JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[darktiste]

You seem to have gone change through a change of mindset.Your study look more stylize then looking for accuracy in detail.Look like the animation injection as had it influence on you.

[chubby_cat]

Really digging this latest update! There's so many cool things you've got going on. Glad to hear you feel like you're coming out of your art slump! It's never much fun being stuck in one.

I particularly love the exaggeration on the ball animation. Do you have any goals for learning animation? Or just having fun with it?

[Artloader]

Hey Jyonny - cool updates man!

Your lines and poses are so confident and well executed - all those years of grind have really paid off!

That selective saturation exercise looks really interesting - a great way of drawing attention to certain areas!

Kudos to you for learning animation as well - you are adding many strings to your bow - nice going :).

Also when you mentioned neurotransmitters it made me wonder if you've been looking into flow-state? Some people call it being in the zone - a state of being where you are feeling your best and performing your best, you lose track of time and become completely absorbed in the task at hand. When this happens a series of highly beneficial chemicals are released in your body (neurotransmitters) that help improve your health and performance.

Anyway - keep it going man :)

[darktiste]

Hey Jyonny - cool updates man!

Your lines and poses are so confident and well executed - all those years of grind have really paid off!

That selective saturation exercise looks really interesting - a great way of drawing attention to certain areas!

Kudos to you for learning animation as well - you are adding many strings to your bow - nice going :).

Also when you mentioned neurotransmitters it made me wonder if you've been looking into flow-state?  Some people call it being in the zone - a state of being where you are feeling your best and performing your best, you lose track of time and become completely absorbed in the task at hand.  When this happens a series of highly beneficial chemicals are released in your body (neurotransmitters) that help improve your health and performance.

Anyway - keep it going man :)

Funny you mention flow state because i wrote a piece on that in some of my older post. http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-5494.html

[Zorrentos]

Nice work man! Your tree of knowledge is growing and sprouting many new little branches! :)

[JyonnyNovice]

Darktiste Thanks for stopping by! I guess my goal has always been stylisation, kind of feel ready to push into it more now.

Chubbycat Thanks for the comment! My animation goal is basically to get through all the fundamental stuff, get to animating characters so I can be better at drawing 'on model' and just better at posing and getting those 'acting' moments in my poses. I always wanted to be a 2D animator though, so maybe will end up getting into it harder, I think there's a lot of work opportunities for 2D animators now.

Artloader Thanks for the encouragement! And yeah! flow state man, it's a beautiful thing!

Zorrentos Thanks for stopping by! Gotta keep nurturing that tree!



Had kind of a stressful month or so! For various reasons ended up splitting with the writer of our Penny Pentagram comic. I still have this comic deal with Macroverse but no story or work to give them since we agreed he will keep writing Penny elsewhere. Been in a real strange headspace, many days with no drawing done, lost sight of goals, got overwhelmed by all the weaknesses and gaps in my knowledge I want to work on. 

Worked on that comic for nearly 12 months on and off, was kind of a 'grieving process' to let her go and come to terms with starting from the beginning again.

I put an ad on reddit looking for a writer, got overwhelmed by responses, like 50 messages. Read through about 30 script samples and story ideas. Some of them reallly awesome ideas. Narrowed it down to 5, and now 3. Soo hard to decide... so much responsibility... I'm not cut out for being in management I think >.<

Here's some random stuff I've done since the last update, pretty directionless, mostly just to do 'something' and not get rusty. From this week I am re-setting my goals, trying to narrow things down to practice what skills I actually need to do the specific comic job (rather than all the things I want to be able to do) and writing myself a new daily/weekly schedule/timetable thing to hopefully stay on track.

[Zorrentos]

Thanks for dropping by the ol sketchbook and providing awesome feedback Jon! Always nice to see you update again. 

Your studies are looking great as usual, and I can tell they are paying off big-time, especially in the figure drawing department! I think you got the potential to make some great improvements in the painting department though. 

I made a small overpaint to one of your studies with some things that I think you should keep in mind. It's some basic stuff concerning shape design and how to place your values, but maybe it could be of help? Keep up the great work! 

