Thanks for the comments. Before I could read them I had already started my second try and have since completed it so here it is… Anyways I will go ahead and attempt to do alternate with my own design as Yo suggests.
-ps sorry about the photo quality, I am currently looking for a scanner…
Try letting the sketch breath a little. Leave a lot more paper in the sketch. You don’t need to fill everything. If you use a lighter touch with the markers it can be a bit more painterly.
I took a pass at your concept. Things I changed:
linework, looser, more expressive, more dynamic perspective
light metal body, just a few strikes of cool grey 20% and 30% with a little bit of britany blue and cool grey 70%
lens, cool grey 70%, sharpie, and white pencil
back housing, orange, use marker lightly to get gradation
It is good to stick with a theme and explore within it for a bit. It forces you to build on your last sketch. I bet if you did 25 cameras in one week you would see a massive difference.
That last one looks much more fluid and fun! The very first one was a good sketch, but I wouldn’t worry so much about the shadows being a bit off (I hadn’t noticed until I read it!). I think bringing in some stronger grays into the contours would do a lot to make the cameras curved form pop from the page.
I personally find that a sketch that is too absolutely precise and accurate loses its ability to communicate well. It’s somehow much harder to look at ultra precise ideation sketches than loose ones for me.
I tried a sketch of a canon but realised that the telescopic cylinder and lens is letting the overall sketch down. So i decided to practice this part on its own. Will do some more.
Those metal cylinders are starting to look pretty good! Especially the ones toward the bottom of the middle image. I always have a really hard time with chrome and glossy materials.
Hey Michael. I’m finding making clean swift lines on the cylinders almost impossible… But i’ll keep practising. Another thing if i get a line wrong then it screws up the whole sketch LOL. I guess that’s what underlays are for…
I did this before reading your last post… (own design)
It looks like you don’t quite nail down a concept before jumping to markers, which aren’t as forgiving as a pen/pencil.
It’s easy to keep adding to one sketch, but sometimes its good to get those first ideas down then grab a new piece of paper and overlay w/ clean lines.
I’d say throw a bunch of quick sketches down refining a concept working on proportion (orthographic views help w/ layout/proportions) then jump back into perspective/markers… my two cents. keep it up tho and don’t forget to stay loose!!!
You are getting really good advice here, and I agree with all of the above.
Your first sketch wasn’t bad at all, it needed a bit more contrast, looseness in shading strokes, a softer drop shadow and overall a more expressive feel.
What I mainly see is that you are trying to get those ellipses too perfect while as you can see in yo’s sketch, even if the ellipses aren’t perfectly drawn, the overall sketch gets a much better character if you let your hand flow with the lines. Work from the shoulder, it will help you get better ellipses. You can also see how fluid strokes on the outlines that continue past the perimeter of the sketch, and some overall effect and perspective help a sketch come alive.