Daily Sketch 28

Some sketches from lunch. Not my best, but I have a few women in there. The waiter ended up looking Asian, which he was not. I think it is because of the nose.

Daily Sketch 27

Today's daily sketches. Time for bed.

Daily Sketch 26

This is post 101! yay! It only took me four years... The good news is that about 30-40 of those posts have been since the start of '09. That means I'm doing a lot more sketching then I ever have before. The guy with the semi-mohawk (It really looked more like a cross between a Grease hairdo and a mohawk) I actually drew Sunday, but then refined the profile today. It was much flatter originally, and he had very strong features.

I'm really liking the combination of 1-minute and 15 minute drawings throughout the sketch book, particularly when they overlap more than the ones on this page.

I also think i'm going to try to start drawing every waiter/waitress we have. The guy below Mohawk was the second one that came out really good. I need to have more female faces drawn like this.

Daily Sketch 25

So my daily sketch has evolved slightly, due to my animation teacher. Instead of 1 15-minute sketch, I will now be doing 15 1-minute sketches! My teacher wants us to draw, draw, draw; focusing on getting the basic forms down. He doesn't care if the drawings are bad, and says with time and LOTS of drawings there will be a great improvement in skill. I'm definitely much better at the childrens' faces than the adult faces. Maybe one day i'll even be able to draw hair in under a minute. :)

IF: Intricate

I have always loved drawing ornate decorative swirls and leaves. I haven't drawn any of these for the longest time. The last time I remember doing this, I was working on a coat of arms in one of my first art classes in college....years ago. And it wouldn't be my art without some random little bizarre characters. I particularly like the one leaping in the center of the big circle.

Weekly sketchbook

So the posting has slowed down for a very particular, art-related reason. Last week I started two art classes at The Animation Guild in North Hollywood. I have a three-hour life drawing class on Thursday night and a 2-hour traditional animation basics class. Both are a lot of fun and extremely reasonably priced for art classes.

The animation class is very intensive, particularly since I've never taken an animation class before. I chose to take this class because while I am happy with my rendering/shading skills with the colored pencil, I feel that my final pieces are very still. Animation is all about movement, motion, twisting, stretching, and squashing. There is a lot of outside 'homework' for this class, which has slowed down posting my 15 minute sketches. Yet, I am sketching more then ever because homework includes lots and lots of sketches.

After the first week of reviewing my sketches, my animation teacher told me that I need to sketch faster, less refined/finished' and even more sketches. Furthermore, my life-drawing teacher doesn't like people drawing from photos unless they don't try to match perfectly and instead focus on building the volumes and structures are created in each face.

Some of this week's sketchbook drawings:

Illustration Friday: breezy

I enjoyed drawing this sketch a lot, although I think the legs need a bit more work. I wanted more of a perspective on them. I think the main thing is that she's too skinny for her legs. But overall, still happy with the sketch. Also the clump of hair across her chin bothers me; maybe it should have covered her mouth, but with the chin/neck visible. The boots are because I'm obsessed with wearing my boots as often as possible.

Daily Sketch 23: Male 11-12 yrs

original image.

Analysis: Touchscreen laptop take two. Just as bad as take one. :) I'm going to assume that the draw 100 faces before you START to get good theory applies to the digital touchscreen/wacom pen tool as well. Everyone tells me that it has a huge learning curve, but once they get past the screen, they love it. The way I draw, with a series of light pencil strokes, probably doesn't help matters either. There were a number of times I kept trying to draw a line and i'd get a toolbox popup instead, or nothing at all. grr...2 down 98 to go.

If I have time tonight, I will redraw this with pencil.

Laptop

Hello all. I'm posting on Nightengail's behalf. The touch screen laptop she mentioned below is this one from HP.  If any of the visiting artists has any suggestions regarding it's usefullness as an art laptop please let us know.  We still have until ~3/15 to send it back if it doesn't meet our requirements.

We have also looked at a Cintiq but the concept of mobility and being able to take it out of the house was too great.  I did some searching for her on various review sites and in general it seemed like the TX2 got a good review.

Please if you have any knowledge regarding this particular laptop and have used it comment!

Daily Sketch 22: male, 9-10

Original Image. (will be posted as soon as I find it again)

Analysis: I got a new toy...a touch-screen laptop with drawing pen. I decided to try my daily sketch digitally. There is some disconnect between the pen tip and the screen. Also, I either drew too small, or have the image at too low resolution (it was set at 150 dpi). I'm also having issues with the angle of the pen; if it is angled too much, it doesn't register on the screen. I'll need to practice more.

Illustration Friday: instinct

"while the hunter used every instinct to take that mouse, the mouse had his own instinct..."

It's hard to see, because the sketch is so small, but the mouse with the cape is a stuffed mouse, not a real one.

update: I accidentally put colored pencil as the description on Illustration Friday, so I felt obligated to color it.

Daily Sketch 21: Male, 7-8 years

Original Image.

Analysis: I did the sketch today, then I reanalyzed the jaw line, since that's where I'm making the biggest mistakes. I then tweaked the jaw line a bit until I was happier with it. I'm still not pleased with the left eye/side of face and right ear. The eyes are too close, and a bit too big. I'm pleased with the hair and the nose.

I tried a little digital tweak to the eyes, and just a slight shift and slight resize helped a LOT.

Daily Sketch 20: male, 5-6 years

Original Image.
The story behind this photograph is a heart wrenching one.

Analysis: This is the first actually-15-minute sketch I have done in a long time. Also, I really roughed everything in quickly, without much careful measuring. Still, for the unique angle to the face, I feel I did a pretty good job. If anything, I'd work more on the neck/jaw line, since that is the most awkward area. Also, I really liked the shape of the lips and did not do them justice in the time allotted. I was happy that I at least roughed in the shape of the brother.

Daily Sketch 19: male, 3-4 years

Original Image.

Analysis: I succeeded in getting an emotion...I just don't think I drew the correct one. He looks angry rather then unhappy. I'm also not quite sure how to draw the 'laugh lines' that run from the nose to the mouth on children, since strong lines usually denote wrinkles/older age. Need more practice at subtle expression shifts.

Illustration Friday: celebrate

Ok, so technically my illustration friday was done on a saturday. Oh well. I still plan on posting a Saturday daily sketch. It took a while to get the limbs where i wanted them and looking natural. Overall, pretty happy with this sketch.

The story behind this sketch is from our Friday the 13th fun at work. They posted pictures of good luck charms all over the building and at different times they'd email out an image and you had to go find that image to win a prize. I found one of the four-leaf clovers and won a large pink bouncy ball. Silly, but fun. :)

Daily Sketch 18: male, 1-2 years

Original Image.

Analysis: Drawing someone is worse if you know them. Plain and simple. Then it is not about quick sketch or drawing what you see. It becomes more about does it really look like them, or in this case: is the sketch cute enough because the kid sure is. Philip and Jenny, your kid is MUCH cuter. :) It's his lips...extremely cute AND distinctive, but a pain to draw and have look right. Also, I got the angle to the eyes and mouth, but missed it slightly with the nose.


The part of my daily sketch that people normally don't get to see is the drawing overlaying the picture. I don't post it because of copyright issues, since I am drawing faces from off the web. I did pretty good with proportions of the face, except for the jaw line. Gavin has chubby cheeks. One day I'll be better at the proportions, after a couple years of daily sketches :)

Sketches

Technically, I did a daily sketch last night. However, it is not being posted because both Eric and I concur that the sketch of the cute little baby ended up creeeeeeepy. Why can't I draw cute babies. I like babies, I like cute things. I don't understand it.

Also, the daily sketches will be on a pre-scheduled one-week hiatus and will return next week...hopefully with cute drawings and not creepy ones.

Daily sketch 18: male, newborn

Original image.

Analysis: This month I begin the first of a 2-month long theme: The human form at every age. This month I am working on drawing males, starting with this newborn. He's just so cute all bundled up in the towel basket--not that you can see the basket in the sketch. I did borrow a technique from the Tatty Teddy to make the towels look all fuzzy without any shading.

Temporary web gallery up

Web Gallery.

Since my blog is my website at the moment, we decided that I needed to get my gallery up. It's good to get my work out into the world. Maybe it will encourage me to work faster. :)

Enjoy

Illustration Friday: flawed

Illustration Friday.

Theme: Flawed. This is actually my second sketch today...wasn't liking the first one. These were originally going to be plant creatures, one with a missing petal, but they ended up armless-bird/cat/Dr. Suessian creatures of an unknown and slightly confused sort. One has a slight problem...

