So again I neglected the hands. Other than avoiding the hands I think that this figure came out pretty good. there are some issues with the shadows but the highlights look pretty good.

Some sort of aquatic crustaceans. This was just a quick hour long study.

 So I'm changing the format of my gesture drawings and anatomy studies. Now the gestures are from the site posemanics.com and each one is a 60 second long pose and the longer poses come from photos found on Deviantart. 

I like the final pose here ,but my biggest issue is with the hands. I left them unfinished and I shouldn't avoid hands because they are something that I have struggled with in the past and continue to struggle with. Other than that I think that this drawing came out pretty good.

Another machine study. I think that I'm still struggling but improving.

While this figure okay but to much of it is unfinished for me to be happy with. It's the same problem that I've been having for a while. Well defined muscles take me a lot of time to get right so by the time i get them done I don't have much time to get the figure finished to the degree I would like. 

Another foreshortening exercise. It came out pretty good for such a short study, there are some issues that I could have solved with another hour of work, but most of these issues are minor

While there are some anatomical issues here but I like the composition and the pose in this drawing. Fortunately the anatomical issues are rather minor so overall I'm happy with this figure.

A cloth study that took an hour to do. I feel kind of meh about this one. Some of this painting I'm happy with, some of the folds are good but the color isn't very good and I need to work on that.

While there are things that I like about this figure for the most part I don't like it. Overall the figure looks flat and uneven. Some parts are finished and smoothly rendered others are very unfinished. Again a well defined figure causes me a multitude of headaches. One of these days I will get it.

A whale shark in full color! Trying to get more comfortable working with color so that means that more of the stuff I post will be in color. This guy is my second go at painting marine life and I think for a quick painting he came out pretty good. I particularly like the under lighting which was barely in the original photo but I think that taking it up and making it brighter and more saturated makes the picture much more lively.

 I like how the lighting in this figure defines the form. The original photo was of a woman leaning out a window so her back and shoulders catch a lot of light while her but and legs are in almost complete shadow with some stray bits of light defining the form. this is one of the poses that I would have liked to have spent more time on.

Another stab at mechanical objects. Still a bit of a weakness for me but I feel like I am getting better. With this one I tried to block in the whole form first and then work on details instead of doing a line drawing. I think that this approach works better for the most part but it's not one I am comfortable with yet.

Some slight foreshortening on this figure. The more I do this the more I seem to get the hang of it, I just wish it felt that way when I was working on the figures. I struggle and curse when I'm painting but then when it's all done I have something that looks good. I just wish that I had had the time to finish the legs and feet on this one.

Now some extreme foreshortening. This is more of a challenge than than just some slight foreshortening because I have to think about body parts in a completely different way and a lot of my points of reference are no longer able to give me any direction. I struggled with this one for a little over an hour and there is still so much that I would have liked to have done with it.

I like the muscles in the chest and shoulders but the head and hands need a lot more work. Muscles, when there well defined, are hard for me to do quickly. I think it's because I'm not as confidant with well defined muscles as I am with softer feminine muscles.

I like the color on the dress but the skin tone is a bit off. Overall the folds and wrinkles came out good and the color isn't bad. It took an hour to do.

 Some foreshortening for the final pose this time. I like the way this one came out, a bit soft in some spots but I like the way that it came out. There aren't many anatomical issues that I see but I wish that I had done some more work with the hair.

An octopus. I've been working on some animal studies and I decided to work on some marine creatures. I like how he came out even if he was a bit out of my comfort zone.

So I'm feeling a little under the weather so I'm using some of my back up material. This is forty drawings of hands in various poses. Hands are always a problem for me so this was an attempt to improve my ability to draw hands. Obviously this was done a while ago and I have improved since these were done but I still feel like a good majority of these drawings are solid.

 A rare male figure on this website. I like some of the highlights on the chest and the shadows on his face, my biggest issue with this figure is the muscles. Not that the anatomy is bad or incorrect it's just that with male figures that have well defined muscles it takes me a long time paint them.

Doing some mechanical drawings to get more comfortable with inorganic objects. This one took an hour and I didn't get any where near close to finished with this one. I have to reevaluate how I draw and paint so that I can get pictures down quickly and still be happy with the quality.

With this pose I spent to much time working on the face and the rest of the figure is relatively unfinished. I like the figure over all but I need to manage my time more effectively.

This is a copy of a painting done by an artist named Liepke called Desire. I think that the color and the expression came out pretty close to the original. For a piece that I only spent four hours on I am happy with the result.

Also 100th post!

So I didn't quite get around to finishing her pants on this one but the upper body came out pretty good. Speed is becoming my biggest problem, I know what to do it just seems to take me a long time to do it the way that I like. So I think the way that I paint needs to be adjusted so that I can get the result that I want in a reasonable amount of time.

I'm doing some foreshortening studies now and this is the first. This took an hour to do and I think that it's okay. there are some minor anatomical issues with the shoulder and the feet but I think they are the result of my time limit more than any thing. Speed is becoming my number one problem. It seems like I can do the work it just takes forever to do well.

