Sketchbook Thread of Heozart

#21

Wonderufl sketches!
I’m sure you’ll love Painter once you get the hang of it :slight_smile:

#22

From today’s session. Felt brave enough to try acrylic brushes for the two 45 minute poses. I will have to try acrylic again at tomorrow’s long pose.




#23

It took me a good 20 minutes to load everything in your thread (leeching off a mystery neighbor’s wifi since we haven’t had any internet for 2 months), but it was worth it - I love the character in your inks ( ’ u ’ ) and you seem to have a solid grasp on form too! Hope to see more from this thread.

#24

Magtataho, thanks for your comments, but 20 minutes?! :eek: I hope my images aren’t too big for these forums. I need to do more character studies, but I haven’t done a lot of those since I started going to life drawing.

Here are some randome experiments in Painter. I love how free and expressive you can be with the digital ink brushes.


#25

hi Heozart/Wes (not sure - is this your name?),
nice work in here!
Lord Barkis style looks really great, and a lot of your sketches are really nice!
and how is your Painter X - I mean - getting used to it after a few days?? I am sure you´ll love it :slight_smile:
I´ll sure check out whats new in your thread more often :slight_smile:
a.

#26

Hi Alena, thanks for visiting! Yes, you can call me Wes. I still have a lot to learn in Painter, but I am having a lot of fun. The tutorials at http://homepage.mac.com/pixlart/main.htm have been immensely helpful. Without them I would be still fumbling all over the canvas.

That said, I miss some features from Photoshop; the color square where you can pick a color by saturation and brightness, save for web, darkened outside area when cropping, and geneal ease of editing images. If something is out of proportion in my sketch for example, all I had to do in Photoshop was use the lasso tool then hit V to resize. In Painter, there seems to be an extra step involved where you have to turn the selection into a floating object first. On one of the 30 minute poses from today (which I am not posting) I think I spent at least 5 minutes trying to figure out how to resize the head, because when I dragged the arrows it only resized the outline of the selection but not what was in the selection. So I was aggravated a little, but I still love Painter.

So here are some poses from today. I didn’t like how many of them turned out, but I guess we all have our good days and bad days.

#27

Hi Wes,

You can get the color square in Painter by double clicking on your current color thumb.

The quick transforming procedure is indeed not quick enough in Painter.

I might be wise to make some hotkeys for the actions you use most!
It’s in the preference menu somewhere…

It may be a good idea to check that hotkeys list anyway, because that is how I found out about a few very interesting things:

SPACEBAR to pan the canvas
e to rotate the canvas
ALT to pick a color
CTRL to move (if you first make a selection it will copy the selected area onto a new layer, which you can move first and then drop or merge with your original layer)
CTRL + ALT and then drag to quickly change brushsize
b to go back to brush mode
f to move a layer

Those are the keys I use most in Painter IX.5 (not sure if they have the same default key in Painter X)

Hope it helps

#28

Hey Wes!
Awesome stuff!! give us more!:bounce:

#29

… yes, Wes, thats right - if you are used to Photoshop, you might find some of its features missing - or not “working that well” … but - on the contrary - there is a lot of features in Painter, that Photoshop doesn´t have …
it is good to realize that those programs canot be compared to each other easily, since they are simply so much different, each one is established/determined for a different purpose - Painter for painting, Photoshop for image editing above all … well - both of them let you do all of various work, but - nothing compares to Photoshop as far as image editing/2d post-processing/precise masking is concerned, and - nothing compares to Painter as far as painting is concerned (in my opinion/experience) …
if you´ll find your way how to use the “good” of both, you might perhaps be happy with both of them in the end :slight_smile:

btw - your last sketches added look really great!
a.

#30

Great figure sketches, very energetic!

So how are you liking doing life drawing digitally? I’m not quite comfortable with it yet, the little laptop screen frustrates me, I’m used to working bigger/looser. Do you have any tips to share?

