Talking about Sketching

My art-level-up experiment has gone well. I dunno if this will be interesting to anyone else, but I feel like talking about about what it's been like learning and re-learning stuff.

I think I can illustrate things a bit with this sketch, the first one I did starting out. It was just for fun but I couldn't seem to bring it to a finished product. I tried with pencils, inks, markers and photoshop but was just too rusty at everything and too frustrated to take the time to do things right.

I spent the first few weeks bouncing back and forth between learning different things. I was impatient to get better at everything at once. The moment I started to feel at all competent I'd switch to something else, never getting really comfortable with anything. I think a part of me needed to do this, so i don't mind that it happened. It got me jump-started and taught me some lessons about patience and planning.

I spent 2 days sketching alternating between photos and sketches from an artist with a style compatible with mine trying to break down what kind of lines I should be using.

Over time I split my attention between projects for myself and friends, started to learn CS6, and eventually got myself on a regular schedule.

For a while I did 1 hour of drawing from the tv every day to keep working on comic style. When I could start drawing cleanly without reference I bumped this off the schedule and into after-hours doodling, so now I just do it for fun and warmups.

Also figured out some ways to make sketches more presentable. 

Btw, this one of my beau's avatars, a test image for a gift. I wanted to get his opinion on the likeness without spoiling the surprise.

In the end I think the main thing I've had to learn was to let go of the idea of perfection and just commit to my lines, be dedicated to seeing an image through to what it needs to be. That I'll keep working on every day.

Sketchup Ketchup

Did all the old starter pokemon in my sweetie's sketchbook.

Sonic drawjam with some friends. You can see some more of em on tumblr.
http://kimbotea.tumblr.com/

Some sketch commentary on Bravely Default...

...And Rune Factory 4.

I don't post to Docta Foo's sketch club as much as I should, but took the opportunity to draw up Octavia Butler for the historical portraits challenge. Love this lady.

Miss Foo is nice, too.
http://www.afuarichardson.info/

I've started reading some webcomics, which is unusual for me. I just don't like reading on my computer. After reading the second volume of Namesake, though, I had to go online and catch up to current. Plot's getting interesting.
http://namesakecomic.com/comic/prologue-cover-3/

People are doing some really cool stuff on the web these days. Here's some other stuff I really liked.
http://www.saintforrent.com/index.php?id=1

http://english.bouletcorp.com/

Juneau & Horatio

Started a comic this week using some pet characters my sweetie and I invented while back. This is just the first mini.

I have a totally stupid cold, but working on this is putting me in a good mood.

Upright Citizen

I'm getting over a killer cold. Last couple of days I've been too sick to read or draw or sit at the computer for any length of time so I'm super excited to be upright again.

Okay. Updates.

Since completing the mini-comic I've been figuring out what I wanna do next in my art-level-up project. Most of the work that I'm doing, for myself an others, is stuff I can't show just yet.

Also, I'm finally starting to accept some commission work. Go ahead and contact me if you'd like something and I'll let you know what my schedule's looking like.


Alrighty. Art time! Here are some scribbs I've done in my sweetie's sketchbook.

Dinosaurs are cool.

This one is Monster Hunter 3.

And a Zaku.

Alrighty, that's it for now.

The Shop - Minicomic

Been working on this short comic for practice for the last few weeks.

                         And here's one of the ashcan printouts.

I tweaked printer settings to fix the issue with the pages lining up, but ran out of black ink before I could finish.

That's it for now.

Comics and other good stuff

Yay, comics!

I've been practicing all sorts of art hoobijoob recently and now paneling and lettering are on the list.

This is my sweetie and I having adventures in FFXIV.

And this one's a scene from Soul Music, which I was reading at the time.

Also done a little bit of illustration in there. This puppy picture was done for my sweetie, Mr. Bennie Mc Bennerson.

Done for me, of our meeses. I'm excited about being able to make sketches presentable without loosing all the great pencil sketchiness.

And this, of Mc Bennerson's GW2 character. No one's seen this before cuz I just did it to get his opinion on her likeness while I was working on a present.

This one started as a request for art of Juneau and Horation, the little frog and cloud characters, but turned into Disgaea fanart because why not?

Ciao.

Walrus Shmalrus

Yessssh! My copy of Walrus just got here last night! I drew this for Brandon to celebrate.

Brandon's on of the best dudes in comix these days. The art book has a cool mix of work including sketches, flyer art, and some older work, all dressed up for the format. You can pick up yer own copy here.http://www.amazon.com/Brandon-Graham-Walrus-Grahams-Album/dp/0985159596/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373672749&sr=8-1&keywords=walrus+brandon+graham

Here's some of his art for your convenience.

More here http://royalboiler.deviantart.com/ and here http://royalboiler.wordpress.com/.

So, I recently decided to devote more of my time to improving and finding a direction for my art. I've been so out of practice that I'm spending a lot of time just getting a handle on the basics. Here's the rough gameplan.

- Sketch faster and cleaner.

-Learn more accurate perspective.

-Learn photoshop CS6. I got it as a gift a few months ago and, it turns out, it's waaaay different from 5.5

-Get stronger at balancing value in color\greyscale, or in balancing fills in b&w.

I'm going to try to focus on and develop 2 of my art styles. I draw a ton of different styles but I think these two are the ones I neeed to do.

Comic - Inked, clean, lots of playing with negative space, stylized. When colored, colors are kept fairly flat. Inspired by a mix of japanese, korean and euro comix, and artist I know. The art I did for brandon up thar could be an example of that. This one is reasonable developed but I'm playing with some different human proportions. I can already do it pretty fast.

Illustrative - Detail, loose lines, emotional, atmospheric  a lot of playing with the balance of the placement and grouping of lines. A blending of stylization and realism. When colored has a heavy range of values and feels fairly rendered. I can sketch in this style pretty easily but still need to find the right way to complete them.

Here's an example of something in that style I started on last week but haven't gotten back to yet.

I've noticed that it can be kind of discouraging that I don't have more finished, presentable stuff to share with people. It's just the state of affairs at this point. The truth is that I draw stacks and stacks of sketches and productive time learning photoshop or other things. That's part of why I decided to start using this blog as more of a real art blog, whereas before it was more of a gallery.

Next time I'll start scanning in more of my practice and progress stuff and talk about the things I've been learning and influenced by recently.
Well, that's it for now.