Sketchbook Thread of MiguelS

#13

Hi MiguelS

great sb start :slight_smile:

Doing anatomy studies is one great way to improve your skills.

About your eye studies…
The eye is a spherical form contained in a socket.
Try to see the complete eyeball as a spherical shape, draw the sphere lightly if you have to.
The spherical shape of the eyeball has a direct impact on the shape of the iris. When you see the iris from a frontal view, it will look like a circle. From an angle it will be an ellips.

Check the eyelids, how do they relate to eachother?
How does that work, when an eye is being closed? Do the lower eyelid and upper eyelid both move towards eachother? It’s got something to do with their position in comparison with eachother and the eyeball.

About shading…
I see your sketches and I remember thinking my drawings looked too flat but I couldn’t point out where the cause was.
Shading can help a lot in creating a feeling of depth, volume, mass.
How it works? By the use of contrast.

If you study the art of masters (ancient and contemporary), you will notice that our eyes are drawn to the area’s with the highest contrast first.

Some good contrast exercises: take a HB pencil and draw some simple shapes (cylinders, spheres, boxes,…). Try to get as high contrast as possible. Do the same with a black pencil (2B or 4B or…). You will see that with a HB pencil you can go only as dark as a really dark grey of some kind, while the 2B pencil will allow you to go black.
In time you will learn that you can often go really dark, adding volume to your shapes and depth to your overall composition.

Anyway,
keep up the good work!
Draw, draw, draw!

#14

Very nice hand studies, Miguel!

I have Loomis’ “Figure Drawing for all its worth” - very good one, start at the beginning and just work your way through, you’ll get a lot out of it! He’s a master of shading.

#15

NR43: Thank you very much for those useful tips, they helped me a lot, I found a 2B pencil in my house (I was using a B pencil) and the difference is quite big, its easier to have a wide variety of tone with a 2b pencil and some really dark ones aswell.
I’ve just got a problem in shading, when shading I used the side of the pencil but it didn’t looked right and it seemed I couldn’t give the black tone that I could give with the tip of the pencil. I don’t know if I’m doing it right.

ceruleanvii: Thank you, I’ve been reading the “Drawing the Head and the hand” one, and it looks great so far, next I’ll go check that one. :slight_smile:

I’ve done some more eye studys, thanks to NR43 tips, I think it looks better than the previous ones, I’ve also done some lip studies, all from Loomis book.
I’ve also done a tone test with a 2 HB pencil, a b pencil and a 2b pencil, the 2b pencil has a wider range of tones and the black really stands out.

Tell me what you think. :slight_smile:

#16

ok, now I’d like you to go and have a look at Rebecca’s charcoal drawings and observe them well. Look at the value range she uses to define form. From very dark to very bright.

Then take your last image in an image editor (photoshop, painter, gimp, acdsee, picasa,…) and edit the contrast. Pull the slider as far as you can without losing form and compare your own original sketches with the edited ones.

Be brave and dare to go dark in values!

Keep experimenting, it’s the fun part about drawing :smiley:

#17

NR43: Thank you for coming back to the thread and for the once again useful advices, you’re a great mentor. :slight_smile:
Rebecca’s charcoal drawings really have a lot of value in them, a wide selection of blacks and whites, I should dare myself more to use darker values.
Here’s the contrast differences in the drawing, using photoshop. -> Contrast Comparison

Here’s some more Loomis, some noses and ears.

I had some difficulty on the noses.

#18

Great work Miguel
Can you see your drawings really pop out on the high contrast image?
You will soon find out that it is really just a de-click to make inside your head (at least, that’s how I experience it, all the sudden I realize I am not worried anymore about something that used to bother me).

Great path ahead of you and I’m eager to see your next steps

#19

Hey MiguelS,

Wow…the contrast really gave your sketch that extra pop factor. Keep up the great work!

#20

NR43: Yeah, it really pops out, I need to go more into the blacks. Thank you for your continuous support.

Venuscia: It did didn’t it? I need to use more blacks, thanks for the support. :slight_smile:

Trying to do some quick head sketches with little reference, but I kept doing them quite bad, any tips where I’m failing?

