Open Figure Drawing Workshop 019 - The Awakening of the Underground Giant

#181

Hi…Danielh 68- :slight_smile:
WOW…Really nice lighting and shadows…GREAT HANDS AND FORAM…DRAMATIC, DYNAMIC.:applause: :thumbsup: …Can’t wait to see how far you take it…:slight_smile:

Hi…David…never read that myth…sounds like a really great creation myth though…will have to find and read it.
On my painting. my thought is to take it back to the very beginning,…to a time before there were gods created by men, and who KILL, THINK, AND ACT like men do…
I want to take it back to when there was only the MOTHER… EARTH
CREATOR AND KEEPER OF …LIFE…ONLY ONE ORIGINAL…EARTH SPIRIT…IT IS SPIRIT EARTH
PREDATES THEM ALL…:slight_smile:

TAKE CARE
Glenn

#182

Some more roughing out. This is closer to what Ive had in my head for a layout … which is basically a slightly modified version in composition from sketch#5. I might have cropped it a little too much but so I might fit more of the foreground character in later. Messed around with the giant a bit, made him into some devil creature thingy… dont really know what he will be just yet. Threw a sword on the hero for now instead of a bola…I’ll have to work on the hand and action placement. This will be my last update until next week as I am strapped for time an will be out of town this week. -J

#183

shaolin yeah I like the idea, but it just does not look as cool as I want it to, maybe I just need the right angle, but when I sketch it out, I cannot seem to capture what I want. I think maybe I need more than one person in the painting to get both a nice angle and sense of size. One of the persons in the forground which will look almost as large as Anubis because he is close to the camer and Anubis is far away, but then have a few other people way in the backround next to Anubis to give a sense of how large he is.

also shaolin I like the colors you went with so far

My original idea was to have an Anubis statue coming to life. I think I shall do a painting sketch for that. But I also like this new giant beast I came up with, kind of a gorilla in a way. So maybe I can have the best of both worlds, my new giant coming to life from a statue. Which means it needs to be an alternate reality. But Anubis does look pretty cool.

Michael, holy CRAP! you totally got the look of the painter you were shooting for.

#184

Daniel!

I must say that with that claw hand the giant is stretching out to the little people it is starting to look like one of these 1940s Jack Arnold Monster movie classics which I dearly loved when I was a kid.
I would love to see a 1940s style caption on it (preferrably red or green or brown with the OFDW title on it and an exclamation mark - that would be so…authentic…:scream: )
Great work and very evocative! :thumbsup:

Shaolin - wonderful emphasis on anatomy and really fluid forms there.

Aggie - argh! Now I see you are caught between Glenn’s and my suggestions…:smiley: Don’t let this confuse you…
stares mesmerizingly at Aggie

you know whom to trust, don’t you…?
:scream:
but, seriously, just try out everything. You can save different versions of any approach and see what works best. And you can’t go wrong with anything Glenn says, basically. That’s what I learned in this past year…:slight_smile:

#185

Hi…Shaolin…:slight_smile:
REALLY admire that great draftsmanship of yours…am sure that whatever you come up with will look FANTASTIC…Been wating to see those wings come to life on your current figure, and can’t wait to see the idea you are brainstorming for the female giant…:slight_smile:
KEEP GOING…What you have so far looks GREAT…:thumbsup:

MechaHateChimp // Joel…:slight_smile:
Those …S …curves in your figures, plus the strong diagonals, are really making this piece
VERY DYNAMIC…Like the way the horns on the giant bring my eye back into the composition
and action…VERY STRONG action piece, with GREAT MOVEMENT and FLOW…:applause:
Maybe a slash from that sword, somewhere on the giant…leg , arm ,or stomach,giving him pain
causing him to lose the grip on his club. just a thought…
REALLY enjoying watching this develope…turning out…GREAT…:thumbsup:

HEY…MR MU…GREAT OPPORTUNITY to turn that BEAUTIFUL GIANT DRAWING of yours into
A FINISHED painting …still plenty of time left…I think you should give it a GO…
PRESURE…PRESURE…PRESURE…:eek: :scream:

EVERYONE DOING A GREAT JOB…REAL PLEASURE TO SEE THE IMAGINATIONS SWEATING…:thumbsup: :slight_smile:

TAKE CARE
Glenn

#186

Arch - I enjoyed that video of the nymph. I learned alot from it last night as well. I will try and use the techniques in it. However, I like to get as close to the final result as quickly as possible. So I do not use that big of a “blocking” system.

