So the past month I tried to develop a study plan that would put me closer
to my endgoal. The baseline for the plan is the skill-requirement list of the studio I
want to work for.
The key points are:
- Visual creativity, passion for character design and 2d illustration
- Being able to place more than on figure into a composition
- Affinity for storytelling
- Perfect understanding of human anatomy, proportions, fashion, various cultures
- Being able to change and adapt across different genre and media
- Solid 2D art skills are a must
To put it short, I have to be a very solid 2d draftman.
Since the topics are pretty wide I plan to cut them into small "splits", just like
in fitness there is the typical "brosplit" Im developing the bro-artsplit.
Because of my fulltime job I realistically only have 3-4 hours per day
during the week for focused studies.
MONDAY (Portrait Monday)
MAIN GOALS:
Learn & understand face structure, muscles, proportions, the skull.
Adapt this knowledge to existing art styles.
Build a visual library and workflow that is fast and solid enough
to work in a studio.
RESOURCES:
Loomis for the construction, Charles Bargue to learn alternative landmarks.
STYLE REFERENCES:
John Grello, Kim Jung Gi, TB Choi, Christophe Young
METHOD:
Draw, construct heads from reference and from imagination.
Construct a box benath it and figure out the angles and perspective.
Draw seperate objects like the nose, eye, mouth on different angles.
Each weekstart I pick one object to focus on.
TUESDAY (Anatomy Tuesday)
MAIN GOALS:
Learn & understand the anatomy of the human figure including
all proportions. Sidequest: Also learn how to develop unique
methods to calculate the proportions based on certain body parts.
Building a workflow that is fast and solid enough to
create a character base for character sheets in a studio.
RESOURCES:
Jeno Barcsay anatomy for the artist, A anatomy book from china which was printed in the early 90s,
KRENZ boxfigure construction, Hogarth Anatomy (I try my best to ignore the style and take the important parts)
G.Bridgeman ( I like how he abstracts volume and uses straight lines for organic forms ).
STYLE REFERENCES:
Viktor Titov, John Grello, Christoph Young, Gerald Parel, A.Matijosius, Aleksi Briclot.
METHOD:
Pick one part of the body, arm, leg, etc. redraw, and reconstruct it.
Break down the anatomy in the flesh and bone parts.
Redraw it from imagination and apply the style of the mentioned artist.
Take busts as reference where the limbs are missing and redraw them
in different perspectives. Since the human figure is such a big field
it would be easier to tame it down by not inluding the limbs for now.
WEDNESDAY (Solid Design Wednesday)
MAIN GOALS:
1/2 theory, 1/2 practical of basic design.
Understanding how objects work and how to redesign them based on existing design rules.
Develop ideas based on form folllows function and the counterpart: function follows form.
Establish a broad library of armory, weapons, clothings, natural assets etc.
RESOURCES:
Paul Richards old blogspot, YU Yimings foundation series on artstation.
Mike Hill.
STYLE REFERENCES:
Paul Richards, Timofey Stepanov, Tatsuyuki Tanaka, Hayao Miyazakis vehicle designs
METHOD:
Draw different object from pinterest or any other site, redraw it from imagination.
Apply the style of the mentioned artist to the studies.
Take the base object and rearrange it to a new design by adding different form languages
(cubic, spherical, triangular etc.) figure out the big / medium small proportions and place them around.
THURSDAY ( Composition Thursday)
MAIN GOALS:
Develop a routine that helps me to create a compeling composition that works
for the briefing of a art director for the scene.
I want to be able to have some visual backups in my mind which I know that would work for certain scenes.
RESOURCES:
Marcos Mateau Mestre Framed INK, Edgar Payne Composition for the Outdoor painter,
Grid Systems in Graphic Design J. Brockmann, Sculpting in Time A. Tarkovsky,
Study their work, break it down into the very basic graphic shapes, recognize value and shape patterns.
Break down the mood and the relationship between the characters in the scene.
Value studies.
FRIDAY ( Fun Friday)
- Put all the knowledge together in a written recap and apply it on personal IP work.
- Take addtitional notes on what works and what doesnt work.
SATURDAY ( Its a matter of perspective )
- Just going through how to draw from the OG Scott Robertson
- Apply each page and take notes
- Draw basic objects, boxes, triangles, cylinders in space
- figure out the groundplane and degree of objects from real life.
SUNDAY ( Its sunny in PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia)
- Workout
- 2hour videogames time
- just draw stuff for fun
In case you guys have recommendations and ideas
to optimize this plan feel free to post it here!
