Sketchbook: Zaulta

Zaulta

Intro :

I’m 16 years old and I’ve been practicing drawing for the past 2 years, but more seriously for the past year and a half everyday. Right now, my main focus is learning anatomy, perspective, form, and taking my first steps into digital and on the side I’m trying to build up my visual library (because it’s really an empty bookshelf) and attempting to draw from imagination when I can. I want to be in the art industry in the future, so critiques and comments are welcomed : ).

I posted on conceptart for the past 2 years almost everyday , but it’s been down for the past two weeks and I doubt it coming back : (. I’ll try to post whenever I can on this forum though like I did with ca : ). Also, I don't think I really belong here because everyone on this forum seems to be at a higher skill level and works with 3d stuff lol.

Here’s some progress shots from the past two years:
May/June 2017 - just dove right in and started to draw

July-August 2017 - did my first istebrak 14 day challenge (day 1 and 14), but didn't take drawing seriously because I was too busy playing league

September 2017 - A one trick portrait front view pony, still wasn't drawing a lot

January 2018 - I started take drawing more seriously and started to post everything I did on the concept art forum. Also started to study anatomy from proko. The portrait is a fanart of Kuroo from Haikyuu for a friend's present.

June 2018 - redraw of the first picture and two different versions of a friend’s character.

August 2018 - An attempt at a 3/4 view, before and around this time I was doing the 250 box challenge thing and straight lines, pretty much wasted most of my drawing time learning almost nothing that year.. boring and disappointing

September 2018 - Redraw of my Zoro portrait from last year. I was really proud of this on :, ). I think this is around the time where I got even more invested into art. Started to draw everyday and not just lines and boxes.

November 2018 - Did a self portrait from the mirror for self portrait day. This took so long over a few days and it's very inaccurate : ^).

January 2019 - I started to pay a little more attention to form and I started to learn how to learn better. Also, I think I picked up Scott Robertson's How to Draw book around here.

April 2019 - Started to be a creep and bring a small sketchbook wherever I even, even school. Started to draw moving people the best I could in under 10 minutes. The sword girl is a Mulan fanart for a weekly topic sketch thing. Also did another self portrait and I only took one hour and it's much better.

May 2019 - A few more sketches of other students and I was picking up the pace with perspective drawing from the book. I didn't really make much finished drawings.

June 2018 - more sketches of people before I stay home for summer break and a birthday present for a friend. It was from a scene from a show called Killing Eve. Couldn't find the ref for it online . I made a schedule for myself to follow for my whole, so I could get the most out of my day during the summer : ^).

July 2019 - Tried to apply everything I learned from Scott Robertson's book and tried to make a spaceship, but I don't know how to draw a spaceship. Also did a fanart of Tanjiro from Demon Slayer and started doing some digital art. I made a schedule for myself to follow, so I could get the most out of my day : ^).

Refs and thinking process:

A few things from last 3 days or so: Started learning digital art from a site called ctrl paint and a few studies from my computer. Also started to study Loomis's figure drawing book a few week ago.

I've been studying knights a bit recently and decided to design one : ) and I also tried to line art it, but it went terribly and was taking way too long so I quit. I can draw circles, ellipses, and straight lines just both on both media : ^) but cant get the lines I want on digital. I should draw with my shoulder more regularly.

This was from today. It was an assignment from ctrl paint and goal was to try sketching flowers in two different ways. At first it took a long time and didn't go well, but as I went on it looked better and I was much quicker.

Gonna start posting daily tomorrow, hope you guys enjoy my stuff : ).

Zaulta

I was tired of doing Loomis, so today I just sketched some things that I liked. I've always wanted to learn how to draw guns and here's my start : ). I also finished watching all of ctrl paint's first section on digital painting and I learned a ton just from that first section. I wasn't comfy with the vector tools when I was doing the line art for the knight, but I'll try again this weekend with digital tools to help.