While I think that the contrast in this picture could have been pushed a little more the anatomy, the face and the highlights all came out good. 

A cloth study that took an hour. This was done from a photo of a man in a traditional Japanese costume. For a quick study I'm pretty happy with it.

This pose is a bit too unfinished for me to like. The upper body looks fine but the legs and the head could have used some more time. Other than that I don't have a lot to say.

Me and a friend where chatting over Skype and she suggested that I do a painting of a vulture and here is the result. This took a couple of hours and it was fun to do because I don't draw a lot of birds.

 The final pose here is a bit to low contrast, the shadows need to be darker and the bright parts need to have  stronger highlights. I think that I must have been having an off day when I did this picture.

This is a copy of a painting done by Leyendecker one of my favorite artists. While the colors came out a little warmer than the original I still like it and I think I got his style down pretty well. This took four hours to do and if I had a little more time I would have done some more color correction.

 Some foreshortening practice on this one. This one took me a bit longer than I would have liked because of the foreshortening. Because of that parts of the figure aren't finished and there are no highlights. Also I feel like the whole figure is a bit to dark. Part of that is that the picture I was working from was kind of dark and part of it is that I spent most of my time struggling with the foreshortening. Despite that I like this figure and think that its pretty good in light of the fact that I struggle with foreshortening.

This is a copy I did of a painting by a guy named Anders Zorn. The whole thing took about four hours I would have liked to get some color in this copy but I try to stick to my time limits other wise I never seem to finish a painting. Besides that I think that this is a good copy, the figure and all the background elements are close to the original. The lighting was the main reason that I picked this piece to copy and I think that I successfully copied the feel of the lights in this scene. 

I feel kind of meh about this figure. It's not bad but nothing on it stands out as being particularly good either. The anatomy is good but could use some work, there are places than need to be finished but the places that are finished look good and so on. I think this is just more evidence that I need to be able to work more efficiently. 

My final ambient occlusion study. It's a bit boring but I think that over all looking at stuff like ambient occlusion has been helpful to me.

 I like where this figure was going I just wish that I had finished it. The torso, thigh ,and upper arms all look pretty good but the rest of the figure is incomplete. I think I have to work on my speed and be more efficient with my time when I'm painting.

This is a study in translucency and I think that it came out pretty good. I like how as the arm moves further away from the glass it becomes more blurry and distorted. And even though the figure looks like  person, no details  can really be seen through the glass. The texture of the glass was a bit of a challenge  I wanted to get the texture across while still making it feel like glass. For the most part I think that I succeed.

 I like the way that the lower back and thighs turned out in this picture. I think one of the biggest problems with this picture is that a lot of the definition in the upper back and forearms that is to hard. The muscles look to defined and need to be softened and made to fit into the figure better.

A subsurface scattering study. I like this one because its a abstract shape rather than a part of anatomy. The two light sources were a bit tricky to deal with. Overall I like the way that the light and color pass through the object.

 Certain parts of this figure look a bit flat. The anatomy is good and the cloth looks good even if it's unfinished. I like the face and shoulder I think that they are the best part of the drawing.

Another reflected light study. I like this one because the picture had a slight reflection on the table and that was something that I hadn't done much of. So I think that this came out good, the reflected light is on the pear and on the table and the reflection is feint but still recognizable. 

I like this pose. There is a nice amount of movement in it and I think that it comes across in the drawing. I think that the leg that's bent might be incorrect; either I didn't make it long enough or it's foreshortened and I failed to get that across in the drawing. Other than that error I like the anatomy in the chest and arms, the light is good really defining the form, and the sense of movement comes across without being to stiff or to unbalanced, both of which have been a problem for me in the past.

Ambient occlusion study number three. This time with a doughnut added to the box and sphere. One thing that working on stuff like this has helped with is working in layers. Just taking advantage of the fact that I can paint on one layer without disturbing what is on the other layers and then when I get to a point where I'm satisfied I can erase what I don't need. Seems like something simple but sometimes I forget simple stuff like that and doing these kinds of exercises helps me remember and retain that kind of information.

 Not very happy with this one. He came out a bit scrawnier than I intended and none of the details really got to a point that I would call finished. I think that this must have been an off day for me.

This is another study in translucency. This time I painted some kind of stone tile (marble?) that was back lit to see how the interior structure of the stone affected the light. I like the way this one came out, you can see the variations beneath the surface and see how the light moves throughout the whole stone. All in all this came out pretty good and I'm happy with this one.

 I like the pose I did here. It has some movement to it and while it could use some more finish in some areas I don't see any glaring mistakes. The only thing that I'm not happy with is the hair it looks like it's dreadlocks, I should have used a different brush for the hair.

Another subsurface scattering study. I think that this is a marble statue that's been back lit. I like the way this one came out. Getting some of the colors right was a challenge because of the way that they change as the marble gets thicker.