[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!

113 - Digital Painting: Landscape Studies

Landscape studies from photographs. Wanted to practice to Shaddy Safadi's (amazing) youtube tutorials on landscape painting. The first study didn't come out too well (I wasn't able to properly control my brushwork and ended making a mess of the textures and forms on the mountain), but I think the subsequent studies came out nicely once I got the hang of it.

  Some steps! Trying to distill what I learnt from the tutorial.

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1 - Analyze the reference, study the image and figure out how to simplify the shapes.

2 - Blocking out and separating the major shapes, focusing on composition and "flow"

3 - Painting the inner shapes, separating areas of light and shadow and/or different materials.

4 - Colour underpainting. using complementary or exaggerated local colours as a base.

5 - Painting and rendering, focusing on choosing more accurate colours and communicating the forms.

6 - Continue refining, focus on unifying the image as a whole.

112

Godzilla fan art!

Stepszilla.

Another Doug Chiang study.  Feel like I still lack the proper drawing technique in order to fully understand and learn from his works. Will be going back to the basics (yet again) to improve my line control and confidence.

Some cockpits from imagination after studying Doug's design. The first one was too similar to the study so I did a second one with a slightly different form language (more squarish and blocky).

Quick digital render of the second cockpit. I was originally supposed to use markers but I didn't want to ruin the drawing so I decided to scan it and do it digitally instead. The rendering is definitely an important step for these type of drawings especially since the line art was a rather detailed and "busy"? Adding values helps to re-establish the forms.

111

Form study of a wireless house phone in 3/4 front and back view. 

Going to use this as a base to turn into a spaceship as an exercise in form building and design.

Airplane study to understand the major parts of a plane. Surprisingly fun, will try and do more of these types of studies

Spaceships sketches building upon the form study in the first image.When starting these sketches I struggled on how to design interesting looking spaceships, it wasn't until I did the above study of airplane parts that I started to become a little more comfortable. However it was still a challenge to come up with interesting forms and shapes. I definitely screwed up a number of times an had to restart from scratch as I was using a ballpoint pen to draw. As usual need to be more conscious of my linework as well.

Studies after Doug Chiang from his book - Mechanika. Great book with lots of amazing designs with step-by-step instructions. Not exactly very beginner friendly though, as a lot of the techniques inside require some experience in perspective and careful draftsmanship using markers and pens (which I so sorely lack). 

What I'm trying to do here is to study along with the tutorials in the book as closely as I can, and then trying to redesign something similar from imagination. The idea is to improve my draftsmanship (so far not so good, keep losing patience) and also to study his design/form language and see how I can incorporate it into my own works.

Study --- > Redesign

110

  More freehand ID sketching practice. Finally made it through Scott Robertson's perspective form drawing tutorial without giving up halfway (usually out of boredom and frustration). Lot's of repetition and trial and error but I'm finally getting the hang of how to construct forms accurately. Of course, my draftsmanship could still use a lot of improvement - but that's what practice is for!

 

  Also practicing planar forms - or more specifically, faceted and bending planar forms. Turned out to be much tougher than I expected - I kept confusing myself and made tons of mistakes before I finally understood how to construct the forms accurately and efficiently. One helpful trick is to first find the correct "points in space" and then connecting the points with linework after.

109

More ID sketching practice, followed by perspective and section drawing studies. Slowly trying to internalize as much of the information and technique as possible through repetition. Key points to focus on: line accuracy, line quality, tangency issues and proportion (creating pleasing 3D forms).

And a couple of sketchbook pages. Really loose and scribbly - mostly just messing around and trying to come up with interesting designs as opposed to focusing on cleanliness (or that could be just another excuse for laziness).  Also, it's time to get  a new sketchbook!