Sketchbook: alinabeska

alinabeska

Hello everyone, my name is Alina and I want to become an illustrator/concept artist. I am starting this thread so that I can keep track of my digital art progress and be motivated to practice more. Digital painting is something I struggle quite a bit with, so hopefully this will help me identify my weaknesses and work on them. I want to improve!

Comments & critiques are very welcome!

alinabeska

To start off, here are some studies I have done over the past couple of days. #1,2, and 3 were painted using a photo reference, and #4 was done from life (it's my chapstick!). I find skin super difficult to paint, but I'm quite happy with how #2 turned out. Something feels off about #3, the colours are probably too saturated. With #4 I wanted to practice drawing good ellipses but as you can see they came out a bit wonky

NineLimits

I would say your doing quite well! I disagree that the colours for #3 are too saturated. In fact they look perfect to me saturation wise, but need to be darker. I feel like that's the main thing I notice with these studies, is that your values are all in a very short range. This is something I have been combating in my own art for years, but shadows often need to go a lot deeper then I think they do.

Something that always helps me, is putting a layer over the rest of the layers that is white/gray/black, and setting it to colour or in some cases saturation depending on the program. You can then hide it, but turn it on when you want to see how your doing with your values.

I think your doing a great job so far picking colours. Your skin looks full of life because your using the reds, and blues/purples that so many artists don't pick up on. I can tell your really paying attention and looking at the colours you actually see over the ones you think you see. Your shapes are also looking good. I'm very excited to see more of your work as you post!

alinabeska

@EverShroud thank you! Now that I look back at the studies I do see a problem with values. I feel like I should probably slow down and do a bunch of studies in black and white to really nail down the values, but colour is so much fun I'll try the method you're suggesting though, it sounds very useful for getting things right. 

Meanwhile, here is a photo study I've done today. I'm still getting used to doing studies digitally, so I think I kind of lost the gesture in the photo while fumbling with brushes and layers and whatnot. Not super happy with the colours, and like EverShroud said, now that I look at the values I realise the shade is not dark enough. Oh well, I'll get it better next time! (Btw, is nudity ok here? Dunno if I should've censored her a bit)



Also, here is a quick sketch I did from my imagination. I just thought the girl looked cute

alinabeska

Here is something I've painted over the past couple of days. My idea was to show a mermaid who's being kept and studied in a laboratory. I decided to work just in black and white because I didn't want to be overwhelmed by colour, and felt like my values were lacking in my previous studies so I hoped working in black and white would let me focus on that. I'm pretty happy with the image overall, though I struggled with showing that the mermaid was underwater and there is glass between her and the lab guy, and with painting the guy's lab coat/trousers/shoes. I should definitely practice painting clothed people more

 

alinabeska

A couple of portraits I pained based on photos. Haven't had the most productive weekend, but that's okay. I'm not super happy with these, but oh well. 

alinabeska

I did these portraits from photo references over the past couple of days. I'm mainly just trying to get better at painting people digitally. Quite pleased with how some of these turned out! #2 and #4 are probably my favourites in terms of how I rendered their skin, although there is something creepy about #4's face that I can't quite put my finger on. I think it's something about her mouth I kind of like it though. 

I should probably practice painting full body people next, not just floating heads That, or painting from life instead from photo reference. I always find that I focus more on the larger forms when I draw from life, which is probably good. With photo reference I just end up trying to copy it without analysing it. Must work on that! 

NineLimits

Wow, you have been doing some great work! Feel like your values are already better in your colour work, and your really doing well with the black and white! I like how you have done some different expressions and face angles too.

Your works from imagination look really awesome! I hope you'll share more of that along with the studies in the future!

Don't really have much useful to say, like you said it could be good to do more full body studies, but you already seem to now what to work on right now. Looking forward to seeing more!

alinabeska

Thank you, @EverShroud! I've been trying to improve my values but it's not easy. Sometimes I do well when I do studies, but then I draw something from imagination and it just turns out bland. But hopefully I am slowly making some progress
 
I always struggle with drawing things from imagination. Either the ideas I come up with don't inspire me, or I don't have a big enough visual library to sketch out my idea how I envision it so I end up frustrated. But I've been trying to draw more random stuff that comes into my head in my sketchbook, even if it seems boring or ugly. Just trying to get used to flexing those imagination muscles It can't always just be studies!

On that note, here is a pink princess from my imagination.

alinabeska

A couple of figures I've painted (from reference of course). Man, skin is so difficult to render! I'm not super happy with these, they look kind of... splotchy? Some of the artists I really like make skin look so smooth and translucent but realistic at the same time, I wonder how they do it. Maybe I need to do some studies of their art. 

mkamen

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alinabeska

Wow, I sure haven't updated my sketchbook it a while! I've been doing lots of studies in the meantime and trying to incorporate everything into full finished drawings but man, it's challenging. 
Here is the latest finished piece I made. Tried to especially focus on anatomy & gesture, but not entirely satisfied with the results. I think the faun's pose looks a bit unnatural and stiff... But at least I'm getting more comfortable with drawing bodies. Just gotta keep working on it I suppose. 
Any critiques & comments super welcome as always. 

alinabeska

Here is something I finished today. I really enjoyed painting the creepy skin wings! 

alinabeska

Here's another illustration I did recently. Some day I'll get good... Or so I hope.

alinabeska

Hey all! 

Since the last time I've uploaded I've had a chance to do a lot more life drawing than usual. I've also taken a pretty long break from doing digital art (for like 2-3 weeks) but I'm very happy to be back to continue on improving! 

Here's my latest work. It's actually inspired by an old music video that I really loved as a child. Pretty happy with it now, but I'm sure that when I look back at it in a couple of days I will see all the mistakes I had to redraw the background like 10 times until I ended up with what you see. I should definitely work more on backgrounds, because this one took me a ridiculous amount of time, and it's pretty damn simple! 

 

alinabeska

Aaand another illustration. Tried to tell a story with this one. Will I ever get good at art? Come back in a few hundred years to find out :P 

alinabeska

Here's a work that I just finished I recently watched a lot of Cynthia Sheppard's Youtube videos and it was really cool seeing how she uses lots and lots of references, some of which she shoots herself for her works. So, inspired by that, I made my own reference pictures for this work and I tried to overcome the feeling that I was somehow cheating when I used them :P Constructive criticism is super super welcome as always! 

alinabeska

I'm back with some more recent art! I'm trying to do bigger works more regularly now and also trying to get a bit of a social media presence