Sketchbook Thread of Vicmonty

#77

I changed his pose. Now I don’t have any arms to use as ref. Comments and critiques will be great!

#78

You can always use a mirror :wink:
Also, you shouldn’t be spending a lot of time rendering, when you’re not certain of the pose yet.
Do some quick sketches, say a dozen, pick the best pose and then do 5 or 6 different quick light thumbs, in which you let the light source have a different position. Pick the best one of those 6 thumbs and stick to it. Then use a mirror and simulate the lighting conditions as you want them in your painting.
Have fun!

#79

Do you remember the first time you had something “click” while you were painting? I can’t really explain it, but it happened while I was rendering. All that reading I have been doing about painting seemed to make sense and was real to me.
It was a great feeling and I felt another barrier come down. I think that’s why I jumped ahead without fully nailing a pose. 12 thumbnails, then 6 with light and pick one. got it!
Thanks for always visiting my SB. I really appreciate you sharing your knowlegde with me.

#80

No worries mate, I learn just as much as you do by doing this (remembering myself of what to do) :smiley:

#81

here’s the latest. almost 2 wks now. i learned a lot with this one. great time.

how can this one be improved?

#82

Your improvement from the beginning of this thread is really impressive. It gives me a little push to keep working. Great work!

#83

well I appreciate it. I have a long way to go. If it wasn’t for the response from this community, I’m not sure how far I would have gone. The community just existing gave me a drive to move you know? The resources and the idea of creating and adding to the greatness that is CGS. It’s frustrating, but rewarding when you see what you can do. Also, when people say practice helps, you have to listen.

#84

okay, so here’s what i’ve been up to last wk in between family, work and school. I’m starting to let loose a bit. enjoying this more. letting go of that “fear”.

photo ref. i fixed the hand once, still looks a bit twisted. 3 hrs photoshop

1 hr photo shop. photo ref.

photoshop. unsure about time, i started and stopped a few times. maybe an hr. masterstudy from this cgs thread. sorolla copy…

#85

hey vic, your value studies are getting a lot better. I think for an hours work they work quite well. If I could leave a little tip, I would suggest not leaving large areas of white in a portrait painting, or else the image begins to look “blown out” to use photography terms. Keep it up!

#86

1-2 hrs speed painting. not so much “speed” hehe.

looking at this now, it looks blurry. is it because of my strokes. nothing hard enough?

does the white in her dress give that “burned out” look?

at first i thought i could pull off her sash with a really dark green. then i thought i saw a dark blue or dark purple. my eyes playing tricks on me?

her dress almost looked like it was a white, almost yellow dress.

I went with bright yellows for the highlights in the dress. was this a good idea?

I saw pink in here arm. then i thought to add some of that yellow highlight on her arm too.

the photo itself isn’t what we normally use to study because it was dim, to me. i guess the photographers style? I auto adjusted and got a pretty clear photo.

ref: http://stacifilth.deviantart.com/

#87

I agree with some of the other posts on your sketchbook your improvement is really inspirational. Keep up the hard work!

:beer:

#88

Thank you very much. It’s that fear that keeps us from progressing. It takes a hold of us. Just let it go…

#89

hello everyone. continuing to do what I can. I started a Ruben’s study. Then I caught wind of a Zelda 25th anniversary contest at cghub. So I came up with this…

photoshop, plus 4 hrs. comments and critiques please. Thank you. I hope to produce work good enough to go into my cgs portfolio soon.

#90

photo study. photoshop 2 hrs intuos 3. sorry but i can’t remember what site I pulled this photo from.

#91

currently working on a contest desinging street fighter zombies. I chose vega. ref photo courtesy characterdesigns.com



#92

everytime I start a new painting I think about all the work it’s going to take and feel like I can’t do it. Looking back at my Zelda piece, even though it’s not great, it makes me feel accomplished.

I just always feel like I’m starting my first piece every new piece of art work I work on. I get confused as to where to start. Darks first? Lights and then darkest darks and lightest lights? I try to think on how I navigated through my last picture. I can’t remember.

All I do remember is that I felt overwhelmed! I also remember that I just dove into the piece. I chipped away at it one piece at a time in a sense.

When I paint, I have a bad habbit of expecting to see a masterpiece after a couple of strokes. I have to remind myself that it’s the gradual build up of a piece that makes it into something that the viewer would say “oh yea, I accept that”.

Here’s what I have so far in PS with my intuous. Please Please I need critiques on this whole SB. Thank you.

