Late Night Digitals

Yo, Got some fun stuff to show.

Decided to move from traditional stuff art-wise to digital, and among the chaos of modern life, moving houses, learning routes as to not get lost and chopped up in some serial killers basement, I managed to learn quite a lot from Saturday night to today (Sunday).

This first image is for my girlfriend Meghan, bit of a personal piece, but it came out exceptionally well, which marks my breaking in to digital works, the second work (picture of the lady) is a result of me trying to follow a tutorial from Gnomon, failing, then going on my own tangent, learning the tools. ins and outs of everything.

In regards to the lady, I feel that the second to last image was a better product, but I felt like trying out some hair and being daring.

With the rabbit I got some awesome colouring help from my long term friend and mentor Jizhou Yang, as asian as can be (by that I mean ridiculously talented) and without his help the picture would have fallen to pieces, so cheers big ears.


It was a successful weekend in terms of practice, hope you guys enjoy the results.

as always i've included wip screengrabs, deal with it.

In closing i'm going to leave you with a quote from somewhere:

"If you don't fail, you don't learn, and if you don't learn, you're not trying hard enough."

So, i'm basically going to be trudging through the valley of unholy suckage for awhile, be it 3d or 2d, i'll put my head down and practice till hell or high water.

Let's see where we go from here.


Regards

Francis

100th post goodness and late night thoughts

Hey there,

it's been awhile, but i'm back. it's a rather cold, late night here in Johannesburg, and someone very dear to me has gone on a long trip, so the night seems ever darker.

Yet, I feel euphoric, this is the start of something new, something grand, a time where I can practice as hard as possible, for as long as possible in my passion, 2d and 3d. This, this right here is what I live for.

You know, I had a misconception of what art was like. It's not what hollywood portrays, there's no tough practice with angels singing choirs in the background followed by a "EURIKA", there's nothing of the sort, it's gaining knowledge and applying it, learning the rules of reality in order to break them. Knowing anatomy to know where to exaggerate, understanding lighting to pull the emotions, putting the hours into cinematography to add to the emotion of the overall piece. It's hard, it's a perpetual battle against oneself, and the hope that one day, you will get to where you need to be.

I've taken a break from 3d for the past 2 or was it 3 weeks? Brushed back up on my pencil skills. When I was working and studying last year, I poured all time and effort into working in 3d, and I doubted for awhile there that I would ever illustrate again. A lot of the stuff is messy, and I apologize in advance that I don't have a scanner. But here are some of the things that i've done, along with my dear companion Meghan, (she did all the hard bits. :D ) Sadly, due to internet, and well, practicality, I decided not to upload 30 or 40 sketches and drawings of gestures, so you get a random few pages from my sketchbook to prove that I am not, in fact lying. (Or maybe i'm just proud of some of the stuff, unthinkable thoughts.)

And yeah. So that's where we leave it, a new beginning on my 100th post.

See you guys next time round.

Generic Cyber Girl

Hey there, been recently going through a tough time, hence the lack of updates.

Tried to break a bit of a block going on, and funnily enough, the easiest thing that I could think of was: "LET'S TRY A HUMAN BEING BECAUSE WHY THE HELL NOT."

This after having horrible things happen in the past when I listen to myself.

Well, she's generic, she's bland, character design is boring, and her helmet looks like a tumor, but it's there.

used some of Mike Jensens Hard Surface Sculpting 2 alpha brushes, so...Copyright to him for that.

So...That's a thing. I guess.

 Regards

Francis

P.S. Screw human beings . I'll go back to anatomy studies and maybe, maybe try a human figure awhile from now.

Riley

Well, i'm not sure where this came along, this evening I had no drive to draw, no real ambition to tackle anything, and then I just started scribbling, and along came Riley.

What's interesting, to me at least, is that for the years that I was drawing, I never really enjoyed myself, I was always worried about how good the picture would look in the eyes of my peers (Both real and imaginary). I was never happy with the shading, proportion or anatomy, while this drive to become better isn't a bad thing in itself, the fixation of perfection eventually strangled anything creative I could muster, I fear this is also the trap i've fallen in to with my 3D modelling, unwilling to start and experiment for fear of making a mistake. 

It's almost poetically tragic how in my fear of doing something wrong, I did nothing and stagnated. 

In a long-winded way, here we come to Riley, a picture I didn't care about, and started scribbling, and two hours later, I feel that here i've made more progress developing my own style and joy in drawing than years of copying portraits and photographs. 

Here's the images of where I started and where I left off. 

Regards

Francis

P.S. as an afterthought, this particular picture isn't good in technical ability nor anything really, but, in my own way, i'm learning to stop caring and start enjoying what i'm doing. Sooner or later i'll get back to anatomy studies and 3d design visualization, but for now. I'm content.

Bob

Well, in an unexpected turn of events, I've started drawing again after a long absence and a sinking feeling that i'd never pick up a pencil again.

Mostly because I have no faith in myself and feel that I have no ability after years of practice, partly because i'm just too tired these days.

But my friend Mathias Damegaeardegd, asked me to illustrate a character for a Dungeons and Dragons session named Bob.

Bob is a Kobold whose head was chopped off, and his soul was trapped into a glass jar, which was put on his head, followed by a smiley face being put on the jar.

I used a picture that I was given to take the pose. so the pose is not mine, but I did the inking with help and advice from my long term friend and mentor in Finland, Jizhou Yang. I'm still convincing him to start a blog, but hey. who knows what'll happen.


Don't really have an opinion on the image, it served it's purpose and it may have got me back into the swing of drawing, I actually really like this comic-type style, really fun to do. so, without further delay, here's the image.

If you lack the patience to listen to my rambling, just look at the picture.


Regards

Francis

Citation Needed

Welp, good evening.

Once upon a time I was supposed to do daily/ nightly updates on my progress. but unfortunately circumstances arose, and my grandfather passed away and i've had to travel for the memorial service and the rest, luckily i've managed to jump head first into some sculpting during the nights i've stayed here.

I'm not claiming any of these to be good at all, as i'm still learning muscle groups and deformations and skeletal structure, but i'd like to show where i've come from 2 days ago, to where I am now.

I'd also like to send a thank you to my friend Cobus, this guy, has no reason to help me with improving my ability, but he patiently bares with me and even shares his screen to show me where I went wrong, at 2 in the morning. So cheers, Cobus, thanks for helping me become a better artist, bro.

And for now, I go onwards and upwards. Strangely enough I don't feel as frustrated as I normally do, I've come to accept the fact that these wips are not good, and that failure is a part of the learning process, and I can't wait to see where I go from here.

Tell me what ya think, and feel free to drop a crit!

Regards

Francis

Night 1 (Creating a female bust in Zbrush)

Good evening,

I caved in and decided to buy a tutorial from gnomon, as organic sculpting with busts has always been a trouble for me, So I got my hands on Creating a female bust in Zbrush for 30 dollars, can be found here:

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/848/sculpting-a-female-bust-in-zbrush

So far i'm having difficulty following it, in the videos he goes slowly, and then speeds up, which leaves me lost at some points, so i'm watching through then attempting to do what I learnt about, here's an update on where I started, and where I'm leaving it off, The biggest problem I have at the  moment is studying muscle groups, I can't really name the muscles that are important, I can't place them, I have experience in traditional drawing, so I have a rough idea of where things are supposed to go, but I can't tell you what muscles form the shape.

So I'll be posting as regularly as I can, and hoping to learn as much as possible this week, though I can't say it will look anything like the end product of the tutorial, but here goes nothing

Regards

Francis