Thanks man! Yeah it works really well as a combo imho. I do have a tablet where i could arguabley do it all on ps but i just cant scale things right when sketching compared to doing it on a screen like the ipad!
Perspective assignment! I know it could be a lot neater but for the sake of the excersise it felt really beneficial to do. Didnt want to lean too heavily on Marc's example so I went for a Italian castle reference photo i had instead and tried to work out how it would look from this low perspective.
Feels so good having time for dedicated days to Art School. Onto the next assignment tomorrow 
Really struggled with the final perspective assignment but glad i did it. Feel like I shouldve gone into basic shapes first rather than a full human bod but hey its practice. Look how happy 4P Persp' guy is!
Not a huge ammont of Art School today- started the anatomy class though and did some more personal work...
One i started today as a redesign of an old character from one of my comics. Looking forward to finishing it this week!
Started this one last week- I had this idea of drawing my characters from Guild Wars 2 and am slowly getting overwhelmed by it! I might do it again but with some more interesting poses rather than just standing. Not looking forward to the center guardians armour! ^^;
Hey guys, looking for a bit of feedback if you have time...
I've just finished the Anatomy 1 class of Art School Term 2 and tried to do the assignement where you tie in all the things you've learnt. Doing each element of the head bit by bit has made a lot of sense to me but now that i'm tying it together it just- as you can see - looks wrong.
I know it's wrong, but I can't figure out what is i've done to end up here or what is I need to do to make it more accurate. If anyone happens to be passing with a keen eye please say if you have any advice! Even if it's just a case of needing more practice.
Heyho, man!
I am not that much of a pro myself, but I've been practising portrait painting for some months earlier this year. What helped me a lot was a lot of repetition, measuring out proportions using reference and studying the loomis head as well as additional info from other sources.
The thing that jumps to my mind first are correct proportions. Thats probably what will improve your work the most at this stage.
I can recommend the youtube channel from Angel Ganev. He has a lot of good videos on portrait painting and provides you with good exercises.
One of the exercises I profited the most of was selecting a portrait reference picture, putting it on one side, duplicating it and then:
1) do a drawover of the construction lines of the head over the ref
2) try measuring out the reference and reproduce it on your own
3) repeat this for at least 30-40 heads and really take your time doing this: the first few heads might take you 45-60mins each, but its worth it, man!
Check out Angel's channel here, just bear with his special style of presenting the info : )
Hope thats useful for you!
If you need some more help, feel free to contact me!
best,
Mau
Hey Mau,
Thank you so much, really appreciate this! I'm gonna have a go at what you suggested next week- does sound like doing a Loomis trace would help a lot and as you said just repeating it somewhat relentlessly!
I do use the gesture drawing app when I can but i must admit I have been slacking on that side of things- I will use it again for portraits so I can re-familiarise myself.
Many thanks again
~ Jon
So I've been trying to get at least one finished personal illustration done a week on top of my Art School assignments. Although I was hoping to have this one coloured too and there's a few things that aren't perfect, I'm overall really happy with this character redesign from one of my old comics. It's not quite the style i'd usually go for (I prefer simpler features with a sprinkle of anime edges lol) But I really enjoyed just rendering/shading this for hours on end purely for myself.
Here are some old drawings of her incase anyone's curious!
As you can probably tell, I didnt rely on references like, barely at all back then and it really makes such a difference. I also use a Character Design workflow similar to how people do in the video game industry now like gathering references and research for everything. Can't wait to see my progress as i- well, er... progress!
Have a good weekend everyone 
And boy will you use reference after a while Your illustration looks good! There are some anatomical flaws but since you're in Term 2, really well done!
8 days later
Been a busy week this week with Bank Holiday and kids school being closed so not done as much as I'd hoped but managed to finish the Anatomy 2 video and a personal drawing!
I don't often get tempted by DTIYS on Instagram but my good friend posted one recently and wanted an excuse to try out my new skills! Been watching some of Marc's old videos on colouring a character/ I've uploaded a video of the photoshop layering build up to my youtube too if anyone wants a peek: https://youtu.be/9d_QupHAotE
Gonna try and do the Anatomy assignment over the weekend then onto clothed figure drawing next week.
Have a good weekend everyone!
Some Doodles from the weekend! Trying to sketch all the heads.
Feeling a bit burnt out from learning at the moment but I think that's down to trying to push myself into making Art School like a full time job so that I can progress faster. Might have to slow down a bit or tip the balance so that I'm doing more personal work.
Hi! I've been doing a lot of portraits recently and here's just a few things that I've done to improve:
1) Learn the facial planes! These are incredibly important... make sure to check out the Asaro head! If you get a really good grasp of these then you can stylize them to your liking. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GX3Ax1 Do studies of them in different lighting, different angles, etc. They're not fun but they really help.
2) Value control! Zin Lim has an incredibly good channel which discusses the 5 value system (midtone, shadow, light, halftone, highlights) for painting heads as well as just general sketching. I'd suggest following his videos down to each stroke if you want to get a really good sense of it. Also remember how light works, ambient occlusion vs. shadow, etc. (check out Marco Bucci's youtube channel for some really good videos. Also would highly recommend the book "Color and Light". It's an essential for all artists.)
3) Skulls: learn them front to back! One mistake I see a lot are eyes that aren't recessed into the face. Remember that eyes aren't just tattooed on the face -- there's a socket, an eyeball, eyelids, etc. If you understand the skull the rest comes easy.
4) Proportions.... this is pretty easy. Biggest thing is just to remember to keep eyes one eye-width apart. If you understand the skull and the planes this should take no time at all
5) Face studies!! Don't really do this until you understand planes, lighting, skull etc. or they won't be productive. Once you do like 100+ they'll start becoming easier and easier. Sounds really daunting but it's worth
Faces are really tricky because we humans can recognize them in a heartbeat, so we can also instantly notice what's wrong in a drawing. I know I kind of spewed a lot of stuff here but hopefully at least some of this helps. Studies can be annoying because they may not be what you want to draw, but they'll make every drawing you do afterwards better. Keep it up!
hi! Thank you for the tips thas very helpful!
Hi all! Started drawing along with Marcs video on how to paint clothes and ended up turning her into a Dragoon instead 🤷
There's a few things looking back that could've been better (realised the handle for the axe-lance is at the wrong angle to the blade angle and a few other things) but overall really happy with my progress, feel like i'm slowly starting to improve 💪
1 month later
woww this looks awesome, i see alot of progress!
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