Lightships Lightbox

[Lightship69]

Welcome to Lightships Lightbox this is a collection of ongoing experiments and new work by Graham Nightingale, Some of it I like a lot and some of the images are fails where i beg peoples indulgence and help. I hope you guys like some of it too and take the time to go through and leave a comment or two.
I used to say that I blamed sketchbook squarely on Jeffx99, because he said to me in a post "you should put some stuff up in a sketchbook!" That has now changed and I now send a huge thank you to a great many of you who take the time to help me out including JeffX99, Arenhaus, Tinybird, Mr Corlan, Velocity Kendall, ShiNin and of course LtPlissken for stopping me taking myself too seriously, Thank you all.


Ok enough grovelling and on with the art:-
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This one was a copy of the one by frank Frazetta in the front of the Icon book (buy it folks its brilliant). Anyway I was looking at anatomy at the time and got bored and copied it for practice, I am not doing anything else with it because its basicaly Franks and I have enormous respect for the man and his works, what an inspiration tha man was, a very sad loss to all.

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An old dude from inside my head somewhere He occured whilst doing the loomis thing, draw a ball and put the lines in etc etc. anyway carried on with one and he happened.

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This guy is supposed to be moving cautiosly forward, sneaking up on something and he just looks like he had an accident in his trousers instead so he's not going anywhere either! Lol

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Again I was practising anatomy and started to think of how the anatomy of a centaur would go together (kids were watching Narnia).

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some of the practice bits, hopefully by constant repetition I can add them to the figures without them looking like Mr spocks love child with quasimodo, hopefully Lol

[Lightship69]

Some more doodles and anatomy from the archives, I quite like some of these hands, but not others you'll see what I mean
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[Mike Tenebrae]

Keep up with the studies! Hope to see an update soon.

[Dannyphoto]

nice sketches, if i were you i would study andrew loomis, his books are revolutionary, keep it up mate

[Lightship69]

Thanks very much people, actually most of the anatomy I draw is from loomis, well that and a couple of other books I found, including a large format type greys anatomy book that I picked up for less than £10:00. That was about six bucks if you are across the pond in the states.

I rather think though after looking around in this forum Loomis is the biggest anatomy reference source around, certainly everyone qoutes sites where you can download .pdf books from whenever a member is moaning about lack of ref materials.
Come to think of it i would be interested to know if there are any others around that are downloadable that we could add to the reference section.

[Lightship69]

This is all from a childrens picture book that I am writing, Its on hold at the moment because these images are wrong, they are quite good for the age group I am aiming at and are simplistic enough but sadly still wrong (no room for text). So I am re-writing to reduce the text and bring it in line with the target audience of 5-7 year olds.

The main reason however is that I am half way through another book project too, which I will post some images on here and in W.I.P. for feed back.

I was quite flattered by this first image Someone thought the blackberries he is picking were from a photo, YESSS I thought I'm Talented LOL somebody was fooled by my realness!! Hee hee !
Another true fact from this image, when I was first putting it together Alan Lathwell (famous artist and author) helped me with it in making the character look like he was supposed to be in the image, anyway I said thanks a lot mate and had a look at his website. Then went back online and said wow mate you are really good you should get an agent and do this for a living or some other inane rambling, he was very kind and didnt make me look a fool or anything which was good but I still have a cringe when I look at this image.
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[Lightship69]

Here are another couple from the Gnomes set and a few others that just happened, some while at University (as a very aged but not very mature student) where I discovered that programmers are very very rarely artists but they all wish that they were.

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(edit) I forgot to put the big bad wolf in from the three little pigs story, I want him in because I really enjoyed making him up!
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[Lightship69]

I found this in my archives and thought I would post it up here just to show that its not all childrens picture book stuff that i do, lol.

This image is from a, well almost still life drawing model as you can see from the picture. The whole thing is a quick time movie that was given away on a cover disk of Imagine magazine. Its pretty cool you can rotate her through 360 degrees. Anyway here are the images.
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as you can see the sketch has issues when you add the armour to the woman the pose isnt strong enough to take the weight, her right leg needs to move or rotate to the right from the hip I think, anyway feedback and tell me what you think

[libellchen]

You can rotate this? What an awesome recource!
About that right leg, it looks unconforatble, the way the lower leg is in front of the thight. I tried to kneel like that and ouch Even though it might be different with the armour on I would stick to the reference in so far that the lower leg is still beneath the thight. The boot would be squeezed and partialy covered by the thight.
When I look at the shoulderplates I have the feeling that the one nearer to the viewer should be bigger compared to the one in the back.

