Hello! Back again!
More Sketches for my Pile!

This week has been relatively chilled I guess were in the wind down to Christmas looking to go full on in January for yet another event. I've also been getting into Alan Wake 2 a little too much I did 4 hours live over on my YouTube channel kinda got hooked lol! My Saturday Twitch session was a little bit on the slow side. I find it hard concentrating and drawing on occasion lol. Its a balance I need to find and I believe I've gotten better with my weekly gamer sessions on YouTube. This week I tried using reference images again but this time pulling the pose from the gesture. I still need my refinement process but I feel I'm improving - these drawings would have taken me much longer to do before.

I made more of a point this week to try to retain older iterations of my pose drawing process so I could bookmark "moments". I used reference poses but plotted the gesture and tried to pull the pose from it. It was easier in some instances then others. Each pose got an hour with the exception of "Pose 3" which I wanted to explore a bit more most notably the bent leg - I still suck at foreshortening lol! The pose (3) also still felt kind of stiff (compared to the reference) and that's what I've been trying to apply more and more to my pose practice sessions... drawing poses that feel emotive.

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form:

Every week the art stream continues to be a little daunting, despite my saying "this is a stream to just draw for fun, no pressure" I always fear that I don't know what I'm doing or that I should try to have more structure. The problem is then it would feel like I have to meet a quota and that's not fun and I really like to wind down when my current role does kinda put me on edge all week.

Anyway, gonna go and get my mind engaged - Alan Wake wont finish itself :P

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hey folks,
Back again! Sorry I'm late.

Another interesting week in the world of Stitchy (Closet Gamer Stitch/Hellart Stitch not withstanding) burning the oil trying to get another project done after back to back showreels. I will be glad to see my Christmas Leave coming its much needed. That being said It is always fun to sit down when I have a moment and draw anatomy or just to game for the lols/shooting the shit. This week over on my Twitch channel I tried drawing from my imagination (on the spot pretty much) and damn its not easy lol and I'm quite rusty but I managed to pull a pose off (admittedly I had 3 hours to find it  in a mess of sketching and clean it up).

This pose was very much based on "form over function" as for the life in me I have no idea why a person would be walking forwards and twisting in such a way (sun glare maybe - but then you'd just stop lol) oh well. It was an exercise that came out of the blue when I dropped a few studies in from my "Pose/Form Library". I liked the gesture I saw in one of them and pitched it... then tried to repurpose it for another pose (this time from the back). Challenging but, I got there in the end... I evolve my sketches by drawing over them with dialled opacity (the same way I'd animate back in Uni) I guess old habits die hard!

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form: 

I rarely tackle things from the imagination as they tend to come out as a mess of proportion or a pose that simply makes no sense. This sits somewhere a little beyond that which I'm happy about. I even tried to push the bend of the gesture by distorting the figure some (to give it more movement) not sure if I achieved it but I left satisfied... kind of.

See you guys on Saturday! Can't wait!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Happy Sunday evening to you all!
Another fun part post for the pile!

As is ever the case with me I started this week's stream looking to explore Rhythms some more but found myself getting more lost in poses. That said I am getting better at plotting the gestures motion by chopping parts up after the fact. I can't just see it, I have to see in front of me to know where to push things. Admittedly I still push things too far on occasion. Now whenever I look at a pose I'm looking to jump off one part and onto another like there is some crazy construction to all of this madness. Maybe I'm right, but I believe I'm getting the idea if this weeks efforts are anything to go by.

Things started off simply enough I chose a piece by one of my favourite artists (Bruce Timm) and tried to recreate things by following the various curves and straights down the figure. I mean you could say this is a form of tracking the gesture down the form itself rather then plotting but knowledge of the form really helps. As I always like to say if you have a curve in one place your more then likely to see a curve slightly down on the other side of the shape... its balance and stiff poses never consider this. At least mine never did.

