Late Night Drawing

Been practicing some various stuff tonight.  Learned how to blend Copic markers and do more light source rendering with them, then trying to do some gestures via Pixel Lovely.  I'm trying to draw with force and rhythm but I keep getting held back since I'm having difficulty putting down confident strokes while keeping proportion.

I'm also trying to keep story in mind while doing these, but my mind keeps either drawing blanks or giving me ideas that are sort of bland...  Maybe it's just a matter of not being picky about those ideas and they eventually get better the more you creatively think.  Overall, I bet it's also a matter of balancing intense observation and concentration while maintaining looseness

Some of the better gestures of the evening

Practicing looseness

Figure drawing from yesterday evening.  These were some of the better ones, imo.

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Back to Basics: Render Practice

Been listening to a lot of Bobby Chiu podcasts lately.  He's like this insanely motivating pep-talker/psychologist for drawing and I can't get enough of his wisdom.  Anywho, I've been practicing my rendering - trying to understand shape and form with values along with light sources/reactions.  I'm giving myself the extra challenge to do this in photoshop since I've never felt like I've accomplished rendering representationally with the program.  I'll be posting my progress throughout the day.

Sphere exercise

Rendering other shapes... specifically without a marquee

Bawcks

Applying those spherical studies to a drawing that required a bit more creativity.  I love those creepy wtf-moments of shows like Adventure Time and Invader Zim, so thought I'd give the influence a whirl.

Comp Sketch

Haven't been drawing a whole lot of environments, so I've been focusing a bit more on translating loose drawing into compositional stuff and spatial relationships.  Gotta remember to keep story in mind when drawing.

Zoo/Museum Sketching with Mike

Went out sketching with the awesome Mike Yates yesterday.  He gave me a lot of food for thought, but the most poignant advice was one of the most simple - that we should always be thinking about making a story when we draw from life (includes people and objects).  Think - really observe, don't just move your arm!

Field Museum

Note to self: do more cafe sketching.  Quick drawings = blocking out movements + proportions + building upon those lines = more loose, storytelling drawing.

Second note to self:  Study more illustrators.  We should study them and take influence like we do with movies.

Poor Walter

Poor Walter couldn't feel the Christmas spirit anymore and didn't know why.  Nothing worked, not even reindeer antlers.

Digital Doodling

Trying to get back on the Photoshop horse as of late.  I'm having difficulty figuring out how to render representatively, but I do like playing with those marker-ish effects from doodling.  I tried doing some more anatomy studies digitally but my progress feels restricted because of my limited knowledge of the software.  Most likely going to go back to traditional mediums for those figure studies until I getter a better grasp of Photoshop.