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The Art Workshop

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Hey, and welcome to the NG Art workshop!

This is a thread for posting studies, sharing thoughts, providing and receiving feedback. Everyone is welcome to post their studies regardless of skill-level. Whether you've got years of experience or only just started out you're welcome here!

This thread is 100% community driven - giving another artist feedback every time you post your own work is a good habit and very highly appreciated. We're all here to help each other out!

If you're wondering where to begin:
- Quickposes and Pixelovely are sites built for gesture drawings.
- Blushots has high-quality screenshots from movies and series, good for practicing composition!
- Sycra, FZD school, and Draw With Jazza are Youtube-channels with tons of useful information
What you're looking to practice is individual, so don't be afraid to ask around - maybe someone here knows about something that could suit you better!

Note that while everyone is invited, this thread is exclusively for studies. A study is "something produced as an educational exercise". The primary purpose of what you post should be to learn more or explore a subject. Please try to keep your daily studies in one or two images. For instance - if you're doing gestures, resize and arrange the drawings so they fit in one image. The same goes for longer, and different kinds of studies.

If you have any questions at all, we're all here to help each other - so feel free to ask if you wonder about what, how, where, or why!

The Art Workshop


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-06 17:31:34 (edited 2015-03-06 17:34:48)


It begins...

60-second gestures

EDIT: I should add that I'm currently trying to improve my drawing speed and accuracy. I want to make good, clean, confident strokes and avoid having to "pet" my lines into shape.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-06 17:48:51


At 3/6/15 04:44 PM, Hallu wrote: Sounds awesome :) Here's some skulls i did not too long ago

Cool! I think there's definitely a good sense of volume in the middle and bottom-right one, maybe some of the eyes aren't aligned completely? I definitely hope you'll continue posting!

At 3/6/15 05:31 PM, SuperBastard wrote: It begins...
60-second gestures
EDIT: I should add that I'm currently trying to improve my drawing speed and accuracy. I want to make good, clean, confident strokes and avoid having to "pet" my lines into shape.

What's this, gestures for ants?! NG's max image size is 720x700 pixels so make sure to use all of it! If the images are still tiny after that maybe try to sort out a selection of what you consider to be the best for that session? Either way, from what I can tell the poses are all coming across really nice! What time setting are you using on these?

--

@Daker777NG @JojoDodo @123mine123 @amaralzex @Spags @Sockembop @Zhon

Alright, new thread is made! I recommend everyone that's interested to subscribe to the thread to keep in touch with the thread and as an additional reminder! Also that's a whole bunch of people - if we can keep this many running that would be amazing!

--

Anyways
Here's me today - gestures as usual. I tried focusing on weight and balance, especially in the legs. Also I made an extra conscious effort to look for interesting shapes and rhythms, places to contrast curves with edges.

The Art Workshop


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-06 18:05:02


At 3/6/15 05:48 PM, Havegum wrote: What's this, gestures for ants?! NG's max image size is 720x700 pixels so make sure to use all of it! If the images are still tiny after that maybe try to sort out a selection of what you consider to be the best for that session? Either way, from what I can tell the poses are all coming across really nice! What time setting are you using on these?

Yeah I guess I need to get better at gesture tetris to maximize my space. I didn't want to just post my best ones because I think it's at least as important to show the failures. Maybe I'll try cutting out the ones I could go either way on next time.
They're 60 seconds each.

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-06 19:32:07


Sweet deal! You'll probably only see me posting drawings here once a week or so, but I'll be sure to stop in now and then to see what everyone's been up to. High fives all around!


(>'-')>

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-06 21:55:04


When I get back home from work tonight I'm ginna scan and post skull studies I did during this week.


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 01:06:51


At 3/6/15 05:48 PM, Havegum wrote: Here's me today - gestures as usual. I tried focusing on weight and balance, especially in the legs. Also I made an extra conscious effort to look for interesting shapes and rhythms, places to contrast curves with edges.

These have good depth! How long did you spend on them? I think I sketched the middle right one in my spread too! These were all 30 seconds. I tried to fill a square of space but I was done for the evening.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 01:16:17


Okie. Here's mine.
About a few weeks ago, I think I got really comfortable doing 1 min gestures.
So I decided to do it differently.

So these are 2 minute gestures, getting the gesture of the pose and also building upon it with adding the head, ribs, pelvis, and stick limbs. C:

The Art Workshop


Drawin' and being trash. :3

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 02:13:01


Starting off with my study of heads, this is a few hours of digital study while my traditional will stay in my sketchbook. After doing the basic layout structures I did some moderate sketches and finished off with a value painting.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 03:13:12


At 3/7/15 01:06 AM, Spags wrote: These have good depth! How long did you spend on them?

I used the class mode on pixelovely. So the roughest ones would be 30-60 seconds, mid ones around 5 minutes, then 30 minutes on the one with values

For your gestures I'd like to see you using more curves! There are almost always curves in the body if you look for them and you can always use wrapping lines to gain a better sense of volume!

Also did you get the same pose 6 times?? haha!

--

@123mine123
These are very nice! It tends to get a bit messy on overlapping shapes though - try using lighter strokes early on and then bolder ones later. Bold lines bring shapes forward in space, so try to use that to your advantage when establishing a hierarchy of shapes in space!
Seriously though they look really nice, maybe it's time to crank up the speed!

--

@LurkinMcClerkin
The proportions are definitely working, maybe something to explore next is looking for the inner structure of the face! Personally I've found the Asaro head very useful for this. Especially note how the eyes come out of an inwards dent!


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 04:12:55


@Hallu I really like how you did the nose and cheekbones on your skulls. It definitely have more volume then mine.

@Spags The 4th samurai in that row is my favorite, do you ever have trouble doing 30 sec gestures digitally? For me personally, I find it tough dealing with lag in that pace.

@123mine123 Very nice connections with the limbs. I'm currently focus looking at the your legs, alot of them are great but the ones that stand out as iffy are probably the top right one and the middle one with the spread legs. I say the way the tube attach on the line flow is the reason. The fourth one on the top row is my favorite :3

@LurkinMcClerkin At the left side at the bottom row in the center (of the 3 heads), I like the way you drew that head out of all the heads you drew. Something about the eyes are in a visor shape gives me ideas to try and practice on in the future.

@SuperBastard Definitely need more darker lines or something, it's very hard to see. So I got an idea, since accuracy is one of the things you were going for this; try filling your gestures in a black silhouette, the more readable it is, the more I believe is the more accurate ones among the rest .

@Havegum Don't forget the arms too! I believe that those definitely have a major effect on rhythm along with how it affects the balance of the body to the legs. Awesome selfie girls btw :{3

After looking at your guys studies I want to re-work on how to analyse the skull and simplifying it.

After doing my skull study I came to realized some things;

1 being that drawing tiny skulls definitely show what angles I'm good at and really bad at;
2) that I can draw a skull upside down and still look okay;
3) That I have real trouble with the overall front appearance of the skull, but I figure out with the below angle study I did that if I can turn it into a mask that wraps the head I'm certain it'll help me draw it in different angles much much better.
4) I can manage fine with 2 points perspective but I definitely need to work on 3 point perspective, I believe it's the key to doing head tilt angles and so much more once I expand it to the rest of the body and then environments.

The Art Workshop


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 08:30:47


@Havegum - Will do Gumby! C:
I'm not sure though if it will go well since I'm using Sai and the brush options are.. weird. Like basic, but weird.

@ZaneZansorrow - I agree about the legs. Its probably because how I drew the pelvis and where I put where the legs connect. Sometimes, if I drew the oblong too long, the legs go wider apart.
And about your skulls, why does it looks so cute and weird at the same time. xD

@LurkinMcClerkin - I don't know but.. there's something about the eyes that gives me a creepy feeling.

@Spags - Nice gestures! But isn't 30 sec a little too fast? Also, have you watched Proko and Sycra's gesture stuff?

------------

2 heads then doodled.

The Art Workshop


Drawin' and being trash. :3

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 09:46:32


At 3/7/15 05:41 AM, vixuzar wrote: just a question
am i doing this circle guide i dunno what it`s called the right way?
and can anyone tell me how to improve it
also does the pose seem correct ?
also this is a cartoon style art not one of those heavy anatomy things

hey man, well i call it "base pose" or "skeleton", idk about how others call it but i remember faster this way.

well my starting study about poses i was training using this
https://thefunambulistdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/vitruvian-man.jpg
you can make some new poses using the "joint circles" using the vitruvian man as base, this rly helped me to star the idea of proportions at the start and understand the movimento of arms and legs... just dont forget to make the circles a "guide" not a "rule"

some tips i have to you.. make some more horizontal lines at the face guide line.. its help to make you see the symetry of the image

sorry my bad english :)

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-07 16:53:20


Woah this is getting filled already, neato. So this last week i've been kinda confused as to what i should concentrate on studying, but i realized that first i should get used to drawing everyday again, so i'm gonna be doing random studies, not really having a goal in mind, just to get used to it.

Today i did this, link to reference used, i tried to get it as realistic as possible but also push the colors a bit. I realized that everytime i got to get a more saturated color, i usually need to make it more saturated than i'm comfortable with, if i don't do that i end up making the colors too boring compared to the reference. Also this time i started with a dark color base, instead of painting directly on white like i usually do, and it's way easier this way. Also, the shadows look very bland until you split the shadows into core shadow and reflective light (for those who don't know what these are: link, so when you can't figure out why do your shadows look off, try remembering that.

Nice studies everyone, as soon as i see something i can be useful with, i'll give you a hand. If anyone needs help with something you can send me a PM and i'll try to help.

The Art Workshop


My tumblr yo.

My art thread.

If anyone wanna be drawing pals, add me on discord fam "daker#3361"

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Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 00:42:35 (edited 2015-03-08 00:45:15)


Second day of head studies. Gonna move steadily down the body once I master each part. Next is eyes and nose. My mouths aren't perfect but they are the least of my issues.

@Havegum
Dude you rock major tits. That model helped me out a lot with my facial structure and shadows.

@Jojododo
Very nice sketches. Your eyebrows look so weird but they are appealing to me. They match your characters' expressions well. Idk if this helps but I would recommend placing your female character's mouths about halfway between the bottom of the nose and the chin. The mouth being that close to the nose is more of a masculine trait but if you prefer that then ignore me.

@Daker777NG
Realism isn't my sort of thing but that is looking nice.

@vixuzar
You have some sort of 'connect the dots' thing going on with the circles. it makes your character look really stiff. try using a lot more curved lines when planning out your limbs. Looking good so far though.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 03:16:48


Gestures. internet suck today so wasn't able to draw that much figures.

The Art Workshop


Drawin' and being trash. :3

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 07:17:53


@ZaneZansorrow
The holes for the eyes seem too small overall! Consider the width of the bone between, and the bone framing the eyes!

@123mine123
I would like to see you using a wider range of strokes! Even lighter strokes for the underlying sketch, and bolder strokes for areas you'd like to highlight!

@JojoDodo
I wish I had so expressive and solid sketches! Do you have any tips/ exercises / literature that helped you a lot getting where you are now?

@Daker777NG
Those colours are looking really natural! I think you can push the darks even darker and crisper for where shapes push against eachother - like the armpits and where the hips meet the belly!

@LurkinMcClerkin
Already a major improvement! I'd suggest using a hard brush with no opacity for studies - it makes mistakes come out more and it gives your drawings more character as you need to be aware of how you place your strokes on the shapes!

