Mech's Oxygen Deprivation Deathline

[Mechanizoid]

Yo it's Mech, just want to tell all you guys what my Deathline is. I'm sick of being so on-and-off, stop and start with my art practice, so I'm doing Dynamic Sketching with a time limit to enforce continuity of practice. My spacecraft is in orbit with limited CO2 filters, and you guys shall not let me land until I have done this properly.

I'm using Draw a Box. I'm be redoing Lessons 1 and 2 'cause the first time I did them, I did not practice every day and as a result, it took too long to finish them. I think it should not take more than two days to do each lesson, three days at most with the Dynamic Sketching material. I don't just want to learn basic drawing skills here. I want to develop consistency of practice.

GOAL: Work through Dynamic Sketching, practicing every single day.

Specific Tasks: These are the specific tasks I must complete.

1. Do the Basics over again. Complete all the assigned ellipse, box, and organic form homework.
   
2. Complete 250 Box Challenge.
   
3. Complete 250 Cylinder Challenge.
   
4. Work through all five Dynamic Sketching lessons, completing all assigned homework.
   

Based on my estimate of two days for each Basics lesson and three days max for each Dynamic Sketching lesson, I'm giving myself 21 days, starting now. I will post all my work on my SB thread to prove I am working my little butt off, and thus deserve more CO2 filters.

And, naturally, I will send my work to Uncomfortable on Reddit for his awesome free crit! :-3 Please kick my ass if I slack off.

Deadline: July 19th

As Uncomfortable says, a box a day keeps the demons away! Or, in this case, keeps the CO2 level in my spaceship from building up until I suffer an incredibly painful death from hypercapnia. I'm unwilling to give up and let the air out of my ship to suffer a painless death by hypoxia. If you want to draw, you've got to DRAW. It's like the air you breathe.

[Piotr Jasielski]

My brain is too fried atm to read it, so i'll do it once it gets below hell temperature. Anyway good luck!

[Artloader]

Good luck dude, I hope you develop the consistency of practice that you're after.

Get to it man!

[Adam Lina]

Good plan, mech. Make sure to keep sketching your own ideas as you go.

[Mechanizoid]

Thanks guys! :-) I've gotten to work and I'm sticking to it too. Gotta build up that inertia. I'll have the results of Lesson 1 up today or tomorrow.

@Adam

Make sure to keep sketching your own ideas as you go.

I will... only in this case I'll be STARTING to sketch my own ideas, I still haven't gotten into imagination drawing yet! D: From fear, mostly. I'm going to set aside some time to sketch my own ideas.

[John]

Hi Mech.

Maybe it's a good idea to post your exercises everyday on your SB so it's easier to make yourself accountable. It's easy for anyone to say anything on the Deathline. It's way more difficult to follow through.

That said, good luck!

[Amit Dutta]

Hit play. Enjoy both together.
Also what John said.

[Mechanizoid]

Hey John and Amit, thanks!

Yes, I definitely agree, and I will be posting my work on my SB. Probably not every day, though, 'cause all Dynamic Sketching work is done traditionally and I'll need to take pics. I prefer to wait for a bit of sun so the pics won't look like utter crap. I'll have the first batch up tomorrow.

Oh, and Amit, I think you've just found the theme and mascot for my Oxygen Deprivation Deathline. LOL

[Mechanizoid]

Updating my Deathline! Based on my performance so far, I have some refinements to make to my goals. Listening to this FZD podcast gave me some ideas: https://youtu.be/k3Al7QAS89s

1. Get to bed at a reasonable hour (i.e., not 4 in the morning all the time...)!. Seriously, it ain't healthy. ^^ Early mornings are some of the best times for me to work, too!
   
2. Spend five hours a day drawing. Feng Zhu did the math on this on one of his podcasts, and someone who practices two to three hours a day just can't catch in mileage to someone who practices five or more hours. 
   
3. Avoid wasting time on the internet or social media–including places like this! As Feng Zhu suggests, I'm going to break it down into a 1/10 ratio. A half hour of forum time as a break after five hours of drawing sounds fine.
   
4. Couple tutorials with homework. Each half hour of vid watching should mean dozens of pages of actual drawings, otherwise I'm just watching videos.
   
5. Oh yeah–do you know that feeling beginners get when they finally draw something sort of correct, where they don't want to do more 'cause they might mess it up? I gonna fucking break the back of this feeling. So sick of it. If I mess up, that means I need to draw more. :D An amateur practices until they get it right. A pro practices until they can't get it wrong.
   

Since I'm studying from Scott Robertson's video on perspective form sketching, I'm assigning myself a bit of homework to practice what he shows me. I'm going to draw 100 freehand perspective grids. Not really setting any deadline for these. TBH, I just enjoy drawing these things, so I'm gonna do a bunch each day until I reach 100. Then I'm gonna draw some more of these constructions, and watch the rest of the video!
 
I'm also gonna incorporate some of Scott's ellipse exercises into my daily routines. Some of them look pretty helpful. So there are some of the concrete things I'm doing to apply Feng's advice!

[Artloader]

Sounds good Mech.

Smart move to look after yer health too. You lose that - everything else goes out the window.

Keep on flying the spaceship dude!

[Mechanizoid]

Thanks Artloader! ^^;

You got a good point, we all gotta watch after our health. Late nights spent studying are not at all uncommon, but we have to make sure we get enough sleep to stay healthy. Same with eating habits. We gotta make sure we are eating good, healthy food and not just eating a bunch of junk in between studying.

Says thus while staying up 'til 4 in the morning catching up on Draw a Box homework.

Kinda hypocritical but whatever. :D As for what I'm doing right now, I realized that I'm slipping behind so I'm putting in extra effort to catch up. Fortunately, I now think I was quite generous with the time I gave myself, so I think I can finish this on time.

Keep on flying the spaceship dude!

I am, engines are at full thrust and the destination star is in the front screen, just gotta keep building that momentum!

[Beardyish]

Just took a look at your sketchbook, the perspective studies and forms are looking good, man.

I started working through Scott Robertson's book before, but dayjob work hours burned me out a bit and I kind of let slip. You've just inspired me to pick it back up and start all over, I hope you don't mind if I use your goals as a bit of a template for my own in this regard.

Good luck with the deadline, dude!

[Mechanizoid]

Thanks Beardyish! I'm glad my efforts inspired you take of Scott again, his teaching is amazing. I'm not sure if my goal is perfectly thought out or anything but you are certainly free to use it as a template. :-) I actually updated my goals a bit here according to the S.M.A.R.T method. You might want to check that out!