digi sketchbookX

[oogieboogietoogie]

Gosh! It's very extravagant :)

I really like the facial expressions!

[cypherx]

Pretty much all of my stuff is photoshop 7, unless I specify otherwise
I love doing my character stuff with the blue plain bg, dunno why, just do.

http://direwire.com/images/vampp.jpg

[cypherx]

http://direwire.com/images/megs.jpg

A lot of my other stuff is way more sketchie, so beware and stuff

[umbrellasky]

These are wonderful. I especially like the top second painting. Great work!

[cypherx]

Here's one that I haven't finished (the always favoured See no evil™ theme), and really it was just an attempt at doing a semi-symmetrical face. Yeah, the make-up style is very starwars-esque. hehe my friends call me "weird" when I show them any sort of doodle/drawing like this. I used an airbrush with noise checked for this one trying to experiment with getting a sort of pore result

http://direwire.com/images/seeno.jpg

[yulias]

wow! the way you do skin is fantastic! i love how you painted the guy

[danielh68]

cypherx - really wonderful work. I adore the foreshortening on the first figure. Very elegant. I also like the the underground character...very cool stuff.

[cypherx]

Thanks, ninetales, eniala, yulias, & daniel.


here's something quite a bit more on the sketchy side. Done for practice/fun, since the two kind of kiss briefly from time to time

http://direwire.com/images/stinky.jpg

[yulias]

whaaaaa i love those!!

[Elaeria]

These are killer pics! Nice work!

I'll have to keep this on my "most watched" list. Hehe!
Cheers! Can't wait to see more. :D

Meredith

[Elaeria]

These are killer pics! Nice work!

I'll have to keep this on my "most watched" list. Hehe!
Cheers! Can't wait to see more. :D

Meredith

[cypherx]

thanks, Elaeria, glad you dig.

Here's a referenced digital painting of John Singer Sargent's "Madame X", which is probably one of my fav portrait style oil paintings. Hopefully you can see it alright. I heavily texturized the bg with a custom brush, was trying to go for that oil painting look.

http://direwire.com/images/madameX.jpg

[franckkobolt]

The tones of the skin are well managed, i like white skin with those touch of colors on the hands, the ears and the shadows, and the light that comes from the body itself, this makes the character lives.

I also like the third painting.

franck.

my wip (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=305652)

[Elaeria]

Ooooo, she's stunning. Very nicely done! :D So elegant...

Meredith

[Nazirull]

I love the Dark Duke....amongst the brilliant rest......could be the Neo-Character Painting style. Keep it up!:cool:

[cypherx]

Sketch I'm working on using a couple of references mainly http://www.style.com/slideshows/fashionshows/S2006RTW/RMOURET/BACKSTAGE/00080m.jpg


http://direwire.com/anotherwip.jpg

[Nazirull]

I love it....:arteest:

[cypherx]

thanks mucho

a little further on...

http://direwire.com/anotherwip2.jpg

[Nazirull]

I love it more!! Do you have an Exotic entry or two? If not then you should you know....:thumbsup:

[Digitalpaint]

Great paintings. I like the Dark dude picture, it looks very impressive/convincing.

[cypherx]

Thanks, Maranello & Arty.

Maranello, I haven't an entry for that (I'm not even quite sure when they're starting to accept them). I do have this idea I've been wanting to start that might possibly fall into that category, so perhaps I'll try for it the next time around, who knows. Thanks again

[LiQuiD12]

Dude your work is outstanding... im especially loving the last peice, and as sometime mentioned you skin tones work awesome, great foot study also. Very inspiring work, best get my ass back into PS, thanks 4 showing your work.

[cypherx]

Thanks, Liquid
feet are fun. I used to hate them along with hands and ears. I'm still trying to get better with ears and hands... well feet as well, I suppose we can always use improvement.


Well here's another painting. I took a bit longer on this then I typically spend on anything, and as a result it's more detailed/creative, but it's also older, so it's not as good as it could have been. I really don't have patience to do any profound sort of work. Sadly, I'm of the ADHD generation.

http://direwire.com/images/wipwidow.jpg

[cypherx]

some little digi sketches I did while considering including a cat in the digital painting I'm currently working on.

http://direwire.com/images/kittydoodles.jpg

[MichaelZHsee]

how could i have missed this thread~that spidey lady is awesome!great stuff all over~keep them coming,i'll be watching:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Thanks Sh@ke, I just saw your thread, it's killer!

[cypherx]

So I'm working on ideas for how I'm going to set up a new drawing, based on an old character of mine... pretty much this ghostly chick holding a yellow balloon. So I was toying with ideas, and I'm thinking I want her in front of an old house. I figured I don't really know how to draw houses, because I'm quite horrid with making straight lines. So for this I kept a very loose brush and just blocked in areas (actually using some funky brushes I normally use when I'm making structures).

very sketchy, don't know if I want to go with this idea of a house, or if I want to go brick, so I'm going to try out both and see which I prefer. I did some screenshots as I went along. I'll definitely put details into whatever type structure I do decide to draw, it's just figuring out what works that's going to be half the battle

~GI Joe out

http://direwire.com/images/d_house_1.jpg

[cypherx]

Another sketch for my Yellow Balloon girl drawing. This time was trying to work out a pose and lighting. I decided this wasn't what I wanted though, so I didn't try refining it much. I'll probaby try various poses before I find what I'm looking for. And I plan on having her wear a venetian style masque in the final drawing

http://direwire.com/images/d_s_yel.jpg

[MVDB]

Very good work in this thread!
I love that little girl your working on, so beautiful!

Keep going! I'll be lurking here..
*subscribes* :thumbsup:

[flyingP]

some nice stuff going on in here, rather like your colours on a number of these

[cypherx]

I'm doing some more cat sketches, just playing around a bit, I'll probably do one or two 'realism' style ones.

Wanted some black cats with some personality, as well as some cliche cat poses

http://direwire.com/images/meowmix2.jpg

[cypherx]

I wanted to do a "real" looking cat, and one of my IM buddies liked one of my other kitty sketches and said I should do a black, orange, and white cat with blue eyes. So I am.

http://direwire.com/images/kittysketch.jpg
http://direwire.com/images/sketch2.jpg

I'll post the final later. Have him standing in the sun because I wanted to do that sort of colouring where the yellows and peaches make the white stand out and almost glow. Plus I think animals always look better outdoors.

[cypherx]

alright, I finished the ol' chap

http://direwire.com/images/oldgent.jpg

[su]

this looks great! nice job :D

[LorisArts]

oh my god... awesome work you have here. Must be one of my favs in this forums. :) Excellent staff, great skills and very inspiring. Well done cypherx!! Keep it up :thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Thanks much, Loris & Nyro... glad you likey.

one last cat this week. I decided to combine two traits from the black cats I sketched out (the head with long hair, and the one with fur missing on its tail) for this one. Had some fun with the lighting and put him on "ice" because I'm freezing and they say it's supposed to snow tomorrow.

http://direwire.com/images/blackie.jpg

[Nazirull]

Those are some wicked looking cats...i love it!:thumbsup:

[Matellis]

amazing stuff you got here , no crits only smiles!!
hats off to you and keep up the great work!

[Zephyri]

Wow.. what an amazing sketch thread! I adore the sargent copy... aside from Carravggio and Bougereauc, he is my favourite artist, and you captured his luminosity so well! Oddly, I'm less fond of the spider piece that took you longest, but then I've always been a fan of a skecthier approach, especially when they are as well done as this. also love the black cats, they are wonderful poses.. were they drawn straight from your head or from life? And if I might ask, how long on average would you sped on a 'sketch"?

Keep the fantastic work up.

[cypherx]

Thanks, guys.

Zepyhri, thanks much. No, I don't use any particular reference for my doodles/sketches, but with both the painted cats I did a google search so I could look at whiskers and nostrils (nostrils mainly on the orange,black & white one). So yes and no for the references. The earlier doodles that were just sketchie linework took minutes to do for most of them, unless I was sitting there not really knowing what to draw. So if it looks really sketchie, chances are it's because I scribbled it out, and if it's an entire cat it's because I liked it enough to finish the job.

As for the black ones, I wasn't really sure how long they took, I knew it wasn't long, I guessed five minutes, but I went ahead and timed myself for the one below. It took seven minutes to sketch it and fill it in with black, and then 4 minutes to highlight it, erase around the edges to give it a "fur" look, and draw very quick blotches for the eyes, nose and mouth. To finish it and make it a complete drawing though, it could take me a while. I'm not like those artists who "plan" everything out, my brain doesn't quite work like that. I sort of just flow, and work with a lot of trial and error. Thanks much for being interested enough to ask though.

http://direwire.com/images/quickie.jpg

hehe, I put a big tail on this one because somene mentioned that my black kitty looked like a Norwegian forest cat, and I did a websearch on them, and I just adored their large poofy tails. Plus they have hairy ears, which I love.

Oh yeah, but some of the black kitty sketches took longer than this one did. Just depends on how much extras I put on them.

[zpapageo]

Wow! This stuff is beautiful! I love the Dark Duke and the black cat paintings are fantastic! I love the last one. Keep 'em coming!

[cypherx]

something I've been sketching out tonight since I can't seem to sleep. I don't know if I'll finish it since I'm engaged in another project right now. We'll see

http://direwire.com/images/jss_wip.jpg

[Erikoinen]

Do I see a new Linda Berkqvist (sry if mispelled) coming up here? ;)

[Nazirull]

No doubt....i love the line and the black cat...do u really ave a black cat?

[cypherx]

Thanks, guys, though I don't know if it's always a good idea to compare all quasi-realism digital art-type people to Linda, I'll take the compliment for what it is, though I don't think I'll ever strive for that degree of realism, I just don't have that sort of patience.

As for owning a black cat, no. I don't have any cats for various reasons, though I like the way they look, I don't care for the messes they make. I do have a hamster named Dartanion though, and I might eventually do a portrait of him, if he ever comes out of hibernation.

I'm just terribly fond of black cats, graves, crows, and all those cliche Halloween type things that everyone seems to dig these days. Though I was kind of upset with crows recently when about a dozen of them mobbed the hawks nesting on my property, and killed their babies. It was really sad hearing the mother hawk cry all day, but that's nature for you, I guess... eep, no one asked for a rant

[Redchaplin]

I really liked the Male figure near the top of the list. I hated the hair, but the rest was gold. Some of the pictures bothered me solely because of the proportions. Like Seeno Pic. I liked the colors, I didn't like the hair. but something bothered me about the eyes. I know these are fantasy pics, but I think there is such a thing as being too fantastic. anyway... Nice Nice Nice work.