I like the bottom right hand in the second pic in post 2!

[FootstepsBeckon]

keep going man \o/

[tobbA]

Hey. Nice stuff, man. Looks like there's some heavy of use of the burn tool in those images. I would suggest staying away from that one completely. It doesn't actually make the darker tones the color they should be. Pick your own darker colors from the pallet. And I suggest reading more about color. You could pick up Color and Light by James Gurney. It has a lot of useful information. But perhaps it's better for you to just focus on painting/drawing in black and white right now and learn values. When you do that coloring will be a lot easier later.

[Zephyrion]

I would say to do some more light and anatomy studies.

[The Jeso]

Yea man, good stuff, but better paint in value instead of color like tobbA says, practice the figure. keep it up

[Lightship69]

Thank you guys for the comments, you are absoloutely correct the burn tool is much in evidence, its an impatience issue that I have! Even though digital is way faster than normal paints I still try to rush things, Its a really really bad habbit that i've gotten into, and its proving hard to break, however I am working on it.

The bulk of these illustrations are in the bin now and are not to be used in the book that they are for. The writing process is under revision and the pictures/ are to be re-done with the text spaces more in mind.

This environment is an exercise in patience, I wont even tell you how long I have been at it on and off because you will all laugh at me ! Lol None of it is real and its all painted digitally, but "MY GOD" its boring !!

The image info is as follows:-
Res 300 pixels / inch
width 3508
Height 2504

Painted with a mouse because I cant afford a tablet yet after buying Photshop "creative suite 4 Web premium".
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I forgot to add the reference Image so rather than stick it on its own in a new post I thought i would plonk it in here Thanks for the reminder chris..
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Thank you for the comments

[Chris-Garrett]

It may be taking you a long time but I think its definitely paying off. The left peak in particular is looking great and that is obviously where you have invested time in the detailing so far. Are you working from a reference for this?

[Brandon Pilcher]

Awesome mountain study!

[Lightship69]

Its not awesome its bloody annoying, Lol Thanks brandon, This kind of thing takes many many many hours so think long and hard about doing it and avoid distractions if you can, I cant avoid them I have kids and My kids want me to spend the hours on them. So I do as I'm told and play with them .... Ah hard life or what? LOL

Yes chris there is a reference its in a book on watercolour painting by David Ballamy (painter not nature guy with the beard)
The books called "Watercolour Landscape course, from first steps to finished painting"

on Page 133
when I get a moment or two I'll scan it and put it up I forgot to do it sorry. (edit - I made time and put it with the other images of the mountain sorry if its confusing)

Thanks for the comments, any crits for me though? I personally think the clifs at the front are weak and need the same polish as the main peak, so I will give it a going over at some point. There is no real focus to the picture either and the light and shade needs a rethink as the mountainside on the right is goint to be very dark, might be interesting through, I dont know tell me what you think

[Lightship69]

After all the heavyness in the "lest split the forum into tiny bits and wikis I thought I need a bit of light entertainment, here you go anyone who is interested.

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Enjoy......... I did

[Lightship69]

Ok here we go, back to the beginning .............. again. I have been doing some lighting studies and basic shapes etc and I though I would post some of the better ones, because by god I started out crap today, even drawing circles caused me problems!

Anyway on with it as they say.



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[Jetpack]

Keep up on the fantastic work with your mountain. It looked very professional, until I saw that it is still unfinished lol. Can't wait to see it as a finished piece.

[Little-Maiden]

Nice SB lookin at those old drawings for that children's book you're working on, I think you've got a good start there, colours are quite vivid and the contrast is good. Though I think you're stuck between a mid-ground there. Like I can see you're trying to put in some anatomy into the drawings but at the same time you're trying to keep it simple cause its aimed at children. Try to stick to either complex or simplistic I don't think a half-way approach would work unless you've drawn for years. Either way, lovely stuff keep it up.


Nice enviro too btw, though I think you need to sharpen objects foreground more and use some atmospheric perspective on the stuff in the back.

-LM

[Lightship69]

Hiya matey

Thanks for stopping by! and thanks for the input with the kids stuff and hmm youre right about the look, I was trying to sell it as sort of quasi realistic and not really pulling it off.
That project is on the back burner now, mainly because as I researched it more and more I found that there was too many images for a 32 page picture book! In one of them you only actually have 12 double page spreads and you must leave a good big place for the text mine had none of the right stuff. So it went in the bin or sketchbook and I now have to write the whole thing again an then start from the floor up with a dummy book and build it properly.