I've been wanting to do an illustration friday for a while and keep forgetting. I remembered today! yay! Hopefully more to come.

Daily Sketch 17: Hands? ...nope, paws

Original Image.

Analysis: The theme was paws today...I just chose an image that had a bit MORE than paws in it. I like the motion/movement to the sketch and the original image. I had fun with the sketch, and working with interesting shapes (sometimes, i feel like i'm drawing the same face again and again with portraits). I didn't like how the cub's face came out, and i think i messed up with the eyes. I love how the mother's face turned out, even with a crooked nose. We'll also ignore that my vertical line denoting the edge of the picture is anything but vertical.

Daily Sketch 16: Hands on table

Original Image.

Analysis: Hands still suck. I actually don't think I did horrible, except for the fingers (not thumb) of the back hand. They are too small. Because the hands are so complex to draw, shading is minimal. I hope as i get better I learn to shade more in 15 minutes.

Daily Sketch 15: Woman w/ hat II

Original Image.

Analysis: I loved the shadow shapes in this photo, and it's the first one where the majority of the face is dark. VERY dark. The eyes are slightly off, the upper left side of the face needs to be darker, and the lips and face slightly wider. The lips look fuller then I actually drew them, but that was a result of when I was laying in the shading. The fun part is that I did use my electric eraser when i was done to pick out the highlights in the white of the eye and the chin strap.

Daily Sketch 14: Looped fingers

Original image.

Analysis: A friend informed me that I was being lax in drawing hands, so thus we have hands! Perspective on fingers sucks. Plain and simple. I did a decent job on the last three digits of each hand, but lets not get started on the thumbs and forefingers. Bad perspective, bad scale (itty-bitty thumb, large forefinger). Overall, I like the linework in this sketch more then the actual drawing. More hands needed.

Daily Sketch 13: Woman looking up

Original image.

Analysis: I think I know where I'm going wrong; I think I draw the lips way too small for the shape they actually are. I drew out my nice framework with a solid parallelogram from the cheek bones to the chin with just a slight curve at the bottom, and still, the eyes ended up in the middle of the cheek bone line rather than above, as they were supposed to be. Thus her face is shorter and fatter then it is supposed to be. Even still, I redrew the nose 3 times and the eyes 2.5 times and overworked the neckline. I know where the shading is supposed to go once the features are in place...i just need to properly size/align everything now. No wonder some people can spend a lifetime learning to draw the human form.

Daily Sketch 12: Mustache

Original Image.

The original theme for today was Conquistador, but all the images i could find were drawn or painted, so I went with what any good conquistador would have: a mighty fine mustache.

What's cooler than a guy with a black bowtie, black bowler hat, and a 6-part curly mustache?

Analysis: Obviously I had fun with this more-like-30-minute 15 minute sketch. For some reason each time I become fixated on working on the nose first, and I think I start working to fast, leaving me no room to correct. I think this nose should have been wider and maybe a smidgen shorter. And for some reason glasses always hang me up on the shading of the face. I didn't quite get in the laugh lines as well as I wanted.

Daily Sketch 11: Yawn

Original Image.

Analysis: This sketch was a lot of fun. I think I really spent 30-40 minutes on this 15 minute sketch, because I wanted just a little bit more detail. The wrinkles on the nose and eye lids are so delicate to draw/shade, I needed to work with them a bit more to feel satisfied. His nose looks just slightly angled to the left, and the cheeks are a little thin compared to the size of his facial features, but that would be an easy fix. My favorite part is the brow line and forehead on the left. I'd like to get that level of spontaneity and rendering/shading throughout my entire sketch at some point. Sometimes I overwork things too much.

Daily Sketch??

This is a test of the gotta-work-on-something else broadcast system. Your regularly scheduled daily sketch will return tomorrow. Please tune in then. (we apologize for the inconvenience)

Oh, and if you magically know how to turn fire and water into palm trees, please give me a call! (confused? so am i.)

Daily Sketch 10: Blowing out candles

Original Image.

Analysis: This posed an unusual challenge, in that the main source of light is technically from below from the candles, but because of the camera flash, there's a double light source. This resulted in some of the areas that I expected to be dark (upper lids) actually being fairly light. Given more time, and an eraser, I could work on refining the light source. The candles and cake were thrown on the page after the timer was up for reference (he looked strange without it). Right eye is too small, lips are too small, shading where the glasses were is off, because I could mostly just see the reflections of the candles in the glasses. Fairly happy with the initial shading on his jowls, even if they may be a little skinny.

Daily Sketch 9: Woman with hat (hair accessory)

Original Image.

Analysis: Lips too far to the left. Maybe if this were fixed, she would look more like she was smiling instead of looking confused. Also, the lines on her face are not as harsh as the sketch shows. I think I need to try hatching in the lines, rather than being so linear with them.

Daily Sketch 8: Grimace

Original Image.

Analysis: This is NOT a 15 minute sketch...more like a 45 minute sketch. Overall, the face is at least twice the size of all the other faces, so more area to shade. I don't like the pout, and I did a really bad job on the eyes. They're not even close to the same size. I always seem to have more trouble with the half closed eyes, because they're deceptively long. I am really happy with the shading on the neck, because it lays in a solid area of grays that somehow has its own unintentional shading, and it was really fast. It also quickly distinguises between areas of light and shadow. I need to do this more initially before getting to form-following shading.

Daily Sketch 7: Astonished

Original Image.

Analysis: I think my biggest complaint is the nose. The perspective is not as good as I would like. It's a delicate nose, angled up and the only truly dark areas are the nostrils, which both angle up and slightly left. The nose I drew is shown too much from the front. I think her features are also a bit small for the size of the face I drew. I didn't really lay out all the angles that the facial features lay on, and I should have. Also she's supposed to be looking up rather than slightly to the side.

Daily Sketch 6: Baby kissing mirror

Original Image.

Analysis: There were two slight shifts in my sketching technique today that I'm going to try to incorporate in all further sketches. First, I noticed I'd been using a lot of short, stiff strokes to lay out the basic form. Second, I was randomly laying in shading all over the form, resulting in minimal shading over a large area. After watching a video of another illustrator sketching using very fluid, quick, loose strokes to lay in the form, he then went back and shaded only the focal point, leaving the rest of the sketch very loose. Over all, I think that is the best option for me. The loose, let-the-pencil-flow from the center out is something I learned in drawing class and I'm already pretty good at doing...if the subject is a child, like the one here. Children are all round with dynamic poses and I like their proportions better then adults. I think this sketch was fairly successful, although it looks more like she's kissing an older sibling with a flat nose then her own reflection. Also if you tilt my image slightly to the left (or your head to the right) the position of the head relative to the body is more accurate.

Daily Sketch 5: Hand holding flower

Original Image.

Analysis: As my first hand, I picked a fairly difficult one. It has a LOT of character but it is a relatively flat palm; not the most dynamic of hand shapes. Even still, I should have flowed the pencil across the page more, feeling out the overall shape and rhythm. I particularly like the graceful curve of the palm/first finger and the v it makes with the thumb. I erased and redrew the fingers just like I erased and redrew last night. I don't know if that made it better or worse. My proportions are a little wonky and the image is stiff. Need more practice.

Daily Sketch 4: Asian Profile

Original Image.

Analysis: Just. Plain. Bad.

So much so, in fact, that I chose to repeat the exercise and try again. The first image was going well until I thought that the chin was too long. Instead of doing the intelligent thing and fixing the chin, I chose to erase the completely drawn out ear and push the ear back. Wrong idea. After doing so, I had no drawn ear, no more neck, and the chin was STILL too long for the face. Overall, the face was too flat.

Attempt 2: Much better, even if I never did get to draw any hair. She actually looks like a decent looking human now rather than a badly proportioned alien masquerading as a human. I think the corner of the lips should be further left, and I only got to lay in rough shading. I will have to draw more asian faces. They have such subtle shapes that it really is a lot about shading (once you lay in the correct form, of course)

Daily Sketch 3: Man in hat

Original image.

Analysis: This guy was a fun face to draw, he had character. I got to shade some today, and I actually got a little bit of the beard in this time! I think it's because his face is not my 'standard shaped face' that I always end up drawing without a photo reference. I think my drawing of him is also happier than the original image. Areas that need work: right side of face...the cheek is too concave, and the jaw juts out slightly to the right. Also the shading under the chin was laid in to harshly at first and I couldn't refine as well as I would have liked to. Need to get all the cast shadows darker, but particularly the ones under the brim of the hat, since that is practically the focal point of the image. Another random thing is that i don't like the shading on the background...should have shaded it out more or let it fade on the outer edge.