[cypherx]

yet another animal drawing, this time for a friend. I did a google image search on siberian huskies to get a couple of references for this. But nothing recognizable, mainly fur patterns and facial structure, as well as body, which I'm thinking of changing the orientation anyhow.

http://direwire.com/images/iceflames.jpg

[cypherx]

I think I like him better this way

http://direwire.com/images/icyflames.jpg

[remcv8]

Cypherx,

I love your work!!! I hope to see more.

[cypherx]

http://direwire.com/images/icyflames2.jpg
Doing a bit of blending work at this point

[Miyagu]

huhuu! just popped in to say hello :) so nice to see all this eyecandy in a single thread.. keep going! *subscribes* :thumbsup:

[sturmkim]

lovely light on all your drawing..

----envy-------

good day

[Nazirull]

I see your fur fx is getting better....time to put it to the test! paint your hamster!

[freestyle771]

nice work here man
i'd just say that to my mind the head is bit too bottom-right placed (excuse my english)
yet thi sis just a personnal opinion
looks like having feelings, gud one :)

[cypherx]

'ello, dunkelgold... & thank you much

thanks guys...

Maranello, I'll have to do that, I suppose. He shouldn't be that difficult to draw seeing as how he's just a lump of fur with ears and eyes *blinks* It's just doing a portrait of him that makes him seem even remotely exciting that might be difficult. eheh

[cypherx]

some doodles for a painting I want to do. I pretty much have to throw out simple background ideas because I'm more of a portrait person, and I'm quite horrid with backgrounds. Anyhow, I normally wouldn't share these considering how silly they look, but I see a lot of people here share from starting idea to finish *shrugs*

http://direwire.com/images/luna_conceptsketchies.jpg

[Nazirull]

NEah....its good to share a doodle like that....i personally love to see things like thins coming up to a proper piece...

No worries about the background, your potrait will overpower it!

edit: izzzat u on ur avatar??

[xric7]

wow!your painting is really great!I do love your stuffs:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
anyway,thanks for dropping by mine.:D

[Icey]

Voted 5*
love this thread!
the cat and that vampire are astonashin

[cypherx]

Thanks guys. And yes, Maranello :p

Anyhew, every now and then I do a drawing of an eye as my skills slowly get better, and this one I'm fairly happy with. I was going to do it as a tutorial, like I do with all of the eyes I've ever drawn, but I was too lazy to write up the whole thing so I just sort of slapped the step by step together. One thing I've noticed about my own stuff, when I'm just focusing on one thing, be it an eye, or nose, or whatever... I can do it pretty well. But when I'm trying to work a painting in its entirety, I seem to struggle. Maybe it's a mental block thing, I dunno if that's a common problem or not. I'm probably going to to a green or blue with similar ourdoor lighting

edit- oh yeah, inspired by the "photoshop eye"

http://direwire.com/images/brown_eye.jpg
here's it from sketch to end if anyone wanted to see http://direwire.com/images/stepbystep.jpg

[JMcWilliams]

Some nice characters here.. good stuff :D

[cypherx]

so hopefully i'll have time this weekend to actually start the actual painting of this. For now another doodle, this time was just playing with texture a bit

http://direwire.com/images/doodle_luna_2.jpg

[nymphaella]

Thanks for the progressional eye painting!
Your work is fantabulous. :)

[beaux]

fun stuff, keep it up - beaux

[Dl_lncan]

great eye...


some really good work

[Gord-MacDonald]

There is alot of extremely beautiful work in this thread. Beautiful drawings and paintings. I look forward to seeing more!

Gord

[Nazirull]

Thats really u? *faint*......

*a week later*

OoOO....who am i...

o yeah..great step-by-step on the eye....
i can tell that you got an eye for eyes....hehe:beer:

Of course it makes thing looks easy on a step by step thing like dat... :arteest:

And yeah..it is hard to do lotsa thing in one pic. Sometimes i got a mood for mouths and my chin and cheek looks terrible....got a mood for hair but my forehead is way off, things like that....u know...

Keep it up!

[cypherx]

I'll probably use this in the bg of another painting, but mainly just doing it for practice. It shouldn't take me too much longer to work out the final details, but figured I would post the progress shots (which I basically just duplicated the layer, and continued painting from there)

using some tree textures for the bark (obviously)

http://direwire.com/images/bird_practicesketches.jpg

[cypherx]

finished it up
http://direwire.com/images/birdsketch_final.jpg

[Nazirull]

You are terribly good with fur and feather....nice...totally inspiring.

I think the finished bird has too much blue to it. Unless that is really your intent.

How many brush do u use?

[mim-Armand]

:eek: ... WOW ...:eek:
really good man, keep it up:thumbsup: .

[jmBoekestein]

Wow, great stuff, especially the 'photoshop eye'... :scream: wow! I love macroshots anyhoot. :D

:thumbsup:

great to see how you work as well, learnt a lot allready. :D

These characters have a lot to them. Keep em coming. :thumbsup:

:)

[cypherx]

I mainly use 2-3 brushes for most of my paintings. Sometimes I'll do custom brushes with textures as well. But mainly I use a solid brush with other dynamics->pen pressure marked. And the same brush as a scatterbrush. And then when I'm doing a more detailed painting I'll use the airbrush. Anytime I'm trying to do quasi real looking skintones I tend to use the airbrush along with the other two brushes. The scatterbrush is great for laying down colour quickly in the background, as well as the skin and hair. I like to think of it as my lazy blending brush, it pretty much does all the work for me.

[JTD]

You are inspiring. I love the dude in your second post. Well, let me clarify...I don't love the dude and I swear I've never seen him before, officer. I was just going to the bathroom.

Anyway, I love your realism and you have a mastery of human forms; your characters are each beautiful too.

I tend to work the way you mentioned: I'll draw a really good part but not be able to complete the whole. That's why I get comments like, "Nice thumb on the baseball team portrait." But your art is absolutely inspiring. I have nothing but praise for you.

[LoTekK]

Well holy hell you have some inspiring stuff in here. That eye study looks amazing (though I have to admit preferring the less smudged look of the second-to-last step). Nice cat studies, too; the cat with blue eyes, and the black cat with green eyes in particular stand out to me (the missing fur on the tail was a nice touch). Lovely character paints, too; very nice handling of skin tone.

[beaux]

nice work on those birds, cypherx

[TheFirstAngel]

awesome worx, u got a great feeling for mood and light as well as expression, love your pieces. great worx, hehe subscibin to keep following this. keep it up :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[GI jay]

hello there,

i must say that you have one of those styles that you recognise right away.
you got the skill for sure, id like to see how you draw with traditional media, im assuming it will be great i just wanna see some!
also it would be cool to see some variation in subject matter. but thats just me, im certainly not saying that you MUST! im just being selfish.

great work so far. im curious what, if any, training you have had?
ill keep an eye on this thread.


oh and im glad you dont go for the absolute 'cant tell if its a photo or drawing' realism.
why not use a camera?

[cypherx]

Thanks JTD, LoTekk, beaux, 1st Angel, & GI Jay.

Yeah, I agree with the whole "why not just take a photo" thing, since most such paintings are made from basically copying a photo pixel by pixel. Though I think that that sort of work when used as practice can be quite helpful in understanding colours at the very least. Studying faces from photos/real life is rather important since you can't really draw something if you've never really looked at it.

I do traditional work as well, but mainly for practice (at this point). I only have one thing posted on this site where I used the traditional means to draw it & that's at the Open Figure Drawing Workshop (which is a fun way to get some practice in)

you can find it here http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=320125&page=1&pp=15 on page 21 (for the first stage, and the final stage that I'm posting is on 22). As for training, I started drawing in April of 2003 and have literally gone from drawing stick figures at that time, to getting much more comfortable with painting today. It's quite a bit of an obsession for me.

Oh yes, training... I started out learning to draw in photoshop & open canvas on my own. I've befriended some rather good artists ( I won't name drop because they're modest fellows and I might make them blush quite a bit) over these past few years, and they've been kind enough to take me under their wing (which of course means tell me when my drawings are complete shite and what I could have done to improve them). I moved onto traditional art after I got hooked on digital. I started with graphite & Geoffrey O'Donnell offered to teach me the ways of realism drawing. And he did. And it was great practice. I then moved onto charcoal. I experimented with acrylics but wasn't really happy with the feel of them and someone suggested oils. SooOoo Most recently I'm learning oils.

I think the main challenge for me as someone who wasn't an art student in the traditional sense, is learning the blending of colours. It isn't like with photoshop, I can't just pick a colour. Some thought and work actually has to go into it. I think in the end though, after I get some paintings I'm at least semi satisfied with, under my belt, it'll be a much more rewarding way to do my paintings. Though I do love the ease of digital & plan to never give it up.

hmnn oh yes... About 1.5 years ago I took one art class. I don't want to say I didn't learn anything, because I'm sure their was a purpose for it. But the class was taught by someone (won't mention any names again, this time for a different reason heh) who is very post post modern, and essentially didn't want any forms to look like anything. So there's my story. lengthy and whatnot.

[Nazirull]

Great to know your background cypherx. It explain your vast talent. Can we see some of your traditional piece?

Thinking of putting up ur CGportfolio?

[trialanderror]

five stars says it all, I say it again...:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Maranello, thank you, & putting it up where? I have a website, but I'm thinking at this rate I'll never do anything except use it as a storage area... just never seem to get around to actually working on it.

I don't want to post a bunch of my traditional drawings here, not just because it's "CG talk" but mainly because most of the decent ones were referenced from photos taken by other people. I'll put up my second graphite drawing, which was of Gandalf (used the movie poster/still reference, so it's of the actor really). This was done for practice on shading (and for my mom who adores Gandalf). I don't have a lot of graphite drawings because when you're doing them on large slabs they take ages to do and while this one wasn't done on a large piece of paper, I prefer at the very least doing them on 18x24 inch slabs these days.

Charcoal takes no time at all, and that's why I prefer it now, though graphite in my opinion (hell, that's not an opinion, it does) achieves a more real looking result. Once again, this was only in my training phase so I could learn about shading, and that's why a photo ref was used. Not looking for crit on it or anything because I see things wrong with it now that I couldn't before (eg the reflection in his eyes make him look cockeyed & so on oi), and it was done some time ago that I did it.

http://www.direwire.com/images/The_White_Wizard.jpg

Thanks, Trial&Error, glad you likey.

[jmBoekestein]

Looks like a great rendering to me, cock eyed couldn't be half as bad though. He does have a rather exalted position amongst his fellow middle earth inhabitants.

I just have to say that this looks great :). Do you think practicing with real world media would help anybody a lot? Because I'm trying to learn through digital media alone, but I'm afraid I'll become a half assed hack constantly 'ctrl-z 'ing'.

I think what maranello meant was the cgtalk portfolio's :) CHeck the blue thingy under peoples avatars. it's a new free service provided by cgtalk. :D Allows you to easily put up a bio and a gallery, which can be pretty big if you become a cgsociety member.


Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you whether you use colourschemes and maybe how you make your mind up about shading in colour? I find it extremely difficult to be consistent in this part of painting. :)

Well thanks for your allready elaborate answers, but I figured since you're on such a good track you might be able to help me out on this.

Cheers. I'll be watching for more stuff, went over it a few times and I think I like the arms half in shade on the first page. That's very delicate rendering you did on those. :thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Thanks JM, I suppose with all that herb smoking, perhaps that’s just one of the unfortunate symptoms hehe.



Is "elaborate" akin to "holy crap that was a long rant" ?? If so, this will most likely be a very very 'elaborate' answer seeing as how I can’t think of a way of condensing it, then again, i'm not really trying too hard hehe. Try not to glaze over in my response (as I know I would since reading anything over a paragraph tends to become more of a chore than a learning experience for me)



I don’t know if working with real world media helps digital artists. I can’t say I’m a real expert, just what I know from my experience (which I suppose is what any other person would have to offer). I think that before I started learning pencil rendering, I wasn’t very cautious about details & as one friend pointed out on numerous occasions, my 'shading sucked'.



Geoffrey taught me by first giving me some art philo & explaining how I would have to look at the world differently- how the white of the noon sun is a blank page, and the pitch black of night is the darkest you can manage with whatever you’re using & everything else of course falls somewhere in between and should be handled with your instrument accordingly – (not his exact words, but essentially what he taught me). This helped me to properly understand shading, and I think it helped out incredibly with my digital work as well. Then when I started working on my first graphite drawing, he pointed out the differences in what I was doing compared to my reference. The slant of her forehead/jawline if manipulated properly could make her look thinner, or make her look like she’s mentally disabled (once again not his words there just what I took from what he said). He pretty much taught me that every curve of every line is important (especially so in faces, I think). Knowing that helped me try to step back from something and look at it again thru different eyes. Of course I could do this for eternity and never be happy with a drawing, so I think you have to just feel when it’s right, or you’re fed up with it to the point you no longer care.



I think that people who are only digital artists should consider at least trying to learn traditional, just as traditional artists who will "only" do traditional work and shun those who do anything digital should give digital a whirl before condemning it. If you’re complacent in anything you’re doing, there’s a problem I think. Art comes in too many forms just to pick one and sit happy with it. And I haven’t run across an artist yet who thinks they’re at the peak of their game and they couldn’t stand to learn anything else so yes, I think trying out different mediums is probably helpful to digital artists, because it gives them a different perception

My personal "end" (though once again that’s subjective & likely will change) goal has always been surrealism. I have all these ideas constantly floating around my head, some might call them my Id’s perversions manifesting themselves into conscious thought. I know I haven’t been able to get them into a form that might be considered "art" yet, because I’ve been so focused on this part of the learning phase, I haven’t had so much time to work on my concepts. I think they’re lacking & hopefully eventually I’ll be able to mix concepts and slight skill & breed them into some works that I’m actually fond of. At this point I’m not there, so I don’t think I’m the best person to give advice just yet. Though I could never see myself as one of those people who say "when I did this painting I was thinking blah blah blah & it turned out exactly how I planned- I rock *yay*".



I think every little nuance you put into something randomly can hurt/help the piece, and I think (or perhaps that’s my wishful thinking) many people are just as random as I am.



On colours. Once again, I’m not an expert, hell, I don’t even know my colour wheel by heart yet and the triangulations of the various colours, or what makes a good colour scheme. I do have a collection of colours I’ve used in the past that I’ve formed into a cheat palette of sorts. If I’m ever lacking colour ideas I open up the file, dip my brush, and browse around to see if at the very least I can’t be inspired a bit. I posted a link to it somewhere on here, I'm not at home so I don't have all that much time to dig for it, but it's not like some well thought out thing, just blotches of colour everywhere.

hope I answered a question or two

[jmBoekestein]

lol, maybe elevated is a better word for it then. :D And I meant elaborate as in a good read :p. So no worries, anything worth saying is worth reading. :)

It looks like you went through somewhat the same things as I'm going through. I cclearly remember an art teacher I went to a few times commenting on one of my comp sketches as her having a breast tumor because of sloppy shading :D. Very colourful way of describing it isn't it?

What gets me is your remark on becoming complacent, that's a very good point. Looking back I think I found so many things 'eventually possible' through digital media that I forgot to even look further, except sculpting which I never actually took up, so... :rolleyes:
With that, it's not arrogance in my case though, at least I think so. Because I used to make a few tunes or write etc., always more than one way to express yourself. Just a blind faith. So thanks :D


It sounds to me like you'll be making very interesting paintings :) . I've tried something similar too, I love the idea of being able to alter reality through suggestive elements in a painting, even a slight mist can make a huge difference. But I'm just fiddling for now, basically slapping together elements as I see it.

Big thanks Jennifer, for taking the time and effort! Much appreciated. :D I'm going to have a go at studying what I like when seeing colour photographs. Then just try and work with that until I have it figured out better.

Will be watching. :)

[Nazirull]

lol, if Jm is elevated...im enlightened....:D. I think when talking about this theres no way to cut it...u got to roll that long carpet and see whats on it.

I cclearly remember an art teacher I went to a few times commenting on one of my comp sketches as her having a breast tumor because of sloppy shading

Although I dont really get what Jm meant by that...:D

Im lucky having to start it with pencil and pen mainly, skecthing my way, i do color mainly with soft pastel and mere sugar paper. From there I develop my so call color sense....things like black and white is a no-no color for shading..(something like that)

Most of my thing is self-taught but not self-learned....I couldnt afford much art stuff or books....so i just ask the guy at the book store to unwrap and take a peek inside, or just look at the cover if im too shy.

I then go home and try to draw what i see....how the color and the mood of the picture was developed, so I thought...

So then I got my PC and finally able to get a WACOM.......It gives me real freedom without thinking of getting a new tube if Burnt Sienna on the next trip to the art shop....
But of course, I will try my best to learn the concept behind traditional art.

Sorry if this has been a chore guys!

So looking forward for more interesting stuff, Jennifer.:D

[jmBoekestein]

I meant elevated as in Gandalf has an elevated position amongst his fellow middle earthlians... smoking exotic herbs and stuff ... instead of exalted 'n stuff...hmm- urh, nvm.

And uh... all I meant with that was that my work sucked big time because I was so sloppy. Just suddenly came to mind reading her colourful language Maranello... An accurate description of my skills back then though lol. But it wasn't meant personally, so I apologise if you took it that way Jennifer. No harm I hope.

I'm sorry lol, I'm just going to step back again. Not one of my most clear-voyant days today :surprised .

[Nazirull]

Jm, I think both of us can have some more of that exotic herbs...LOL:D

[jmBoekestein]

Lol, agreed... :scream: Plants are guuud, flowers even better! :)

[cypherx]

har
tsk tsk, you two

love sketching birds. Love blue. combined the two for this sketch. Used several references for feather patterns. Once again, just a google image search, but I made my own pose and whatnot. I'm working on a painting of my Yellow Balloon girl, and have been for several weekends, but whenever I get sick of it I work on animal sketches, including loads of squirrels, robins, and toenail clippings.

http://direwire.com/images/jay_final.jpg
you can find a wip of it here
http://direwire.com/images/bj_wip.jpg

[LoTekK]

Ooh, purty. Nice handling of the feathers. Thanks for sharing the wips, too.

whenever I get sick of it I work on...toenail clippings
:surprised
You paint toenail clippings? :D

[remcv8]

This thread grows and grows with some really incredible work. Absolute eye candy!!!

[paintbox]

Very nice work. All these works seem to come very natural to you, both the technique and the subjects.

I loved the painting of the chinese girl who is holding this bright light, and its now my wallpaper actually :) There is something about it, especially in the drapery, and the colorsetting, that I like.

[cypherx]

haha LoTekK. No ;p

Thanks guys.

I wasn't going to post any work in progress shots of this particular painting for a couple of reasons. I've been working on trying to get this girl drawn since I started drawing. I like to think of her as the ghost that haunts me, and I really can't figure out if I'll ever be happy with any poses/colours/masques I try for her. I've been working on her a little every weekend. I have scrapped idea after idea. So this painting is definitely subject to complete change, and most likely it will. It just seems to be the most recent version. Perhaps I'll try and finish it, and perhaps I'll scrap it, I dunno.

http://direwire.com/images/ybg_wip.jpg

[jmBoekestein]

Looking very good to me.
She has a beautiful pose. Only looks like her hand is too high in the image, the one she's leaning on. Not sure since I can't read the shapes like this. :)

A thing of personal preference perhaps, but I think it might work better if you eased the curves on the mask more. The angle of the beek is very sharp, as opposed to the hair that flows backwards. Also for a better balance and dynamics in the image you could try blowing the balloon on the win in some direction. Kirt put up something on image dynamics through use of diagonals that bring the eye to a certain point. I'll fetch the link for yah. :)

Here you go: >>link<< (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=260368&page=1&pp=15)

PS:did you check your pm's? you can find em here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/private.php?) prolly

[cypherx]

a little more work on her. Testing out textures on the dress. I'm going to try hard not to overdo it like everyone always tells me I do.

I'll read it in one sec, JM
& I'll have to look at that link later, I tried it now and it made me dizzy

http://direwire.com/images/ybg_wip2.jpg

[sarNz]

wow, i absolutely love the black balloons in that last picture. they just add... i want to say depth to the painting. looking at the black ones, the yellow one seems to lack that volume, so i think that could use a little work. the mask is really cool, it reminds me of linda bergveists (sp?) M&S entry. You're doing a good job on the dress so far, but it could go either way in my opinion. in your 2nd to last update, the softness of the light made it look more like silk. in the most recent one, the harder edges make it look more like velvet, with perhaps a little more highlight.

Your bold colors and deep tones work great in your art. I wish I had an understanding of color, but I guess I will just have to practice to learn. Keep up the great work!

[jmBoekestein]

Yeah I think her left hand is too high up. I'd try and move it half a her forearm length down... maybe a photoshop filter/touch up does it well enough.

[Dennispls]

sweet sweet sweet work great darkish atmospheres im gonna remember this thread

[cypherx]

JM, I’ll be keeping the gonzo-esque look, I honestly don’t know anything about the use of diagonals, and trying to understand it from the link you gave me just didn’t help much. I try my best with perspective, but it’s really a feeling for me and less of an exact science, which is probably why I get several people critiquing my anatomy on a regular basis. I will work on the hand, and put it down a bit further, hopefully no too much causing her arm to look too long. We’ll see. I’ll have to try reading your note again, yesterday CG talk went down when I went to read it.

