More Figure Drawings…This time in ANALOG!!

I haven’t had a lot of time for CG stuff lately, so here are some drawings that I recently got around to imaging:

 

 

Figure Drawing Friday

So for about a month now, I have been out of drawing supplies, and just too lazy to go get any…which is the reason for all of the digital drawings.  Here’s another drawing that I could have used 2 more hours on.  I think it turned out pretty good, but I’m feeling like if I go back to paper now, it’s going to be a whole new experience all over again…

Once again, I just can’t seem to get a likeness.  I need to do a lot more portraiture and study measurements.  I guess that’s my next task.

Here are the steps:

My Digital Drawing Technique

This is how I tend to do my digital drawing in Painter.  It’s pretty much exactly like I would do with paper and charcoal, but I have UNDO!!  Anyways, this drawing isn’t finished.  I got to figure drawing late, so I was limited, and just like any lazy artist, I wait for the face, hair, and the hands until last.  I guess that’s why they are almost never there.  Anyways, here are the steps I go through:

1. First, I block out the forms and make sure my proportions are correct:

2. I create a second layer and keep “pick up underlying color” checked, then first wipe out the image using a blender brush, then lay down lines for form:

3. After that, I start another layer, and wipe the lines down so that they are not so harsh:

4. Once I have that done, I begin blocking in my light and shadow, and tightening up the edges a bit in places.  I like to have some tight edges and some soft:

5. In my last step, I now go through each part, tightening the drawing, adding shadows, core shadows, highlights, etc. :

So like I said, I didn’t finish this drawing, but I think it is a good example of how I work digitally.  Hopefully next time I’ll actually finish it.

Again, an Updated Demo Reel

Here's the newest edition...



Added a few things and gave it a bit of a makeover.

Great Marcelo Vignali Interview

Thanks for the suggestion from my colleague Sam Nielson -

For those of you who don't know him, Marcelo Vignali is an amazing artist working at Sony Animation Studios. In this interview, he gives so much good information about being an artist in the industry today, it's hard to summarize. It's a good hour long discussion, but it's amazing to hear his thoughts on being and becoming an artist in this industry. I would recommend everyone watch it.

Mirroring Shape Keys in Softimage

I have been trying t0 figure out why so many 3D packages refuse to make tools that are easy and intuitive. Continued searching has just proven to me that most packages try to do the same things as the others, just in a different, but still overly difficult, way. So I moved one of my personal projects from Maya into Softimage. Making new morphs was a painful process in Maya, and I know that rigging is a lot better in XSI, so I thought I would give it a shot. So I started making shapes, and wanted to figure out a way to mirror them easily. So I went out on the net looking for some tutorials. The only ones I really found were using GATOR. Not a very easy thing to do. So I read about using weight maps to do the mirroring. Not very much info. so after testing and trying and reading and watching, I tried to put it all together and finally figured it out. This method may be widely known, but unfortunately, there's very little demonstration or documentation on it, so I thought I would do that so others don't have to go through what I did. Once you have the weight maps made, Softimage actually makes it really nice and easy to separate your symmetrical shapes. Here's a quick demo of how it works:

Digital Drawings

Here are a few digital sketches from our Friday figure drawing sessions. They were just studies, as I was trying to feel more comfortable with a stylus and tablet while sketching...