Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

[crab2selout.png]

Nice draw over of the manikin figure. Really wishing I had mine around so I could give it a try. If you could shrink the size of hte image down next time, that would be great(nice to be able to see the whole drawing without having to scroll). You might want to try planning the lines out a little more before putting down a stroke. Your lines are really hairy. What I mean by this is you're using all kinds of short strokes piled on each other to create your lines instead of a longer, more confident stroke. I have the same problem myself and I find it a challenge to be brave and commit to a longer stroke. I often have to remind myself to stop obsessing over making a line look right by adding all sorts of correcting strokes.

I like the microhero, too. I think it would be improved if you broke up the black outline more, or incorporated the black into more of the shading.

[TerraVinco]

Demon Head Update

And with Eyes.

[Soleil]

just an eye i was doodling :|

[Tuna Unleashed]

hey guys, i got these watercolour pencils the other day and im really enjoying them so i figured i'd post some stuff
-my favourite
-my second favourite
-my third favourite
-my redheaded stepchild

[TerraVinco]

An unfinished Dragon.

[0xDB]

I recently got a myself a sketchbook to have something to play with during the boring time on the subway each day on my way to work and back (posted about it in the OT thread: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=7291.msg102716#msg102716 ).

Seems like I'll be doing that sketching stuff on a regular basis now, so I'll share my daily sketches in here from now on.

stuff from previous days:
Day 1:


Day 2:


Day 2, evening, when I figured I should use the sketchbook at home as well, not just on the subway.


stuff from today (Day 3):
upper half (this morning), lower half (this evening)
Note to self: Draw faster, as most people don't stay long enough to get all the details and try to observe more and force yourself to draw what's there instead of falling back to symbols and imagination all the time.


edit (one day later)
the meager results of Day 4:
The face in the upper half was drawn this morning, mostly from imagination because the subject got hidden behind other passengers shortly after I had drawn the hairline.
Thing on the right was also drawn this morning and is a piece of the bag of the lady that was sitting in front of me.
The face in the lower half was drawn this evening and much of it also had to be done from memory, because I think she caught me drawing her and then left as a direct reaction to me staring at her.
All of a sudden the whole wagon was empty so for a lack of other subjects I then attempted to draw my own shoe (with mixed success, the foreshortening isn't quite right).


edit 2 (two days later)
Day 5(Friday the 13th):
The two women in the upper half were drawn this morning, 50/50 percent from their live image/imagination, this time not because they left or were hidden behind other passengers but because they didn't keep still and kept turning and tilting their heads, so I had to observe their features and then imagine how that would appear from the angle in which I originally started them.
Woman in the lower half was drawn this evening, same problem as with the two from the morning. Hand is a piece of my own hand holding the sketch book, as the wagon was suddenly empty again.
Then this man on the far left entered but I couldn't finish him, because I had to exit then.
A recurring problem I see in my drawings of women is that they usually turn out to appear older in the drawings than they really seem to be in real life.
Another problem I've noticed is that my ears often are not the actual ears I see but rather an inaccurate symbol of an ear(as seen from the side) that has burned itself into my brain.

[EyeCraft]

Hey Dennis, cool thing you've got going!

I suggest learning how to construct figures from basic forms. I might be wrong but it looks like you kind of just lay down lines of contours. This makes it very difficult to capture a likeness if the subject moves. Grab a book on figure drawing and using that knowledge practise doing rapid constructions of figures and heads (maybe with something like http://www.posemaniacs.com/ ). Then you can approach the train sketching sessions armed with some serious ammo.

Nevertheless you've inspired me to take a sketch pad with me on the bus ride down the coast!

[0xDB]

EyeCraft, you're right about me trying to draw by contours rather than by volumes. Although that's only part of the truth. I have attempted to do figure/face drawing in the past(few years ago) and back then read one of Burne Hogarths books...but I came to the conclusion that his way of drawing figures and faces doesn't work out for me, as I felt whatever I produced that way ended up looking stiff and mechanical. I haven't drawn much in between and recently got inspired to draw more again, after reading the anatomy thread on this board and after looking at stuff from Boris Vallejo, Gustav Doré, Frank Frazetta, Hajime Sorayama and Luis Royo.

However this time(this attempt at figure and face drawing), I'm trying to approach it a bit different. I have already started making 30,60 and 90 second studies from posemaniacs two weeks ago and I try to do some everyday and I also try to do full copies (by eyeballing the contours) without time constraints every now and then (I should post these to the anatomy thread). My hope is that by doing enough of these, the proportions and how stuff looks from every angle will just magically burn itself into my brain without me having to tediously study and memorize all those bones and muscles... (yeah, I know, I will do that later nonetheless but first I want to practice my eyeballing technique some more and move over to the constructional approach again when I feel comfortable with that (or maybe even mix the two approaches, using whatever way feels more natural at any given visualization problem)).

So yes, for now I'm mostly just laying down lines (although I try to visualize the few three dimensional base volumes(that I still remember from my earlier attempts at figure drawing) below without drawing them to keep the lines as clean as possible).

Aaaaaanyway, even though I don't work on weekends, I still hit the subway today but I kind of had a mental block that kept me from drawing much, so this is all for today:

[Indigo]

update on the zbrush model from earlier

[Doppleganger]

That's coming along pretty nicely, Indigo. A few concerns..

I can't help but feel that you're over-rendering and individualizing the body parts. For example, that line dividing the chest and the torso. Or the biceps connecting into the forearms. Overall the model and parts read like that of a child's action figure.

He seems to be posed in a relatively aggressive manner with his back arched and arms held wide open, but it was not immediately evident and I had to interpret it that way when I was trying to make sense of his stance. I'm not sure if it's easy or hard to adjust poses like that, but if it is, I'd suggest making his pose part of his character. I do realize that the pose may have a lot to do with ease of construction, so if it does you can ignore this. But I do think you could do more with the character in general.

The last thing I'll bring up is his palms. The shapes you can see hardly reflect that of actual anatomy. The skin beneath his fingers wouldn't wrinkle up like that unless his fist was closed. The base of the thumb and the edge of his hand create this shape that is more reminiscent of a butt than a palm. When both actually gradate on the inward position, creating an inverted triangle that lines the fingers.

While these aren't the only issues, they were a few that I thought were worth bringing up. In the end, I think that you are rendering this model too much, and are only using the concept of skin where it is convenient. There are just too many peaks, valleys, and sharp edges at the moment.

Even though this might read as hyper-critical, I would like to affirm that I do like where this is going. And I feel that you are doing a bang-up job of picking up Zbrush.