[120] Sketchbook

More sketchbook pages!

[119] Sketchbook

It's been awhile! I've been going through some of my sketchbooks recently and compiling some of the more decent drawings (mostly sketches of people while I'm traveling or waiting, etc). Here's a recently compiled page.

There are a ton of half-drawings of people who moved away before I could finish drawing them (I trimmed away those sketches, haha). Although I find that it's interesting practice to sort of memorize as much as you can and trying to recreate their pose from imagination.

[118] Head Abstraction Practice

Studying different versions of head abstractions I can find off the net - mostly from artists demos where they show their step-by-steps. Trying to find out which "method" or which particular abstraction lines make the most sense to me. Also at the same time practicing my line control.

Also some (pretty bad) studies from photo reference, focusing on constructing the heads using the abstraction. The more I draw these the more I start to see vague connections between certain abstract lines and the muscles of the face, which is quite interesting.

Areas I want to work on: line control (or more specifically learning how to use the charcoal pencil), understanding facial muscles and bone structure (I think the abstractions would make much more sense if I actually took the time to learn the underlying anatomy) and specific facial features (eyes, mouth, nose, ears, etc.) Definitely still struggling with the features especially - I keep feeling that I still draw them really "flat" looking.

[117] Head Abstraction and Studies

More head studies after Loomis. Trying is to aim for minimal construction and more "intuitive" drawing. Of course practicing construction is still highly important, just that sometimes I would like to draw without them (especially for the easier and more common head angles) as I feel it's a little cleaner and gives the linework much more fluidity.

Head studies in charcoal! I'm kind of a fan charcoal life drawings, especially those beautiful, painterly ones. From what I understand, many of the artists that draw this way uses an abstraction technique for constructing heads (the Reilly head abstraction, I think it's called.) So lately I've been trying to learn from (by which I mean imitate) artists that draw using this particular technique. Thankfully, Stan Prokopenko has an amazing youtube series devoted just for that! I've also been supplementing what he teaches along with whatever infomation I can scour from the net regarding this method of drawing.

That first drawing is terrible portrait from imagination, in an attempt to figure out how to use the damn charcoal pencil. The rest are studies of head abstractions I could find off the internet. Done on A4 copy paper.

[116] Afternoon Tea

I was browsing Pixiv the other day and was really inspired by the background art there, particularly those bright, lighthearted, fantasy-ish scenes - like with a couple of characters in the foreground just chilling or doing some random stuff against a big, epic backdrop. So I tried to do a painting along those lines.

The rendering was really challenging for me in this image. Honestly, part of the reason why it's a more stylized image is because I wasn't very confident in making it look "realistic"? I still lack a lot of knowledge in areas like material indication and design. I also could've pushed this image further and adjusted some mistakes, but at this point I think I'm just gonna call it done (and move on to something new to draw!).

Afternoon Tea

Plus steps! The detailing stage was quite a struggle for me as well. Definitely an area I need more practice with (as usual).

[115] Loomis Head Studies

 Head studies after Loomis' Drawing Heads and Hands book. I think the difficult part would be to remember how to apply this to more imaginative works instead of just simple disembodied heads - for example with the proper expressions, head angles and how the head itself integrates with the figure as a whole (along with body language, etc.)

[114] Stonefang Valley

Painting to apply what I learned from my previous landscape studies. Slightly inspired by Shadow of the Colossus

Also, some steps!