Activity Feed
Niko Schmidt
•
3yr
added comment inReference for art
When it comes to figure drawing, I think https://croquis.cafe/ has the best resource. Every week a new simulated live drawing session in form of 20 min video is posted. They were free for the longest time, but since last year or so you need a membership. The switch was the opposite of smooth and I think they alienated a lot of their supporters, but the quality of images and modelling sessions are very good and the price relatively low.
In general I think one should look for references in sources that are "edited", so no scrolling on social media. Instead books and magazines with quality control. If you have a public library nearby you hit the jackpot, but exploring used book stores can help accumulating a lot of reference for cheap. I would recommend to look out for vintage travel magazines. Also documentary films are good.
And something that we should not forget: Make your own reference images! Every time when I'm on a train my camera is ready in case I see the next motive for a landscape painting. Take your smartphone and explore your neighbourhood! Look for great shapes, this may also lead to unexpected inspiration. Go out in the evening when the shadows are sharp. If you have a really crowded public place, no one will raise an eyebrow when you take photos like a tourist. And at home, zoom in into all the people that are in the photo. Really good to get inspiration for character design.
Niko Schmidt
3yr
Also when you don't want/can't invest a lot of money look out for free samples of book publisher on the web, like Taschen who have a free magazine: https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/company/magazine/index.magazines.htm
Also look for museums (not necessarily visual art) with a digital archive you can browse for free.
Not technically my favourite book, but I actually began reading "The King in Yellow" by Robert W. Chambers in as inspiration for artwork, so it is the perfect fit for this challenge. The book is now mostly known for being referenced and incorporated by HP Lovecraft, but I actually don't care for Lovecraft at all and I think The King in Yellow should be rediscovered for what it actually is, because it features such an unique mix of weird, emotional and romantic tales.
The artwork is sadly a compromise, because my original idea was a bit to ambitious for my skill level (rendering 19th century Paris is hard) and due to vacation I couldn't invest the time I would have needed. But I certainly will come back to this novel in the feature. I also haven't had much experience with layout and typography for a few years, and it never was my strong point, so I played that aspect very safe.
Andrzej Myśliwiec`
•
3yr
Hi, I'm working on procreate, and I want to post my drawings cuz I feel like i'm getting worse at this, the more I draw. I would like some critique and advice.
"Getting worse" the more you draw is actually part of the process, but it is mostly just in your head. Save you images and in a few weeks, when you have a more neutral view, look back and see the progress you made.
Regarding your samples, you are much more successful when attempting a line of action instead of imagining the form of the figure, because the sense for volume and 3D is not developed enough yet. I would suggest doing two separate attempts of your reference images. In the first only the line of actions. Limit yourself to three or even just two lines. And the second attempt should be the bean, like Tara suggested. Ignore the limbs for now.
It's Sloth-Bot 3000 in it's natural habitat.
The idea was to have a robot that could exist in real life in the present, but people would think "How odd, why would anyone built such a robot?"
I wish I had the time for another cleaner attempt, but this has to do. I hope at least someone will have a small chuckle :D
I like the idea of a robot being odd in that you can't figure out what the point is haha! Nicely done
Grace Mounce
•
3yr
The portrait is lovely! My eyes were just lingering on it for a minute and didn't want to leave the page :)
I think you captured his expression very well.
Steve Lenze
•
3yr
Hey Niko,
Portraits are pretty challenging, so I would suggest you try to find better reference. Also, you have to build a good structure of the head so that all the features line up properly on the face. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
Hi Steve, I practice drawing the head for a while now and with this one having not the best reference was kinda the idea, because I didn't want to use an IMDB profile picture everyone would use as a basis. Instead I looked at multiple references of the same person and tried to interpolate. But of course you are right about the structure and you can't be reminded enough about this. Thank you very much for you effort of providing a sketch, very appreciated :) I think you have to lose the structure a bit in the end to give the portrait more personality, but I wouldn't say I found the sweet spot for this.
This is my second portrait practice drawing I did inspired by the "Basics of Russian Academic Drawing" course (since I didn't really follow the 'rules' established in the course I post it here).
I also attached my thumbnail sketch and the foundation sketch. That sketch took ~90 minutes, the details I did in the evenings over the course of a few days. Maybe all in all I invested three to for hours in the piece.
Feedback welcome :)
PS: The portrait is based on cult film director Jean Rollin (warning before you google his name, most of his films are NSFW because this was how you got money by investors in the 70s). I didn't use a single image as a source, but a collection of pics from video interviews. I attached one example.
Some ‘dreamy’ thumbnail based on reference photo taken from my apartment window view. Done in Procreate.
First of all, I would like to thank Proco and his team for providing us with this competitive environment. Also thanks to Tiffanie Mang. Thanks to him, I learned to limit myself to small canvases in this challenge. As for the drawings, I divided my canvas into 2" x 2" squares. I tried Tiffanie's suggestion of Infinite Painter as a drawing program, then continued with Procreate. I tried not to be too dependent on the references in terms of color and preferred to use an anti-naturalistic color. I didn't stick to one style.
Note: The first reference photo is my mother's youth :)
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE! I HOPE EVERYONE LEAVES THE CHALLENGE HAPPY AND EXPERIENCED.
I really love the third with the woman at the shore, because of your shape composition.
Asked for help
Hey there, I'm mostly here for the certificate of participation, but I really value the experiences I made :D This is the first time I really did a bigger project digital and in color and had to use a very cheap graphic tablet with barely working drivers, so I had no pen pressure. Really frustrating at first, but in the end it actually didn't bother me anymore. I tried get experience in the use of color and even if my choices may not work out in the end, I got really interested in how to use them for mood. Something I want to explore further now.
But overall I think the most important part for me to work on is shape design, or compositional design overall.
