From the old computer files - my first animated cartoon

Looking through the old hardrive and I re-discovered another project I did a while back. An animated cartoon. This was probably one of the hardest projects I've ever done since I had no idea how animation worked only gif animation on Photoshop and I didn't own a light box so I had to rely on the Sun and English weather to allow me to trace over frames which caused a whole lot of problems.

Anyway thought I'd share this thing out.

Yeah if you want to watch this your probably going have to zoom in my line work here is pretty light.

Self Portrait -from photo ref

Another self portrait (this time from photo ref). So far looking through my blog its a bit too samey not enough experiments with paints and other styles. However I will upload some different stuff in the future, maybe even scan in some paintings I've done for art.

Aside from this I'm currently working on building a mini art community for people around my age who want to build up there portfolio for uni's as well as there skills. I've manly posted this up on concept art.org so if you interested I've embedded the link in this post and I hope to hear from you all.

It should be exciting talking to other art student can't wait to see all the different styles and backgrounds.

Some critque I got from CA I thought I should remind myself of.

"All those books are well and good but if you aren't figure drawing from life on a consistent basis, you won't be able to find an approach that works for YOU. Sure on paper Bridgeman's approach looks great but I don't draw that way and neither do most artists and it doesn't work for me. Take what you can from the books and try to apply what you've learned while drawing. You'll find things that work and things that don't. The worst thing you can do is give up, because the more you draw the better you'll get. As for painting, its extremely important to design with a drawing (traditional works best for me) then move to digital or another color medium. Don't forget to take the time and effort to explore with studies and thumbnails before jumping in, it will save you time and headache in the future and result in a better painting. Thats probably not what you want to hear but all the pros do it so don't skip it. Developing good habits and fundamentals early will streamline your way to strong pieces in the future." - Dan Sprogis

Sorry for the long quote this ones a bit personal its just something to remind me where im going on my journey.

Anyway here's a link to a really great art blog I found recently whilst on Sprogis's blog. Its stuff like this which get me to pick a pencil again after tearing up a bunch of bad drawings.

 

Still life study and some other art stuff

Nothing really exciting really just a still life. I've started to go back to these things because while I was on concept art.org I was wondering whats a good exercise in proportion in the human figure and I was recommended still life as a way to really push how you see things in relation to each other. And whoever it was who told me this, they are not lying these things really give you a ton of problems to solve especially milk cartons they are perspective nightmare but I'll recommend this to any art student out there try drawing one. Its a great challenge for perspective studies.

Next time when drawing these things I should really invest in like a table top lamp to get a better range of values in my reference but I can't really complain can I its not like the tones in the drawing itself are that great haha.

Anyway recently I joined the Micheal Hampton figure drawing course at CGMA and its a great resource for any studying artist struggling with figure drawing so far its really given me this clear path or method with to how to approach the body plus the teacher has made anatomy really simple, there's still some things I'll need to read over but all in all now anatomy books don't look so scary anymore.

Happy self portrait day

My first self portrait for self portrait day. Quite happy with the results but I think that's bad normally I get really annoyed with my work but this one turned out alright well I think. Wait till a couple of days later and my attachment to this thing wears off and I notice how ugly it is. Second thought I already can see some dead eye plus I think the eye on the left is a bit wonky and long and I might of overdid the facial hair. Note to self learn how to draw facial hair and also Afro hair.

Here it is I found it

I found the paint over of the value study I posted a while a go

Heres the critique I got
"It's all about contrasts: light against dark, soft against hard, blurry against sharp, low detail against high detail. You need to make sure the whole thing reads as a big, soft, potato-shaped blob before you get into teeth and incised lines and other details. Big shapes first, then smaller shapes."

Credit :Stoat

Another tip I got on this painting
"Paint big shapes with a big brush and small details with smaller brush. Start with big one and add smaller parts afterwards. Also think about edges, make them sharp, don't smudge them."

Another Value study

Here's another Value study on Photoshop. I did this while in a Google hangouts call with a bunch of other art students from around the world. It was quite fun actually and weird at the same time like we all come from different countries but we were brought together by just drawing and also game of thrones and the internet but still pretty cool definitely recommend it.

Also I got some critque recently on concept art.org about this thing which was cool; the best piece of advice I got was to balance my edges in this  painting more to make it interesting, like have some hard edges and contrast it with some soft and lost ones and also have the object interact with the environment its painted in.

I think the person who critiqued this also did a paint over of my work to show what he meant if I can find it I'll post it up one day both for me and anyone who wants to use this tip I got.

Value Study

Sorry I haven't posed much very recently. However, I am still practicing and still drawing, so here's a value study of an astronauts helmet I did this week.

UDK terrain

UDK terrain 

 

I found a Screen Grab of my UDK terrain, thank god for year 11 graphics getting me in the habit of screen grabbing.

Hud Designs

 Hud Designs

You never really know what you can find on your old computers. I found a couple of HUD designs for a UDK sonic game I wanted to work on during the summer bu hadn't got a clue on how to code, or really model although thanks to a you tube tut I did get to make a 3d terrain which was awesome (the fact that I modeled a terrain, not the terrain itself hehe)

 

The Green bar if I remember was supposed to be the boost meter for sonic

This is the Boost meter but without any energy

I also found some mock up logos I made

Anyway I know this isn't exactly more traditional drawing but its always nice looking down memory lane.

Sprite sheet

Been lurkng around my old computer and found a sprite sheet I drew up for an 8 bit version of skyrim. The idea was to use game maker to create a Zelda clone but have a Skyrim coat of paint on it. Plan was I drew sprites and one of friends would code, little did we know how hard it is to actually make a game at the time.