#31

Johan, oh yeah, I remember that color square from your sketchbook thread. Thanks for those hotkeys. I’ve been using most of those already, but had to reassign some keys to match Photoshop. Rotating the canvas while trying to Erase is no longer an issue! Ctrl + Alt + drag to resize is indeed very handy. I actually set it to one of the hotkeys on my tablet. Another shortcut I am finding helpful is Ctrl + Alt + 0 to zoom in to 100%. I believe the shortcuts are the same for IX.5 and X. The tutorials I mentioned in my last post are written for either IX or IX.5 and everything works the same in X.

Anand, thank you so much! It means a lot coming from such an accomplished artist as yourself.

Alena, thanks for your insights. Do you usually save your files as .PSD while working in Painter or only when you need to swap to Photoshop?

Ceruleanvii, I feel like I can do more faster in digital, but it may be because I don’t have a whole lot of experience working traditionally. But I have to agree, the range of motion feels limited when I want to do some big sweeping lines. What are your screen and tablet sizes? My laptop screen is 17 inches and my wacom is 6x11. Even with a big screen size for a laptop, I find myself constantly zooming in and out (which is why I find Ctrl + Alt + 0 useful to quickly go to full size.) Start with big gesture lines while zoomed out, zoom in on a section to work on the details, zoom back out to check the proportions, zoom in on another section and so forth. Where do you place your tablet at life drawing? Do they have drawing tables? Where I go they only have horses, so I flip one up to get a high surface for my laptop, but it is too high to get comfortable with a tablet. I balance it on my lap, holding it with my non-drawing hand with the thumb over the hotkeys, and it seems to work ok. So I don’t really have any tips other than the obvious, but if I notice something I will be sure to let you know.

Since I didn’t want to post without pictures, here’s something different. I made it early last year for a friend’s birthday. I haven’t done any more stained glass pieces since then, but I would like to get back into it one of these days.


#32

This is something I’ve been working on all week. It is a WIP of my first commissioned piece :applause: for a City of Heroes player. For those not familiar, it is an online game where you can create your own superheroes. The two main figures are Comrade Hero and Graviton Girl, two of his characters. In the background is a statue of Atlas holding a massive globe and the city hall. The city hall is missing pillars but I figured I’d add them once I start painting.


Here’s a rough study I painted on top of a screenshot from the game before starting the sketch. For the actual painting, I think I am going to tone down the blue in the background to keep the most contrast on the figures.

I know I am going to start painting in grayscale and add color later. What I don’t know is how to approach giving color to their costumes. Comrade Hero has red/dark green tights on black gloves and boots. Graviton Girl is in red/blue tights and white gloves and boots. I ignored local colors in the rough, but I want the costume colors to be discernable while still retaining the sunset lighting. I’ve been observing the view outside last few evenings, and I am still confused.

In light areas, for red, I guess the light will pull the hue towards orange and saturation will go down for very bright areas. I am not sure how the hue and saturation will be affected by the light for blue and dark green. I think the white in the gloves and boots will appear more as orange, but would the highlights still be white?

I am even more clueless for areas in the shadows. I think the blue shadows in the rough works ok, but how does it interact with my costume colors? Will blue and dak green get more saturated? What does it do to red?

I am also not sure what would be the most logical process of painting the costumes after I have the values. Pretend the light is white till I have the costume colors painted in, work in the lighting first and then worry about the costume colors, or work on both at the same time? Will painting in certain layer mode make this simpler than I am making it out to be?

I am sorry to ask so many questions, but I really need to figure this out. If any of you wonderful people can help me out in any way, it will be greatly appreciated.

#33

Hi Wes/Heozart :slight_smile:

Just enjoyed browsing through your thread and am glad to have popped in here :slight_smile:
You have some great pieces, and it’s clear you are on an evolving path.