[chubby_cat]

I'm real sorry to hear about everything man, that sucks. Everything in life happens for a reason, so you might end up creating a story you love even more. It's awesome you received a lot of story proposals (even if it is overwhelming having to decide haha). Keep going!! Onwards and upwards!!!! We're rooting for you :)

[darktiste]

Just wanna point out something about using reference in the post #691 with the cow girl her bra would get off because a bra wrap around the back.Right now it just hanging from her neck.Just a technical error.But i always advise you learn more about how thing work first before you draw them.

One advise concerning life to make it easier on yourself is to convince yourself that when thing don't seem to go your way well there actually better thing coming your way.Life is full of disagreement but in the end they help us create were personality and value.You have got experience and are better equip for what life as in store for you.

Best luck to you.

[Artloader]

Hey Jyonny, great update in spite of the setback you suffered - so sorry to hear about the split with your writer man.

It's cool that you got so many responses to your request for a writing partner though - that's awesome!

You ever thought about doing the writing yourself? I'd bet you'd do a great job :).

Anyway - I wish you all the best dude - whatever you decide.

[Dominicque]

Really see an improvement. Great to see your journey.

[JyonnyNovice]

Zorrentos Thanks for the overpaint, idk if it's worth your time on that scrappy thing but I appreciate it anyway! I'll keep those things in mind.

Chubby Cat Thanks for the encouragement! I'll keep going ^_^

Darktiste Thanks for pointing out that error! Totally didn't notice it until you said, I do understand it was really just a blindspot from rushing the piece! Thanks for the wise words too, definitely got to use failure as a catalyst for future success, I agree totally!

Artloader Thanks man! I did try to write my own stories before, I think I can write ok-ish, kind of on a level with my artwork but I found it just sooo hard to keep going with the project when it's just me. Initial enthusiasm devolves into crippling self doubt, lack of consistent feedback and encouragement and no one to keep me accountable and keep going. Sounds kind of depressing when I put it like that but just recognising that I don't really see things through unless there's another person in it with me. I tried 'starting small' and getting just a simple strip with a couple of characters going, but haven't even managed to get much progress on that solo. I'd like to do it and still dream up plans every now and then.

Dominicque Thank you! Thanks for visiting my thread ^_^



Only 6 weeks since my last post, it feels like much longer! Lot of things happened, I found a new writing partner, made a lot of progress but now he's disappeared >.< He may reappear but if not I think I am not going to seek again right now, but spend some time developing my illustration style. I rarely ever make finished work, I've always been of the mind that spending 20 hours to finish something is detrimental for me since I could spend that time making much more progress with the fundamentals. I think this has been the right choice until now, and still I lack plenty in fundamentals but I think that mindset could continue all my life since I'll never feel that I am really ready until I start actually completing pieces.

So, new goals, make finished work, illustrate ideas and pieces that I actually care about and can feel proud of. Push them as far as I can, sink the hours in, redraw, rework parts that are not working, take responsibility for my skill level and don't make excuses that "it's just for practice". Develop a solid illustration process that I can repeat. Properly address my weaknesses. Don't try to figure it all out on my own, take courses, even the expensive ones with feedback from the teacher.

I had this thread going, trying to figure out a schedule to follow that's simple enough I don't need to spend much time thinking about what to do each day: http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-9116.html it's been working so far, but changing the goal to finished pieces. I am still unsure about it... devoting so many hours to a single piece buuut, I think I need to do it, so that I can gradually get pieces done in less time. I'll never be satisfied with my comics if I need 20 hours a page to get them where I want them since it's just not feasible to devote that much time to each one (and impossible for me to keep the enthusiasm going to even do that for 20+ pages!)

Here's a big load of stuff over the last 6 weeks, am currently working on Character, Environment, Framed Ink, Painting Studies, Schoolism Workouts and developing an illustration process.