--

Here's yesterday I forgot to upload!
I tried being more conscious of the hands and their gestures. I also did a bunch of hand studies not included but they all turned out really messy and/or stiff!

The Art Workshop


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Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 11:36:11


My figure drawing professor used to have us draw the underlying bone and muscle structure sometimes too (obviously using skeletal models and whatnot). It helps understand how and why the body moves the way it does which is great for drawing without a reference later. Just an idea if anyone is bored with their regular studies.


(>'-')>

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 15:59:00


I have trying some female poses

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 19:27:43 (edited 2015-03-08 19:33:08)


@GabrielMoon Hey mate, good job with those, but you are drawing the space between the ribs and the pelvis too long in some of these, in the three bigger ones for example, or were you trying to exaggerate? If so, just keep experimenting, that's always good. The one on the bottom left that seems to be the most finished one looks very good, but i'd say she might be just a tiny bit too tilted to the right, if she was more to the left she'd feel more balanced i think, and her head is a bit big (for realistic standards). Niec butt btw heuhe.

@JojoDodo Actually, line weight can be used by painters too, a good video that explains it is "drawing like a painter" by sinix, even if you are not a painter, this is an awesome video that can shift your approach to lines completely, either way i think line weight is important for any artist, well, except animators. Btw, those poses from your imagination look as good as always, you could be an animator, that's a field where that kind of expressiveness is very helpful.

@Zhon That sounds like a good exercise, tomorrow i was going to do anatomy practice so i might do that too.

@ Havegum Thanks! Yeah i just kept trying to make those edges darker, but everytime i did it i just thought it looked wrong somehow, like it was just leftover lineart, i will have to make sure i get those good next time. Also if you haven't, you should watch the video i linked to Jojo earlier, it might help you or give you a new idea for how to approach lineart. Just a couple of simple tips, maybe you could use a brighter color for doing the gestures, dark blue or something like that, so they look more clean, also you could ground your gestures with some lines at the bottom, to avoid the "floaty" feeling. Also, make the limbs in the back darker or lighter to improve readability, shadow or fog, i prefer shadow xD

@LurkinMcClerkin Thanks! Btw you shouldn't close yourself to realism, like i told @123mine123 before, it doesn't matter if you like doing cartoony, or anime style, everything derives from reality, so you should at least try to make some realistic studies, but honestly i'd say you are already doing them, and they lookin good yo, apart from some small mistakes in the overall proportions, i'd recommend mirroring your drawings horizontally very often to spot proportion mistakes.

Okay so yesterday i did gestures of static poses and finished with a painted study, today i did gestures of action poses and finished with more action poses, but from youtube videos. I did some from a Bruce Lee video, NBA matches and UFC fights, and it was incredibly fun compared to doing them from quickposes, doing gestures of poses that were not meant to be a still image is a whole different experience, definetly helpful. I learnt that the brain actually reads poses much better than i thought, when i was drawing some of these i thought "this is gonna be so confusing" but when i zoomed out they actually made sense, i don't know, what u guise think? Here's a bigger resolution image.

srry for huge wall of text btw

The Art Workshop


My tumblr yo.

My art thread.

If anyone wanna be drawing pals, add me on discord fam "daker#3361"

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Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-08 22:21:07


@Daker777NG
Doing gestures from youtube vids sounds super interesting! And thanks for the general advice - I'll try to keep it in mind along with doing youtube sequence gestures tomorrow! Your look really vivid and full of action! I love the simplified approach to some of the limbs, in particular the triangle leg in 2nd frame on the leftmost sequence

@JojoDodo
On the note of having a painterly mindset, I think you're absolutely right! I definitely want to improve my mark making and also work more on application without reference! It's just too comfortable having something to look at some times!

--

Here's some highlights from today. I want to be more conscious about my lines, experimenting a bit with line weight. I see now that the more finished poses has much less variation in lines - I should be more aware of, and try to combat this in future studies

The Art Workshop


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-09 01:42:18


Today I focused on eyes and placement of such. I learned quite a bit.

@Havegum
Gummy I respect you but man hard brush with no opacity is brutal for practicing on faces and eyes. For my gesture study it was interesting and I learned a lot from doing it. I'll keep giving it a go but when you're trying not to erase a lot it is a brutal way to learn. Probably need to take my time with it but I have to rush and get to bed. Work early in
the morning.

@Daker777NG
Thanks, and I will look into doing some realism studies, I just really prefer exaggerated stuff.

@GabrielMoon
Nice studies. I suggest focusing on making more prominent hips, otherwise you're doing great.

@JojoDodo
Once again your style amazes me.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-09 01:43:05


Couldn't compress them all onto one image without making it too difficult to see.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-09 13:49:16


Hey folks nice to meet you all day 1 of trying to get good at painting for me.
The links are incredibly helpfull so thanks so much havegum.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-09 15:56:47


I tried pixelovely; it was lovely.

The 30 second gestures are intimidating; I wasn't able to finish them with the way I've been going about my drawing lately. In the future I'll have to resort to more basic lines and forget trying to draw the figure like I do with the minute+ poses. I guess that's really what I should be doing anyway.

The Art Workshop

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-09 16:01:09


At 3/8/15 07:17 AM, Havegum wrote: studies

Damn it these are gorgeous. I'm gonna go do some more.

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-10 00:52:37


Gestures..
@Havegum , I don't know what im doing.

The Art Workshop


Drawin' and being trash. :3

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-10 02:41:50


Shitty portrait study and crappy attempt at a crappy cartoon pose.

The Art Workshop


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-10 04:19:17


@LurkinMcClerkin
Yeah it's pretty rough. I got the advice with the idea that it will improve awareness for brush strokes, and also give a keener eye for colour and values. I'm still trying to get used to it myself but I think it's really helping me focus on nailing the values and makes me more aware of where I put my brush strokes. For gradients I'll just go over it again with the colour mixer tool or with a regular soft brush, if there's time.

@TheMightyCelt
I'm glad I could be part in inspiring someone to get into drawing, be sure to thank the others here as well because this thread wouldn't exist without the help of all of them! If you're completely new to drawing, I'd suggest focusing on core fundamental exercises to begin with - Understanding how light behaves and how shapes sit in 3D goes a long way! Here's some videos by sycra that goes into explaining the properties of light

@SuperBastard
Thanks for the compliment! I agree the 30 sec ones are hardcore, some times they end up looking like random scribbles (see attachment!). I see you're focusing a lot on drawing the contour of the figure - In the 30s ones the goal for me isn't necessarily to get the scribble to look like a human figure but more capturing the story, energy and volume. Michael Hamptons "Figure Drawing - Design and Invention" goes more indepth into this and is really worth looking into.

@123mine123
I think you're doing fine! If you're fairly comfortable with the proportion and position of the main masses, you can omit drawing them, and instead sort of hint at their volume with wrapping lines!

@Sockembop
I disagree! I think they look nice!
For the painting I would like to see a clearer distinction between what's core shadow, key light, midtones, etc. I'd also recommend what I recommended for LurkinMcClerkin - Drawing with a solid, 100% opaque brush, as this forces you to really nail those values and also makes brushstrokes more apparent. You can always blur transitions in later with a soft brush (which has the benefit of putting edge play in focus as well!)

--

Here's me yesterday. Tried some of that youtube stuff, and also using black to imply things receding in space. The latter is very useful because it really forces me to consider how and where I want to black things out.

The Art Workshop


BBS Signature

Response to The Art Workshop 2015-03-10 12:34:06


At 3/10/15 04:19 AM, Havegum wrote: @SuperBastard

I see. I keep neglecting to look up resources like that on gesture drawing, which is kind of funny because I've been so worried about doing it in a way I can learn most from.

I did these when I woke up this morning before checking the thread, but I'll look up what you've recommended and do some more later today.

The Art Workshop