Up to the 40th head, today, not a great or expedient picture but I spent quite a bit of time studying mouth muscles after some advice on a concept forum, I’ll spend the next few days studying the jaw and mouth in greater depth. Found a few good resources for anyone that’s interested.
and a written version of the proko tutorial on lips with some usefull images.
3D Scull scan that you can move around
Here’s today gestures and warm up sketches.
More heads, I did some really bad drawing but got totally into the last one, It’s not great I didn’t bother to test for feature placement on the rendered one because I was happy with how it was going, the system works (I think), while I was working I had a few youtube videos running, it was nice to see the trials a professional artist goes through, makes me realise they’re human too. This video. I’m hoping I’m improving but I really need some guidance and feed back, I need to find some forums.
here’s the warm up before the faces.
Last nigh I broke into the 30’s I think 33 heads drawn so far, it a little hard being so anal about feature placement alone, I get a little disappointed that I’m not finishing any pictures, since I get so little time drawing, but I’m hitting feature reasonably consistently so even if I don’t have anything I’d show to any body I know it’s working. I realised last night that I’m struggling with the neck and shoulders without the body to draw comparison lines/angles and distances with, so I’m going to modify my get good at things schedule, to remove the 100 heads and shoulders and work it into the torso practice. Here’s my warm up page from today
I thought I’d post the reference photo’s I used this time in case anyone’s interested. The faces come from a very useful deviant art account, and the figure drawing used the pixel lovely tool again.
heads
http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/art/Call-the-Fire-7-244262837
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/235/8/9/war_weary___j___7_by_mjranum_stock-d5c7ewl.jpg
Also give credit to proko once again for his youtube tutorials, which I use to construct the heads very much recommended.
The feature placement is coming on quite well, I still really struggle with downwards tilts, I always underestimate how big the crown gets. Still getting better, the one in the picture isn’t really representative of the naff pics I was producing up until that point, that was about attempt 3 on that image.
Ever wish you had that watch from that children’s show that stops time? I spent the last few days moving lameframe to a new host, fighting with a twitter account, and then moving a bunch more sites to a new host, and all I want to do is draw more heads.
I did an hours session on figures today hoping to try and get some heads in before mid night before I start going backwards in practice. Also got a sketch of Lithia done, though I tried to start filling it out but it didn’t go so well, will try again another day and now the avaria sections gone no-one will know who Lithia is.
I also did 3 more face it really shows how quickly pracice wears off. They were awefull, this one was passable, I can’t wait till I’m done with the 1st hundred, which makes you wonder why I carry on but I just want to make sure I can place features accurately every time then we can concentrate on nice looking things, and breaking the rules I’ve learned.
So we’re up to 25 heads, again it’s silly o clock, I know this because all pets have woken up and are commencing noise making procedures. Still was a productive day, only failed to do 1 job which can be done tomorrow. The routine I’ve settled into provides variety and is interesting to me so I’ll probably keep it up. I started off with 3 pages trying to draw perfect circles, then a page of evenly spaced parallel lines, before doing the gestures you see in the images below, followed by the head studies, I’m getting the features in pretty much the right spot every time now, so I might start trying to improve the speed of the layout and construction lines next and try to render somewhat finished faces as opposed to just trying to place features but we’ll see. Today’s black and white render swung back and forwards a lot, I kept adding in more contrast then washed it out then added more, I learned that eye are actually a heck of a lot duller than you’d think, which probably explains why yesterdays drawing looked so weird. anyway I’m really happy with the progress, so lets see more of the same. Also I’m thinking of tearing down this drupal site and replacing it with a wordpress one, drupal is great for extreme customisation but I just want a blog and building parts in drupal is a hassle I don’t need.
Just can’t take hang overs any more, didn’t get a chance to draw for the past 2 days, then some minor adjustment to lameframe turned out to be a massive time train today. Managed to get 2 heads done. I’m strictly just concentrating on feature placement for now. I want my first 100 heads to be all about feature placement, and the getting of it right, so nothing hugely interesting or good looking, just construction lines and measurements. When I overlayed the photo’s on the drawing for the most part the bits were in the right places, doesn’t make it any prettier though. I think once I get up to 80 heads, I’ll start putting feature in over the top nicely. There’s 7 stages to my anatomy get good program, I’m in step 1, that’s 100 heads in varied angles, next comes 100 head AND shoulders, crazy stuff, but once i’m there I’ll be rendering a lot more, or at least trying to find a line art style I like. for now we have blergggh pics, it’s a means to an end. now I must sleep.
Ugggh I’m coughing up nasty tasting stuff, anyway gone midnight again but i’m going to try and get my new practice regime down in blog type paper. So I was doing some browsing on some lifedrawing forums and a few youtube videos and one of the concept artist I like said words to the effect of don’t just keep drawing, yes you will get better but there is a quicker way to mastery. He broke concept drawing down into 6 parts that now hang on my wall in list form, these were.
and withing each of these secions there are multiple sub sections. If your trying to do everything at once your goal is too distant and your brain will get bored. Up untill this point my goal had been “become OK at concept art”, a bit vague. Reading round the life drawing sites I saw this advice mirrored again but missing some of the concept specifics like design and storytelling.
I think I’ve spend 17 days so far life drawing, I think I’ve got faster if nothing else and I flow better, not so much sure if my quality has improved but I’ve never had a problem with patience and attention to detail so I’m not that fussed. Now we focus, First I want to master anatomy, so first i’m concentrating on the head, 100 face drawing concentrating on positioning the features. I’ve been using the technique detailed here, this guys set of head tutorial are great so I’d reccomend watching all 4. and trying to construct a face from a life model using this construction method, once I’ve got all the features in I overlay a screenshot of the model and see how I’ve done, After the face I’m going to move on to the head/shoulders and do 100 drawings of thoes. I hope this will help me see better gains faster than simply life drawing indefinately. I think once today I managed to get the proportion bang on which was nice. Here’s todays sketches oh and with yesterday I’m rounding this off at 13 head drawings so far, I don’t count repetes or simple manakin contructions.
So I did quite a bit more drawing today, not a huge number of heads completed, but I was very happy with feature placement and proportion on a couple of today so practice seems to be paying off. Before I just into heads I did some gestures and a quick paint because I like them. then I went onto heads, see all of today’s work below. I used more of this guys tutorials to help with my features and placement I would highly recommend all of them. Here be work…. Ohhh seems I forgot to save the 4 smaller heads, dangit, still I’m up to 18, 82 to go.
I’ve got a lot to write, but it’s gone 1 in the morning and I have work tomorrow, the upshot is I’ve taken some advice from youtube tutorials and life drawing websites mainly and to get better quickly I should concentrate on mastering small steps. I will list the steps tomorrow after sleep, but for now I will concentrate on drawing 100 faces, that is step 1 if I go slow it should take 30 days to get feature placement down, though I think I’ll manage more than the 3 a day Recommended for 33 day sucess. Today I drew 7 only 93 to go!
