Kedrew's SB

[kedrew]

Hello and welcome to my Sketchbook. I joined CA 1 year ago and have been a regular in the Ringling hopefuls thread. I will be a Computer animation student in the Fall of 2009. These are some of my most recent works. Please feel free to critique my work. Thank you for your time.

To start of is a Self Portrait and a Photoshop study.

[edit: most recent self portrait]

[Leonor]

Hi! Welcome to sketchbooking.
I like your apple study the best.
Your portrait seems well proportioned, but values could be better. Learn different hatching techniques and don't be afraid to push the range (I have to tell this to myself all the time too.)

[kedrew]

Thanks for the crit Leonor. I think my camera made my SP a little flat. But I'll keep the pushing of value tip in mind when doing my future projects. Oh and I'll be updating the Figure study soon.

[kedrew]

Heres a SP and a Finished Figure Painting. The figure painting took 14 hours and the SP took 2.

[Mr. Mystery]

WOA! That life painting of yours is sick man! Please keep uploading

[lexxx]

very nice figure. how long did your first pencil sp take? judging from that i would say maybe work in pencil a little more.

[FightingSeraph]

Excellent stuff, and don't be afraid to do something different.

[kedrew]

thanks for the nice response guys. The self portrait in pencil took around 45 minutes
(I think). This stuff I have posted right now was just some pieces I was able to upload because it was done in photoshop. I'll hopefully get a good enough camera to post some sketches and studies

My goal in this SB is to learn anatomy, and whatever it is incorporated with. (perspective, proportion, construction, rhythm, form, character building,etc) I will be an animation major so I'm sure it will be essential. Any advice is highly appreciated.

I have some Loomis Books so far. Feel free to point me in the right direction.

[ninjacat11]

The figure painting looks good, but I agree that the self-portrait needs a wider range of values.

[kedrew]

I have some sketchbook pages and a still life I did on my remaining free trial of photoshop. Anybody ever used gimp before? Is the interface similar to PS?

[MartinV]

Hey Kedrew, your figure painting is intense man! I like your last still life too. You should play around with a landscape next, maybe incorporating a figure into a landscape.

The Gimp interface is similar and most of the tools function similar to photoshop, but have different icons.
Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aR3o7rYdx0

[hala]

that figure painting was amazing!!! please show us more

[Jasper_]

Hey man I think I'm friends with you on facebook! Good to see your sketchbook, that last life painting is looking good, I like that the objects have a variety of surface material. Just work on defining your hard and soft edges a bit more and you'll be good to go!

[dierat]

That last still life looks great. With that piece and the apple at the beginning, it could be helpful to add a little more color variation into the core shadows of objects to help them feel more rounded. Keep up the good work!

[kedrew]

Thanks for the advice guys. I went back and reworked the image. tightened the edges and put more depth into my colors. I have you on FB Pyroclasm XD

[Nicky S]

Nice start with your sketchbook, the figure painting is looking rally good, also nice job on the selfportraits. But it's worth a try to push your values a bit further.
A good book for figure drawing is the villpu drawing manual, any book from bridgman,...
But even better would be to look for some life drawing sessions, you'll learn a lot from them.
I hope that the school you're going to attend, spends enough time on getting things right. (like anatomy) 'Cause my school, though it's more traditional animation, doesn't much time on things like that, they assume you'll learn it on your own, or they don't really care as long as you finish your assignments in time... But that's the case with most Belgian schools.^^
That's why I'm gratefull that there's a place like Conceptart.org, it keeps me really motivated to improve.
Keep it up!

[kedrew]

Originally Posted by Nicky S

Nice start with your sketchbook, the figure painting is looking rally good, also nice job on the selfportraits. But it's worth a try to push your values a bit further.
A good book for figure drawing is the villpu drawing manual, any book from bridgman,...
But even better would be to look for some life drawing sessions, you'll learn a lot from them.
I hope that the school you're going to attend, spends enough time on getting things right. (like anatomy) 'Cause my school, though it's more traditional animation, doesn't much time on things like that, they assume you'll learn it on your own, or they don't really care as long as you finish your assignments in time... But that's the case with most Belgian schools.^^
That's why I'm gratefull that there's a place like Conceptart.org, it keeps me really motivated to improve.
Keep it up!

Thanks for the nice comments Nicky! I've got some Andrew Loomis books and found some Bridgman books. I've been skimming the books and doing a few studies of their sketches. I haven't went to a live figure drawing session in 4 months but will be starting again July 9. Till then I'll have to do life studies of my brother and what ever's lying around. I'll be going to Ringling college and it seems they emphasize the figure quite a bit.

[kedrew]

Ok, I have recent bridgeman studies,an andrew loomis study, a skull study done a few weeks ago, and some made up duel monsters cards.

I feel the studies help a lot with my attempt to memorize the figure. The skull is kinda old. And the made up cards I tried to apply some anatomy from memory with no ref. Please ignore the suckish pencil coloring.

[kedrew]

Oh, I try to refrain from super stylized anime. The DBZ guy was made cause I wanted to draw some big hair.

[hala]

with your 8 heads study there, the arms are uneven, in both the front and back views. one hand is dipping lower than the other side--that's something that can be easily fixed. Your bridgman studies are also looking very solid. Just pay attention to those small details and keep practicing
I think your skull drawing has great values--the anime drawings could be better if you put the same amount of values into those.

Hope that helps somewhat

[kedrew]

hala- oh crap! haha I need to fix the loomis studies! I'm quite embarrassed. But thanks for the comments. I think I'll take em off and fix the error(s).

[tokidokizenzen]

Hi kedrew
Nice studies. Nothing wrong with super stylized anime IMO. Draw/study what you want. Good to see you got some Bridgeman in there. I second what Nicky S said, life drawing is so valuable for learning anatomy. I like to study Bridgeman or some reference of musculature the day before a life session. This way its fresh in my mind and I can try and look for the stuff I referenced the day before. Figure drawing from life is great because you get a true sense of 3d. Also its way more fun! Enjoy and keep it up.

[kedrew]

Hello guys another week has flow by and this is the stuff I've done from Mon-Thursday. I did more pose maniacs figures but am still trying to get better.

So here's a SP, some Bridgman studies, Burne Hogarth Studies, and a few 1 min pose maniac gestures. I love Bridgman and Hogarth books btw, so much information on construction!

[Nicky S]

Keeep it cooomminggg!

Nice sp, values are good, but you could push them a bit further.

[kedrew]

Thanks Nicky, I'll keep em coming! I'll try my best with value as well. I want to do some character and drawings from the mind soon to apply what i've learned. Also I'll do some composition studies from movies or something as well. For now, here's a couple of sketches.

[Nicky S]

Nice sketches, the last one really captured the flow of the human body in that pose, nice!

keep it up.

[kedrew]

Thanks again Nicky, I've been trying to develope better rhythm in my sketches. Here's what was created after watching the Zhang Lu video. I still feel not confident with constructing the head. I guess maybe after I draw 100 of em I'll get a better hang of it. Feel free to tear it to shreds. Oh yeh, anyone wanna share tips on using soft brushes? for this one i just used a round one with no hardness and pressure sensitivity for flow.

[hala]

Well i think using a hard brush helps--soft brushes quickly flatten out the structure of the face. I think you should do some eye studies, because that is the weakest part in ur recent pic-the brow bone especially, catches light in a such a significant way, that if it's not portrayed right, the whole upper half of the face flattens out. Also, the "v" of the neck shouldn't be that deep or noticeable if she is just standing normally, so keep that in mind too.

hope that helped! You do have teh cheekbones done well tho, do at least ten and you will see the improvement

[kedrew]

hala- thankyou a bunch for the tips, after I went back and looked at some hogarth head studies, I noticed some weirdness with the eye ridge. I'll be sure to do at least 10 more!

[courtyard]

Hi! Lots of great updates in here lately. Those sketches from life and your self portrait are really strong. In the ZhangLu portrait, did you add a gray multiply layer early on? I found that step to be immensely helpful for establishing a mid-tone from which I could push the lights and darks...