Zaulta

I've been following my art schedule for the past few weeks with close to no interruptions and I feel extremely exhausted. During the summer, I have 2 different times when I draw, usual 5-7 hours total, and on top of that I workout for 5 days a week for 1.5 hours. I could be much more time efficient and high quality, so tomorrow I'm taking a break, but I'll draw if I want to. I'll likely finish the 3/4 gun and try doing some environments.

I have a lot of trouble drawing poses from my imagination : ). Also, the spatula thing took me over 2 hours, while the instructor in the video took only 5 minutes in the video : ^). Spatula isn't even accurate to the ref, but it still looks like one.

messy right now

Zaulta

I finished the pistol sketch on my day off yesterday.

i was busy all afternoon today. I practiced some perspective by doing a photo study of my grandma's garden and I retried the spatula assignment. My goal was to finish at least 30 minutes quicker and be more accurate with the picture. I finished 40 minutes earlier than I did last time and the picture is more accurate to the reference imo, so I'm pretty happy with that : ).

I kinda want to start trying to do environments. For the perspective thing today my first grid was really off, so I think I need to draw more to get a better sense of the vanishing points of the things I'm looking at. Now that I look at them side by side the picture I drew is too chubby : (.

Handle is in wrong perspective/angle.

Zaulta

Did all digital today and I'm pretty happy with what I did today. I pretty much tried out different ways of transitioning from line art to a finished thing and I found one I like better. I had some extra time towards the end, so I sketched up a portrait from imagination and I'm gonna try to render it tomorrow : ).

Progress snaps:

Zaulta

Rally hate the  thing I painted and gave up after rendering for a long time. I think I was really sloppy when make the whole thing and it lacks so much structure. Maybe I used the soft airbrush way too much, I thought look for new brushes and I messed up the perspective of the face because I was being too tedious.  You cant really see the planes i made before, but I guess that just means I have to practice more : ).

Tomorrow, I'll look at more ctrl vids and youtube vids on digital and start drawing some environments.

Progress shots: they were taken on my phone and sent to my friends, sorry for the ass quality : )

critiquemyjunk

Hey I remember seeing your posts on conceptart.org earlier this year. Good to see your still at it and improving. Nice work, keep that fire burning. 

Zaulta

@critiquemyjunk

Thanks : ). Nice to see someone from the old forum and I'll do my best < 3.

I was really tired in the afternoon, so I watch a really long video on environment fundamentals by Noah Bradley and learned so much from it. Gonna try to practice making some tomorrow. After I posted yesterday I took notes on brushes for beginners from Sinix and I'm gonna ban myself from using the soft airbrush for a long while.

Today, tried to apply the things from sinix's video (shapes and hard brush) and tomorrow I'm gonna try using the opacity brush.

Refs: I was drawing from Mark Simon's Facial Expressions book

Zaulta

Didn't upload yesterday cause I was having a lot of computer problems and it was making me very angry : ^). Tried doing thee practice from Noah Bradley's notes and finished that practice.

i dont think I finished this one yesterday.

I choose the worst base color for the skin lol and it made it a lot harder for me lol. I think I could've done better with showing form, especially where the creases around the nose/cheeks, but I think I did good with the lighting.

------------

Today I was busy in the afternoon, but got a little done. Did environments in the afternoon and at night I learning from videos on how to make custom brushes and did a sketch of someone for tomorrow. I've always seen more experience people paint with custom brushes, so I thought it was good to move away from the default ones : ).

New brush I made : ) and I'm gonna try to use this as my 'universal brush when I try to render things.

Zaulta

Today I spent my drawing time cleaning my room, to sure I'm happy with my working space. Tomorrow I'm leaving on a trip early for two, so I'm resting early. Hopefully the trip will help me work better when I come back : ), but I'll draw stuff if I feel like it or if I see something nice.

At first I was blaming the brush for making the painting bad : ^), but I really just don't know how to paint yet. I think I should go back to working in gray scale, learn how to blend and smooth things out, and go back to ctrl paint.

Zaulta

Here's the stuff from my trip. I don't really like them in general : ^).

I didn't really know what to do today, so I did a portrait from imagination and one from reference and a still life on digital.

Now that I see it side by side, her hair on the upper left should be more poofy.

