Digital Painting and Color Theory? HELP!

I haven't done a whole lot.  I tried to do some environment sketches and realized I might need to go over this color theory dvd, Theory and Application with Jeremy Vicker, again.  To be sure I got most of the information, I took notes.. and then I tried to use the information in a sketch.  In the sketch, I realized not only do I lack knowledge on color.. I can't seem to get into the details of a digital painting!  

Other than that.. I had a dream that I was lost in a giant house looking for a specific room.. before long I came out of a door to see this large open area with trees, cliffs, and waterfalls.  A sword in a stone 'locked' the path up to a loft on a cliff.  I quickly tried to sketch it out.. but I found trying to make sense of the location didn't.. uhh.. make any sense. lol  The stone felt like it was locking a path in the dream, but it was a wide open area.

"I hear Nebraska is nice."

I was in a rut for a few days.  One bad drawing spun out of control and I couldn't draw anything.. until last Sunday when The Walking Dead came back on.  All I can say is that "I hear Nebraska is nice" scene made me want to draw the characters. lol

I attempted to record everything I drew.. but I was having some serious problems with CamStudio.  One file is 2.2gigs but won't play.  One file is 1.2gigs and displays multiple cursors while flashing to black constantly.

What did I do all week aside from skimming the Force books (Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators;  Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing)?  I read a few comics that I thought were pretty good.  What I like most about most of these is they aren't the typical comic book character style of drawing.  Most of them have their own style.

1. Blankets is just a story about growing up.
2. The Walking Dead comics are really good so far too!  They don't spoil the show since the show seems to take new directions and twists.. but the whole time you're hoping the show will meet the gruesome expectations of the comic for that extra shock and understanding of what a world like this does to a human being.
3. Pride of Baghdad was about some lions that escaped a zoo in the middle east and attempted to survive in a warzone.  
4. Sky Doll.  Generally I don't like the style of art where characters have obnoxiously big boobs.. but this is set in a cyberpunk-ish world where sex dolls have become sentient and religious miracles are sold off like products and prophets are more like stage performers. 
5. Transmetropolitan ofcourse. :P

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Study Group?

I'm kind of jumping between books at this point.. but I just got Drawing Words and Writing Pictures in the mail.  The book says it's structured to follow the model of a 15-week college semester course.  (Typically a three to six hour session once a week).. and I love that.  A book that has clear exercises and assignments in it just helps me understand so much quicker.

I've only checked out the first chapter 'Building Blocks'.. and i've only done the first exercise.  Would anyone else be interested in going through this book together?  We could compare our drawings.. etc.  You don't even have to be good.. hell, I started drawing comics this january because I spent so much time sitting on my hands thinking "I'll make an animation/comic when I'm capable of it!" while other artists start out bad and get good from all the experience.

The first exercise was:  Sketch these five moving objects in five separate drawings, each one a single image (not in sequence). 

After that, you're suppose to compare different versions of each object drawn by your colleagues and  figure out which ones were most successful at conveying movement.  Figure out which aren't working and why.. then make a list of each technique used to imply motion.

Gesture Drawings, Feb 1st!

Sketching away a toothache.  I think one of the best things I've learned recently is that when you exaggerate the pose you begin to match the energy of the model.. whereas when you attempt to match the model the pose may fall flat.

I'm not great with color.. I need to pick up a book or two on the subject. lol

Again, most of the knowledge I've gotten on Figure Drawing has recently come from the book Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators.

These particular references came from the book Art Models 6.. The book has 360 degree shots of each pose.. and I find it useful to see form/shape better.  It's not just a flat image when I can kind of rotate the model and see what's going on from other angles.

There are plenty of other free reference sites like Lovecastle, Pixelovely, and CharacterDesigns.com.  I just found Virtual Pose and Art Models to be pretty damn useful as far as the 360 degree shots go!

(If your adblock is off I'm leaving some links below to all of the books I've been using lately)

Gesture Drawings Jan 29th/30th/31st.

At some point I felt like I had forgotten everything that I had read from Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators.. but I think I just needed to lay a few strokes down to remember.  While it's not the best, the guy was actually done without a reference.  There might be flaws with it.. but from memory I think that's pretty good, and from here I'll only get better!  Just got to keep it up!  And I have to read the second Force book Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing too!

