Knight's sketchbook

[Dominicque]

@Dominicque

Yep, I do struggle with speed and expectations. Was I super obvious lol? Yeah, I do tend to beat myself up and surrounding myself with constantly negativity is just burning me out. If I don't get things down how I want from my head within the first 10 minutes I start thinking I'm a failure and can't do it. Trying not to see how long something is taking me as a 'value judgement' on myself.

It's easy to spot because you're not alone. Some people have a serene approach to work, a certain confidence naturally in them. Us? It's a learned skill.

Just.. Look at these four attempts at the same person. First three took place in the same week, when I first got back into pencils at the beginning of this thread, fourth is from January.



And I'm still inching forward. I hope this drives home the incremental nature of art. Want more, a truly wild ride? Look at Miles Johnson's CA.org sketchbook phase.

Learning is a rollercoaster of progress and seemingly nothing at all. The starting point might not be even aligned with what you can do in a different medium! You've got to make room for the tool learning curve. Don't get overwhelmed.

Find the study strategy that works for you. Mine is sneaking one or two subjects into a kind of work I enjoy, like hiding vegetables in yummy food. Plus, whenever I get overwhelmed or stuck in a fail loop I downsize. I try them, but I don't follow the usual study path if it's evident it won't work for me. And you know the mean critic inside your head? Make them earn their keep.

"This looks off, the arm is wrong, (...)" is shit critique. Thanks captain obvious, I have eyes. Don't let the demanding part of your mind get away with such lazy comments, if it wants to complain it better be useful. I've just got into gestures and I think it's a good example of how I deal with it.

I didn't stop at "it's bad", I didn't let "the legs in particular are terrible" slide either. The asshat part of your mind was right there during the creation of every piece, so make them debug what went wrong during it. Did you feel uncomfortable? Why? Is it because you're not confident in the anatomy? Is it the angles? The silhouette? Interrogate the critic until you extract a concrete diagnostic of what's not working right now, what's scaring you or derailing the drawing. That's useful information. You can take action with it, downsize like I did: just legs, legs and more legs, without timing it because fuck it I take two to three times longer than other artists for any gesture and if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do.

I would really love to have a rendering style like yours Wes Burt, Miles Johnson or Tran Nguyen. Any tips for how to render pencils like you?

Oh wow, you're putting me in the same level of amazing artists here. That's a lot of responsibility! xD

I've described my approach a new post below to keep the thread minimally organized.

'Finding happy place',  I need to let myself have a 'comfort zone'.

Yes, absolutely. The point of the comfort zone is to drag things into it and build upon what you know. I dislike the idea of "stepping outside the comfort zone" because it sounds like you got to throw yourself at challenges every time, everywhere, when it's much easier to sneak in and out, bringing some small new thing with you.

Even though that sort of art doesn't appeal to me, if that art is fine, my current art can still be good enough for commissions/professional work, whilst I work on having a style I really enjoy. I'm actively trying to find illustrators IRL I can vibe with.

Another way to look at it is to keep in mind when you're working for a client it's enough to make them happy. That's your target. If it looks awesome to you as well, all the better, but this is not a requirement of the task.

Remember that different styles are answers to different questions. They may look off when judged by specific lens, yet they still fulfil their original purposes. That's worthy and enough.

Those rock studies are great btw. Did you overlay with photos, or is it just painted?

It's been a while since I did these, I think I sculpted a striated pattern for the orange one and deformed, painted over and under it to test the process. Derivated the gray one from it and just painted the rest. It's as much a test of the process as it's to see if the result is too busy or what.

I dug up a timelapse of the mountains!

That's the different between an 'intuitive' artist and an 'analytical' one. I do feel I missed the boat being the first, because I was a teenager too obsessed with 'copyright', internet dogpiles and getting good enough to draw what I want and hopefully financially support my family. Fun fact, I discovered CA when Miles was on it, but unlike him I was afraid to post my art on a sketchbook thread, because a couple of years earlier I put young writing online, where it didn't get a good reception, and came across LiveJournal communities that used to make fun of artists, especially beginners. (I feel it's worst with mega websites these days that everybody and their mother is on. Look up the Croaket situation on Tiktok) As someone that was bullied IRL, it made me paranoid to say the least. I think that why I feel I have to have everything good and set before I even start. It's my form of 'safeguarding' I guess. I already think I suck, if someone points out something wrong, it just confirms what I already believe about myself. I look at Miles now and I feel sad and even more behind, because if I just had more confidence I could have been where he is. (Making myself vulnerable here.)

That is a very noticeable improvement. The last looks effortless. I assume it wasn't just getting used to the medium again, but also how long you allowed yourself to spend on each drawing. I always thought to myself, 'Why spend hours rendering out a piece if my end goal is not to be a realist artist?'. I felt should be spending that time grinding anatomy instead. I think that's why when it comes to laying out the initial shapes I'm fine, but when it gets into the rendering stage I get bored, frustrated, or anxiety kicks in because I think I should be doing something else. Colouring and rendering detail is not a strong suit of mine, because I have very low mileage in that arena. There is something to learn from realist artists, though, because even though they may lack construction and technical knowledge, they do know how to render and post importantly they are patience. I approach things like that as 'studies' that I need to get through as soon as possible, without spending time on them the way you should a finished piece. I'm going to try and follow you and try and just render out an image and take my time.

'That's useful information. You can take action with it, downsize like I did: just legs, legs and more legs, without timing it because fuck it I take two to three times longer than other artists for any gesture and if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do.'

Love this.


I just have to remember my 'Why?' Why do I want to draw? To create stories/aid in story making. Thank you for your advice. I'm trying to ignore the head mice and just be mindful and repeat to myself I can get there if I just take my time. If I want to draw something, instead of mindless grinding, actually think of what I want to draw and look up refs that align with that. Just need to work on believing the work is all still mine, even if I consulted references or other artists work to get it to a more finished stage. 

I really like how your pencil comes out! It's very 'calm' if that makes sense. Looking at Johnson's and Nguyen's pencil works, the faint graininess of the pencil texture on paper adds to it's oneiric, dream-like quality. Deffo something I'd love to emulate. I'll peep your approach in the next post. 

I very much favour your approach to the 'Comfort zone' and think it's a lot more conductive to producing work. In the 'Comfort zone' is the foundation of joy and relaxation, not just 'safety', hence 'comfort'. People shouldn't shame the thing that makes them want to draw. It helps when you want to progress from doing the same thing, but constantly pulling the rug out from your self, is like always fighting your creativity. I'm working on creating and maintaining that foundation. 

I guess I shouldn't shame people that like my work and give me compliments, then lol. If someone asks me for a commission and think I'm not really yet. Clearly they must see something they like. They're always room for growth and development. Editorial and picture book illustrations seem to be the most relaxed in that regard. 

I think I'm too much of a digital painting novice to completely understand what you did, but it was interesting to read nevertheless! Thanks for the timelapse. I notice a jump from when you added details.