Zaulta

Learned a lot on digital today : ). In the afternoon, I did some practices for ctrl paint and watched some of his videos on blending. I thought most people only blended with the color picker and a hard brush, but I was wrong : ).

I thought I should try to blend out the pikachu I did yesterday and I think it's not terrible, but could be better.

Not at the same angle I was drawing it irl, but I thought you guys should see the object

I thought I should learn how other people do their process while they're painting, so I watched some speed paint videos and for the most part it's somewhat similar.

I had some extra time after, so I started a photo study I'm gonna try to render tomorrow. I was trying to sketch the was sinix was doing it, but I like the pencil tool much better : ^).

Zaulta

Spent all of my art time trying to render out the sketch from yesterday. I was feeling good about it until my computer shut down about three hours in and I lost an hour or two of work : ^). I spent about 6 hours  on this and it's going really slowly and I think it's because I'm too critical and indecisive : ^). Gonna try to finish this tomorrow and try to be more decisive and less nit picky : ).

Progress after I lost an hour of work.

Zaulta

I finished the study today : ^). I think I spent about 3ish hours on it today, so in total took 9? hours. I don't think it's terrible for my first time really rendering at least, but I still see a lot of things I don't really like about it.

Progress snap

Zaulta

Didn't do much today.. I need to change my schedule because I have to summer reading which I haven't been doing and study for the SAT : ^). I won't lose that much time for drawing, but I'll be more tired and stressed out from the tight schedule.

I tried doing a character design and I traced it in the program. It's pretty messy and I don't like the face, but the design's fine I guess. Took me a while and it's pretty much a combination of what I've drawn in the past. Looks like I need to draw more things. I also need to learn how to do feet and hands better : (. 

Zaulta

Didn't really know what to do today. I think this self portrait is better than the last one, but probably because I spent more time on it lol. It's also pretty creepy imo since staring right at you in front view.

I wanna learn how to draw and design clothes and stuff also, so just drew some anime characters with a little touch of mine : ^). Would've done more, but I was pretty tired already.

Zaulta

People were over my house today, so couldn't do art stuff for a bit. I tried thinking of some environments and scenes today, but they all sucked : ^). Also went back to the perspective book to try to learn more. Next week I'm gonna try to focus more on learning about environments and such. 

This took me a long time just decided what to do : ^). I'm fine drawing faces from imagination, so I guess I need to expand my visual library more for environments to be comfy with them.

Zaulta

I was really tired today. Just did a photostudy of an environment, notes on composition, and a half assed tree : ^).

Could've made the foreground darker, clouds slightly lighter, and done the mid ground more accurately. I didn't know how to do the mist on the foreground at all.

Learned a lot on composition from a video, but it's a lot to take in at once lol.

I have no clue on how to start painting trees. I've tried doing trees before, but I think they're really complicated. Instead, I'll start learning how to paint/draw rocks and mountains tomorrow.

Zaulta

I was really tired towards night time, so I didn't want to force myself. I still did some things though.

I went into my brother's room and sketched from observation. It took over two hours and I had to hurry before he came home lol, so I wasn't paying attention to line cleanness. I'm pretty happy with it since I tried sketching my room from a photo a month or two ago and it messed up with accuracy a lot unlike this one. It also looks a lot like the pano option on the iphone : ).

I was suppose to paint rocks today, but I'll spend a lot of time on it tomorrow. The video tutorial I was watching made rocks seem pretty easy.

Zaulta

Not really happy with today and painting and painting rocks are really hard : ^). I don't know what I'm doing and the paintings and sketches take a long time. I'll try to watch a little more videos on hwo to paint rocks @_@.

Zaulta

Tried drawing my room, but wasted my time and failed from the beginning because I got my proportion with the bed frame wrong and didn't really have a good base for measuring I think.

Notes after quitting my room.

My computer shut off and I lost a rock that I was liking : ^). These ones are a lot better than yesterdays. I should try to get better varying things to look more natural.

