Sketchbook Thread of Johan Derycke

#41

NR43,

Great to see your exercises coming along! :slight_smile: I don’t think that crits as such are really necessary at this point in terms of the Loomis exercises ~ you are new to them, and as such, it will just take time and practice to get used to them ~ as you seem to be doing quite nicely. :slight_smile:

I don’t think you’ve ‘ruined’ nr 80, in fact, volumetrically, I think the head is reading quite well. I think after doing many of these faster drawings / paintings, it would be a good exercise to do a more extended, finished copy, where you can really get the pieces nailed into place to your own satisfaction. :slight_smile:

Looking forward to seeing your next update!

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#42

Hey great stuff here!

You may want to take a look at crosshatching for your pen stuff. Your painter stuff is really coming along!

#43

aLoneCuzzo: thanks. I’ll work on it for sure.

Rebeccak: I’ll have the day off on friday and I hope I can deliver something decent that day :slight_smile: I Still have loads of heads on my to do list (which is getting tremendously big by now)

We’re having rather unusual hot weather here in Belgium. 38°C is enough to cook my lil old brains so I’m having a bit of troubles concentrating lately due to this. Even at work lol, we’re all complaining about not being able to think eheh you should see my bosses face.

Anywayz, I’m still spending my time usefull by reading lots of anatomy threads of all you fine peepz here. It’s amazing how much info there is available here.:love:

thank you all

#44

Why why why did I do this??? Only to see all these mistakes omg.
This isn’t progress, this is almost going backwards huh

The first one I started at work, but there are so many mistakes I don’t think I will finish it (ref is head 30)
The 2nd one, head nr 82, I did just now. It totally sux omg. I guess I was concentrating too much on the hatching (which isn’t even good) and totally ignored the anatomy.

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

Well, let’s hope I learn my lesson with these.
I’m a bit mad at myself now ^^

#45

Hey,

don’t chastise yourself - or not too much…:scream:

I actually like a lot of things about the last head. Don’t have the ref at hand so it’s just based on what I see:

the facial planes are nice and clearly laid out.
the highlights along with the general value structure I like very much.
The folds kick ass.

so much from me.

Keep goin’!

#46

NR43,

Don’t be so hard on yourself ~ we certainly all have good and bad drawing days, and the beauty of the digital age is that all traditional work can be tweaked and corrected :wink: ~ so please don’t despair! :slight_smile:

I actually think both drawings show a nice touch with the pen, certainly it’s not an easy medium to use ~ you might find it useful to sketch the basic shapes in lightly first with pencil before detailing with pen. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#47

Ok, thanks for trying to calm me down guys. I can get rather emotional sometimes blushes. I had another look at my last pen studies and aside from the proportions, the hatching is improved so that’s quite positive. Thanks Mr Mu :slight_smile:

And thank you again Rebeccak for the tip. Now why didn’t I think of this myself? :smiley:
It’s really great to have experienced people follow up and giving advise, as simple or basic the info may seem.

bows gratefully

Female Proportion Chart

My first attempt.
I intend to update these every now and then. More particularly after doing some intensive body part studies and coming back to see if I can use the experience on these studied body parts to include them in an improved body chart.

No idea if this will work, but it sounds logical to me. As you can see I’m a leftie, thus I (usually) draw from right to left.

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

i’ve been going through a lot of anatomy threads again. Learning with each post I read, but sometimes when reading, I forget the time, because I am so focussed on what I read. I often have to come to the conclusion I spent all the available time reading instead of drawing.
Guess I’ll have to cut back on the reading a bit eh.

Hoping to finish another head study later on today (or maybe 2) but I have to watch the kids all day so I have no idea how much I’ll be able to do.

#48

Pretty nice progress NR43!

Press on =D

#49

@ BNN: Thankies, still a lot of work to do. The good thing is, it’s actually more a lot of fun than “work”.

Head 72.
Took my time for this one, all in all 4-5hrs I think, but not in one session, more like 15 sessions. 35°C makes it hard to concentrate for longer than 30min, tour de france is also an excellent diversion :slight_smile:

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

One thing I learned with this one is I shouldn’t be trying to render details too quickly. It’s also an interesting experience to realize my approach to recreate a reference image has changed completely over the last few weeks :smiley:

I can’t thank you people enough for this. Ofcourse I’m the one drawing things, but you guys are excellent teachers :thumbsup:

Next head will be digital again, haven’t used my wacom (I call her my mistress eheh) since last week…

#50

Agreed. The head study looks great. Some proportion issues sure, but overall the sense of volume is there.

#51

NR43,

Wow, this latest piece is really impressive! :thumbsup: Beautiful work ~ really amazing attention to the small planes / details of the face. :slight_smile:

Keep up the good work!

Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#52

Thanks se7en-z3r0 and Rebeccak. Coming from you, these words sound like music to my ears :slight_smile: But there’s still much to do.

A quick version of head 88 below.
I’m gonna take this a lot further. There are still some huge corrections to be made, but it’s about all I could do today.

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

#53

Hm, it looks like I did a rush job of 20min or so, but I actually spent nearly 3hrs on it. Redrew it from (nearly) scratch. Having a hard time on this girl trying to get the proportions right.

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

to be continued…

#54

Hi Johan,

I didn’t see you were from Belgium too, when i posted my comment. I will start my anatomy thread by the weekend i hope.
I see you are studying Loomis. It’s a good way too start. The way he constructs heads was a revelation to me.
I’ll come back with more useful comments when i have more time. In the mean time keep on going!

#55

NR43,

You have a lovely touch with all media; in this last piece, the basic relationships of the face, particularly around the mouth / nose area, are working really well. :slight_smile: I think these more careful constructions will serve you well; most artists do best when they feel in control, it’s harder to feel in control with the more quickly done pieces but a larger goal is achieved with that as well.

Looking forward to your updates! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#56

Johan/NR43 :slight_smile:

[b]

Head nr 72[/b]
Another one using a ballpen

The hair was really fun to do in this one: curl curl curl curl …

Very good job with this one - really like your pen work.

#88 is also in my working pile at the moment. Your 3 hours were well spent - a close likeness and neatly done.

#57

Yvonne: thanks, have you done anything with ballpen? not easy but fun once you get the hang of it

Rebeccak: thank you. I am a control freak yeah, how did you know hehe. Worked a bit on #88 today, but not enough to post yet, hopefully tomorrow…

batte812: can’t wait to see your stuff! I’ve tried Loomis for drawing heads and yeah his “foolproof plan” works for me so I guess it really is foolproof eheh. I think I’ll move on to Burne Hogarth to focus more on the rest of the body though

Some body part studies, namely muscles of the shoulder and torso
The only one that is a bit decent is the last one, the front. I really dislike the back view of the torso coz I really screwed up on the proportions.
Found out I’ve got some nasty habbits concerning drawing bodies. I tend to draw them too long. Well, practice makes perfect, hopefully after a couple of hundred sketches things will be better :slight_smile:

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

[image deleted to save bandwidth - apologies]

more to come soon…

#58

Hey Johan,

I’m impressed to see with how much energy you start here and the organized way you’re learning the basics. You really know what you want, eh:) ? And the improvement is already visible, head # 72 is beautiful:thumbsup: ! I’m watching out for more now…

Have a nice day!

-sabrina

#59

Johan,

Fantastic to see these studies ~ I think the main thing that I would suggest is really emphasizing those opposing curves ~ see the article link in my signature.

With traditional drawings, one thing I recommend is after completing a drawing that may have proportional mistakes, is to take a piece of tracing paper and redraw the areas that need to be corrected. This serves to not only soothe one’s ego (believe me, I know the importance of this), :smiley: but also to reinforce the correct proportions / drawing, etc.

Looking forward to your updates! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#60

Sabrina: Thanks for the support. I’m honored that you are interested in my progress. Don’t be shy, be harsh if it is needed… I can only learn :slight_smile:

Rebecca: I’ve read your article on Opposing Curves a couple of times now. I think the idea behind this is slowly dripping into my mind by now… well enough to realize that keeping this in mind while drawing all the time… wow that sounds like a serious challenge!
There are a few things I’m still not very certain about though:

[ol]
[li]Why never use concave curves? For instance in the example with the anckle you gave, when you have to zoom in a lot to see the small convex curves looking like a concave curve when zoomed out at normal size? Aren’t we making things harder than we should this way? I mean, it looks like a concave curve but it’s not, while the viewer’s eye tells the viewers brain he/she is seeing a concave curve.[/li][li]Convex vs concave. I suppose this is always to be seen as the relationship of a pair of curves onto eachother (or a pair of grouped curves) and it’s all about balance. It’s not always easy to determine which curves are related to eachother. Is there a trick to see this or something that could help me finding these opposing curves faster/easier? I’m afraid you’ll be answering this with sometihng like “Nope, you see it or you don’t, if you don’t see it, look harder”.[/li][li]Michelangelo and Rubens, sounds great and I will definetely dive into their work sooner or later (Especially Rubens! If you ever come to Europe you simply MUST make a stop in Belgium. There are several places in Belgium that have original Rubens work, check www.rubensonline.be, it’s in dutch but the images speak for themselves and they are cataloged by theme, location or technique. And Rubens is just one of the many many fabulous artists from this area of Europe called “de lage landen”)[/li][/ol]
Please don’t see my questions as critics on your article. I just want to get more out of it than just reading a text and forgetting it afterwards. :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance,
Johan