Shadow Sketchbook

[Shadow Stalker]

Introduction
Hi, my name is Ruben. I am 22 years old and married with two children. I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. I have been drawing since I was young (just like most people here) but I only recently started taking art serious. I really would like to go to school but I am not willing to take on the amount of debt required, so here I am... learning the hard way. I am interested in serious constructive criticism that will help my progression in art.

Equipment
Digital
Bamboo Fun Wacom Tablet 3.7 x 5.8
Adobe Photoshop CS3

Traditional
Mechanical pencil 0.5
Black Hard-Covered Moleskine Sketchbook 3 ½” x 5 ½”
Kneaded eraser

Favorite Artists
Adam Rex
Alan Lee
Collywobbles
Donato Giancola
Eva Wildermann
John Howe
Justin Sweet
Kieran Yanner
Marko Djurdjevic
Todd Lockwood
Wesley Burt

Currently Studies
-Anatomy
-Digital painting
-Line quality

Current Projects
Aside from drawing, I love to play tabletop RPGs (role-playing games). I am currently working on my own world and system to hopefully one day sell as an e-book or an expansion to an existing system. If you are interested in helping with creation ideas or concept art, feel free to stop by.
http://cypressdesign.forumotion.com

I also enjoy creating websites from scratch. Here is my personal site.
Shadow-Media

Latest Artwork

[Shadow Stalker]

Older Artworks

[tmbritton]

Looks like you were able to jump right into the digital without suffering a loss in quality from your traditional sketches. Keep it up!

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: May 24th, 2009
WIP sketch.

[Jokermagician]

wow... really very beautiful sketches and digital painting... =) keep up the good work man....

[Shadow Stalker]

Thank-you very much.

[stevienavarre]

yeah bruh, that works lookin goood, son.

[PieMonster]

You should take a look at these books Loomis, Bridgeman and Hogarth. Doing studies from these will help your anatomy tons.

[Collywobbles]

Good stuff man. Post #4 is nice, it looks much more confident than some of the others. The line petting will go away with experience, if you put in the time and consider each line as important to the overall image eliminating any superfluous lines. Let's see some studies, Loomis is a good start, Vilppu would help a lot for gesture, Bridgeman is most important for form and construction. Everything is a shape. Cubes and cylinders. Sculpt it out.

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: May 6th, 2009
The scans came out really bad. I might have better luck taking pictures of them. I may do that soon because it's kind of a bad representation. Anyways, please critique.

Also, I'm not really comfortable with a couple of these.. I can see some problems with a few, but it's hard to edit pencil.

[Tyleen]

Hey i was looking at the picture that was second from the top. I think of all of your artworks i wanted to say i really like that one, the way that you colored it. i think the colors all complemiment each other nicely and i like that it look water color like, expecially on the pants.

[Eugie]

Hey I have to agree with piemonster on this studying the anatomy will probably help you a great deal, especially if you are into character design.

[Collywobbles]

Wow, good stuff. You are definitely improving, although the scans aren't great I can see what's going on. Have you tried messing around with them in digital after the scan, multiplying the layer to get it darker or sharpening? Sometimes you can get it to look like it should but it doesn't always work. The line work is improving, I really like the ink guy, with some watercolor or a wash that would be sweet. The Nordic guys are excellent. Give The Gimp or Alchemy a try, I think they could help you experiment digitally if you don't have Photoshop, Alchemy is a lot of fun. Keep updating man. More please.

The Gimp
Alchemy

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: May 9th, 2009
Thank-you for the input! I have been studying anatomy recently, I just need to keep practicing. I just got some Loomis books, so I think I'll start with him. Thanks a lot Collywobbles, I appreciate that coming from you.

Here's one that I was working on that I tried to paint but just couldn't figure it out. I forgot to save the initial sketch before coloring it so it has some paint on it.
Any ideas on how to color this? Keeping it gray scale?

[sandeepbarot]

nice work

[Shadow Stalker]

Thanks a lot.

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: May 11th, 2009
This is my best shot... I have the original scans if anyone wants to take a shot at making them better. If not, enjoy.

[Ricardo Robles]

Nice work over there man, interesting textures in the first works you posted. I see you love role game characters... me too Thanks for your visit and keep practicing!

[Jesus Food]

Nice work Ruben! i love medievil stuff, ur gonna motivate me to do more of that stuff, i just have to study more types of armor and stuff. Seems ur a little like me in terms of focusing on the character and leaving the background simple.keep it up man
PS i did sketches of those ideas u suggested.

[Sclark]

Nice sketches, medieval stuff kicks ass. I'd love to see you flesh out some more details in some of these. One thing I keep noticing though is that the waist area in most of these seems kinda flat, I think if you added some shading to your sketches it would read easier. Keep up the nice work.

[revenebo]

Nice exercises! Keep up! That elf looks promising. What about painting it (b&w maybe)? The viking with shield is cool!

[HerrleerzeichenS]

hmm..i can´t help you, i´m just a beginner , but your stuff looks good.
keep it up!

[Iddi]

Keep up the good work, man! I really like your elf concept, nice design
I'd try drawing and painting from life though, to kind of get understanding of all that form and color theory that you cannot get any other way. Try drawing yourself from a mirror or draw stuff you've got at home, and try looking at the model more than you actually draw with your pencil. I've recently realized that drawing is all about seeing

Remember, you can never be too good

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: June 6th, 2009
This is a w.i.p. Also, this is a copy, I'm sorry I don't know who drew the original one, I'm just elaborating on it.

[Jesus Food]

elftastic shadow! the rysilis elf looks like pete wentz of falloutboy, i dont hate ur drawings tho lol my favorites sofar is the 3rd one down on the 2nd post and the bearded knight on post 10. love that platelyness dude
ps thx for wishing happy d-day anniversary i was watching history channel all weekend. seems we both like combat stuff, we are both men in our 20s, im not going to draw unicorns just to go against the norm

[Jesus Food]

yeah, i hear that my friend. to be honest i usually cant use real pictures unless im... copying that picture. if u look up specific gear that works, and to be honest i used to collect dragon figures (expensive realistic gi joe 12 inch figures) that had accurate gear... for example this is a vietcong dude

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: June 12th, 2009
Just a quick sketch on ca.org sketcher.

[Shadow Stalker]

Update: June 13th, 2009

[sketcheth]

I like your style and subject matter! I'm curious to see what more you do! Can't wait for more work!

[Jesus Food]

thx man, yea i gotta try to do more medieval stuff like u do too, i dont know the names of the wars from the 16th century tho lol