Fey's Playground

[Melfey]

Sharing sketches on conceptart is a great opportunity to learn more about your drawing skills. There is so much to learn and I often have the impression of beeing in a dead end, because I am 100% self-taugh painter.

I am 27 years old, my father is german, my mother french and I grew up in Germany. I study biochemistry, but drawing was always important to me. As a freelance job I do illustrations for a german rpg publishing house and do some private commissions (character drawings). But I need some place for experimental work, studies and exercises. So please feel free to criticise and to give new impulses.

[Melfey]

Today I did another still live.I am not so satisfied with the amound of time I needed to draw it. I fail at picking the right colours and find it really hard. In Painter you have this strange triangle, where dark and highly saturated colours are really near together, so I often choose to light/dark colours. I also tried working with the colour palette tool. This seemed to work better for rough colouring.

As you can see I made a little 'time-dependend' documentation.

[Melfey]

Any recommendation what I should exercise next?

First time I draw some skulls with references. Regrettably only photography based references. But it was a lot of fun doing it! Tell me, what you think about them.

Should I do less accurate work for the sake of drawing more exercises in the same time? They took me about 1,5 hours.

[papervampire]

hey, great work! I love the way you define form in your colour paintings with hatch lines. I hear you about the weird colour picker - does painter have a cmyk picker? for me this is the easiest and most resembles real paint mixing.

it's great that you're doing long studies. if you're learning from them that's all that matters!

[Melfey]

@papervampire:
First of all: Many thanks for commenting my sketchbook
Painter sadly works with RGB. There is somethings like a colour mixer which resemble at a traditional colour palette - which is not bad. And this crappy colour triangle where dark, light and highly saturated colours are to close for my eyes.
I am not really sure if I can learn from them. Any idea how I can check this after some excercises?

Today I studied my brothers playing on a video game console. This time I tried to work fast. Not sure if I learned something from it...

[Bidi]

Sweet! very, very nice. that pot on the red cloth is my fav. be careful with those light colors, though. Especially on faces...unless you want it to look kinda 'oily' or shiny, you should avoid much lighter spots. other than that, your cross hatching is pretty good! Ah, and yes, you do learn a lot from quick drawings. I'm taking a class right now and we start off with 3 min poses and it helps to loosen up, so stay with those exercises =)

much peace

[Melfey]

@Bidi:
Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook ^^ It's very helpfull for me to get advice from other painters. I was never in a course or something like that and therefore have troubles to trust in others advice. But I do know that I need this advice o__o

Yeah, bright colours are too attractive for me. I think you're right. I must find a better balance in values. The fact that I love strong contrasts does'nt help much ^__-

Yesterday I tried a new excercise: I drew some faces from 'the kite runner' screenshots upside-down. An interesting experience. I learned from it that I struggle with hatching in this direction and that my sketches are often distorted.

First Pic: the upside-down image in the perspective I drew it.
Second: same face drawn in right perspective.
Third: the upside-down imagem, 180° rotated.

And I tried a tutorial by artbytheo (http://artbytheo.deviantart.com/art/...-quot-28957998).
First: after 27 min
Second: after 49 min
Third: after 60 min
Then I noticed that the third dimension lacks and stopped drawing. Don't want to waste time.

[sandeepbarot]

amazing work.

[Lakeland]

Hey there.
I love the way you understand light.
naked chick is awesome.
thumbs up mate.

[Imaginary]

Lovely studies dude, you seem to have a pretty good grasp of the basics, really like the faces especially.

[Melfey]

@sandeepbarot, Lakeland and imaginary: thanks ^__^ Very encouraging to hear

Today I feel a bit ill. I think I have a cold or something like that. On Katanasoul's advice I bought the book of betty edwards - even if I am not a beginner to whom the book seems to be adressed. I'm going to do the exercises, described in this book. I don't know if they'll help me, but I want to give them a try. As recommended I did a quick (30 min) selfportrait, a random face from imagination (20 min) and I drew my left hand in a random pose (10 min). I actually made my face fatter as it is o__O Btw: this is the expression of my face when I draw... seems emotionless *_* But this is not a beauty contest XD

I used a "B" 0.5mm fineliner which actually felt darker and softer than B.

[Melfey]

Well... I see know why Betty Edwards' book is adressed to beginners. There are lots of excersises I already knew in some way. Even if I had no real education in drawing I teached myself and learned many things like seeing shapes, dark values and light values. So I skiped some exercises (negative rooms and things like that).

You can read my thoughts I had during or after the exercises. They are in german, but if you wish I'll translate them.

There is one point I feel a strong disagreement with Betty Edwards: I don't think that thinking in words and drawing is impossible to do simultaneous. I always listened to teachers or music while drawing, sometimes I speak while drawing and I don't have the impression that this disturbs me in the drawing process. The only thing it might disturb is my concentrations. But this is the same with learning new words in another language. At some points I need concentration and I can't concentrate when I am talking to someone else about something else.

Have fun!
Melanie

[Katanasoul]

Oh you are so amazing... I oh so love your drawings, your very unique way of hatching... Really good work. I like to see how long it took you to get them the way they are. When seeing stuff from really good artists, I sometimes feel like they brought that up in just a minute or two. It´s weird because I know they didn´t but anyway...
The Betty Edwards book starts out a little slow, as you described I didn´t feel anything during the first exercises either. But it becomes better. When she wrote about the face in the chapter about portraits, I was surprised that I really didn´t see what she explained. It helped me a lot.
(You´re making that mistake, too: The upper part of the head from the eyes to the end of the skull is as long as the lower part from the eyes to the chin. Check that on your portraits, you´ll notice that, too.)

[DeeStar]

its always nice to see someones process. (the second post) good life drawing too.