Daily Sketch 2: Glasses

Original image.


Analysis:

Spent more time working on the tangents today...so much so that I didn't even start shading! Really, i started being too picky with the shape of the mouth and the nose (and yet the mouth still needs to shift right more. I also think that i'm making the edge 'curves' too deep, they're very soft and subtle in the picture. The eyes are also a bit off. I didn't fully get the sassy glance down, either. Did have fun with the messy hair, though.

The purple coloring was done after the timer to just lay in the hand briefly, and make adjustments I felt were needed.

Man with big nose

Original image.

Analysis:
Not bad for my first sketch. I need a sharper pencil (or to have my pencil sharpener handy. Totally missed the mustache, and the whole mouth/jaw area needs more detailing/wrinkles. He looks like he got a face lift in my sketch. Ear is too small, too high, and too close to other facial features. I need to work on placement of features by adding my tangents in more before I start shading. Overall, pretty happy with the nose and eye although the bridge should be slightly wider.

New Year's Resolution

Even though it is not New Year's eve/day, there's still time to make a resolution. I've been thinking about it and I decided that I wasn't going to make a whole list of fancy resolutions that would attempt for a few days/weeks and then the resolution dribbles away into nothing.

I only have one true resolution that I would really like to do: work on more artwork. I've seen many cases of an ok artist developing amazing drawing skills just by constantly drawing. Case in point: Megatokyo. Look at the artwork of Fred Gallagher's first volume and look at his skill now. Even he admits he wasn't the greatist at figure drawing when he started. With my own art, I have definitely seen a marked change in my skill level when I started college to what I work on today. However with my full-time job as a graphic designer, I have let my skills dribble down to the occasional illustration (maybe one every 3-4 months) and I rarely sketch anymore. And sketching is where you come up with some of the best ideas sometimes. Also, I continually laud the fact that I can't draw hands and faces as well as I should.

That being said, my resolution is to spend 15 minutes (timed) a day on a random sketch of hands or faces and post each sketch to my blog. To encourage that I stick with the project, if I fail to post for 3 days in a row (except in times when we're traveling for vacation) we will cancel our cable. So look forward to the sketches, and I will be looking forward to seeing the progression of my skill over a year's time.

Me sketching...me

Hey look! Wasn't I a cute kid?! I've been looking for free sources of reference photos for my illustration work, ie., photos that myself, my family or my friend took and don't mind if I use for reference, and I thought what better to use then photos of myself. I've always liked this image of me climbing the fence, and I had fun drawing it freehand, particularly with the fence.

Sketched in a moleskin, the one sketchbook I seem to adore, especially the purse-sized version.

Second vector illustration

This is my second trial illustration using Illustrator. The reference photo is of my niece, Bella, although I primarily used her face/upper shoulders for the reference. Oh, and the outfit, because she always has really cute outfits on. The only thing I'm not fully happy with is the kneecap, but since this is digital, and I work on layers, this is infinitely editable and I can fiddle and fuss till my perfectionist heart is content. Yay me :) If I wanted to be particular, her eyes have no color and her hair has no shading, but I still like it a lot, as is.

I did this for a sample for a possible illustration job that I'm hoping to get. More news on that if I get the job.

Belated finished sketch...

It's been over 2 weeks since I finished the quick little samples of the young girl sketch that I posted last time. I should have posted them long since, but here they are now. I did a total of 4 in one night, which is quite different then my usual pace. 3 were traditional ink and watercolor (with a little color pencil thrown in) and the one with the solid green background is digital using illustrator (vector illustration, woohoo!). My favorite freehand one didn't get saved correctly, and I am not going to scan it again now. I am not 100% satisfied with the dress folds where her leg is coming forward. I liked the folds in the sketch better, but you could also SEE her legs in the sketch. I want to start taking drawing classes again, particularly classes that focus on a) heads, hands, and feet; b) fabric folds and drapery; and c) animation classes that focus on expression. I think that will help my illustrations out a lot in the long run.

Sketch in progress...

