Colourific!

After talking about values and tones at sketchgroup I decided to try rendering a greyscale image using different colours. I worked under a white "colour" layer and in hindsight I should have tried working without it in order to actually gain something from doing this drawing. I was more curious than anything though, so I guess now I know what that looks like ...pretty psychedelic!

I've been wanting to put up photos of the skull model I got for Christmas for a while now so that more people can get some use out of it since I am probably not doing it justice. So here they are for all those artists looking for a (fairly) clear turnaround of a skull. Below is a just thumbnail but you can download the .zip folder containing high res images using the link below.

Download high resolution skull references here

Taking photos of the skull was kind of my way of "backing it up" as well because I was about to cover it in plasticine and I'm not sure if it's going to come off easily. I sculpted the muscles of the face onto the skull which was actually a pretty good learning activity. I figured they must be fairly accurate because the face started creeping me out while I was working on it. At least it stuck in my head what the muscles look like and where they go (what they do exactly is another thing!).

I think I will take a similar set of turnaround shots before I do the skin layer and then keep them as references for later.

Here are those handbags I was talking about in a previous post. I'm not sure if I would actually expect anyone to use these but they were fun to make and I have some better ideas for some that might actually be acceptable in public. These are my Aunties' dogs, say hi to Molly and Wishbone.

I've also been doing a fair bit of reading lately (probably a manifestation of my procrastination) but if you are a serial procrastinator like me try to get your hands on a copy of the War of Art by Steven Pressfield I'm confident just about any creative person can pick out a few quotes from this book to keep them soldiering on. It also comes in audio tape format so you can listen and work at the same time.

Anatomy studies and master study

As part of an activity on conceptart.org I've started a 'master study' of sorts. I've basically taken a picture I liked and have studied it's colour and composition and am now trying to recreate it in oils. The original picture is called Springtime by Pierre-August Cot . Below are some progress shots including evidence of my tea drinking addiction.

Mark, Ed and I went to the Amazing Bodies exhibition, hoping to closely study human muscles. Unfortunately the exhibition only had whole plasticised animals (no people) so I studied a skeleton and a horse.

and finally some general anatomy study:

Moar catch up

More stuff... this brings us up to date.

Catching up..

Okay it's more like a month and a half! Anyway here's some more... there's some me and Ed collab in here.

Progress...

I better update this before I get too far behind and too lazy.. Here are some sketchbook pages filled over the few days:

A couple of sketchbook pages. Faces, eyes, gesturals plus some rough looking man on the tram and some noses.

A head, no reference.

I did a sketch a while ago for the Kitsune topic for Character of the Week. I was just playing around with painting the face and then gave up on it.. looks nothing like the original sketch..

More noses and anatomy studies.

B&W sketch of a gun-wielding chick... not sure if I will take it any further. Her static pose is bugging me.

More sketchbook pages, the right one was done on public transport, it's unfortunate that the scary hulking naked dude was actually based on someone. The left one was just some random people around the city and down the bottom are the results of me trying to draw Oddworld characters from memory.. Oddworld was one of my big inspirations for drawing critters and 3D modelling.

Random sketches/studies

I rediscovered felt tip pens... all these years I've had them and never really used them, but I appreciate the strong black ink after using a pathetic scratchy ballpoint pen!

Anatomy Sketches 07

Some head studies and stuff. I always have trouble with the shape of the head! I usually make the face too small and low. I want to do some male vs female skull studies soon as well because my females sometimes look masculine and my males look girly.

I painted a skull in watercolour, but again stopped paying attention and went into automatic copy mode.. argh.