scribble #2

Some usual practice scrap with a weird ending:

started with a circle, attached a jaw, drew some eyes, drew a nose (with nostrils and all), decided the eyes looked sort of anime-ish, emphasized that, drew some lips, went back and erased some lines to make the nose look simpler and more anime-like, scribbled in a neck and some ears, drew some crazy hair, and called it finished.

Can't decide if it's a guy or a girl. I'm leaning towards girl, but the jaw is odd (I was planning a guy when I drew it). It was just a weird circle of discovery.

I like economy of lines, and would like to find a cartoon style I can draw comfortably - doesn't have to be very original: I'm mostly interested in the storytelling aspect for illustration, and economy is most important there for me.

It's been a while since I've posted here. I've been practicing a lot in my sketchbook, drawing animals, foliage, buildings, and skies and also been doing at least half an hour of constructing figures every day in hopes of getting comfortable drawing and creating enough things to start doing complete fantasy art drawings/paintings.

Anyway, here's a quick made-up tree using a scribble technique I'm learning with pen and ink.

Just doodling around.

Trying to draw some figures without a reference as practice before I attempt to correct that guy on the left in the previous drawing. I'm kind of screwed with the previous drawing since I drew the figures based off a reference (loosely, but still with a lot of aid when it came to proportions, anatomical detail, perspective, etc.). If I'm going to draw my own figure in there, I'm going to have to try really hard to convincingly make it blend in with the other two figures without making my own figure look like a badly drawn cartoon.

It's been a while since I've attempted to construct a full figure without looking at anything - I've gotten pretty rusty, but I think I've improved at least on the feet a little after all the anatomy practice I've been doing (I realize the ones in this one aren't too great, but for me, they are an improvement). Feet have always been one of the hardest things to draw for me since they have to be planted firmly on the ground in perspective, and that's one of the parts where I can't really fake the perspective as a result (and I have a really hard time constructing any sort of organic form in perspective without some sort of reference).

I was originally planning to save this one and delete it as with the majority of my quick practice drawings, but this one didn't turn out too badly. I might keep it around for a while and see if I can refine it a bit.

Just trying out some abstract shapes and colors to try to make something that resembles a cloud.

A first attempt at painting clouds (actually a first attempt at trying to paint anything other than a figure). It reminds me of caramel. I used a reference very loosely: http://www.nesky.org/gallery/colorado_album/day3/hires/Sky.JPG. I just wanted to get an idea of what a sky looks like since it's been a while since I stepped out of the dungeon.

I wasn't confident enough to really go in there and paint with full blown contrast. Hopefully as I get more practice, I can do these a lot more quickly and with more variation in colors and values.

I tried to be fairly systematic with my approach so that I wouldn't lose myself in chaos. I worked from darks to lights with bigger, less opaque brushes for shadows and worked towards smaller, more opaque brushes for highlights. I didn't allow myself to go back to the previous steps for this one.

I want to focus primarily on drawing fantasy people and creatures, but I'd like to be able to sketch in some very basic backgrounds some day for these characters to reside in, so I'm starting off by practicing clouds.

Just a doodle of someone I don't know. Ref: http://www.feebonics.org/images/portrait_ref.jpg. I was chatting with Marcello about Lascaux while drawing it, so I didn't spend quite that much time on it.

Like the William Dafoe one which turned into some dark warrior elf thing, I didn't bother so much to draw the person in the picture (though I was a little less sloppy this time). Halfway through the picture, I started seeing some resemblance to Connie Nielsen, so while I wasn't deliberately trying to make it look like her, I did start thinking about her halfway through the drawing and that probably had some influence. I didn't deliberately try to change much this time. The only place I consciously and deliberately changed was the neck area (I really like long necks). The rest is just inaccurate. The upper half of her head and her eyes bother me a bit, but I started rendering the details in those places too early and it'd be a pain to change them now.

The line work is pretty bad. I'm really uncoordinated with my graphics tablet.

The picture frame was a challenge, and maybe I should remove it. I just wanted to try making rounded corners with a fillet style effect, so I drew four circles and just drew tangent lines with the line tool. To make the lines look smooth, I used a thicker stroke with lighter opacity first rather than using antialiasing.

Just a doodle for practice.

Using a reference for the basic idea (a screen capture from Flesh & Blood). http://www.feebonics.org/images/flesh_and_blood_ref.jpg

I'd normally put something like this in beginner, but I really wanted the extra canvas space. I hope it's okay.

Just a quick doodle while I work. I started with an ellipse. My hatching skill with a tablet is pathetic.

[Edit]I just marked it as finished. Was thinking about coloring it, and maybe I will later, but I want to make some more drawings first (studio full).