Bacons 2d Journey

baconboltz

So personally I know I need to work on my proportions/rendering and most defiantly perspective which I'm having a bit of trouble with atm.

Both images are studys and just finding a way on how to render things. The second one is a 40k carnafex.

Just an fyi this might also be a place where I show my improvements because I need to get cracking on more study's. Also I want to learn. If you guys stop by and put any crits I would love to see them and take all the advice given to me.



Reference

Muzzoid

"defiantly perspective"

Perspective certainly is a defiant thing to learn :P.

Welcome to the forums!

So ithe good news is that you are studying and working from reference which is great.

what i would recommend is to sit down and work out what you need to learn and what your immediate goals are. What i would say that is, is that you need to learn how to draw form, which means perspective studies, and learning how to draw characters in that perspective.

But it would be helpful to know what your goals are?

baconboltz

Well one of my goals right now is actually form and perspective and im not to sure how i would approach it other than drawing characters in perspective and figure drawing in general.

Thanks for the welcome

Muzzoid

Ok awesome.

Personally my recommendation is to start out with simple primitives and constructing forms out of boxes. It sounds simple, but it's a very important skill to master.

Daew

Try practice drawing different primitives in perspective. Experiment drawing the primitives at different horizon lines. And try multiple vanishing points. Kepp repeating

And then to go deeper, learn about overlap and line weight.

Also if you have the chance/time try spending some time 3D.
All this helps train the eye.

Good luck

edit: darn you muzz

baconboltz

i actually do some 3d stuff in zbrush mostly fan art atm and still learning it

baconboltz

Daew you mean something like this? I did this a while ago

RN

Muzz had a thread explaining the cube perspective exercise:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147173

baconboltz

thx Kryzon gonna post my attempts at that here shortly

Daew

baconboltz, yep that's kinda of what i was talking about.
And strangely, doing those is quite therapeutic, well for me anyway .

And when you are comfortable explore other kinds of primitives and try placing them on top of each other. And don't forget to experiment other vanishing points etc. But I think you know what you need to do and just need to keep doing it

baconboltz

I might make a sketchbook thread soon since I want somewhere to put my work and yea I agree

Muzzoid

It's perfectly fine to keep a perpetual thread going here man, sketchbooks tend to be more of an archive of progress rather than a place to get feedback here on polycount.

lotet

So ermn, Im not really sure if I should write anything, the last two people I gave crits to literary left/ rage quit the forum.

but, here we go, third time's a charm :poly122:
You are at a stage where basically just doing studies will definitely make you better. clocking hours is the most important thing you can do at this point.
so my suggestion is keep up the good attitude and just keep posting!
a tip though is stay away from color for a while, im not saying your doing a bad job, just that narrowing your focus will make progress quicker, focus on lines and black and white studies for a while and I can assure you you will see results

baconboltz

lotet thx for the tips and I will defiantly keep posting things here, alright black and white + line studys(plus all the ones I'm doing now as well) here I come. Glad you guys are posting things this also makes me wanna keep coming back for more crits as well. Hope I will have a good time here on Polycount

BeanyCoffee

Don't forget to draw what you like from time to time. Studying can be a lot a work, it's important to have fun with your art too, helps you stay motivated. :] You can also try doing more studies traditionally! I find that it forces me to slow down and really concentrate on what I'm doing, especially with figure drawing, compared to being in photoshop at least.

baconboltz

sorry i haven't been posting anything guys been working on my first custom pc build

baconboltz

builds done guys gonna start dling stuffs to make arts again

baconboltz

Hey guys here is a value study im currently working on i know i need to fix the proportions would love to hear what you guys think so far

(study)


(reference)

lotet

Great start! I think in the reference the face is a tad darker but your going in the right direction!

have you seen this one btw? great for getting better at values
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5zVFlMQZEs[/ame]

baconboltz

no I have not but I will check it out

Muzzoid

How long did you spend on that so far?

It seems like you are rushing it, and not spending enough time to place everything in the right spot. I would say slow down and try and observe everything, and be more careful with it all.

Keep it up!

baconboltz

i have another version which i've probably spent 3+ hrs on so far :P maybe even more(not keeping track)

JessicaBurns

If you're looking for other value practice options, my art professor once suggested that I try doing jigsaw puzzles without a guide. It really helped me see the subtle changes in color. Also, if you really want a challenge, you should try puzzles that force you to rely solely on seeing value, such as a white cat on a white background. They might be difficult, but I think you'll really notice a difference in your abilities.

Keep on practicing! You're doing great!

baconboltz

Here is were I am so far atleast 4-5hrs of studying still going strong I wanna finish the study

lotet

looking good, great update, have you tried using a grid? its an old technique for checking your studies. It was used a lot before computers, but its still great for studies, since you dont just overlay the reference and "cheat" your way through =P you still have to analyze the result and paint yourself.

here is a quick example. I made a grid in red, its the same for both pictures, then you focus on a single square and try to get that as accurate as possible. its kind of makes it easier for your brain, usually issues with the studie is a lot more obvious when you single out a fracture of the picture like this. I also made some examples on the right corner.

its just a few squares singled out and compared.