SarNzI agree with the yellow balloon lacking depth, I’ll try and work that out a bit, I think you’ll find with yellow balloons however, that they’re going to have less depth than a darker balloon. But you’re quite right, at this moment, it needs quite a bit of work. I’m not sure how the fabric will turn out, to be honest, it’s not my stronghold, clothes never were. It’s why I much rather drawing people in the nude, but I think ignoring your weakness isn’t such a great idea either so I’ll do my best with it. It’s funny how anytime masques are used people tend to think of her work, The masque is called the Zan Turco. Seeing as how it’s Carnivale time, I thought it was rather appropriate, and I, like many, am intrigued by masques. My Luna painting will also be done with a masque, (the Luna Atlantide, to be exact). I have a collection of Venetian masques (I’m also quite interested in masque-making), which makes it quite a bit easier for me to put in details (and choose colour, believe me my understanding is so-so at best) when referencing them for paintings.

thanks guys for your feedback

[Sylanya]

Hey there. This new painting is turning out beautiful. I really love the colors and the mood. However, like JM said, there is something not quite right about the left arm. Now, I got into this position myself, and think what needs to be done is have her arm going out at a slightly more diagonal angle, and pushing her shoulder forward. It really isn't possible for her torso to be leaning back that much, yet her arm remains straight and vertical. If you get into this position yourself, you'll see what I mean. Other than that though, I think this is coming along lovely, and I can't wait to see the next update! :)

[LoTekK]

I'm with Sylanya; her arm should probably extend backwards some for support. This would also have the effect of lengthening the forearm, which is currently a tad short.

As for the balloons, one thing to note is that the lighter in color a balloon is, the more translucent it typically becomes when inflated. This may help a little as far as perceived depth, as well as making it look a little more realistic. I did a quick paintover (it's really rough, but hopefully gets the idea across); if this is neither needed nor wanted, let me know, and I'll remove it:

http://www.lotekk.com/files/cypherx-balloongirl.jpg

Love that hairdo. :p

[winchester]

Wow Wow Wow


What can I say.... Cypherx youre work is beautiful and you are an exceptional artist....It seems quite obvious to me that you will soon become a widely appreciated crafts(wo)man.
I love the spontinaity of your sketches....the sophistication of your character studies....and your playful animals.

Please keep at it.
YOu make me more exited to be an artist!

oh one more thing-have you considered making a CGportfolio? Id add you to my favorites for sure.

[cypherx]

Christ, LoTekk, you gave me a [dramatized] heart attack. I clicked on it to look at the response and it went right down to your rework, which I thought was my painting. And I refreshed it thinking "what the hell is wrong with the arm??". haha I thought there was something wrong with my eyes and that I was literally seeing blurry & red from my allergies.

I think the angle of the arm is honestly quite realistic as it is now, and in your version perhaps is too far extended out & really forgive me for saying it because I don't mean any offense, but too static, as if we're dealing with less than a 2-D space. I'm definitely going to rework it this weekend because I can see what you guys are trying to say. I'll just see what I can come up with, but I 'm thinking I might just change the look of the angle of the actual hand and perhaps her forearm as well, we'll see. Or I'll go with the standing version I sketched out... I kind of like this one more though for whatever reason. Maybe I should share the other and ask for opinions on it. Is it me or is the yellow balloon just way too big? Might shrink that down a bit as well.
haha I'm known for my funky, unnatural hairdos :p


Thanks Winchester :), I haven't done that yet, and probably will hold off a little longer. It's a confidence issue with me. Someone told me to come to CG talk, and I knew that it was filled with professional digital artists, and that sort of knowledge is pretty intimidating... it made me hold off on coming here until I found the work in progress thread which is almost the only area I stick to here. I never really look at things in the finished gallery unless it's on the front page here and it looks interesting. Have a good one.

[LoTekK]

No offense taken, I can definitely see your point. 'Sides, my paintover's a pretty sorry excuse for an arm, innit? :D Suggestion-wise, maybe make it more apparent that the arm is receding from the camera or advancing towards it. Or bent at the elbow. Or something. :p

Balloon size seems okay to me, I've blown plenty of balloons up to stupidly large sizes, and I haven't had (m)any blow up in my face. :D

Be interested in seeing the standing sketches as well, though I do like the chill atmosphere of this one.

[cypherx]

My allergies are so bad today I decided to come home, and work on this. I've added a bit more depth (hopefully) to the yellow balloon, as well as the black. Put some more folds into the dress. Played with the hand a bit. I'm not going to do too much to the balloons until I figure out what I'm going to do/not doing to the bg. Since I'll need to put reflections in and whatnot.

The skin looks more airbrushed, but I'll harden it up, I was just toying around a bit.

something is definitely very wrong with the neck... I'll work it out, I hope

http://direwire.com/images/ybg_wip3.jpg

[jmBoekestein]

The triangular shape in her neck is too harsh and should be further back :). The collar bones seem to jump out a lot, maybe soften the shading there?

I'm loving the colours on the mask. Really beautiful. :)

[mindofka]

Hi!
I enjoyed really a lot browsing through your thread and watching your works, and I found very particular visions and interpretations.
..and love your little obsession with baloons :D

Keep it up and share with us! :)

[Nazirull]

The balloons are particularly gorgeous....in envy ur color choice......

U got this things with long arms eh? :scream:

[AnOldFriend]

Wow all your paintings are most beautiful, I hopw maybe one day i can reach this level, I just started painting so i think it will take a long time though. :D I will definetley bee watching this thread.:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Thanks you guys, and yeah, I have a thing for distortion in general :p



last night I was playing with possibly changing her hair, which would pretty much change the feel of the entire piece, but figured I would get some feedback on whether or not it looks to be a good idea. I didn't want to go cliche hair, but it might make it look more elegant. It takes away some of her attitude though... so thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

http://www.direwire.com/images/ybg_hair_sketchies.jpg

(how do I make the image small so that one must click on it? Is that a member only feature?)

[LoTekK]

Personally I'm not liking the two alternates so much. Not just attitude-wise, but they simply don't gel well with the masque.

As for the thumbnail bit, you can attach the image (under Additional Options, use the Manage Attachments button), but the image has to be under 100k, I think, though that shouldn't be a problem.

[cypherx]

yeah, I agree, I think she becomes less birdlike. Thanks!

[jmBoekestein]

I think that you would get the birdlike appearance back if you went inbetween. :) One part tied up on top, in the same lines as number one, and then soe more hair dangling down freely like in number 3. :)
I love painting hair that's dangling around loosely, gives a nice flow to an image usually.

I'm gonna try and sketch it out for yah. :D

and I did, if it's too dark I'll refine it a bit. Just for shape hints anyway... just gotta love long flowy hair. :D

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/1238/hairsketch2ri.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[jmBoekestein]

I picked this up from imageshack.us thumbnail code.

If you substitute 1 with the location of your high resolution image

and 2 with the thumbnail/smaller version the smaller will appear as a link to the big one. ;)

code:

[*URL= 1 ] 2 [/URL*]

(you have to remove the lil stars : *

[cypherx]

JM, I haven't given it a try yet, but I do like your sketch, perhaps not quite the look I'm going for but it really looks good with your woman. I like how it almost seems as if her bone structure is the mask... makes her look very alien-esque, and I do quite love my aliens *gush*

I posted this in the speedpaint thread, not sure if people normally post the speedpaints in their own threads, but I'm going to *shrugs*

I can post the work in progress if wanted, but I figured it's not too different than any of my other sketches as far as that goes. I used a nylon texture for the eyes, and greens, purples, pinks and yellows to give it that reflective look which may or may not show up on some people's screens. Someone asked why I have such a thing for nature, and it pretty much boils down to the fact that art isn't my major, biotechnology engineering is. And I'm quite fond of biology as well, hence all of the animal/bird sketchies. I also like combining humans with insects and animals, and I'll prob post one or two such things pretty soon. *wipes nose on shirt*

http://direwire.com/images/hornet.jpg

[Taka]

:bowdown:Nice emocionfull pictures with nice colours! I like cats and girls too, so I found great enjoy on these paintings!:drool:

[jmBoekestein]

:blush: Glad you like it! I saw how you worked with that line on her hair and the rest just came after. Making it scary as well as beautiful always gets me. I really love some of the biomechanoids Giger made, he made the alien designs as well. I mean have a look at this mantis, I love such things.:)
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/postgraduate/general-info/images/rc-mantis-16_4336_1.jpg

Well anyway, it clicked for me, so I had to do something with it. Very curious where you'll take her. = )

btw, you know, I used to want to become a biologist heehee :D, and wanted to mainly specialise on insects. I love bugs, love your wasp too, looks a bit like a hornet. It's got similar colours to the Japanese hornet. Those are awesome creatures. Heheh, anyway, enjoying your thread -_-...

Hope you get rid of your allergies quick *hugs*... have a good weekend. :wavey:

[Nazirull]

I think that you would get the birdlike appearance back if you went inbetween. :) One part tied up on top, in the same lines as number one, and then soe more hair dangling down freely like in number 3. :)
I love painting hair that's dangling around loosely, gives a nice flow to an image usually.

I'm gonna try and sketch it out for yah. :D

and I did, if it's too dark I'll refine it a bit. Just for shape hints anyway... just gotta love long flowy hair. :D

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/1238/hairsketch2ri.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Jan-Mark, your grayscale painting is really defining more and more convincing forms by the post!

I love it...matter of fact i wanna paint highlights on it...so tempting....:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

JM, I had some time this afternoon to play around with your idea of a combination sort of hairstyle, and I think I'll go with it. Seems fun. I am going to change the left (I said right... oi) hand completely tonight well at least position the fingers in a more interesting fashion. Thanks for the feedback and whatnot. I think I'm getting past the sketchie stage and and I'm going to start smoothing things out a bit, adding texture to the skin, making the fabric have a more "real" feel, etc.
http://direwire.com/images/ybg_wip5.jpg

[werd]

Personally I liked the old hair better, this one is a little too witchie it seems. however maybe a less scraggley pointy part will help that, or maybe shortening the scraggly ends or something. Err..crap, now ive looked at them too long and cant make up my mind wich one is better, lol:shrug:.

Aaanywhays, it is a beautiful painting. I wish that someday I can paint like you. Good luck and happy painting:).

[cypherx]

Yeah, the hair does give it a whole different feel, for certain. I really didn't think I would go with JM's idea, but I think it's always a good idea to at least give suggestions a whirl and see where it takes you. I didn't want her to look like a witch, but I do see your point. Guess I'll just see what happens in the end.

[jmBoekestein]

Hee hee, beautiful!

Glad you were talking about her left hand ! :eek: The right one is just beautiful.


*smug grin*

[cypherx]

yeah, I haven't a clue as to where my mind was at that moment. Though the right hand still needs work there's no way after all the work I've already put into it, I'm changing the position. I worked so much on her last night that I went to bed and actually had dreams of painting her. Problem with that is when you wake up, you lose all of your brushstrokes. ctrl alt del! damn it.

