practice

A couple of notes.  I tried shifting composition to the right to make it more asymetrical.  I simplified his hair to make it straight on the right and complex on the right.  And lastly I tried to keep the values clear.  It is still very graphic and looks unfinished but I dont know at this point how to make something look "finished".  For me, I just use what I know and try new things to get it past what I did before.

I am observing that I create better when I just dont think and let it unfold how it should.  This felt too planned and looks bad because of it.  I am trying to keep conscious various design ideas principles which I felt better.  The question I have is " how do you know when the design principle is implemented well?

Practice by lending a helping hand

The david eye

Doing some digital sight size of Michaelangelo's David's eye.  3/4 and front

Each one was about 10-15 minutes.  I practiced only 3 values to really make it read. There is still some flatness in the eyeball and not sure how to really make it feel deep.

Thanks dad!

Scream?

Practice: Surprised!

Still practicing black and white values to make the forms read.  This one I wanted to give the character a sense of surprise.  I raised his brow and also opened his mouth a bit.  I also raised his eye brow to further the effect of surprise.  What do you think?  Do you buy it? 

 After looking at it now, I've realized that to compose this a bit better with the idea of surprise I should tilt his shoulders down to the left.  Why?  Because if I did, it would look like he is on his way someplace and the reaction behind him is making him more surprised.  So it is as if he is caught even more off guard.

Pushed pose.  You decide.  Which looks more surprised?  

Practice Facial Expressions

Wanted to try some facial expressions

Practice Practice and more!

The nights drawings

Here I wanted to practice drawing 1 head.  I then changed and distorted the 1 head into 4 other permutations.  I liked the fat one and so I designed it below

Similar thing.  I designed 3 face shapes and then took the one I liked and turned it.  I tried an interesting technique.  I projected the 2D shape onto the front plane and then built the structure from the 2D plane. It sorta worked and sort of did not.

Head Practice

This one was about 20-30 minutes.  I spent more time just playing with value and finding a general shape I liked.  This one has some dirty values and I think I could have a much stronger indication of light and shadow.  The feeling of just painting with value was better then starting with construction and then laying in value.  However, the structure started to shift as I massaged values around to make it work.  The nose especially 

Head Practice

Practicing head compositions with light.  What i'm finding it that I tend to construct fine.  When I move toward values, I get messed up and the piece stiffens completely.  Next time i'll just go in and paint with value and not construction

Practice more...

Practice more with values.  This time I used 1 layer for line and the next layer for shape.  I practiced modeling with line for quite some time on this to "feel" the form

More practice

This one took about 1 hour because I had to analyze a face and the shapes I was seeing.  I wanted to keep it as close to 3-4 values as possible and continue to practice in photoshop.  That was my primary goal.  My secondary goal which I did not feel I achieved was crafting a good design.  I feel like it reads, but there is no direction or focal point.  

Fuck design is hard.  REALLY hard!

Mileage

Photoshop and a tablet are difficult to get used to.  By the looks of these, it will be a while for sure.  Nothing beats a pencil and paper.  Nothing.

Had 15 minutes

Wanted to practice a quick imagination sketch and continue using photoshop.  I'm finding that using all sorts of crazy brushes is nonsense.  So I just use the hard round brush.  Makes life simpler.

Mileage...

No matter how bad... mileage.  

This was based on a color palette I saw in the film Blackhawk Down.  I liked it and decided to do it as practice

Face

I have no idea... just had to paint...

Neighbor of the Beast

Here is a panel I put together this past week.  I saw some movies like "Unforgiven" and "Tombstone" and it inspired this idea of just shooting something.  Any critique and thoughts welcome!