The Sketch Book of an Aspiring Concept Artist

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

Ok guys razz going to combine my mentee post and introduction together here! I am a 17 year old senior in high school whose greatest wish is to become a concept artist for video games. I want to become skilled in all styles of art and I do know that I will have to start with realism first because its a base for all the other so I will be doing more and more studies for you guys to critique (personally I like all styles anyways so its fun for me to draw realistically) I know I am not that good now but I believe that I can become a great concept artist because I am very devoted to art and have a general love for images as well as a very very creative mind. I practice drawing around 43-45 hours a week as long as nothing goes horribly wrong in my life razz however my scanner is on the fritz so I have to scan everything at school at the moment which means I'll only be able to post after school and I won't be able to show you stuff I do over the weekend till the next school day. I'm actually really excited about this guild it looks like just what I'm looking for because I really really could use every single critique, hint, tip, scrap of advice, ideas for practice, basically anything you can throw at me I want!


First up is a sketch of a key blade I made! Lol this one would be from a Soul Calibur world.


Heres a key blade that is more death oriented.


razz and finally a techno style one!


A charcoal portrait of Orlando Bloom as Legoless (sp?)


razz Just kind of a doodle or Alma from F.E.A.R.


razz My GF wanted me to draw her as a Kingdom Hearts Charrie.


This is a freehand of the Dragoon Nobody from Kingdom Hearts.


A manga styled drawing of a rather gnarly looking three tailed fox.


My folklore contest entry! Hinotama is born from a fallen star and has power over starlight.


A portrait of Milla Jovovich from RE: Extinction done in tempra paint.


An acrylic painting of a folklore I made up for the game Folklore.


A study of a stool from my art class.


The same stool except now I redesigned it to make it look more futuristic and more menacing.


Self portrait the didn't turn out as well as I had hopped it would did it drawing from my mirror instead of a pic will do the next one from a pic and from a more dynamic angle with a more interesting expression on my face.



Just some practice

more practice

Xemnas fan art razz Poor Xehanort *g*

Well will post more soon but for now please give me critiques, hints, tips, advice, and your opinions! I would very much love a mentor as I think it would motivate me even more to try harder and improve! Also any of you who happen to be members of CA.org please check out my sketch book as well razz lol even though it is basically the same deal I'm trying to spread myself around so I get a lot of critiques and also because I think it'll be cool to have all these picture collected together in these places to see how I improve from now into the future.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108771  

[Errol McGillivray]

I think the barstool study/concept shows you're already doing what you need to to do be a concept artist. The rest of the stuff shows you're not doing enough of it.

For your weapons, I would start from a real world base to get them substance. At least so your handles feel like they can be held and your blades feel like they can cut.

You're also definitely going to have to work on anatomy and perspective.

I think you'll be a working concept artist. Just keep at it. (Make sure the time you spend drawing is spent wisely too. Just drawing any old thing isn't really going to do much for training you to draw specific things.)

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more from you.  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

Mmmmm thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for! *soaks up the delicious criticism* Mmmmm tasty. Ok, I will do a lot more life studies to improve myself with before I attempt anything stylized for awhile, look forward to your future criticism on that!  

[Errol McGillivray]

Hm, your stylization will come, but just be sure to let it come from you. Anime can be stylistically crippling to fledgling artists. There are few who can make it work for them. And that usually happens with things that people learn from life drawing like dynamic lighting and such. Don't worry. That exercise from Seedling is a great place to start. Do life studies, then draw it again as something new.  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

I actually do enjoy those assignments alot razz but also can you help me figure out what I did wrong in my self portrait so that I don't muck it up so bad next time razz I have to totally redo the normal portrait then make another and add imagined elements to it. First off I think I made the entire head lopsided I'm pretty sure, I think my eyes aren't on the same plane, I made the chin much to wide and the entire head became wider because of that also the sides of the chin I think should have a greater slant to them, lips are much to small and the nose is also slightly lopsided and I am dissatisfied with the general shading of the whole portrait and think I really need to work on the hair as well. Any other things you see? and could you also tell me how to correct these mistakes?  

[Errol McGillivray]

No problem. Do you have the reference from either of the ones you have posted?  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

I didn't use a reference for that picture but I'll post a picture of myself so you get a general idea what I look like razz



Heres just some random practice


Heres a sketch of a fox a did!


Please critique and give me as much advice as possible! P.S. my art teacher must love me razz he's bringing me a scanner to keep for myself sometime during this week! So once he does I'll be able to update more frequently.  

[Call Me Stephanie]

To the best of my knowledge, those are some damn good hands! So many people have trouble with them (myself included). Amazing detail and poses.

I think the angle of the can is either odd or off. I don't think you'd see so much of the top of it if you were to see all that side with the trademark name and geisha. Maybe that's just me though... but it looks off... I really think it's the top of it, if you were to adjust that I think the picture would look more "correct" Other than that, wow! The shading/highlighting is awesome!