I'm working on samples of my illustrations using both traditional and digital media. I will be working on the same set of illustrations in both media. Tonight I worked on the digital version of one of my sketches from last year that I really like. This is the illustrator traced version of the image. I will be trying out both blocking in color with illustrator and using photoshop to "brush" in color behind the "ink" lines. I will also be using both a pen and a quill in my traditional ink and watercolor samples.

Achoo! complete

Tonight was a very productive night, as I finished the last little bit on my illustration for the CSUN illustration club student show Affliction, which opens tomorrow night. It is called Achoo! and it is very cute. I did it in a very rough format, working rapidly (for me, if not for the rest of the art world). I don't like the blending quite as much as the other pieces, but I really like the color and contrast in this piece: very rich, vivid color (for all it being a muted palette) and better contrast than my work normally has. I will consider doing more pieces like this as I finish in about 1/3 the time. But I will not make any decisions without trying more techniques out on my demo board. Even then i'll probably continue to experiment and grow and develop even newer techniques. Hopefully by that stage i'll have also purchased a Cintiq and Painter and will be working on digital art as well as traditional.

In addition to finishing up an illustration, I have done a quick sketch/color comp of the next piece I'm working on: a knight charging a monster, as seen from the knight's viewpoint. I think the end piece will be wider then what I sketched out, and I'm not so fond of the monster at the moment, since i am not very good at scary looking monsters (CUTE monsters, no problem) but I like it so far. I think it is more dynamic then what I usually do, and I can even push the final drawing a bit more then what I have so far.

All in all, the only disappointing news I have tonight is that I won't get an image of Achoo! on the website until a week from now when the show comes down and (hopefully) my scanner is installed on my computer once again.

Post or else...

I apparently HAVE to post, because I haven't posted in nearly a year. I guess time flies when you're busy....A new job, a NEW new job...a new nephew when we were expecting a new niece...I guess life happens. :)

Two new pieces of art currently ongoing...a dragon for Jan, almost done...if I can ever figure out what to put behind him. And a CUTE (really serious here) entry for the disease/sickness/affliction themed illustration gallery show at CSUN in March. When Scott saw it and I told him the story behind it, all he had to say was I was "...seriously well adjusted..." You'll get the full story when I post the art. And one day, Scott WILL actually get artwork created for him by me...sorry Scott, I must be too well adjusted for the first 5 or so tries on your artwork.

I'll post more later when it's not past my bedtime.

Site temporarily down

This is Deathshade posting for Nightengail, I took our home web server down to repurpose the hardware. I'll try to bring her site up again soon.

Yay! Four new images on the website

There are now 4 new images on the website: 3 colored pencil illustrations and one watercolor piece. The watercolor piece is one from last year that finally got scanned. I found someone in Glendale who does large-format scanning with about what I expected for prices. (I would always like less expensive, but it is still decent pricing)

The first colored pencil illustration is my namesake and one of my oldest acceptable drawings redone in my new style. It is a mechanical nightingale based on the oriental fairy tale "The Nightingale." I really didn't like any of the other illustrations I did for that project, but I always loved the mechanical bird. I decided to wait until my skill level caught up with what I wanted the bird to look like. I might work on one of the more dynamic poses I had for the bird at a later date, but for now I'm pleased with the one that I did.

The last two drawings are for an online baby store that will be opening up soon: www.notyouraveragebabyshop.com. I had a lot of fun working on these illustrations, and working with the owner of the online store. The site is not live yet, but there is a nice placeholder page with a vaguely familiar image on it.... :)

I have a number of sketches that i'll be turning into illustrations at some later date, but I have two projects that I plan on working on next...I better get to them!

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Workspace

Although I do have an art desk (and a computer desk, I have taken to working on my current illustration in the guest/computer room. Around me are all the necessities of a good colored pencil illustrator: my trays of colored pencils, and all the pencils I've been using (the ones that are on the bed, and not in the cases) an electric eraser, and refill erasers, pencil sharpener, an iPod with an audiobook (currently Flyte by Angie Sage), a back pillow, and of course (most importantly) jelly beans for a snack!

When good stuffed animals get schnockered

This is what happens when your stuck on a sketch revision. You start drawing very inappropriate, but none-the-less amusing, images. I think i'll work on the other illustration for a bit and then come back to this one. Ok, not THIS one specifically, but the actual revisions I'm supposed to be making. I think the drawing of the animals may be about an inch or so high, at the most.