[beaux]

Hey cypherx! Sexy blue ballons;) I love that hand too.

crits: I don't like the mask. It's just not fitting to the mood. Too bulky and Tucan-like. She's elegant. The body needs more work, but I"m sure that's on the to-do list. I don't like the changes on the hair either. It was stronger and more bird-like before. Now it's getting bulky and clumsy. I like the way you've painted it though, with partial transparency. Keep it up the good work! - beaux

[cypherx]

Thanks, beaux. The balloons are meant to be black, but for now I suppose blue isn't a bad thing. I personally like the masque, and feel it's very fitting for the look that I was going for from the start. So with that, I have to say I'm very satisfied with where it's headed. It looks like making others happy with the hair (among other things, apparently) is going to be nigh impossible, so I think I'll just go with what makes me happy, which is always the best place to land anyhow. I'll do my best with it, and try not to let anyone shatter my ego with the final result. Thanks and whatnot

[arnocob]

:)
Hi!
I like the way you are posseded by your image...(many changes, modifs etc...)
This work is asking you many questions, and you brings some good replies!
Two comments : maybe the right down corner is not finished, but I think the join between light and shadow is a bit hard...I don't understand what's happening in this area. Is she on the floor or a kind of march?
I am not sure (and you don't have to be realist) but, maybe you could put a small shadow under the mask on her chest?
It's a bit difficult for me to comment your painting,
Hope you understand my poor English...
Bye.

[jmBoekestein]

Passionate too eh? :) Curse or curate, but it's definitely getting you there.

I'm the same, only I just tende to want to skip sleep alltogether. heh... :wip:

btw, it took a while to hit me on a conscious level. But it seems to be that your balloons are lit by something else than what's casting light on the woman. She seems to have a lightsource very close to her. It just seems to be missing or to faint on the balloons though, I bet adding a little diffuse to them would bring it together.

The hair rocks, there's no discussion :wise: , it just does. Flows very beautifully with her pose.

[beaux]

Thanks, beaux. The balloons are meant to be black, but for now I suppose blue isn't a bad thing. I personally like the masque, and feel it's very fitting for the look that I was going for from the start. So with that, I have to say I'm very satisfied with where it's headed. It looks like making others happy with the hair (among other things, apparently) is going to be nigh impossible, so I think I'll just go with what makes me happy, which is always the best place to land anyhow. I'll do my best with it, and try not to let anyone shatter my ego with the final result. Thanks and whatnot

I like the balloons, black or blue:) Keep it up. True that - it's impossible to please everyone. I'm sure it'll be great, especially if you can take everything to level that you've taken the hand. It's really really nice. cheers

[cypherx]

Wanted to do a simple bulldog painting for someone so I hashed out some sketches, mainly to take my mind off of the yellow ballon girl, who seems to be looking worse the more I work on her.

Probably paint the dog today, well perhaps, anyhew.

http://direwire.com/images/ziebulldog.jpg

[Sylanya]

Aw, sorry to hear you're having trouble with your balloon girl. I think she is beautiful right now. Very mysterious and original.

I really like these pitbulls, so cute! I especially like the one with the huge tongue gently hanging out of its mouth. So like a pitbull, haha!

[cypherx]

Thank ya, Sylanya! Except he's a bulldog. I sketched you out a pitbull so you could see the difference, I suppose I could have linked you to a photo but what's the fun in that? (plus I didn't see any I liked)

I needed a little practice anyhow. Pitbulls are the ones with the splotchy multi-tonal fur (of course this depends), longer legs, less folds, etc etc. They're very much fighting dogs.

I love dogs *sigh*

http://direwire.com/images/pitbull_quickie.jpg

[Sylanya]

Oh yeah. I knew that, I ust get confused sometimes, LOL. Too many bulls, hehe.

Ah, well, they're all awesome anyways. Dogs rock!

[werd]

Your ballon girl painting is amazing, you should be proud of such talent. Myabe you just need a little break from it:)

Pitbulls are intense dogs, theyd tear any other dog to shreds:twisted:. They are the dogs I have the most respect for, lol. It looks like they work out their jaw muscles cus their so wide.
http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/8549/caesar9cs.jpg
(that is one ripped dog lol. Intimidating isnt he?)

[cypherx]

lol yeah, I certainly wouldn't want a pitbull clutching my jugular. They're extremely fast too, watching them in action makes you clench your teeth.

I painted this guy for several hours now, pretty much non-stop aside from the occasional bathroom break, and mack attack (FOOD!!). For the fur colours I did ref several English bulldog stock photos (yet again with my trusty google friend). But this guy is my creation still. I did go for what I would consider, [though I am aware some would do it better], the hyperrealism look which I typically wouldn't do, & I know some people don't like. I just like to play around with my style as I try to develop it.

http://direwire.com/images/bulldog_final.jpg

[Lacrevette]

It's incredible !
Do you use your references in background or you are just inspired by a photo, and "hop", you paint :)

I'm just wondering by your works.
vgj

5*

[Gord-MacDonald]

wow - these are totally awesome - more, more, more!

Gord

[cypherx]

Thanks, Gord & Lacrevette. To answer your question. I do know a bit about animals just from my curiousity of specific genotypes causing any given phenotype. But not enough to just go and make a good drawing with no references. For the pose, it's sort of a "whoops, hey, that kind of works" and I manipulate it so at least in my opinion it looks decent by the time I'm thru. In the case of this bulldog, I didn't want him to have the completely cliche stand that bulldogs often have, which is sort of the "dogshow" look

As far as the extent of the references it just depends on how well I know the subject I'm drawing. If not at all, I have one constantly open so I can glance at it whenever I feel the need, if I know the subject at least a bit (like in the case of the bulldog), I'll look at it whenever I can't figure out how something looks (like the nostrils in this case, or the fur but I also referenced lion fur for this because I wanted it to have a bit more shine, and I recalled lionesses having rather nice fur). If I'm doing a direct reference, like I'm trying to draw a famous person, then no doubt I constantly have the images side by side.

I don't know if it's the case with everyone else, but with me at least it's relative to what I'm drawing. Hope that helps

[jmBoekestein]

Hey hey wow! The colours are lovely. His goofy yet smart stare makes me laugh! :thumbsup: You are so fast! :)

[penartist26]

ur a good artist :D

[arnocob]

Really incredible!...

[beaux]

sexy stuff cypher. Love the bulldog. Maybe try adding a background into your work, while keeping the same color palette. Just a texture or something.

[cypherx]

...and their summer ended as abruptly as it began when Mindy's mom finally forced her to wash the dragon's nest out of her hair
http://direwire.com/images/mort.jpg

This is a much older (in my short time with art anyhow) sketch from last year, and I smacked my name on it which I don't typically do, someone kept on nagging me about the fact that I never sign my work, and to be honest I sort of prefer it unsigned.

Anyhewt... I know it's not fully realized or anything, but it is what it is, a concept so I thought it belonged here.

[jmBoekestein]

Wicked cool idea Jennifer! Just had to comment on it. :scream:


No new stuff? Busy with holidays? Have a good one anyways. :)

[cypherx]

Not really celebrating the holiday so much (though I have eaten my weight in candy today! well perhaps not quite that much *heave*)

I've been sketching since this afternoon trying to get myself to explore lighter backgrounds and see how they interact with the subject. Right now I'm scribbling out an elfish girl

[jmBoekestein]

Sounds interesting, I got a phobia of elaborate backgrounds lol. It seems so complex.

Haha, you're making me jelaous, I forgot to shop and am on bread and water lol. (and high quantities of caffeine and sugar)
I just finished up some jewelry experiments, fun to expand on limits. :)

I'm of for ceremonial dosage of movies... Have a blast! :D

:wavey:

[cypherx]

I spent a great deal of my day painting this, I'm really trying to do some lighter value stuff, as per a good friend's request.

of course, I don't think he's too keen on elves, but I like things with pointy ears, so he'll have to manage. Did a light green to compliment her red hair.
http://direwire.com/images/elfin_child.jpg
here she is early on
http://direwire.com/images/elfchild_wip.jpg

[jmBoekestein]

I spent a great deal of my day painting this, I'm really trying to do some lighter value stuff, as per a good friend's request.

of course, I don't think he's too keen on elves, but I like things with pointy ears, so he'll have to manage. Did a light green to compliment her red hair.
http://direwire.com/images/elfin_child.jpg
here she is early on
http://direwire.com/images/elfchild_wip.jpg
colour will be called, Very good. Bonestrcuture is exact as the first paints you did. :) colours are really good though.

[jmBoekestein]

wanted to add htere's a genious to it, but;s want's759845... light play guud

[cypherx]

I don't think the bonestructure is the same at all. Perhaps similar just because that's kind of how I see elves. I do tend to make a larger upper lip which might be what you mean *shrugs*

thanks

[jmBoekestein]

oh wow, I actually posted that didn't I? lol, well, was a fun night... :surprised , with lots of exotic drinks. Now I know why I overheat so much in the weekends... :blush:

I didn't have much time to type before I left, but I guess that's it, considering the bonestructure. I'm not sure, someone once told me I paint women that sort of resemble myself. It looks like everyone has their own 'type' to paint. No real matter I suppose. :)

But on the colour and values, I think the light green is complimenting her skintone more than her hair, very interesting. The rendering is excellent, like leaps and bounds. :) Allthough some of the shadows seem to be in the wrong place, her nose isn't casting a shadow on her left cheek for instance. Lastly I'd add some bounce light on her jaw line, or shadow it more. Just seems her jawline falls away a bit.

(thought I owed you some decent comments after the cryptic schizotypal post lol, really was in respect ;))

[Scubasteve]

Wow, these are incredible! I love your ability to make things hyper realistic and add a special touch of fantasy to each piece. Simply amazing! I look forward to future posts.

[cypherx]

JM you sot, I had you pegged as a guy! I suppose there are some parts of paintings that possibly resemble me. Though I have yet to do a self portrait, something I'm waiting for I think. I really did the best I could with the lighting, the jawline wasn't made obvious because it would have made her look older. I also changed the shadows of the nose because I felt she looked too old with the earlier version.

Thanks Scubasteve!

[cypherx]

On another note, I noticed last night while painting, when I'm painting eyebrows I start scrunching my eyebrows up, lifting them, and when I'm painting lips I purse my lips. And whilst painting eyes I make my eyes wider and smaller. I'm not looking at myself in the mirror while this happens, and I only just actually noticed last night. I wonder if it's common to make faces while painting. I feel like such a loser for admitting to that. It's kind of like those people who read what they're writing [online] outloud.

[werd]

lol, I always make faces while paintng:D.

[JTD]

Don't you do the same thing when you're painting your own face (putting on makeup)?