Mr. Mu - Howcome when I got my background value at a mid grey I can add the darker tones in my paint layer and they show up but my lights only get as light as the background value of mid grey. I froze that layer and painted then turned it back on so I can see what I am painting. What am I doing wrong.

Spirit & Mr. Mu - I think a great artist learns from all masters then they take what they have learned, used what is best for them and develop their own style. Thanks for the help guys. I am learning a lot.

Here is what I came up with after an hour last night. I found a better reference for the mountain layer.

#187

Hi all,

Atm don’t have time to comment on all, but I wanted to quickly post my drawing / which will eventually evolve to become a digital painting…of some sort: :smiley:

Original charcoal drawing on newsprint, from imagination / no reference:

[left]I’m ultimately going to expand on this digitally, as I’ve started to here:

[center]

[left]Be back later with comments.

Keep up the good work everyone! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak
[/left]

[/left]
[/center]

#188

rebeccak, cool, any ideas where your giant is going to be?

I was working on the whole Anubis statue coming to life, but nothing really interested me enough to make a quick painting sketch of it. I liked my big monkey giant from the back side, but it was not underground enough. So I decided a rock giant fits the theme.

I will probably put some cave dwellers in there to show how big he is. Maybe a female tribal people half naked like in Boris Vallejo’s work. Right now mainly working on a color scheme.

If anyone has suggestions on the colors so, I would like to hear it. The rock giant will not be so green, there will be more blues and browns in him, with orange highlight on right and cool highlights on left.

#189

hi
Hope I can finally get this think to work properly and show my pic:)
worked on it a bit today, but… well, the figure seems almost finished, whereas nothing else was even started - I can´t seem to follow the “work on the whole thing” rule.

well,that’s it so far…

I could use a little c&c, but I’m bit too shy to return any so far.

#190

A couple of quick comments:

architectus,

Thank you. :slight_smile: I am thinking of making this a statue that is waking up in the basement of a museum…but am not really too sure yet.

With respect to your current image, I like this concept the best but would like to see you really play with space more ~ right now the composition is divided into diagonal halves, with nothing filling the sky. Try looking at paintings of groups of people by old masters such as Rubens, for example:

http://www.southern.net/wm/paint/auth/rubens/earth-water.jpg

http://plusinfo.jeonju.ac.kr/photos/Art/Bacchus%20(Rubens).jpg

And many others ~ notice how dynamically space is broken up, you can do this even with only one figure so long as you creatively compose elements of the composition. :slight_smile:

HladekStepan,

Welcome. :slight_smile: What I might recommend is always using reference after you have your initial sketch. I also really advise sticking to grayscale until the sketch is really worked out. You can see a great tutorial on a b/w to color method here:

http://www.androidblues.com/JealousyStepbystep/jealousystep.html

As well see the first post of this thread for a link to justmeina, a great male model which will serve as excellent reference now that you have an initial sketch.

I would advise to create the entire sketch in grayscale, and to really complete that before coloring your work.

Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#191

wow,the tuto really is great,thank you very much:thumbsup:
I’m gonna try to make the most of it…

#192

Finally wine bottling season is almost over so I am starting to have reprieve from the seemingly endless amounts of Merlot and Cabernet label designs to complete.

Here are just some quick concepts I was sketching just to get my brain going. Basically the idea is a giant emerging from a cave after having been awakened by some kind of priestess or shamian with a large ceremonial drum. Don’t know if I’ll stick with it or move on to something else but it’s a start anyway. :slight_smile:

Loving everyone else’s work so far. Very inspirational.

