Level up! 9th'April

[AlexTooth]

Check it out

Attachment 626853

[AlexTooth]

All these studies are from life... if things are numbered e.g. 12/12 , 5/5, 20/20 etc, they're not dates, they're entries for imaginefx daily sketch challenge

First did 2 tone form, most of it's terrible so I'll just post a couple. Was excellent practice and I learnt a lot about form.




Next did 3 tone form (these turned out a bit better - used 3 markers) -








Next did LINE - how can stuff be represented with line, I learnt how to use the weight of line to imply shapes...







K so that's form and line so far. Next I was given a more broad range of study, to look into light, colour, composition and gesture poses. (did about 140 studies for those)

For the poses I used posemaniacs, I've done about 2000+ poses on there now, improving slowly but improving I think.

I have signed up to life drawing 2 times a week for spring term.

So some more random stuff to follow....

Saw posh spice in the Guardian, drew some poses to test my posemaniacs, used line as well to practice that.



Went to West dean college for the weekend as a present, did some drawing, one is a Blake they had on the wall (copy) and another is a tapestry I drew.




Went to ipswich museum, drew some monkeys and a deer, trying to work the tone and use minimal lines.




Learning about light and value - made my cone, found a box, a golf ball and a paper roll and got busy -




Learning about composition, looked at some old paintings, did thumbnails in 3tone/2tone and pencil.








Learn about colour and light - watched Jeremy Vickery DVD.

Learnt Painter, watched Ryan DVD.

Tried to create some of Jeremy Vickery's examples he did at the end of the DVD in Painter. (I'v now done about 7 paintings, including the ones on Ryan DVD - finding it hard but getting easier)





Got a lifesize skull, been drawing that. (done around 200 studies from life about here)



Next up, thumbnail composition! I got to make my own compositions. I watched Feng Zhu and got info about value, and composition, also perspective and proportions. Here are some - did them in Painter also, I don't know how to use photoshop and cant afford it.




K more to come on next post, gonna start with 3 posts to be safe from crashing losing everything lol.

[AlexTooth]

K next up I have been concentrating on humans, the anatomy and the figure. There is quite a bit of posemaniacs, though I certainly won't post it all lol.

Sorry if the times aren't written down, most are 30-90sec, one is random view doing 2/3min poses each. I've done 1000s of these, lots fo 10/15sec, but ill only post a few up here.










Did some eyes, head, nude, Pieta statue drawing, and I tried a Madonna in Painter, tried out oils this time.







Next I tried doing some character's completely out of my head with no ref at all, see if any of my posemaniacs practice paid off, some ok, some terrible, most very weird.






Made very VERY first 2 characters, poses and chars from my head, I used bridgeman constructive anatomy and Hogarth to check where I should place muscle though, as men are very hard I find to memorise the muscles. Women not so bad.




Next I tried colouring in my girl char quickly in Painter, just trying colours out really, nothing serious, bit messy I know lol.








One one more post up next from stuff I've been doing in the last WEEK, pretty much solely been learning how to use painter....

[AlexTooth]

Ok, to learn about painting and stuff and how to use painter I tried to recreate some of my favourite paintings, they're not really all finished or anything, but more of a practice. I spent most of a day on each on, starting last friday. I've done about 10-12 painting total now, would love some tips on how to improve.

First up Vermeer - I thought it was ok, but later realised it's quite bad. Koshime kindly pointed out a blended to early and told me a little about how to tackle a painting.



Next I tried a Monet, and after Koshimes advice I used NO blenders at all, infact I think I did the whole thing with one brush. Quite a liberating experience I found.



Next tried Boldini portrait, didn't like how it was going to left it. Use a blender a bit on this.



Next I tried a painting by Lenoir, all done with 1 brush, but I blended the face and hair a bit at the end.



My mum saw me doing all this stuff and got me to paint a pic of my dad for his 60th this week, spent all of yesterday on it. Used 1 brush (except hair - used scratchboard), no blenders yet, though the brush has some blend on it already. I found the hair very difficult. Im not completely happy with it but my knowledge doesn't go any further with regards to this kind of thing. If anyone has tips on improving it i'd love to know, i've got 2 days left.



K that's where I am right now. I've got a lot of Maya work to do this week, but expect regular updates. I'm going to try and look at sketchbooks and contribute as much as I have time for from now on

[Oakseed]

Supreme! Good to see your work up here. It's an extensive line of study. Great Stuff!!!

