life drawing + brief surface pro thoughts

life drawing from last week. sorry for the lazy cut out job. 

these are from the surface pro's first life drawing outing this week. it was a lot of fun, though a little uncomfortable. going to have to really experiment with my setup! 

so, overall, the surface pro 2 has been great. its been a joy to work and play on. it's pretty much what i expected it to be: a mobile art station. it runs photoshop beautifully, among other art programs, while also functioning well as a tablet (games, internet browsing, etc). i've been quite impressed with the battery life so far, though i need to do a few tests from 100%-0%. from what i've seen so far, i should be able to get approx. 5 hours of heavy painting time in. 

not everything has been all sunshine and rainbows, though. the pen accuracy is all over the place. in the top corners, the accuracy is completely terrible, and over the rest of the screen, it's very inconsistent. not that its unusable, as i've done lots of drawing on it already, but, for a premium device, is unacceptable. i spent a week, or so, troubleshooting and researching, and it seems that the issue is fairly common. after chatting with microsoft tech support a few times, i've concluded that this is a hardware defect. a replacement is being shipped to me as i type this, so hopefully that'll remedy the issue. 

one other strange issue, which i've yet to figure out is this...

i think its an issue with wacom's drivers, as they're needed for photoshop to even recognize pressure sensitivity. basically, if i have opacity set to pen pressure, and the "tip feel" in the wacom settings in the control panel set to the normal, medium setting, i cannot get an opaque stroke when i press down fully. i mean, i'd have to press with all of my manly might in order to get an opaque stroke. that's just not cool. i remember reading somewhere that wacom is aware of issues with win8.1, so hopefully they're going to fix this. again, not a big deal, and it doesn't make photoshop unusable, but it sure is annoying.

fresh digital paint

another fresh paint sketch, this one was a bit quicker for whatever reason. may have to try out a portrait or something soon. 

Fresh Paint 2

Another Fresh Paint warm-up sketch. Reflections are hard. Note to self: get more materials practice in.

Fresh paint sketch

Did this today with the Fresh Paint app on my new, fancy-pants Surface Pro 2. Really been enjoying this device. More to come, soon!

yes, more animals

more animals! mwhahaha! really been enjoying these.

color studies

been posting a lot of studies recently.. will have to post some original art soon. but, for now, here's a few random color studies i've done from photos as warm-ups over the past month or two. quick and dirty.

aminals

decided that it's high time i started doing some animal studies. figure i need to increase my visual library, and going between mechanical studies and organic studies is probably a good start. also, i noticed my portfolio has a severe lack of creature concepts, which i cannot abide. there is something, super top-secret, that i'm working on which will certainly help my portfolio in that regard. more on that later. bwhahaah.

clearly, i had a lot more time when i was drawing elephants.

skullz

skull studies from photos. note to self: buy some skulls to study.

more expression studios

i've really been enjoying these, both as a warm-up, and just a general exercise. as you can see, some are more successful than others, but that's to be expected, i suppose.

thanks for looking!

a few more

moar!

inktober?

hey blog, sorry for neglecting you. here's some warm-up sketches! 

from a book of expressions that i'm... "borrowing" from my girlfriend. mwhahahaha.

listo marking leads + marking leads holder

finally. i've been meaning to get my hands on these for quite a while. i love using china markers for life drawing, but hate using china markers for life drawing. the string always gets in the way, always having to peel it at inopportune moments... but they feel great on newsprint, and force me to not focus on details (which is an old habit i'm constantly battling). these allow me to keep the positives, and get rid of the negatives. i frakking love you listo marking lead holder thing.

just a simple twist and i'm back to drawing. 

life drawin

here's a few from last night. still fighting some natural tendencies to rush into things, which causes me to not analyze the figure as a whole. i jump head first into the figure, playing with the shapes before establishing a foundation for them to rest. patience, i need.