The Big mountain image is on the pile of broken dreams too, because as you so correctly pointed out it has no focus, its all at one level I got so carried away with being clever and making it look real that I forgot the fundamentals again!!!

Stil I take away yet more lessons from all of this stuff and hopefully the light of understanding glows a little brighter.

Thanks for the input bud, all the best to you

[Mike Tenebrae]

Thanks for the shoutout big man, hope this sketchbook is going to become more than a one pager soon...

[MatthewHD]

Those mountains are very pretty, I can just stare at them.

Keep up those studies, and post more.

[Lightship69]

This one is an experiment in light and shadow, there will be a few of these, as I amtrying to get my head around how shapes and substances relect light around and how it behaves in scenes.

So here we are at the seaside on a really bad day, by my reconing the light comes from the upper left and strikes the beach on a diagonalthat goes through the wave, I think anyhow.

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I did copy the left hand side of the beach directly across just to finish it, the bit I am interested in is just the light and the way it works in the image and yes I do know there are some mistakes in it , but speak up and point them out anyway because I am sure I missed something.

Thanks

[Lightship69]

As the title says here are some of the rough drawings done for the childrens story book on the gnomes, I was having a clear out (space limited) and thought I would share them with you. Some are possibly still going to be used but most are test roughs and ideas that have been shelved.

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This is the outside of the lead characters house

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This is the inside, it may seem like an unnecessary detail but as there were going to be six stories in all the inside of the house needed continuity, so there was a plan for each floor and the garden.

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Even the style of his furniture was planned out to be rough looking but sturdy and sort of homely and comfortable.

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Here the lead character was supposed to be thinking about how to solve his problem with the builders.

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Here the lead guy is checking out a magic book to help him with his problem.

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This drawing was to portray the gnomes being sociable and having a drink together in a happy sort of manner.

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In this scene a bit of magic that went wrong and shot a machine up to the roof wears off and the flying machine crashes back to the table and spills hot soup into the lead guys lap.... (ouch!)

[Lightship69]

some of the facial expressions on the characters to use as and when needed.
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This second lot are for when something went wrong, I was going to adapt them as needed. They are originally from the Preston Blair book cartoon animation which has helped me so much I cant begin to tell you adequately. The expressions are faultless and as the characters in the books are always getting into problems there is always a lot of head desking and face gripping going on
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This is another from the childrens story collection, working mainly on the expressions
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[Lightship69]

In the gnomes books there are several 1950's and earlier vehicles used by several of the human characters and builders here are some of them. they are outlines only as they are to be used in a simplistic sort of fashion. I didnt explain that very well did I!? the books are aimed at 4-7 year olds so the pictures have to do all the work innitially and the words support them as a parent reads, the the vehicles have to look realistic but not too much so the focus has to remain on the people in the story if that makes any sense.

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in some of the illustrations I have used bits of the trucks but none have been used in their entirity as yet. the closest we get to seeing a full one is when the gnome looks through the bushes to see what the noise is in the lane.
thats the first one in this batch and when I put all the foliage on as well it all but vanishes.

[Lightship69]

I am still on with the theme of lighting and forms and with that in mind I am now the proud owner of James Gourneys "Colour & Light", It was recommended to me by loads of people, but the first was Jeffx99.

Thanks Jeff you always seem to know what I need before I do its weird, but anyhow thanks again matey.

Anyway here are todays sketches
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as usual rip them to bits and tell me what you think is wrong!

thanks all.

[Strato]

Hi Lightship. If I had something to suggest, it's that I feel like you're not quite observing enough yet. This is especially evident in your eyes, which look more like cartoony eye stickers than anything else. You should definitely throw down a blind contour or two to get used to the idea of more careful observation. Once you start looking deeper and analyzing more industriously, you'll get so much more mileage from your studies. You're about 90% of the way there when it comes to observation and study rather than drawing what you think you're seeing.

Once you do that, I'd recommend doing some very technical drawing to start carefully seeing angles and proportions. Construct cylanders, spheres, and cubes. Then building shadows off of them. Check out Yoitsi's tutorials. The links are in Diarum's thing in my sig. The whole thing should take you at least 2 weeks, but the payoffs will be enormous.

Last comment, how are you holding your pencil? Overhand grip on an oblique surface takes a few nights to get used to, but once you do it's the most liberating (not to mention healthy) thing you can do for yourself. A good pencil grip and surface will take a load off your wrists and force you to have good posture.

Otherwise, see you around the W.I.P. forum. Happy drawing.