Eugene - My Artistic Journey

[Gordon003]

Long time no see.

Holy cow, I didn't know you went into graphite now! I know the feeling of hesitancy to post it but it's refreshing to show that not everyone is perfect.

With an untrained eye on graphite, I feel you need to determine which edge is hard or soft. But I understand that you are setting the value of the shade before blending in the next step unless I'm mistaken.

Keep at it!

[Sthingz]

In light of my latest drawing blunder, I went back to construction and sketched some faces. After doing this, I realized that my construction skills had deteriorated (see below).

I also worked on some 2 min. gesture drawings

@mitsuki-youko Thanks for the insight on your shading techniques. I will soon attempt to render another portrait in Procreate and I will avoid smudging to see how it goes.
@snakker I will be more conscious of the direction I shade and how I depict the terminator (sharp vs smooth). I will also try to limit my range of values as you correctly pointed out that they are all over the place.
@Gordon003 Welcome back and thanks for dropping by. Your feedback reinforces snakker's point that I draw the terminator too sharp. I think what I will try to do is be less forceful in the shadow mapping stage and sharply define only cast shadows, not form shadows.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback. I promise that I will address all three suggestions by Wednesday. Until then, I am happy to say that I accomplished all commitments for last week. For this week, my commitments are...

• Practice construction (i.e., sketch faces, add one shadow layer, and ink)
• Render a portrait digitally without smudging
• Resume Marc's Art School Program
• Conduct a master study

[snakker]

Nice, keep at it!

[mitsuki-youko]

eyy these b lookin good so far! can't wait to see what you draw next

[Sthingz]

I had another go at last week's portrait. I think I am getting the hang of how sharp vs. smooth the terminator should be. Contrast was also increased (I had to press hard on the paper lol. @snakker I will soon be getting some charcoal) I used a 2b and 4b for the shadow family and hb for the light family. A 6b was used for the hair to account for the darker local value. I need to still work on construction as there are still some perspective/anatomical oddities present in my drawing. To that end, I sketched two faces, inked them, and applied shadows where necessary. Side note: Hair is still a pain in the butt to draw AND shade.

@mitsuki-youko Either tomorrow or Friday I will digitally render this same portrait and see how it goes. I am still deliberating whether I should record myself or not (not sure how I will perform with the pressure of recording my screen).

I also did some 2 min gesture drawings (as per usual)

[mitsuki-youko]

looking good so far!

[Sthingz]

I finally digitally rendered the portrait from last week and I think it turned out okay! I did end up smudging a little bit toward the end but I mostly focused on using a hard brush and pressure sensitivity like @mitsuki-youko's demo . Before this, however, I did practice my construction skills by drawing four portraits and somewhat shading them. Please let me know how they turned out in comparison to the references.

[patrycja.lerch]

Looks really good!

[Pattu_w]

Hey, great job!

Please let me know how they turned out in comparison to the references.

It does look pretty good, looks like you took a more stylized approach, and to my eyes, it's not really a problem.
There are some differences from the references tho, for instance, realistic eyes tend to be way smaller than we think. When i'm doing those i tend to do huuuge noses, so i always do them smaller than i think is right lol
And do note the distance between the eyes, it really varies from person to person, it's those little "imperfections" that makes people different from one another.
All that said, realistic is not always appealing and the study doesn't need to be a exact copy from the reference, if you learned something from it and liked the result, that's a huge win to my eyes.

[mitsuki-youko]

Eyyy looking good so far!!

For this one, i would recommend when shading the hair try to do it like you did for the other ones and smooth it along the hair. here its just horizontal so it looks a bit off.. but if you did it vertically it would look a lot nicer.

^ another thing is her face is a bit smol/narrow compared to the reference and the eyes are a bit close.

Everything else looks awesome tho!

(btw forgot if i asked but do u have ig? i'd love to add u if u do!)

[snakker]

Yo nice work! it does seem you stylize the heads a bit, I think it works well just note some of the chins are too thin, almost like in anime, and you do tend to make lips narrower than the reference, but construction seems solid and shading is clean, I also like how you leave a line for the malar-labial rhythm and shade behind it. I feel you simplify the shadow areas really well. Your use of angles, curves and straight lines also work very well on the figures

cheers!

[Sthingz]

@Pattu_w and @mitsuki-youko Thanks for your feedback. As you both rightfully pointed out, the eyes are a little too big or too close together - I will be more conscious of it. As for the face you tagged, @mitsuki-youko, I started with an oval rather than a sphere, so maybe that's why it looks narrow (perhaps a little too thin).

@snakker I appreciate your kind words. I tend to go for a more stylized look when drawing in Procreate as that is what I enjoy doing the most. On paper, however, I strive for realism.

[Sthingz]

I just finished watching the last video of Term 2, that is, Perspective 2. I will soon tackle the assignments for the term, but I first want to conduct a master study of Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl with a Earl Earring. Although I should have completed the master study by the end of last week, I will now devote the greater part of this week toward studying the painting and enacting the pointers found in the Visual Communications 2 assignment. I have completely turned down the saturation of the painting so I can study the painting in grayscale. I am attaching the image for anyone else's reference.

This Week's Commitments:

• Conduct a master study of Johannes Vermeer
• Practice drawing volumes in perspective, deforming them as well as adding connections (per Anatomy 1's assignment)
• Resume reading Dongho Kim's perspective book

[Gordon003]

I have completely turned down the saturation of the painting so I can study the painting in grayscale.

Good advice to focus completely just on grayscale/shadow without colour being involved. good luck!

[Sthingz]

I just finished my master study of Vermeer. I took some notes and copied his portrait (the one from my last post). I had a lot of fun and I am happy that construction-wise my portrait is believable. The female subject I drew ended up with a less rounded face but the likeness is somewhat there. I also tried really hard to separate shadow from light so let me know how I did in that department. As far as using charcoal, I want to first improve my gradient drawing with the current tools I have. I certainly don't want to pick up a new tool and think to myself that it will solve all of my problems. But yea...that's where I am right now.

Gesture Drawing (including last week's which I forgot to post):

Vermeer master study:

[mitsuki-youko]

lookin good so far!

[Sthingz]

Practiced some more construction and drew a scenery in one point perspective. I noticed that my head drawings turned out better the bigger I drew them. Those with an asterisk next to them are those drawings that I didn't use the whole canvas for. On a similar note, I used an HB pencil to gesture draw for a change. Anyway, I would appreciate some feedback.

Gesture drawings 2 min.:

Head sketches:

Perspective creative study:

This Week's Commitments:

• Draw in 2 and 3 point perspective
• Continue to practice drawing expressive faces
• Conduct another master study (artist: TBD)

[mitsuki-youko]

eyyy this looks great!

[Sthingz]

Thanks you so much @mitsuki-youko!

Here's a little fun I had with a ref...

[Pattu_w]

Hey, i don't have any technical feedback to give besides that you did really good! The gestures look dynamic and portraits are quite nice too. Really great job!