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Working on some new stuff

Some of my professional work.
I did this for the heavy metal band Unearth. Fun gig. Posters are interesting to work on.

Because knights are cool...

Thanks guys!
Time to upload a bunch of stuff again

I seriously can't stress how important it is with doing still life studies. If you want to reach any higher level of skill as an artist with any understanding of form then you should be doing one of these a week. There was a reason old masters painted fruit, candles and skulls. It wasn't because they where boring dudes with too much time on their hands. It's because it's an important part of studying as an artist. Try 'em out. You'll eventually start to enjoy them more as you get better and you'll gain a greater appreciation of the value these studies hold.

Some figures

Gotta study some mountains <3

Sketchy thing I did during a lunch break.
This is a concept piece for a project of mine.

Hello people of Newgrounds!

My name is Tristan Berndt. I am a freelance illustrator and concept artist in the entertainment industry. I wanted to start up a thread here to show the studies and sketches I do, some finished work and if this gets a few views, teach some stuff to aspiring artists. I found that when I was starting out, seeing the work of professionals/hard working students really helped me understand how artists get better and a lot of the mysteries around art disappeared.

Haven't really posted much to Newgrounds but it looks like a nice place to share some of my work :)

So if anyone is interested you can find more of my work on my site TristanBerndt.com
or on DeviantArt

So prepare to see a mix of work and studies below.

Industry standard is photoshop and it's something I recommend getting. I've known a few professionals use Painter but they're very few. It's a cheaper alternative but it's not as versatile as photoshop. Photoshop now has this monthly pay system so it's more affordable for those not working professionally.
Painter has a free 30 day trial that is really good. You get almost everything for free and then after the trial is over you can buy it for not so much. Worth checking out if you're on a budget.

This might sound weird but if you want to learn how to draw manga hands/feet well then you shouldn't study how do draw them in a manga style. Style is always a deviation from realism and a lot of artists want to start in a style and they generally stay there. This is fine and all if they're just doing it for fun but if they ever want to get really good or maybe good enough to work as professional illustrators they need to study fundamental realism. Having realism as a basis will prepare you to better understand and adapt to styles and it will improve any established style-guide (like manga) because you're good at what it's based on.

Focus on learning to draw hands/feet realistically. I'd recommend getting a Bridgman book or two because he really teaches you to construct the human body well and he has a strong focus on hands. Most professional manga artists I personally know have all of his books and have studied him super much along with teachers like Loomis.

So there is a tendency for a lot of people starting out to want and blend with low opacities. It's referred to as the "CAPALO technique" (Sample Colors And Paint At Low Opacity) and is (in my opinion) a very bad habit. Ideally you'd want to block in your basic colors and values, then you go in and render the appropriate areas where there needs to be a gradient between them. I find it better to think of it as oil painting where you'd rather lay down the correct color directly instead of blending it to death. If there is a need for a soft edge, just pick a soft brush and go over it once. You don't need to work super long on it.

Now sometimes you'd want to use the color picker but if you keep picking new colors all the time you will loose the intensity that you started out with because the lack of opacity dilutes it. Use it sparingly.

Traditionally artists would do still life and cast studies to better their techniques in painting as well as understanding fundamentals. This is a practice I recommend even digital artists do to better one self. Put any photo reference aside and try to paint something in front of you.

Hey there.
I am as well new here so I'll se abut making a good first post/impression with a good critique.
These are my personal opinions and advice and should only be seen as that.

So the first thing I want to draw attention to is the lack of a solid construction in your sketches. Construction refers to the 3D structure of an object in a drawing. An easy way to understand what construction is, is to think of boxes or cubes. We draw them in perspective and once we have a drawing showing the different sides of the cube we can now start to add value (the amount of light hitting it). This is something you need to do with every material shape even organic shapes. You shouldn't draw everything like they're boxes but what I mean by this is to think of everything as a 3D object in space, draw it out in perspective and then you can add value (some people call this shading).

The forms in your drawing aren't constructed as 3D objects and it appears like you want to convey these forms as if they where in real space. John H. Vanderpoel explains the importance of construction in drawings/paintings in his book "The Human Figure". He does this in a very elegant way and It's a book I recommend aspiring artists should read.

I found that one of the best ways to learn how to study construction (or for a more elegant term: Form) is to draw object around the house in perspective. Moving on from that, figure drawing and anatomical studies have been very beneficial for me to better understand form. George B. Bridgman has several books on this and studying from his books will really make you better at drawing not only people but anything.

When you have a better understanding of form, then you need to learn how to accurately represent it. A line drawing depicting shapes in perspective might indicate from but it doesn't represent it like the way we se things. We se things as colors/values and edges between color/value changes, not lines. (you're working in pencil now so I'll adapt this to that medium) So you need to turn a line drawing of one or several shapes into a fully shaded form. You do this by studying the relation of light and dark areas in real life and start to learn how light effects different forms for the viewer. Still life studies are the traditional way of learning this and it is something I recommend.

Once you've bettered yourself in regards to form you need to start studying the anatomy of the thing you want to draw. Anatomy is important and there is a lack of understanding behind your sketches. This has to do with your lack of understanding in form but also anatomy. Now studying anatomy doesn't mean drawing every bone or muscle group. It's better to break down the bone structure to very simple shapes that will serve as a guide when you then add a layer of muscle over it and then lastly, skin, feather, scales or fur. You then draw out the line construction of this simplified animal (or figure if you're drawing a person but you've posted animals so I'll stick to them) and then build from that, adding whatever is on the visible surface along with what value it should be in.

I hope this has been helpful in providing a understanding of what it means to have studied fundamentals. Contrary to common belief, fundamentals of art difficult things to study and are the primary area of study throughout most artists life. The basic building block of the real world are things a lot of artists skip (probably because they're difficult and adapting to a style that excludes them is easier) and from observation it's due to that a lot of the people I've talked to can't get any professional work as artists.

If you want any further explanations or advice, feel free to ask