than that though its a kickass concept!

[mentalSherpa]

been working on my 3d stuff most of the weekend, but I did stop to do a couple of studies. And I drew a small batch of ps brushes, and did a test. Not sure how useful they are gonna be, but its at least some another abstract piece for the one who wanted to see some. :wink:

[MilesNoctis]

nice as always
can it be that the left breast (left meaning left when looked at her in this position) is hanging a little bit to much t the left? not sure

[funfetus]

Is that Bruce Willis?

I like the figure study. The foreshortening on the dude is good. One problem I'm seeing is that his pecs look too short from top to bottom. Or it could be that his head is too tall...or both.

Do you have any particular applications in mind for the custom brushes? I play around with em sometimes, but I'm still generally using the hard round. I'm planning on puttin together some workhorse brushes soon. I used to really like the painterly look of Painter's brushes, but I'm just so much more productive in Photoshop. (Even though you can't rotate the canvas >:{ ) But I think some custom brushes can help me bring some of that back in.

[kawakaze]

your figure studies are really nice. i particularly like your attn to minor surface details. you are really strong at bringing out depth. i take it i am the abstract tweeqer. awsomeness=D brushes are amazing, check otu some of the gnomon speed painting tutorials. it is ridiculous what u can do w them. as far as abstraction goes check out some of andrew jones work. i believe he uses painter a lot. i got to see him at the last workshop doin some live stuff. really awsome. i think the key is setting up your options so that you can get some variance on how your brush works through opacity/scatter etc.

[Jazz]

I love that crazy punk picture!! And yeah, those brushes are just awesome!! Which version of PS do you have?? o_o

Also, the foreshortened arm and hand on the other guy is great!

[Sheavolution]

Hello Sherpa!

Last 2 are looking cool good.. The line-art page is done in ps? It feels like trad. pencil to me, I've been trying to get that effect in my digital sketches. :)

Also noticed I didnt see you @ my thread yet and since i'm also in the SSG, would like your opinion about my stuff.. ;)

Keep drawing

[RaistlinTheDark]

that's some very nice drawings man!

[brunopicinini]

hey buddy,h ow are you?

liked those 2 last pics ... specially the second one, it has some kind of feeling in it

keep going!
best regards

[funfetus]

Alright, it's been almost a week -- let's have an update! :)

[mentalSherpa]

Ack!, yea I've been MIA for a week, but not really! I've had my nose to the 3d grindstone, and for the little while, its the light at the end of the tunnel vision. I havent done much more than a few little "napkin sketches" in the past week to work out how some anatomy connects, but i'll post the figure ive been modeling.
Still fighting witht the topology and havent finished the hands, but after 20 revisions, im starting to get the hang of it..

MilesNoctis: yup!

funfetus: no, i just built them to have around incase i needed a little variation, not sure how practical they will be in the long run. I understand what you mean about painter. I'm much more attuned to working in PS too(And yer right, being able to rotate the canvas on a dime is a nice!)

kawakaze: thank ya! Yea, painter is much more focus towards the whole "natural medium" thing and its brushes are a lot more robust. Its just got wierd quirks that can be hard to get used to after using PS for 10 years

JazzW: thank you! its CS1 btw.

Sheavolution: ack!, sorry about that, never meant to leave anyone out! (actually ive been meaning to subscribve to everyone's threads, so I know when they update, but...well...i dont know how :) ). And yea, its done in PS, I use one of Zhuzhu's "sketching pencil" tool presets. I found a link on cgtalk a bout a year and half ago, but there are quite a few on google.

[kawakaze]

i dont really know anything about 3d modeling but if you could post some closeups of the details on his face etc that would be cool. if u are doing modeling, do you ever mess around w clay? i need to do this more often.

[Jazz]

Hey! o_o Where are you hiding, mental?? :( Hope to see you around soon! Of course, I've been away long enough. I THINK I can wait. :P