>There is one thing not to do, and that is simply to drift along with the daily routine, making no extra effort. You will soon find yourself middle-aged, having done nothing more than routine jobs, and being little farther along than you were years ago. The extra effort is the difference between the great mass of mediocre artists and the comparatively small group of very good ones.>And in Art, study can never stop. You will find sketches galore in the studio of the good man, with the paint quite fresh. The mediocre artist's sketches are old and dusty.>I have seen so many middle-aged artists still hoping, whose samples are frayed at the edges, and thumb-marked with time. Sometimes it has been a matter of years since they sat down and actually did something to give their hopes any promise. They are plodding their lives away at something they hate, and doing nothing about it. These are the men who never seem to have had a chance. The truth is, they never seized a chance.- Andrew Loomis, Creative Illustration/Studies/ General is all about improving your art and never settling for mediocrity. Every artist is a student, forever and ever. Anybody, from beginner to pro, can post here. Any style is accepted. Critiques are welcome and encouraged. Let's make this a productive thread!Read the fucking sticky: http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Recommended Resources:https://hackmd.io/7k0XRnIQR6SValR77TDfZw?viewLast Thread:>>7146222
Do Bargues.do them with pencil and kneaded eraser.Spend at least 20 hours on one.Work from general to specific, start with a block in, then refine the contour and shadow shapes, then add a light tone, develop the edges some more, slowly build up the layers until you reach the desired value, and always keep in mind the edges, the softness and hardness of them.
>>7238240And keep the tip of your pencil razor sharp with sandpaper.
>>7238242I can't afford that
>>7238251What do you mean?
>>7238240>bargue plates About 2 years ago anon dropped an massive archive (230 GB+)of classical art that was academics focused so I think I have a few books on it. If people here are interesting I can comb through it and provide at least few books (never looked through all of it due to most of the files being jp2 and has to be converted to pdf and ain't nobody got time for that)Here's one book for examplehttps://mega.nz/file/IKwEFKoK#qGyJqA9-sxSDyO-kokBUXBEkwuT8shC09hyghF7yUYc
>>7238274Interesting, I'll check it out.I'm doing a lot of academic drawing myself now too and I have some experience with academies that work this way, I'd love to read more about it.
>>7238222>Read the fucking sticky: http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/It doesn't even resolve. Maybe wanna change "the sticky" for future posts.
>>7238346I made that comment two threads ago and no one said anything about it. don't know if I'd get my hopes up.
Do a study of this knee
>>7238346>>7238349Since threads are sitting in the catalogs for 3 months it would best to remind people of OP issues when its nearing bump limit.
>>7238222Just wanna say thanks to whoever maintains the hackmd, it's very helpful.
>>7238360
>>7238629Very nice anon
>>7238360Drawing with value is hard
ok i guess i'll post a photo drawing here
>>7239200the darks look a bit light. also while your proportions look good in general, there are at least a couple I quickly spotted, like where the bigger curve of the top of the hair starts and the bottom of the ear in relation to the eyes. and in the ref he is looking up and to his right, whereas in your rendition he's looking about straight ahead.
>>7239225also the forward tilt of the head looks less drastic in your rendition
Finished this last month, from an actual cast, about 80 hours of work overall.
And I'm working on this hand right now, also from a cast, also expecting to clock in about 80 hours
>>7239416>>7239415how do you get such uniform values? are there any tutorials you've watched that have been particularly instructive in that regard? is it just about putting in the hours? I'm working on picrel right now and am about 4 hours in.
>>7239421ref, for what it's worth
>>7239225alright i put the ear a bit higher wich does look betteri'll leave the rest as it is and move on to the next piece
>>723941580 fucking hours? Goddamn bro. I mean is that normal? Is that the expectation for something like this? Can it just not be done in less time? I think I spent like 1.5 hours on this >>7239021 — by comparison it’s not good, but I bet this guy spent even less time on his and it’s great >>7238629
>>7239421Get your pencil really sharp and just take your time filling in the fibers of the paper, sometimes use the kneaded eraser to remove dark spots. Just be patient with it and don't go in with long strokes of the pencil. Fill in areas that are lighter and squeeze your eraser in a tiny point to lift areas that are too dark. It's going to take time but it's worth it.But most importantly keep your pencil sharp, razor sharp.
>>7239464Both are not very great, if you ever studied at an academy you realise it's normal to spend around 60 hours on a project. You spend a bunch of hours on getting a solid block in, you spend many hours working on the edges, of course filling in takes a long time either in charcoal or pencil, you want things to be covered evenly so you get clear values, you spend a lot of time checking if everything is in the right place and if the flow of your drawing still matches, you have a black mirror to check if the values are matching and adjust things accordingly. The reason I say both are not very great is because they both have completely no understanding of the values and are only quick sketches, but not really good end results. Even the general shapes are not very accurate, so you can't really compare them to an 80 hour study.
>>7239421>>7239422Did you draw it from life or just a photo?
>>7239822sounds good, thank you. I have been trying to improve my patience through doing these longer studies, and I have, but I could certainly go much further. I do use a more blunt tip too often, so I'll have to get a few extra pencils and keep 'em sharpened for when my current one goes dull.>>7239835's from a photo. I do life drawings here and there, but most of the stuff I draw is from pinterest.
>>7239822I don't do pencil tones like that, but would using a paper stub or a brush help get the lead evenly applied?