I love the stained glass face, and your Bridal Corpse(?) studies! :slight_smile: Keep up the life
drawing, your line work shows a lot of confidence and I like your experimental approach:thumbsup: At times it can help to stop and just look at the pose for a while, before starting a study. Someone once told me (in relation to life drawing), that time spent looking should always be longer than the time it takes to capture what you see. There are many ways and approaches, this is just one :slight_smile:

As I am a complete newbie in digital painting I can’t really offer suggestions on the one above - do look forward to how it progresses though! Traditionally I would be careful of singling out an area of the painting to ‘deal with’ at the end (like background, figure etc), instead try to treat the entire canvas as a whole, allowing it all to come together. As you are starting in greyscale, I think to a certain extent a different approach may be needed and I am sure there are many who can offer suggestions :slight_smile:

Cheers and take care
a. :slight_smile:

#34

Annette, thank you so much! It’s been exactly a month since I started going to life drawing. I go there about three times a week on average, and I can already tell it is helping me grow as an artist. So far, I’ve been trying frantically to capture the whole figure within the given time. But as you suggested, I am going to start taking the time to really observe, and focus on my weak areas like hands, feet and the face…legs, arm, torso…back…lol I guess I don’t have a confident area yet. If you haven’t watched Corpse Bride, I highly recommend it. I just love the character design and their expressions.

I started looking through my superhero movie collection, and I think I found a lot of answers at the end of Spiderman 3 after the final battle. It is actually a sunrise, but I only knew that because the fight took place at night. I believe the only big difference is that for sunrise, the light is more yellow than red/orange. With the prevalence of CG nowadays, I kinda doubt they actually shot the scene during an actual sunrise, but I think it will be a good guideline for my painting. I will post more WIPs as I make progress.

#35

hi wes - wow - your new project you started is not an easy one at all :slight_smile:
all the top-difficult aspects of the 2d illustration (perspective, anatomy, quite difficult poses, quite complex composition …) are there to be solved out :slight_smile:

well - to be honest, I like your great loose line sketches or your amazing color/chalk expressive studies a little bit more - but - I am sure you´ll complete this one to be a great art piece of yours as well :)

I am just posting a few thoughts of mine - 
you started quite well, but - there is a few issues that might need to be fixed, I would say .. 
well - I cannot be any helpful as far as the likeness of those figures is concerned, as I am not very familiar with those heroes, but - as far as anatomy goes - there are at least 2 things that catch my attention eachtime I look at your image:

1) the girl´s pose and anatomy are fine, very nice dynamic gesture, all the main body shapes relate to each other - and also the pose is ok - but - the Comrade Hero´s figure/anatomy is not very correct here .. his trunk is too long - and - it is somehow too much twisted in a weird way, so - the muscles flow on the chest does not look very naturally; nor does the trapezius (the huge muscle behind the neck/shoulder covering a lot of middle upper part of the back area) is almost missing on the right side of his, so there is no natural visible "muscle connection/flow" in the area between his right-hand shoulder and the back/neck area
(when the hand is raised, also the shoulder/trapezius should be raised a little bit more than normally); and, also the overal shape of the body/hand/mucles is a little bit too overdone here,  .. 

2) there is some not very clearly defined area behind the Comrade Hero - the viewer may be confused by the wrong perspective there (the sketches are very loose at that area, so I hope I understood/interpreted the lines well) .. the 3rd man´s shoulder/hand should be - as far as i understood the composition - visible IN FRONT of the flying piece of fabric/piece of cloth of that girl ..  the girl is far more in the back .. 
(sorry my English, I really cannot find right words for more specific descriptions, the dictionary is full of different English words for one Czech word, and vice versa, difficult to choose the right one :(   )

so - to better show what I am talking about - I did a few very quick/rough paintovers … the first one is just to show what is fine in your illustration (so as you can see what I mean in the other paintover images)

the white line in the first one is just a depiction of the relationship of the main parts of the girls body/and the dynamics of her pose - that is quite nice in your illustration ..
[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/po_1.jpg[/img]

this one is the same for the man´s figure in the front - in this one there is a few shapes/relations/dynamics issues that should be fixed a little .. 
(I just marked very roughly only the main shapes that show the basic proportions that - in my opinion - shoud be fixed)
[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/po_3b.gif[/img]

and this one shows the confusing area I was talking about .. 
[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/po_2a.gif[/img]
perhaps my limited language makes sense :)

a.
p.s. what are you using - Photoshop or Painter?

