cool thing with the markers 
Sketchbook Thread of Heozart
Heozart
#142
Johan, I did start with very light guidelines in fineliner, but they were probably not very accurate. When curved shapes come into play, it is very hard for me to see where they fit in relation to the guidelines.
Bart, no, I havenāt seen Scott Robertson videos, but Iāve seen your wonderful sketches, so Iād better check them out. After I did those sketches, I bought colored fineliners to accentuate linework, but they donāt seem to show well over the markers.
Vikram, those were fineliners + markers + color pencils.
Anand, thanks!
Sycen, thanks!
My monitor is fixed, but I havenāt done a lot of digital work. Iāve tried markers in life drawing, but they turned out crappy so I wonāt bother to post.
A couple of outdoor sketches from Tuesday:
The theme for CoH April fanart battle is āVSā, and I decided to do a stained glass piece of Statesman VS Lord Recluse, the leader of a group of superheroes and the archvillain. Before starting, I thought about the issue of duality, good vs evil, light and dark, and the conversation between the Joker and Batman in the Dark Knight about how they complete each other. Good and Evil cannot seem to tolerate the existence of each other, but would they be what they are without the existence of the other?
Of course people have thought about it already for ages, and there is the yin yang symbol. So I started with a hexagon (guess I just like hexagons, the candleholder I made a couple of years ago had hexagonal sides too) and devided it into angular yin yang shapes. Because Statesman had red and blue in his costume, I decided to use those colors to represent opposing values, as well as with the use of transparent and opaque glass.
Initial sketch in Painter:
Finalized pattern:
Progress after 12 hours of cutting:
Another shot:
I am pretty much done with cutting red pieces. They kinda look the same now, but the transparent ones will be much brighter with the sun behind them.
NR43
#144
Great to see your stained glass piece Wes.
If you ever come to Belgium/Holland you will see some amazing masterpieces in this medium. It is an art form that has a long history here and some āateliersā in āDe lage landenā as the region of these countries are called, are considered to be the best in the world.
Hereās a link to some images in google after a search on āglasramenā, which is how these are called in dutch.
http://images.google.be/images?hl=nl&q=glasramen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Most of them are inspired by religion, but if it comes to technique, you can find some excellent examples there. Hope it is inspiring of some sort 
Keep going!
Heozart
#145
Hey Johan, thanks for the info. Some of the images are truly amazing. I love stained glass because of its dependence on and interaction with light. I find that it tests my patience more than any other medium, but when you complete a piece, it is that much more rewarding.
I stayed up all night foiling the pieces while watching (more like listening) 13 episodes of Prison Break. Thereās a few pieces that I need to grind more, but it is getting finished today for sure. I used 3 shades of blue for the hero side background, but it looks like they may be too close to each other in value.
Heozart
#147
Hey Anand, hope it is as cool as you expected.
It is kinda cloudy today, so I will try to take more interesting pictures when it is sunny.
Heozart
#149
Thanks Johan! It took more effort than I remembered, but at least I will have the joy of looking at it for years to come. 
Took some pictures with the sun directly behind the piece.
Power punch!
Iāve got my eyes on you!
batte812
#150
Hi Wes, great result with that glas window! It looks wonderful when the sun shines through.
Heozart
#151
Thanks Bart.
I started doing cloud studies because, well, I canāt paint clouds.
I used photographs from deviantart.com as reference. I tried to copy the reference as closely as I can on the left, and tried to be a little more loose and use a bit of imagination while trying to apply what Iāve learned on the right. The first one is embarrassing, but I feel I am improving with each new one, although the ones on the right look like a step backward. I am going to do a few more of these, and my goal for this month is to be able to paint clouds in any shape I want (i.e. a human figure) and make it look convincing.
anandpg
#153
Hey Wes!! Oh, yesā¦ it turned out way cooler than I imagined!:applause: Congratulations!
Great clouds too!
Heozart
#154
Karthik, thank you!
Anand, thanks, glad you like it.
Someoneās CoH character named Salagadoola. Inspired by the library fight scene from Ultraviolet.
Another cloud study from reference. I struggled a lot with this one for some reason, and it didnāt turn out very well. Tried to do something similar from memory below.
No reference used for this one. Started off in Alchemy to get some random shapes.
Heozart
#155
From reference. I think this is my favorite of all the studies Iāve done.
All the cloud studies were in preparation for this:
It is a WIP of my May entry for the CoH fan art battle. The theme was to recreate a classic piece using CoH characters. Pretty obvious which one I am going for. I worked on clouds almost exclusively for last couple of weeks, and I kinda surprised myself with the results, because I couldnāt paint clouds before. I didnāt even have to use references for this WIP. I guess practice does make perfect.
NR43
#157
Hey Wes, great cloud studies buddy!
Nice use of your gained knowledge in that final painting too!
Heozart
#158
Thanks Johan! I am actually getting it printed on a canvas as well as a mug since Deviantart is having a sale.
Portraits from photo references. Also trying out a new custom paper at the same time:
NR43
#159
What theā¦?
Man you are making some great progress lately!
Love the boldness in your strokes