Posts Tagged ‘mentor experiment’

9 results.

Visually Brainstorming with Shapes

by Krishna on September 25, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Mentor, News

This is the first in a series of blog articles that I plan to write on visual brainstorming. As artists, there comes a time (many times actually) where you stare at a blank canvas in your sketchbook (or digital canvas) and wonder what to draw.

For me, tonight was that night. I must have stared at the screen for a good 20 minutes. The urge to draw was there – but I wanted to draw something different – not just rely on muscle memory.

So I opened up Photoshop and created a random shape using the Lasso tool. After coming up with a closed form of some variety, I filled its color in via Option-Backspace (on the Mac) or Alt-Backspace (on the PC).

rotate_to_find_form

Next, I rotated the canvas around in an attempt to “find the form”. In essence, I’m taking a shape that’s abstract and mentally trying to map something onto it.

finding_forms_from_shapes

I tried to graft my drawing onto the form as closely as possible, allowing for the flexibility to add to the sketch as needed. There are no wrong answers at this stage – it’s merely an exploratory exercise.

So if you’re feeling stuck drawing the same old thing, try this trick. Let me know if you found this trick useful. How do you visually brainstorm ideas for upcoming projects? Share your ideas in the comments below.

-Krishna

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The Mentor Experiment: Silhouettes: Kyndra’s Critique

by Krishna on March 8, 2012 at 9:13 am
Posted In: Mentor, News

Kyndra: Silhouette Study: victorian girl
The focus for last week’s Mentor Experiment assignment was silhouette values. Up above are Kyndra’s submissions. Kyndra did a really nice job conveying the age and time period in her silhouette studies.

The one suggestion I’d make is to have a little bit of the rim of her glass peek through her silhouette in the bottom pose (where she’s twirling the pocket watch). The character has a nice line of action on the top left pose, and it can be pushed further for the bottom pose. The running silhouette could be clearer with the hand in the back moved out to our left so it’s more visible.

Overall, really strong work, Kyndra!

-Krishna

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Mentor Experiment: Leg Studies Critique

by Krishna on February 22, 2012 at 10:13 pm
Posted In: Mentor, News

For those of you who were wondering, the Mentor Experiment took a brief detour last week in light of my preparation for Megacon.

This week we look at Barry and Kyndra’s leg studies assignment. I’m going to combine both critiques into one post for brevity. First up, we have Barry’s designs (Click the image below to see a larger version.)

barry Leg Studies

The first thing I noted when reviewing Barry’s work was that I couldn’t tell the male legs apart from the female legs. Female legs tend to taper a bit more than male legs, with the kneecap less emphasized. The next thing I discovered was that there was a great deal of symmetry going on with both the positions of the legs, as well as the shapes used to realize the volumetric forms. Symmetry, while beautiful in nature, tends to make a pose look less dynamic.

The first thing I would suggest to Barry is to simplify the volumetric shapes to curves and straights, and to de-emphasize the muscles. The muscles fall into the “details” category, and should only be incorporated after the basic volumetric forms are solid. Another point to make note of is that legs taper to the ankles. While there is a hint of tapering in Barry’s drawings, I feel that the volumetric forms of the lower leg can be tapered even more.

Overlapping forms create depth, and there’s one drawing where the legs are posed such that they form an awkward tangent. (It’s the sitting pose in the middle.) Watch those tangents, Barry!

kyndra Leg Studies

Moving on, we next look to Kyndra’s drawings. Overall, I think she has a solid grasp of both proportions and volumetric form. There is a clarity about her drawings that make it every easy to determine whether the legs belong to a male or female. My suggestions for Kyndra would be to focus on including the heel – it should slightly curve out from the lower leg. The other area (which is minor) is to keep in mind that the more the leg is bent, the more there is overlap between the upper leg and the lower leg.

Let’s give our crew a round of applause for their efforts, shall we? And lets also thank the other participants like JahhDog and DungeonWarden for their continued participation. Keep it up, folks!

We’re half-way through the Mentor Experiment! Next up: Drawing hair!

-Krishna

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