I got so carried away on the second pose there was very little time to work on the final one I had picked out but I managed to throw a sketch together within the hour remaining. It's not terrible but the hips needed more pushing and as always with me some of the proportions needed work notably the legs which required considerable length to make her more attractive. I also added shade (which I never do but wanted an additional challenge). The only bits I haven't fixed here are her face and hands... the hair took considerable time and I'm still not fully happy with it. I shaded initially just to give things some depth but then I wanted to see the stomach muscles/ribs and just got carried away lol.

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form: 

Well after last weeks rather messy post I think this more then makes up for it. Got a lot more practice in this I thought and additional time after the stream (which tends to happen on occasion - I get lost in the pose and want to continue). More fun next Saturday, I get a bit nervous before a stream but then once I'm there I get lost in it all lol! 

Have a lovely week!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hello people!
Sorry its late but here goes :P

Crunch is about to fire up at work again - fun and games so its as good a reason as any to get as much out as I can before I go back to 0 sleep but yeah hopefully the last time. The next thing I do is going to be hopefully not so time consuming and less dependent on me being sleep deprived. With that said I have a longish weekend ahead so looking forward to that... I intend to play more with my anatomy studies particularly with Rhythms which ironically is what this post is about. I saw an interesting video Proko did the other week where he explained the process. I took a few things from it but mostly discovered I was doing things like it already. Balance being the key factor of any pose and its resulting anatomy. Flow going down the body to give the pose life and make it less stiff - something I have suffered with a heck of a lot.

For my late stream on Saturday I did 2.5 hours almost the time completely tripped me up. That said it was a stream about exploring Rhythms... I picked a pose and tried to find the flow of the various body parts as we moved down the rough/gesture. The key facet for me was using lines to jump from one part to the next (the edge of the torso jumps through to the other edge of the pelvis etc.) I tried to push/exaggerate the shapes (possibly too far) which can at times make things look worse but I feel I made the idea work... I just get lost when its in the sketching phase and still have to correct proportion issues... That said I'm on a good track I explore these ideas more as It somewhat makes sense to do this to keep poses from feeling stiff.

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form: 

I realise this weeks effort is a little more messy but the point was to explore a little more and as with all of my "work in progress" stuff its just to try to understand how something works... learning as I go.

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hello again,
Bet you thought I forgot didn't you? Ah I don't blame yah!

While we may be out of the crunch I have been getting some much needed rest which has involved sleeping and a bit of gaming while also still pulling the odd late one trying to "bitch" out a project quickly. Added with the fact I've also been exploring a new "PS1 Double-Stack Tray" for the Hell Art store and now I'm gonna have to produce a bit of marketing for that... etc, etc. I also have my 3 gaming streams per week on YouTube and my lovely Saturday stream on Twitch (which I've had to delay a little this week to get my haircut)… its been full on suffice to say. Anyway, last week was fundamentally about me trying to refine the rough as boots hand I fashioned onto my (evolving) "Cel" character pose. I take these slow journeys to study as it's where I feel the most comfortable, no time pressure, just me learning... it's beautiful.

I spent my allotted 3 Hell Art stream hours focusing on Cel's arm and hand in the pose currently as it is shown. For those of you that don't know... arms & hands are my weakest area (art wise). Do I need to do more studies? Abso-fucking-lutely. That said I am glad to be getting more acquainted with the particulars that comprise the limb - as knowledge is power and I know what infers its form. I think I got carried away tapering the fingers which gave them a kind of "noodle" shape (to use Proko's terminology). That said I wanted to narrow the skin at the joints to push the bone underneath. I wrapped things up by applying it to the pose but there is still work to be done... I have a ways to go but at least I started something.

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form:

I remember way back when I originally started this blog... the original goal being to understand form (and why in god's name I feel so "Zen" when studying it). I guess we all have our outlets. See you guys in the next one :)

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hello! Me again!
Wanted to mix things up a bit this week, but there is method in the madness.

Nearly at the end of my more recent crunching session for work (which is a relief) but the spare time I have had has been surprisingly more on my artistic exploits then that of gaming (my usual obsession). In the middle of a study seems to be my happy place at the moment, I guess its also because things seem to be "clicking" since I been tracing elements and adding anatomy to understand the fundamentals. It's like a rabbit hole the deeper I dig I find something equally more intriguing, suddenly things on the surface start to make more sense. This week I tackled arguably my second biggest fear - the arm.