[kingkostas]

Nice story.I am thinking sometimes about these situations,but in the end you see that its meaning is to make you understand what you really want to do in your life(dont forget that we learn from mistakes)
Anyway its all about motivation.
I am glad you started a sketchbook here (and welcome to CA) and i can see your talent.Now you are going very well and you have to keep up.
You will meet times that your mood will be -0 and thats also a part to actually stabilize your main goal.
So never leave it from now on,keep up as long as you live pal
I think you will become very good soon enough.

see ya and thanks for stoping by my sketchbook

[AlexTooth]

Oakseed - Thanks! It will be interesting to see how we develop =)

KingKostas - Thanks for dropping by, and kind words of encouragement, I know about the -0 mood thing oh too well, just gonna try my best!

Got some more posemaniacs, and a couple of bits of 3D for a small project I finished with a uni friend in December, I did the 3D he did the 2D. You can view it here... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jXz43BSbOSk if u fancy!








3D - Hopefully this stuff will improve with my new knowledge!




Would love tips for starting out learning art, anything that might be helpful, I feel like a baby at the moment whos brain's a big sponge.

[serio]

Very ambitious plan to achive. Only one year to become great artist - wow! It's to fast tempo for me I guess.. I'm giving myself several years and I think it's important to play with your knowledge.. For example after some life studies go and draw some speedpainting from mind, or choose some of weekly challenges to participate and so on. I see you have a DS. Download a free prg. Colors! to draw with it! Its so much fun. Also I think that giving up to all your favourite activities such as games is not a way. Balancing is a key. So if you like play your favourite game for short period like 1h after sketching training.

Stunning studies, great motivation and hard work in here. Your sketchbook is very inspirational thing..

[AlexTooth]

Hey Serio, thanks for looking!

Yes, 1 year's ambitious I know, in reality we shall see, it's probably going to take longer, because I realise I can't cram years of acquired knowledge into 1 year... just going to try my hardest to learn and practice.

I will have a go with Colours on the DS, looks like a great thing to do when I'm out of the house, thanks for the tip

[emilyd]

aaaahhh you are crazy good i love all of the works that ive seen so far keep posting!

[zaorr]

Thanx fer yer comments and heads up.

You seemed to have focused on all the things I haven’t lately, good line and cleanliness. Perhaps a better approach.

Working from life, good creativity

Have you gone into constructive anatomy yet? The Hogarth’s, Loomis and Bridgman’s books?

I'd say your work tips more toward roundup and cleanliness, color etc
You could balance it off with a bit more on construction.

You obviousely have construction, but it could use another wave of enhancement to keep up with the other stuff and incorporating perspective into your freehand. Line desighn can be a perspective distraction in early desighn and might make your stuff end up flat. I have queue'd myself to look for that balance between line beuty and dimentional aspect for future study. Even in life study, you could reach a photo representation of what you are looking at measuring in 2D, negative shapes and spaces, this is good but as with myself I think trying to draw form rather than appearance would be a good study for the future.

Other than that, your work is really nice, keep it going, feel free to take a whack at my work anytime.

[AlexTooth]

Hey thanks for comments Zaorr.

Yes I need to get into construction. lol my construction at the moment is a stick man then I add the stucture, it's often not too accurate though.

I will work through those books, thanks for the tip =)

I saw your sketchies, seems we're heading the same way!

[alicelefay]

hello Alex
Wow, really high goal, and a lot of work on it!
I don't feel like giving you so much critiques, since I'm on the learning road and I'm not better than you...just more confused I'd say! LOL
About your human figures, I'd suggest you to check out Loomis (easy to find for free on Google) and Bridgman.
In my experience, I needed some drawings from those books and from references/life in order to achieve my landmarks; now when I sketch it's pretty natural to draw them, but at the start I was confused about the "how and where the hell can I learn them?"

Good luck!

[Dilated]

The paint of your dad is pretty cool. You should start hitting up some loomis/bridgeman study's then practicing after from imagination, dont do what i used to do and just copy mindlessely.
keep it up

[majaiku]

wow! I'm very impressed by the dedication you have to your studies.
Envious, really, haha

[AlexTooth]

Alice - Yep thanks for loomis and bridgeman tip, I have the books but never really looked at them seriously, will deffo give that a go. Thanks for taking a look, tbh I think I'm a bit confused as well, I just figure if I try enough different stuff I'll find what I'm supposed to be doing =)

Sketchz - Cool yep seems I've been getting alot of advice on Bridgeman, will definitely get cracking and try do some more of my own characters, hopefully with a bit more flow and dynamism!

