Tasp's Sketchbook

#21

…Hi Andrew…Here is a link to a friend of mine’s sketchbook…He is not around the forums that much anymore…busy making his own comics.:slight_smile: …He is a drawing master and sculptor of the highest caliber…He does some great action drawings which may be of interest to you…and from which alot can be learned from the study of.
He is also a great fan of and learned alot of his drawing skills from Burne Hogarth whom I mentionioned to you earlier…ANYWAY the link to his thread is right below…Check it out when you have time…:thumbsup:
His name is Siju

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=200&t=296477&highlight=Siju

#22

Siju’s stuff was great to look over Glenn, thanks for the recommendation yet again! It’s a strange looking at such amazing work. I’m inspired and intimidated at the same time. I’m focusing on being inspired, as that second feeling is not going to be useful to me if I want to progress. Here two sketches I did today, mostly using reference from the 15minute sketch thread. I’m going to revisit the two that were based off of Michelangelo and try to do them better.

The Torso ended up too small in this one.

#23

Stuff from today

From Loomis

From Imagination, after I drew the first one I tried to see if I could stand like that and it doesn’t seem possible.

Redraw of the Michelangelo posted above… seems a little better, torso should be angled more to the left I think…

#24

I can see you really like figure drawing.

If you are really serious about it, you should learn how the basic blocks (cube, sphere, cone) are the foundations of figure art (all realistic art for that matter).

One of the better tuition I have received is from Glenn Vilppu:

http://www.vilppustore.com/manuals.htm

Check him out to see if you like his way of teaching.

#25

Hey Vincent thanks for the suggestion. A friend of mine also recommended Vilppu to me as well and has a copy of his Drawing Manual. He was kind enough to offer to let me borrow it so I will be picking it up sometime tomorrow. That’s going to make my drawing book collection at about 7.

About the cones/cubes/spheres- I understand the basic set up of a figure relies on these primitive shapes in my sketching today I did two figures with just those basic shapes, it was a good exercise and something I think I might start doing more of. It’s a little easier for me to draw a blocked in figure with these shapes than it is to use Loomis’ Mannikin Technique, at least for now.

#26

So I borrowed the Vilppu Drawing Manual from my friend, who was also kind enough to give me some pointers on how I should be holding my pencil as well. It seems like a great book. I’ve been practicing drawing interlocking spheres so far today and the results are very enjoyable. So far this book seems a little more accessible than the ones I have by Loomis or Hogarth. Both of them are amazing artists but their books seemed to be aimed at people who are farther along in their development than I currently am. Here are two pages from the sketch book today, I’ll have something more detailed in while.

#27

From a Life Drawing Session

#28

Nice figure drawings. What’s this Loomis book all about? I’ve heard it mentioned a lot around here, is it worth buying, have you profitted much from it?
Good thread though, the work appears as if it’s constantly improving. :slight_smile:
But because this is a critique forum too, how about more facial details from your next life drawing session?

#29

Hi Carl00,

Andrew Loomis has written a lot of figure drawing books and many people on this forum have used his works as a way to help themselves get better. I usually see people recommend “Fun With a Pencil” or “Figure Drawing For All Its Worth”. I currently have “Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth” and I’ve found it very helpful and worth the money I invested. There are very useful concepts as well as instructional tools that help you learn the curves and major muscles of the body.

Also thank you for the critique! I tend to avoid faces during my life drawing sessions. This is because I usually end up getting sucked into drawing them correctly and it makes me forget the rest of the figure. To avoid this I’ve been trying to just block out the basic shape of the head and put in the blocking lines for the head. I’m starting to get a little more comfortable with drawing the body and slowly getting faster so at the next session I’ll try to focus on getting some more detailed faces in there. After all avoiding them is not going to make me better at drawing them!

#30

Here are some recent sketches.

This first one contains a quickie from imagination and one from memory from Vilppu

Reference from the 15minute Sketchathon Thread

Head Study, quick rough sketch, noticed that the proportions were way off and attempted to edit them

Final sketch of the same head study

Comments/Critique/Suggestions/Encouragement are, as always, welcome.

#31

In your last image the only thing I would recommend is adding some darker pencils to it just to bring out the features and whatnot a little more.

#32

Carl00 thanks for the suggestion, I’ll attempt that later tonight when I get home from work. Shading is still something I’m getting comfortable with. The reference pic I was using was very light in it’s shading (it was a sculptuer actually in white stone). Because I took this picture with a camera you can’t see what faint shading I’ve done so far. I’ll try to darken it up and bring the features out a bit more.

