Moai's Sketchbook

[Moai]

Welgum to my sketchbook.

New images are in the middle pages of the sketchbook. Just kidding, they're at the end.

[Moai]

All of these are at least several months old, with the exception of the spider-bunny.

An alien astronaut.

An alien being and a manticore.

A naked, bladed android man, and another manticore.

Some hastily colored alien primates.

A creature who started as a wolf man and ended up as a rat man. I used myself as a model, though I'm not nearly as muscular. Or hairy.

A made-up species of mammal-like reptile.

Some alien fauna.

Some more alien fauna.

My entry in the "cute bunny has eyes and mouthparts of a spider" sketch of the day.

[Moai]

The Land of Hu-Huffle is a strange little world I made up. It began with this whimsical, Seus-ish painting. It's my first acrylic painting ever, so I apologise for the quality.



The rhyme, which I improvised, goes like this:
In the land of Hu-Huffle
Where the Fluffles do shuffle
And their scuffles are muffled
In the land of Hu-Huffle

Here are some fluffles, the main species of Hu-Huffle. They grow on trees (the red antennae are their stems), and when they gain enough wisdom, they root themselves and grow into trees themselves, and thus begin the cycle anew. Their feet attach directly to their bodies; they have no legs. Hence the "shuffle". In this scene, the two fluffles are trying to catch a flying doigo in a net, but are only succeeding in catching each-other.


A drawing of a flying doigo. It has no wings, just four tiny little arms, so it relies on feathers that it finds to fly.


The sheep-like painterdoodle. It leaves a trail of brightly-colored paint wherever it goes. The expressions where a blast to draw.


Some Hu-Huffle flora and fauna. The legs, lower right, are the chief enemies of the legless fluffles. Luckily for the ungraceful fluffles, the predatory legs are the least intelligent lifeforms on Hu-Huffle.


I'm thinking of turning this all into a children's book one day. Maybe once I get a tablet I'll do it digitally. Of course, so as not to be just a cheap imitation of Dr. Seus, it won't be written in rhymes.

[Moai]

Here's CoW #53, the Nuclear Planet Devourer. I think, so far, it's gotten one single vote. But that's only expected when you're up against people like rawwad and JakkaS and the various other extremely talented CoWers.


And here's CoW #54, the Sand Hunter. I was too late to turn in the final, but I don't mind.
Brainstorms of a dune-rolling bug and a shark-like sand swimmer.

The final, drawn in a gel pen, then painted over with acrylic, all on regular sketchbook paper, which was exceedingly unwise. I had to erase the ripples in the paper after I scanned it.
Here's the basic idea behind it: The wheel bug's planet is in a period of development roughly equivalent to our Silurian. The oceans are teaming with life and diversity, but the land is still relatively barren, home to only a few species of advanced vascular plants. As far as animals were concerned, dry land was the exclusive domain of a hardy group of centipede-like arthropods. This two-foot long creature is an advanced descendant of those pioneering species. The wheel bug is one of the first entirely terrestrial animals, not relying on water even for reproduction. Its eight pairs of long legs enable it to move quite fast over its dry, sandy habitat in pursuit of its prey, but this mode of movement leads to rapid loss of precious moisture. Its preferred method of hunting is to perch itself atop a sand dune and ambush its prey, which often congregates to gather the dew that collects in the troughs between dunes. The wheel bug launches itself foreward and rolls down the hill, hoping to colide with and injure its prey with the rows of serrated spikes along its back. It aims specifically for animals that have recently shed their exoskeletons, making themselves much softer and more vulnerable. Though ingenious, the evolutionary trend of its prey to develop larger bodies and stronger hides will soon make this method of hunting quite impractical. The wheel bug, like all of nature's creatures, will either adapt or perish.


That's it for now. Work will be added regularly. Thanks for looking!

[Moai]

Edit: Semi-whiny-ish comments deleted.

[Stark]

I like the textures you have in your B&W studies....more variations of study subjects and then I'll comment and crit further...can't crit on anything that's fictional or of your own reality... :p

[Moai]

Thanks, Saikin! Yeah, more variations of study subjects is something I sorely need to force myself to do. I'll post some of my still lives from school a little later. I'm taking a life drawing class this fall, so I'll post those too.

[silvestri99]

Nice creature design. I like the feel and whimsy of it all.

[Moai]

Thanks, silvestri99! Creature design is my passion, but also my crutch, somewhat. Like Saikin said, I need to branch out further.

As promised, some still lives. Critique the hell out of them, if you would. Even from teachers, it seems like I get too many compliments and not enough criticism.