Majaiku - lol well I really don't work that hard, I should really! Me 'ol Dad says "the hardest thing about work is starting it" - so I'd suggest just get cracking, eventually you'll be awesome

[AlexTooth]

Some more figure stuff, would love some suggestions to make it all more exciting! I have made a start on Loomis yesterday, loved reading the intro, very interesting guy, very motivating!

Posemaniacs





Drawing from head, no ref used



Started Loomis, drew proportion drawings 3 times like he recommended, good exercise.





Drew Vivi for IFX daily sketchbook - not very good rendering really because I was using this newspaper stuff, not meant for pencils.. I later realised!



Today, more posemaniacs, Im getting better very slowly lol, guess I am going to take longer than most people to get good.

10sec



15sec



30sec x2




45sec



60sec



90sec



Some poses from Art Models book (couple min each)

[alicelefay]

Lot of work!
About the posemaniacs drawings, what helped me when I started drawing them was to try different approaches. For example, I found really useful to draw some without lifting the pencil, and some trying to use the less number of lines I could, using them to suggest the movement.
What gesture sketches are, is not a study of anatomy; they are a "note" to suggest what is the movement of the figure.
SO try not to get scared too much by proportions and such, but just concentrate on rendering the general movement the best you can.

[AlexTooth]

Ok thanks for the tip Alice! - Yeah I guess it's cos I see so many sketchbooks on here with their neat, perfect little poses - kinda inhibits me I guess; I'll try be a bit more experimental and creative in the future

[majaiku]

Haha, just like I said last time--your studies are pretty amazing! Regardless of what you say I'm very appreciative of your work.

And Vivi was totally my favorite character, hehe.

[kingkostas]

I also love Vivi and all FF
You have done a lot of work with these figures and i am sure it will help you.The more you do the more confident you feel when you draw someone(specially in small size=less detail)
To step deeper in character anatomy start understanding each part of the body.Just think them as shapes
See ya and keep up

[alicelefay]

I have the same problem, looking at all those wonderful sketchbooks around here, and no way to be so good ^^
But I experienced that the more I force in that direction ( "The wannabe perfect", as I call it LOL), the more I get far from it.
One maybe needs the half way...I mean, half free/fun, and half conscious of the "rules" and goals.

[Ming_64]

Hi Alex, you mentioned you put your stuff up here so I thought it was about time I checked it out. I am the ultimate CA part time lurker after all.

I'm really impressed by the breadth and depth of the kind of stuff you've been working on, makes me think that maybe I should be spreading my net a little wider. Your digital painting is coming on really well, the one of your dad is really good - hope he appreciated it. I don't really feel I'm in a position to critique as you're more advanced than me at it, pretty impressive considering you've only been doing it a couple of months or so.

One thing about the figure drawing - I don't know what size you're doing yours but I find it's helpful every now and again to do some in a large format, rather than smaller thumbnails. It's hard when your sitting in front of a monitor using posemaniacs but if you're doing life drawing classes you'll be able to have a go there I guess.

Keep up the good work.

[AlexTooth]

Majaiku Thanks for stopping by again, yeah Vivi is pretty much the best thing ever, I love being able to draw some FF fan art finally, probably going to do some more at some point!

KingKostas Yeah I know the figure studies are helping, I can tell, it's slow progress but my mark making with a pencil is a lot more confident now and I can draw stuff quicker - it's just hard to tell because the improvement is so gradual...

Alicelefay Yep kinda makes you feel small looking at other sketchbooks, but they've been doing it a long time, we will get there, I have seen your work and you're headed to the top I can tell, just need to keep it up ) Thanks for stopping by, I'm gonna visit your sketchbook again, saw some cool stuff in it the other day!

Ming_64 Well hello there fella, lol yep, you're certainly the ultimate lurker! Yeah it's good all this practice, the figure stuff especially; I am mainly doing all this for the course, it's helping a lot - especially with characters/movement etc. Just hope I can pull something decent out the bag before the end of the year. I know what you mean by drawing in front of the comp, I do try draw ppl at home though on A3 when they're about, and yeah life drawing's gonna help. See ya Thursday!

Well update from last couple days -

Sunday

1 page of loomis this time! I find it very boring trying to draw a diagram accurately, infact I am having more fun with Bridgeman..



15sec pen



30sec marker - didn't take hand off paper! odd, kinda cool, makes u look more, even though they didnt turn out great



Random stuff from my head, no ref - as u might tell



Did a pen and ink tutorial on this very website in the mentor bit - always been interested in learning pen and ink techniques...

















Monday

Drew my mum in pen, only person available, wanted to try out my ink tutorial, didn't work that well but im learning, next one will be better. Promised her id make it look like her one day lol



30sec



60sec



90sec



Naked lady - inked 'em in, waste of time; shoulda just done pencil oh well, lesson learnt.