[jmBoekestein]

Hee hee, I am a guy, but a sot too I s'pose :hmm: . :) I have a compact jawline(jaw works fine though :p, use em to open up beerbottles), and you'll notice that you can change just a few things like fat build up on some faces and they look like the other gender. Well it's true. :surprised

The face making seems to be common, there was even a thread about it once if I recall correctly. Was pretty funny, I guess we need to recognise something familiar in paintings and faces to really like them. It sounds worse than it is when I read what I type though heh. I bet people generally paint postures they are used to assuming themselves as well, probably more exagerated or stylised but it seems like a good bet.


I think I'll go Photoshop some tomboys perhaps now lol :p.

[Nazirull]

I love mort and mindy...reminds me of the upside-down elf in the game that im playing now.


The elf child though have some shading issues with her cornea...looks funny IMHO. anyway...cant comment much...awesome work.:thumbsup:

[beaux]

Don't you do the same thing when you're painting your own face (putting on makeup)?


Yes yes, oh man!! :applause: :cry: :wip:


.....j/k

[beaux]

Fun stuff as always, and thanks for keeping me company this afternoon.
I think the elf child could be better defined by straights, and perhaps the pink flesh tone is too strong. Maybe try adding some oranges and yellows too:) I love your dragon in the hair idea. That's just genius. You gotta use that for something.

[cypherx]

haha Werd, I hope you're not being facetious *blink* Glad I'm not the only one!

har JTD. I'm not really a huge make-up fan, a while back I was wearing mascara and I developed an allergy to it, and all of my eyelashes on my left eye fell out. I looked like an alien for a while. They've since grown back (though it took about a month), and vanity has prevented me from wearing it since (except on occasions when I'm wearing costumes but I have to make sure I wash it all out as soon as the event is over lest I lose my lashes again :/). I still make faces at myself in the mirror though, who doesn't?:P

*snorts* JM, I was pretty sure you were a guy.. Tomboys *yay*

Naz, which game are you playing? I'm the eternal child... I spent last night curled up in front of the Xbox playing psychonauts wishing I had Abe's Oddysee or something of that ilk for the Xbox. Come to think of it, I believe they did manage to make something Oddworld™ related for the Xbox... just haven't seen it in my local stores.

Thanks, Beaux, you bizzy bee. Yeah, I'm done with that particular sketch, but I'll keep in mind adding oranges and yellows for the next outdoor sort. Yeah Mort and Mindy were fun, while I had coloured a dragon for someone else I had never done my own until that point... will probably give it a whirl again.

[werd]

I dont know what facetious means,I dont think I was trying to be it:p. I make faces on purpose even it helps me kinda feel what expression I want to paint. I realy like the elf girl you drew,theres nothing to crit about it in my eyes:).

[cypherx]

Thanks Werd, here's to late nights, making faces and eating candy *clink*

and now a newsflash; this chick is insane, yo!

I'm going to throw something in here that no one asked for, but it's an open (with small loopholes and trapdoors and things that squeal in the night) invite. Some of my [few] friends give me "assignments" to do as far as sketches and whatnot, and I want to put it out there that I'm always open to at the very least hearing ideas and trying to sketch something [new] out, as practice for myself, but I don't want to promise anything because frankly I'm a fickle girl (who typically only paints on weekends these days), and while my friends can give quickies to do, they also know what I'm open to drawing (eg females as opposed to males, no backgrounds because even with a reference I can't seem to concentrate hard enough to make one, and no buildings/robots- though I really wish I could do all of those with ease). lol though they're never afrait to tell me I should try something new. Everyone keeps telling me to do "real" backgrounds, and I really do try, but I bellyflop every time and it's painful.

lol so I'm up for a challenge if anyone is willing to think of/type out an idea, but one that's within my secure little boundaries. I have so many paintings I'm supposed to finish, but can't seem to get myself to finish things after a certain point. If I hear a really good idea I might be willing to put a lot more time into it. I have tons of good ideas that I'm waiting to do with oils, and most of which are very Rockwell-inspired. That man knew how to capture an era/moment in time and tell a story with a painting like no one else I can think of & I would quite like in my own way to do the same someday but with more scifi/fantasy type ideas.

[Sylanya]

How about a mermaid??

[Runecaster]

I"m so sorry for asking such a basic question - but I really love the quality you are acheiving with your digital paint, and I saw you mention your 'usual' brushes -- and I have absolutely no idea what you mean by a 'scatterbrush' --- is that a 19 hard round pen-pressure opacity with scattering set as well? So, a bunch of dots?

I'm so sorry for having no clue... but I really don't :)


I also am trying to figure out why my stuff all looks exactly the same no matter what I do, and I think it's the brush I use - or something else I am missing. Anyway, anything to learn...


And you give me hope. I've been doing this "Since Stick Figures" for 6 months. Maybe in 3 more years I'll be half as good as you and I'll be happy. :)

[cypherx]

haha something tells me you have a thing for mermaids. Actually sounds like a great idea. I always wonderred where the gills would fall on mermaids, do they have a combo of lungs and gills, and if the lungs would seal off while under the water. Would they really have the need for hair? Would they be rather ugly like the deep fish in the ocean, or pretty like the tropical ones. I'll start sketching something out when I get home tonight. seems like it would be fun to play with.

[cypherx]

whoops sorry, missed your reply, laby. I posted my brushes in another thread, but these are the two I use the most. I do use default airbrush (at 100% flow, and a range of opacities) when I'm going for more of a realism look, but typically I don't start using it until my colours are at least somewhat laid out.

http://direwire.com/mybrushes.jpg

The brush on the right is my solid brush, I started with a default photoshop brush to get it and I then messed with the other dynamics. Then to get the brush on the left (what I call the "scatterbrush"), I took the brush on the right, and then went and messed with the scatter. Hope that makes sense. The scatterbrush in my opinion is great for blending. It won't look terribly smooth (though sometimes it can) but it is very fast. I think everyone has their preferences though, because I know several people who would much rather I leave things in the sketchie version.

I would have to see your work to see what you mean by "exactly the same". I really have to say I've been lucky because I have at least 4 artists who some would consider extremely good, who have been willing to help me develop. They all think I'm a tenacious cuss, and a bit moody at times, but they have been willing to put up with me, encourage me, and even be a tad giddy when they see I'm finally getting the hang of something.

I believe in the whole "pay it forward" philo, these guys have been more than willing to help me out, even when I'm being a snoot, and I would like to help as many people as I can who're just starting out. I think because I am still green I can really relate.

[werd]

Heres a suggestion for you, I see that you like to draw kinda fantasy style stuff. So, this is what I do sometimes. I draw myself and then make it all stylized and "fantasy it up". Like give myself long flowing hair and elf ears, that kinda thing:p . That way I dont hafto be too perfect with the self portrait (wich is a realy hard thing for me to draw). Also its kinda fun to see what you would look like as and elf or a wookie, lol. I dunno, its probly not that original but I thought Id suggest it anyhow:D.

[Runecaster]

Cypherx, thanks so much for your kind and patient explanation :) I really appreciate it! I am taking a local community college class (drawing 101) but, seeing as the teacher believes that computers are the devil and could never possibly create art let alone be able to /draw/ with one -- well, my avenues there are few... heh.

Looking at what you've accomplished over 3 years is an inspiration!

Thanks again :D

[Salubri3i]

wow. :thumbsup:

your works are really good. you only started last 2003? that's really inspiring. :applause:

i hope you continue to update this thread with new works. i know i'll be waiting for them. :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[but, seeing as the teacher believes that computers are the devil and could never possibly create art let alone be able to /draw/ with one ]

that's sad labyrinth. i would consider myself a traditional painter though i've only recently got back into painting (after 11 years) and largely due to you guys here on CGTalk. the works i've seen here are very inspiring. after giving corel painter and photoshop a try, i was hooked!

i think that painters should never be afraid to try new things.

i for one, like working with corel painter because of the color sets there(they are named after real artist's colors) and the things i learn using the digital media are actually applicable to traditional media and vice versa.

[jmBoekestein]

Oooh, flowing hair. :D That's a great idea.

Ok, hmm, how about a bush baby? :)

btw, have you tried using a scatterbrush with for instance smoothing or wet edges? It could soften your blending which at times seems hard cut.

[cypherx]

Werd, a self portrait? Eep, I don't think so, not yet anyhow.

No prob, laby. I'm with ekek, anyone who is opposed to any form of art needs to get over themselves. There's so many things in the world worth getting one upset, what medium someone uses shouldn't be one of them.

JM, I've tried pretty much everything you can think of with these brushes, I prefer them as they are. One of those personal pref things

[Sylanya]

haha something tells me you have a thing for mermaids. Actually sounds like a great idea. I always wonderred where the gills would fall on mermaids, do they have a combo of lungs and gills, and if the lungs would seal off while under the water. Would they really have the need for hair? Would they be rather ugly like the deep fish in the ocean, or pretty like the tropical ones. I'll start sketching something out when I get home tonight. seems like it would be fun to play with.

Yeah, I do have a thing for mermaids. My favorite fantasy creature. I watched the Little Mermaid like twice a day when I was a lot younger, and it's still my favorite Disney movie. I just love how graceful they are!

[Nazirull]

Hehhe....i think the mermaids are the missing link in the evolution thing...u know, first we were fish and then human?

The game is Onimusha 4....i love that game...although the story is very straight foward, it was a good gaming experience. The cutscnes are beautiful to say the least and give the game emotional depth....

O yeah...Abe....a classic....remember playing that on PC, yet to get the PS2 version.

[cypherx]

Sylanya, I started sketching the other night, at first I started with some alien-esque mermaids, one of which had a very wide and flat nose, with a large forehead and no hair. But I've decided to go with a more classic feel instead, because it's just plain prettier. I'll be working it out over the weekend, and hopefully have something worth posting by then. lol when you said you were a fan of the little mermaid, I got an idea to have her holding a fork and reveling in its splendor... but that might be a bit much...

[Sylanya]

Sylanya, I started sketching the other night, at first I started with some alien-esque mermaids, one of which had a very wide and flat nose, with a large forehead and no hair. But I've decided to go with a more classic feel instead, because it's just plain prettier. I'll be working it out over the weekend, and hopefully have something worth posting by then. lol when you said you were a fan of the little mermaid, I got an idea to have her holding a fork and reveling in its splendor... but that might be a bit much...

LOL, that's hilarious! :applause:

I can't wait to see what you come up with. You have such amazing skills, it'll be interesting to see what you do with them for a mermaid painting. I'm excited!

[cypherx]

Thanks, Stephanie... I was looking forward to working on this over the weekend, but it was so nice outside I ended up spending it outdoors. I definitely gave it some thought though, we'll see if I can do a decent job on it.

[jmBoekestein]

You know how odd that sounds considering the hurricane :p... glad to see you live to defy yet again... And enjoyed it. :)

Shutting my trap before I hijack your thread. :wavey:

[cypherx]

lol there's no hurricanes here!