Zaulta

Yesterday I helped my sister move into college and tomorrow I have to take the SAT, so I have to prepare, but I feel guilty for not drawing much for the past two days  < /3. Did another imaginary rock. The original shape is really weird and unnatural, but I do think it is the best one I've made so far. I'll finish it tomorrow if I can. Also, I don't know hwo to add color to a gray scale painting, but I'll figure it out somehow.

Zaulta

I've been taking a break and pretty busy lately, but not drawing made me pretty sad : ^). Took my sketchbook to my grandma's house and sketched some things from observation there < 3. Tomorrow I'll try to finish the digital rock, but I'm also a little busy tomorrow also.

The pictures I took of what I drawing will probably not be exact </3.

Zaulta

Plans were moved back a bit and I got back pretty late. Gonna quit this rock though : ^). The cracks are starting to be very unappealing, I should just try to study real world rocks from a good reference for now. Also I don't think I have much panned for the rest of this week, so I'll do my best to get back to practicing < 3.

Zaulta

I watched a rock video from ctrl paint and did a photo study. I'm pretty impressed with it as a whole. I tried not to be too high strung on accuracy and detail and just tried to focus on plane changes and edges really. Getting kinda bored doing rocks, so might try doing something along with it tomorrow.

Zaulta

Did some more environment stuff in digital today. I feel like I was bs'ing my work especially at the grass stuff, which was at my night time drawing. I'm noticing a trend where I do too much digital in a day I start to slack off and get more unproductive towards my night drawing time. So, I'm gonna start doing more traditional stuff daily again.

Did a rock from imagination. It's much much better than the last imaginary rock imo. I should learn how to refine better if I can.

I tried do a grassy field from reference. I think this could be acceptable if the grass wasnt a main focus, but I should try to practice on how to make things look finished and crisp in general.

Zaulta

I was busy with school stuff int he afternoon : ^). I spent tonight learning and practicing curviliniar perspective. I had a great time doing it, but I'm not really sure if I did it correctly though. I think stuff like this would bee much better if I did it on digital. I should try not being so scared and try it : ^).

Zaulta

I was busy today and came home tired @-@.

I want to try to make a gray scale study and turn it into color : ). Started with a really bad Loomis head, but went off it later. Towards the end I overlayed the sketch onto the reference and everything lined up nicely except for the far side of the face, which was the thing that was wrong with it. I was obsessing over the sketch, so it took me a while to do : ^).

Helpful notes from a tutorial I was watching for turning grey scale into color.

Not really anything. I wanted to sketch out my grandpa's fish pond, but 5 minutes after I started I had to go . I'll try again next time I go there.

Zaulta

I was busy again today and came home a little late.

I think I'm starting to get the hand of painting now : ^), for the like the fifth time lol. It's really hard to decide where to and not to smudge stuff and leave hard edges. Mainly worked on the eye and the nose.

I went back to my grandpa's house and finished the pond I guess and don't really think it's a good composition to draw. I also tried to draw it back March, so here's some improvement : ).

Not reaelly anything again. I sat down to sketch a build on the mountain, but I had to go shortly afterwards. I wasn't really able to make up my mind on how to start too.

Zaulta

My family was keeping me busy again today : ^, but I spend about 5ish hours on this today. I think it's looking really promising, but it's taking way longer than it should be. Maybe as I digital paint more I'll get faster if not I'll need to practice that : ). Also, I tried my best not to color pick from the reference.

Tomorrow I have to start planning and working for a birthday present also : ), so gonna take this more slowly now with school starting very soon also.

Zaulta

School starts tomorrow, so my schedule is gonna be changed : ). I'll try to draw at least 2-3 hours a day at home when I'm able to.

Did a little bit on the digital thing, wanted to just rest up a little bit more today.

I started a friend's birthday present : ). It's Hisoka from HxH and my deadline's this Saturday for it lol. I had to do a bit of researching and reference gathering first. Also did thumbnails, but I just started instead and it came together on it's own. The clothes of his is probably gonna really confuse me, but I'll try to work it out tomorrow and start rendering it with pencil.

Main refs:

Zaulta

I'm really tired. I was a little hard to get myself to draw, but I did. I think I just need to get used to the new schedule first.

