January '13 and (December '12) Sketching

They say it never rains but it pours. I don't know who 'they' are, but they've been saying it for an awfully long time. Right now, with the rain streaming down the windows this seems a particularly apt term, as I do seem to have rather a lot to be getting on with after a month of relative artistic calm. Much of this comes from work, and so you may never see it dealt with here (though it's not out of the question eventually), but some of it I'll be dealing with here eventually. Eventually is an important word there, as I won't have much time to update the blog or do side work to show for a little while, so if this is the only post during February I hope you'll forgive me. But you're not here to hear me bemoan my work load, you're here to see art (come to the wrong place I suspect), so lets get on with it.

I did rather a lot of sketching in January. This may be the first time I've ever had to leave out "good" stuff because there was actually quite a bit of it. Usual fare here, although I really like the girl on the right, she turned out rather well. Here hair is actually based on hair I saw in a photograph, but I don't consider it from reference as I did the sketch sometime after seeing the photo, so I didn't refer to it directly.

The second set of Free sketching is more experimental than the first I guess. Quite happy with the Elfish girl with short hair, and the more cartoonish fellow to her upper right. The chap with the extra large nose didn't turn out as well as I'd have liked, but it's fine enough I guess. But anyway, this is more a sheet of characters than I might usually do.

The final free sketching of the month (and yes, mostly portraits this time), and I have to say I'm really pleased with these ones. I especially like baldy at the bottom there - the scan doesn't really do the shading on him justice because he really came out rather well (in my opinion).

I realised I'd been slacking off learning anatomy and such, and so during January I made an extra effort in that regard. This sheet is mostly my trying to visualize high level shapes and forms and how they fit together. I've done nothing really from a direct reference over the past 2 months, so this was a nice way to find my weaknesses so I can focus some reference drawing time on them this month (if I get any time anyway). Twisting and bending (and combinations thereof) seem to be especially weak, so that's a place to start when I next approach this sort of thing.

More of the same, but this one also features the focus I gave to the muscles of the upper torso. I still need to do some work on these, but I'm also going to move on and work on the musculature around the hips and upper legs soon. After that the back, the legs, arms (again) and so on. That lightcycle is based on a toy I own - technically that's from reference, but I didn't see the point of having a From Reference sheet with only one thing on it, and also the angle it's shown here was not the one I was looking at - it was an exercise in extrapolation.

And lastly, as always, the sketching disasters. Some of these don't look as bad as I remember them looking, but really it's a great sheet to look at in order to think "must do better". Top Right and Middle left were an attempt to try something a little more Picasso like. That didn't go so well.

And that's it. If I don't get time to post again this month I'll see you in March some time(really, circumstances beyond my control and all that - not that I'm really complaining). Next month is also the Blog's 3rd anniversary, so I'll try and put something together for that. Not like a cake or anything, but maybe a progress so far type affair.