Blah Blah Blah more SAI stuff

Was away for a couple of days and getting back into the grind is a slow process for me. :)

Butts, I’ve been looking into “painting” with SAI some more and done a few pieces, nothing big though.
I’m starting to get frustrated with it, in an attempt to get as close to a painting sensation or work process – how I imagine it to be at least – I kept it to one layer, no fancy effect or tricks, just one brush setting and that was it. This is how it looks if anyone would be interested in that stuff…

Anywho, the first one is Jeff Bridges in True Grit, I did it in pretty much one go, I got a bit lost tbh it was fun and new… blah blah. I didn’t measure a single thing it was all done “gefühl” or wtf too call it… sense? It was major annoying not being able to do details, I really fucked myself over trying to keep it “realistic” when you have to paint over the same spot 10 times before the color really sets, then doing details like correct eyelids, nose and well general features, becomes a bit of a “meh cba”. Still fuck it, it was sorta fun :)

 

I started on a painting with the same premise as the True Grit, but of Queen Anne’s Revenge from Pirates of the Caribbean. Initially I thought I had start something I couldn’t possible finish, the shit was just too complex, but this “lolol paint shit” sorta defeats the whole getting the whole detail shit right, so I was slightly surprised I managed to finish it and not just throw it away after a couple of minutes. This time I did make sure to save the steps though, so yeah gg… Half-way through I felt I made the sky too bright, so I wanted to correct that, but omfg that shit is impossible when u got a ship in the middle of everything and it’s all on one layer… fml! But again it’s the same story as the girl in the jeans; I gotta get the background shit correct first and then move on, going back and do an entire rework of the background in the middle of things is just a huge ass time sink, so hopefully I’ll learn that someday.
In the end I did a brightness/contrast adjustment, because I’m weak…

Also I put some colors on the Aliens in Photoshop, just for giggles, it’s… I don’t know, not correct, the glow from the finger should be reflected more, but what can you do… you live and learn :)

 Oh and last one. I wanted to try something with Plato's cave allegory, but I never got past the idea really... maybe another day.

"Me, your momma, and someother whore..."

I hate how I handled the drawing of the little girl and her genie, it was done from the genie head to his body and then adding the girl and boy for some… sense? But never going back and really changing anything in the sketch in the process, which shows imho, it’s way to flat and boring, plus the characters are… well I’m certainly not satisfied.

So I wanted to do another run or attempt, again I started without a real idea of wtf I was going for, but well maybe third time?! 

I didn’t finish any of the drawings ofc… :P I got the attention span of a coked up reality star, so I started sketching a bit in SAI without really noticing the transition – autopilot much? I really like the sketching part of the program compared to PS, but when I tried to do a more paintish thing it turned weird, I can’t control the brush at all >< I have too paint over the same part 10 times before the bloody value shifts, major frustrating! But I managed to do some quickies before it got too unbearable to work with… -.-

And yeah sketching to Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon might have influenced me a tiny bit… :)

Went into photoshop with the second Alien picture, since I know how the goddamn brushes work there! Did a quick fix to some of the details I couldn't do in SAI and well yeah "Fuck it dude, let's go bowling"

"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon."... and stuff

 I tried some imagination sketching, in the start I couldn’t even come up with a basic idea of wtf I wanted to draw. A friend told me to just start with a head and then build on that, so I did… It’s extremely weird for me to go around things like that.
I finished the head and thought it looked a bit like that bomb guy from Super Mario, so I added a bowler and a cigar to downplay that a bit, then I didn’t know what the fuck I would do with the body… so he got some generic thing, which didn’t really do all that much, I wanted to force myself to try and do a bit more feel of dimension instead of a flat 2D feel, which turned into a palm in the foreground and a bat in the background – baby steps okay! – adding those got me thinking of some cartoon schoolyard bully asking for lunch money. I got into some problems with the legs, I couldn’t come up with anything other than a flat and boring stance, so yeah… removing them and just giving him some djinn form was easier – don’t judge.
I didn’t have any room to add anything else on the paper and it needed some more to make any sense, I thought about what scenario I could use the djinn and came up with the little girl who lost her rabbit teddy or what you call it, added the boy and called it quits.

Looking back, it was stupid of me to stop there. I should have started over, using my sketch as a concept of wtf it was I was trying to do.
If I had an idea what I was going to draw from the start then this is not how I would have choose to do it, I would have made the Djinn a lot more gaseous and demon like, no solid features just some glowing eyes maybe and have it take up a lot more space, like it looking directly down on the boy instead of this, this is to flat and action less.
Still it’s not too late for doing it over! So who knows :)

 

I got persuaded into trying to draw a Harpy Girl, I thought it would be pretty much impossible since it would require some sorta anatomy knowledge which I don’t have… AT ALL!
Still what’s the worst that could happen…? Instead of going about it as the other cartoon drawing, I did loads of ideas this time, just quick scribbles trying out different things and poses. I ended up on a mix and tried to sketch something rough in SAI and then color it quickly in PS, I didn’t want to overdo things, since I knew I would get into trouble if I went overboard on details, then you suddenly need to know a bit more exact where the elbow joint is located instead of just “uhmmm on the arm somewhere”… It’s a stupid notion, but again… baby steps!
After I did a very quick coloring and a bare minimum of detail, I called it done and tbh was pleasantly surprised, it’s not very innovative or complex, but coming from a stickman background it’s reassuring to see that even if I don’t know it, I must be learning something at least :)

It got to rest a few hours, but I felt I had to come back and at least attempt to finish the coloring, so I did and after a while I got aware I was going with a very one color tone theme which I wanted to break or at least upset slightly, so I did the glowing eyes… it wasn’t really my Harpy anymore, but more some evil fairy or demon in my opinion.

