Xybb (Sascha) - Art School Journey

[soft.raincloud777]

Haha that is such a surprising coincidence! And man, Feng Zhu's proficiency in art are goals. I wish you the best!

[Lockenheim]

Your systematic approach is looking good! A lot of people say that the front shot is the easiest but to me it is the hardest since everything has to be so perfectly consistent and more symmetrical. Fantastic Practice Sascha keep it up!

[Xybb]

So, it's been a while :D. Took about 2 month hiatus from drawing and recently bought bought the Artschool Feedback Upgrade. About 4 submissions down I am currently back on track and working on faces.

For the most recent submission Marc recommended I'd try a portrait without reference. Well, it went poorly.

That's why I decided to go back to studying faces and probably will try doing another without reference soon but I must say, trying without reference is always quite a hit to the ego.

Here are this weeks face studies:

Also, I did a painting thingy which I basically never did before, for the daily head challenge on discord. I must say I am quite proud of the result. No construction used on this one, but a lot of correction via the liquify tool.

[Opal]

I'd say that's quite the accomplishment since you've never done this type of thing before. i absolutely love the lighting and how it contrasts well with the character. keep it up and have a great day. ( also great job on the face structure it looks correct, i would give critique but i can't find much to improve upon.)

[Lockenheim]

I thought that was you joining the feedback! Super hyped to see you there! I really think the face from imagination is actually really good! Your faces from references are definitely spot on so I can see why you would feel that way. But I do think sprinkling in one from imagination out of every 5 or 10 heads you do would do well! Really fantastic job keep it up! specially love the top right portrait on the big page! Really nice job!

[Xybb]

Turns out, painting is a lot of fun =). A bit worried about my process though, as the early stages of my drawings feel ... not so great. It takes a lot of energy to overcome the feeling of "it sucks " and believing that it will eventually turn out great. Which I feel like it did, although I am still at a loss why it feels less lively than the reference.

I managed to make a .gif out of my process. I hope that I'll eventually be able to close the gap between the initial sketch and the final results. I feel like the final piece way overrepresents my actuall skill.

Here's the Imgur-Link, not sure how I can post a full-size .gif here:

@Lockenheim I agree, it's great to see you there. Seeing you put in all the work and making huge leaps is such a great motivational.
Before entering my submission for this week I'll definitely give the portrait from imagination another shot and will continue doing so every so often.

As for my paintings, probably done for the week as they take so long (unless kirbb posts more of those beautiful challenge references on discord that I can't resist).

[Lockenheim]

I am the same way! My early stuff is always not super inspiring but I find that having super clean line art gives me a really strong start, and keeps my motivation up. But I do a ton of work to really clean up the lines. I think your actuall skill is pretty apparent! I did a paint over of this piece. Now take everything with a grain of salt. Im significantly below your skill and not sure any of this is right. That being said here are the changes I made to make it "pop" a bit more. Mostly it was adding just an extra touch of contrast mostly around the eyes, and nose in the dark recesses. Especially in the corner of the mouth. I found that made the biggest difference. It may not be to your liking and i took some liberties with the reference to improve the read a bit on the nose and jaw. probably not right but maybe you find something you like. Cheers!

Yours is on the left and mine on the right, sorry I dont understand color so I just changed to greyscale!

[Xybb]

I really like the changes you made especially around the mouth area. It's very interesting how these subtle changes impact the read so much. I took me quite a while to even notice the changes you made, but still liked your version better.

When painting, at some point I dialed back the shadow under the eye in favor of making the cheek more prominent but I think I went a bit overboard.

I have to say, with the changes you made I couldn't tell you if it's a painting or a black & white photograph.

Thank you ! =)

[Xybb]

It's been a while, though this time not for a lack of drawing, although I'd like to do more. For the last submission, Marc recommended just taking the angle from the reference, then hiding it and doing the construction and what I feel comfortable with from imagination. Afterwards I could use the reference to bring them closer to finish.

It's interesting how hard even getting the initial angle right is. But overall I feel like it led to some interesting results, as those studies aren't a one on one copy any longer.

Above are the results up until I was using the reference and below the final results:

Also, I did a rock:

Not particularly happy with the result, especially not sure how to handle the foreground. If anyone has some hints I'd be really thankful.

After this weeks submission I'll probably jump into the 3 point perspective assignement, although I am quite scared as my last attempt didn't go so well.

[soft.raincloud777]

Hello Xybb,

For the rock, here are some tips I learned:
- Determine your focal point and use techniques (like composition, lighting, values, contrast) to lead the viewer's eye to it (the high contrast shadows and the rock in the center is fighting for attention, making the viewing experience uncomfortable since the focal point is not clear)
- bounce light: light is probably bouncing off the rocks and transferring some of their color onto the black shadows.
- ambient occlusion: even if the foreground is not directly lit by the sun, it probably wouldn't be entirely black. Maybe you can use colors that have dark values instead

Still trying to implement these tips to my own work though 😅 Your portraits are beautiful!

[Lockenheim]

These portraits are lovely Sascha! I feel like they came out with such character! Most of what I know about backgrounds is from studying league splash art. They typically have darker, blurred out elements in the foreground that also serve as boundries on the canvas so the eyes don't wander away from the focal point. So I think on yours the eyes can "escape" the canvas in the bottom middle, and on most sides Take all of this with a grain of salt, I I dont really know what I'm talking about here, but I tried to do a quick paint over trying to guide the eye in and trap it with different elements in a very beginner way. Composition is not my strength so its probably not correct but maybe it gives you something to springboard from.

