Sketch Diary: Inktober prep - day 1 Poisonous - mermaid lounging on a jellyfish

This was my first sketch specifically for Inktober 2018. I went a little overboard with the details but hey, it was fun. 

Watch me draw on youtube:

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Joi inspired portrait

This was inspired by Joi from Bladerunner 2049. There's so much going on in that movie that inspires me as an artist. I could probably do the equivalent of an art thesis all about that film. This sketch started out as me just trying to loosen up my subconcious and clearly, I had Joi on my mind some where in there. It's so cool to have those little chats with your self via drawing.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Portrait quick studies

I used quickposes.com for these but didn't use the timer function (or used a very long timer). I wanted to focus on flushing out the lines a bit more and I like how they turned out. Doing fast, 60 sec portraits seems way harder to me than normal  figure gesture sketches.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Curvy gestures

Cramming as many gestures as possible onto a single page is so satisfying. Then plucking one pose that felt like it had some potential and expanding on it in a longer drawing, I can't recommend the process enough. You get all nice and warmed up doing the 10-15 mins of poses and then spend like 30-45 mins enjoying your fav pose from the set.

Watch me draw this amalgamation here:
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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mermaids lounging on a beach

This was an inktober prep drawing. A little too elaborate to sketch and then ink back to back so I had to do it over two nights. As you may have seen, I did some way too detailed drawings for the first half of inktober this year and then burned out and couldn't catch up. I learned my lesson! It was definitely great progress though and I had a ton of fun. I just got too excited about doing the prompts and pushing my drawings to have some kind of background if possible. No regrets. But next year, I'll be saving up drawings the month before and then only do the inking during inktober.

Also, I think I'll do some freehand inkings in between the planned out drawings. Cuz those take way less time over all. More chance to get weird and go wrong lol but that's what practice is for, right?!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Speedy face studies

Usually, when I sit down to do realistic faces (usually using a reference), it takes a while. Like I sit down and don't get up again for at least 45 mins even if it's just a sketch. Mainly I think that's because I don't lay down solid gesture lines for the face. But every face has those important features, those few lines that really make it. So practicing this quick faces (usually 30-60 seconds) forces me to really focus on what's most important. Cuz otherwise I just get lost in the details way too early on in the drawing process.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mo gestures, mo betta

Just some gesture practice. I'll keep saying it - you wanna get better at drawing ANYTHING? Practice gestures. It's like jumping in the fast lane. In 10 minutes, you can get what feels like 10 hours of muscle memory and eye to hand connection practice: quickposes.com and no, they don't pay me to plug them.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Unwinding woman

I was definitely dealing with some things mentally/emotionally when I sketched this out. I decided not to record it for a video cuz I wanted to just really get into it and see what happened. It was therapeutic for me. Looking at it now still makes me feel some kind of release.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: 60 seconds of gesture chaos

Just a sketch dump full of gestures. I think my fave poses are in the bottom left. Quickposes.com - go check it out. Do some gesture exercise pages! It's fast, fun, and you'll feel super productive. If you're just starting out, I recommend focusing on drawing as fast as possible so maybe even just do 30 seconds or less per image. Just get those basic shapes down. You can always go back and pick out a favorite at the end and develop it further into another more formal drawing.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Snake tail mermaid character

This is what happens when you just go for that gesture/pose... but don't pay attention to positioning on the page or ratio between head and hands, etc. Still like her. She a lil' sassy.

Yo - watch me draw this madness...

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Hangin' around - aerial acrobatics

This was hella fun to draw. Lighting on the reference image was great, had so many great little shapes going on. I goofed up a bit on the head and the feet. Still love it. Aerial acrobatics is amazing. I would never do it myself but will always watch other people in awe while they perform.

Watch me draw this beauty---

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Gesture mashup - all the curves

Guess what! I like to practice gesture drawing... can't you tell lol?!

Wanna watch me draw this? SURPRISE you can...

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Welcome to the mermaid conference

Thanks for taking time out of your busy life to join us at the mermaid conference! Hehe but for real, this was a fun break from practicing gestures and trying to work on more challenging drawings. When in doubt, I always go back to the mermaids.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Landscape attempts in 60 seconds

When you don't even know what's happening but you just gotta keep going forward hah. These were all sketched from actual photos, I swear. But in less then 60 seconds each... my lack of landscape understanding shows. I just need to do about... 1 million more of these and maybe I'll get somewhere.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mo' gestures, mo' problems

Too tight! I was struggling to stay loose with this sketch session. Just couldn't get those curves to work. It happens. That's the point a sketch book, my peeps. Muck it up. Join me... Quickposes.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Yoga standing leg stretch

I used Quickposes.com to give me a random reference image to use and I feel like I got really lucky with this one. I mean look at it, profile, no weird angles/perspectives. Super lucky hah. Anyway, I like how the sketch turned out. The shoes don't look quite... real? I clearly don't spent alot of time drawing shoes.

Wanna see my draw this? Here ya go-

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Hand gestures for the win

Ah we meet again. My nemesis. Let's be real, I have lots of nemesisis...isis. But hands are just tough for most folks I think. So many little muscles and bones and getting the right planes set up from the beginning... but I'm actually quite pleased with these. They show my struggle and perseverance lol.

You too can revel in my drawing adventures-

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with love- M

Sketch Diary: Another gesture dump (plus video)

Gotta keep practicing those S, C, I lines. I'm still a bit stiff in these gestures. I like the pose on the left, middle. It looks fairly natural. 10 gestures down, a million to go hahah. Your turn now - Quickposes.com.

Watch me throw down these sweet sweet lines -

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: A dancer (face experiment)

I wasn't intending to finish this practice. Initially, I just wanted to practice a style of doing facial features I had seen somewhere. But one thing led to another and here we are. It feel stiff, head too big and hands/arms too small but I still like it enough. Not every sketch needs to be awesome.

You can watch me draw her here:
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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Gestures for days

Another quick gesture study using Quickpose.com. I was still really stiff here. Some of the more recent practices, I've had better luck with using those smooth S, C and straight lines to get more of the feeling of the pose, rather than moving into contouring too quickly. Each practice has been an education in some way.

with love - M