Crankshaft's Sketchbook

Updates. Finally finished the mentorship! Now time for the cgma classes. Definitely doing another mentorship after that. If anyone is interested in being taught by the same guy let me know and I'll send you his info. He's awesome and very affordable. I guarantee you'll see results as I have. And he does a lot of other stuff, mechs are actually his weakspot 0.o

Fixed up the mech. Mentor had very little to critique! Mainly just some edges here and there.



Some visual library/draftsmanship studies. My eyes are bleeding from the amount of mistakes. Pen is very unforgiving.

The Mark 1 tank. ww1





ww2 Mermon Herrington. These were used in South Africa.





I know I shouldn't be doing this but I couldn't resist. Look at the first and last one. o.O

Valence wrote:

Terrific work and progress, Crankshaft.
The use of cool reflected light on the legs adds that extra dimension and polish to the image. I know that technique has been discussed before in previous posts but now you seem to be able to make these ideas work practically rather than just in theory.
That transition from knowing something and then being able to actually do it is a very important step and I think you've done that now.
Can't wait for your next one!

Thanks Val! Now I'm worried. I feel that I've set the bar too high and I may never be able to surpass it. It may be all down hill from here.

Thanks Micro and Charlotte! Gotta keep at it. gogogogogogog

Updates: Photo sketch of a Thai temple, trying to learn how to do more organic things and simplify values. Learned a lot already. Also some gesture fail.

Good photo studies, Crank.
I'm starting to see a lot more variety in your pictures and thumbnails in terms of the angles, viewpoint and composition.
Anatomy never stops being hard though. Keep at it.

Updates! Been busy with my cgma course and working a bit on my schoolism assignment, but they're all super messy and not really presentable. Anyways some anatomy studies from Hampton. Learning so much but it's going to be a struggle to actually apply it







So much overlap from photography! Learning lots about composition. Trying to really step out of the norm and introduce more variety in my work. Some more photo studies from my Thai book.

Valence wrote:

Good photo studies, Crank.
I'm starting to see a lot more variety in your pictures and thumbnails in terms of the angles, viewpoint and composition.
Anatomy never stops being hard though. Keep at it.

Thanks Val! It's loads of fun! Never thought stepping out of my comfort zone would lead to so many challenges and opportunities!

Anatomy studies are looking much better Crank. It looks like you've just stepped past one of those stages where everything finally begins to fall into place - such a great feeling when it happens. Keep going and it will continue to happen and when it does give yourself a little time to enjoy it, go back and look at your previous sketches, give yourself a pat on the back for what you have improved on then find an image that represents where you want to improve next and jump back in.
It's easy to 'burn out' when you fail to see improvement after working as hard as you obviously are so when you do see an obvious improvement in your work (as we are seeing in yours) spend some time to breathe and take a look around.

Thanks Atto! Good to see you again! Ironically I really do feel burnt out and I'm having almost no motivation these days to draw. Better take your advice and give myself a breather.

Been super busy with the cgma stuff. The amount of work is insane but I'm learning lots. So this assignment was mainly based on composition and storytelling, camera views, focal lengths etc. I have many thumbnails but due to time I settled on this one. Going for a semi tight line drawing with flat value. I'm also making sure I use this opportunity to really try new things ie avoid static views and mix what I learn from my mentorship. So I did things backwards and did a comp with rough values then a line drawing. The narrative here is from WW1 when the British introduced the first tanks (Mark 1) against German forces. The Germans were frozen with fear and clueless on how to retaliate.

Updates. Finished the Week 2 assignment. 1918 ww1 British tanks advancing against German trenches.
The focus for this week was on storytelling and composition and I learned a lot of valuable lessons. The instructor said the piece was well balanced with good flow but the piece felt "detached." What I should of done was have the viewer in the trenches looking up at the advancing tanks. I did a lot of different thumbs but when I settled on this one I didn't even think of doing more thumbs/versions of the same idea. Anyways pretty happy with the piece and it's so much more dynamic than my usual work:

-The horizon line is actually tilted
-There's actually a sense of story
-We're looking up
-It's a full environment
-There are figures! Yay! Faillll







Anatomy studies from hampton and visual library sketches. Itching to do some personal work