Daew

Im actually not sure how useful that grid technique would be.
At that point it seems like its copying the picture one to one? Which would be admirable but not really useful because you haven't learnt anything.

I would say to paint a face you would need to know what makes a face; proportions, bone structure and muscles.

Of course i'm open to debate \

baconboltz i recently heard something by the artist charles lee who quoted keven chen and it really changed the way I think about values.

(paraphrasing)

Isolate your values to only dark and light. So only 2 values, where the light hits and where the light is blocked. Once you have that you can work on the other details. Its looking at the bigger picture and not worrying about unnecessary details. It keeps your light consistent.
(I may be interpreting this wrong but hey time will tell)

heres the vid if you are interested.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDml8AVGNw4[/ame]

baconboltz

oh cool thx will take a look at this

baconboltz

Just because I probably don't know this. How does one go and design their own character? After the skills they have learned I'm just wondering because once and a while I would like to take a break from studying and try to make my own things

lotet

Here are a bunch of youtubers I like, on a side note. you need to paint/post more if you want to improve. Since you started your mad max study 5 days elapsed before you posted an update, and now when Im writing this its been 3 more days since anything posted. Im not saying this to nag or be rude, its merely a statement, you should paint/post at least every other day. It dosnt have to be super cool studies or even continuous work on the same piece, but you need to clock those hours!

heres some stuff on design.

Feng Zhu has a lot of videos on youtube, most of them tackle design in one way or another
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKndZHlcgFE[/ame]


This one is pretty cool to, Sycra has a lot of other aweosme stuff to, but more focus on learning how to draw rathenr then design.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwmcJYtdLp0[/ame]


This dude has a lot of drawing/design tutorials to.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjDDqnkH8v0[/ame]

baconboltz

Hey guys sorry haven't posted in two weeks. I have been busy with real life stuff. Here's the mad max finished I know its not where I want it to be, but I have to get the hours clocked in to get better


Here's a dino I'm working on from my own thumbnails that I have done. I'm using references of raptors to help with rendering what it should look like. What do you guys think of it so far ? ( I know I have to darken values more)


and here are the thumbs

lotet

Hey! I though we lost you, looking good!

baconboltz

One does not simply lose me ;D

levigilbert

Is drawing dinosaurs and creatures what you want to do with this stuff? It seems your studies and your personal/fun work are kinda different.

One of the problems I had when I was doing lots of studies was that I was mindlessly doing them and they didn't really fit with anything I was currently working on. For example if I'm painting a post-apocalyptic gritty character it would make sense for me to study Fury Road or rusted metal textures or desserts or abandoned buildings, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is I think you want to paint dinosaurs so you should study reptiles and actual dinosaurs and skeletons and animals and stuff like that. I don't actually know if you want to paint dinosaurs, it's just me guessing.

Figure out what you want to paint for fun and match your studies to that.

baconboltz

Hey guys been on a long hiatus from polycount mostly because of School work, but I have been keeping up with my 2d been trying some new things, also getting out of my comfort zone gonna put some images to show you guys what i have been up too ( There is a lot more i just don't want to post most of them)

lotet

I really like the lines in that son-wukong piece. it shows good sense of form and structure! would love to see more stuff like that!

baconboltz

This is what im currently working on atm. Would love some feedback on it. 

baconboltz

Haven't posted here in a long time kicking my butt for it so here's what I'm working on currently and for the silhouettes I'm going to pick a few and do some variations of the few if you guys have anything to say hit me with it.

DrawingMoose

Looking good man! Your lines much more confident now compared to last year! Have you also spent some time on shading/material expression? That would really be the next step for the droid in my opinion.

Looking at your silhouettes: have you watched any of ctrl-paint's classes? I recently bought one of his packages and this thumbnail design approach was in there. I'll put up the link if you'd like, his stuff is really great for learning. Less about tools/techniques and more about fundamentals. He also has a package on rendering if that's what you want to get in to.

Anyway, great stuff, great improvement.
Stay awesome!

DrawingMoose

Looking good man! Your lines much more confident now compared to last year! Have you also spent some time on shading/material expression? That would really be the next step for the droid in my opinion.

Looking at your silhouettes: have you watched any of ctrl-paint's classes? I recently bought one of his packages and this thumbnail design approach was in there. I'll put up the link if you'd like, his stuff is really great for learning. Less about tools/techniques and more about fundamentals. He also has a package on rendering if that's what you want to get in to.

Anyway, great stuff, great improvement.
Stay awesome!

baconboltz

No i actually haven't done the shading/material expression yet still figuring out how i should approach that, also that link would be awesome. I also have been watching a bunch of his videos haven't started his digital painting ones yet.

DrawingMoose

Sorry for the late reply, here's the link: http://ctrlpaint.myshopify.com/products/concept-art-starter-kit
Heads up though: this course is only truly great if you already know how to paint and stuff. If you wanna learn more about that stuff I'd recommend http://ctrlpaint.myshopify.com/collections/essential-skills

Good luck!