So what have I learned?
I learned I need to lose the idea that the first sketch has to be the final and I should still attempt to do the things I want, instead of just doing compromises without even attempting new things – fuck it man you learn from mistakes, the best is when you can see the mistakes and NOT knowing how on earth you correct them, it may sound stupid, but in my experience I will keep ruminating over the problem and if I’m lucky the solution will come while I’m doing the dishes or something.
I don’t draw nearly as much as I would like – I’m like a level 31 procrastinator – but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m thinking about drawing constantly :)

Oh yeah also did a quick environment study, but haha yeah... nvm.

Goddamn imagination needs to L2Draw!

"Are we there Yeti?".... "No we are not!"

I can’t do shit when I can’t use some visual reference, still I try and force myself into new things, instead of treading water with the light/shadow painting style.

I spend waaay to long trying to solve the perspective issues and problems creating a hanging cage in a top view perspective. It’s not all bad since its good practice I suspect, anyway I had to solve quite a few problems drawing this in photoshop and coming up with a solution to placing the bars correct without drawing a million lines, finding all the right angles and shit… omg the nightmares.
Figured out I would just draw two squares, free transform them and add some quick “walls” using the one vanishing point the two squares would make and voila - I tried all kinda weird shit before that though – so next time I don’t have to reinvent the fucking wheel “weee” :)

The bars I made by making a line fence, duplicating that into four and "distort" them into place, thought that part would be impossible, but turned out that was super serial simple... yay learning shortcuts! :P
SOooo before I could continue the cage kinda needed some “content”, I wanted to throw in a dead skeleton jester/jack-in-the-box character, but that was opening up a whole can of “OH FUCK” drawing a imagination character like what would be close to impossible for me, but throw in some very weird perspective and complicated foreshortening  and it’s a mental K.O. – solution: buy a pizza and soda, put on some UFC and tell yourself that it’s just because the angle is stupid and it has nothing to do with ability…
Still it’s immensely frustrating to know you have a plan and a vision of things, but you simply can’t put it down in practice.

So you try again… fucking imagination needs to get with the program!
I got a thing for zombies okay! So thought I would create a big fat ass zombie with a baby… seemed logical and smart enough, what could possibly go wrong? Apparently a lot of things, two problems I assumed I could free draw a zombie with pulled open guts… I couldn’t… then I also assumed I could draw a baby attached to the mother by the umbilical cord… I couldn’t… hahaha so yeah fuck that shit, I went and got some chips instead – by the time I know wtf I’m doing I will have gained 20kg! 

Still I wanna upload these major road blocks, because drawing is so much more than these portraits I’ve been doing. They have turned into some comfort zone for me and while it’s good to have something you can go back to and tank up some positive experiences it doesn’t move you all that much in the long run. If you only see one side of the story you could have the impression I learned something, and come on, that’s just highly unlikely we all know that! :)

I also started on a new figure drawing using a reference photo, initially I thought I picked a pretty simple photo… yeah… as if.
The body was pretty straight forward and fairly simple light/shadow tones… but, wait… uhm jeans?
Holy smokes, two big problems, you have to sell a texture illusion and you have to do it while building up the butt underneath… that’s like valuing out a shape in a minefield of details. I could have done better, but I had boxed myself in with details and tbh I didn’t want to redo the whole thing.
I’m fairly sure I know what I should have done, I should have thrown away every single detail on those pants and just shape in the butt with light and shadows using a good texture brush and THEN do the fucking details on top of that. That way I wouldn’t have to juggle ten spinning plates at the same time.
But I ended up just blending in the body quickly and throw in some hair shizzle – DONE! “Live to fight another day” right?

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When do you put down the pen/pencil? (Work in progress)

What to do… what to do…

Started on a portrait but now I don’t know what the fuck to do… the reference is Colin Farrell from Crazy Heart (movie).

Either I keep on rendering until the reference pops out – so to say – or I stop now and claim to be “artistic” hahaha – that’s such bullshit – but actually I kinda like it as it is now, I’m afraid of making it stale or just to polished if I continue.

But on the other hand why not just continue for the experience if for nothing else… ugh fucking choices seriously, there are 10 things I wanna do at once atm.

 Cropped version

The bigger picture...

Also I wanna do some more body drawings and not just a face. I started on a Mickey Rourke drawing, but I’ve hit some wall with it. I don’t see how it can be harder than drawing a face, but it is… even when I just focus on drawing light and shadows it still fucks with my mind, maybe it’s a question of comfort zones.

And I wanna do a little single page story to the theme from Crazy Heart “The Weary Kind – Ryan Bingham” I got the rough sketch in my head, but in all honesty I’m a bit hesitant about starting it, it’s completely uncharted territory with so many pitfalls and I’m afraid I put my own bar way to high up for it to be realistic… yeah long story short I’m too scared to attempt ><