Now or never - a sketchbook (critique's welcome) 56kAlarm

#1

Here are some paintings, mostly speedpaints that i drew over the time.
Many of them are quite old and are probably better, than they would be, if I drew them now, because I never kept praciticing in a really determined way.
I want now to keept it up over a longer timeperiod to get some of my skills back and to improve them finally.
I think, I’ll start now nearly from scratch with value, form, anatomy and color studies and will try to post regularly.
It would be great to get feedback from the pros here, who could point out the flaws and show me where to improve.








#2







#3



Some Nintendo DS Sketches


#4

Howdy dude, beautiful pack of images you shown here :slight_smile: There is hardly anything to criticize since from my point of view you’re exploring the art world wisely. So just keep doing it this way, I’ll be watching your thread with passion :wink:

#5

thx, siiilon :arteest:

watching your thread with passion

I do that do with your thread since some time now, I just didn’t leave any comment yet, but its really great.

Heres my todays attemp on a movie screenshot… It’s not allt that ambitious, but I think, its better keep the energy for a long run, than to exhaust it in the beginning.

#6

hey Vyse, good to see you with your own sketchbook. I like you stuff. Some of the BW stuff is great, like the face a lot.

But I have to say, that there seems to be a big gap in quality between your stuff from reference and the stuff from mind. It is a problem I have as well.

#7

Hey Vyse, drawing shots from movies is actually good idea, it’s like reverse engineering of someone else design - something like a old master’s study.

TedNindo wrote :

But I have to say, that there seems to be a big gap in quality between your stuff from reference and the stuff from mind.

                  Agreed, but that's 100 percent OK. We spent a big deal of time slowly lowering this "gap". There's no other way, just keep drawing from refference/life and THINK about your subject of study. Is it perspective, form, value, color? Newer try to focus on everything at once equally, choose one thing and "THINK -> SEE -> SKETCH -> THINK .."(quotation from Thomas C. Wang).

It is a problem I have as well.

                  Fortunatelly all of us ;) (otherwise it wouldn't be fair)
#8

Jup, I think its exactly like Siilion wrote, that the gap gets smaller, the more we learn from real life or reference drawing and apply it to our spontaneous doodles.
I think an artist will be dependent on references a very long time, even if your good at drawing from mind, there will be always situations, where you cant push the painting further without consulting an reference image.

argh, had some stressful days again… but I decided, that I will do nevertheless at least every day some of this 30 Seconds drawings from posemaniacs.com

Posemaniacs_01

#9

hey vyse-soa!
i like the environments from the first post, also the first lineart from the 2nd. those posemaniacs are really nice as well!
just keep them coming! :slight_smile:

#10

Nice sketchbook, keep up the good work. :slight_smile:

//
A tip for you guys would be to look at the world around you or reference and try to analyze without painting from it.
Look at the sky and remember that usually the sky is brighter than the ground, things closer to the observer gets darker.
This is also the same with color, following rules it usually is colder in the background and gets warmer the closer to the observer it gets.
Scale is also one important thing, without concern of what it is in the picture scaling objects give you depth.

In decorative painting we were taught a scale of 3, which means 3 diffferent sizes on your brush will suffice to give you depth.
Experiment with the rules though, I think if you do mistakes you will learn from them.
This is why I try to post pictures even if I know there are mistakes in them.
I think there’s a learning curve from it.
Hmm my thinking anyway.
Rules are meant to be broken though.

Some of these rules above takes years to understand. It doesn’t come immediately because it perhaps is better if you found them out by yourself aswell.
Hmm I ramble too much lol.

keep it up

#11

I know what you mean. I’m doing this since some time now.
Its kinda fascinating to look at the world around you and try to simplify what you see to a rule which you can apply for painting.
For example, the farther away someting is, the more it gets the ambient color of the sky.
Or simplified water waves are like two mirrors aranged like that /_/_ (sideview) and each side reflects the enviroment its facing at. etc.
But still I cant paint…


#12

That’s why a camera can’t bend the rules like we do, or follow the rules like a painter can.
Sometimes in nature you get something very dark, you as a painter can decide to not do it like that.
A painter can do what is most important for the painting.

However I think to do what is most important for the painting is easier when you do abstract pieces, when adding recognizeable the reading of that shape becomes more important.
I still have a problem with this, takes mileage for sure.
A quick overpaint adding some rules to give depth, eventhough your reference probably was like that…

keep it up

#13

Wow, thx, Matthew,

The overpaint looks great with this purple touch, it givs a great color-unitiy… should have thought of that.
And the reference was indeed different, but your picture looks better. Its this rule, which many watercolour painter propose: Not to copy the scene exactly how it is, but to do changes, which support your intention.

#14

Hey Vyse-soa, just a little comment, forget about the color change and look more what Matthew did with the values of the sky and background :wink:
You can view that in greyscale if are not able to separate value from color. There is nothing bad about it, it’s the same like flipping the canvas.
Keep up buddy

#15

The references were very dark again, still tried to give em some value balance.
yeah, It’s kinda hard to separate color from value or get the values right… I’ll definitely have to start doing these black and white value sketches.

#16

Very nice updates!
I did quick overpaint to show you something about how you needn’t be too literal about painting from refference. Some things could be simplified, other could be totally omitted, but some should be treat with caution. There are plenty of “space destroyers”. Some deal with aerial perspective, other with linear perspective. On the top image you can see the region (within ellipse) that contains plenty of these, hence should be treat with caution. Look at the red dots showing the foreshortening with increasing distance. Do these on a separate layer, these will serve you well.

What I did?

  1. I cleaned the sky mostly above the horizont (was too busy)
  2. I cleaned the tree-line (it’s not nice, but more uniform)
  3. And mostly I added a little “tail” to a river to show the most important space-indicator.

I know, the refference is probably much different, but the point remains the same I think.
(btw, don’t hesitate to add some color balance, it’s not a cheat, you control it, you can learn from it )
Keep posting dude!

#17

wow, very nice work. I really like the look and feel of those backdrops

and very good tips; siiilon

#18

Yes guys this is awesome this what you are doing here is the best way to learn, to interact and overpaint.
When you overpaint and explain things to someone you will learn from it yourself aswell, makes you think about things and to repeat it to yourself is never bad either. :slight_smile:

Good overpaint siiilon. :slight_smile:
Matthew (Mattias)

#19

Thx Siilion for the overpaint.
This little Tail makes such a big difference, only this few strokes into the river give the painting much more depth.

Here are a few very more with a simple perspective.
I’ll probably try for the next few ones to use onlythe round brush.

The ref image looks so simple enough, still its so hard to get near the reference quaility.



#20

Here are a few very more with a simple perspective.

Good choice, 1 point perspective is good to practice foreshortening without pain.

I’ll probably try for the next few ones to use onlythe round brush.

Well, for the sake of practice it’s good choice as well. Help you to concentrate more on correct placements of strokes instead of struggling too much with textures (those are not so important at all). I found a hard round brush great to practice shading, oh man how was I tempted to get my airbrush :smiley:

The ref image looks so simple enough, still its so hard to get near the reference quaility.

Don’t be fooled, this one is really far from been simple. And trees without leaves - oh my gosh - that’s an issue. But, I recommend drawing trees, rocks and grass - I am no drawing them enough myself. The are so many hidden pitfalls in drawing these, you know.

A small note to the last image : use more lasso tool when dealing with those subtle gradients in the background, it’s hell worthy - try it!

Keep up, you’re doing great buddy :wink:

Btw, I saw this in your porfolio, it’s gorgeous!