I used this as my tracing reference this week as it has the muscles pretty well defined (thanks Pinterest) I grabbed a butt load of images and I'll probably jump over there for study references as there seems to be an untapped abundance of guides, images, poses all for gratis so trust me do pinterest and start searching for anatomy you will get so much its unbelievable... there are even good guides on there. Anyway if you stumbled upon this post and missed my last one I have taken to tracing form onto images to improve my understanding of the various volumes that comprise the anatomy to further influence my character poses going forward. It's going pretty well...

I spent 3 hours of my Hell Art stream over on Twitch focusing on applying/exaggerating muscle based on my original trace but pushing a few elements and of course overlaying where I felt the muscles were. This continues to be a difficult process and I have no way of really knowing how accurate I am but it has been useful helping me fix issues in my current artistic areas. For my more recent Cel pose for example (HA 70/71 Posts) I used my study to inform the design of her arms which you can see above look miles better.  I mean I need to finesse it obviously only extremely well built people have all their muscles visible but it helps inform the design so you don't get what I aptly call "Noodle arms".

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form:

But yeah food for thought, when in doubt trace, invest time in understanding the body volumes it will help in the long run :)
I'll see you guys in next weeks post!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Howdy folks, 
Still at it, I haven't dropped this blog. Wanna keep it up!

The crunch is still on in my role as motion graphic artist, I have showreels coming out of my ears and just when I thought the buggers were there I got a request in that there will be another not long after this load. I guess I'll sleep in a few years then. Getting off the rather dull topic of my daily grind I wanted to drop some thoughts about my Hell Art stream this week gone which is experiencing a delayed post but at least its here. The long and short of it is... I traced. Yeap I broke the artists rule but for good reason. To study anatomy and how it has been presented on poses drawn by other artists. I only did 1 but I went to town on it... check below:

First of all THIS IS NOT MY WORK, I found it online when browsing Pinterest so whomever sees this please do not confuse my work for someone else's. I used the above "Ref" image to conduct my anatomy tracing exercise. I thought it would be a challenge to map it out and Ergojosh recommended doing so over on YouTube to better understand form and improve pose quality.

From using a reference pose I mapped out the muscles in "PTAN" corresponding to the form and where I understood the various shapes to be, it was actually quite hard and I was constantly forgetting the names and having issue reconciling the perspective, orientation and angle of each anatomical part. That said it was a pretty good first effort. To map the anatomy I was using the book "Anatomy for Sculptors" which has been an interesting read even through skimming. I finished with a very simplistic dark spot pass.

Experience this weeks stream in timelapse form:

Well I hope you've all been having a better time then me.
At least I've managed to sneak in a few gaming/drawing moments :)

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hello folks,
Another post for the stack!

Things have been rather hectic with work (lots of late hours) and all the while I just wanna get back to chilling with some nice art and gaming... even though my job is animation It feels like I'm being charged with a lack of imagination for some of these showreels I'm making for work... go figure. It's hard to be constantly on the go and while absolutely there is no scope to what a person can do (at least with todays tech), there are things that take time... especially if they are to be done "right". Time is something I'm not lambasted with when it comes to my personal art/projects and its probably I always find them calming, I don't have to rush. Food for thought.

If you like what I'm doing drop by Twitch sometime here or you can always hit me up over on my YouTube channel which is where I game 3 days per week. Now that my socials are plugged lets get on with this weeks art progress in question.

Carrying on from last weeks post I took time to refine my sketch a little more, cleaning things up trying to correct the anatomy from the extreme I had it at. I finally gave her a face and a killer hair style hehe. Still playing with things that includes the neck tattoo. I gave it some very generic base colour and some initial L&S (Light & Shade). Once I'm happy with the pose I will start considering clothing (yet another area where I'm weak but I really want to get the shading down (that's my biggest weakness). Suffice to say though things are moving in the right direction. It was nice just to sit with something for a long time and not feel pressure.

Experience this weeks timelapse video here: 

Another fun week awaits, lets hope I survive! 
I already want it to be the weekend again, this crunch SUCKS!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hello there!
Back again!

This time I will endeavour to get on once a week to at the very least post up my high jinks that I draw over on Twitch (and offline a little). Been very busy with a new job in the games (gambling) industry which has been soaking up a lot of my creativity. My daily duties are mostly animation for the marketing arm of the company. This ranges from motion graphics to character/background animation of games assets. Any spare time I have I now divide during the week - Mon, Weds & Fri streaming 1 choice game live over on YouTube as "Closet Gamer Stitch". Most recently I'm now getting my gestural practice art back up (HellArt - over on Twitch) and I plan to update my portfolio here soon (more stuff has to go up lol). 

Things have been so hectic but I really miss doing this kind of art so now here I am back at it. I have a yearning to get back to the basics and to continue improving my knowledge of anatomy so that will be my focus for now. Case in point:

I've had this pose in sitting in the dregs of my iPad for a while now, in fact I didn't notice it until I did a wipe of the photographs on my devices and then It dawned on me that I still had done nothing with it. My return stream over on Twitch last Saturday (09/09/2023) focused on this pose and yeah I spent a bit of time after cleaning it up a little but it still has a few things I need to fix hands are still a problem for me so that will be something I'll have to take a closer look at. My drawing process is a bit on the slower side but for me its "study time" so its more learning then trying to do things in a timely fashion. I really like the tilt in her waist I think I pushed that quite well here.

Experience the full timelapse video here:

Still its fun getting back into art and finally blogging it again. 
Hopefully I'll start to do this more regularly from now on :)

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx

Hello all,
Miss me?

Feels like forever since I did my last post, things have been a bit hectic. Got a new job, pushed my streaming ((via Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/hellartstitch) & art development back a bit to get settled, then I lost my dog Charlie. Losing Charlie was quite a hard pill to swallow and made me give up a bit but I'm here now and plan to get back on track with this blog. This post in particular is part of a series as this commission is actually a gift for my niece and her fiancé I just have to hope she has no access to this blog so I don't spoil the surprise. Anyway.

My streaming endeavours as of late are gradually bearing fruit people seem to actually be watching some of my Closet Gamer YouTube streams (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjS_pJaZbJ9ro2ix-w6I03g - although the subs are not going up) and my Instagram (https://.instagram.com/hellartstitch) seems to be getting the odd view or two despite it being on hiatus. Lastly, my Hell Arts Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/hellart) always seems to be getting views so looks like the time lapses are interesting to some. If anyone reading this has contributed to that I really appreciate it.

Anyway on to the topic of this particular piece. As I mentioned above its a part of a series and I just figured I'd post up each part as it could be a little much for one post. This initial stage is my rough sketch through to the inking and cleaning process. I love clean line (even though it makes the work take longer) gonna have to find a way out of it as its only really useful for comic art.... heyho.

Above you can view the time lapse video of my sketching and inking process for this piece. The Grace commission is one part of a 2 part commission piece I'm currently in the process of working on Rob (her fiancé). I like to draw my caricature sketches small at first as I can maximise the range of my pencil on the apple tablet canvas. You get a good amount of layers on an A4 canvas, the problem is the higher you go in terms of DPI or dimensions the lower the layer count procreate can handle. It's ideal for me though, I think I like the simplicity of making every move with a limited tool set and I get a cool time lapse video to swank about afterwards.

I was actually surprised how well the sketch and resulting inks turned out considering I did it within the space of a 3 hour turnaround. My caricatures historically this far (this is number 4) have taken me a while to do but that's not to say colouring her after etc didn't take a while. I'm not the best at colour work but I'm gaining confidence as I do more and I'll probably go back to my older caricatures to fix a few issues I've had with them (my artistic eye is forever trying to fix my old mistakes lol). 

Anyway, I will see you in the next post.
Catcha later!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx