My Road To Mastery

#261

wow static I’m impressed. You really keep and keep advancing. Nice diagramms. I’m currently working on a armored soldier, so specular points are a important part and I start understanding that. So I think going through those digarams is very helpfull.

#262

Those sketches of ordinary people are excellent. :slight_smile:

#263

Johan - Haha! I hope to see that someday, too, man. Streaks are difficult for me because of two main things: 1) I’m into a looot of stuff, like movies, writing, games, drawing, sports, writing music, photography, reading, etc, and 2) I tend to get really absorbed into whatever I’m doing… so long stretches of time can go by where I get super involved in writing my book or trying to beat a game, and the other things get left behind for a while. So baby steps, right!? ;D Thanks for stopping by, mate.

Ted - Yeah dude! Good luck on that. Hope to see it soon. :smiley: Thanks.

Dan - Much appreciated, mr.

Some life drawings:

This fold out chair just about drove me insane…

And some fun in imaginationland… I’ve been concentrating so much on learning new techniques and practicing that I forgot to relax and paint the way I do naturally sometimes, just for fun. So here’s a bit of that from this afternoon.

#264

hi, for some reason I somehow forgot about this nice “Speedpaints & Sketches” corner of CGTalk for a long time … only now I “re-discovered” it again …
it looks like there is so much interesting threads going here - and WOW - yours is one of those amazing threads! really enjoyed your your experimental (well - almost scientific :slight_smile: ) approach here, and all your experiments … (and - have to say, really amazing charcoals and “alla-prima” oils you do!)
lovely thread, indeed!
a.

#265

Ahh, wanted to do some life drawing myself today at school but there just no people at the canteen during my gap lesson (didn’t feel like drawing chairs)! Not cool. Maybe I’ll be more lucky some other day. Great to see yours though! Is it a pen that you’re using for these?
Must say, I love this new speedie of yours. Maybe not quite the style I’m into, but a very nice looking image! The monster look more cute than scary though, hehe :slight_smile:
Keep us updated, mate!

#266

a. - Kindest thanks! Your words are much appreciated. I’m glad you had a good time here, and hope to see you again soon! I have another charcoal today, as it happens…
But oh, I once hung out at an oekaki board called 7face, and one of the owners (?) there went by “a.” It’s a shot in the dark, but I just had to ask if it was you.

razz - Heheh. bummer about there not being anyone around on your break, man. That’s the worst. I took my sketchbook with me to the theater the other day (slumdog millionaire… really good movie) and realized how not worth it is to do life drawing when you’re in the room screening room. Everywhere you look it’s just the backs of seats with a head popping over the top. Ha. Needless to say, I drew one dude (and his seat) and stopped. Better luck next time! And if no people ever show… well, I can say now from experience… drawing chairs is a chore! ;D (and yeah, they’re in pen - though some pages are done with a mechanical pencil lately)
Thanks for the speed painting comments, too, mate. It does look pretty cute, doesn’t it? Poor guy…

A half hour with a charcoal pencil on typing paper… referenced from some guy I forgot the name of. It’s in the book Classical Drawing Atelier, anyway.
I think I need to not press so hard so soon. It’s much easier to go darker with charcoal pencil than pick up a bold stroke that’s in the wrong value for its position.

#267

charcoal can be easily erased/softenend with a kneadable eraser Jason

An eraser is a tool like any other :wink:

#268

… yes, I had a good time here in your thread, indeed :slight_smile:

 btw -  I noticed - somewhere in your earlier posts - that you were talking/asking about the colorizing technique regarding "blending modes" applied over the underlying grayscale image .. not sure if you haven´t already figured out meanwhile - 
 anyway ..  
 
