Snakker's sketchbook - My Art Journey

[daceronine]

Yo good show man. All good studies. Anatomy is pretty fun, even if it can be fairly challenging.

[snakker]

Thanks @daceronine

man, I seriously underestimated the difficulty of these exercises, and here I thought I knew anatomy (from med school) XD

More traced studies

Cheers!

[gregorya]

The back muscle study looks pretty good. The back muscle looks pretty challenging.

[snakker]

Thanks @gregorya yeah, it's definitely challenging for me

Anyhow, had very little time for art today, but managed to budge a couple more studies, not the most presentable but it's something

cheers!

[pretzel]

These are all amazing! I may have said it before but the quantity and quality of your work is always impressive. Keep up the awesome work!

[daceronine]

These are all great studies. I keep forgetting who here are the docs with all the detail everyone puts into the anatomy studies.

[snakker]

@pretzel @daceronine Thank you!

Here are a couple more, just trying to pump out a few to keep the practice going while I can

cheers!

[gregorya]

These studies are pretty good. It looks like you're getting the hang of the muscle positions.

[snakker]

Thanks! I sure hope so but still have a lot to work on! @gregorya

Man, it’s been too long since I grabbed a pencil to just draw something random from imagination for fun, phew, it’s quite liberating sometimes, enjoy

Cheers!

[snakker]

more studies

[daceronine]

Wow that's trippy. Interestingly enough, the compositon works out with the lines going on the left with the hands and the spine on the right. Even the background hand works as a triangle.

Good studies too, you've been busy.

[snakker]

Thank you! @daceronine yes, i was going for a triangular composition, when I draw like this, I typically lightly draw a shape or design first, then fill second, this time, I kinda eyeballed it though and went with my general feeling of balance while drawing. After drawing the initial weird deformed figure, I added the spine to make him more triangular but instead of just a portrait with negative space in front I wanted to balance the left so added hands going up, after that I felt I needed some depth so I added the last hand but then felt it needed contrast and I thought if I hatch it - it would actually lose contrast as the figure isn't empty/bright and that's why I used pencil+smudging XD

Drawing based on a shape or basic composition, or looking for a balance overall or a feeling before just filling with details or figures to tell a story, it's something I really want to focus on but I feel I need to learn to make figures from imagination and learn to manipulate scenes more before I get there. I remember an interview with Frazetta - he said something along the lines of "using shapes/design to tell a story or convey a feeling being art and anything else is ok, but like why would anyone care for a pretty study? it should make you feel something" it really hit me hard in my mindset, but ofcourse, I need a lot of studies first! XD so here's another

cheers!

[snakker]

[snakker]

Lol, I think my brain is going to go numb soon, I should probably take a break.

This next one is a study attempt of using the reference and anatomy knowledge to draw and render next to the figure

The sketch

cheers!

[garrok.dev]

Wow that looks awesome !

[novbert]

Thanks for stopping by in my sketchbook. I love those studies with the swooshy lines, great energy and gersture work there. Try not to lose that when getting more detailed - or rather: try to keep a balance of more detailed focus areas and less detailed "peripherial" stuff.
Also this latest color study looks awesome. My only comment is maybe on hair detail. Hair generally looks better if it's drawin in "blocks" and the rendering of individual strands is kept at minimum. A bit of stylization can go a long way here.

All in all, great, inspiring stuff, I can't wait to get to this point in the studies myself.

[SamuraiSingh]

@snakker All of your sketches look very professional. I get the impression that every line is exactly where it should be.

[daceronine]

That looks really good, great studies man

[catsforsnacks]

Hell yeah great studies!
The color one looks real nice

[snakker]

@novbert yo thanks for the feedback! Totally agree about the hair, it’s definitely an area I will have to dedicare some study to directly because I frequently struggle between overdetailing/underdetailing it.

As for the gestural strokes - I think it’s one of thise things that really make me second guess my process sometimes. It can make for great lineart on its own or for use in animation (like glenn keane stuff) but can be a bit generic looking in many cases as well. I notice a lot of artists that follow force/mattessi and similar to have a very similar style but I think the concepts and ideas are very good. However, for painted pieces I sometimes don’t really get where their place is. Also, I sometimes think it kills a bit of the nuisance that the fogure has. Noone is made of perfectly flowey lines, rather we can have a couple of very beautiful gestural shapes like the shadows near the eyes, the eyes themselves, the curves in the ears or the cartilage of the nose, etc, but our skin and fat is all irregular and can add some character to the silhouette. It always makes me wonder if Im going right about it 😅 maybe im overthinking it at this stage, the beginner struggle is real

@garrok.dev @catsforsnacks @SamuraiSingh @daceronine thanks so much!

I am going to be doing a bunch more studies! Going to try mixing up with some traditional as well. Will be focusing on general figure sketching practice, more torso anatomy and studies of characters by comic book artists, also frazetta, vallejo and others to try to get some more ideas on their work process and sketch process. That said, I know a big part of their work is also what I am already focusing on which is using a picture (or model) and painting those from reference directly into their fantasy worlds. I guess what I am saying is, despite the fact that much of what i am learning so far is using reference directly, and thats very useful for painting fantasy work, I think being able to sketch figures from imagination and playing around with stylized anatomy/proportions is also important and I want to start getting to grips with that

Sorry for the wall of text btw

Cheers!