Sketchbook: The Panda Pad

#121

I think I can help with the color perspective. I think learning the color wheel and color harmonies will improve your color, knowing that tints are the highlights with a mixture of the color white and shades are the shadows or the mixture of the color black. Knowing primary and secondary colors and the difference also helps. Well that is mostly everything for color and since you know your values which I have seen throughout your pieces even with the scale shown I think it wouldn’t be hard transitioning to color.

#122

@Bouke285: Thanks for this! I actually felt the same when I first started, but until I read up on color theory, it just didn’t click. Now I feel a bit more confident going from greyscales to color!

@Nekotiq: Thanks again for this tip! I really think it was bang-on for what I was trying to study.

Here is my coloring process so far:

http://www.chuayou.com/personal/portrait_daylight_studio_003.jpg

#123

… Today’s Update:

Some face construction and gesture studies.

#124

always a pleasure visiting your SB. what type of sb do you use? Awesome stuff! Inspiring stuff!

#125

How was it adding color to that image of the woman in the purple dress? what did you do? overlay layer? multiply?

#126

hey vicmonty, thanks for the comments! I colored the woman with a Color layer, but it looked really bland at first. It’s hard to explain what I did after that to make more convincing colors, but basically I was missing color temperature in my color theory. And I actually got a glimpse of it in this photography video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmgkRYiukK4

After that I was in “mad research” mode trying to understand color temperature and white balancing and how it would apply to paints. So in my mind, i was painting with light “heat” instead of my basic perception of color. It actually sounds kind of crazy when I type it that way, but it really is the abstract of how I painted it.

As for the SB… umm, photoshop is my sketchbook these days. I’m actually saving on pencils and paper lol.

#127

hey what do you think of the new asus slate? runs windows 7! photoshop tablet? what!

#128

@vicmonty: I’ve never used it. But being a tech geek, I looked it up. It seems incredible, hardware-wise. lol. But a bit pricey at $1k. And also I’m not sure how good the stylus sensitivity and pressure would be on it. I just use a second hand Wacom Intuos 3 I bought from eBay and like a two year old computer lol.

… Today’s Update: Construction of the upper torso homework. Selected two from the batch that I drew up this week.

#129

How do you draw facial features perfectly? I’ve been having
some trouble with drawing my own and could use some helpful advice.

#130

The face is an extremely difficult subject for me. You can easily “over construct” the face because of its many many subtle features and end up with a mess. You can have a fantastic facial gesture, but fall short in the construction phase by not understanding the subtle plane shifts on the skull. On top of that, people often scrutinize faces more than they would, say the feet which is another complicated structure.

I really have no fast answer for drawing faces, because to be honest I struggle with it myself. The best thing to do tho is to have a reference. Be it a statue or book, know the hard “landmarks” of the head, and where the soft fatty tissues are. Draw them until its easy to locate them in space relative to one another.

I like this link here because it shows the general planes and is a good start for constructing the smaller facial features: http://artofpros.deviantart.com/art/Face-planes-reference-173177639

I should add that to my agenda of sheets I need to draw. I’ll post it up when I finish them. :wink:

#131

Some really good work and studies. I especially like the girl digital painting, good job!

#132

Hey!
Really cool muscle studies.
The feature studies of the face look very nice.
I also like your girl coloring process.

#133

@gregoo23 and @Talaria: Thank you guys very much!

… Today’s Update: Lower torso construction. Really not happy about the perspective. Got kind of frustrated and stop for today.

#134

… Today’s Update: We’re onto the legs this week and I thought I’d share a construction image on the major muscle groups. Since there were so many muscles to cover, we had to group a lot of them into basic shapes (eggs, tubes, etc).

#135

Tried to figure out the locations of the major leg muscles in space today. Not the cleanest work and would certainly be easier with a live model (that isn’t me).

#136

great studies Chua, love the “flow” of your lines

#137

Right, and now you are going digital. The character of the charcoal/pencils will make a transition into your digital drawings. You are one of those guys/gals that cannot touch a pencil to paper without making something beautiful.

#138

@Cisc0: Thank you!!

@soundwaves: Wow! Thanks for that comment!

… Today’s Update: Some 5-6 minute gesture drawings today. I’m pretty damn slow at gestures, but I picked two that I liked from the batch.

#139

… Today’s Update: Some more charcoal on newsprint. Trying to retain as much Hampton technique as I can while its still fresh. :stuck_out_tongue:

#140

… Today’s Update: Slightly frustrated. There is nothing more of a buzz kill when you set up a figure, only to realize you lost yourself in the process! Noobie mistake, I’m sure. But for today, I’ve had enough. Tomorrow is another day.