#36

Alena, I can’t thank you enough for your comments! It is just the kind of feedback I needed. As you have noticed, this is the most ambitious project for me to date, and I really wanted to test my limits. I have spent about 25 hours on the sketch alone, and that is already a lot more than I have spent on any finished piece. Apparently I am pushing my laptop’s limits too. The image is quite large at 5100x4200 pixels, and it takes minutes to load and save in Photoshop. So far I’ve only worked in Photoshop because of the perspective drawing I had to do for the background. Actually it was my first digital perspective drawing in Photoshop too, but I figured I’d have an easier time in Photoshop than in Painter.

I agree that this sketch is not the most appealing drawing I’ve done in and of itself, but it shouldn’t show up in the final painting. Because painting an image of this size is also a first time thing for me, I wanted to have precise boundaries so I don’t have to guess when painting. It is the result of working and reworking the same lines.

I am not used to drawing muscular types as I am just beginning to learn the muscles, and it shows. :blush: I did catch the torso being too long in the rough painting and shortened it, but I guess it is still too long. Maybe that twist in the torso is too unnatural, like he is trying too hard to pose for the painting. Your gesture lines flow MUCH better. I am worried it may be too similar to Graviton Girl’s pose, but maybe it will be a good thing.

The third figure is actually a giant statue. If you look closely in the rough painting, you can see tiny people standing under him. :stuck_out_tongue: I see that the cape overlapping Atla’s right arm is confusing now, but I think it will be easy to make the distinction once value and color is introduced. As a side note, drawing a proper cape is yet another first time thing for me. In order to understand how a cape might resist the wind, I taped a sheet of kleenex to a bottle and took some pictures while blowing air with a hairdryer. It was quite a fun experiment and one of the reasons why the sketch has taken so long.

Oh, and I think you should feel good about your English, because your posts make perfect sense to me. It is not my first language either, by the way. :slight_smile:

Thank you again for pointing out the errors. I will try to improve Comrade Hero’s pose.

#37

hey wes,
lol, your “wind” experimets are realy cool :slight_smile:
good for you!
(yes, “cape” is one of the words I was loking for :slight_smile: )
I am glad I could help a bit ;

just another thought - you neednt work that large from the very start at all, though you plan your image should have large dimensions in the end;
you can start half the size (or even less), define all your shapes, scene, composition first - and - only then, when you are satisfied with the initial sketch/composition, you can then resize to the size you need for the final “rendering”/paniting;
then you can rework your lines to the “clean” look, if necessary (that is if you plan achive that type of comx illustration that has the lines clearly visible)
if not, you even neednt redraw your lines after you resize your document at all, for just a guidance its low quality after resizing doesnot matter …
working in smaller canvas can really save a lot of time/computers capacity - and your nerves :slight_smile:
looking forward to seing more!
a.

p.s. as for my English - I am glad you could understand what I wanted to express - I am really hopeless sometimes :slight_smile:
(the limited vocabulary is not the only problem in fact - the collocation issues/idiomatics/frazeology are even worse for a self-taught Engl. student like me :slight_smile: )
thanks for your giving me confidence :slight_smile:
the learning process - whatever it is - never ends in our lives :slight_smile:

#38

Awesome work!
You have a way with value and color that makes me jealous!!
Keep em coming!

:bowdown:

#39

Hi Lex, thanks for your compliments. I am actually very intimidated when it comes to color, but hopefully I will get a better understanding as I continue to paint.

Alena, thanks for the tip on starting out small. I will remember to do that on my next big painting.

I went through a lot of trouble and frustration, but here is the revised sketch. He looks more comfortable, but I am not sure if it is exciting to look at. I also don’t like that his head is right in the center of the painting, but no matter how I reposition these figures, something seems to be problematic.

I just remembered to flip the image horizontally to get a fresh view, and I think his pose actually looks decent. So I am going to go ahead with this sketch, but if there are any anatomical issues that must be addressed, please do point them out.

#40

Here is an update. I am mostly testing the color choices for the costumes at this stage. I want a little more variation of colors for the background, but looks like it is going to be a lot tougher than I thought.

This is Comrade Hero’s head at full size. It was an experiment with Alena’s smudge and hair tutorials and I had a lot of fun.

I am still working in Photoshop only. I opened the file in Painter yesterday and there was a 5-10 second delay after every little move I made so it was impossible to work in Painter. :frowning: