Sketchbook Thread of Sirielle

#201

Trying to finish this one, WIP on the left, a test in the middle and the old face (brrrr!):

#202

Wow, looks like you have a very vivid imagination. Great hand studies too! The WIP is looking good, but perhaps the ear shouldn’t receive so much light since it is in the shadows? I think it draws more attention than it should, and kinda looks like it is floating in space.

#203

The old face was more charming but the new one is… well, new and unique :wink:
His eyes are more interesting in the middle, but overall i prefer the left one (Although the middle ‘gandalf-like’ eyebrows are neat).

What’s that thing on his chin though? A goatee or henna?

#204

nice face paintings !
your lastest middle face looks very good.

#205

I didn’t get your replies, strange.

Ah, forget that WIP (to be deleted), I’ve made a few more, scrapped them and did again, and here is what I’ve got now:

To be polished more, as you see hair are in progress,layer with no hair nor eye lights on the left. I’m still not happy with the face and can’t force him to look into the camera,I’m not sure what causes it. Maybe iris is too low?

Heozart,I have moved the ear a bit and treated the whole face with some dark reds on soft light layer to make the whole skin tones more alike. I’ve made some mistakes in the beginning with it and still it’s not perfect. I’ll take a look at it, in the and softening some lights and making others brighter (as the sharpness level). In theory the light source is behind him (and clouds),so yes, it should not be that vivid, good point!

Balduran, the old face reminds me a frog :wink: But indeed there was some character in it which got lost here. On chin? Beard? Tattoo? Who knows!

Sky_Eagle, that was test what he should look like.

Edit. And I just see the face on the 3-parts WIP above was better (mouth & nose), but I didn’t save it :frowning:

#206

Hard to tell. Maybe his eyes should be more in the middle of the eyesocket? In the right one you almost have it :wink:

Oh, and about the hair - That braid on top of his hair shouldn’t be so straight and stretched. it makes it look artificial (imho)

Balduran, the old face reminds me a frog :wink: But indeed there was some character in it which got lost here. On chin? Beard? Tattoo? Who knows!

Edit. And I just see the face on the 3-parts WIP above was better (mouth & nose), but I didn’t save it :frowning:

Heh, i still think it could stay that way :stuck_out_tongue: (My original thought was that he scratched his chin)

The nose isn’t that bad (It’s just smallish), but you really need to change his mouth now, it’s awfuly big (not to mention something is off with it)

#207

I’ve been told to hide the further iris more and that helped (no lights on eyes):

#208

Hi, a few crits:
You can improve the eyes by making the lower lid disappear underneath the upper.
Also, his left eye, the lower lid does not indicated the roundness of the eyeball enough.
Check some refs from that 3/4 view to get a good idea.
I’d also put some reflections on the eyes. this really helps a lot to make them more believable if done well (use overlay or another layer mode that allows for a bit of transparancy)
His left eye should also be positioned a bit lower (the eyes are aligned horizontal, but the nose/mouth vertical line is under an angle)

the forehead is too flat, particularly where it meets the eyebrows… Male skulls have bulges there. The area where the forehead transits into the side of the cranium needs work as well (his right side of the forehead). It’s not parallel to his left side due to the “corner” being too “wide” and the hairline being too low in comparison with the left side.

The ear is placed too low. It shouldn’t be (much) lower than the bottom of the nose if you see the head in profile, a tiny bit is ok though, but this is too low.

#209

Thank you for all the points, Johan!

I changed the ear position and did some changes to forehead’s highlights (not finished yet,nose needs more work, too) and eyelids. Also I’m attaching a shot with hair, brows and eye highlights layers (the previous one didn’t have them to keep pupils visible). The lights on eyes aren’t the final option, as almost everything here. I haven’t moved the eye & brow lower, yet, I’ll do it when I flatten the layers.
Desaturated flipped bottom layer on the right, to check the shading (I still forget to do it in Painter, a colour layer filled with dark grey can serve to check it, without need of real desaturation).

This guy has no luck, started in December '06, I couldn’t work more on him then.Next I haven’t finished him summer of last year, nor in March (or February) and now his chances aren’t high, either. But the background is ready (only I need to add there more mist and in the end freezing air he exhales), so I need to get him done.

#210

I have spoiled, I have fixed, I hope the face is acceptable. Level of redness still kills and oh glitter… I hope I haven’t overdosed it too much :wink: I’ll check levels in the end.

[left]If I had more time he would have scales here and there. Maybe on a remake after a few years, with a decent scull shape and face features :slight_smile: Now, fur!
[/left]

#211

OK, he is done, though eyes look strange, still.

I don’t like the colour scheme, but can’t do anything about it now - I preferred the original warmer colours I had before, this is result of levels correction.

The whole image - ready?

#212

Nice work. I like the color palette. The background’s cool colors are nicely balancing the warm colors of the man. Sometimes one has to call a piece finished or one will work on it forever.
Time to move on :wink:

I’d love to see you tackle some anatomy studies, particularly (but not limited to) heads and facial features, since these subjects tend to be more prominent in your work.
When drawing anatomy from ref, don’t stall too much during these exercises. Work through them at a fairly quick tempo. It’s better to do 100 quickies then 1 longer study.
I know they can seem boring to do but once you are at it they’re not boring at all. Anatomy studies are actually quite challenging (no matter what skill level you are).

Hope you will keep pushing yourself.

#213

Thank you for all advices! Regarding studies - every time you upload yours I want to do them,too. I know they are necessary and can be fun. I have found a group of people who meet from time to time to sketch together, I hope to join them after summer (they aren’t active now). Also I’ve found a teacher in the area, I plan to visit that place and if the person is really teaching I will make a course (I’m always worried that I’ll step on someone who knows less than me as I’ve heard many times they do not really care of proper anatomy studies in art schools and one has to exercise it on their own). So,I know I always say I’ll do more studies but I will really do them, without life drawing sessions and studies I’ll never get out of the stage, where instead of thinking what I want to paint and what way I want to show it I’m struggling with head proportions and try to remember what way a nose looks like.

I’m moving, moving, but in a mean time I’ve done final post production. In other words I brought back the warm colours to the sky, copied, pasted and moved a few details (hair top down, closer iris more to the right) and made the “dragon” pupils more visible. Now he is looking at us :slight_smile:

Here is close up, the whole final image is posted in my portfolio:

Also I managed to change Exotique 4 submissions again, now I’m uploading the final option (I hope they’ll not switch the FTP right now,it worked much faster at night). Yes, I decided to submit this fella, that’s the only reason I had to finish him last night. I had to sleep (still no cure for that ;)), so the final corrections were done just now. Also I could check it with fresh eyes today. Anyway I didn’t manage to finish him for Exotique 3, now I managed to do it for the 4th edition. It’s like a symbol to me - it doesn’t matter if he gets in, what matters is I did it, he’s done and now I can really move on :smiley:

#214

I hope you’re not too late for Exotique 4? Thought the deadline was midnight last night… oh well, I hope you get in.

About studying (anything really, not just anatomy)… why wait until after summer? No better time to do some sketches than now :wink:

Today at work, things were a bit slow (always are the day after our main deadline) so I made a perspective study. I’m not supposed to be drawing at work (I work at a finance dept) but I did it anyway and I’m glad I did, even if the sketch turned out quite crappy.
What I’m trying to say is that you should take advantage of every chance you get to draw or paint. I’ve not seen much traditional stuff in your sb sofar. I think if you really put your mind to it, you could draw a lot more than you actually do and your skills would go up in the sky pretty darn fast. Go to school but don’t limit your drawing and painting to these courses. They are great because we learn at school, but we also need mileage and routine.

Just my 2 cents (forgive me if I sounded too harsh - I hope you’ll take it in a positive way, coz that’s how it is intended)

#215

Johan, you never sound too harsh and I agree with all you said :slight_smile: The only problem is I know I should sketch every day, so I’ve bought paper and soft pencils, some books and collected photo references, but I almost never do it. (What I wanted to say about the drawing group was that they’ll start with Autumn, so I could join them then, not that I can’t start anything on my own earlier.)

Regarding E4 - I decided that as long as FTP and upload system is working, that long time I’ve got, so I upgraded the image 3 times. It was working the other day after Expose deadline, too.
Yet it was in vain, I almost deleted it today to spare effort for jury, but my mum told me to leave it as it is (I should listen to my mum sometimes :wink: ). For after I posted it in 2D I got interesting feedback and can’t leave that image in it’s present shape (the feedback is here). I don’t agree with all what people said, but some things are really important and bother me, too. On the other hand I could just dim colour, crop it to portrait and forget it, but then I’m loosing the whole idea of the guy being something more than a “random elfy guy”.

But right now I’ve got a chance to update another old image - till tomorrow evening. Then it’ll be printed the way it is or not at all depending on my mood (which is crappy right now, but I’m driving to seaside tomorrow, so maybe it’ll be better - unexpected family meeting 400 km from my place :slight_smile: ). Anyway I was trying to bring this face into better shape, but still something is wrong and if he put his face straight it would not be a face I desired him to have, as always:

To my eye the old face had forehead part in a different perspective than the nose and chin. New mouth and chin placement is still too high. I enlarged his hand, but this I’ll check in the end, it’s not visible after putting the snow over. The face is most important here. I’ll get back to it tomorrow evening.

#216

It was impossible to work on it last night, I drove home before 1AM.

#217

Almost done, I’m finishing hair, but still got problem with his chest and hand needs more work:

I’ve made the whole face a bit shorter, mouth slightly less wide etc.

#218

Latest steps - final body:

[left]Bottom part of the face still seemed too high (like bent towards the top), so I rotated the bottom (part of nose with mouth and chin) 2degrees down:

[center]

Now it looks OK to me, only the hand still needs work - I didn’t finish the hands workshop, now it pays off.
[/left]
[/center]

#219

Hi there

The last piece is a big improvement over the previous one imo.

You might want to correct the form of the collarbone. Check some reference if you can, the collarbone is not straight but it bends backwards in a bit of an S-curve.

Good work on the hair!

#220

Thank you. I have already sent it last night, but I’ll take a look at refs and move the colarboine a bit. It’s less visible under the snow, fortunately - here is the final image from last night (or rather today 4 AM morning, when I was fixing the further arm):