Ugly sketchbook // studies 📝 (Patreon)

Hi patrons!!!! How are you? Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

I'm good because I'm back to traditional art finally. I haven't touched a single pencil or marker in a month, part because I was kinda burnt out since Mermay (which I didn't even completed come on, Gret) and part because I genuinely wanted to invest some time on my digital art.

Anyways, I'm working on a project with Upper Deck where I need to do traditional illustrations of Marvel characters in tiny collectible cards. It's super fun! I'm SO tempted on showing you guys a liiiitle sneak peek but I can't due to contract reasons. I need to behave lol. I was so rusty with character poses that I needed to look for some references and study a bit before starting. Just to incorporate new ideas into my memory library, it's always very helpful.

So I took my "ugly" sketchbook (the sketchbook I use to sketch freely whatever I want) and started doodling. Here's a Storm I did to warm up:

Here I took references from Carlos Gomez he's amazing at doing poses, specially superhero poses!

Then I went into some random artists to copy their anatomy and learn THEIR way of doing it. I took references from Loish and Kyrartz. Sometimes copying a bit is tremendously helpful, specially when you're on an art block or haven't drawn freely in a while. It makes you draw in a way you normally wouldn't, simplify things in new ways, it helps to change your mindset a bit and incorporate new ways of seeing stuff. I also sometimes feel validated, like "oh, X artist also draws leg's anatomy the same way I do" which I know sounds silly but remembering that the way we normally do things isn't exactly wrong is also very helpful!

Here're more random faces I did trying to film a tiktok video and some noses:

And since I was in the traditional art mood, I started working on ideas for a new drawing to participate in the Copic Award 2020. Here're some doodles and compositions:

Here's the final drawing I haven't started painting yet:

I took a photo and tried some colors to see which palette I'm going to use:

Once I was happy with the colors, I did some tests searching for the perfect shades of markers that will help me to achieve a similar result traditionally:

And that's it! I'll hopefully make some more progress tomorrow.

Hope you're well and safe!

Love,

Gret