Sketchbook: Ilja Japhir Kocken

Japhir

Hey guys,
I thought it was time to update my real-life drawing abilities, so I did some lunch break doodles. I didn't have any good sketchbook available yet, so some of them are actually on pieces of cardboard, but I'm gonna get my moleskin sketchbook today or tomorrow, so from then on my art will kick ass automatically










Crits and comments are most welcome, 'cause I feel like I've lost my touch and have to regain it slowly by lots of training.

Japhir

sketch for the mini pirates challenge over at gameartisans.

Ged

hey good to see your determined to improve. These images have some character but there is alot of room for improvement. Particularly the way youve used your pencil, things just arent flowing(looks scratchy) and it looks like youve gone over the same areas over and over like you werent sure how to draw them the first time. These are 2 things that I was struggling with about a year ago so hopefully I can give some advice.

get some good anatomy books like bridgman and copy and study his drawings, even copy the way he made the marks on the page not just the way the image looks. It makes a big difference when you start to realise how people have done such good drawings, I would also recommend copying masters sketches, da vinci, michelangelo etc its a good test of ability and gives you some vital understanding of how to approach a sketch.

Japhir

thanks a lot!
which books do you advise? I'm still doubting between "constructive anatomy" and "the human machine"...

EDIT: whatever, i bought them both.

Ged

haha ok well Ive got this [ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bridgmans-Complete-Guide-Drawing-Life/dp/0806930152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219075773&sr=8-1[/ame]

but I dont think it matters which books you have, they all have great anatomy drawings in them. I still cant figure out what they are saying in the text half the time and I dont know what the wierd constructions they draw are trying to say but I personally really like the "masses" drawings that show the planes of the anatomy. you can google davinci and michelangelo and find some sketches of theirs to copy if you want more practice.

What I sometimes do is start a drawing or 3D sculpt and then look at it and realise "hmm I dont actually know how this part is supposed to look." so I get out my anatomy books and do some sketches and then continue in 3D with the new knowledge.

Japhir

thanks
that's exactly what i liked about what i saw, and what made me buy both. if you look at the stuff in here.
but i won't have them for 5-10 working days or so, so here is a sculpt . it's not human so i don't have any anatomical issues :P (that was not the reason to do something non-human though )

TheWinterLord

Nice keep it up! I am also struggling with anatomy even moreso before i got my hands on these videos by Riven Phoenix. All are on youtube, like 230 something episodes... Try it out maybe youl like it or you wont. :P
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFxHEZP_70c[/ame]

Japhir

thanks winterlord i watched about half of those a couple of years ago, and then forgot about them. thanks.

thought i'd post it here aswell: my wip for the sdk challenge over at gameartisans.org.
obviously very wip.

Japhir

i drew borat-pirate today, in about 15 minutes.
still need to piratify him.

Kawe

lol. I looked and thought it looked like Borat. good job

Japhir

thanks a lot! good to hear that, 'cause 2 of my friends couldn't recognise him :P (they didn't know borat :S)

update: still needs more pirate if you look at it at about 25% now it looks pretty decent imo .

Jaco

Looks good man, good skintones!
It looks like you got a bit carried away with the sharpen brush around the chin area, that noise looks a tad strange, dunno if you were going for stubble?

Japhir

thanks Jaco!
no, that was actually an overlay with some noise... it was going to be stubble but it turned out weird.
here is an update:


oh, and i just got my new anatomy book (one of them) and i'm going to draw some stuff over this weekend. stay tuned .

Japhir

more update:

just noticed i need more reds in there... crits welcome!

butt_sahib

im loving those skin tones

Japhir

thanks butty boy!! .

here is another head sculpt, i made a new base with something that i thought of myself once, and then forgot about, then saw it on someone elses model somewhere and thought: oh hey that's cool :P. (i'm referring to the fact that this base doesn't have an edgeloop in the middle).

oh and there IS a small triangle near the eye, but after trying out all sorts of things in max with a turbosmooth modifier this turned out to work best. it also accidentally added some extra geometry for the eyes.

Jaco

Looking good man, a huge improvement over your previous head sculpt!
The nose and ears look a bit strange maybe. The ear is kinda flat, and the nostrils look a bit deflated.
I think you should make the neck a bit longer on your base, otherwise all your heads are going to end up with necks like conan.

butt_sahib

Excellent improvement.
yeah you really need to get out of your "FLAT EAR OF DOOM" syndrome. Use some depth!

BradMyers82

Nice work man! I noticed your avatar on a few other threads and I thought it was a small photograph of Borat. I couldn't figure out why it would be your avatar, but now it makes sense.
So in other words, your painting skills are really good, im sure your drawing will be just as good with a little more practice.
I need practice with drawing too, I will certainly check out those youtube links and take some of Ged's advice as well.

Edit:
Oh yeah, I got the dynamic figure drawing book by Burne Hogarth about a year ago, I highly recommend that book also.

Japhir

thanks guys! Long time no update here, it's mainly because i posted all my stuff in the waywo thread.

Here is a basketball dwarf i did for the latest minichallenge over at gameartisans:

oh, and obviously i also used a 512x512 alpha map for this one.


currently i'm working on a beast sculpt, i'll post images when i progressed some more.

Japhir

beast sculpt wip:


and some history:
wip1: http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/6884/beastwippy6.jpg
wip2: http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4...astwip2pj4.jpg

crits and comments most welcome, as this is going to be my first finished next gen character.

Ged

good start on the beast make sure you pay attention to the large forms in the anatomy, quadrupeds are pretty difficult for me when it comes to anatomy. Hey I think the dwarf looks decent but his back looks a strange dark greenish tone, like the back half of his body is old and moldy.

Japhir

thanks ged! i'll work on that.

the dwarf's back is greenish because of the lighting. I still need to learn how to set up proper lighting .

Japhir

here is my pok

Japhir

update:


daaamn, unwrapping this really really sucked because of the huge tail and the general weirdness of the shapes :P.

wizo

hehe cute pokemon! I suggest making the last curving part shorter, just like in your concept, that way, the tail would seem a bit more balanced. Purple is great for this lil fella.

Japhir

thanks wizo! good call about shortening the tail to match the concept.

i'll post this here as well, just for the sake of having a complete thread .

jaalto

Cool shark .. really love the textures!

Japhir

thanks! I was allowed to post flats here, so here you go:

Ged

looks cool, the only crit I can give is the texture is a bit overly sharp. like you went to heavy on the sharpen filter and ended up with sharp noisyness in some areas.

Japhir

thanks ged! your right about the sharpness, at that time i liked the sharpen brush for adding detail, i learned otherwise now (made this one a couple of months ago).

today's sketches:

they where quickies (actually drawn in a car), but i thought i'd post them for some form crits .

Japhir

new lunch break sketches! the where all quickies, just to enjoy myself . i need to get rid of the 'scratchy-ness' of these thingies .

crits and comments most welcome!

CLICK FOR HIGHREZ

oh and if you haven't already, check out my Zombie Beast thread.

Japhir

some sketches.