Anyway here it is the sprite sheet for the dragonborn. I did manage to animate the character to move, maybe one day I might get back to this thing and see if I could get at least one level working

Oh and if I remember correctly we worked out that dragon battles would work like a Pokemon battle, all strategy and turn based. Plus that's wayyyy easier to translate to a 2D plane then a full fledged all out epic battle between man and beast.

Godzilla Sketch

Extra Notes from Huston Lecture

YOU CAN BUILD UP ON GESTURE WITH SHAPE HOWEVER WE CANNOT CHANGE THE CURVE

STRUCTURE
SIMIPLICATION AND CHARACTERISTIC SHAPES
-EASIER TO FINISH
-SIMPLE SHAPES MAKE MORE PORTRAIT LIKE
-SIMPLE SHAPES OF WHAT WE SEE AND WHO WE ARE DRAWING

NATUARL CENTRE LINES OF A TORSO, HEAD AND NECK

WHEN THINKING ABOUT THE LIMBS THE LONGEST CURVE

PROFILE OF THE LEG - S CURVE

FRONT OR BACK - B CURVE

BS

Art Notes

Art Notes

How to see the Mistakes you've made better

1. Distance - STEP BACK FROM DRAWING EVERY 10 MINS - WILL ALLOW YOU TO SEE MISTAKES.
2. Flip Trick -  Hold drawing against a MIRROR - MISTAKES WILL JUMP OUT
3. GET FEEDBACK - going on art forums such as Concept art.org

EXTRA STUFF
WHEN DRAWING SHOULDERS - THINK ABOUT PINCH AND STRETCH
PINCH AND STRETCH FOR A LOT BASICALLY


ELBOW TO CHEST RATIO ON ALL SIZES KEEP THE SAME AS WE AGE (EXCEPT BABIES)

SIMILAR TO WRIST/HAND TO CROTCH RATIO ALWAYS BELOW THE BELT.

AS WE AGE SPINE RATIO STAYS SAME OUR LEGS AND ARMS GROW TALLER.

ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 8 AND 7.5 HEADS IS THAT LEGS ARE SLIGHTLY SHORTER.

TORSO KEEPS SAME RATIO THROUGHOUT HEADS!!!

Notes from Steven Huston Lecture - Gesture and Structure

Notes from Steven Huston Lecture - Gesture and Structure

Gesture - connection between parts

- Long Axis is curved we are have a fluid design - we are made of water

Structure - separate parts - Human Joints - 3D parts

Human is long in length, Thin in width

When producing a figure we think in a 2 step progress

1. Gesture
2. Structure

 You need enough Structure to find the next Gesture and so on

A sketch class is made for Decisions which marks are needed to successfully communicate a figure or story

STIFF DRAWINGS - NO GESTURE

IF ITS STIFF LONG AXIS NEEDS TO BE CURVED.

IF YOU KNOW WHAT POSE YOU WANT TO DRAW OVER DO IT ITS MOST LIKELY YOU'LL MESS UP BUT IN A GOOD WAY

Fundemental Design = gesture

Fundemental Design line is everywhere

IF YOU TAKE SOMETHING THAT'S CURVED AND STIFFEN IT YOU'VE MESSED UP!!!!

Iron man digital painting

 

An Iron man digital painting I did when I was 16. And below is my first ever digital illustration at the age of 15, yeah its pretty bad.

What was I thinking >_<

My first post - Welcome

Character art drawing - Man I need improvement

Just some

critique on the figure

Welcome everyone to my personal art blog. Initially I developed this blog as a sort of online portfolio with the hopes of displaying my best artwork. Well I soon found out I have no "good" artwork to show actually, most of it is kinda plagued by strange and inconsistent anatomy and strange poses however, that will change. I'd like to think of the blog not as an online portfolio in the sense of showing awesome artwork but rather a log of the process of someone who wants to become an awesome artist.

So far after reading the last paragraph myself I see a hint of arrogance and possibly pointing that out is being arrogant right. Sorry off topic what I'm getting at is I've seen so many YouTube videos of professional artists such as Sycra Yasin and most of them say that there's no such thing as talent it's just all hard work to sum up. If this is the case then I hope my blog can be an experiment (a successful one) to put this idea to the test really. I dream as being as good as these guys who work in the industry and hopefully if all goes well and I work at it then hopefully the time would come. But also if the time does come then I hope that this blog records my progress but also inspires anyone who's in my position right now.

URGHHH I SOUND SO FULL OF MYSELF

Anyway a bit about myself, I'm currently 17 if I remember I started drawing as a hobby when I was about 8 or 10 either drawing sonic the hedgehog characters or drawing very crude and pretty violent comics concerning stick figures. Yeah I was exposed to the internet at an early age. It was about 11 or 10 I got a how to draw manga book and that's when I started to get much more interested in character art. Quick note stay away from how to draw manga books there awful. But yeah after that really I started drawing from comic books and here I am now doing the same thing as 11 year old me.

Oh and one more extra note the reason on my title it says spelt with a "ch" is because of an artist named Kris Anka. Trust me he's an amazing artist the his figures are just epic and full of energy. I found out about him in a weird way actually my older brother googled my name and his work came up; someone who has the same name (different spelling) and the same last name and is also doing a job that's like a dream job for me.  Anyway, check out his work like I said it's just epic plus he has an anatomy tutorial I think you should check out as well as his lesson on tangents. But he's quite the tough teacher mind you.