first daily portraits

One of my goals for the new year is to do more studies, including faces. I noticed I tend to draw very similar faces, which I think is the result of a very small, generalized mental library. So I'm going to include, along with other exercises, doing daily portraits from some sort of reference. This can include self portraits or from photo reference. There's plenty to be improved upon, as you can see. Here's hoping for improvement in the coming year.

Model credit goes to Longstock on DeviantArt for the photos used for reference.

12-28-08 Sketches

Just some sketches from Blount Park. Trying to get out more and draw more frequently, especially from life.

Quick post of hands and my tortoise guy

When all else fails and you can't think of anything to draw, draw your hands.



An update on the guardian challenge. It was suggested I try a humanoid version of my favorite guardian design, so I opted to make a quick version. This is my only attempt at the human tortoise guardian, and it turned out pretty good.

working on a character

These are a pair of initial sketches for a character I'd like to use for a simple, one-shot narrative comic. She's a young mechanic who'll find a major pet project that she works on. I really need to work on clothes.

Final CCS character silhouettes

The final silhouettes for the guardian archetype brainstorm. I added about four to original set, and cleaned them up in PSCS3. I enjoyed doing these, and I'm glad that they read pretty easily even in the smaller size. That was the point of course.


Personal faves.

Blocks and Guardians

Perspective is one of those skills that any one who wants to be a good artist has to understand. I, for the most part, understand this idea. I know about 1-point, 2-point, even the tricky but potentially really cool 3-point perspectives. I can draw little models using it, horizon line and vanishing points and all. That said, actually applying it is another thing entirely. I have a hard time sighting and measuring objects, and these are important when you're doing small objects. Perspective is in play, but not as "strongly" as larger scenes (IMO), but if you don't get the measuring and sighting right relative to the objects in the image, it can be just as bad as getting the actual perspective wrong. Case in point, these two pages I did of drawings of small wood blocks.


In the future, I plan to do more such drawings, but use larger objects. They're easier to sight than 2in. wide blocks.

The concept class sim is back in business after a break of a few weeks. This time around we're working on characters, and we're exploring them with archetypes and silhouettes. Why silhouettes? Well, silhouettes help the artist concentrate on the large picture and to make a character read well. You want the audience to be able to read or recognize the character through his/her/its silhouette alone. The perfect example of this would be Disney's Aladdin; everyone has a distinct shape, and you can tell in an instant from their silhouette alone if this is the Genie, Jafar, or Jasmine.

For the exercise, so far, I'm doing a guardian archetype. Because my world is Asian influenced, steam tech and magic filled, I wanted to draw on the mythology and bestiaries of Asia and China. I also wanted them to be potentially larger than life, practically embodiments of the world the characters live in. I drew upon the Four Chinese constellations with the dragon, tortoise (which is actually a tortoise AND snake), vermillion bird/phoenix, and tiger. I also thought of a large fish, a bipedal tortoise, a kilin/kirin, and a tengu. I have room for six more, so I'm going to do some more research do come up with a few more.

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Sometimes, you've got to go outside. I know I do.

Halloween WIP 2

Working on the Halloween image. These are sketches I made last night for two of the people involved. The first is based on Rose74's character Tanya as a witch. Not much to go off of, and based on various witch costumes on sale right now. The second is Glinda the Good from Wicked for CoppeliaD. Kinda worried if I can draw that fluffy fluffy dress.

Quick heads up

I recently uploaded the latest set of my Art Grind drawings but I do not want to go through the upload process again for the blog. If you want to check them out, go to my LJ community post.

Laters.

Halloween WIP 1

I'm working on a Halloween (Okay, I'm always working on a project, no big deal) for myself and some dA friends. The top sketch is a very generalized layout of what the image may be. I'm not sure about everyone else, the only thing set is me as a lead in placement. Expect some sketches of the other participants as I work out the details of costumes and such.

I like the idea of a magical pumpkin patch, where the pumpkins are "pre-carved" and whatever is carved on it is what the "prize" is. Could be a witch's cat or broom, a ghost, candy, or whatever you want. Got to be careful with what you get, some are more pleasant than others.

Plain as your nose on your face 2

Now then, actually drawing noses on your own, that's a bit tricky. I think these came out well, but I think I was tightening up towards the end. Ref'd from Mark Simon's Facial Expressions.

Plain as your nose on your face

The face as a whole has been giving me problems of late. This is due to not doing much reference and study. So I decided to start doing some studies of the oh so obvious, dead center feature we all love and love to hate. The nose. They can be pretty tricky to draw, especially if you don't know what makes them up. Thankfully there are a number of anatomy for artists books out there that go over it. Some more helpful than others.

Peck is helpful in that he gives some visual shorthand for drawing the nose. There are also the anatomical plates that go into detail about the bones of the skull.


I rather enjoy John Sheppard's diagrams. They're line drawings that detail the anatomy with rather clear labels. But what I really like is the page full of all kinds of noses. Very useful study.


Unfortunately, as helpful as Loomis is, in the pass I made there wasn't all that much for the nose. I think more of it is covered in general facial anatomy.

An example of a good idea with bad execution. I intend to come back to this as it's part of a story I'm working on.



Oct. 7





Oct. 8

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Another Loomis study. I still can't quite get my head proportions to line up with the book's. But working on it. Also, realizing it's time to move to reference stuff again. Gonna have to mix it up.



Speaking of references, here's a study of the skull. I know parts of it are off, like the cranium proportion in regards to the front of the face. Spent about an hour on it. Okay for a study I haven't done in a while.

Morning gestures (100508)

30 secs. From Posemaniacs.com.

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colored environmental concepts

My very poor attempt at coloring those environment sketches. I need to work on digital coloring so much.

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Getting into a routine. I do some gestures, then some Loomis. Relearning how to do heads. Also did what's called a modeled drawing.