Sketchbook Thread of Sheri Tarter--

#1


Since my primary focus is improving my anatomy skills I am starting a thread here to post my figurative work. My other thread at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=441840 will be my “general” thread.

This is my current painting that I started today. This is a WIP, the basic (underpainting) of my painting that I’m about 2 hours into so far.

So far I know the lips need improvement and perhaps her chin is too large? Also not sure about the nose. Any tips/help out there? :wink:

Thanks in advance.

#2

Hi Sheri! great to see you join in the fun!

I’m not a great painter myself but her face seems flat - seems to lack more specific, strong, highlights… .the nose for example and the cheeks is what caught my eye - they are very uniform in colour… think of the cheeks as balls and the nose as a cylinder - you’d get the highlight on the cylinder more in the middle and it would be narower… also since the tip of the nose is like a ball as well it would have a spot highlight on it… your highlights seem to wash out a bit… it’s like you’ve painted them but them spread them around…

that’s just the feel I get :slight_smile: Also the eyes need a highlight in them - will give it some punch!

Keep it coming! I look forward to more and your nickname’s so funny :smiley: I can see that little twitchy rodent…:scream::thumbsup:

#3

Oh I should have been more specific!

This is just a WIP. =) I haven’t really gone in and shaded yet.
I was hoping for some anatomy advice before I commited myself further to the details.

I sincerely appreicate your response though.

#4

Welcome Sheri! :slight_smile:

I’m not at home and won’t be for a few days, but if you are looking for tips for head drawing / painting, check out two links I’ve posted here. A general comment I would make is to always draw the head without hair first - a common mistake is to draw the eyes too far up in the head, where eyes really typically fall in about the middle of the head lengthwise - this is counterintuitive, but look at your own / others’ faces and you will see that this is typically the case.

Since this is just a WIP stage, I’ll look forward to your future stages - also be sure to check out the Head Drawing Workshop:

Anatomy Lesson Series: Body Part 1 - The Head
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=375031

Lots of great, inspirational work there, and tips too! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

-Rebeccak

#5

Wow! Thank you Rebeccak!

Here is an update I was working on before you commented. I will take your advice to heart and check out the threads you linked to me.

Also as far as this update goes…shortened the chin area, also made her face more “narrow” less rounded.

#6

No problem! :slight_smile:

One thing I would ask is if you are using reference - reference can really help, of course, and I think that doing a number of pieces either from reference or from life will really help. The thing I think will tell you the most though is doing a master copy - also, I would recommend a book from the Anatomy Books thread (linked above) such as Hogarth’s Head Drawing book or an anatomy book by another author - any of the books in the Anatomy Books thread come highly recommended.

Down the line I think that doing pages of studies of heads in different positions that analyze the structure of the head are ultimately more useful than doing just one sustained study. Try to get your hands on a good anatomy / drawing book and try some of the exercises contained in them - you might also check out Vilppu’s DVDs, which are full of valuable information. :slight_smile:

#7

Another update =) I tried to push the highlights and shadows pretty hard. I may have went too far.

Thank you again Rebeccak!
And to answer your question…no reference. Perhaps that’s where I am going wrong. :smiley:
Here was my orginal sketch that was the basis of this painting.

#8

hi! it looks great:D

But the nose looks kinda flat. The nostrils are a little to round, i think. If you look at this image, the nostrils are more “diagonal” (sorry for the BAD english). and the nose is a little pointy at the bottom…


(image from biocrawler.com)

And I actually think you shouldn’t have removed all the highlights! It made the face look less flat.

Keep up the good work:)

#9

Thank you Peca.

I am going to work some more on this image later this evening. :slight_smile:

#10

Hi Sheri!
I think you’re doing pretty good with the shadows & highlights, but the trick to making it all look good is putting them in the right spots, which imo, takes a lot of practice and study of anatomy and such.
Definetly work on the nose more as the poster above suggested, also, one thing that really stands out to me is that the entire nose is like one flat color going down. Try to make the bridge of the nose in shadow, the part that’s right near the eyes, it is indented into the head a bit.

#11

Hi

I would suggest following :

when painting eyes, start with the basic shapes. remember an eyeball is a (nearly) spherically shaped object. don’t forget to shape out the eyelids (upper and lower)
there is a great tutorial on painting eyes on Linda Bergkvist’s website.

also, when drawing a horizontal line between both eyes, that line should have a 90° angle with the vertical axis of the face. Her right eye is positioned too high.

The mouth area usually extends in width to these 2 points where if you would draw a vertical line upward, you would reach the center of the eyes.

I’m also missing the cheekbones. Checking some photo’s of human skulls at different angles will surely help you with this

Looking good so far Sheri! really looking forward to see your progress

#12

Not a sketch but still an anatomy study.
Trying to capture the Arabian form in sculpy. As you can see it’s still very rough and very much a WIP.

Comments are welcome. I hope I am not out of line for posting this in this thread.

#13

Hey, it’s cool to see this! :slight_smile:

Check out this thread, there is some cool stuff there as well - I hope to see your updates!

#14

Thanks Reb. =) Soon as I can get some coffee into me and join the ranks of the functioning human being world, I shall post an update.

#15

And here we go…

As you can see I started to work on the head last night. I stopped to let it “set up” some as the sculpy was getting very soft and hard to work with and that is a problem when trying to work fine detail around an arabs nose. :scream:

Later today I am going to tackle that neck one more time. After looking at it more I believe its a tad bit thicker than I intended. Good thing about clay is that you can always start over and refine!

That being said I am nervous about the legs. I think I may go to the craft store and by some sorta system to mount this guy up so I can work on his legs without having to “hold” him anymore. Its getting to the point where I need to do that.

#16

Hey TwitchyHamster

nice sculpting. it’s something I definetely want to take up at some point in my life.
the body seems a bit small compared to the neck, but i know nothing about horses so forget this if I’m wrong :slight_smile:

Really looking forward to see the end result of this!

#17

Thanks! =) I built the stand last night and after I have some fun with (TBC) I’ll go back to it shortly and have another update.

About the neck…Arabians are known for their long necks and I’m sorta stretching the “desired” look for fantasy. His head is over the top “type-ie” as well. :scream: We’ll see how it goes though right now its very much in a wip phase.

#18

Wow, that ararbian sculpture is looking great! How are you going to do the legs? I ask simply because you’ve stylised the face and neck to some degree it would be lovely to see a little of that applied to the legs, like maybe narrowing them to a point to really stress the style? The rump is wonderfully done, love all the muscles you can see there, can’t wait to see the whole thing finished!

#19

Well it has been a rough weekend for me so little was accomplished. I am currently battleling the stomach virus/flu from hell so I feel like crap as I write this.

But back to the horse…I’ve roughed out the front legs and worked on the neck a little bit. =) I had a mishap with my wire frame (it was too thick) so I had to go back and rethink/do it on the legs so you will notice the wire is much thinner there now. I also went ahead and built a modeling stand. It is GREAT. I reccomend that anyone seriously consider doing this. I bought all the metal parts at Home Depot for 8 dollars and the wooden base at walmart 1 dollar. Not to bad right?

(please ignore my ugly stove in the background lol)

#20

The horse is looking really nice. I always admired good sculptures. Will be fun to see how this turns out! :slight_smile: