Then I studied some more
Bad Drawing No 22 after Bammes
Bad Drawing No 23 after Bammes
Bad Drawing No 24 after Bammes
More studies to come, a portrait from my imagination and another CHOW plus I seriously need to change my thread’s thumbnail. It can’t be the same sucky drawing of that old fart for so long:cool:
wow, you still doing this. it is great… and, if i ever have a question about anatomy, i know whom i can ask 
…i admire your persistence.
I am a man on a mission, I can’t quit until my 500 bad drawings are done. Honestly thought I would quit when I was at 50 drawings but its too much fun so I keep it simple and go one drawing at a time. Thanks for the encouragement.
I am trying to do more work from my imagination hence I have started taking part in CHOW over at conceptart.org. Currently trying to draw an Oni for current CHOW.
Bad Drawing number 125 - some more studies
Bad Drawing number 126 a portrait from the noggin(imagination no ref’s)
I messed up the eyes on this one every badly, I only noticed on review when I didn’t have the energy to change things. Every drawing is a learning experience so I will pay more attention to my construction more.
Bad Drawing Number 127
More heads from my imagination, also learning more on how to handle MyPaint. I kind of noticed that I draw the same facial feature when I am drawing from imagination I need to mix things up.
more work to follow, target 150 bad drawings before years end
it is interesting to notice that you experience the same difficulties in drawing as i do in my portrait sculpting. when doing with reference your drawings are excellent, when doing from imagination there is some struggle,is same with me, , it is so much harder to do everything from imagination, so many things need fit believable together, and we all know how people look, so there is very little room for errors… you are doing great. last one i do like, left reminds me on betty page, loosely, i am looking forward to see the goal of 150 reached by the end of year. good luck!
Your progress is fantastic man, loving this thread. Your reference-based portraiture is great but it seems when you draw from imagination that you struggle with perspective of the organic structure of the face. In this most recent example, the girl on the left has some inconsistencies in her face at this angle. The right eye is either slightly too high or we are seeing too much of the bottom of the nose.
Working from imagination is harder,a lot more,because you have to know how things really are.
With references you can cheat,you don’t need to know nothing,you have simply to look at,and using a 2d references is also easier than copying a real subject in a real environment.
A lot of really good comic book artists that I admire say they keep large amounts of source material to look at for reference, even though they change the features to match their characters. They use them as guides to make sure they don’t make the simple mistakes of skipping where things connect, etc.
@doris I know it’s a struggle but we gotta keep going
@wokjow yeah placing features and perspective are a major problem for me.
@renderdemon thanks, I think I know what you are talking about when I’m drawing from a photo I am more or less just looking at shapes and not really even thinking of things in terms of form.
@Craig Jones I actually have a big ass photo morgue folder on my computer but I wanted to expose my weakness a bit. Test how much I know or don’t.
Okay, Bad Drawing number 128 I decided to do a still life. I haven’t done a still life in a really long time, we are talking about 15 or so years. I will definitely start doing more of this to make up for some serious lost time.
Did a Bridgeman study…
Bad Drawing Number 129
I also got my first of Charles Hu’s DVDs, Structure and Proportion, watched it and than tried to put what I learned to practice. I screwed up my legs though, I made the thighs too long. I will try the back and side next.
Bad Drawing Number 130
Bad Drawing number 131
Been a good boy and learning my colour theory. Practising doing a shading series in Mypaint, okay so this is not really that hard to do in Photoshop or Mypaint.
Bad Drawing number 132
a hand study from Bridgeman, I got to keep up with that book I only have about 1/3rd of it to go through.
D: You haven’t done still life in 15 years and your drawing is STILL this good? What!? Jealousy
@LilSweden thanks, I have been doing other drawings just not still lifes. I think since I started my 500 bad drawing challenge I have probably drawn more than I ever did prior to all of this.
I was supposed to have pushed to 150 Bad Drawings before the new year started but what can I say the Holidays were too much fun lots of rest and relaxation.
Back in the saddle
Bad Drawing Number 133
Practicing value scales, my mission for 2014 get my traditional rendering skills a serious kick in the behind
Bad Drawing number 134 - after Andrew Loomis
my heads from imagination BD 127 and 128 revealed a weakness with eyes here is me doing something about it
After 1 miserable year of working on a little under powered laptop I fixed and upgraded my old desktop I am currently learning how to use Krita
you can’t control this scale, five or six at most. Be practical, you may add a few more but this is just happening. You can’t measure it.
Between white and first grey, you need another one.
My advise, don’t look at photos. They will never show what really matters to you. Don’t trust them.
Of course we can use them as reference but only after having some experience.
i just stumbled across this thread - and what a treasure! great tips and links, sure - but mainly an affirmation that we all go through the same things as artists. reading through here has definitely inspired me to go back through the basics and start (almost) from scratch. thanks for sharing your “bad” drawings, as well as your struggles to stay focused on your goals, which is something we all go through. fwiw coming from a total stranger, your progress has been remarkable. cheers!
I’m not sure I follow what you are saying I don’t think I have done anything from a photo for a long time, the anatomy studies are after the respective artists I am studying from the heads are from imagination no refs and the shoes are my own shoes that I arranged and painted…
I know the value scale needs work but that was the whole point I’m weak at them and I don’t do them enough. If you note I wrote the date on them I am repeating them every few days and keeping them in my folder. I posted my first untrained try and after a year I will post one to see how much I learned after hopefully months of practice. The tutorial or instruction I’m following works on 9 points I could expanded it but than I would be missing the purpose of the exercise. So I will trust in the instructor I am following.
@wolfred thanks man. I also got inspired by other people’s artistic journeys, conceptart.org has a lot of these type of threads in their sketch book section. I used to look at the works of really good artist and get freaked out that my own art wasn’t as good. But after viewing a lot of sketch books there and seeing people go from novice to pro I shut my yap and got drawing. So far it has been a really good journey.
These two threads in particular have inspired me a lot but the are many others at that site
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=97046
i like the drawing of the man
I think M is saying that a 9 step scale is not something you can use during actual drawing although it looks cute laid out in a row like that. When you are designing a drawing or drawing from life one uses far fewer steps; he is suggesting five or six, I suggest four or five at most.
It depends on what you are using it for. I know people who painstakingly copy photographs to graphite drawings who use a ten step scale and put a card with a small hole in it over the photograph to see which step to use.
But when you are drawing from life, say, you look at your subject and have to assess: is that a dark, medium dark, middle, medium light or light tone? Trying to see more divisions than that leads to incorrect assignments and unevenly formed surfaces, and even five may be too many to handle. I try to use only four divisions and let the medium and support I’m working with imply the others.
Yes druban, four steps are just fine. A heavy black graphite stroke could be considered as the fifth step.
It is a way to control things. It doesn’t mean that we can’t add some steps beautifying the drawing. But we’re talking about control.
The more important is how we apply these steps. How we write on a paper. To draw some outline and fill it with some strokes of a pencil, it won’t work.
Tyrant monkey, I’m so glad to see you still updating your sketchbook, you’ve come along way. Your level of dedication is very admirable. Wish I had that, feel like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years. I really enjoy your photo studies too, it’s obvious you learn so much from these sessions, but I have to say I think the still life of your shoes is the best thing here. The shading and tone are very crisp AND soft. That’s a piece that you could hang especially if on canvas. The natural subject matter and composition seem effortless for you. I’d definitely like to see more still life from you. Keep 'em coming.
