Sketchbook: Giles Ruscoe
polycounter lvl 10
Ok... i figured its about time i learnt how to draw. Will be posting many many miserable drawing attempts in this thread.
~1 hour 15min, First time i've ever tried to paint a face which isn't on a flat texture... was very interesting and challenging.
Thats all for now
~1 hour 15min, First time i've ever tried to paint a face which isn't on a flat texture... was very interesting and challenging.
Thats all for now
Replies
[ame]
The Godfather ~30mins study
And some victorian chick, my first real attempt at painting a woman... why do women have to be so difficult, even in painting.... with painting men i find i can just go BAM brow line, BAM cheek bones and BAM chin... but with female studies it seems that subtleness is the key.
25mins painty, ballzed up a few things though
If your out to capture a likeness from these studies I would spend more time with measurements and angles. Hard to say without reference, but it seems like your measurements are off. As seen in the image below, when I first start a study I begin with big macro angles to "contain" the image. Once I have something fairly accurate I begin to come in and do smaller micro angles. The angles and measurements are where you will either nail the likeness of your subject or it will look off, or worse yet look nothing like your subject. For the measurements, hold your tool of choice up and measure the distance from the mouth to the chin, eye to the ear, eye to the forehead etc keep these in mind as you begin to develop your subject.
In addition, It may be beneficial to try and take more time with many of your value studies, and perhaps just do them in grayscale. I have been told by some many talented artists to render well 90% of it is seeing the values and 10% of it is color, thats why I suggest grayscale initially it helps you train your eye for value. Find a photo or create a still life you enjoy and really spend your time with it, dont rush through it and really try and push it as far as you can.
Take all of this with a grain of salt. I am beginning my traditional art journey, but feel free to check my sketchbook to see if my art is decent enough for your taste for me to provide you info. Keep it up and I hope this was helpful.
Check out how convincing of images he can make with just a few strongly defined planes: [1] [2]
It's good to see updates here man, keep at it.
Heya Suprore, i did actually start out just using three colours but i always just start hatching them together automatically after a certain time, i actually set out remembering how you mentioned the 3 colour thing for my lava golem texture, but i guess it all went downhill after a while.
Thanks for the comments, updates to come!
Mixed in the macro/micro deal with the 3 value technique to get planes down, then i went ahead and tried to polish it up a bit like PerfectBlue suggested. Somehow his ear magicly moves down throughout the progress shots and ends up on his jaw line.... my bad..
Edges are super important in art, and the hard edge is going to be one of the fundamental pieces of your visual toolkit -- get used to working with it. Consistent, solid planes create form.
Here's how i'd approach your line drawing: [1] -- stick within the lines of your planes and use them to define your masses.
I tweaked a few planes, most notably the cheeks, because after laying tone into them they didn't really define the form properly, but that's part of the process, it's a constant exploration.
Will have another crack at this tommorow.
Some random bits and bobs
And some pics from my sketch book, alot of crap in there but oh well
http://www.alienthink.com/inventiontocompletehumanbeing.blogspot.html
Here's my notes from lessons 1-5 from those videos, Vofff, I know it's the complete basics but i thought i'd upload anyway..
Most importantly of all: SPEND TIME ON YOUR STUDIES! If you only spend 30 min here and 20 min there all you'll learn how to do is start an image. Finishing it out will show you what worked at the beginning and what needs to be improved. You'll learn a lot from finishing. This is something I've only recently (in the past few months) stumbled upon and I must say it is crucial. Quick studies are fine, but be sure to spend some time on your studies once in a while.
You seem to use big round brushes a lot. While this is great for maintaining big, simple shapes, it also has a drawback of rounding all your forms. Be sure to get back in there with a smaller brush or eraser and clean up some of the edges.
Study these two resources. Understand their form and shape. They are both amazingly useful tools.
Loomis' Planes of the Head
Asaro's Planes of the Head
If you aren't already, use your digital tools! Zoom out to check readability: if it looks like a mess from afar it's going to look like a mess at normal size. Use the polygonal lasso tool: easy way to block out hard edged shapes (like planes of the face). Flip your canvas!!!!: it'll reveal flaws in your drawing you've grown accustomed to in its normal orientation.
Your definately right in saying that i'm not doing long studies, i just always get put off by how -meh- things look after the early stages and don't feel like taking them further, need to build up some confidence in my painting abilities i think haha, not like texturing where i feel quite comfortable working on them, i always feel quite uneasy jumping between stages in a painting. I'll try to spend more and more time on things as i improve, maybe some of them might look half decent
Again, correct, i love big brushes but they do seem to leave giant circles all over the place, i'll make a habit of going over with smaller brushes. Tyvm for the two links for Loomis' and Asaro's head planes, definately going to be useful to study these.
I am using some of the tools, although im not a fan of using the lassoo tool for sharp edges, not sure why! And i do flip the canvas aswell, just not as often as i should i think.
Thanks for taking the time to write that up, more to come soon!
1 hour from a sphere:
"finished" my army guy with what little time i have atm!
First drawings within the new establishment:
Son of a bitch camera took huge pictures and i'm too lazy to crop
Also just found out that i'll be getting 4 hours a week of free life drawing classes at uni now, so that'll be awesome!
everything looking very mediocre
Pay closer attention to the shoulders and the hips, you have some unnatural poses where both the shoulder and the hip on one side of the body is raised, and that's pretty anatomically impossible.
Plan on doing ALOT of anatomy and form studies this week, so those will get posted up towards the end of the week.
made a base mesh for some school thing... still gotta weld the ears on...
and for school aswell.... we gotta make a minecraft style environment.. all heavy wip still:
WIP for a character armor set... metal needs a complete rework.. trying to get my handpainted thread up and running again to get some crits for when i start doing the whole character: