More naked people

Beach and post office - what to do when you're bored as heck. 

Summer was coming to an end :( 

This batch of sketches was done during the same day as this one, so I guess there's nothing special to report in addition to what I wrote there.
What? No I'm not lazy c:

I miss the beach

I decided to slow down and post three times per week. With the current post format posting WILL become more time-consuming, and with academy and all I guess I should focus on good in-depth posts instead of quantity :B

So! here's a sketchbook page full of beach people from last summer. Some of them are amusing.

• I'm glad I could use all the available space in the sheet. The year before I couldn't squeeze in as many sketches
• Poses and shading seem to work fine - the bodies are less stiff than last time

• The linework is often insecure and messy - NOT the good kind of messy
• Anatomy and proportions, as always. I seem to struggle most with legs and sitting poses

Experience gained: 3 points!

- I don't mind a cluttered page. I lovelovelove saving space and drawing tiny helps me cope with fast-moving bad people
- I definitely need to work on legs and hips structure
- The lines are more complex and messy than last year. I can't tell if it's a good thing quite yet D:

Need a hand?

 Hands are evil and since my last exam I realized more than ever I lack some real knowledge of their structure. So in July I gathered some reference pics and produced some quick practice sketches.

Staedtler fineliner and Copic markers - I was coming from a week or more without grabbing a pencil (or pen tablet) and my strokes were ugly and unconfident and hairy ugh.

I used my trusty fineliner and the fat brush tip of a black Tombo marker on this one.
Let's see:

• Fat black marker and fineliner are great for quick sketching
• I improved a lot by making more and more of these - the next batch looks a lot better!

• Fingers often look off
• Not drawing for a while is bad. It shows
•  This first batch of marker & fineliner sketches look horrible. The black areas are unrefined and uneffective
• Those parallel fine lines as midtones look awful  

 

Experience gained: 4 points!

- I've been having issues on this. I need to draw hands more often and study muscles and bones properly

- Tombo and fineliner are great mediums I'll definitely use again to get more confident on large shadow areas

- I'd like my inked stuff to look good without those outlines that are exposed to light. In other words, I'd like to find a solution to make subjects look believable by just inking shadows and a little hint of midtones, without the need for outlines

- I need a solution for midtones. I can't figure out how to reproduce them properly when using inks yet

Discoveries

During summer 2012 I found out fineliners and copics are practical and fun sketching media. Here are my first attempts at portraying chubby models at the local beach.

... there's something disturbing here.

• Fineliner & Copic markers are easy to carry around and look effective
• Quick merciless sketching without the luxury of an eraser is VERY useful
• I've learned new things about cast shadows

• That little girl
• These look pretty stiff
• Perhaps a hint of context would make them better

Experience gained: ? points

This is from one year and a half ago so I don't really remember what meaningful lessons I drew out of it, except that I need to get faster and less "clean" if necessary. And

FOR GOD'S SAKE IMPROVE ON CHILDREN AND SMILES 

Cold days

First post. Let's not formalize this too much, I'm already quite tense thank you. 

These are from last winter, Florence.
Staedtler pigment fineliner and copic - my favorite for sketching outdoors. Not being able to erase makes everything harder (as well as better, faster and stronger, I promise).
It's nothing short of a trauma at first, yet it's great for training my confidence, styilization and space planning/management. This is something I'll go through more accurately in a few future posts, showing how my strokes and general sketching style changed (for the better? We'll see) from my first attempts at this techinique to the more recent ones.

Notes:
- I need to improve my stylization of foliage. I have a hard time synthetizing leaves and branches. I'd like to lean towards a slightly decorative solution - especially with tree bark. About that, I'm gonna put together a few snaps from the local park and analyze different surfaces a lil' bit.