If you dont have any realistic moment where you switch from study to portfolio your stuck.
I find myself in similar place when i try to deal with making a portfolio i dont know for you but planning seem to lead to procrastination planning.
Without a time frame it just grinding. The better you can identify who you want to target the better you can organize your battle plan accordingly you can have the best intention and the best plan but you need milestone.The problem is what do you do when you have insecurity you dont commit to a time frame your forever grinding and pushing back what need to be done at a moment or and other to reach something that cant be define because it push back by the perfectionism a bell ring in my head when i read word such as Perfect understanding of human anatomy, proportions, fashion, various cultures make me think you will not achieve your goal because you fall in the trap that the vocabulary you use keep you in a loop.
Perfection is unmeasurable therefor it impossible to reach it.
You talk about personal Ip but what exactly will you put in a portfolio if it not your own personal Ip... will you make fan art... that doesnt sound to professional.Maybe fail to understand the goal you have for friday so realisticly speaking Friday is the day you would be working on portfolio work.Because what your selling is your visual signature. Obviously you would need a space for experimentation because not everything you will do as personal project will end up as a portfolio piece some will be experimental at best.
Also Friday look like your trying to consolidate what you learn during the rest of the week so why is perspective on Saturday it should be move to monday. But also i suggest you take into consideration that as the week pass your will get tired so you want to order thing in a fashion that allow you to keep thing from being to taxing and have a energy saving mindset.Like i would not put perspective last that for sure.Sound more like a monday type of fundamental.
Also i would try not to be on a solid basis shedule for the reason that you want to adjust according to your level of energy.It really depend if your full time job is repetive of if there is peak in the work demand
The advantage of a solid shedule that doesnt change is that you are not tempted to cramp the hard stuff toward the end of the week and you dont have to prioritize and reorganize what you will do which save time.The disadvantage is that you do yourself violence which can lead to burn out that not necessarly bad since you dont always do what you want in a real job but again it ask the question how do you maintain the ability to power through when your running low on energy.
Anyways i dont want to make to much assumption but i kinda have to so that you can rapidly correct and clarify your intention. I made several point so i dont want to make it to complex for you to respond and if i make wrong assumption it take away your time so excuse me for that but i dont think i have much of a choose unless you make thing clear which is hard when we reply in this format.
not having a clear moment when to switch from studies to creating a portfolio is
smth that was not on my mind as an potential problem. Procasting more by planning too much or getting
too invested in the planning phase happened in the past to me.
The cure for me personally was that I knew that I had enough certainy that my current plan would lead
to my goal if I would just stick to it. This was at least the case with non art related goals like
fitness. The insecurities will probably go away when my fundamentals in art are in check.
Until then I will work on my portfolio on the site during my studies, but Im aware that grinding the
fundamentels at this stage of my journey has a bigger priority.
The wording: "Perfect understanding of human anatomy, proportions, fashion etc." sounds indeed
daunting. But in the end its just what the studio expects in terms of quality.
What is perfect anatomy? I dont know, I guess my guideline for "perfection"
is the work of the lead artists of the studio.
I agree on moving the perspective day before the recap "fun" day.
My plan was to have one more chill day to gather some energy after 4 already
demanding days. So recaping all fundamentals on one day seems more reasonable.
My job is pretty demanding and I cant tell when I was not tired after coming home from work.
So I guess until I found smth new I have to get used to being tired while grinding this studyplan out.
As corny as it sounds but thats the only solution i can think of for now.
Im going to adjust the plan during the process and maybe switch easier schedules
to days where I have no energy to get stuff done.
Congratulations on planning clearly and motivating yourself to draw consistanly. I feel like it's a solid start. I didn't structured a plan like this but I am in fact doing some similar work, drawing everyday for at least 3 hours, trying to varry topics and subjects, from "fun" drawing, to studies and drawing from imagination. I would recommand 2 things:
- Try to have fun. It may seem kind of generic but if it feels like a pain in the ass to, say, study something, that's the best way to burn yourself out rapidly. And I think that establishing a very strict planning like this one is the best way to tire yourself. That's similar to what darktiste said about procrastination. You may want to switch subjects for a day because x or y and that's okay but you might feel guilty about that and that and struggle catching up to what you've planned, etc and it may affect you a lot. But you know, if you can stick to the plan without deviating (seems very optimistic) that does not apply.
