one_two's sketchbook

[one_two]

darktiste might be, i'm not doing studies that often now, more sketching from imagination

[darktiste]

I see let me tell you what from my own perspective what is happening your falling into a pitfall right now.My belief is you will start to stagnate.Excuse the saying i am gonna use but it a common saying among professional(not me).There is no use to putting a cherry on top of a unbaked cake.This mean that your result are only as strong as your study habit.Imagination is supported by fundamental once you start to focus on imagination you are at risk of loosing sight of what constitute good fundamental.I am just putting this as a warning so you know to balance your study with imaginative stuff.The general concensus is to study and then from there apply to your imaginative work.The pitfall of not advancing your fundamental is simple it limit your understanding of certain advance principle.When you work on fundamental and you don't apply it straight away to your personal work you don't solidify those learning and it take more time for your brain to solidify those concept.When you work on imagination you start to go toward abstraction and inaccuracy because your no longer pratice observation base on reality.So remember to balance imagination and practice if you would like to progress.

I hope this was of any use to you.

[one_two]

I see let me tell you what from my own perspective what is happening your falling into a pitfall right now.My belief is you will start to stagnate.Excuse the saying i am gonna use but it a common saying among professional(not me).There is no use to putting a cherry on top of a unbaked cake.This mean that your result are only as strong as your study habit.Imagination is supported by fundamental once you start to focus on imagination you are at risk of loosing sight of what constitute good fundamental.I am just putting this as a warning so you know to balance your study with imaginative stuff.The general concensus is to study and then from there apply to your imaginative work.The pitfall of not advancing your fundamental is simple it limit your understanding of certain advance principle.When you work on fundamental and you don't apply it straight away to your personal work you don't solidify those learning and it take more time for your brain to solidify those concept.When you work on imagination you start to go toward abstraction and inaccuracy because your no longer pratice observation base on reality.So remember to balance imagination and practice if you would like to progress.

I hope this was of any use to you.

Oh boy, I'm falling already. I should probably start making more studies or i'll limit my understanding "of certain advance principle". :D I'm not against studying but I don't see any point of making art into a sport. Not for myself at least. I don't have this mindset of work hard, study hard, I've written it already. This leads to burnouts, spoiled expectations and sometimes even depression. I don't take art THAT seriously, at least now. These things you've written I've heard and applied many times, while studying in the Art Academy and after that. So there's nothing new to me from what you've written in this post and most of your previous posts. It's a little bit embarassing because you're pointing out obvious things to people who do those things and apply them in their work to whatever extent they can. My work has it's flaws and it is OK. There's nothing wrong in not being 100% precise and accurate. I'm not an engineer or a surgeon. Relax, dude. The only pitfall I'm afraid is a pitfall of becoming paranoid about learning how to draw and paint better. If that's your goal, good luck to you!
This is probably the longest post I've written this year. :D
And no, this wasn't of any use to me other than some practice in replying in English language.

[one_two]

update

[tchangchang]

Really nice improvement on your digital rendering for the last piece compared with your previous digital characters! (umm, I hope I'm not being dumb right now and this really was a digital piece). I really like how your digital pieces still feel very traditional in their rendering. Is this something you try to do intentionally or is it just because you have trained as traditional artist and paint in a certain way?

The only pitfall I'm afraid is a pitfall of becoming paranoid about learning how to draw and paint better.

This is a very real fear I am afraid, and I have in the past lost my enjoyment of art because of hyper-focusing on improvement alone. I think it takes a healthy balance between improvement and enjoyment in order to have a sustainable way of getting better at art or anything else. If you are doing this for a hobby then more power to you. I can tell from your pieces that you spend a lot of time on your work and really enjoy it.

[one_two]

Thanks, tchangchang. This last piece is digital. As far as the rendering goes, I've been experimenting with it for some time now. Earlier I used to paint with textured brushes but then i switched to simpler ones, like simple hard round or a square brush. I try to apply strokes, like when I'm drawing I do crosshatching, similarly i make many strokes in different directions, sizes, hardness e.t.c. in my paintings.
It's kinda hard for me to imagine drastic improvement in arts when threre's no joy left to do this for the love of it.
Ok, now I'm gonna do tons of studies and make a pro portfolio in a matter of a year. This approach IMHO has nothing to do with art, back in the days when conceptart.org was alive and the industry standarts weren't so demanding it was different. I used to listen to podcasts from different artists in games and movies, plenty of them complain about burnouts, artblocks and so on.
It's kinda stupid, spending years on something you enjoy doing and ending up miserable because you've put yourself under pressure of industry standarts or some other bullshit.
I think many of pro artists have actually forgotten why they have started making art in the first place. I might be wrong.

