The 10000 Hour Rule - Art Edition - 7626/10,000

[JakeB]

New stuff
American Beauty Screencap Study


Cowboy studies

[CKL]

hey jake, you're coming along man! I definitely feel like your economy of mark making has improved quite a bit, as well as your ability to interpret planar forms. I think the next stop for you is balancing transitional areas of planar shifting and color complexity, through cool/warm and saturation variation. Just keep pounding away on that tablet. <3

[JakeB]

CKL - Cheers dude. Yeah, I was working on simplification, and I think I may have over shot it a bit lol. Gotta work on being a bit more careful again now. Thanks for the pointers, I'll try :).

New stuff
16:9 practice






Cowboy




Thumbnails


Studies

[JakeB]

So, decided to start my bloodsports piece again, with more of a fantasy direction.
These are in chronological order, so you can see what I studied, and when :)

Warm up stuff, study and apply movie stills


Initial thumbs


Developing thumbs


King design studies


King designs


Sword design studies


Sword designs


Peasant clothing studies


Peasant designs


Super pumped to work on this now. Had a weird couple of days, so it's cool to get back to it :)

[Nika]

Hi , love your economist it is quite unique and very original. It's great seeing someone so devoted and passionate.

[JakeB]

Nika - Ah, thank you. :)

Hey hey, new stuff

Portrait study


And applying it


Sorta like a memory study, but I did it in parts. So I did a sketch from the reference. Then one from my head. Then I did clean lines from the reference, then from my head. Then I painted the study, then I painted the other one. I feel like breaking it down like this helped me get my version closer to the original, and I think I learnt more, but who knows.. It was pretty fun anyway :)

Studies for the bloodsport


And the current progress on it now. Super pumped to keep working on it, just finishing up the clean lines today, then it's colour time. I'd love any feedback :)

[JakeB]

Passed 1900 Hours here

So, new stuff, again, chronological order to show the process and where studies came in etc.

Another memory study thing
Study


and apply



Finished the clean lines


Blocked in shapes and did a load of colour roughs


Started to develop one


A few quick colour studies of armour


and starting to render now


<3

[Danar]

KEEP AT IT JAKE! love the brushstrokes :3

[CoreyH]

Your brush economy is fantasmic man. 1900 hours! Getting there, huge improvements everywhere.

[JakeB]

Danar - haha, thank you. You're all about the brushstrokes right? ;)

CoreyH - Cheers man. It's a super fun thing to work on, I find anyway :).

New stuff

Gestures, gonna try and do these everyday now I think :)


Coin Studies


Coin Designs


And process with and without the coin.




I'd really love some feedback from you guys on the piece, just wanna know whether it reads or not? Still some time before the deadline, and I've got more to do with it, so let me know if you think something needs changing <3

[JakeB]

Hey, new stuff from yesterday. Been seeing a lot of Aaron Griffin's awesome photoreal studies, and got inspired to try and push something as far as I could. So, yeah, here it is. Not up to that standard, but still pretty happy with it. Learned some cool stuff :)



Process


And Gestures

[JakeB]

Right, so new stuff

Gestures


Studied a spinning coin


And then pretty much finalised this. Only a few changes, i.e the coin, and the depth of field, so the floor is much more out of focus now etc.. Hopefully this'll make the faces and the coin clear focal points. :)



And then I was sketching around last night, and realised I'd never painted a skeleton knight before. So I did. Flaming eyes and all.

[JakeB]

New stuff.

Gestures


Sketch thing


Quickish piece


Portrait

[JakeB]

So, new stuff.
Still life



Comp sketch


Genie in a beer bottle


(It was a slow day :/)

[JakeB]

Hey hey, new stuff. Getting back into the swing of things I think. Seem to hit a bit of a roadblock after finishing a piece, not knowing what to do next and stuff. But yeah, s'all good now :)

Gestures


Wall studies


Armour Studies


Filigree studies


Character sketches


And the Lines for an illustration - Gonna start painting this today :)

[CoreyH]

Seeing your sketchbook is a huge wake up call. You're a machine. A god damned art machine. I need to pick up my game. Love seeing this stuff man.