#193

Rubens Rocks! And he was Flemish (not Dutch or German like some think) :smiley:

Vidar3d wow

a giant emerging from a cave after having been awakened by some kind of priestess or shamian with a large ceremonial drum.

If you decide not to stick to the drummer, you can always make the giant rub his head and draw some kids running away dropping some pebbles :smiley: He looks quite dangerous actually.
Looking forward to see a scene with him

I wasn’t happy with Deimos’ pose anymore. Thanks to Mr Mu I think I pulled off a better overall composition. Now you gotta lemme know if I’m wrong y’all!

#194

i just finish this drawing and thought i share it with you all… detail and shading in pencil
14’ x 17’

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: to everyone in here job well done.

Sorry for my picture is small i try to post it it bigger but it didnt work.

#195

vidar I like what you got going on so far.

rebeccak, or make the statue comming alive, like part of it stone, and the other part flesh, and where he is transforming have the stone cracking a bit.

I think I fixed the problem with the negative space. Are the colors working so far?

Here is another update, hopefully someone can let me know if I am going the wrong direction with colors before I take the painting to far. The rocks on the left are now finished, i thought I would cool down this side a bit.

#196

hi architectus… just a quick shot from the hip…

while the gorilla(?) on the rock helps to build a sense of scale here, its colours should get as desaturated and its forms as blurred as the rock it stands on at least to indicate the distance between it and the viewer…

otherwise just keep going…:thumbsup:

Argh, Glenn, I hear you tempter… be gone! I won’t listen to you…
holds both his ears
La la la…

#197

thanks mu, yeah I began to work that a bit, as you can see from the first image and second image. I need to disaterate the colors more, working on that now. I keep jumping around to different parts.

alright I am finished for the night, I am not sure what to do to push it further, if anyone has any ideas I am all ears. I was thinking of putting a few more gorillas on the distant ground. Maybe I should add some darker areas to the giant, in some of the shadow areas?

#198

Hey all - Everyone seems to be busy. I like everyone’s works. I have a new appreciation to what digital artist do. It is hard transitioning from traditional to digital. I have been experimenting with brushes, values, etc. I guess that is why my first digital piece is so messed up. I think I am figuring out what I need to do though, inculding my style of digital art. Just like any traditional style developed with different mediums, digital is just another medium thus a different style. Bare with me folks as I attempt this. Last night’s hour’s worth of work:

#199

architectus,

Hey there, I am really liking the new direction and the color scheme as well ~ reminds me a lot of a Frazetta style color scheme and subject matter. :slight_smile:

One thing I would really recommend doing is working out the smaller figure to a much greater degree. He seems cartoony in a way that is not yet believable; I’m assuming that you’re working at print resolution and I would hope that you can work on the figure in a detailed way.

The way that his foot is cut off seems a bit awkward, I might recommend keeping the entire figure within the frame. As well compositionally I think the way that the bkgrd rock and outcropping are intersecting is a bit awkward, and you might want to reconsider how those two forms relate.

Overall however it’s really great to see your pace ~ seems like you’ve got a number of projects going, and it’s great to see your enthusiasm. :slight_smile:

Aggie,

It’s good to see you in the beginning stages of your digital experimentation. :slight_smile: I would recommend perhaps also in conjunction with this Workshop, trying some of the previous OFDWs where we were just working from photo reference, and give that a try digitally since the tools are new to you. Working from photo ref will give you a much stronger basis than working strictly from the imagination at this point; and, of course, it’s always best to work from life. You might try doing a small grayscale still life, something simple like an apple or some other organic object. In terms of the figure for this OFDW, you might want to just choose a figure from www.characterdesigns.com and try to render that as a standalone figure.

Just some thoughts. Keep up the good work all! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#200

hey.im gonna call it quits…so this is entry for this challenge… plz let me know what you thing…crits are always welcome…