I found some amazing resources for figure drawing that I'll link after this picture!

I've been using these free websites and they've been extremely helpful: 

http://lovecastle.org/draw/

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

http://characterdesigns.com/

..but I feel like they lack something by being just flat images.  I might not be seeing the actual form of the body.. and I can't move closer to the subject to get a more dynamic angle.. so I was extremely excited when I found these books:  

Virtual Pose is a series of books that also contain quicktime files of models you can rotate 360 degrees by just panning the image. I personally feel like it helps give you a better understanding of form in the human figure when you can see the other angles so easily.. and it's something I was lacking sitting in front of a flat image trying to sculpt the form of the body.  Now all I need is some drastic angles to go with these! (links:  Virtual Pose Duo, Virtual Pose 4 (more action/motion poses!), Virtual Pose 3.)

Also found the Art Models series of books/cd-roms full of pictures.  These also provide a 360 degree shot of each pose.  I've only seen Art Models 6, but I'm sure the others are just as good.  These have something Virtual Pose doesn't seem to have.. which is facial expressions and some shots of different angles.

(If your adblock is off I'm leaving some links below to all of the books I've been using lately)

Comic #7!

lol Of course this would probably create some sort of time paradox.. or create an alternate universe where only alternate universe me would benefit from the excruciating torment of some strange fat hairy guy threatening to kill me if I didn't read more books and draw more.

Speaking of books, I've been slowly reading Scott McCloud's Making Comics.  I'm enjoying it so far!  I've done a few of the exercises from the first chapter.. Dog Eats Dog and Choice of Frame (which I could use input on!  I have four more frames to draw.  I need you to tell me what happens next!)

If your adblock is off there will be a quick link to the Making Comics book on Amazon.  Definitely worth the price!

Gesture/figure/head drawings. Jan 25th!

Working on heads in perspective and the occasional figure drawing.  Got linked to a bunch of good reference sites thanks to conceptart.org's irc!  

Easy linkage below if your adblock is off.. Definitely worth the money I paid for them.. and I'm not even done with them yet!

 

Making Comics Exercise #5 - Choice of Frame!

Gonna need some help with this exercise from the book Making Comics by Scott McCloud.

Sketch a 16-panel grid on a piece of typing paper with a simple standing figure in the first panel.  Ask a friend to decide what your character should do in panel two.  Draw the suggestion and consider whether it was necessary to change the viewing angle.   If your character encounters an elephant, do you have to pull back?  If he she clips a toenail, do you have to pull in?  Do any of the suggestions require a tilt or rotation of viewing angle?  Do any require a change of elevation?  Repeat until the page is filled!

EDIT:  I kind of like the lineart more than I do the colored version.. so it's going on top! lol

Easy linkage to Scott McCloud's Making Comics on Amazon below (If your adblock is off).  So far it's been worth it, and everyone always recommends his books to me.

Making Comics by Scott McCloud

Reading Making Comics by Scott McCloud.  At the end of the first chapter there are a few exercises to do.  "Dog eat dog, dog burps, dog figure skates" is one of the options for the third exercise.  This is what I originally pictured in my head.. lol

If your adblock is off I'll leave a quick link to Making Comics by Scott McCloud. .  Everyone has been recommending this book to me.

I also attempted exercise #1: Choice of Moment in which you had to split your favorite movie into 16 frames.. gotta admit, this was kind of difficult. lol  I decided not to sketch it all out because it would've taken too long.  First I had over 30.. but I got there eventually.  Does it retain enough information to tell the story?

Heres 16:

Also said to try and drop that down to 8..

Gesture Drawings, Jan 19-20!

Feeling like I need to read over the Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing book again.  Might not be retaining all the information.. lol

I'm also attempting to work on heads in perspective.  I thought I always had it down, but my heads are kind of flat and trying to draw someone looking up from below is painful.  Must.. destroy.. this.. shortcoming!

If your adblock is off I'm leaving two quick links to the books.  I definitely think they're worth it.  People have been complimenting me about how my figure drawings are full of motion and action.. and I swear it all came from about a month of reading the first book.  (also I may be a slow readerlol)