 in my experience - yes, blending modes may be pretty tricky - since they do exactly what their name is saying: they BLEND (MIX) different kinds of color/value information together (the "above" one with the "underneath" one, in terms of individual pixels), which may (or may not) result in visible hue/tone shift, as this IS their nature;  
 
 as far as I know - there are a few more possible ways of colorizing image - and - using blending modes in separate "colorizing" layer(s) above the grayscale image is just one possible (the most common) way of how to add color - but - when using blending modes, it´s good to know the mechanism of how they work (their "behind-the-scene" algorithm, if you like) - and - to be aware (and to make use) of the "possible side-effects", that particular blending modes may cause to your image .. 
 
 by the "side-effects" I do not mean any "random" behavior - since - in general - "surprisingly" enough - blending modes do not work "randomly" at all; Photoshop blending modes use exactly defined mechanisms, very precise and relyable actually - and therefore pretty easily predictable (with a little practice you can predict what kind of resulting effect you will get using which blending mode applied over which underlying information);
 
 in Photoshop (note: this does not apply for Painter in general, as it has a little bit different way of blending, as it uses a little bit different blending modes, reffered to as "composite method") it is pretty common to use the "Color" blending mode (or "Hue", which is a little bit less agressive, but does not work for "pure" neutral grays underneath it) for colorizing the grayscale image, which is pretty safe, when painting with not too much saturated colors (!!), and - which at the same time does not affect the values the way Soft Light or Overlay do, but personally, I do not like/use it - or - at least - I do not use it "alone", I very often combine it with either Soft Light and/or Overlay, that DO affect the values, which I count on in advance, already in the early stages of preparing the grayscale image .. and - that is the "little trick" here (or - at least the "little trick" that works for me); 
 
 in other words - counting on (or even planning) the final shift in values (= towards blacks and/or whites, which results in increasing the contrast), and/or even shift in saturation (later, when working with more colorizing layers over/above already partly colorized image) can be "used" pretty well, when you know what you may expect from different blending modes .. 
 
 in general - each blending mode is differently "sensitive" for different kind of existing information (and has its own way of how to influence it) - which means, that - as a result - some color/value information you work with may be exaggerated, some may be subdued/lowered, some inverted, some may be even ignored etc .. it´s different for each particular blending mode; 
 
 I´ll try to explain what I am talking about: 
 for example - Overlay/Soft Light ignore working/painting with neutral grays/midtones - but - on the other hand - are "highly sensitive" to both "peripheral" parts of the tonal range (lights at one end, shadows at the opposite end; the same for saturation); actually - the greater the distance from "neutral" midtones towards either one or the other end, the more "sensitive" it is - and therefore the stronger effect you may expect (so - when chosing the color to paint with, you have to take this into acount) ... 
 or/and  - accordingly - also other blending modes are "sensitive" and "non-sensitive" for certain colors/values in their unique way: Multiply ignores painting with white, Screen ignores black, Difference ignores the color/values (=pixels), that are exactly the same as the ones in the underlying image laying underneath the affected/painted area (the "same" areas get turned into "black", while the rest/remaining - the different - parts stay visible; and again - the bigger the difference, the stronger effect - this kind of logic is pretty same for all the blending modes), etc... 
 
 so -  back to colorizing workflow - while Soft Light an Overlay are able to affect not only color, but at the same time also "both ends" of tonal range, which may result in pretty strong value/contrast shifts, some other blending modes may result in - let´s say - only "one-sided" effect, depending on what kind of blending mode you may choose: the blending modes from the "darkening group" (starting with "Darken") "shift" the parts of the image you are painting over ONLY/always towards darks (eachone from this group in its unique way, not going into details now); the blending modes from the "lightening group" (starting "Lighten") "shift" the parts of the image you are painting over ONLY/always towards lights, etc.  
 so - depending on what your grayscale image looks like (what are its dominant values, tonal range etc.) and on what you are painting with (what hue, how dark/light/saturated color you choose, etc.) - all this has something to do with what you may get in the end ... 
 
 looks a bit complicated, but it IS possible to get used to how blending modes behave/affect the image .. and then, it may work fine;
 
 well - I am not sure if it all makes sense (sorry my limited English vocabulary)
 and sorry for such an "epic-story" here :)
 hope it might perhaps be of some help, if this is what you were asking about and /or if you haven´t figured out yourself, meanwhile  .. 
 a.
 
 p.s - no, that "a." was not me, did not know that forum until you mentioned :)
#269

Johan - Oh, come on, mate. :stuck_out_tongue: You know what I mean. Thick, black marks are ugly and often can’t be completely removed with an eraser.

a. - Ah, thanks so much for the time you put into your response! It’s very appreciated. I haven’t got the time to read it all and respond properly at the moment, but I will be leaving this page up so I can go through it when I get home. Thanks again!!

First, some life drawings. I was feeling the rhythm in the smaller poses, but a couple days passed between those and the larger drawings, so I felt a bit out of sync with those. I’ve got to remember to stop trying to use a pen like a pencil when it comes to turning forms in the facial area.

I didn’t get out much in the last couple days, so some of my figure practice came in the way of American Apparel photos I’d saved previously for this purpose. About 30 minutes per pair:

With no restrictions or intentions to “practice” I tend to draw lines first and then paint in a cel-shaded fashion. This is me trying to merge my interest in line drawing with a coloring technique that allows for a little more subtly. I painting the man first, and you can see he looks a little overworked compared to the lady. She took half as long to paint, and I feel she looks much clearer than he does. Also from AA. About 1 1/2 hours.

Another go with the technique. Also 1 1/2 hours. I feel I’m getting a little more comfortable with how light wraps around the planes of the face, and where to add a little flushing of red where the skin is thinner. And yeah… the dude really does look that funny in the photo. :stuck_out_tongue:

#270

The Australian Open just ended. I spent a lot of time watching that, so a lot of time I’d normally spend drawing was spent enjoying that. I also put down Lirael, the book I was reading (and wasn’t very interested in) for Lord of the Flies, which I’d been trying to get to for ages now. Also, there was the Super Bowl, and I’ve been transposing and recording the World of Warcraft theme in Garage Band to try and better understand how a piece is composed.
I did manage to work on something every day, though, so the streak is still going. Habits are in place.

Anyway, here’s some still life stuff.

A 10 minute charcoal pencil sketch to warm up.

I actually got bored of that charcoal pencil after that (I think I need to slow down with it, because I did a 40 minute portrait with just charcoal pencils a while back and it turned out nicely). However, I did place a stack of paper underneath my drawing and wow… what a difference! The responsiveness of the paper was so much better. Stroking with the shoulder of the pencil was so much easier to control. Values were easy to manipulate. I loved it. Thanks Chris!
A copy of a Degas painting. 15 minutes. HB pencil.

I also started working on the Bouguereau again this past week. I tried some of the glazing stuff mentioned earlier in a comment and had a blast with it. Here are some composites of the previous state of the painting followed by the work I got done over the week.

#271

hi,

the glazing looks supergreat! Very controlled and soft. What kinds of mediums and/or thinners do you use?

#272

**** u awesomeness maker, i envy you for your awesome skillz pack

#273

Mu - Thanks a bunch, man! I’m using hardware section turp from Wal-mart. I know you’re technically not supposed to use it in artwork, but it gets the job done and is a lot more affordable than art store stuff right now. I do have linseed oil, but I haven’t mixed it in yet. I’ll start adding that more and more in future glazes.

submit - right on, dude.

More work from AA. PS, 40 minutes.

I’ve been doing some quick studies and some gesture work lately, which I never do. It feels good. These are all after Kevin Chen, and done with either a 4B, 6B or HB pencil.

30 minutes for the page

15 minutes

15 minutes

20 minutes

30 minutes for the page

#274

Love the life drawings man, very dynamic and stylized!

#275

Rabid - Thanks very much!

Sorry, but I haven’t been able to upload stuff in a while, so this is going to be a rather sizable update. Here we go!

First, I blocked in the shirt of the Bouguereau copy last night. So here’s the current look of that one:

I discovered over the week that my weakness (or one of the many) is gesture drawing. Quick poses. So I’ve been working on those a whole lot. It’s quite different, because you have to use your drawing tool in a different fashion in order to be more efficient with time. Like, say, hatching is out of the picture, and hatching is what I’ve been doing all my life. So this is really helping me develop some familiarity with the shoulder of my tool and how to use pressure sensitivity to my advantage.
Here are some pages after Kevin Chen, because I really like his technique in short poses. Unless otherwise noted, they’re 4B graphite.

I redid these poses because I was unhappy with the previous attempts:

Some life drawing in pen. It felt weird after all that pencil work, haha. Took me a minute to get back in rhythm.

#276

After all that Kevin Chen work I decided to test my technique on actual people. It’s so much harder than copying someone else’s drawing. So many more decisions to make. It was good practice. These are after photos from characterdesigns.com:

On one of Kevin Chen’s threads someone asked what grade of pencil he used. He answered “2B”, but he went on to talk about how he likes the charcoal to feel like paint. So I’m unsure if the look he gets is from charcoal or pencil, but I’m pretty sure he uses newsprint for the short poses. I have a Henry Yan figure book, and he gets the same look as Chen with charcoal pencils/compressed charcoal/vine charcoal on newsprint… So I’m pretty sure Chen must have answered the pencil question with a charcoal answer. Thing is, as seen below, I can’t come close to the look Chen and Yan get with their charcoal, and I just bought some 2B charcoal pencils just to be sure. My guess is it’s gotta be the newsprint, because it holds hardly any charcoal on the page. My only suspicion about that however is that typing paper doesn’t really hold that well either, and yet still, I can’t get nearly as subtle grays as they do (per stroke, not blending). It could simply be the fact that they’re worlds above me in their handling of the charcoal, but I still wonder… cause it’s a huge difference, and I’m finding it almost impossible to get those smooth, light gray strokes they construct their sketches with.

So this is me experimenting with a 2B charcoal pencil on typing paper. Again, from characterdesigns.com

I got frustrated again, so I changed mediums a few times on this page to experiment some more. Clockwise from top: vine charcoal, charcoal pencil, 4B pencil. Time spent on all of these is about the same.

Anyone have any ideas? Any experience with newsprint? To get an idea of what I’m looking at, here is a page of Chen’s technique: click!

#277

Actually I’m dying to get some of that newsprint in my hands.
I’ve not found it in art stores here yet… perhaps I should order some online, but I fear there’s a good chance it will be damaged by the postal services (over here they toss everything around and they try to squeeze every package in yer mailbox, no matter what the size is O_o)

That is some IMPRESSIVE updates Jason
WOW! I see you are making good use of your time
Must draw too now, ciao! (no one at the office here yet eheh)

#278

Incredible sketch work and interesting insight about the types of pencils and paper used. Also, that site, Character Design is a real treasure. I’ve never heard of it before, but I definitely got it bookmarked now:)

#279

Johan - Thanks heaps, man. Yeah, I admire your ability to push out an incredible amount of work despite how crammed your days are with work and kids. Bravo. :slight_smile:

Daniel - Many thanks, mate. Yeah, CD.com is a pretty nice site when you’re looking for free poses of people. It’s the only one I know of that’s free.

I finally got my hands on some newsprint. Office Depot was going out of business around here, so I got 100 18x24 sheets for 6.59. Nice.

So in answering my own question from last post, the difference was newsprint. For some reason copy paper just reacts strangely to charcoal, and you get dark blacks when you don’t necessarily want them. But newsprint handles quite smoothly, and I think I’m in love with it already.

Here is some experimentation by imagination from last night. Experimenting with the feel of vine, compressed and charcoal pencil on newsprint.

Also, two birds with one stone… 2.35:1 (ish) composition practice for storyboarding and some general people-in-environment practice. From AA, PS, a couple hours.

#280

Beautiful sketchwork again. Have you considered taking them into PS and overlaying some color?