[Melfey]

@katanasoul: thank you for your kind comment ^^ I thought about your crit (upper skull to small for the lower part) and looked at my sketches. The upper head in my SP is very short - there you're right - but it's because of the non-frontal perspective. And then I looked at drawings I did in the last month and measured the distances. I drew a pink line in the lower part, copied that line and moved it to the upper part. Actually I don't tend to do the "flat head" mistake. But thanks for your critique anyway. MORE CRIT PLZ

Btw: tomorrow I will draw a real portrait of my youngest brother with edwards' tips. I am very curious about the result

@DeeStar: Thank you! I hope to do more process documentations in the future. I love them too.

[Xo.]

hey there ! quite interesting seeing how you work ... i guess you concentrade on illustration and it suites quite well ! if you want to have another challenge maybe you just try to leave out the contur lines and just teach yourself working with the shadows !

Den alten Mann musste ich auch im Kunstunterricht mal machen ... konflikt blieb bei mir auch aus trotzdem interessant zu sehen das es aufm kopf manchmal ist besser zu arbeiten

Ich hoffe du hast verstanden was ich meine viele Grueße Xo.

[papervampire]

hey Melanie... greeeeat progression since I last checked... the quick sketches of your bros are fantastic. it's super that you're doing all these basic exercise, i never had the patience hehe. i think you have really good instincts!

[Melfey]

@Xo.: Great idea! Which media do you suggest for that excercise?

Ich glaube der Konflikt bezog sich darauf, dass man während des Zeichnens der Vase die einzelnen Gesichtsteile benennen sollte: Nase, Stirn, Oberlippe, Unterlippe und so weiter. Betty Edwards vertritt die These, dass man beim Zeichnen das Sprachzentrum ausschalten muss. Sie meint Sprache und räumliches Denken stehen im Konflikt miteinander. Allerdings war ich schon immer eher der räumlich denkende Typ. Erst ist die Idee und dann die Sprache. Liegt vielleicht daran, dass ich bilingual erzogen wurde.

@papervampire: I think basics are quite important. When you learn to play an instrument you also have to practise very basic exercises - even when you're very good and playing for a few years. But now I should move on to more elaborate exercices, I think. I also need to practice drawing from imagination, which is very important for illustrational work.

Next Betty Edwards "Exercise": Portraiture
My youngest Brother was so kind to sit for a portrait. I worked with HB, B2 und B4 pencils. It took me ~3 hours.

[nurraymjo]

Beautiful work. Interesting studies. I'm really loving your sketchbook thus far.

[Imaginary]

Admire the way you drew and rendered the hair, having some problems with that myself... too lazy to render it, heh. :|

[Melfey]

Thank you!

The truth is I love drawing hair, it's not to timeconsuming. You have to finde the eye-catching shapes, draw them with some rough lines, define shadows and highlights and then draw some lines in the middle of the shapes you found for giving a hairy texture. You should work with different pressure and then it's fine.

This week-end I am going to visit my partner so I will probably draw less and update my journl when I'll be back next week.

Rough and quick (1 hour) self portrait (this is really me O.O) with Painter, using the chalk and wipe tool:

[laxkor]

oo, the upside down method of drawing in some of the sketches is a great way to start seeing shapes. However from experience, the problem with the technique is that it obfuscates the "reasons" why the shape appears as so. i.e. it clouds further analysis of say why an edge was painted so, a color used here, etc. The only thing the technique really trains is observation, which is great for drawing from life, or any time when you need to quickly see and putdown shapes. Just a heads up


Pretty amazing for a one hour digital portrait, you're quite good at laying down volumes without any line sketches.

Also for the portrait sketches with the red lines, are they used to check that they are parallel so that the eyes are lined up?

[Melfey]

One week without update O.O I was to lazy to scan anything.
Yesterday I bought the "toner grey" line copics - I like copics, because you can work really fast and get aquarell like results.

First pic is a scribble - 1 hour from imagination while I was phoning to my friend.
Second: copy of one of janaschi's and algenpfleger's masterpieces (I think everbody here knows their work - but if you don't, take a look at their sketchbooks: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=114449 and http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...26#post2315826 )
Third: Lizardman from imagination.
Fourth: Kate Moss from reference.


@laxkor: Thank you The lines were only for distance measurements.

[Diaforetikos]

Your line control is awesome, as well as you understanding of light and observation. Also, I noticed that your work seems kinda tight. The only thing I can say is loosen up your strokes. Like the picture you did of your brother playing video games. That was nice. Then again, I don't know if your work your posting here is just mainly clean sketches.

I'm lovin the last 3 pictures. Keep it up. Dedication. WOO!!

[algenpfleger]

Woot, that study! It's an honor, thankees Keep up the studying, the still life looks great, more more more!

[Melfey]

@diaforeticus: I am still not sure if loosing the lines would help me to become a better fantasy artist. I fear loosing the observation of shapes if I work to loose.

@algenpfleger: thanks for your support - it was really fun drawing her

Painter overstrains me. In 99% I get some ugly random faces and I feel incapable rendering/refining them. :/ I need some help, I think...

With painter, from imagination:

[Melfey]

Trying an other technique. I drew her from imagination and didn't used any reference.

[Hipalien]

Great artwork you have going on! You really inspire me to get to some painting. Most of my work of late has been pencil and ink with digital coloring. Anyways keep up the great work as you seem to be working hard in all that you are doing with it!

[Melfey]

@Hipalien: Thanks for let me knowing that my work inspires you. This is one of the best compliments someone can give. I saw your awesome sketchbook. Keep it up!


To lazy for sketches today... but highly inspired by the fascination for blood and violation of my girl friend who admires films like sweeny todd.

[zou]

good work you're a fast learner

wow , the last is so bloody. I couldn't stand painting her finger in her neck

anyway, keep posting