- It could be good to set "milestones". That's what I did in a way ; I didn't really decide of a timeline but I have several tangible goals that I want to achieve in a particular order. (for example : I want to finish a character design first, then I would like to draw a splash art of this character, then I will render an environment piece, etc.) It gives a lot more of meaning to all the studies you do, in a way and echoes with my first idea. It even could be integrated in the "fun drawing" day
Anyways that's my opinion and I hope whatever you chose to do it will work for you. Excited to see your works from there!
It is good, that you made a plan to execute.
Reading the plan I was a little frightened that it might be too much work, but that depends on how much willpower you have, i guess. It reads as if it is very very hard to stick to this plan. But if you can, probably the results will be good.
How many weeks/months do you have to do it?
I am eager to see how many weeks you will last. (I hope many, of course.)
And now I am very curious to see your first Posts with actual Drawings in them, because your schedule aims so very high.
It might be very interesting to look at your progress over time!
Thanks guys for the reply for this still empty thread.
I like the idea of milestones Komodo its definetly smth I will keep in mind once
the fundamentals are on a okish level!
So today was the first try to follow the studyplan.
I ended up spending 50% rereading theory and taking notes while the
rest of the time was spent to figure out how to put the knowledge into practice.
First resume is that Im not ready yet to simply sketch spheres and divide it
to construct the base for faces based on the loomis method.
I felt more comfortable using the box method.
I will spend more additional time reconstrucing boxes
based on reference pictures. Since I spend too much time today with theory
Im going to do additional face studies to the anatomy study.
What do you mean by : Im not ready yet to simply sketch spheres and divide it
to construct the base for faces based on the loomis method.
So why are you getting bug done with face with full detail it seem your priority are out of order.Measuring and basic shape are building block that support the detail not the other way around.
Also one thing when your drawing face i know it sound stupid but make the face yourself this way you can feel what muscle are activated will you hold the facial expression also redo the expression like 5 time in real life from relax to fully committed this way you can feel the muscle activate better because your isolating them by being conscious of what you feel is moving but i think expression should not be your focus right now you want thing that feel neutral right now atleast in the reference you can once you master the construction tweak that base with much more ease.You can start with men as we have shaper feature generally speaking and work your way toward female/baby/elderly people who have more organic form.
So that loomis head is really where it at right now in as many orientation as possible.If it portrait day.Longer study can wait it serve nothing to commit to much if you can spot something is already breaking down.It important to stop yourself and acess if it worth continuing a drawing or if a new one would be less time consuming.
Also a problem that i see with having specific day for specific subject matter is that you have to wait 1 week to apply feed back that not necessary helping give weight to the critic because your not applying the critic right away so your basically giving it less importance by delaying it for later that at least how i see it. It sure help to balance your fundamental but it come at a cost i think where it slower to apply feedback. So what i suggest you do is like 1 day of practice and like half a day of applying feedback to new drawing or reworking aspect if your working on longer study.
@Darktise, my point was that I realized that I need to work on my fundamentels before
going for the loomis method. I looked up a video from David Finch where he explained how he is
using the method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i6JDwEwXJI and I couldnt even accurately
recreate the intersections of the sphere.
Loomis heads are the way for now until I understood the angles and foreshortening better by
trying to memorize it by using the boxes.#
So today was the first first figure day. I realized that I need to follow a certain program to not get
lost in all the fields that have to be covered while learning how to draw the human figure.
While studying the shoulder blade I tried to find some landmarks for my own like that the shoulderblade roughly fits in 2 times into the length into the upper arm bone. The sternum bone roughly has the same length as the clavicle. Because I had to look up so much and guess parts while drawing the upperbody and the faces yesterday Im going to to these studies daily beside the regular plan.
nice studies, dude! I'm positive you'll see progress before long. I think for me experience was the best way to figure out what types of approaches work, and which don't really make sense to me. It seems like already you're trying out different things and seeing what resonates with you and what doesn't seem to help right now, so you're getting there. I think the two figure studies from the model are looking quite good.
The measurement of the clavicles vs sternum is something I never really thought about before, so that's interesting. I wonder if that's something that can vary a lot with the model whether they have broader shoulders, longer ribcage, or male vs. female, though.
Hey, since you were helpful to me I thought I ought to post a reply to your sketchbook, but sorry I don't have anything to say in the way of critique because I'm not very good at it.
It's an impressive schedule you have, I agree with what Komodo said about the strict planning risking tiring you out, but go ahead if you feel like it. I study Yō Yoshinari as well, he has some drawing streams up on youtube in case you didn't know. Personally I wasn't aware Tarkovsky had a book about film, I will add that to my to-read-list (although I've only seen Stalker, I thought it was great). Anyway, keep on drawing!
thanks for the kind words despite the lack of uploaded studies here :D
@Joseph I feel like figuring out your own landmarks kinda help to lay down a ground structure
for comparable measurements. The clavicle vs sternum example probably wont be too useful in actual drawing, but it fo sure helps to be able to have a "jacknife" in your pocket as last straw if the drawing is too hard to solve.
@Jephy thanks man, its good to read that the grind may pay off someday.
@Zvarthav I agree the burn out part is definetly more real than I expected haha
thanks for the tip regading the Yoshinari streams, I didnt knew he was streaming.
This is definetly a great resource, the guy is just crazy efficient with shapes and lines.
The Tarkovsky stuff is not super easy to get into but it has some benefits on a
philosophical level.
@cgmythology thanks dude for the kind words, ye the 3d emphasis is something I really want to nail down. The lack of understanding of the actual volume and also the lack of understanding of the actualy
proportions in the 3d space really is a issue for me when it comes to rendering in painting.
So it is time to get back on track.
As wise man once said:
"Life is hard, art is easy".
I believe art is still pretty hard but I miss the times when opening new letters
were just birthday cards.
So for now the goal is to get the feeling of fun back while drawing and studying.
It sounds cheesy but for real when I go back to drawing I only get bitter
when I look at the quality where Im currently at.
Ultimately it comes down to grind it out and get better 1% everyday is always more than 0%.
I keep the studyplan in mind but I am going to use it as resource when I face issues drawing stuff
that I actual like and enjoy.
I guess developing ideas and drawing / painting them out until I find a issue I want or have to fix
in order to reach a next level is probably the way to keep my sanity.
Besides the digital stuff Im doing these type of quick sketchbook drawings with a ballpoint pen
where I use no eraser. It is actually kinda fun to not always have the option to press ctrl + z for every wrong line.
The room in the elephant besides many other issues for me is still the portrait / face part or drawing appealing humans in general. For now I have to grind it out tho until I am satisfied enough before pushing anything to a finalized
illustration or concept.
Applying the hatching without following the form flatten the form. Just look back at the master.
You can still have fun studying master.
Example by Frank Frazetta
Also one thing when you use hatching it would be adviseable to pay particular attention to readability otherwise ''the contour'' line or the hard edge can get lost and you loose the form reading as they should. Particular attention should be paid where you get overlap of similar value in hatching it not the best term but i think you get the idea the frequency of hatching give the value.
My personal favorite go to artist for traditional ink pen and marker.It always nice to have someone working in the same medium that we try to learn and not it digital equivalent. Also is content is gear toward student so it perfect to learn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75apahP3Mvk
Back on track, lately it has been the cycle of: doing studies - hating the sketching quality and lack of structure / visual read - deleting it instantly - questioning art goals and repeat.
I recently bought a guitar after a long break and was amazed, how much I was more accepting to suck at playing it and just sticking to practice basic clean chords before even thinking about advancing to complex stuff like sweep picking.
So for anatomy I have to get back to playing "clean chords", practicing these busts are challening even tho most parts are missing compared to a whole figure. I try to find a method for portrait drawings / construction that works for me like
the bust method to get the ball rolling again.
I suggest you Focus more time on capturing the proportion of the head.
One other thing is to respect the direction and the action of the foot it very important to anchor the figure and distribute the weight correctly(don't make a feet flat if it pointing to the ground on it toe. Take the time to capture where the head is rotation toward.
When you indicate the pectoral think about do we see the oblique or not don't simplify. Show the side of the head when you see the side of the head.
For the leg think outside of a cylinder when the knee is making a shift to one side or the other get the calf curvature.
Think of the weight distribution if a lot of the body weight is going to one direction you can deduct that the arm or limb will go further outside the center of mass to counter balance the weigth distribution. Same principle if they are wearing or using object that change the weight distribution. Just like a crane that need support when it moving weight.
You can get the form just by thinking about weight to a certain degree. Just like a sculptor who doesn't want is sculpture to fall over her add weight alternating from one side to the other in the same way when you add something be already thinking about what is the counter balance to that body part. So when you draw be aware of the ''unit'' you are drawing is it an arm a torso a head etc ask yourself is it twisting is it shifting to one side or the other is it bent is it extended is he resting the weight on a surface how is the floor affecting the weight dynamic.
Also think of the weight distribution in term of depth front foot vs back leg is the head in front of behind the torso where can you see overlapping form. The more overlapping the harder it is to determine the weight distribution.
