Study

Gotta get to work a tad earlier this morning, so had to rush the blind drawing afterwards.  Funny that in many aspects, my blind drawing before looks better than the after.  I guess it's a good sign? hehe.

Study

It makes so much sense now that I would suck at posing.  I can't remember all of the information that goes into poses by just looking at something.  I'd forget major things like which direction those blades are facing!  And that pelvis & legs.  Do I have trouble posing legs in my head...

I was also really confused by how the guy's shoulder muscle kind of melding into his back muscles.  Didn't make sense of it until I did the photo study.  This is why I need to actually draw, rather than flipping through artbooks and hope to just get better from that.

Study

Same idea with yesterdays, but man did I screw up the first memorization bad :P  I got way too distracted by the dude's arm muscle and didn't even remember his overall pose.  This time I decided to do a blind drawing from memory after doing the photo study.  The red parts are corrections afterwards.

On a side note, I felt slightly creepy because the photo ref model seems so very young.  To the guys who love to draw half-naked little girls: I salute your mental fortitude.

Study

Trying to train my memory.  Wake up, lazy brain!

Reaper Inked

I digitally inked over a pencil drawing of mine.

I may still feel uncomfortable with drawing, but I actually really enjoy using solid black in shadows :)

Richard the Skeleton Paladin

Character sketch for a friend.  Description by her (winged lions, knotworks, gold) and armor/shield design by me.

It takes me a long time to do a drawing, but hopefully it'll get quicker as I become less intimidated.

Edit: One more, for the same friend.  It's kind of ridiculous how much easier it is for me to draw a girl than a guy.

Watercolors

Did a few watercolors with mom when she visited.  It's nice to be able to share this hobby with my mom.

I think working smaller is helping me with watercolor a little.  I still screw up a lot, but at least now I can tell where I screwed up, and can think of ways that may work better next time.

Visual Library?

In real life, I can be a very oblivious person.  My lazy brain enjoys seeing color and light, but does not care much for trying to do complicated tasks such as remembering details or figuring out how machine parts fit together.  I've vaguely guessed that this was going to become a road block for me a couple of years ago, and tried a few times to force myself into drawing stuff I absolutely hate.  At the time, I gave up in frustration because it was so painful for me.

Here I am, attempting to throw myself at the problem again.  Funny thing is, it's actually a lot less painful to do than I remembered.  Maybe the failed previous attempts weren't a total waste after all...

Anyhow, for starters, here's a sketch of a strange machine that came up in my google image search.

Gargoyles

Last week's sketch group title.  I've been a huge slacker and haven't done a lot of these lately, so here it is...

Just as I thought I've come out of a major artist's block, I found myself mired in my most hated habit: noodling and over-smoothing.  I love confident marks and loose painting, yet somehow I couldn't stop myself from rendering the details lately.  It's like I'm too scared to screw up the bigger picture so I zoom in and work the details instead.  What in the world.

So hopefully this speedy will help breaking me out of this mindset.  I guess I feel like the trapped knight right now, haha.   TO BATTLE!

New card, plus new exercise

My new WoW card, plus a study with only 100% opacity brush with no shape/opacity dynamic.

Long weekend at home.  Going to try to be productive... Just spent over $200 on art books too!  Gotta at least get my money's worth :)

Spear Guy - pose

Trying to really push the pose.  I always have trouble with stretching and squashing torso when it's not directly facing the camera.  Not sure this looks right but I think I'm getting some energy into the pose.  Will screw with it more later.

Wizard's familiar painted

Now with colors!

Wizard's familiar sketch

Top sketch is an attempt at re-posing and polishing the design of the same character on the bottom sketch, after some very helpful tips from Paul Richards.  Thinking about weight is difficult but a lot of fun.

edit: started painting him before leaving for the day.

Flamered

My SW:TOR character.  I love her facial ridges.

Sarah

First piece of "finished" painting this year!  Also my first Starcraft fan art ever.  Belated, considering that I loved Starcraft since high school.

I couldn't really understand the story when I first played through the Starcraft I terran campaign because I spoke very little English.  It wasn't until I replayed some of the Starcraft I missions when I got SCII collector's edition that I realized exactly how Kerrigan turned into the queen of blades...  Man, if I were her I would probably be even angrier.

Below is a cropped/closer up version for my homepage:

Sketch Practice #2

Actually had a very productive winter break... likely caused by simply not having a gaming computer.

I did more monitors, trying to think about function.  It's kind of a struggle for me because Sci-fi stuff never made a lot of sense to me.

Then I copied a couple of more Paul Richards drawings, trying to channel some of his crazy talent.  I did a few monster head doodles of my own but cannot get close to the badassness of Paul, unsurprisingly... maybe one day?

The jeweleries are kind of a warm-up.  I used to write a lot in high school, and one of my made-up worlds contained a civilization of humans that worships crystals.  I chose phoenix as the symbol of royalty and "three" as the number of honor, and tried to come up with designs of emblems and jewelery using both the stone and the animal.

Last sketch - finally stopped beating around the bushes and attempted to design a set of warrior armors that server different functions but belong to the same faction.

Thoughts and advices would be greatly appreciated, thanks!  And... happy new year :)

Sketch practice #1

I've been meaning to do some master studies of concept sketches since a long while ago, but always felt like I didn't know where to start when I look at the hundreds of badass sketches from crazy artists such as Paul Richards.  So today I finally got around to doing one... hopefully more to come.  I also tried to sketch my own, much lamer, versions of the same subject-matter in an attempt to internalize some of the study.

What I forgot to do in the study was to figure out a purpose for these devices, and to try to communicate that.  Doing so may also help me keep my shape language consistent.  Could have also pushed the main screen a lot more.  These are notes for tomorrow, when I hope to do more and better sketches of the same subject-matter.

Also, it's actually incredibly refreshing to draw with a pencil for a change.  I did realize that my sketchbook is just a tad too large for my scanner though... ugh.

Last Ourdoor Painting Group of This Year

San Juan mission was a pleasant surprise.  It didn't look big at all from the outside, but the inside features surprisingly beautiful ruins and some nicely laid-out courtyards.  The slight overcast lighting also worked really well.  The low angle of the winter sun was perfect for painting.

Selection Tool Test

I've always thought about trying out selection tool + airbrush, but it took me this long to actually do it for some reason.  It's actually a lot of fun.  Maybe I can try to integrate it into a serious painting next.

Pin-up

For the weekly sketch thing titled "pin-up".  I hope this came across as more funny than disturbing... but maybe a little of both is ok.  Actually had a lot of fun trying to mimic Gil Elvgren's style.