Anyhew, it was a gorgeous weekend, I'm sunburnt and feel fresh, I really needed that lift in the rain. perhaps you were thinking of the tornados from midweek. Yeah, the weather does change quite a bit here.

[cypherx]

here's one of my mermaid sketches. I'm not fond of the colours on this one, nor her face, and I'm definitely using a different sort of more dynamic pose for the final, but it gave me an idea of what sort of tail I wanted her to have.

http://direwire.com/images/mermaid_doodle.jpg

[Sylanya]

Nice! I really like those colors. The pose is really good too, and I like the shininess of it all. She actually looks wet. It looks great!

[Salubri3i]

that's wicked texturing! :applause: especially with the scales.

are those water splashes?

i kinda like the face actually. :)

[Angelus]

Ho my god ! It's amazin !
I love your works !

[cypherx]

thanks... Yeah, those were sort of loose waves... just as a sketch to get an idea of what I might want. I wasn't sure if I wanted her to have darker skin or lighter, so I've played around with that a bit (ack at the orange on one side of the face, I thought I got rid of that- that was just bad skin rendering while trying to make a tan look!). I actually have two other poses I like better than this one, and I'm trying to decide which will get more details for a finished painting. When I figure it out I'll post the one I don't choose, well hell, I guess I could post both to share the progress.

lol I had actually considered doing one with her and an old fashioned type mirror to honor you, Sylanya... perhaps I should sketch one out.

[jmBoekestein]

Her hands are really scary! It would be cool to see them more lit and brought out, they add a certain sense of danger to the entire picture.

Are the other two getting elements of danger like these hands, I think it's a really cool image that she calls up. As if she's playing with the idea of going on a hunt.

[Sylanya]

Ah, you don't need to do the mirror pic. I've actually already done something like that, I finished it last year in June or something. Called it "Sea Vanity".

Here, this is what I did (hope you don't mind)
http://thecoloreddragon.home.comcast.net/images/sea-vanity2.jpg

[cypherx]

Well, JM, I could just finish it and see what happens, I guess there's no real rule saying I can't paint more than one.

lol, Sylanya, when I said "lol I had actually considered doing one with her and an old fashioned type mirror to honor you, Sylanya... perhaps I should sketch one out." I meant because of your mermaid. I might sketch one out anyhow, just for the hell of it

[Sylanya]

Oh! LOL, I didn't know you had seen my mermaid. I thought only five or so people had seen her, and then she got buried under all the other art here on CGTalk.

Well, considering I love seeing your paintings, another mermaid sketch would be awesome. I should do more mermaids too, hehe. Maybe when I finish the painting I'm working on now I'll sketch a few myself. I'm just so inspired by the story for my current WIP I can't think of working on anything else until it's done.

Definitely keeping an eye on you though! :thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Yeah, I clicked on your link when you asked me to draw a mermaid :p that's why I said "I take it you like mermaids"

anyhewt, here's a different sketch, this one obviously had a little more time invested in it. I tweaked some parts of the anatomy, some may notice some may not, most likely the lips would be the most obvious, they're on the small side, but it's a look I wanted to play with.

http://direwire.com/images/mermaid_sketch1.jpg

[jmBoekestein]

Love how you blended her hip at the lower back, I'm only feeling slightly worried about your colourchoices for her human parts. Looks very uhm... painful. : / It does work as a colourscheme I think, the redness really looks like bruises though?

Rendered very well!!! Makes me wonder ... *grins oddly* What's next? : .

[Lman]

The Dark Duke
Madame X
Gemma Ward-sketch
photoshop eye
the jay
Mort and Mindy


are amazing...!

I really like your stuff.
:)

[cypherx]

JM, the redness is supposed to be sunburn, I figured if she was fair because she was supposed to be a deepwater mermaid, but has an infatuation with the upper world, then she quite possibly frequents it and burns. I'm trying to paint her in a morphing stage, might be too hard to pull off... anyhow, thanks.

Thank you, Lman
I appreciate it

[Runecaster]

Ouch. Sunburnt nipples! hehehe I like this one, mostly because it demands you look at it. Well done :)

btw, I totally answered your question in my thread and you never responded! :p

Back to mermaid w/an obsession. I /dig/ that you added the gills at her lungs. Totally badass.

[cypherx]

ha Laby, I'll read it when I get to work this morning. I typically look thru the posts there if I'm able, just had training yesterday though ;p

[jmBoekestein]

Hmm, makes perfect sense now you point it out. :surprised It looked a bit more like a translucent effect before, in my eyes at least heheh :blush: . I must 've gone dumb, somewhere in my teens prolly >_<...

[Miyagu]

more mermaids more mermaids! :bounce::bounce::bounce:
i really like those shiny dolphin-skin.. :love:
° O
o o
°
°
°
<><

:)

[cypherx]

haha JM, didn't we all?

Thanks, dunkelgold... means much coming from you! We'll see how many more I can do before getting bored.

Here's an update on the second one I posted here, I really liked that pose, but didn't like the tail, so I did some slight work on it.

http://direwire.com/images/mermaid_sketch2.jpg

[audit]

Love the rendering, it's so shiny and very well textured. maybe just review the proportions. The tail seems a little small to me, (although, is this part of the morphing?) and her upper left arm too wide, along with her head: too much cranium on display there I think. Hands are great though, I'm so jealous! Keep it up.

---

[cypherx]

I think I mentioned I did a distortion of some of the anatomy, the head is actually stylized a bit to fit with an older painting of mine. I've slimmed down the wrists a bit, and as a result the upper arms are noticably bigger looking (possibly a places to store blubber *blinks... lol someway for me to dodge that, I'm sure)


I think the anatomy that's off the most is actually the tail. I tried to play with this a bit, but the angle at which you can see her bum doesn't fit at all with the angle the tail is. The bend in her tail should be pointing away from us more but when I tried it like that, I didn't like where the tail fell. It is a might slim, I'll work with it see if I can make it look better, and if not, probably move onto the next pose I already have sketched out. I'm really liking this one the most for whatever reason, it has all the things I wanted as far as what bits of her anatomy you can see and how you see them. Plus, I'm feeling guilty about posting this in this thread and not having a "nudity" warning for the thread, I didn't know how to change that, and at least one other sketch is more frontal nudity.

In fact, if anyone knows how I can go about changing that, let me know
thanks

[slangford]

Just message an admin.... they'll fix it it for ya.

Your work is amazing! I have to blow the dust off my wacom a get back into the game... You have inspired me!! :applause:

Now just get that homepage up and running!!... I have to see the motherload!!

[cypherx]

thanks slangford, I'll try to figure out who is an admin (I think Rebecca is the only one I can think of, if she's one at all), and note em.

taking a break from mermaids for a minute

I took a little break from this one because I just couldn't stand looking at it any more, and so I started (on a whim) working on it again last night. I put in one of the left hands I considered using, just to show I did try to play around with other hand poses (and adding nail polish *thumbs down), it just messed with the flow of the picture in my opinion, even if it is a good start to the hand. I have some other yellow ballon girl sketches, that I might consider attempting to finish after this one. one of those "we'll see" things

http://direwire.com/images/ybg_wip6.jpg

[pap87]

I won't even bother thinking about making any crits on your stuff, everything's just too good.
Can i ask how long it took you to do a really refined pic say like the ones on page 1?

[cypherx]

those (front page, I'm assuming just the dark duke, or madame x) took anywhere from 5-12+ hours, just depending on which one you mean. The Dark Duke I think took maybe 5-6 while Madame X took me about 10-12, if not longer. I didn't do them in one night though, so it's hard to say... The widow probably took more than 16 hours for me because I put in a background, and that takes a very long time for me to do. I guess it's so hard to say because I never just sit down and do it straight thru, and I don't keep track of my hours, though perhaps I should, if only so I could know. Like these past two paintings, I have no idea how long I've worked on them, because I'll start strong, work fast, and then as I lose interest, I'll stretch it out for a while, weeks I don't even look at something, and in most cases I don't ever really finish, more like I quit.

Thanks for the compliment, and sorry I couldn't give an exact answer

[oogieboogietoogie]

Concerning your character with the balloons, you are trying to make her seem bird-like, right? Is there any particular bird you are striving for?

[pap87]

Thanks for the compliment, and sorry I couldn't give an exact answer

No probs, I just wanted a rough indication, and you gave me one, thanks!
Honestly I wasn't expecting such a straight answer (if any), some people just don't take it the right way, like when you ask someone a personal question, or something.
I too have difficulty working on a piece and finishing it quickly. Right now on my current piece, I've done about 15 hours over the course of three weeks.
Anyway now I know how far I have to go before I reach a decent standard of work. Thanks again.

[enthombed]

Hey lady.. you rocks a lot.. inspire me to try something when i come back to home...

loll

tnks for share you knowlegment...

[Runecaster]

She does rock! :thumbsup: :buttrock:

[cypherx]

some really basic robin sketches. I do these sorts of sketches all of the time with various birds, but this time I tried using a different bg, and also started using the photoshop default brush called "Marker medium tip". If you haven't tried that brush out, you should, it's awesome for sketching, or at least in my opinion it is. These each took only a few minutes, I picked my colours first, and used the same ones for all of the birds.

I like robins, the whole story on how thier breast became red, and how they always look like they're so sad.

http://direwire.com/images/robin_sketches1.jpg

[Maladie]

Beautiful work Cypherx! I like the loose feel and indeed you've captivated the sadness. Where can I find that brush in PS? For example, Basic Brushes, or Dry Media brushes? I guess I mean in which palette, but I'm not sure about the english word:).

[cypherx]

Not sure what it's called, it's where the brush symbol drop down is.

http://direwire.com/images/markermedtip.jpg
yeah, it gives it a very soft painty feel

[pap87]

Don't really see these kinds of animal sketches and drawings in these threads. They look great, like out of some book, what's it called, that has a whole lot of info on birds and old drawings of them (at least I think there's a name for it).:shrug:
Anyway, nice work. I've never actually mucked around with those brush settings you just showed in your last pic.
Will try them out.:arteest:

[cypherx]

Yeah, I probably normally wouldn't post them myself, but I really love that brush.

I just want to mention it in this thread in case anyone could use em. I decided to make a stock account at DA to put some photos up that painters could use as reference. If anyone here could find use of any of the photos, feel free. http://cypherstock.deviantart.com/

[Runecaster]

*cough* my birthday & mother's day weekend means I'm not getting much done *cough*




On another note:

I /love/ these robins. I see some daily on my lawn, right outside my window to my left. There has been a family of them here since we moved in and I've seen them successfully raise 4 successions of babies. They are probably one of my favorite birds, too. :) Very lovely sketches!

And I don't think that brush is PS default o.O I can't find it anywhere.

