smrrfette's Odyssey

[Jonesoda]

Awesome sketchbook stuff smrrfette. sorry too hear about your stylus, that really sucks. On the bright side it's a nice break to work on some traditional stuff. Keep it coming :)

[smrr]

BenFlores - thanks Ben, will do! :D

Rognoll - mhm, lots of studies - sucks that it did crap itself, I've been needing (badly) to work on personal digi pieces ;_; soon though! Thanks dA bud ;D

Raedrob - hey thanks man! Yeah go for it, your designs would kick ass! ^ ^

Jonesoda - it does suck haha, but I'm always looking on the brighter side of things - for example, my tablet could have shat itself instead xD that would've been awfully bad news! Thanks you Jonesoda! c:

Thanks for stopping by guys ~

So, today.

Today was interesting.
I woke up and managed to catch the last 20mins of Chris Oatley and Noah Bradley's "Why We Quit Our Dream Jobs" stream, which was cool - I need to watch the whole shebang soon.

Anyways, Dan linked his and Dave's "Freelance talks - getting through the middle" stream through the shoutbox, so I listened to the whole 3hrs and... became entwined in the... darkness.

It's simply an amazing, real, discussion.

There was no glossing over what hardships are to come. As Dan put it - it's the sign you wish you had, warning you of the cliff up ahead.

My hairs were standing on end for the majority of the talk.

It brought me closer to myself,
and it cleared another layer of fog in the distance.

Lots to think about!

So I have a couple of things from today:
1 object for perspective prac from Sick's class,


sketchy poops while listening to the stream


and post-stream poops.



May not look like I've done a lot today - but I'd have to say: today has been one of the most productive days I've had in terms of my future career. Lots of researching, planning, rethinking strategies, etc.

Aaaand hopefully I can make tomorrow as productive (aside from seeing Gravity again...)

Keep at it guys!

[atrenr]

Keep up the hard work, smrrfette! I like what I'm seeing. Lots of anatomy, faces, expressions, characters, ect. Maybe throw in some longer life studies when you get your tablet situation sorted out. Keep pushing yourself!

[kerm]

Your line quality is astonishing! You're not just drawing, you design stuff with your line :) Wish I could do that...

[EduardoGaray]

i´m loving your pencils. :) really good line quality.
I also felt the same way when i listened to that chat between Dave and Dan, it was dark but inspiring. But judging by your work here, i dont think that journey will end in failure.
Just keep going! :)

[JBZ]

I'm astonished at the amount of good work I'm seeing here. Checked the last three pages, and your skull studies are totally rad; and all those sketchbook pages! Great, great!! And the planning, indeed you can count that as productive time. Give yourself a treat ;)

[ramalooke]

You're rockin' great pencils. If you introduce a little bit of lineweight into your sketches they'll get even better <3. Love your work!

[kidult]

Thanks for the nice comments on my sb! Your progress is coming along nicely too! keep it up!

[smrr]

atrenr - thank youuuu attreeennrrr :D ooh yase, I agree. I need to spend longer on my observation studies! Shall keep pushing!

kerm - eeeeh, hopefully one day I'll be able to achieve the line quality that I desire! But thank you kerm, thank you ^ ^

EduardoGaray - the kindness... the KINDNESS :') haha thank you Eduardo! If one can dream, one can achieve! Yeah, extremely dark... but mhm, realistic! Just the wake-up call I needed.
thanks again!

JBZ - awh thanks man! Haha had my little treat and came back locked and loaded full of ideas! :) but yes, planning I think is a top priority for me right now

ramalooke - thank you ramalooke ^ ^ I agree, gotta get lineweight down! Thanks for the feedback :D!

kidult - no worries at all! You're kicking so much asssssss-! Thanks you! Will do :D

Thank you allll for the kind words and swinging by!

Not much, I've been reading books (like the fiction kind ;D), jotting down ideas in my little sketchy to paint!
Interesting things did happen though... my first bit of client work!
For my brother. lolol
Although it was for a real organisation etc. I learned a lot, they needed a plan or sketch of an idea they had and so I did that for 'em:


oh yes, my lovely friend let me borrow her Bamboo tablet to work on the client work (which I exploited today as I'd finished the work yesterday :>)
Although I'm expecting my replacement stylus to arrive tomorrow (woot!) so I'm super psyched right now!

Originally I planned to do a landscape for my imagination piece, hence the cloud study:


Though I could add clouds to this wip instead:


Drapery study


Observation study - more drapery! ~ 3hrs. Should spend longer on these >.>


And some sketchbook pages




Mmmm, yes, focussing on drapery, because I cannot even draw a person wearing a simple T-shirt!

[Blewzen]

hey great sb! i like that restaurant piece, it has nice colors and great linework and the warrior sketch looks cool! keep going :)

[chromaTinker]

Killer updates! Great studies and sketchbook pages. You should definitely put some more time in on those still lives, it seems like you could push them pretty far.

[kerm]

That's a big update! Love the clouds! Whatever you aim for with your line quality, hope you achieve it! But, after all, you shouldn't be ashamed with your current one :) Thx again for the tutorial videos.

[smrr]

Blewzen - thanks you Blewzen! Means a lot :) will do!

chromaTinker - I tooootally agree, I've gotta stop half-assing them, I'm only wasting time if I'm not critically thinking with these observation studies ~ thank you though! Taken that on board ^ ^

kerm - haha thank you, kerm! Gotta long way to go to achieve it, but each day is a step closer-! Thanks agaaaain though! No worries at all, hope you find them useful <: !