So if you look at this Kaisa picture the artist lets the eyes enter in through the top of the canvas, but they cant escape anywhere else is a good example of what I was trying to suggest.

[Xybb]

Thank you guys for the feedback, really appreciate it.

@soft.raincloud777 I do agree, that the dark spots in the foreground force a bit of high contrast area. What I had in mind is that usually the foreground tends to have more contrast but I had no clue atl how to balance that against not making it a focal point. To be honest the dark framing was done after the fact and felt at least somewhat better than what I had beforehand. I agree though, there's little to no reason for it being that dark. For the bounce light part I think you are refering to the shadow under the big rock. Interestingly, that part is copied pretty close to the reference.

Overall I agree with your points though and will definitly keep those in mind as I will move on to my 3-point-perspective piece and will probably try to give it a value or even color finish.

@Lockenheim I do agree that some kind of framing would enforce the focal point, although I am not sure if the sky isn't already working as some kind of frame. I do like the birds you put in there, but personally I would not use them as a framing device as they kinda attract the eye to where I don't want it. They could be used more in front of the upper part of the rock where they also serve as a layer to reinforce the depth of the piece. What I don't like however is the rocks on the left part of the image, it feels like they lead the eyes right of the page (maybe changing their direction so that they kind of slope towards the rocks could work though?).

I'll probably repaint it at some point, as a couple of cool ideas come to mind the more I think about this piece. Thank you both so much for your input, as it's always so valueable. It gives a lot to think about that I wouldn't think about on my own =).

[Lockenheim]

Oh for sure, I dont really like anything I put in there lol. backgrounds are slaughtering me right now. I don't know how to implement this idea yet successfully. but I know of it and can see it on other work. One of the loomis books has a really good couple pages on this. Its creative illustration pg 45 and 46

[Xybb]

I have definitly been improving on how much I draw, but apparently the amount of posting hasn't.

Anyways, here is my last weeks submission following the same type of studies as last time. I started taking the orientation of the inital ball shape from reference and hid it afterwards. I proceeded with the construction (labeled as 1), refined it as much as I felt comfortable with (2) and did the final refinements using the reference again (3).

Each head took me about an hour and a half I'd guess, but all in all it went faster than the first attempts last week. Especially on the last refinement face I often times felt like I had way less to do, although a major aspect I know I am still lacking in is the hair.

A lot of them still lack interest I feel like, but for now I want to move on with the assignements to get to a point where I can insert more of my own into my artwork.

Next up will be 3-point-perspective. I'll start of by doing an additional 3 to 6-ish thumbnails and intend to attempt a bit more of an environmental design instead of a copy of the assignement.

Let's hope it doesn't crush me as much as it did last time I attempted it :D.

[Lockenheim]

I saw these on stream and thought you did a fantastic job. I would disagre with you about the interest though. I think these are really interesting heads! I think its a really good idea to do these thumbnails I should really take a note from you and start doing that. Im sure you will do very well with the 3pt good luck!

[Xybb]

Here are my thumbnails so far. I started of with a simple sideview but decided later on that it's probably necessary to introduce perspective to convey my ideas.

I felt version 5 was fine, so I refined it a bit and pushed the selling point. Still not quite satisfied with the design but I'll go with it as I want to have a somewhat refined version with fixed perspective ready for the submission on saturday. For that I'll move the camera just above ground level and also move the vanishing points further apart, as the original right vanishing point is causing a lot of issues. So, please don't mind the the perspective for now :D.

[gregorya]

These are very good portraits. you are really making significant progress. And I really like the thumbnails as well.

[Xybb]

@gregorya Thank you very much, I really appreciate the encouragement.

Midweek update!

After the feedback from Marc on my constructions I went for the camera angle that was already used in thumb VI. It does, however, pose a lot of technical problems as it's not really suited for 3-point-perspective. To much of the ground is visible and the right VP pretty much in the middle of the canvas coupled with a very wide lense forces a looot of distortion on the sides of the canvas. That's also the reason I didn't move the canvas to the right of the image as Marc suggested, because I had no idea what to do about the right vanishing point. Although I could have probably moved it together with the entrance.

Not to mention all the time I spent constructing the wheel in different camera angles, so at one point I pretty much just went with what I had. I do notice an error in my overall approach though: I probably should have laid out the ground plane earlier. As is, after I was done I couldn't push the waterwheel as far back into the wall as I wanted to, because there wouldn't be much of the ground plane left. That's basically the reason I have this ugly block as support which I have to carve into something interesting. Although trying to visualize it now, it might still be worthwhile and not to much of a time investement to just push the wall into the front.

Here's the construction if someone's interested:

Feedback is, as always, more than welcome =).

[Lockenheim]

I don't have anything specific to add, I just wanted to say I feel where you are coming from. I think setting up a scene is pretty difficult in 3pt perspective to make everything look and feel right. I did remember reading some advice from Vonschlippe some time ago. I thought I saw it pinned on the discord but I'm not seeing it as I check be had advised to put the horizon line above or below the canvas when working in 3pt perspective. I have never done this so I don't know personally but I do rememeber this advice.

Edit: I found it, it was from Nene on the Discord and their discussion with Vonschlippe.

[mitsuki-youko]

omg these look absolutely amazing!!