[jmBoekestein]

Did you know that robins are fiercely territorial birds. Apparently the males fight to the death sometimes for territory. I thought it was pretty cool considering they have the red chest flaring their temper.

Happy feast weekend Labyruthmahmind!!!

[frostblade]

about that brush..

open up the "tools preset" panel and click on the tiny button on the top with small triangle for a menu and click in "Brushes" and then "Append" as the option to add it on the rest of your presets.

Great work in here :)

[slickgreekgeo]

Yeah, I probably normally wouldn't post them myself, but I really love that brush.

I just want to mention it in this thread in case anyone could use em. I decided to make a stock account at DA to put some photos up that painters could use as reference. If anyone here could find use of any of the photos, feel free. http://cypherstock.deviantart.com/

Some excellent reference pictures there, thanks for sharing; I'll let you know if I incorporate any of them in future works.

[Shadowbrooke]

Hi,

Just want to drop a line to say hello since I've been silently visiting your sketch thread...:) Great sketches. Great work so far...keep going :applause:

[cypherx]

I won't typically post my daily sketch stuff in here, unless I like it... Here's a work in progress for the "envy" sketch. I have this whole weird dystopian society concept behind it that no one would appreciate but me, so I'll just let the image not speak for itself.

http://direwire.com/images/envy_cgtalk.jpg

oh yeah. the reason I always draw the right hand first is because I'm left-handed. It's hard to use your left hand for reference when you're drawing with it. *shrugs*

[Salubri3i]

impressive as always cypherx. :thumbsup:

i would like to hear the story behind the hair though. lolz

[Runecaster]

This looks great! I'd be interested to hear the story, too. :) I love her expression - and I particularly like how I'm not sure if that is red paint or blood. Keeps you interested in the image. Well done :thumbsup:

[Shadowbrooke]

I like the green in this painting a lot. The cat on her head looks very interesting. The dress looks good too. I don't know why her hand is bloody though ?! Is there a BG that would explain the story?

[Iridyse]

Wonderful sketch! I really like the colours in this one.
The concept sounds very interesting, would love to know more :)

[Salubri3i]

the path of envy ends in blood doesn't it? :wise:

but then her story might be different. :curious:

[jmBoekestein]

That's an interesting colourchoice, seems very intense. The lighting on her skin is bothering me a bit though, it seems to be coming from several directions, migt be the contrast is too hard on some parts. Just pointing it out in case you missed it. I know it's a sketch:).

[cypherx]

haha perhaps I will tell it, I think me just saying it was some fart of a neurospark intrigued people enough to ask. It's one of those "not so simple to just type" sorts of deals though.

JM, you're probably right about the lighting, I don't think I ever said it here, but my lighting methods have always been a bit unorthodox. When it's outdoor lighting, there's always the same lightsource, and often times, unless the subject being drawn is in the shade, or it's dusk or dawn, colours are washed out or oversaturated, but indoor lighting can often have multiple lightsources (including some from outdoors if it's during the day), and while I'm convinced it's a taboo for artists to use more than one, I can't help myself, as it seems to be a huge weakness with me.

[jmBoekestein]

Yeah it's more difficult indeed. But I didn't mean you should only use one source of light. What I actually meant is that on one part it seems to come somewhat from one direction and on another point from a different direction. Like her chest, it seems lit from behind the viewer, but her face doesn't receive light in the same way. If you get my point :)?

You know, if you ever have the opportunity, try using a high end 3d software package to light some different simple shapes along witha ground plane. That really helped me understand angles and surfaces a lot better.

[cypherx]

An older pencil drawing (MUCH), obviously photo referenced. This was one of two I did, the other I finished and gave to a friend, this one was the one I had messed up on, but you know, I kind of like it in this unfinished state, though I'm thinking I should pick up the pencil and make another. Spiderman vs Wolverine, Spiderman kicks buttocks, but Wolverine will always have my heart, or at least one claw thru it.

http://direwire.com/images/spiderman.jpg

[TheFirstAngel]

hhehe, yeah understandable, always liked that grumpy furball as well, might be his personality, might be the simular hairstyle when i see the mirror in the morning ;)

great spideysketch, on a newer version, a more radical angle on the skyscrappers and environment might help the feeling of movement while he swings trough them :)

rock on!

[DoctorBone]

Diggin' you work alot <> see a great mind at work <> btw normal people scare me <> added you to my buddy list for whatever that is worth. You deserve yo stars bumped U

[cypherx]

Christ, I almost fell out of my chair, for what it's worth, Dr. Bone... you just made my week, and then some. *turns crimson and soils herself*

Thank ya, Angel... I'm actually more of a fan of Gambit than the lot of them, but Wolverine gets me next in line.

Here's a work in progress, I'm trying some different methods to get perhaps a cleaner end look, but I'm using fairly muddy colours because I don't tend to do so. *shrugs*

Bad Hair Day - final... I decided to keep it rather paintery, yes, I know... I'm lazy. I'm well aware. :/

http://direwire.com/images/badhairday.jpg

the earlier version can be found here http://www.direwire.com/images/badhairday1.jpg

[TheFirstAngel]

yeah gambit is great, had a major crush for Rouge... and later psylocke and storm.

and oh my gosh wowies this new piece rox badass, absolutely stunning. the skin og the girl could use here and there a slight bit more saturation in the dark areas and s tad bit of specularity but definately a masterpiece worth to go for and shoot it to the finished worx.
love the piece, the expression, the dynamics are awesome and a real eyecatcher.

great job on ths one, always great to check here, you never disapointed my hunger for eyecandy :D

[pap87]

And I thought the previous one with the cat was a bad hair day, how wrong I was.
Actually the last one is stunning, I can look at it for ages, even if it's not finished.
I wish I had half as much imagination as you, at least I've never seen pictures that are anything like these ones before.
Keep them coming!

Oh, BTW, I'm no Spiderman fan but your pencil drawing looks really cool. What about if you did something like the drawings of all the characters in the title sequence of Spiderman 2? Just an idea.

[Runecaster]

That's really good, her expression is captivating. Is she a young girl? Her hands kind of read that way - anyway she looks young-ish.

You really ought to be paid for this kind of work, it's top notch.

[cypherx]

Thank you, First angel, I tried to add a little more saturation in some areas, but I didn't want to overdo it since this was going to be a fairly desat piece. It seems so different than anything else I've done for that reason (and I let myself just allow it to be paintery, which felt nice).

haha pap, I might do some more with the animals in the hair. I was thinking of a blonde girl with... well guess we'll just see if I do it. And I don't think I have enough patience to work on more than one character at a time, it's a very difficult thing for me just trying to get one project finished.

Thanks Laby, the reason I don't see myself ever painting for money is A. I lose interest the moment deadlines are involved. B. I do it for the love of painting, and for whatever reason, my Muse doesn't work for money. I've sold a few traditional pieces, but often times I like to hold onto them because the moment I know I'm getting paid, I just can't concentrate. But thanks, you flatter me much.

And yes, she's supposed to be a young girl. It's why I painted the hands so small and not slender or feminine looking, and gave her a little mini nose (I seem to like that nose for little girls, since every time I paint one they always end up with it!)

[Runecaster]

A. I lose interest the moment deadlines are involved.

I would probably be that way, too o.O

Hey, *cough* check your PMs :D :D :D

[OZOZOZ]

you are great! yuor paintings look very sensuous! keep going!:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

Another for the Daily sketch thread... "green" this time.

I decided to draw green accents as opposed to making the entire image green. I went with blonde because I never do, since I'm rather green with it.

Kept it painty, but not. Simple really, no concept or anything behind it.

http://direwire.com/images/green.jpg

[remcv8]

I love your style, color choices, and variety in your work. Awesome!!!

[TobyArt]

I love this thread, always something beautiful to look at. Love the Green. Keep up the great work!
Why no portfolio yet? All the cool kids have porfolios, Jennifer this is Your chance to be one of The Cool Kids!!

[Salubri3i]

Jennifer IS one of the cool kids. :D

...but i do agree with Zyrinx. Why don't you put up your portfolio so I can add it to my ever growing list of favorite portfolios. :love:

[cypherx]

AWwww Zyrinx & Salubri3i, I've never been one of the "cool kids" in my life. More like the girl reading books at lunch while other kids spit her in hair and ask her why she's a "loner"... ahhh good times!

I don't know if I'll put one up or not, I really would like to have some finished stuff to put into it haha. I never seem to really finish anything.


I've been asked several times lately to do a skintone tutorial. I was hesitant, because honestly, I never went to school for art & I never know how accurate what I'm saying to be.
This tutorial is unrefined, there's probably spelling errors... lol and it's probably missing stuff. But I can't look at it for another moment. Hope this is helpful to the newer kids. Oh yes, I have a potty mouth.

http://direwire.com/images/cover.jpg


http://direwire.com/images/longest_skintone_tutorial.jpg

[Shadowbrooke]

Hey Cypherx, thanks for the skin tones tutorial. Bye.

[Salubri3i]

wow. thanks for that tutorial. :thumbsup:

[slickgreekgeo]

You skin tutorial is great, I especially like the little tips you added, such as the E for eraser, etc. These little things make a world of a difference, and I actually wasn't aware of these features, so thanks for posting them.

[TobyArt]

Wow, way to redefine "The Cool Kid" incredible tutorial, thanks.:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

no problem, guys.

I guess this is in relation to the tutorial, but it's a mermaid sketch.
If I want to make more refined linework this is basically my process.
I'm pretty embarassed sharing it because normally I would't show
my cruddy underlayers before I get to a more refined sketch... but
I guess it'll help people sort of understand how I get my figure shaped.
It's by no means a "neat" process. It would probably be moreso if I would
sketch it on paper as opposed to photoshop, but I love being able to erase
with ease in photoshop.

yay.

like I've said before I've had no real formal training, so it's a bit unorthidox.
I tend to see most everything in triangle form with circles attached.

http://direwire.com/images/refiningadoodle.jpg

[pap87]

Very helpful info there. Whether it's unorthodox or not that's another cup of tea, but does it really matter? Clearly it does the job.

It's nice to step into someone else's mind and see how they perceive different things. Thanks very much for these tutorials!

[cypherx]

No you're right... it doesn't matter. I guess a lot of people go over their sketches to clean them up, so on that count I'm in the norm.

Some hawk sketches in prep for a new painting. I'm liking the upper righthand sketch the most, hence the mild highlighting. Christ, I missed my blue bgs... so glad I use it, it makes a world of difference on my tender eyes. I'm starting to use textured brushes in the sketch phase, I don't know it seems to make it look more cool at the very least

http://direwire.com/images/hawksketch-1.jpg

[Sylanya]

Wow, those hawk sketches are great! I did a couple of bird studies today too. Great work!! I like that one in the upper right corner too. :thumbsup: