Brian Hermelijn's - Sketchbook

[Brian Hermelijn]

@OtherMuzz
For sure. I always practiced form, just didn't move off from the gesture stage last year.

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[Brian Hermelijn]

No sketch updates today. Just design illustration stuff.

[Brian Hermelijn]

Random sketches

[Brian Hermelijn]

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Something I am working on:



Using myself as reference.

[Brian Hermelijn]

Stuff

[Brian Hermelijn]

Read chapter 1 of Hampton/finished. Instead of repeating the same concepts I read last year, I am gonna move on to the figure construction/skeleton landmarks/skeleton etc.

So completed the goal of finishing Chapter 1. After all, the principles shared in chapter 1, will be used throughout the process of building the figure which are : 
1. Gesture / Story
2. Proportion
3. Weight / Skeleton
4. Anatomy

That's Hampton's system. Of course Volume (Form) also comes into play before stage 4, for easier time to draw the anatomy. But I won't jump in anatomy yet. Gonna focus on figure construction for the next 3 to 7 days. The sketches I am about to post are simply just notes/quick sketches. So I will be dedicating a session each night towards longer figure drawing, and morning sessions for 2-5 minutes sketches.






There are some of those flying concepts that I might turn into something, probably. Will see.

[Brian Hermelijn]

I am just gonna let my mind out here. I am currently going through some really deep question about the next phase of my life. I just finished school (high school), and I am currently 22 years old and I am at the phase where I have to make a huge life decision for what I want to do next. Because I studied IT at school and design/art I learned from the internet.

Things I have thought out is : 
A) Go study illustration at a school(jumping in the unknown since I do not know if art I want to do as a living) 
B) Focus on design 90% to make it my main job and 10% on art for now while working at the company I interned at this year, and see if I can do remote work/continue learn art from internet, eventually apply at a design company in Netherlands which opens the opportunity for working online more freely?


Why I want to move out?
Because I am getting tired of living in the same culture you know. I want to experience what's out there. Meet new peoples. And so on.. There is just too many limitations right now here in Curacao, same with living from the internet itself. 

So I was thinking along the lines of just going full force, working my butt off as a designer, improve my ability, continue putting myself out there on the internet, and eventually 6 to 9 months from now apply at a company in Netherlands, maybe. 

There is also the choice of working ( which I am gonna be doing is ) for a few months work for the company I intern at and eventually I do not know, go on vacation to Netherlands (Sister lives there) first and decide what to do next, or I have to simply again put my back against the wall and go with 1 decision and stick with it, and remain flexible along the way.

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I have researched the schools from Netherlands and to be honest, they don't attract my attention at all in comparison to Watts Atelier or 2 other Ateliers I saw in the US, but the problem of US is the citizen (work) thing and also how bad things are turning into in the US now. 

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So I think the biggest thoughts on my head right now,  I live in an area where working online is kind of limited in a way due of most payment systems not accepting Curacao, there is still this unknown(ish) of whether I want to do art as a living or not, there is also working as a designer and continue learning art on the side. Because I haven't even tried digital painting, which is the thing I want to do the most right now. So yeah.

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Probably I just have to also like take a month of posting on forums and let my mind think about this. Drift on it. Dream about it. And even read other insights that peoples share when they see this post, you know, to kind of get to a conclusion. Because I do know I am the kind of person that even if I put a logical step behind my thinking, there is still this feeling of unsure deep down in a way. Like is this where I want to go? Is what I want to really do? You know.

Maybe the back again the wall trick is what I have to do, to put my ass on fire and get moving at a more steady speed than drifting.



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UPDATES on this thought:

After talking about this on the shoutbox, Amit and Muzz gave me some words of wisdom on my problem and also how I can tackle this.

"You need to take the pressure out of this Decision and not view it as something THAT WILL DETERMINE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE (it won't) SO YOU MUST CHOOSE CORRECT. Nope. Life doesn't work like that. You will stumble your way through it all the time and it ends up the way it ends up. The main thing is to know yourself better. The more you know of yourself, the more the path will seem right." - Amit"

Basically I had no direction/no idea on what I want and my focus was diversified to 2 to 3 things at once. So what I will be doing is :

Focus my attention on design, so working as designer. That way I am able to cultivate more time towards art later on when I have the ability to buy things and even combine the two. This is not to imply that I won't do art, but I won't be posting as much so I can focus on improving my design skills.

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Really thankful for the insights Amit + Muzz. 

"Nothing to say you can't do two things in parallel either...you definitely can, but the tradeoff can be this feeling of lack of focus, and of less "progress" towards each. Depends on your personality I guess. For me I love variety and going from one thing to something completely different, I thrive on it, but I did realise that I wanted to make more progress in the art, than the music for example, so I ditched the music at the time. They were both only hobbies at the time. " - Amit

"Yeah, that's what i did, i got to a decent quality for art, then i started music, then i started programming. As long as you are always learning you can jump to the next thing. Now i'm coming back to art hardcore again and really pushing it though... so there is always a tradeoff with branching out though, but i do think being a more rounded person is super important " - OtherMuzz

[Amit Dutta]

haha, I don't think I've ever been quoted. It's wierd. :) Glad we helped anyways.

[Eyliana]

I'm not sure if I followed along correctly; But do you still want to study (product) design or only art? I know there is a pretty good Design Academy in Eindhoven.

And I'm curious what kind of (product) design you are intrested in? I study Industrial Design Engineering myself in NL and have to start working myself in half a year. So if you have any question, you can ask and I'll try to help :)

[Artloader]

Basically I had no direction/no idea on what I want and my focus was diversified to 2 to 3 things at once. So what I will be doing is :

Focus my attention on design, so working as designer. That way I am able to cultivate more time towards art later on when I have the ability to buy things and even combine the two. This is not to imply that I won't do art, but I won't be posting as much so I can focus on improving my design skills.

Sounds like a smart move to me Hermidraws.
Carrying on with the day job will at least enable you financially and take the pressure off. 
Also if you are young and free, you should be able to devote a fair amount of time to a hobby and see some good gains over a period of time.  If you treat your art as a hobby for now, I reckon you might enjoy it more than if it were your day job and you were under pressure to deliver it to a client.
You could then hyper focus your hobby time in one small area at a time and level yourself up in art one step at a time.  From my own experience, the rapid gains from focussing on a small area can be a great source of enjoyment and motivation.
Just my two penneth :) please feel free to ignore.
Anyway good luck with your journey dude.

[OtherMuzz]

Yep, sounds good bro.

[Brian Hermelijn]

@Artloader
That's indeed true, thanks for the push.

@OtherMuzz @AmitDuta @Eyliana
Thank You!

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Sketch updates for today, trying a new technique. (Well not really new I used to draw like this. Its the latest video of bobby chiu)

[Brian Hermelijn]

Morning sketches, form/profile view imagination.

[CTrow]

Hey Hermidraws! thanks for stopping by my sketchbook. Your latest figure drawings and bean/torso exercises are looking pretty good, its good that you seem to be simplifying the more complex forms into simpler ones. 

I read your post about deciding what to do with the next phase of your life, it was really interesting to read. I can relate to alot of it. From my personal experience ive always tried not to think about what I want to do too much, because I tend to over think and end up talking myself out of it. Later to realise that it would have been a good decision to do it. It kinda sounds like you are over-thinking, " Is it what I really want to do?". I have also thought this, I think we all do in one form or another. But instead of asking yourself that, try it! see if it is what you want to do! 

anyway I could ramble on about this for ever. But I hope it helped you in some way, and I also hope it all works out for you. 

[Brian Hermelijn]

@Ctrow
Thanks for your kind words, yeah but I am still doing a sloppy job drawing the figure, ha.

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Sketch to see where I am at with perspective/boxes:



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My posting format will change for next month.

[Brian Hermelijn]

Updated my first post with the books I am going through. Just really small updates for now. 

Notes from bridgman and just fooling around with the other sketches.

[Brian Hermelijn]

Not a whole lot for this week, so will just share a design challenge I have going on. And scribbles/boxes/simplified box of the torso etc.












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Design challenge I started




This is one of them. You can follow the rest here :
https://dribbble.com/brianhermelijn

[Brian Hermelijn]

[OtherMuzz]

Hey mate, Nice to see stuff starting to become more solid.

You seem to be having some trouble with the cheeks. This is how i break down the planes for the cheek.

[Brian Hermelijn]

@OtherMuzz
Not sure if I understood that correctly, but let me know if you see the same thing in the next ones.

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