Sketchbook: ProperSquid

ProperSquid

Hello all,

I may as well start this sketchbook with a bit of an introduction. My name is Scott Wilson, and I'm from the (currently) snowy lands of Vancouver, British Columbia. I'm hoping to eventually become a 3d model/ texture/ technical artist for the games industry. Currently, I'm not in school, but I'm hoping to use this thread as a tool to post my art, get critiques, get a portfolio for school, and become a better artist overall.

Current goals: Draw 5 things a week. This week is hands.

Here is what I have so far. (All 15 minute to 30 minute studies. I'm going to try to do a longer study on Friday.) If you can give me critiques, pointers, lessons, or anything, then that is most appreciated.

Tuesday:


Wednesday:


Thursday (Decided to pull out the charcoal):


Once again, comments and critiques are more than welcome.

SimonT

nice. i'm also trying to learn drawing hands/feets right now not that easy to get the masses right.

ProperSquid

Hand number 4! This is roughly an hour study.

ProperSquid

Technically the first hand of the second week. I may try to do 6 hands this week and then move onto feet next week. I feel as though I'm getting something wrong, and I'm hoping that I could get a pointer on how to do hands.

Also, trying to not do hand related puns is hard.

ProperSquid

2 more today! Not to crazy about the first one, but I should probably document my failures and successes. Anyways, here you go.

Two Listen

Something I'm going to recommend when doing hands - hand studies are great, and being able to represent them accurately in a variety of ways can have outstanding results. But people often spend a lot of time on them copying what they see from books or looking at their own hand, and seem to focus on odd things. From my experience, anyway.

A human hand is something we're all very familiar with. People are going to notice if it's screwed up - but also, our familiarity with it allows us as artists to take some shortcuts. Most people learning, when they draw a hand they make sure they've got all the fingers accounted for, that they put the line at all the joints - segmenting each finger, that they put those major wrinkles on the palm, etc.

Take a look at this:



Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist.

There's a hand there that's not even finished, barely more than a blank space with crap all around it - and yet we can tell exactly what it's doing. Unless a hand is going to be a major part of your painting, I'd recommend focusing more on a hand's silhouette, basic outline. If you can suggest a hand and we see it as a hand, mission accomplished.

Just an oddly specific bit of advice.

Edit: Now, I'll also note - looking to become a 3D artist, you will certainly want to be familiar with a hand's structural anatomy. Though I think a similar concept can be applied to 3D art as well as 2D representations.

ProperSquid

Firstly, thank you SimonT and Two Listen for taking the time to respond to my thread. I really appreciate the comments and critiques.

I was told to focus on negative space for this one, so I just pulled out the charcoal and focused on the silhouette. The thumb and the wrist seems a bit thin, but other than that, I'm liking this one. 2 more hands, and then I journey down to the feet.

ProperSquid

Alright, this one I'm semi-happy with. I'm starting to understand how the thumb and fingers work. Although, I need to work on the palm and foreshortening.



After I'm done the next hand, I plan to continue studies with the following subjects:
- Feet
- Faces/ Heads
- Dishes/ Pots and Pans
- Cloth

Other than that, any suggestions for things to study is more than appreciated.

ProperSquid

Last hand! I focused on the palm since I know that this is my weakness. Decided to do a short study (15ish minutes), but I think I'm starting to understand the palm more.

VianReps

I would suggest not to use charcoal whilst doing these studies, it's a very quick and bold instrument. In my opinion - if you really want to understand anatomy - grab a copy of Greys Anatomy and look through the illustrations, or go to natural history museum (surgery museum) and spent some time drawing objects there. Anyway - good luck, hope to see more works soon)

ProperSquid

Thanks for the tips VianReps. I decided to go back to pencil with this one (per your suggestion). I'm looking into getting myself a copy of Greys Anatomy to further my practices.

VianReps

http://www.bartleby.com/107/54.html#i219
and here you go - the entire greys anatomy online http://www.bartleby.com/107/indexillus.html
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Btw - try to draw from the inside out and be more carefull on the outline. Basically start with the simplified skeleton structure , do shadows and highlights to add volume. Try doing a long drawing sessions, don't skip from one drawing to another but just sit and draw something (object in the museum, or a model from life drawing class) for as long as you can (2-4 hours should be enough). The more you observe - the more details you will notice about the form. Quick drawings are perfect when you want to learn about poses, gestures, animation etc

ProperSquid

Holy crap, thanks for the link. I've been so busy looking at the illustrations that I didn't get a chance to pick up my pencil (so no drawings today).

Out of curiosity, would you suggest that I take the concept of drawing inside out to 3d modeling? (Ie: Create a 3d model of the bones, then muscles, and finally skin)

Once again, thank you for helping by pointing me in the right direction.

VianReps

I think that is unnecessary, just look through anatomy, see how it works, a draw - a lot(not quick and simple though). And whilst you're drawing - make sure that you spent more time looking and measuring the object) This is just a general advice you would get if you were to go to a live drawing class.