Finally, something good!

I didn't think much of it at first. It didn't really take me that long to draw either. A. saw it and insisted I save it for a potential portfolio piece.

By the way, the "Terro Cotto" Col Erase pencils (made by Prismacolor) are awesome. They don't draw very dark (you can see the red mixed in there from the original drawing before I darkened and shaded). I have  a terrible habit of drawing too darkly, making my work look sloppy if I have to erase a mistake.

The Ebony Pencils that I bought are also nice, though I am not skilled enough to take full advantage of what they have to offer. Very soft lead, very dark and smooth lines. When I get better at line quality I can utilize them better.

Some more junk drawings.

A scan of some figure drawing practice. It's got lots of problems. A pointed out the flaws and showed me some corrections I could make. The face did not turn out the way I wished it would. Too long and too stylized.

Another foot study. Again, needs some major work.

A few more attempts.

Some more hand practice. It also has it's issues. I haven't gotten A. to pick these apart just yet.

 Practice off of a random stock image on Deviantart. Again, it hasn't been picked apart yet. Not drawing hands and feeet is a very big "no, no" because it sends the message (to people with experience at least) that you are trying to hide something. (In this case, the assumption can be made that I don't know how to draw hands or feet) . Also, creating tangents is another thing you shouldn't do. (I'm just great at making all sorts of noob mistakes, no?)

A really speedy sketch of a foot from the deviantart stock gallery.

Because I live within a reasonable vicinity to Sheridan College (considered one of the top Art Schools in North America), I should be able to find life drawing sessions fairly easily and for a reasonable price. Pictures aren't a substitute for drawing from life and that is what I really need.

Art Direction from the boy

Welp, last night was "lets rip apart your drawings" night. Meaning my boyfriend (who holds a degree in animation and is a professional artist) picks apart when I am doing wrong drawing by drawing. I kills the ego, but it is very helpful.

Here is an example of some of the corrections he made.

He gave me some tutorials on how to make hands and feet not look so darn flat. (Like how they are in that drawing.)

 He gave me the advice "When in doubt, block it out.". Meaning reduce everything to it's base geometric shapes (in this case, the fingers can be 3d rectangles.) I also looked up some Dynamic Hand Drawing by Burne Hogarth. (His books are excellent, I recommend them!)

This isn't great by any means, but I can at least see that I'm beginning to "get" how to make a hand look more 3d and "real".

I still have a long, long way to go. -_-

Hand Bones

Lakeside Shot

An image I photographed months ago. I've been major busy for the last few months and haven't had time to really update my deviantart account in months either.
I just did some experimenting with curves and other settings n this one.

Ears and eyes

Practice with animal eyes and ears.

January 21, 2011

Most of these are just practice with gestures. (And not very good ones at that.)