Arrrrghhh I feel like I'm slaccckiinggg. Even though there were less hours I could art today - could've been way more productive, darnit.

It's like I want to improve my drawing skills so badly and so I study and apply but it's all so frustrsatrsdtydta.
Gotta snap out of this shitey mood, shut up, get back on my high horse and think more critically.

So, I just sketched today - and pretty badly, too.
Must be the frustration
Gotta work on facial features, head structure variety, drapery/design, rendering... (along with the rest of everything that I suck at, but I'll focus on them at a later stage)





And yet,
I just want to draw forever. lol.

Such a strange thing... art is.

[Fedodika]

TOFUTI SMURFUTI NOW YOU LIVE WITH IT

[Jaik]

Damn, them faces are amazing.. and that cloud study a couple of posts earlier is great. And thanks for the comment in my sketch book +1 for being one of the nicest people on the forum :)

[LongJh]

Hi Steph! Haha, wow this is an astronomical amount of hard work. You're doing great!

For me I get frustrated freaking often too, and I just tell myself - one step at a time. I mean, being frustrated does nothing but make you feel, well, bad - sooo it's not useful for anything right? Better to just relax and draw.

So yeah, my advice would be just to be patient lol. Your works have so much potential, sometimes you can just draw the same thing a second time and you'd be surprised at how much better it is and what you learned from doing it. All the best !!

[Jonesoda]

Hey, I hear you on the frustration Smrrfette, I hate that feeling :(. Maybe try switching things up for a bit, don't focus so much on improvement, but try new things - and just have fun.

On the flip side of that though you can do Focused studies - They seem to help me with frustration about my speed of improvement.

I'll try and choose one specific thing I feel I really need to improve on (hands, heads, noses...etc) and I'll do pages full of studies from books, photos, and a good mix of imagination app - and It usually doesn't take too long until I start seeing/feeling improvement however many in, it's really refreshing.

Last but not least going for a walk always helps me cool down from frustration.

I hope you can shake that feeling, your pencil stuff you've been posting is really awesome. Keep plowing away! :)

[Bjulvar]

Damnit Smrutufture, you feel bad because you're peaking after all that hardass work.
I think that it's much more healthy to be happy about the things that you've accomplished during the day than to beat yourself up for not being productive enough. It's a feeling that I'm struggling with a lot aswell. But it's a bad habit to focus on the things that you have not done, instead of the things that you have done.

Maybe should try and slow down for a day or two. Paint one longer painting and just have some fun with stuff. Think about the reason that made you want to paint to begin with. The passion! You'll get back up on that horse again, you don't have paint a masterpiece every day :P

I think Jonesoda has some good suggestions to try out aswell. Walks always work for me. But since killerass spiders is a problem where you live, I wouldn't recommend it!

I usually pop up some epic music and paint what I feel. You have to pay tribute to the paintgod sometimes.

[Elaeis]

hey Smrrfette your pencils are really nice, I can see loads of improvement since your first post! great stuff so don't feel so bad; I'm going through the same thoughts every day too like many of us it seems, but we can't let that drag us down! let's keep at it :)

[kikindaface]

hey dude, i know a lot about frustration, since i've been kinda depressed the last few months because of it. But i learned to deal differently with frustration. Frustration comes mainly from a few things. It comes from being too competitive with others and you don't feel you're progressingwhereas every little 12 yo kid from this forum is making huge steps,so you try to paint and think about doing something good, it ends up shitty, you're more frustrated, etc. It can also comes from your too high expectations. Your painting is far from what you thought it'd be, and you're frustrated. Guess what, your painting will never be the same level than what you have in mind, and you'll never catch your expectations, since everytime you progress, your standard are rising too . In order to improve fast, you must be in the present when you're painting, or drawing, your concentration must be turned on, you must think a lot, about the light, about the volume, about proportions, etc, and it's so easy to just copy the patch of colors, or shadow shapes, while the mind is wandering on what to eat for lunch, or about what your girlfriend told you last night, etc. You must turn off every distraction from inside or outside, and be there, feel what you paint, vizualise what you draw, and you'll learn so much in so short amount of time ! And that's the kind of mindset i'm actually trying to put on myself. Of course it comes with time, your concentration skills won't grow up in a single night, but it's worth the effort. About not being too productive, i've been caught in the trap too. i've searched for productivity tools, that'd help me not being lazy, but those tools where actually making me less productive. they became my new procrastination. I was always trying to optimize my tools, to update them, and it was taking a lot of time, but also because i used my to-do list as an excuse to do everything exept the important stuff, like " hmm i should send those emails, or i couldn't be focused, or i should wash the dishes, etc " my minde used thos productivity toole to slack more ... -_- .. i think that until you don't find a huge good reason of doing what you're doing, you won't be more productive, and i don't agree with bjulvar, if you're happy about what you're accomplished, you'll become fat and lazy, just set up some goals, and stick them to your desk, and keep them in mind, always ask yourself " am i ther yet ? no, so i should better stay awake one more hour if i wana succeed ! " you must find the fire that will make you go crazy about drawing, but you have to maintain the fire . Start slowly, let's say draw 5 hours everyday fully focused, and when it becomes easy to do thos 5 hours, do 6 hours, etc ... if you 're in fire and draw 10 hours, you'll be able to do it for a few days, before lazyness will overcome your fire ... anyway, keep it up dude !!