>>7239845Also a mechanical pencil may help, I mostly use a 2mm HB lead in a mechanical pencil and keep it sharp with sandpaper glued to a block.Also can help to do a small value scale to practice filling in evenly, of course some papers are easier to work with than others, canson mi-teintes paper for example is nice to work on.And also don't go to softer leads too quickly, you can push your values quite far with just HB, then 2B or 4B for only the darkest darks is fine. Don't put to much pressure on your pencil either cause you will flatten the fibers of the paper and basically polish the graphite on there creating a shiny surface (it's hard to avoid completely but you don't want this early on in your drawings)By the way, if you work on photos do check out the Bargue plates, print out one you like on some nice paper or spend some money and get one printed by a printshop and work from that, these are really simple but good exercises to practice from and they are designed to teach you certain lessons. I'd say they are better than photo references and generally a good way to get comfortable with your medium. But always take it slow, take your time with the block in, take your time with the edges of contour and shadows, be aware of shadow, midtones and light, slowly build up the shadows, check your drawing some more, add in a little more value, break up some lines further and push the darks slowly to the darkest possible. Always work gradually from general and big shapes, to specific and detailed. I cannot stress this enough.Once you get comfortable with that definitely try doing a real cast.
>>7239853It can help but it can also cause a mess, I never use a stub or any other tool with pencil cause it looks bad most of the time and most people use it because they are impatient, the result could get a little messy cause you are rubbing the graphite into the paper which makes it harder to erase. Try it at least and see what happens, also try it without stubs and see how even you can push things.
>>7239834What do you mean by “understanding of value?” Can you elaborate what it means *to have* an understanding of value?
>>7239862>2mm HB mechanical pencilI've seen that used once or more elsewhere, will definitely pick up at my next convenience>value ranges, Bargue plates, printsthose sound good as well. on printing, about how much would you say it should cost (USD) to get a quality (enough) print of some plates? I'm in the US, so could I just get them printed at Walmart or something? or to your knowledge would they not be good enough? I ask because I actually did print out a handful of Bargue plates a couple months ago to work on this summer at some point, but the printer I used was not very high quality (picrel) and the prints are a little dull with less definition.
>>7239464thank you anon. it took me a few minutes. the more i look at it the more i realize it's full of errors, but i emphasized my understanding of the general relation of shapes and underlying anatomical geography. i'll take another crack at it later
>>7239416>>7239415WHAT THE FUCK HOW ARE YOU DOING 80 HOURS? HOW THE FUCK GRAH I THINK I'D DIE(NICE WORK THOUGH)
santa
this angle is really hard for me to get right
>>7242893Well you obviously got it. Do you just use smudge brush for all your values/shading?
>>7242903i think i defaulted back to my drawing from memory which is why the face doesn't actually match the photo that good. It's kind of bad because i feel like i didn't learn anything.>Do you just use smudge brush for all your values/shading?sometimessometimes i use the soft brush that's cut in half so it makes stroke textures on one side like you see on the neck. And sometimes i just use a soft or hard brush to do strokesit's a combination
>>7243984
>>7242893you came pretty close. i think the mouth needs to jut out a bit more forward on the face. if you observe, the line from the edge of the left nostril to the left corner of the mouth is almost a straight line down but you have it at more of a \, if that makes sense. i think there's also a little too much volume on the hair
>>7243984sick, looks like an ad illustration from the 40's
wip
>>7240037Being able to correctly asses the placement of darks and light, being able to group them instead of losing yourself in details, and of course having an awareness that your brain plays tricks on you that makes things appear darker than they are or lighter than they are. Also knowing when to "play" with the values so your design can benefit from it (this still applies to drawing from life, like a figure or landscape, which still involve a lot of choices even if your doing a realistic drawing)As a side note, to me there's this order of importance:First we have the line drawingSecond we have the valuesThird we have the colorIf your drawing is bad, the values are not going to save it, if your values are bad no amount of color will make it look good. But a good line drawing, even if it's just a few well placed lines can look amazing without either color or value.
>>7240279Really don't know, ask a photo or print shop what they can do, get a nice high res print on some thick paper, I am not in the US so I have no Walmart experience.The idea is that the values in the drawing are as close as possible to what they should be, that's the most important part for these, a good high resolution print is just the best to work with.Some early plates can be done on a4, more complex ones definitely need a bigger print like a3 or bigger, like the Belvedere torso.
>>7244956Not who you responded to. While I agree with your ranking it made me think of picrel. The lines are all wonky, the perspective is off but the rendering looks nice enough that it looks quirky rather than failed in my opinion. Tho this artist is also able to draw correctly so maybe he made it wrong in a way that still feels right.
>>7245115Forgot pic
>>7244716she looks retarded with those eyes, but the rendering and proportions look good and the rendering not half bad
>>7245178Indeed
>>7245316the thumbnail looks lewd and hot.
>>7244962I will look into all of that, thanks again anon
>>7245119It's a cartoon, I'm not talking about cartoons in any of my posts, my focus is entirely on realism as a foundation (not photo-realism)
>>7245531Also the picture I posted of the Belvedere torso has a lot of white space around it, if I were to print it out I would crop the image first else it would still appear tiny even if you print it on large format paper. Just a little thing to remember, it's the kind of mistake I would make.
>>7245728Oh my bad !