Skeleton in pencil, with emphasis on line weight.

Boots, hatched pencil.

Cow skull, charcoal.

Final drawing, heightened charcoal.

[Moai]

Yaaaay!
I'm level two!

Can someone explain to me how this level up system works?

[darkwolfb87]

Interesting range of works in here. I'll see what I can do to crit your still lives, but be forwarned that my opinions about learning how to draw may be unsuitable to you, or just plain misguided

Skeleton+boots+cow skull: I'm not a big fan of isolating a particular drawing technique to complete a drawing, as it brings a lot of attention away from what you're actually seeing and makes you spend too much time making the technique pretty. I'd rather see you apply line emphasis, hatch lines, smooth light/shadow, and everything else you know about light and drawing on EVERY drawing you do, where it is deemed appropriate to your taste. If your goal is to represent an object on a piece of paper as realistically as possible, you would do well to keep everything in your arsenal at the ready.

I know your teachers probably assigned you to do them that way but now that you have, put all of those techniques into action with your own drawings, and you will find that the less you pay attention to technique, the more naturally they seem to be absolutely necessary when you are having trouble drawing something. You'll just feel it.

The final drawing does a pretty good job with textures, but my main problem with it is an incoherent light source. Why only fill in the background just enough to show the beaker's spherical form? To help recreate the light source, you should have filled in all of that background. If you did that, you would find that almost everything looked like the same blue mid-tone color. The flower is not just "really light" and the suitcase "really dark," every single object has an overall value that will be brighter (relative to the objects around it) the closer and more directly facing it is to the light source. Also, how would you deal with all those value planes if you used black paper? Or white?

I hope that gave you something useful, I'm not too confident in how clear that all was

~ Stephen

[Moai]

Thanks, darkwolf. You're right, those drawings were assingments meant to isolate particular techniques. I completely agree with you about combining the different techniques to maximum affect. The thing is, once you practice something and internalize it, it will come out in your work whether you realize it or not. An analogy in my own life would be playing the guitar and hearing little bits and pieces of the music that I listen to coming out in what I play. I definitely agree with what you have to say.
As for the final drawing, the light source is probably incoherent because there were lights coming from all directions. It was a very large and complicated still life, and I only drew a small part. It was a high key drawing in the first place, and then spray fixing it toned down the white somewhat. I was more hesitant with contrast back then. The idea to do an outline of shading around everything was somewhat questionable as well, but I don't think I'd like it as much with the entire background filled in.
Thanks for the comments and crits, and yes, you were perfectly clear.

[Moai]

Here's my latest CoW, the pearl-finding monkey. My first foray into the digital realm, and I had a blast.

[Michael Jaecks]

Hey look you got the tablet! Congratulations! I think you'll find it only gets more exciting from here. There are SO MANY ways to use it. I won't say it makes things "easier," but in a short time of using it regularly, and exlporing the software, you find yourself able to do things you might never have known how do to otherwise. One thing I've been doing lately is using the magnetic lasso tool to mark out a section of a painting and shifting the hues, saturations and lightness... both for coloring parts of a painting and defining the space a little, either to make it recede or to make it pop. Its a nice tool because you can make refinements in small but uniform increments, allowing you to tweak things quite precisely.

Congrats on your new investment. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop!

Michael

[Moai]

Thanks, Michael! That's done all with a mouse, actually. I don't have a tablet yet. Feel free to hop on to San Luis Obispo county Craig's list and buy my electric ukulele, though, so I can get the money. Or not. I have a job now, too, so it won't be long. See you in CoW.

[Lazy]

Hey man thanks for your comment, i thought i might aswell drop by your sketchbook.

I really like your creatures, they are really far out and show that you have a good imagination. Your life-studies are very good aswell. You should try shading rougher so it pops out more.

cheers

[Moai]

Thanks for the compliment, Lazy! I love to hear things like that. And by shading rougher I assume you mean more contrast, which is something I worked on in my subsequent drawing class. I may post my work from that class as well, whenever I pull it out and take some pictures.

PS- I tried to visit your sketchbook and it took me to a page that apparently I'm not authorized to view.

[Lazy]

Hey no problem, noticed now that my links were broken except page 3 in my sig.
So give it another shot if you would like too

[Goodbye..fromthevoid]

Very nice work here. I especially liked the still lifes (and I'm afraid I have no critique of them). You have a very obvious talent.

I think I would like to see you try to do a landscape in pencil, I think that might challenge you and also make possibly the best thing on the page - so how about you try that?