#93

Maybe doing a few simpler pieces will help restore the confidence.Do some still life paintings from life.
Take your time to set up a great still life, don’t rush. (for me personally, it often takes an hour or more)
Try to start painting without expectations of the result.
Just observe, measure, and paint what you see.
Slow down when painting
A rushed work is never good.

This can be very relaxing and is a great way to build confidence back to a higher level.
Paint as much still lifes as needed. When your confidence has grown and you find yourself drawing from imagination again, you will soon find out if you are ready or not.
If not, just go back to the still life painting.

Why still life?
It will make you think about the basics again.
If you practice those long enough, those basics about perspective, composition, tonal and chromatic effects etc will become 2nd nature and you won’t have to think that much of how you will paint your idea, rather than think about your idea itself. Then you are ready to step up the ladder and tackle more difficult subjects.

In the mean time you can keep practicing anatomy etc by sketching outdoors (pencil or ballpoint pen are AWESOME media).

Remember that painting from imagination is harder than painting from life, because you have to see how your subjects are lit in your mind. It’s not in front of you to see how the light falls on the forms.

Sometimes we want something so badly, that we tend to rush towards our goals.
Unfortunately, painting is a “metier” that does not allow for shortcuts.
There are none.
The hours studying the basics must be gone through.
So patience and persistence are your friends :wink:

Good luck and keep us posted of your progress.

#94

Same here. But after some time I can tell if it’s going anywhere or not. Usually spending more time on a piece will make it look better. I must say though, that sometimes it’s just not worth wasting time on a painting that really sucks. But it’s still practice, which makes you better. Currently I’m working on a piece that is taking me very long just to see what I can achieve if I invest loads of time and not throw it away after a few hours, which does happen very often. Hopefully I’ll end up with something halfway decent. Perhaps I’m at this level where I really need a lot of time to paint something good looking. Maybe you are too. It’s a great learning experience. Speed comes with skill, so take your time for those better results.
One other thing, use reference! I’m quite lazy when it comes to that, but it helps so much, so I try not to skip the step of gathering refence images for my paintings. No reason why you shouldn’t do it.
Oh, and listen to what Johan said :slight_smile: Good luck.

#95

Thank you Johan. I will relax. Yes it is enjoyable. Even in the early stages when I’m laying in the big spots of color. I’ll find something to set up for my still life. I have a plain white coffee mug I was thinking of using. I’ll find something to contrast it?

razz, I agree. I always have reference. I just got doodling with the last one and felt like it was going somewhere. I got to the ligthing and value part…stuck! I got ahead of myself I guess. I have tons of sketches on my hardrive. Perhaps I’ll revisit these some day with ref and come up with something worth viewing.

I started this study of Abbot Thayer’s Winged Figure. It’s taking me very long. Working 30 min here, 1 hr there doesn’t speed it up either. Then again, I’m really taking this one slow. Looking at the colors used and seeing how they relate to those next to them.

Let me know how you think I’m doing. My question when I paint is if I’m going in the right direction. Am I tackling this study in a proper way? I thought about going grayscale, but I was really inspired and I could really feel the colors in this one.


#96

Your sketchbook is looking great Vic! I really like the Zelda and Demon hunter pieces. Your compositions are great.

It is nice to see you working in color on this winged figure. I’ve been trying to transition from b&w sketches to color as well, it’s hard! But it is looking good to me. You could probably wrap it up solid with some darker darks (esp on the head, to bring in some focus) and a little more time working in the background. It’s a nice study!

Johan and Razz make good points, as always. I had a few general thoughts as well:

I get confused as to where to start. Darks first? Lights and then darkest darks and lightest lights?

Everyone works a bit differently, and technically digital tools give us the freedom of having no absolute rules. However, for me, it tends to help me know where I’m at if my digital painting follows the general process that I use in oil painting. That way I don’t get stuck or lost. With oil painting, usually it’s pretty straightforward. You’re either done with the step you’re on and ready to move on to the next, or you’re not! Generally, my steps are: sketch/block in darks. Then model the form and establish lighting with the midtones. Then blending, cleaning, fixing, going back over darkest darks if necessary, etc. Then small details, accents and highlights. Usually working with larger brushes at first, moving on to smaller brushes as I go. That’s a pretty traditional painting process and it seems to work for me. Before I’d done much oil painting, my digital paintings would often get stuck halfway through and I wouldn’t be sure where to go next. Oil painting helped: you have to finish the step you’re working on and then let it set up and dry before moving on, and it’s usually pretty clear what to do next! Working in various media has helped me a lot.

Anyway, looking great man!