Posts published in “Sketchworks”

As it says on the tin. So many hours today, so little time.

-the Centaur

Super quick sketch as it is late and I am tired, and no post-processing as my computer is applying updates.

Don't break the streak, hit send.

-the Centaur

Drawn from an image, not a screensaver, so I had more time; but no construction lines, so the face ended up kind of kwonkeldy. I believe that construction lines help close the loop; but the exercise here was to carefully pay attention to the hair shapes to see how it flowed. For that purpose, it came out okay.

Definitely room for improvement on my end!

-the Centaur

I had a somewhat ruined piece of paper, not a lot of time, and there was an image of Belldandy from Ah My Goddess on my computer's screen saver, so I decided to draw that. Unfortunately, the screen saver kept changing, and even though there were several pictures of characters from the franchise, I couldn't quite keep the image straight.

Ah well, it's late, I'm tired, scan and send - keep drawing daily, no matter what.

Don't break the streak.

-the Centaur

Another hand, after Goldman. I thought I was doing quite well until I tried to close the loop on the hand, and realized I'd messed up the spacing, making the hand too wide, which I partially fixed; but that in turn messed up the webbing between the hand and the finger - leading to that dark line I could not fix.

Oh well, next time. Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

More Goldman studies. Like an AI, I kept drawing this foot with six toes, not quite sure why. Mostly fixed it, but it could have been better, if only I had learned to count.

-the Centaur

More studies from the Goldman book.

-the Centaur

Xiao Dreamweaver from f@nu fiku again, this time drawn with a little more breathing room.

-the Centaur

Huh. I gave myself more time, worked on the construction lines, used better pens (though, blame your tools, I could tell that the older pens produced a worse line) and overall tried to make this come out better. But I don't really like how it turned out ... something is "off" about David Tennant here, more than just my typical need to draw more, draw more, draw more, and don't waste time.

-the Centaur

Pictured: the Fourteenth Doctor.

Took a little more time with this one, but still needed to start it at an earlier part of the day when I had more time. But today was really busy due to work and research, so it is what it is.

-the Centaur

Pictured, Peter Capaldi from a ScreenRant/Guardian article.

Same subject, using better pens this time. I can more or less confirm:

• A better arm position helps reduce the jerkiness of my drawing motions.
• Using the Micron pens beats using Pilot V5 for keeping a smooth line.
• A poor craftsman blames his instruments, as I can clearly tell I need both more practice, and to take more care in tracing lines.
• I need to give myself more time for these drawings, as I did much better when I was relaxed for time on our recent vacation.

Onward!

-the Centaur

What strikes me about this sketch is how much better the pencils looked. During the inking, my pen frequently "jumped" around on the paper, causing some of the lines to end up in the wrong place (particularly the right (drawn on the left) eye and the left (drawn on the right) jaw).

Perhaps another recommendation to re-visit my arm position (or perhaps the pen; this was a Pilot V5, which is a pen I love for writing, but not as good as the Microns and other pens I normally use for drawing).

Regardless ... keep going.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Porsche the Centaur, obviously.

SO this is with the notebook held further away and using more arm than wrist motion. I think it worked well.

-the Centaur

More from the Goldman book. I have a tremor in my hand which you can most readily see on the lower left; I traditionally have attributed it to the RSI that I picked up back in the late 90's during grad school (a combination of an internship with a bad ergonomic setup at work and at my apartment, during which I was also writing a proposal for the PEPE robot pet project and playing Dungeon Keeper at night; I woke up one day with a throbbing wrist and couldn't type for nine months).

But my wife pointed out I'm drawing in my wrist, not with my arm, and that can also cause wobbly lines. So I'm going to try the next drawing with a slightly further notebook position and more arm movement. Perhaps the tremors aren't something I have to accept after all. We shall see.

-the Centaur

Moar Goldman studies. Now far into the book enough to start reading his section on tools, which normally I ignore as I have my own preferred methods; but this time, I felt I could see what he was saying. Who knows, maybe I'll actually try some of his pencil methods this time, and not just ink.

-the Centaur