One more week to go

I'm on my second to last week here at TAD for foundations 1. I have to say its been a journey and I have only just cracked at the first part. 

The final version to my sketchbook project about impact. I did two different versions because I wanted to try different compositions, value structure, story. Originally I was going to push this further into maybe a comic but I think I will flop while I'm still ahead. Critique had a comment about unoriginality where humans try to use a resource created by an alien for their gain. I was looking more into the psychology of humans how they will abuse, be distrust worthy, and steal any friendly companionship making them the monsters. But eh whatever, I'll come up with something else.

Diggers looking for some bones to munch on.

Scientist hopes to use the crystal the diggers make and possibly

reverse death.

Details.

Tried a different approach, I want to get better with ink.

Photography had to do with depicting my studio. This was a tough one because I didn't want to just take a picture, I wanted to think about this a little bit. So I put the cup in there to kind of show the need to have it as if its a tool. I swear I cant get the energy needed sometimes to work without it. The second idea came from showing interesting lighting. I experimented and found a nice result. The picture looks like a warm glowing sun however its a 60 exposure at night. The light is from the streets outside.

I need to get back on track

Time for a bit of an overload. I think coming back from break has made me a little sluggish. Its also a bit of a hassle sometimes. Never the less, I have lots to show. On a side note though, I think starting this week I will do reviews of books/animation/objects I have that might be useful. Not to mention restart up my tumblr. While I think of those ideas, take a look at all the stuff i have in this post.

The first on the list is the photography assignment of missing. I had a lot to show but I think this is one of my favorite. Its funny, most of my staged photos looked not as good as just a random sign I found. Sometimes its hard to realize that trying really hard does not always mean good results.

You can't just stage this. Maybe thats why its successful.

Keep an eye out for everything. I must carry my camera everywhere.

The sketchbook assignment was to find something that was impacted. I have to tell you its hard when I seen so much over the summer and not much now. But what I did findwas ComEd's construction going on. There was a patch of ground dug up. The next part was imagining what did it. I found that a back hoe probably created the problem, but I could go into the realm of fantasy. So my story is an alien that searchs for bones to be absorbed so they can become more individualized and attract a mate.

I tried to improve upon the process from the last creature assignment. These were late sadly, so I can only go on by a personal critique.

Thumbnails to start out. 

This time I tried more iterations with details.

The first rendered iteration, good but not great.

I took the basic concepts from the image above and rework the silhouette.

This had a lot of cool rhythm.

Second rendered iteration. I'm getting there.

Over the weekend, I did some figure drawing past the assignment. I feel like doing this is definitely helping at my observational skills at least via a picture. I would definitely like to mix this with observational skills from real life. However while my measurements and details are getting better, I start to lose the basic light/shadow groupings. This is probably what i'm going to focus on for the rest of the semester. Its been brought up in critique for almost the past month. I'm trying but I think I need to just really focus on only that.

2 hours total using nu-pastel.

Lots of work ahead

I feel like the moral of this whole blog post is if its bad then draw it again. I just need to keep pushing myself in the general direction that is set forth.

Linear perspective has been pretty tough as of late. While I am getting better at ellipses, for some reason I don't quite grasp gridding a sphere. I'm definitely going to have to rewatch the videos from class. Which is really nice because TAD is an online school that records all its sessions. This is very good when they pour tons of stuff in such a short amount of time.

Photography was an interesting assignment where I had to play with shadow. I really did not want to just use the silhouettes I was given. Instead, I played with crumpling paper and boxes to get unique shapes that I normally would not get. This was definitely a lot of fun to play with but frustrating when I can't control them all that much. So, what I get is what I get.

Heh, I did the sketchbook assignment wrong but I'll still post this anyways. Luckily, we went over the rest of the creature designs in last class. I will actually redo my creatures this week with a different process. Unlike the last time, I will focus very hard on the initial stages instead of the later ones. I get too caught up in details and then afterwords I don't want to get rid of it. I'll try to show my process. But for now, here is a teapot and cup. I did about 18 thumbs to get composition I wanted. (This is something I will also redo this weekend, all I needed was one object and I probably should render it better)

After working from strutturo uomo, I can tell my anatomy forms are getting just a slight bit better. They still have a way to go, but they show me reaching one level higher. In the beginning, I was struggling with certain things which now make lots of sense. 

Birthday, Contest, Masters, Figures and circles

Its my birthday this weekend. That means I get some money to invest in my art :) I think this time around I will be buying some reference books because I got a basic understanding of drawing. What I need to work on is finding images to work from.

Also I entered a contest a while back creating a superhero about a year ago (about 200 entered). Only recently did I get the grandprize. They are pretty awesome, two figures and a limited edition dvd. I definitely want to use the figures for reference. Also I have the hero I created on reserve for whenever I want to make a cool comic.

From the anime Tiger and Bunny, I need to really watch this.

Master copies in figure drawing dealing with edges. Each took about 80 minutes long. This was really interesting because I was finished with the basic idea quickly but the actual rendering was very hard. I think I will do more of these master copies, at least 1 more this weekend. The next assignment is a long pose. This in general feels weird like after a certain point in time a different switch flips on. I like it and feel like its a muscle i do not flex often...

Still noodling with the tones. I REALLLY need to start stepping back and judge the picture as a whole because some of the values are just far from off. This technique really is easier in photoshop where I can just quickly shrink the image to check all the values as a whole. Sadly though, my room doesn't have the biggest area. What I might do is rearrange for optimal drawing.

Linear perspective, more ellipses. Nothing really to say about this other than the fact that I need to work even MORE on them.

Also figures in space. Its one of my banes. I did one for sketchbook class and totally fudged it ALL up. This came out a bit better because its easier to get straighter lines on photoshop. HOWEVER. I need to work on this because photoshop shouldn't be a crutch. I will try redoing my sketchbook assignment and posting the bad one as well for comparison.

Photography assignment was before, during, after. This is a higher conceptual type of idea where I tried to keep toward the circle. However, it got dark at the bottom. Btw, they were delicious to eat.

Forms broken down and drawing with light

The best way to understand complexity is to break it down into simple shapes. However, it can be really hard to see the lines that really show the true form. I have some problems when it comes to that. But the more i practice with it, the better I am getting. Soon, I should try lighting some of these figures.

10 minute pencil, understanding form with wires and blocks

This was an optional assignment for photography that I really wanted to do.  They are long exposures using the night time photography mode on my camera. There is no light except the little flashlight that I took a part. By shining it on and off, I was able to get an interesting effect.

shinku...Hadouken

A blaze of light made by a small light.

And made by a shutter speed of 15 or 30 seconds.

I have gotten a lot better with cubes. Why all this for just a simple shape? Because many if not all things can just be broken down into this shape. It's also helping my see perspective. However, I still have a way to go. The more I do, the better I can see my early mistakes.

I will never see the end of cubes, never. 

Boxed Figures and Master Copy

The end of this last week has been pretty enlightening. Slowly but surely, I have been getting better at all my classes. They even have influenced how I do my sketches. I can only imagine what my art will be like by the end of this term, let alone 2 years from now.

Understanding form and bones with photos.

Took this pic far away and zoomed in to understand distortion.

Mark English master copy, I think I'm starting to understand this pastel stuff.

Cubes make the world go round

Things are going smoothly in class. It feels like I need to be doing double the work to get the results I want. For this last figure drawing assignment, I did it twice (aka 20 drawings instead of 10). It took longer but I found that the ones I liked were in the second batch. 

My ability to use charKole is improving. 5 minutes

Having fun with shape, still need to worry about that light. 15 minutes.

Cubes, that has been the focus for linear perspective this week and probably for the rest of these classes.  I have been drawing these from life and they have been a lot harder to get perfect than I thought.

Cubes, cubes,  and more cubes.

How do you get better at cubes? By drawing more cubes.

I have needed to take some pictures outside of all the drawing I am doing. These were interesting because I had to pay attention to where the light is falling. The different types of light/shadow can evoke a different mood or feeling.

Short loop lighting using my phone cam. I was also holding the light at the same time.

Rembrandt lighting with a point and shoot, this time I had a tripod.