If I had any critique it would be that your color work is not as impressive as your pencil work. My advice? Add more small precise details and "render" more.

[Moai]

Oh boy, an assignment! Sure, I'll do a landscape in pencil, void. That would definitely be a challenge. Any landscapes I've done I've enjoyed, but they've mostly been little doodles.
My colors aren't as impressive because I've only been doing them for about a year and a half, while I've been drawing since I was six. It's definitely something I need to work on, along with broadening my subject matter.
I assume with the precise details and rendering you were talking about my pearl monkey. I got scolded over in the CoW forums for how I did that piece. In my defence, it was my first complete digital piece ever, and I did it with a mouse. I also did it in a single afternoon. But, excuses excuses, I definitely need to be more careful and patient. Thank you very much for your compliments.
I just started my first project in 2D design today and I'll draw my first nude person tonight, so I'll have some more work to post soon.

[Moai]

[dindon]

Happy birthday, it's mine also!

Solid sketchbook.

[Moai]

Thanks, Dindon! Happy birthday to you, too! It shows just how big this site is that there's about 30-40 birthdays a day. Boy, two years from now I'll be able to have a beer on my birthday.
I'm glad you think my sketchbook is solid. I'm a little more harsh on myself. I know I'm a solid creature artist, but when it comes to landscapes, architecture, and technological things, I'm very intimidated.
I'm into my third week of life drawing. I've done about fifty in-class figure studies so far, most of them five minutes or less, and 10 quickie life sketches a day. It's funny, because I'm always one of the best artists in the classes I take, but here I'm just another face in the crowd.
I think I may have just found my first artistic employment. My friend and his dad are starting a clothing company, and they want me to design for them. I'm pretty excited about that!
More stuff coming soon, I promise.

[Moai]

Hey, peeps. I've been neglecting my sketchbook, so here's a bit of an update.

Bermuda Triangle CoW sketches. A final picture never came to pass.


A page of sketches for the Highly Explosive CoW, which I did manage to enter.


The sub-final and final versions. Look how spermy the sub final is!



And the non-genetically-engineered version of the above.


My cousin's birthday present. A somewhat androgynous faerie, drawn mostly without reference. It's a fearie, so gender and anatomy can be blurred, a bit.


Here are a few of my favorite things I've drawn in a while. They're creatures I saw in my kneaded eraser. It's always great fun to draw from the random forms of a kneaded eraser. When I was a child, I'd often draw things I saw in clouds or trees. It's just how my brain works.
The second guy is wearing some sort of hat, I think.


And the first assignment of my first official design job! It was a fairly strange assignment, actually. They wanted me to draw a tree shaped like a question mark, with an apple as the dot of the question mark, and the word "live" spelled out in the branches.


Samples of my life drawings will come soon, I promise!

[Moai]

Here's the finalized logo.

[Seedling]

Your weak point seems to be color. You might consider setting up some simple still-lives and doing quick paintings from them to catch your color usage up with your drawing level.

Bit of a Wayne Douglas Barlowe fan, are you?

[Moai]

Did you read me say somewhere that I was a Wayne Barlowe fan, or is his influence that evident in my work? Either way, yes I am.
Anyway, painting some simple still lives is exactly what I'm planning to do when I get my tablet.
Thanks for stopping by, and double thanks for leaving a comment.

[Moai]

As I was looking through one of my sketchbooks for some CoW inspiration today, I realized, "Garsh! There's some decent sketchbook pages here that I haven't posted yet!" So, here they are.

An assassin and some dragons. The dragon in the box turned into an oil painting, which I won't show until it's finished...whenever that is.


A page of spur of the moment sketches inspired by looking through Dreckster's sketchbook (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50275)


Some creatures.


Some ideas for the Scary but Harmless CoW and the original sketch for my Pearl Finder. For the Scary but Harmless, I imagined a huge but very gentle bear/dog and a creature that made you gasp, until you realized you were looking at a magnafied image of a very tiny creature.


A page of Bermuda Triangle CoW sketches.


A page of Creek Crawler sketches.


And here's four sample pages from my life drawing sketchbook. These are all one minute or less per drawing.

[gmags]

Hey Moai, cool stuff in your sb!! I wish I could draw creatures like you. I liked your life sketches in here. Keep postin more stuff!!

[Moai]

Thanks, gmags! Creature drawing has been my passion for the past...oh, thirteen years. Glad you liked my stuff, and more will definitely come soon!

PS- If you want to see some really good creature artists, browse through the Creature of the Week threads. It's my usual haunt, when I'm around here.