kakao's books full of mind-puke

[kakao]

decided it was time to get off my bum and start doing proper sketching everyday instead of doing half an hour of gesture drawing and calling it a day. i thought starting a sketchbook thread would be a great motivator to draw every day, and also a good chance to get some feedback. I'm always looking to improve, and it's pretty easy for me to get lost and not really know what i should be working on.

anyways, my background: I started drawing for serious about 8 months ago. before that I had only a fleeting interest in improving, like to the tune of 1-2 drawing per -YEAR-. ridiculous! but back in September-ish, i was really into coding, and wanted to make a simple, but super-stylish game on my own, and went down the rabbit hole of art, and now here i am.

and so we begin. the longest journey starts with a single faceplant, or something like that.

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[kakao]

since i don't know how much time i'm going to have to draw today, heres some older work i've done to give an idea of where im at

[kakao]

some doodles from yesterday. my brother gave me a single yellow marker, so i had some fun with that. i love the little prison man, i wish he picked up better on the scan, my scanner is too small for my sketchbook XD

[SEVANS]

Nice sketches.
Loose, flowing linework.
and fun images.

[GraphiX]

Whoa. Subbed. Nice work. Kep 'em coming.

[kakao]

didn't do a whole lot today or yesterday, I've been hella busy. i had time to sit down and do a quick digital sketch though, so that's cool.

[kakao]

fuck, im having mad struggles with working digital. i feel like using a tablet puts me at like a 50% handicap, this shit is whack. so frustrating.

[yuniken]

hehe thats normal with the tablet ^^ just do some line exercises ( drawing circles and curves, lines etc...) quick and slow. it helps for the sketches: you ever learned anatomy stuff? your bodies are looking gud

[kakao]

thanks for the advice, man. ill try that out. time to pump out hundreds of circles . for anatomy, i've done a bit, nothing really extensive. but i do loads and loads of gesture drawing, i'ts one of my favourite things.

[kakao]

so tired... such a long weekend. it was hard to find time to sit down and sketch, but i got to do some today.

[kakao]

i found this super fine .01 mm pen in my room. i don't remember getting it, but i fooled around with it and it was mad fun. i gotta go cop some more of these. just doodles today, nonsense to get a feel for this new pen. nothing too serious.

[kakao]

a little bit of photo ref practice with the cool little pen. maybe i'll try some digital stuff today. i've been doing some quick gesture drawing on the tablet for the past few days to help get my hands moving right. i suppose we'll see if it's working soon enough.

[kakao]

oh, also! before i forget, heres a little bonus. when i first stumbled on conceptart.org a few months ago, i decided to try my hand at a chow. it didn't turn out too hot, but i love the pose on the first girl. i'm all about dat movement, yo. still, it's cool to go back and see how you've progressed every once and a while.

[Staal Sander]

Some those pages in that sketchbook. You have great energy to your lines.

[kakao]

thanks sander, i really like that fluid style of illustration, like sergi brosa and stuff. it just really appeals to my eye.

anyways, fooled around with a brain-in-a-jar sketch, tried to do some colour on the sucker. still really iffy with the tablet, and im still no good at digital painting, but it's definitely better than the last one i did.

[kakao]

okay, so i was trying to figure out why my hand got sore when i was doing digital drawing and not when i did traditional, and i realized it was because i had some hardcore kung-fu death grip shit going on with the stylus. after i figured that out, i tried holding the stylus a bit differently. it made doodling so much easier. what a difference such a small change makes.heres some intentionally pecky sketches i did to try and break that bad habit.

[kakao]

oh lord no more. so tired. ok, no more art today. i surrender.

[kakao]

i lied. 2am digital paint practice? sure, why not.

[Turisas]

I'm liking your energetic approach with linework. I also need to get rid of the kung-fu-death-grip habit. Considering my arm did already give up once about a year back due to overstress. Ring and pinky finger stopped working and half of my hand went numb, to the point where surgery on my ulnar nerve was considered by my doctor. Enough of that though, your colored work feels a bit.. pale? Don't know how else to describe it. These cellshaded characters have a much more lively feel when it comes to color. On your latest post I can sort of see where it comes from: the shading on the legs seem muddy while on the torso it is much stronger. I guess saturation control's the thing to go for to liven up your blended coloring, but you might want a second opinion on that.
Keep up the good work.

[kakao]

yesterday i did some pen and ink studies of statues and 3d models and shit. it worked out pretty well, i learned a whole lot. i don't do a whole lot of longer studies like this, so it felt pretty fun and fresh.


also, much thanks turisas, i definitely agree about the saturation. colour is definitely one of my weak points. it also doesn't help that i have equal love for super muted colours like what ashley wood does in his paintings, and super saturated stuff like graeme borlands work. i think i'll do a whole whack of colour practice today

[kakao]

still messing around with the tablet, trying to get a better feel for it. having a kind of slow day today

[kakao]

my horoscope said to take the day off, lest i have a nervous breakdown. but how can i resist the sweet siren song of art?

heres a little b&w speedpaint i did from reference. i'm trying to work on blocking in light masses and shadows, as well as getting my brushwork a little cleaner. i just jumped right into it without putting down any line art or guidelines, so it ended up being pretty skewed, but practice is practice!

[kakao]

i can post again! i've been busy. i did some hi-contrast photo refs to try and get a feel for light and shadow, as well as another b+w reference paint, and i've been fooling around doodling in the sketchbook. the page with the orange marker is my favourite. i tried just doing some random scribbles with the orange and then going back with my super-fine pen and trying to pick out shapes from the scribbles. turned out pretty cool, and it was really fun. also did a couple of skull refs and a study on the muscles of the head. theres a lot of mistakes in it, but i learned a lot. im going to try and do a whole whack of anatomy studies in the near future, because i've really enjoyed the ones i've done so far, and i feel like they help a lot.

[kakao]

tried a paintover off of one of my scans. i gave up about halfway through, but i thought i'd post it anyways. it helped me realize how much i still need to practice painting and rendering.

[kakao]

fooling around with the 1 pixel brush last night. that things hilarious, its like mspaint. i also did some digital doodling, just playing with interesting shapes and trying to do something with colour.

[kakao]

so, i had a life-changing experience. i stumbled on sinix's sketchbook, and ho-lee, colour me inspired. what a great artist. he's equal parts moebius and ashley wood; two of my all time favourites. i binged out on his whole sketchbook in an afternoon. i've gotta get practicing now!

heres some sketches from the past day or two, im sure anyone familiar with his work will be able to see the indelible influence of sinix in some of these recent pages.

[kakao]

tried some painting, its really hard to stick with a piece until its done when i feel like it's doodoo.

[Turisas]

I like these study pages plenty, ought to do some more of the similar stuff myself. I have been neglecting traditional drawing quite a bit, too, gotta fix that. The sketches have a nice flow to them, albeit with gritty bits and pieces on the linework here and there.
The top shape of that black-and-white head, placement of the ears as well as the nose appears quite slanted and the forehead seems disproportionately small to me. Unless it was a stylistic approach, in which case some more exaggerated features might give the drawing more energy. I do like those lips and eyes, though.
The influence of Sinix' work is showing, yeah. He's an artist that has had an influence on me as well, and I keep getting back to his videos and images. Especially the way he handles thumbnails has had a great influence on me. His work is a good source of inspiration, can't deny that.
Keep up the good work.

EDIT: Oop, you added a thing while I was writing. The colors on that guy feel real close to earth and natural, in a gritty way. Adding a bit of red on the skin would bring more life to the face, but considering it's a combat-tired soldier (or so I assume), it works fine as is. Waiting for more.

[tsujni]

I love your sketches, nice variety of poses! Vis-a-vis your digital work, what program are you using? If Ps, try working with brushes set to use flow instead of opacity. Use opacity for blending and softening edges. It looks like you may be starting to do this already. Opacity can be real seductive but it totally destroys your edges. Also, try using a non-standard brush. I hate the round brush with a passion and it reminds me of something Brom said about digital art all looking the same, technique wise. I think it was Brom.

[Misty Feather]

I can tell you're really working hard. You're going to get places, fast! Woo hoo!