I'm gonna try to draw more and more people a day as I go through the week since, I need to get more comfy getting my sketchbook out during class : ^). Also I'm gonna start avoiding brush pen with these and go to sharpie/pen if I want to use ink.

Zaulta

I think after this I'm gonna try to move away from graphite pencil because I think it's starting to just be an easy crutch and I think I can grow more using different mediums that I already have, like digital, watercolor, and charcoal. I'm also gonna start sorting my weeks out, so I don't have to think about what I need to do before. I'll figure everything out tomorrow.

Finished up the the thing from yesterday. Also, I couldn't sleep last night, so I went ahead and finished the hair and sorted out th clothes first. Tomorrow gonna clean it up and redo the left side shoulder thing : ^).

Zaulta

I decided that I'm gonna try to get good at painting with acrylics. It was really hard to choose between a bunch of others. I think that acrylic and digital painting go hand and hand with each other more rather than something like watercolor. I also made a guideline for myself for the next few weeks on what medium to practice and a topic I want to get better at. Fridays and the weekends are when I can do whatever I want to .

Today I cleaned up and completely finished the birthday gift : ). Used a black and white filter

Did observation portraits with brush pen and white out in art class today, while they were also working. I think I messed up a bit on the girl on the left, but that's ok.

Zaulta

Tried to finish the photo study for last week and I'm pretty happy with how it's going. I'll try to finish this by this weekend, but I have a lot of homework and plans : ^).

Something I did in art class today. I still have a little to do on him : ^).

Zaulta

My friend liked their gift . I worked on the digital thing a little bit yesterday, but was busy the rest of the day and finished it today. Didn't really know or want to start on anything so finished early today. Also I took some notes on some techniques and tips on acrylic painting before doing digital. I think learning acrylic will help me with painting in general and with my speed ).

I think the hair looks weird, but that fine I guess.

Zaulta

Back to not knowing what I'm doing : ^). Guess for tomorrow I'll try to watch more tips and tricks and stuff for acrylic and then paint a little something. Guess it's not bad for a first time in two years and much better than my very first time : ^). Also I think a main focus for me should be trying to get clean smooth shading and strokes maybe?

Also just noticed that the perspective on Pikachu's feet went more and more wrong as I worked more.

I used a black and white filter. I think the values are ok in general, maybe things like the mouth was too harsh the left side eye's shadow is too much.

Zaulta

Didn't want to paint today because I was really tired and haven't been a lot of sleep, so just took notes. Decided what I'll paint for tomorrow also and I'll try to follow the notes and especially try to be neater when I first start painting.

I need to try to get back into the habit of taking my skech book out when I'm not doing anything in class and that's a lot of the time.

Zaulta

I was getting a little angry at painting : ^). I think my initial sketches were fine, it's just that I don't know how to use the medium like when I first started digital. I think I should do some block in practice first and tomorrow I don't think I'll be able to paint because of a small project for school. Also, I want to get to the point where I can paint outside my house from observation well before I move on to something else.

Got the colors really wrong, the trashcan is little too thin, and I'm running out of white paint : ^). I quit after around an hour.

I had trouble fixing mistakes from blocking in wrong and painted outside the line : ^). Towards the end with the second guy, I had to rush cause it was getting late.

Ref

I sketched a lot of quickish sketches in school today. This is for my art class portfolio cover, a badly taken picture of my friend from a bottom view lol. Might redo and choose another photo for the second guy in the middle tomorrow.

Just thought I should include this too because most of them are from observation

Zaulta

Finished my poster and had a good time with it : ). I added the triangle shapes to suggest the color of the animals and to create a loose border, but it looks bad. It's whatever now though.

Did a little more for my art class portfolio. The perspective on the eyes of the girl on the left is off and the second guys right eye is too close to the center, so I'll fix it tomorrow.

Zaulta

I accidentally took a nap before my drawing time and lost an hour </ 3, but still did a lot : ). I was really suprized that I was able to paint this. My other paintings were probably bad because I was unfamiliar in them maybe or I was rushing like last time.  Anyways I'm really happy and I'm out of white paint.

