LukeTores SB- Please Point Out What I Need to Work On!

[LukeTores]

* THE BEGINNING OF THIS THREAD IS YEARS OLD- SKIP TO LATER PAGES! *

Hey everyone! I've recently decided to start drawing again. Right now, I've been drawing 1.5 hours a day and am trying to get up to 3 hours a day. I've drawn on and off for a while, maybe a few weeks at a time every couple months, but I hope this time I'll stick to it. I think I've quit so many times because I wasn't having fun, and was extremely picky. I think "The Natural Way To Draw" techniques of super-slow contour drawing for hours, and the need I felt to have _perfect_ reference for drawings really sapped my passion, so I went and tried a bunch of different other arts. But I always come back to drawing- maybe it's really what I want to do. I'm going to college next year, and with no idea what to do except some form of art, be it a visual art or literature or music. I'm a little desperate to find out exactly what, so I'm going to push myself to draw a lot and gain some experience and insight into what I can do with the medium, and if it's what I want. Even if it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's an awesome skill to have. I'm noticing things I never saw, even in my own neighborhood, from actively looking from a visual artist's perspective. There are my drawings I've done so far, oldest is 3 days ago. They're all from photo reference. I've been doing these much more loosely than I usually draw, and using photos as reference which I wouldn't normally use, like thumbnail-sized b&w photos for the first 3 building sketches. I've been timing myself for each drawing to avoid getting too tight, which is a bad habit I had. E.g., I had put full detail into a window before drawing anything around it. I've been careful to make outlines of everything before going into detail in these drawings.






From "Woman at the Window" by Dali.


This took me an hour and a half, first half hour I was riding in a car so I didn't set up perspective lines like I should have (too bumpy), just eyeballed them. That's also why the wood on the doors suck, should have erased and redone that part.



Is this a good resolution/size for the scans? What should I focus on to improve overall?

Crits & comments welcome!

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New img for thumbnail:

[Recursive_End]

Welcome !!
You have some good observationnal skills. So my advice would be to work more on your rendering. try giving more convincing shading by using corss hatching or any other technique.
Anyway, you r doing some cool pics
Keep popsting !

[Snuggles]

Gotta agree with Recursive_End, you seem to be pretty good at observation, just keep practicing your rendering. Your marks could use some confidence, they seem kind of shakey...don't be afraid to go farther than just trying to catch the image of something--go ahead and grab it by the cojones and put it on paper the way you want. Try to be a little more purposeful and strong with the marks you put down.

Your choice of subject matter is cool, and you seem to be pretty talented at marking down what you see. I think you've already got some really important skills here. Keep it up, thar!

[katsgod]

Nice sketches.

[LukeTores]

Thanks! Does anyone know of good hatching/crosshatching examples or tutorials? Artists with an especially good rendering technique?

[Recursive_End]

Well, i cant find any good tutorials, but i did found other artist whom crosshatch alot , here are the links:
Steak-tron
VeSeljak

Just take your time about rendering. Cause its the last step on finalising a pic. hatching techniques demand a pretty big patience, but the result is more than nice
So good luck

[LukeTores]

Those guys you linked look really cool. I did this in school, it's the black plastic cylinder of a highlighter:



Man, I can't get it to look as rich and smooth as it does on paper. With Photoshop, I got it as close as I could, but it looks grainy. I used the better of my 2 scanners for this highlighter. There's also a faint white grid in all my scans. What could be going on? Anyone know why this is happening? This drawing is on normal printer paper and the others previous are on very slightly textured sketchbook paper, should I use some other, fancier paper?

EDIT: I think this was mostly because I was looking at my stuff again with a weird monitor. So, there's not actually a problem. Hehe.

[LukeTores]

Kiwis! About an hour. The fuzz and complicated texture confused me, so I drew them as if they were less furry.
C&C and suggestions on what I ought to draw next or more of is welcome—TO THE MAX!

[LukeTores]

From Ico concept art. I can't find the name of the particular artist. I messed up big on this: I never made boxes and guidelines, just drew the visible lines. (Except an ellipse for the windmill blades.) Two-thirds into it I realized there was 3-point, not 2-point, perspective. Very dumb. Another result was that I didn't realize the windmill itself was a very different shape, and was missing a big chunk. Oh well, now I know better.

[LukeTores]

About 50 min. The faint parallel lines are for rails that I decided not to put in. Used pic from http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/bm04/man-temple/
What's burning man without chicks with dreadlocks, baggy pants, and no shirts?

[LukeTores]

From a picture of a bust of Gala, Dali's wife. I'm going to shade this tommorrow, what should I fix before I do?

[LukeTores]

The Dalian theme indirectly continues. I plan on shading this tommorrow as well, which will be tricky for me because in the picture the lobster's wet and shines in ways I've never tried to draw before.

I'd like to one day keep a lobster as a pet, and walk it on a leash in public places to inform the world that absurdism is not entirely dead.

Keeping an online sketchbook is much more encouraging than I thought it would be.

[LukeTores]

Finished shading. I really rushed her hair because I had no idea how to do it. Must do hair studies in the future. Total shading time was over 2 hours. At my level, should I do more of these detailed studies or should I do a bunch of sketches? Or mix it up? Any input greatly appreciated (*begs*).

[koshime]

You're off to a good start! Keep at your studies...and try to loosen the lines, as in , in your studies of enviroments/characters. try to use the natural flow of what you see/feel and place it on paper...it is almost ..instinctual, or somethign you can develop

[Monny]

follow the link in your sig
got a nice progression of work going already, is good to see, as for the workload i'd recommend a mixture of a few things.. like, do a nice detailed study followed by a few quick loose ones using some of the things you learnt from the detailed peice. can work the other way too, a few fast loose drawing to get the tools warm can help you get a feeling for the peices you want to work on before you commit to something with more depth.
reading your first post and problems with motivation, all the things you've posted seem to be reference peices and technique practices which could grind you down a bit, dont forget to let the brain free and just make it up as you go sometimes the product can be just useful as the lesson peices and fun in the process
hope it helps, feel like ive rambled a bit, sorry ;(