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Figured I'd start showing some of my sketches now that I have recently joined a group of artists here in St. Louis with which I hope to sketch somewhat regularly.

The one below is from this evening at a private studio. This is one of two 10 minute sketches. There was also a 30 minute sketch but it didn't turn out as good- I think the pose was harder, and I may have gotten fatigued or something, I don't know, but I'm pretty happy about this one at least.

Edit

I just realized there's a nudity rule here on the forum. I'll try to only post non-explicit sketches, sorry. I took a couple out.

This post has been edited by finalalias on 21st February 2013 06:16

You're miles further than I've ever been on shading.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

You know you've been around dA for too long when you instantly see Medic XD (TF2).

Anyway, great job on that sketch. Ever thought about doing a longer session to see how far you can get with your life drawing?

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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

Quote (Kame @ 21st February 2013 03:41)

Ever thought about doing a longer session to see how far you can get with your life drawing?

Thanks. A longer session might be a good experience, yes. My main goal is to get better at fast, efficient, non-life (not-from-life?) drawings, and I'm sure the more practice I have with taking things further, the more convincing my quick sketches will probably be.

My biggest problem with long sessions right now is sometimes when I spend a lot of time on a drawing, I trap myself in a fundamentally flawed image that I keep trying to tweak to make it "look right", which ends up wasting all that extra time that I allotted myself. I think that's really what happened to the 30 minute drawing from this same session. I guess I need to learn to step back and be willing to re-draw the problematic area when this happens, or does anyone have other advice for this?

And thanks Narratorway for the compliment. Shading's become a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, since I sometimes use it to rescue my usually-disappointing lineart.

Focus only on the step you're on at the time. If the "frame" is good, keep going and add more detail. Don't get mucked up in the mire of "getting it just right". If something is really bugging you, step back for a moment and really look at it. Put the pencil/conte/charcoal down for AT LEAST three minutes while you're examining it. Determine what it is that's bothering you before you move on.

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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

Thanks for the advice, Kame. I will try it tonight!

Here's a 40 minute one from this evening's session:


I was having trouble with this one, drawing and re-drawing parts of it, but I kept in mind what Kame said, and I think it helped.

This post has been edited by finalalias on 27th February 2013 04:51

Great! I'm glad my advice helped.

Without having see the model IRL the thing that I notice right away is the shoulder on the right is out more than the shoulder on the left side of the page. Certain position not withstanding, you should be able to see "more" of the shoulder that's closest to you. Because it's going away from your eye it should be "shorter" even if it's just slightly. Anyway, keep going! It's great to be able to draw from life

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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

Thanks very much for the feedback Kame!

Here's some sketches I did today while watching the movie Iron Clad:


I had surgery yesterday, so I had today off. It's nice to be able to take it easy for a bit.

Here's a 20 minute one from tonight:


And a 40 minute one from tonight:


I'm not sure if these are considered against the rules or not. I deliberately didn't render the nipples or pubes so hopefully they'll be alright to post.

It's so much easier to draw muscular models! The one from Tuesday was a real challenge because, while she was very beautiful in her own way, it was hard to find many shadows and curves on the model. Tonight's model was like a superhero. Very fun to draw.

This post has been edited by finalalias on 1st March 2013 05:13

Here's some from tonight:

2 to 5 minutes:

20 minutes:



40 minutes:


This post has been edited by finalalias on 9th March 2013 00:19

I see some minor wonkiness in that first 20 minute sketch of your last post (arms seem a bit too small/short, for instance) that I can't see in any of your others, which are actually quite nice for the time you were given to do these. Even a couple of the 2 - 5 minute ones show a pretty good eye for form and proportions.

I never had a whole lot of patience for these types of exercises, myself, though. I've always preferred to just look up various images, or even in the mirror, at the times I needed help with specific poses or body parts for my drawings, and figure things out at my own pace. I don't doubt, though, that these exercises are good practice for those who actually go into these with a mind to pay attention and learn.

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Console RPG Cliches

Thanks Galsic. Now that you mention it, the arm proportions are definitely off on that one. I think since you showed me, I'll be able to pay better attention to that in the future.

I like drawing from pictures too, but for me there's something about seeing something in 3 dimensions that makes it more fun to draw. Not to mention the comaraderie of the fellow artists, being able to see their versions of the same subject, and the ease of drawing at an appointed time and place.

This post has been edited by finalalias on 10th March 2013 20:35

Here're some sketches from this afternoon. It was a "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf" themed session.

2 minutes:

10 minutes:

10 minutes:

20 minutes:


They also suggested we try drawing the models in a forest scene, so here's two I came up with:
10 minutes:

40 minutes (this is a log cabin rather than a forest, but still relevant to the fable):


This post has been edited by finalalias on 18th March 2013 03:00

Here's a quick 10 minute one I did a couple days ago. The model posed with one of her pet pythons. I liked how this one turned out and censored it for display here.

Now, y'see, I wish we had themes like that goin' on from time to time in my life drawing classes. Woulda provided some nice variety and creativity in our routines. As it was, I got pretty restless after 3-5 hours of straight-up draw-whatcha-see exercises. And it's a little hard to learn when you aren't very engaged : / . Then again, that extra stuff might also have taken some time and focus away from where it might have been more important, but I figure it doesn't hurt to shake things up like this once in a while. Regardless, looks like you had some fun with it. (Btw, were the models actually wearing that stuff, or did you improvise all that?)

Beyond that, judging from what you've managed before, I would think that ten minutes shoulda been enough time to capture snake lady's whole form to some degree. Did something happen there?

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Console RPG Cliches

yeah, a lot of the prior ones that night were so focused on completing the figure that I hardly even got to the snake in time, so I spent more time on that in this one. The hand took a good chunk of the time too. And yeah, they were wearing all that; the costumes really were a lot of fun. The one kinda reminded me of Ayla from Chrono Trigger, and I think she mentioned something about how her wolf hat was made by a traditional Native American craftsman which I thought was pretty cool too.

3 to 5 hours straight? Wow, that would be really tough. I agree, mixing it up definitely makes it a lot of fun. I feel really fortunate to have found this group, though many times I do find myself wishing I had more time for each pose.

Here's a 30 minute from last night:


This post has been edited by finalalias on 8th May 2013 03:30

Yeah, for me, these were once-a-week meetings that were scheduled for five hours each, and the instructors I had kept us for that long more often than I cared for .

Quote

...though many times I do find myself wishing I had more time for each pose.

Well, it can be easy to get lost in the details, which can lead the whole drawing astray. The shorter time limits are good for keeping the focus on the overall form and gesture, which are just as important as the details (har, listen to me sound like an expert!) That said, I prefer to take my time, too.

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Console RPG Cliches

I'm really digging your most recent sketches.

As far as the long sessions go... yeah, I hear ya. I haven't done life drawing in over ten years now but I remember getting to a certain point after about 2hrs where it was hard for me to add more detail without messing up what I already did. It was adding for the sake of adding instead of adding what I felt that it needed. I disliked those extra super long sessions that would stretch out over days and my instructor kept bugging me to "keep going". Maybe if I tried it again now that's I'm older I'd have more patience for it/could find more to do.

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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."