[JakeB]

CoreyH - ah thank you man. It's really motivating to hear that you think that lol. I'll try and keep it up ;)

pclancy-haha, yeah :)

New stuff :D

Gestures


Colour Rough


And starting to render. Might finish this today, we'll see

---

Hey, so someone on another forum asked me to explain how I work, and what I work on. I was flattered, so I went overboard with the response. Figured after typing that much, I may as well post it up here as well lol. <3

So, regarding the 10 hours a day. That's something that will come with time, if you stick to it. I don't make it every day, but atm I try to average 60 hours a week. Gives me a little bit of wiggle room, and I can take a day off. It's not tooo tough for me seeing as this is all I do lol. The main thing is to be consistent. If you don't draw everyday atm, try and draw for at least 2 hours every day for the next couple of weeks. If you already draw every day, just try to increase the time slowly. It'll get easier :). But there's no point in doing one 14 hour day, and then not working for a week.
And what do I do? Well, it depends what I'm trying to achieve for the most part. With the illustration I'm doing atm, (again, see below) I'll work on it until I get to something I can't do, or I've never drawn before (like the doors and walls above). Then I'll go away, gather some reference, and study from that. Before working on my piece again, with newly acquired information. I'll do this a couple of times at each stage of the piece. So when I'm designing with lines, I'll do some design studies (with just rough lines) of whatever it is, and when I'm rendering stuff out, I'll do some more painted studies, looking at light, and colour.
Basically, the key thing is to study the thing your struggling with, and be as specific as possible. If you don't know what breastplates look like. There's not a lot of point to painting one breastplate really really well. You'd be better off doing really quick line studies of 20, and a longer study of the kind of metal you want to use, then combine them in your piece.
So yeah, that's about it. Haha, this turned into a bit of a lecture.

Key points though:
-Be consistent
-Work from imagination, and study the things that your struggling with
-Make your studies as specific as possible.
-Don't study "a face". Study the way sunlight reacts with a middle aged, male face when it's lit from the side. Or the proportions of an older man's face.
-Before each study, know what your trying to get from it, and focus on that.
-Oh and that reminds me. Make notes! It's so easy to just zone out and paint when you're studying , and I find that making notes helps me to focus. Just jot down things that you notice, then you can use them when you're working from imagination.
-Ah, and apply your studies. There's not a lot of point to studying a polar bear, then painting a woman. Focus your studies on the work you're doing, don't just do them for the sake of it.

Gonna link a few things you might find interesting on the subject as well.
Anthony Jones talked about it on his stream a couple of times. http://www.livestream.com/robotpencil
One called "how I study realism.." and one called "studying design" Check them out :)

If you haven't already, check out dave's youtube channel. Loadsa cool info
http://www.youtube.com/user/DaveRapoza

And Tim Ferris is the guy who got me to start breaking everything down as small as possible. He talks a lot about an idea called "meta-learning". Worth checking out if you're interested. I'll link a couple of things, it's been a while since I listened to them though, so not sure if they're the most relevant. But they'll be good, promise. He's got some interesting ideas you can apply to art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj3RskVvVLA
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_ferriss_sma...thing.html

TL;DR - Work on the most specific thing possible, and do everything as quickly as possible. When you're learning, quantity can be as, if not more, important than quality. The guy who draws 200 quick faces, is going to be better at pulling a face out from imagination than the guy who spent 200 rendering one perfectly (at least initially). There's a point when you're studying when you stop learning useful info, and at least when you're starting out, I think that point is much earlier than people think.

And yes, there's definitely a place for long form studies. I love them, I think they help a ton. I just don't think enough people do quick stuff.

Lol, the TL;DR was long too. And, to be honest, what do I know? Just some thoughts. <3

[Sickbrush]

Strong points there Jake, +1 rep from me. Thx for taking the time

[MrFrenik]

Ha, I was going to mention Anthony Jones when you went through how you study, but you beat me to it! It's the exact same way that I've started studying, and not only has it made me learn the material in a more in depth manner but also at a quicker pace. Win-WIn! Also you asked whether or not the illustration of the King flipping the coin was reading, and I'd say it works quite well. The lighting is nicely done as well as the render. The only main crit I had was that the coin was a bit too out of focus to tell what it is, but you fixed that in the next post. Great stuff, keep it up and I'll try and match your work ethic!

[Ursula Dorada]

Two thumbs up mate! They are awesome videos, Ill re-watch them :D