30th January 2014 - F7 Southern Pacific Pinup

I decided to develop the sketch from yesterday into a rail fan pin up. It's based around my favorite locomotive - F7 Southern Pacific - Bloody nose.

29th January 2014

Morgana (Threnody in Velvet) and Kiss me Deadly are my references for this one.
I've decided to take a short break from the speed stuff, I'm trying to allow myself to get better by doing longer studies at the same time. I think the idea now is to use speed paints and sketches as warmup exercises. It's going to be tough to find time to do that PLUS longer paintings in the evenings; but I will certainly try. Anyway, day 1 -

28th January 2014

Here's a few scribbles from tonight, really not much. Work has really got me so tired right now. Very depressing that I'm finding it so hard to find time to practice. It's near the end of January and I haven't really learnt much, not cool. I'll have to start reading and studying I think, because I'm not happy with the progress I'm making. I'll also need to make more effort to practice every day, and practice smart. I've given myself this year to get to a level I can be proud of.

27th January 2014 - Blah

Today was unsuccessful. The least said about it the better. I'll move on.

22nd January 2014 - Elsa again (Frozen)

I've finally seen Frozen now, and I absolutely loved it. Such fantastic animation; I had to do Elsa again. What a cool character, maybe I'll do Anna next!

These paintings are good fun to do, especially when I've had a bit of a bad one at work. Just put the headphones on, Frozen soundtrack on and go for it. Fun stuff :)

22nd January 2014

Here are some figure studies from this evening.
Things might slow down on the blog for the next 2 weeks and a bit, schedules at work are getting pretty hectic so we shall see.

19th January pt2 - Jake Peralta

I painted Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine Nine today.
I love that show currently, very funny.
This was a One hour paint :)

19th January

It seems it's harder to draw every single day than I expected. I'll work harder to at least do 30 minutes speed / gesture drawings each day from now on.

Here are some I just did.

Interestingly, the 5minute ones I feel are my most successful. The 10 minute ones ended up becoming overworked.

Whilst I like these websites that generate random timed images for you, some of the images are a bit frustrating. Like the ones that are 90% Shadow. Though I guess it all helps. 

16th January 2014

I must work on Proportions next! It's really letting me down. Here are a couple of sketches I did today.

I quickly photoshopped the large head to be smaller. Much nicer.

14th January 2014

Today I am very tired and I've had to cut my drawing short as I am working against what feels like a brick wall. The last Two days at work have been busy, combined with life drawing last night; I need some rest.

I also decided to sit down and just draw aimlessly today, to see what I could come up with. My mind was so blank, it wasn't good. I hope that will change with time!
I also need to really practice a lot of anatomy too. I have an Andrew Loomis book that I have to start following. I felt very defeatist today, but tried to push on as best I could. Watching tutorial videos from some of my favorite artists during lunch time at work is cool for getting me motivated and excited about getting home and doing some painting, but at the same time; it's giving me a false sense of skill level and making me fall quite hard. Depressing. But I won't allow my defeatist nature to win, I'm sure It must be possible for me to push through and become the artist I want to be... in time.

So here is the failure from tonight. It's so bad, I feel like I have regressed. I was very close to not posting it, but felt like I would be doing myself and my journey a disservice If I didn't. One day I will look back on these and laugh.

13th January 2014

Today I was at a life drawing class (and the weekend I was visiting people).
Life drawing went okay, I'm very rusty. Here are poor quality photographs of what I achieved. They are in order of drawn.

(Few minutes per sketch)

 (15 minutes)

 (15 minutes)

(10 minutes)



I did some sketching over the weekend aswell. But I won't post most of it up, the camera is just poor quality. I need to invest in an A3 scanner. 

9th January 2014 - Elsa (Frozen)

Today I thought I would try something different. So I chose a shot of Eliza from Frozen for it. I really like this image and wanted to try to recreate it as best I could.

I read and watched a bit on color theory today. It helped a fair amount with my shadows; still a ways to go and more studying to be done.

I need to figure out better brushes for certain things such as materials.
I need to keep studying color theory.
I need to flip my canvas horizontal more often.
I need to learn to paint hair more convincingly.

8th January 2014 - Idris Elba

Today was Idris Elba. I have been on a Luther binge recently and so decided to try and paint him :)
This one was a lot of fun.

I need to still focus on color. Mostly in shadows and highlights. I need to remember that shadows aren't just black; I need to use more color in the shadows.

I need to get proportions a lot better, and focus on relationships between each features.

I need to get better at skin 'material' and materials in general. For example the jacket, and skin pores.

The next Six Mondays I will be posting Life drawing work as I've joined a life drawing class. Can't wait!

7th January 2014 - Dean and Jo, Supernatural

Today I did a still from Supernatural.
It took around 2.5-3 hours (I will speed up with time!)
Interestingly, and surprisingly for me - The male turned out much better and far more accurate. I spent far more time on him though, and completely messed up the pose on the girl.

I need to get better at dropping down the right colors ( I am purposefully NOT color picking from the original image) Dean lacks a lot of orange in his face for sure for example. That will come with time I imagine.

Nevermind!
Time for sleep.

6th January 2014 - Morgana, Threnody in Velvet

A quick introduction to this blog, in case anyone stumbles across it.
This will serve to track my progress to improve my 2d painting and drawing abilities over the course of 2014. Hopefully I will see vast improvement and finally be getting to where I feel I would like to be in my work.

So yesterday (the 6th of January) I worked on this image. I spent around 1-1.5 hours. I used no line work and just threw colors down to see where it would take me. Very unrefined and I would like to do some more on this one eventually.

This one is based off a model called Morgana or Threnody in Velvet. 

I need to get better with my colors.

I need to get better at figuring out the distances and relationships between each element quickly.

I need to get more confident and better at laying down chunks of color and shade.

There will be another post today, with todays painting (the 7th) and that is going to be based on a screenshot from Supernatural the TV show.
I'll try and keep these paintings as diverse as possibly, but make no mistake ; pinup is my focus.