Some skull practicing, the first also looks a bit weir, but I couldn’t figure it out what was making it weird…

And some “action of the head on the neck”, part 1, more to come.

Comments and critics are appreciated.

#21

Sorry for the double post, my browser is messing up with me.:shrug:

#22

Sorry for not posting anything for some time now, its just that I have been sick.

But now I’m feeling better, so I did one of the heads from a masterpiece, “DÜRER, Albrecht
Head of an Apostle Looking Upward”, this one took quite a while, and I almost given up at half of it, it just wasn’t working out, but then I got some motivation and finished it.

I hope you like it. :slight_smile:

#23

I’ve done some quick figure studys from some of Boris Vallejo works (the girls) and others from Marvel comics (the guys).

Any crits and comments are welcome.

Oh and btw, if someone could tell me what should I do next for improvement/learning, it would be very helpful. (I’m a bit lost and don’t know where I’m standing at this point…)
Thanks. :slight_smile:

#24

great studies and great masters to study from :slight_smile:

watch the size of the head, you tend to draw small heads in your gestures (I did too last night in class, perhaps why I notice it so quickly today)

Try to find a “system” that works for you to draw gestures. What I mean is that it’s better to establish some sort of sense of proportion first -eg by starting with the waist wedge, then torso, then head, then legs then arms; or in a similar order if this one doesn’t work well for you-
While at it try to express the flow of the figure as a whole (drawing a centre line first helps a lot).

I know, I know, it’s easy to write this down but so hard to do. So my advise is to search for this “tool” (cfr Vilppu) and make it your own. But above all, please don’t expect to find it today or tomorrow (I know coz I’m searching for it and still haven’t found it after many tries)… it takes months if not longer but persistance is everything!

You’re doing great and I’m looking forward to see your next studies!
Great work!

#25

Thanks for the support and tips NR43.
Really appreciated. :slight_smile:

#26

Hi Miguel, good to see you are doing more studies! You may want to look into the proportions, the heads are a bit small and torsos a bit large.

I’ve heard of a lot of different methods to approach gesture, but in general, the common thread seems to be to determine a center line (the flow of the pose) then block in torso, and then hips (these determine twist, weight) and add on from there -

Can you get in on a life drawing class anywhere? I personally think they’re wonderful, a great way to study and learn about the figure. You can learn a lot from books, comics, etc - but there’s nothing like having the real thing in front of you to work from!

Good work, looking forward to seeing more!

#27

Thanks ceruleanvii, I haven’t noticed that the proportions were bad, thanks for saying. :slight_smile:
I’ll try to start by doing a center line (I haven’t done that in any of my studies), that might workout better than the way I was doing (starting by the head-torso-arms-hips-legs).

I’m afraid I can’t, there’s no such class around where I live and I’m starting with my exams so I wouldn’t have the time for the class, I guess I’ll have to learn from books or have some life drawing classes sometime later in my life. :arteest:

Here’s today’s sketches, I’ve been trying to do a medusa (I already did a portait of her once, but it didn’t work out so well…). I’m having some problems with her chest though, so any quick paintovers or tips would be gladly apreciated.

#28

One more Medusa sketch, brought a little further.

#29

Number 1 Hand study for the OFDW 023 - Hands. (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=199&t=619548)

Trying not to take much time on this one, but I still took a long time. Total time about a little more than 40 minutes.

Anyway, here it is.

Hope you like it.

#30

Here’s some new stuff.
Been doing some Bridgman drawings lately, I’m really liking his free style, having fun with these.

Hope you like, comments and critics are gladly taken. :slight_smile:

#31

While some masters’ style will appear more appealing to you than others, it’s not the style that is important but what they are trying to say with their drawings :wink:

Think about the forms. Anatomy is important in this sense that form is a direct consequence of it… eg if the knee has certain edges which appear sharper, it is because of the shape of the bones that form the knee. Try to think about the function of each bone and muscle and more particularly how they work together. It will help your drawing if you know how things work.

Keep going!

#32

Thanks, I really need to read more and better understand the masses.

Here are some neck from Bridgman.