Hello Daggers,

Been lurking for a bit, thought I might as well say hello although I don't have much to contribute to the community as of yet.

At 38 I decided that I would like to fulfill an old dream of mine of becoming a concept artist. I've had no real prior training in this field, so I definitely have my work cut out for me. I work in health care full time, and spend the rest of my days drawing.

Reading through the many great sketchbooks here on this site has been a great source of inspiration, thank you for that. And its quite motivating to see everyone's progress. Hope one day to have something worthy of sharing.

So far, the two biggest things I've learned is, it comes down constant reflective practice and Visualization of form (caps intended as I find this is key for me). Now if I could only do it consistently...

As for my biggest hurdles, if I had to say, it would likely be rushing through practice at times, losing focus (autopilot), lack of structure and diversity in practice (as in i'll spend a whole day/week focusing on one thing and one thing only i.e.: lines), very little life drawing (close to 0), a sense of having poor control over my lines (i.e.: how I intend the line to look and how it ends up doesn't always match, especially with curves), poor visual library. Also I noticed sometimes I find myself being fearful, the thing is I can't tell whether i'm afraid of doing poorly (unlikely as I expect to do poorly at this stage) or of actually doing well or better than expected... is it that i'm afraid of doing something nice and not being able to repeat it? I don't quite get why I feel this way at times, it doesn't really impact me as I just power through it anyways but its been interesting.

Currently i'm taking Dynamic Sketching 1 at CGMA, and slowly going through Proko's figure drawing course (still at the beans, had a hard time with gesture), also got the Hampton's figure drawing book (yay for a method to the madness...)  and Framed Ink (looks like a nice read on composition) on the way from amazon which i'm excited to dig into. I have the pdfs of all of Loomis books (thanks to that nice fellow that been hosting it for years), and a very nice little book on perspective called Perspective made Easy.

Any suggestions for other resources useful for someone at the early stages as myself is most welcomed.

Hello! New to Crimson Daggers as the forum I was previously involved in closed down. Trying to find the right community to build friendships and improve together. I am a jack of all trades, and a master of none so I have decided to start from the beginning and work my way up. I have two separate end goals; the first is a dream to become a tattoo artist, and the second is a vague view of concept art as a hobbyist. 

Currently I am studying lectures by the wonderful sculptor Sabin Howard: Fundamentals of Human Anatomy, and anatomy of my head. Currently this is what will fill my Sketchbook (for the most part) here a CD.

I don't feel that tattoo art has a huge role or place in these forums, but if you are curious I do post this style of work to my instagram account. 

Looking forward to my time here! 

Im Francell from the philippines, I'm a motion Graphic artist actually, and a part time illustrator to some of my clients online. I found this forum on daves youtube channel and I want it to try it out and have a community to help and to help also and gain more ideas and critiques by others towards my work., because I feel I still need so much to learn if I want to go on the levels of my art heroes such as dave, ld. Audstin, Marko djurjevics, wes burt you name it. I want it to expand more my knowledge towards art and want to become a game art artist or in films. So yeah I hope you guys can help me out and let us share our thoughts in terms of art cheers!

Anyway ehre is my artstation page
https://www.artstation.com/artist/francell

Hi, guys! Nice to meet you all! My name is Rob, I'm brazilian and I'm about to start posting my studies with you. I would like some feedback from you to improve my art, to getting better. Tks, everyone! 

hey, hows it going ? been lurkin for a while figured id nut up and start posting. Im 26, from the UK been drawing for a lil while & wanna do this kinda thing as a job. I'm hoping that i can make that a reality soon-ish, uh think thats all i have to say lol its nice to meet all of you :) 

Thanks,
Alex

Hi all,
my name is Andrew,
from Australia
Decided to make an effort to improve at art when I was around 25, currently 29
Formal education wise I have a certificate in applied design and a Degree in Film and television
but honestly self online education is where its at ;)

I'm more than happy to help out any dudes/dudets that want my help!
If you need some direction or a critique, feel free to get at me.
My links to errthang are in my signature!

Art wise I started not knowing what to do but I've gone towards character/figure based art.
Mostly digital but I like, and attempt traditional mediums like pencils, paints and sculpting.
I try to keep an open mind cos you sometimes cant tell how much you like something till you try it
and your like and dislikes tend to change over time and its good to be conscious of that.

If you wanna help me out, you can follow, watch and subscribe to any of my social media thanggsss..

besides This kind of art I have also been dancing for 16 years
90% of my friends are dancers and I don't know many artists personally so I'm down for making friends

this me


And here is one of my pieces I'm fairly proud of

Hi, my name is Ria. I'll be applying to colleges soon and would love to attend art school. I suppose my clearest goal as of now would be to get to a level where I can create a portfolio that would allow me to go to a good one. For where I'm at currently I really doubt I would get accepted into a place like art center though (and it's hella expensive). I've got much room for improvement and am very accepting of critique and advice :).

Besides learning fundamentals, there is also the problem of subject matter for me. Of course I play games and watch movies (other wise I would not know concept art even existed) but I am not so invested in these that I can design much at all (very small visual library). So I guess I suck at the most important part that makes up concept art but I still want to push forward. I like the idea that concept artists can design or create anything, even things people have never seen before. I also like the constant learning and research that is involved. There's always something new and interesting to do! 

I have an instagram but there is no concept stuff on it (since my designs suck haha) https://www.instagram.com/ria_chen_art/?hl=en

Learning progress:

-Anatomy/Figure
     Proko gesture (done)
     Proko anatomy (doing; spine)
     Michael Hampton FD: design and invention (hold; ch3)
     Daily Gesture (doing)
     Master Study

-Character Design [subject matter]
     Medieval
     Pirates argh (doing)
     
-Perspective
     Draw a box (doing; lesson 6)
     Scott Robertson H2D (hold; ch6)

-Vehicle Design
     research first...
     thumbnails

-Environment Design
     (hold; week 02)

Reflection: damn, so I guess it's all over the place... I mean that I am trying to do many things from different resources all at once. I guess I should focus onto one book/video series for each subject, get done with that and move onto the next book... maybe I should even limit how many subjects I am studying at one time. (I put some things on hold).

Some of my stuff
   
   
   
   
   

Hi, I'm from Brazil , 21 years old, on college of Graphic Design *-* but actually what I really want to do is to improve my art.

 About a year ago I started to studying the fundamentals and sometimes I've a hard time to keep pace, but I try to study everyday.
  I used to just paint and draw with pencil, watercolor, gouache ,ink pens, but about one or two months ago i've started to learn how to use photoshop.
  I study by books and internet tutorials.

Here's my books list : 

---Figure drawing---  

   -Michale Hampton Design and invention.| (Done)
   -Proko; (Done)
   -The book of hundred hands;
   -loomis;
   -Georde Bridgman livros.
   -Glenn vilppu;
   -burne hogarth;
   -Force_Dynamic_Life_Drawing_for_Animators;

---Perspective
 
   -Perspective made easy; (done)
   -Framed perspective;
   -(Scott Robertson) How to Draw - Drawing & Sketching Objects & Environment from Your Imagination;(doing)

---Composition---

            -The Skillful Huntsman;
            -Framed Ink;
            -Dream worlds;(story telling)

---Materials---

   -Scott Robertson - How to Render - The Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity.

---Color---

            -Color Choices Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory; 
            -light ;
            -(James Gurney) Color & Light - A Guide for the Realist Painter;
            -(Richard Schmid) Alla Prima - Everything I Know About Painting;
            -(James Gurney) Color & Light - A Guide for the Realist Painter;

---Outhers---

            -Scott robertson-H-Point - The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging (2009);
            -Kill that frog;

 Here's some of my most recent exercises :

Hi all, I found this site after someone one the LevelUp! FB page mentioned how useful it was so thought I'd come check it out. I'm an aspiring artist, wanting to do illustrations for cards, books, games etc and am busy trying to get good enough for that and get a solid portfolio together. I'm perhaps starting a little late at 34 years old and I used to have a good career as a 3d Designer. I've done work for various big companies like Calvin Klein, BAE Systems and lots of others and was really doing pretty well in my chosen field. Then I got diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) which meant I had difficulty walking, lost some vision in my right eye and almost all feeling in my hands. Thankfully, via the beauty of the NHS, I get drugs intravenously put into my system every 28 days which modify my immune system and have made me basically "normal" again. I'm now trying to get life back on track and am pursuing what really makes me happy as life's too short to be wasting it.

I look forward to posting work and getting crit from you guys and hopefully having a few useful nuggets to offer too.

Hi my name is Schwing

I found this forum via a blogpost. Looks like most of you are pros working in the industry which is really awesome. And it's really awesome because I'm a 17 year old kid from the UK who's a pretty mediocre artist who wants to make dope as fuck comic books! I'm determined to improve and get a running start with all this. Expect a lot of questions from me because I have a lot of stuff to clarify! The art world seems to not conform to the linearity I have seen from most conventional careers I've been exposed to.
I haven't always wanted to be a comic book artist. Ever since I was about 15 I've had it in my head that I'd be an engineer. I got the GCSEs. I came out with A* in maths physics and A in design technology. I got a scholarship fund. I chose full STEM for my A level background.
One day it just hit me. I had some sort of transcendental epiphany or some shit. I kid you not! I was feeling despondent about my future. Thinking about what I really want out of it. I can rationalise for life but the fact of the matter is I'm just a kid who hasn't experienced the world yet. And I want to experience it in the best way I possibly can.
I'm going to follow my heart and see where it leads me. Pursuing this dream gives me a feeling I've never felt before - concrete resolve. It's something there no matter what and I can draw strength from it any time.

"I want to be the best"

Just saying that make me feel like I can do anything! I'm tired of feeling restricted. I'm tired of holding back.