I think my process was all over the place though.

Ref:

Redid the 2 faces on the right side with a different photo for my art class portfolio cover.

Little notes on skin tones before I painted. Gonna try to do the lady in color tomorrow.

Zaulta

I was busy most of the day, so painted at night only. I realized how messy and amateur looking my paintings are and it made me feel not so good xd. I couldn't really get her nose right. Also, I think next time I paint with acrylics, I should practice doing individual facial features and then move on to painting the rest of the body.

Zaulta

I've been really tired past two days @_@. This week my topic is digital and anatomy and here's my stuff from the past two days. Kinda feel like I wasted two days because I want to start painting directly in color before I start making bad habits and I don't know how to. Back to learning again tomorrow : ). I'll prob try watching some vids and focusing on rendering a specific part.

Today - I think I know anatomy pretty well, it's just that I don't know how to render that well and colors without color picking

Sketches from school today. It's really hard trying to draw people when they're usually moving : (, but if it's somewhat accurate it's fine. The first one isn't that accurate, but the 3rd one is.

yesterday -

Trying to do some sort of improvement thing from a few months ago and I guess I did a bit

Yesterday vs. June 2019

I definately have a better feel for colors, better control of my pen and tablet, and more knowledge of the program

Zaulta

Did some notes today and started another photostudy. I think the reason why I wasn't liking the last two things was because I was not being patient lol. Realized this from watching the video and I might've taken notes on it before also.

Gonna try to finish this in at most 3 days and not be a perfectionist if I can : ). The sketch was a little hard since her face is pretty interesting from the normal person,but so far I think it's looking good. I cheated a bit cause I couldn't sketch her lips good enough but that's about it.

Some stuff from school that I didn't post earlier. The things with colored marks are warm ups where we draw from imagination based on a random shape that's given. 10 minutes total for one page spread.

This was for a cover for my digital art class notebook from last week. We had to decorate a bit so .

Zaulta

I was really tired today, so only painted for about an hour or so today. Mainly added new layers and fixed some proportion things. Tomorrow gonna try to get deeper shades in the skin cause the nose is bothering me.

Zaulta

Had a lot of homework today, but did a bit in school when I was bored.

Some figure drawings, 5 minutes each. Haven't done it in a while : ).

Self portrait in the classroom from the computer monitor.

Zaulta

I feel kinda bad that I haven't been doing my goal stuff, cause I've been busy : ^). Worked on the digital study for about 3ish hours. Gonna try to finish it in two days.

Also, drew a classmate today.

Zaulta

finished it : ))

Zaulta

I was pretty distracted today, but tried doing a little perspective practice from a photo. I think it's good for not being that experienced.

Zaulta

Haven't been uploading oops </ 3. I'll try to post the things I did in order.

Last week my goal or topic was to create my own character in depth, so I thought a good starting point would be my DnD character. In short, he's an air genesis druid who's also very religious and youngish. Kinda had a lot of homework on some days last week also.

Started by making is portraits. Then the next day his whole body and costume.

I think I had a lot of work on this day, so just did some quickish thumbs.

Started doing it digital and I wanted it to seem like most other concept character art images. This took a lot longer than it looks and I'm not really proud of it. I was planning to add animals, but I was really tired with this : ). I think I need to practice painting clothes on digital and try out new brushes on there also.

First time painting a landscape yesterday. This week my topic is mainly acrylics and trying to get into more environment stuff. Made the tree in the front too small, but that's fine.

My sketches from observation at school during my free time over the last week.

I had a lot of work today, so I wanted to have a little fun with acrylics. I tried painting stuff I was more comfy with without a reference or a sketch first. I likee the second one the most.

Zaulta

My decade old computer keeps on crashing from this really long page : ^).

Yesterday I painted some clouds for the first time. I think that painting traditionally is a lot easier than digital cause there's not as much to worry about with traditonal : ^)

refs:

Sketches of classmates from yesterday

Today I had a lot of homework, so only did a little sketch of a comic cover I thought looks cool. Gonna try to paint it tomorrow.