Value portrait of model

I decided to do another black and white/ value portrait study from photo reference, I am not sure who the lady is to give credit to her, I just found the image on google and decided to give it a go, I changed it a little and to be honest my values were quite far off and it didn't look exactly like her. That being said it took me around 3 hours, maybe just over, which for me is super quick. Don't get me wrong it could do with a bit more work but I am still happy with it, especially the hair :)

Life study of light on eggs

Quick post of a study from life I have done, I am really trying to get the hang of lighting at the moment, truthfully I am finding it a lot harder then I probably should be but I will keep trying! I have been advised on the concept art forums to work more from life to understand it more so I not have a small table and a lamp next to my 'work station' ( a crappy little desk with my cintiq on) so hopefully this will help with my understanding of light and drawing from life.

The first 2 eggs (top 2) were very rough as I was concentrating soley on the lighting and not worried about making the eggs look good or realistic, the 3rd egg I spent more time on and tried to add a little texture and blend it a little better to see if I could make it look a little more realistic. I have also started up a sketchbook thread on the concept art forums which you can see here - http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=276607&p=3794019&viewfull=1
Although it's mainly the same  work I post on my blog anyway just with some extra sketches for people to give me feedback on how to improve my skills further.

Quick life drawing attempt of material plus lara croft comic attempt

Sticking with the theme of drawing everything and anything from life, I threw a t shirt over a pencil pot and stuck it on my desk whilst I drew it on my cintiq, it isn't exactly great or anything but its slightly recognisable I think (especially if you view it as a smaller thumbnail, maybe not so much when zoomed in though). And further down is just a little attempt of drawing Lara croft with reference from the Tomb Raider comic.

New video on drawing the basic human head from the front

Just a little post to show a video I have uploaded to Youtube, it's a tutorial just showing the basic placement for features/ the proportions of the human head for beginners. It's a method I came across recently and find it more useful then many others I have seen, I thought it would be worth while sharing so please see the video below and as always.. subscribe for more :) Thanks!

portrait head without reference, just a quick one

I haven't posted as often as I would have liked recently so I decided I would post up what I was doodling today, I am still studying heads, struggling a lot still but hopefully getting a little bit better as I go without reference. I tried to colour it too although my photoshop colouring knowledge is not brilliant yet! I was just plain around with the structure of the face, features, hair etc and threw in a red background so it's not quite as boring. So nothing special today but it's something :)

The nose isn't perfected but it's nearly midnight and I am tired :) I am also sketching a lot of heads at the moment using paper and pencil.

6 months progress since starting digital art

just a quick post showing the first painting I made on a graphics tablet, which was a bamboo Wacom fun ( i don't even know if you can buy them now!?) and then last week I decided to re do the basic painting of an eye, this is with a cintiq 13hd again from Wacom . It's not exactly brilliant but hopefully the progress is noticeable. I also posted a video of me painting this which you can see below. Maybe I will re do this in another 6 months, who knows? :)
Video: please subscribe for more :)

Nikola Mazgutova grey digital portrait + video!

I have finished another grey scale portrait, this time of the model Nikola Mazgutova, once again using photo reference ( With Nikola Mazgutova's permission ). It took me a while but this came out pretty good in the end, I also recorded this and put it on Youtube so please do give it a watch :)

Below is the finished pic and below that is the video.

A massive Thanks to Nikola :)

Veronika black model 'work in progress' sketches with fininshed image

Just a quick post today, a few people have asked to see some WIP (work in progress) images of the Veronika black portrait, I don't have many but you can see some below.

Veronika Black portrait part 2 finished!

So today I started where I left off yesterday, on the hair for the portrait of Veronika Black, this actually didn't take long at all and was fairly easy to do, I think this is due to the fact she has such dark hair and with the shadows you can't really see too much detail, so there was not that much to do!

Anyway below is the finished image, I hope you guys like it. Please remember I have permission from Veronika herself to use her photos for my digital art studies. The main purpose of this was to improve my portraiture skills but also improve working with values (grey scale). I am really pleased with how this piece turned out :)

I will be doing more studies from Veronika's photos too. Veronika has seen the picture and said she loved it. I cant ask for more then that :) Next time I will try a full body shot, after all she is a model! On another note I am working on another piece at the moment very similar to this, it's not too far off completion and I will be posting it up on Youtube for you guys to watch as a video. So make sure you subscribe to be notified when it's up!
 Massive thanks to Veronika Black :)

My youtube - http://www.youtube.com/user/learningasidraw

Portrait of Veronika Black part 1

Today I have worked from photo reference in grey scale of the model Veronika Black, I have concentrated on just the face today. Please note I have Veronika's permission to use her photos! This has taken up pretty much my full day but I really enjoyed doing it and although I did have to touch up some bits with the liquify tool I am really happy with the way it came out. I have not yet worked on the hair, just blocked it in to give an idea what it will look like. I will work on the hair next but I am not sure if I will start straight away or if I will have some practice runs at hair first, purely because I am not sure how to digitally draw hair to a good standard yet, anyway here is the picture so far :)

Veronika Black part 1
by Stephen Hopkinson

quick attempt at real life, painting a spoon!

So I posted on the concept art forums some of the work I have been doing recently, asking for their advice. They suggested a few things, one of which was working from real/still life, which is something I definitely need to do more of. So today I had a little attempt at digitally painting a spoon, I thought this would be something helpful in future projects for the metallic finish it has, maybe to help with weapons and armour in future pieces. It turned out okay, nothing amazing but it's not like I spent all day on it so I am happy with it :)