[wld.89]

I agree with you in the fact that going for art with the wrong mindset can lead to real mental ( and sometimes physical ) damages. I think that improvment is a natural desire among human beings and it's something that we should nurture to make us better. We have this crazy scene in our head that we want to put on paper or canvas, and it's gonna require tons of practice to reach that level, but the journey is also interesting, you're learning tons of different things, you view the world differently, tastes are changing overtime, i think it's a pretty interesting journey we are embarqing on, as long as we are willing to push past the first miles of uncertainty and doubt ! I think peoples get burnouts and such because they put the industry standards before the art standard, if it means something. For example, before learning to paint fast, you need to learn to paint well ! once you know how to paint things really well, then you can think more about brush economy and how to optimize things, and it's really not a problem ! But most people would take it backward ! they would learn to paint fast to match industry standards, but at the same time they don't know how to paint really well, so they'd put extra hours to catch up with that ! painting fast isn't about making fast strokes, but about thinking fast and making the less mistakes possible in the early stages, it takes years of practice to build that second nature and most people would just take illusory shortcuts that leads to bad stuff in the end ! But at the same time, i think growth is an important part of every human being, not only artists ^^ i'd love to see more gesture drawings from you, it could really benefit your art in helping you make characters with more natural poses ! it'd be a good thing i guess ^^ Keep it up !

[JosephCow]

 I think peoples get burnouts and such because they put the industry standards before the art standard, if it means something. For example, before learning to paint fast, you need to learn to paint well ! once you know how to paint things really well, then you can think more about brush economy and how to optimize things, and it's really not a problem ! But most people would take it backward ! they would learn to paint fast to match industry standards, but at the same time they don't know how to paint really well, so they'd put extra hours to catch up with that ! painting fast isn't about making fast strokes, but about thinking fast and making the less mistakes possible in the early stages, it takes years of practice to build that second nature and most people would just take illusory shortcuts that leads to bad stuff in the end !

Yeah I agree with this a lot, mostly because I, like a lot of people, would see those sped up speedpainting videos where they would make a concept piece in like a few hours, sped up to 10 minutes. It's like, whoaaa that's how I want to paint! But of course, if you don't have the skills in general you can't paint like that.  You get faster just by knowing what you're doing.

[one_two]

update

[one_two]

Some figure linedrawings from ref and imagination and painting studies from last days.

[Artloader]

Cool stuff here one_two - really interesting design on that fellow in the golden armour - one of your original designs?

Interesting discussion in here about the purpose of posting on Crimson Daggers - one reason is to obtain critique to improve - another reason is for the art-companionship. Personally I post on here for both of these reasons but I reckon either/or/both are equally valid.

Just my two-pence worth :) feel free to disregard as you see fit :).

Looking forward to seeing more from you dude :).

[one_two]

Artloader, thanks, yeah, it's an original design :D Kinda funny to write that after seeing tons of images with a similar design to that of mine. 
OK, some head studies I did along with imaginary chars.

[one_two]

update

[Dominicque]

Wow, you've got a unique style already developing. It seems very traditional, in terms of the painting style, but with modern subject matter. How did you create that blocky texture digitally? I will say just keep mind of the facial proportions, because some a looking askew, like Leo's face and the black woman's eye seems too low.
Nodding my head as I'm reading down the thread, doing studies is all well and good, as long as that's not your sole output. You need to enjoy what you are actually doing.

[one_two]

Dominicque, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Here are some studies and a little illustration i did for fun.

[JosephCow]

Nice drawings! I recognize all those guys from the Forge of Vulcan. I like the illustration as well, your landscapes have a very natural look to them with attractive colors and brushwork. I do think the composition is a little unusual since it seems to be showing a guy about to fight a witch-like creature, but the composition kind of de-emphasizes the action. Like it's not framed as a high danger situation. Not to say this is bad, but it's different to see.

[darktiste]

I think the problem for me with the composition is how it look like the scene is inside a theater you got the foreground with the rock.But it as if the forest is just painted there on some kind of wall that would be behind the rock.I think it a matter of first of all not showing a horizon line and secondo it a problem of not giving enough cue for depth such as overlap and atmospheric perspective.A good way to create depth is to create a succession of overlapping mountain.For me the issue here is how you made that slop in the middle ground and than your background is on the other side of that slope with no depth there because the tree just become a united blury mass.A good thing would be to erase a few of those tree and let the eye get lost in the distance.In term of compositon you get us really where you want us to look at you use some good framing there with the element inside the scene.For me what doesn't work is the horizontal canva it just leave to much space empty for my personal taste but it sure give the feel of wilderness if that what you were going for.

I took the liberty to crop the original and try to cut out the unnecessary and get down to the action and story.It ok to crop part of the character if it help you get ''better'' composition sure there might be some element you want to include like the gun which might have a importance so include it.Somehow cropping is feet made the scene more believable and there isn't that much emptyness anymore in the foreground that make it look like a theater play.

[CoreyH]

I like the brushtrokes on that last study!

To piggy back on the last crit, maybe push the values a bit more.
Take this example with a grain of salt because I am definitely not great at this - and it might be a totally different mood.

But I slapped the creature on an intersection when you draw a thirds grid over the top - and just pushed the foreground and background away a bit. Then a little bit more lighting to draw the eye to the creature.

[one_two]

some studies i did today

[JosephCow]

I always like your landscapes. interesting combos of textures.