Well, I'm going to start my sketchbook here and get things moving along at a bit faster of a pace. Hopefully with some more input and advice, I'll see a quicker rate of progression. Looking forward to some more specific things to study. Maybe I'll do it cyclically, do studies, then take up a while on something from the imagination, then a few more days of studies, then back to imagination. I dunno, the semester starts soon and I'll have less time, sadly.

Latest 11/4/13:



UPDATE:



Creature of the week #301 on conceptart.org.

I wrestled with this one for too long, and it's far from finished (probably will just do a lot more anatomy/perspective/lighting/everything practice and just do it over). However, I am pleased that I could finally get this dude out of my brain, he's been in there for a while.


Now for some old stuff (going from new to old):

Sketched this one for a friend as a bit of design practice early this summer. He asked for a Lich with robes and armor, with an oak staff. I began to color him, but I'm going to wait before resuming it.


Quick dude I made before that:


Mountain scene with fortress carved into the mountain:


Sergei Rachmaninoff pencil sketch from early this year:


Much MUCH older stuff:

Spoiler: show

Kind of felt humorous, so I decided to make Alfred Brendel in MS paint one day a while back:

This is a bit more "sketchbooky." I liked those contour diagrams of skulls that you see from Feng Zhu's students, so I tried one out. This one is from a photo. I wish I had some actual skulls. Anyways, I feel like I could use a bit more advanced and precise perspective rules when doing things like this so that I can get more precise contour lines. I'll probably do a few more of these.

Did a little study on a crocodile eye.

Couple hours in this is what it looks like:

With a decreased brightness and increased contrast:


Without photo filters (only used them because I only have my shitty phone camera):


Reference:


The proportions in the drawing in person are off less, the camera has a bit of distortion on that.

i notice the direction of the pupil slit in the reference is vertical, while yours is sloping. and either you stopped short or something, but the values on the skin surrounding the eye are i think closer to the actual eye than on your rendering. in your piece, the eye really pops out as the dark bit against very pale skin.

nice rendering tho.

Hi Alkan! I really like the mountain scene. Looks really nice! Keep on posting stuff can't wait to see more from your work!

i notice the direction of the pupil slit in the reference is vertical, while yours is sloping. and either you stopped short or something, but the values on the skin surrounding the eye are i think closer to the actual eye than on your rendering. in your piece, the eye really pops out as the dark bit against very pale skin.

nice rendering tho.

Yeah, I noticed the slit is a bit off, and the eye itself is also a bit too round (needs to be compressed). Since it's not a human face where minute details like this affect the ability to recognize the person, I just kind of ignored it after I noticed. There is a competition on conceptart.org to make a baby dragon that blends into its environment, so I really wanted to get a sense of how to draw a nice reptilian eye, and so far I feel like I've learned a lot, beyond the initial photograph as well, since the darkening of the contrast gives it a bit more of an obsidian, jeweled look.

The skin isn't finished, not even close, I just put some guidelines down essentially is all. I'll probably finish it a little later, if it seems like it's worth finishing (as opposed to putting time into other efforts, and perhaps a better study of scales on reptiles in general).

Anyways, thank you for the comments.

Hi Alkan! I really like the mountain scene. Looks really nice! Keep on posting stuff can't wait to see more from your work!

Thank you! People seem to point that one out in particular.

Maybe I'll do more landscapes now that I can see my mistakes in the last one more clearly.

I really like the mountain scene too!

I really like the mountain scene too!

Thanks.

I'm beginning to think I should hone my environment skills.

WIP on that dragon I was talking about for conceptart.org.

Here's the baby dragon finished, also:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showth ... ost3725539

And that's where it's posted.

Oni (first picture in OP):

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd28 ... 4e7a6a.jpg

Didn't want to upload it twice for loading reasons.

Wow, I can see you put a lot of effort in your drawing and painting.. keep up the good work