Sendo's Sketchbook

[sendo]

Well you're obviously a natural! I could only dream of doing art like this. >.<

But it probably was partly due to the dedication and focus - sometimes the hardest part is bothering to draw something every day!

Hey, have you done one of those "from then to now" meme things?

I don't know about being a natural. I'm just stubborn and I don't want to give up on something that I love doing haha xD

Yeah it's really all about putting time and effort to it. Once you done this enough, you'll realize that the only difference between you and 'better' artists is how much time and effort you dedicate into it and the willingness to push yourself out of your comfort zone. At least, that's how I see it. If you 'think' you can't do it, then you probably can't. But if you take small steps, tackling subjects one at a time, you'll eventually reach your goals even if it takes months or years.

I did the Redraw this Again meme but I don't have enough art to do yearly art progress... Yet. Besides most of my old art are on the back pages of my notebooks, notebooks which are now lost in oblivion (for good reasons haha). I'll definitely compile something, in a few years or so, but for now I'll just keep drawing :3

[ColaCat]

Very true. For example, my sister is in art college and it always shocks me how quickly she can draw a picture of something. The other day I was (sort of) complaining about how she could draw some amazing stuff in minutes. She just replied with "Yeah, but it took me about 5 years to learn how to draw something in 5 minutes." And she's right, I guess, it's all about practice.

Ah! Every now and again, when I clear all the rubbish out of my cupboard, I find a notebook or two and remember why they were buried there XD.

I hope you keep updating this with artwork - I love your stuff.

[sendo]

I hope you keep updating this with artwork - I love your stuff.

Thanks, I will! :3

how she could draw some amazing stuff in minutes

Funny you mentioned that. I also wondered how other artists draw so fast but their '5 minute sketches' still look like something I would spend 987583 hours on.

But I learned, through repeated practice and study, that it's all about understanding the Fundamentals. For example, once you have a really good understanding of human anatomy, you're less likely to second-guess how to draw the eyes in a certain angle, or how to draw the torso in a certain pose, or how the arms connect to the torso, etc. Those fast artists are not just putting down random strokes on the canvas, almost every stroke is calculated and accurate.

It's the same with colors, I've seen insanely fast concept artists who know exactly what colors to use. And again, it's all goes back to understanding fundamentals, in this case color theory. But I think I'll just stop here and just reiterate that understanding Fundamentals is important for any artist who wants to improve their art. ^_^

Anyway, sorry to bore you with all that text, this is a sketchbook so here's a color study and a pose study I did recently-ish. Btw, all those poses are from imagination (no references) that's why some of them are a bit weird. I think drawing something without reference is a really good way to test whether or not you really understood what you're trying to study. At least for me, because my end goal is to be able to draw a human body, in any pose, in any angle, without needing bajillions of references ^.^

[ColaCat]

Ah, true that. I guess it's like people who can read really difficult words - once you know the letters and rules of pronunciation you can read anything, really. Okay... that was a bad analogy - but still!
Heh! Don't worry! I find it quite interesting really - you can ramble to me as much as you like.

Woah. I really like that one that's sorta like Jesus with his arms outstretched. The left foot of those two disconnected feet (top left) looks a little strange. Not quite sure what it is though...

[sendo]

^ thanks!

Been busy with things! Here's a sketch of random anime i've just watched past season, a few manga and old animus. Also, color doodle.

[sendo]

Been doing BGs for too long I think I regressed with character art lol :'D. But had time today so I just grabbed the pen and started drawing. It's quite enjoyable to just draw spontaneously without thinking too much about quality. Here's some of the decent sketches and studies. also, diesel-chan

[ColaCat]

Ugh, sorry I didn't reply to this sooner! My email didn't notify me. >_<

I love the train one, or is it a tram? Either way, that painty, semi-realism type of thing looks so good. What brushes do you use for it?

[sendo]

Ah but you're not obligated to reply, but thank you nonetheless! :3

It's a diesel train. I used the Hard Elliptical brush in Photoshop, basically an angled and squished hard round brush.

And here's another art, not a sketch though. Played around with comfy colors and composition for this one. For the curious, I mostly used SAI for painting and color enhanced in Photoshop. Click for high res.

[Kia]

your characters are lovely, I specially enjoy the coloring. I'm going to stalk you on DA so remember I'm watching you from the shadows

[ColaCat]

O_O That is so good! Is there an equivalent brush like that in SAI?

[sendo]

Thank you both!

Is there an equivalent brush like that in SAI?

The closest I have able to emulate it is the Angled Brush which I linked somewhere in this thread. But because of how SAI's brush engine works, you can't really emulate the way it works in Photoshop — SAI's elemap brushes always rotate based on the direction of your brush strokes, AFAIK there's no way to disable this behavior. There are other good painting brushes on SAI though like Fine_Flat which comes with SAI by default. It's what I used for the recent painting and the hard round brush.

[ColaCat]

Oh! Thank you for the info! I didn't actually know that it rotated with your strokes. I'll have to try out using the different textures. ^_^

[sendo]

Oh! Thank you for the info! I didn't actually know that it rotated with your strokes. I'll have to try out using the different textures. ^_^

No prob! Have fun painting :3

Just watched latest Shirobako and man I can not resist drawing a few fan art so there ya go. Now that that's outta the way, I'll scuttle back to Nano-ing.

[Railgun]

Hey crest!
Wanted to stop by and say how much I appreciate your thread
I really like the diversity of angles and poses for your characters and the rad colors and strokes of your backgrounds!

[sendo]

Thanks for your comment Railgun!
I have lots of sketches and stuff that I'll be posting soon. I've just been really busy with my little nano project. Here's a sneak peek of the BGs in the game. Now back to crunch mode ᕙ(´◉◞౪◟◉｀)ᕗ