Bridgeman Arms - surprising how quick this was, my mark making has gotten much quicker since posemaniacs, surprised even myself! Then again its a book not real life, but anywhooo



Bridgeman heads



Arms hurt lol sleep Zzz =0

[alicelefay]

really goooood!!
The posemaniacs poses are really in the good direction, no matter if they seems "nice to look at" or "realistic", they capture the movement really better!! Gooood work!
About the ink hatching...heh...I suppose it takes long time to master it, so don't give up ( About me, I did! LOL)
Bridgman is coming out good, those arms are really nice; me too I find more fun to study Bridgeman than Loomis, it's more "alive". Next time, if you want, try to study his lines; how he uses them to suggest movement and such.
But really, you showed a sweet improvement!

[zaorr]

Something about bridgeman's stuff looooks pretty awesome.

I like that dude, he has a way to let your monkeys play.

Too much work and too little play not good.

You are drawing like mad. Glad I peeked.

[kingkostas]

Man the one with the 3d amazed me!!! Really good work.
Nice studies in overall and i see that you need more training in faces.
I made a simple structure system that i currently use.Its not totally right but it can show you some info about how to understand some parts of the face(placement etc)
This structure varies from person to person cause of different width,height,special positioning of eyes mouth(example:A man may have his mouth closer to his nose than another one that have his mouth closer to the chin etc.)
Using this you can capture some basic properties of someone and start building the details.LOCATE-CREATE-FINISH
I hope this can offer you some help to your journey.
Keep up mate!!!!

[AlexTooth]

alicelefay Thanks for encouragement, always welcome =) Ill check out your newest goodies tomorrow :-) lookin forward to that!

zaorr Yeah Bridgeman is pretty cool, these dudes wer crazy in those days, really into their stuff, been looking at a lot of Hogarth and Loomis too, they sure don't make 'em like they used to!

kingkostas Thanks for checkin in dude, appreciated. Yes my head stuff kinda suxor right now, and my hands and arms are pretty gay. This is stuff I am working on! Yeah about head construction, I am learning Loomis' book on the head, it helps some, but it's always good getting different viewpoints, thanks! And about 3D stuff, should have more of that in the next months, need to give Zbrush a good go before my Master's project, sigh.. so much to learn!

So, Tuesday.

Argh, so did some life drawing tonight >.< basically, didn't get much done for a number of stupid reasons (room mixup, stupid model etc!) What I did do wasn't good, but I havn't done life drawing for 6months so I take it as first day blues or some crap, that's my excuse anyway!

Tried some heads from my new book called photographing portraits or somethin, I just got it for the pics =)

Did some Bridgeman as well, and a Hogarth, man that guy's the original EMO, everyone else is a wanabee. I need to concentrate on hands, faces, arms and stuff and drawing from life tonnes I dont do it enough! >.<

Bridge-meister





Life-drawing - lol i know i know, rubbish, I can do better, infact I did better life drawing 10years ago XD anyway - tis practice =0 I'v signed up for twice a week so hopefully I can track my improvement over spring from this poop =)





Couple of faces from my new book - seriously need to work on my shading with pencils, anyway they were only quick sketchies for ifx daily sketchbook. I should stop bitching about my stuff and just get on with it, k ill stop :p stopped.



Some posemaniacs

30sec pen



30sec pencil



90sec pencil



Quick Hogarth pic as a nightcap, lol what an emo.

[serio]

Cool updates. Pencil is really helpfull in those things and I'm trying it myself. Life drawing class sounds like pretty good idea. Maybe I'll think about it aswell.. Now I've discovered Glenn Villpu's videos and books. They are pretty awesome so I strongly recommend it as well as Riven Phoenix stuff. Check it out!

[AlexTooth]

Serio - Thanks for the tips, I have checked out some Vilppu and Riven, infact ordered some stuff. I saw the Vippu gesture drawing, he really is quite good, but also quite slow, about 4min per pose - I have been trying to draw like him in my 90sec poses lol. Some results -

bit scruffier, but interesting doing it vilppu style, well trying to do it his style lol







Some gesture drawings I did in town on Thursday, about 2min each, or less - depends how long the person stood still!













Did more life drawing Thursday night, did better than Tuesday!! Still a long way to go.

5min

20min

20min


Went to the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge on Friday, drew some statues in charcoal, spent most of the day looking at paintings though.





Did some Bridgeman last night.



30sec posemaniacs, argh messy



90sec, again trying vilppu way