Character Stuff










[b]Environment & Props[/b]

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[b][b]Framed Ink[/b][/b]

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[b][b]Painting Studies [/b][/b](The goal for these was to figure out a manageable background style for my new comic, possibly null and void now, whatever I learned in these may end up lost but all good still)
















Developing illustration process (these are experiments figuring out a repeatable process I can use for doing environments/illustrations. Once I get it figured out I'll make a longer explanation of what I'm doing exactly. I got some advice recently though, that suggested instead of doing straight up studies, try to do more imaginative pieces, or photo based pieces 'in the style' of the artist I'm studying, in the last few I started doing this, trying to combine the art reference and the photo reference. The plan is to rely less and less on both and start being more imaginative.)














Finally some WIP stuff of illustrations I am planning to finish:










If you looked through all of these... thanks so much for taking the time ^_^

[Skeffin]

Damn that's a big update.. great studies though your stuff is looking really good! I like how your anime/ cartoon faces still have a sense of form and look 3D, and I love the lighting on the last piece. Also I've saved some of your notes as they seemed useful. Keep on going with the background practice - I like how you push the colour compared to the photo ref

[Skeffin]

That's the nathan fowkes landscape workout right? I started doing those too, just last week! Forgot to include them in my sketchbook update. Me too I got a new appreciation for the curves tool, so useful to group values and stuff, I only ever used it like the Levels tool before. I didn't do the workouts for the last couple days, got really frustrated with my results and just can't find similar brushes to what he uses on clip studio paint. But if you're gonna keep going maybe I will too and we can see share results or something.

figured i'd reply here so you'd see it sooner. 

I don't know if creating brushes in clip studio paint works the same as photoshop... but I just used the snipping tool to copy the images of each brush he shows in the first video, pasted into photoshop and created a brush from that. Then I tweaked transfer, shape, scatter, flow etc according to what he said and what I saw in the video until it looked similar. Most of them are slightly off but they're close enough for following along. If you want I can send the settings I used for each brush ?

also yeah results share sounds good ! but if you're really losing motivation on it I find switching to something else then coming back to it later helps.

[JyonnyNovice]

I don't know if creating brushes in clip studio paint works the same as photoshop... but I just used the snipping tool to copy the images of each brush he shows in the first video, pasted into photoshop and created a brush from that. Then I tweaked transfer, shape, scatter, flow etc according to what he said and what I saw in the video until it looked similar. Most of them are slightly off but they're close enough for following along. If you want I can send the settings I used for each brush ?

also yeah results share sounds good ! but if you're really losing motivation on it I find switching to something else then coming back to it later helps.

It's similar! I am also being lazy about it, trying to find the closest thing instead of taking the time to try and make them >.< Don't suppose you could share me the ones you made? clip can import PS brushes. Do you use discord? My id is JonR#4453!

I definitely want to continue them, only at like day 5 or something, his process is all about 'getting the job done' by whatever digital means necessary, it's good to learn the professional tricks alongside the fundamentals.

[Zorrentos]

Hey Jonny! Cool to see you making a new post! It seems like you have produced a lot of work! This is the kind of mileage that is required to really make progress with your art, so really great job there!

When it comes to lacking fundamentals, I think the saying "you are never quite ready" comes to mind. We never 100% master all the fundamentals, but at some point, we need to start producing work no matter what! The final, imaginative art piece is where we see where we are truly lacking and need to focus our effort. Don't fall into the trap of "over-studying" what you are already good at like I did! : )

I think your anatomical studies are looking great! You clearly understand the concept of thinking of the human figure in 3D and placing the facial features accordingly. What you should focus on right now is probably values and color, as well as painting finished pieces or backgrounds. This is an area where you are already making good progress, but a little more time spent here would probably lead to even more breakthroughs! Maybe you should even spend a bit of time learning the basics of blender so that you can block out buildings and such in 3D and paint over them?

Keep up the good work! 

[Zizka]

Hello Jyonny,
I had previously skimmed from page 1. Although I didn’t look through all 36 pages, this image struck me:
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...s%2001.jpg

The man sitting at the counter is drawn in a style I don’t think I’ve seen before. I find that really exciting as developing a unique style is something of a milestone in my book. Also like the bouncing ball animations as animation is my favorite hobby.

P.S.: How do you manage to display attachments in your messages if you don’t mind me asking?