It's been a while since I've posted because there were a few thing I needed to take care of first. The first being my problem with creative perfectionism. When you know what good is and you're aware that what you make definitely isn't, it can be extremely discouraging. I'd also often lose my direction when studying and have a severe lack of confidence when it comes to committing to personal art.
I'd often look at my older sketchbooks from years ago and though I couldn't do what I could now, they looked better, somehow more confident. I could also draw for much longer (7 hrs at the least) and committing to something was much easier, even when I failed. I knew that if I could just figure out what I was doing back then, failure wouldn't effect my confident, regardless of the outcome. That and the the extra stamina would really help my progress.
I figured it out and it was simple, I only drew with a ballpoint pen. I had to commit to every line and if I wanted to do a complex sketch, I had to do it in layers, going from light to dark using pressure. It made it very easy to move on by not having the option to erase. Now I draw only in pen and that takes care of the lack confidence/perfectionism. To fix the direction issue, I keep a journal to write down what I'm doing for the day, along with whatever I've learned or could do better. Lastly, I work in Pomodoros with five minutes breaks in between, now I can study much longer. I've been doing this for nearly a month now, so I think it's safe to say that it works. I'm feelin pretty good about this year.
Anyway here's everything I've done since I stopped posting in late September. I never post my sketchbook pages. Didn't because I was too lazy to run the scanner and didn't think they were worth posting. There's no way it's gonna let me put these in order.
(01-08-2022, 04:36 PM)neopatogen Wrote: Hey Rat, read your post in Advice section, I think you're doing well, keep on going!
doing a few studies (I can see that you really think/analyze and learn, and not just blindly copy!) and then making a small imaginative painting like that girl with glasses looks like a solid approach
Thanks man, I'm gonna try to do more painting like that.
(01-09-2022, 04:15 AM)jeremygordonart Wrote: Hey, I definitely see the progress over the pages in here, keep it up! You're doing well to do the analytical studies like you are, really focusing on planes and stuff. Have you checked out Devin Korwin's tutorials at all? He would probably be of interest to you.
I'd say keep doing what you're doing, and also make sure to do some gesture drawing warmups also to practice flow and rhythm in addition to the more solid studies so that you study movement and balance as well. The imaginative girl painting is looking good.
To push it to the next level, I'd say look up Mike Azevedo's color tutorial. He really explains color and light in a way that will open your mind to a new way of seeing. It will help you a lot with colors in your shadows, etc.
Keep it up, I'm looking forward to more : )
I'm doing timed gesture drawings during my warmups now and they're definitely helping. Thanks for the recommendation by the way, I'm gonna watch it as soon as I'm done posting.
(01-09-2022, 07:56 AM)_spec Wrote: Great sketchbook! Your form and anatomy/structure studies are really great and shows a strong understanding of these things.
I'm a big fan of the girl with the cool glasses- i'd be curious to see how you'd approach some more imaginative drawings like that one. I think you'd become great at it quickly considering your current analytical abilities!
I appreciate it, man. I really dig the shapes and colors you use in your work. Man everybody's making cool stuff here, I gotta catch up!
I think you are getting a good balance of study vs more personal work have you heard about 80/20 rule?80 % of the time you study and 20% is taking risk trying new thing mixing technique exploring color camera bla bla bla in personal project that as the goal of aging like fine wine...
(01-23-2022, 11:45 AM)darktiste Wrote: I think you are getting a good balance of study vs more personal work have you heard about 80/20 rule?80 % of the time you study and 20% is taking risk trying new thing mixing technique exploring color camera bla bla bla in personal project that as the goal of aging like fine wine...
I have, It's currently what I'm trying to do. I do want to get it down to 50/50 over time, though.
I've been doing a lot of these bases to help me make the transition from traditional to digital. I can finally work digitally from start to finish, but it takes me much longer. Gonna start a new set of goals for the next few weeks today.
Same old same old. Wanted to do a set number of these before moving on, nearly there. Just 25 more mannequins (of 100). Gettin alotta mileage outta these. I'm almost as comfortable working digitally as I am with pen and paper.
I think you need to push beyond the i copy pose and make your own really.But it a good start to copy just don't get stuck to much to because the more you practice copying the more you get good at copying which isn't invention.But i can believe that you do know how to invent i just don't know how much you can put it all together.To me it seem like you are still very much into study.It hard to tell what you are capable of because most of what here use those color code wire frame look that make it look unfinish and study like.
The closest i see to something original is those shaded character. But it hard for someone to critic if you never push to a finish piece.You gotta do a few finish piece every now and then i think it would help you really isolate where you have issue.I think there a trap to be consistently working in anatomy because it doesn't make your creative brain grow it just the observational part that grow.I know you don't have to prove anything to no one i just encourage you to try to fail more often.To me you seem to be in a comfort zone it seem like you aren't learning in a balance way.
Goal are important but remember priority. Goal should always be related to what should be prioritize and that is for you to find it would be foolish for me to tell you what you should be doing but i still do because it important to have an other perspective sometime it only so you can agree or disagree.
Everything up until recently. I want to practice character design and composition for a while, just really focus on developing my ideas. While not huge steps, I have tried to get out of my comfort zone . I knew that if I was going to be designing characters and creating scenes, I needed to at least commit to an attempt at placing character in a space and go beyond just a mannequin. Not the greatest, but nothing ever is when you're trying something new. Glad I made the attempt though. I think I'm gonna take a day to take note on environment drawing and thumbnail, along with a few other things.
Still having issues with placing objects in space, along with drapery(gotta relearn the fundamental folds). I'm dabbling in a personal sketchbook only the side while I do studies now. I think it's better for me to do it in private so that I don't have to worry about trying to make things perfect.
If you're working on backgrounds I think could focus more on straight lines, turning the organic objects in to boxes, it's much harder drawing round shapes in perspective. Find the horizon line perspective points, help wrap your brain around it.