I think the fox's ears may be too big. Even for a fox. Unless it was a like tundra fox... but if it were then it'd be more white... unless it was in summer... but even then it wouldn't have those leaves around it... did you have a reference picture? Maybe I'm just being crazy... Sorry. I love the eyes though, so much detail! The short strokes with the pencil really gives the illusion of fur. Very good job. I think shadows could have been a little more pronounced though. I see good highlights in the eyes and nose, but I'm sure the fur would have more highlights and shadows. Also, the leaves throw the picture off. The fox has so much detail yet the leaves are just outlines. I think you should add more detail them or just get rid of them.

I hope some of that wall of text helps sweatdrop Over all great stuff as Errol said. Keep up the great work and can't wait to see more. ^_^

 

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

*g* yeah I did muck up that can a little but by the time I realized it I was already almost finished so what can ya do lol razz and yeah I had a reference for that and the ears are the right size I think but just need more texture and shading. I agree about maybe pronouncing the shading more but I was in kind of a rush to post it razz don't have a scanner here atm but hopefully will soon and also my art teacher said it looked just about right razz I didn't really feel that way but I figured if he thought it then it was probably good enough to post, I will go over it and fix it up a bit this weekend after I do a few more practice things and such and see what I can do! Thanks for the crits and compliments I really appreciate it! razz look forward t hearing from you in the future!  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

*bumps* razz sorry I wasn't able to turn anything out today and also can anyone help me and tell me what else I need to fix in the self portrait? I posted a refrence photo further up.  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

Heres the sketch I've been working on I'm pretty proud of it. hand and arm are modeled after mine! Hmm what sort of dark ritual could be taking place here, an arm of an unknown assailant clutches an evil eye, a Turkish talisman used to ward off evil and bring one good luck, by the thread as his vile putrid blood trickles over it slowly corrupting it for a darker purpose as soon a ghostly creature reaches out from the brink of nothingness to hungrily drink the blood of its new master.



As always please critique and comment! Also I would still like help with that self portrait along with tons of advice on anything else you think I need to improve on.  

[Yuri Mono]

Your shading is pretty much amazing.
i am envious. I dont have the patience to shade like that... heh eheh....

Anyways. As concept art really isnt my style, I cant really give any tips andpointers on that, except like Errol said, take something that you see, and redraw it, like you did w/the stool, into the conepty-ness... >_>

And for the peope drawings? Perspective yes, but also some of the shapes and proportions are off.

Keep at it!  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

Thanks alot! Yeah I know I kinda mess up on that stuff but razz I'm trying to fix it slowly.  

[Errol McGillivray]

I can see you used a snake for the creature. EXCELLENT. I would also suggest looking for reference on the leg things. Choose an animal. Are they crab like? Spider like? Are they more like fingers? Long mammal toes? What is the function? Are they there to walk? To grab? Does the creature need it to eat? Are those eyes running along the body or marks that LOOK like eyes? Why? Function is a MAJOR part of creature design. Nothing is randomly there because it looks cool. (Unless it's like, a man made monster or something.)

Look in my mentor thread. There's a creature design assignment there you might want to try your hand at. Edit: There's also a hand construction diagram in the resource sticky. You did a damn decent job on the hand, but that might help you some anyway.  

[Esper The Phantom Beast]

Thanks for the invite Errol its really appreciated! LOL and I was really hoping someone would ask about the piece (wasn't sure if I should just blurb out all my thoughts on it or if you guys just want to see the artwork, but I guess from now on I'll spin the full tale of what I draw!)

The Lesser Hex: They are small phantasmal creatures that feed on the electrical impulses of the nervous system, they use to account for a large amount of the unexplained deaths in the world but in recent times the attacks on humans seemed to have ceased. This maybe because the modernization of the world and the wide spread use of electricity interferes with the way they hunt. All of the electromagnetic fields generated by electronics interfere with the photo receptors lining the front of their body which are used to lock on to the energy contained with in living beings. They then would ruthlessly track down this energy digging their legs deep within the spine of their pray as a secondary tongue would slowly reveal itself stored in the bulge around the legs. This long powerful tongue would then pierce the spinal column of its pray and wrap around the spinal chord itself slowly drinking in all of the prays electrical impulses which sustain the Lesser Hex's ethereal form. Because the normal human eye cannot see these creatures the only tell tale sign someone was being plagued by a Lesser Hex was the circular wounds that would appear on the back, six dots centered around the spine with one directly over the spine above these. Nowadays however it seems most Lesser Hex's use the heat sensors above their lips to seek out light bulbs which they will then swarm about gliding in circles as their secondary tongues lash out and quickly whip at the bulb tearing streams of energy from it. Today the only thing the Lesser Hex account for is the great number of malfunctioning light bulbs and occasional power surge. It is rumored however that there are some belonging to ancient clans and other occult groups that know ways to control these creatures directing them away from this easy food source and towards those they consider their enemies.