Here are some sketches from today the first two are without reference, looking at them makes it very obvious I still have to draw from life a lot more before I’m ready to draw from my imagination. The second one is a concept I’m working on and playing around with a few quick blocking ideas. Last one is from reference (about 15minutes).

#33

Spent a good 45minutes to an hour on shading here’s what I’ve got. It’s not great, but it’s definitely an improvement, if you want to see the reference I used this is lifted from the Anatomy Lesson Series The Head. It’s the Bust of Cardinal Giovanni Garzia Mellini. The more I look at it though the more I realize the ear isn’t in the right place compared to the eyse. Regardless I learned a lot going back to this piece and trying to shade it better.

#34

Two quick sketches from today… I feel like I should spend more time on some of these. But I also think I need to get them looking better, both with the proportions and the life that’s in them. Perhaps part of it is that I’m not comfortable with my shading abilities just yet.

From the Torso Workshop- Michelangelo Bounarroti, Bacchus

And another Rubens Pieter Pauwel, Pan and Syrinx

#35

Tasp,

Nice work in here. I think that you need to focus on three things right now:

  1. Draw completely through your figures as if they were made of glass. The contour or silhouette should be a side effect of the forms that you have created. Never draw the outlines first. Try running lines over the forms in any direction and then around to the other (back side).

  2. Learn the major masses of the body better: the skull, the ribcage, and the pelvis. Get your hands on a skeleton or some good anatomy books (Richet, Bridgman, Bammes, Hale) and try to get to the point where you can draw these masses accurately from any angle. Start with simple versions or mass conceptions and then refine these conceptions as you develop.

  3. Study your proportions. I recommend Richet, Hale, and Loomis for this. Get to the point where you can draw the generic figure in correct proportion from various angles. It will take a lifetime to attain mastery of proportions but spending a few days hammering it home will pay off. When you draw check your proportions and fix your mistakes. Going through the constant checking will help you learn proportions whenever you draw.

I think you’re doing really well and I like that each post shows progress.

#36

JJ- Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement!

I’m in the process of learning anatomy, you can check out the studies I’ve been doing from an anatomy book in Levius’ Anatomy Dojo Thread. It’s slow going but I’m trucking along regardless.

I generally try to do a quick gesture or blocking sketch before drawing in my figures, some of these lines don’t show up in the sketches I put up here because I either erase them or my camera doesn’t pick them up (I don’t have a scanner yet).

About drawing through my figures, I am not sure I completely understand what you are suggesting. I’ve occasionally used lines to bind my figures to help me understand what the angle is that I am viewing them at, or to help me see that I’m drawing a 3d and not a 2d shape, but I think you are referring to something different. If it’s not too much trouble I’d appreciate a simple example of what you are talking about.

#37

My best sketch of the day, from Michelangelo-

#38

I went to a life drawing class. It was glaringly obvious that I need to work on “form” instead of outlining as JJacobo suggested. I think part of this is because the class makes me feel constantly rushed so I tend to get ahead of myself. When I’ve only got a few minutes to catch a pose I try to push myself farther than I should. I feel like the drawings where I’m given more time turn out better. Next class I will try to focus more on forms and avoid outlining until I’ve got the complete form down.

This one has the Instructors marks all over it, she said I had the basic form down relatively well but showed me where I went wrong.

Got to use a Cretacolor on this last one, I think I might like those more than charcoal, I’ll have to pick some up and experiment with them.

#39

I think you shouldn’t worry about outlining for now. Just work as you do, keeping that in mind, studying anatomy. Then it will change for better with time, just be patient. Keep up the good work!

#40

Mister3d- Thanks for the encouragement and suggestion! I’m trying to learn everything I can so it does lead me to try out just about anything that is suggested to me. I’ve been studying anatomy and, thanks to Levius’ thread, spending a lot of time drawing bones. I do feel that I’m slowly progressing and am more than willing to be patient. I’ve been at this for a long time but only recently have I actually gone out of my way to devote time on a consistent basis towards improvement.

On that note I’m going to a post a few drawings that I normally wouldn’t. These are doodles mostly without reference. The portrait of the woman is from the Anatomy Series part 1 the head. I looked at the picture for a while and sketched out a quick gesture, then tried to progress without looking at the reference again. I consider these mostly failures, but I learned from every one of them so that’s a good silver lining. I have been noticing that my gesture drawings without reference seem to be a lot more flowy than when I am drawing from life or reference and I really like that. I think I will try to capture that feeling more in the future. Anyway here they are

The skull was obviously very very wrong, I went and studied it some more before trying to draw it without reference a second time

Issues with foreshortening, deliberately picked a wierd angle to try and see what I could do without reference

Gesture with no reference

And again