07-17-2015, 12:35 PM
I don't think there's a "nice" way of learning fundamentals - if you know what I mean:)
But, but - there seems to be a major hurdle in the beginning (though "beginning" might be months and months) where you are completely disoriented - like modblot said, you suck at everything. That said, when you go over that hurdle (so you still suck but you caught the notion) it snowballs for some time (until you hit a plateau, but that's a different kind of frustration:D). So, basically, for me, the major thing to do is to live through that first hurdle when you virtually can't produce anything sensible and yet you need to apply things and not just copy in order to progress. So, it's a bit of a circus viciosus for some time, but after that, when you laid out the foundation and it's no longer as much confusion as the "only" hard work, it feels like a VERY big accomplishment.
For me, that was with anatomy, for example. Of course, I am nowhere near a good figure artist, but I tackled that point zero start and now I can, well, do stuff and they are decent and I do it without having 99.99% of my brain power getting drained in twenty seconds:)
But, for example, if we talk about perspective or landscapes - lol, I think I am literally comparable to a five year old at a techno gig in the middle of the crowd. You tell me to draw a box and my head will explode.
So, about that, I think one of the major aspects of learning is to soldier through that head-exploding phase (and I really think there's no other way than soldiering through) and then progress more naturally and calmly and feel more like you "belong".
That said, one can pepper their soldiering phase with favorite background soundtracks, small rewards ("I'll go to the store and buy me a large ice cream if I do xyz gestures today") etc. Tracking progress I think is good, but without actually attaching to it, as it might be extremely frustrating because you are bound to hit walls and stay in one place at times.
And also - keep your health in check. Both mental and physical:) I screwed myself up on a physical level from basically overextending with daily hours. Which resulted in year and a half of not being able to do anything as well as debatable prognosis of recovery. So, now I might seem like that old grandpa that warns kids not to sit on the cold concrete or something, but I think it's very important. For a short-term boost, you might pay with long term condition or disability or simply inability to draw. Same goes for the mental health. Walk, socialize, do things you enjoy, DON'T punish yourself and don't think that the hours must be achieved ASAP. They don't.
I thought they must, prompted by some people that are very successful artists, but that's not ENTIRELY true. In the same sense as it's not good to drug your football players every day in order for them to train for the whole day, because maybe you'll get fantastic progress and results in the first year, but in five years, your whole team will probably be dead:)
Even those artists later admitted/saw that they approached it wrongly. So, laziness - no, but going over limits - also no. Why am I saying this? Well, because there's a trend going on for the past ~5 years or so that you absolutely have to beat yourself to death in order to stand a chance. And that is not true. You will only damage yourself. In the long run. The trend started because many young concept artists simply decided to race each other who could do more finished stuff in less time and so on. And the notion remained. The thing is, a lot of those artists were those football players. For example, Daarken has developed carpal tunnels and some other stuff in BOTH hands. He has special ergonomic setup that he uses and all that stuff. That's not very good. Because he did bouts of 15-17 hours. Of course you CAN do it, but listen to your body. Because body will do what you tell it to do, but it might overwork and it isn't very good at handling that (because it won't say no to you, which sucks because you yourself won't know when you must stop).
That said, later, when I screwed up myself:) I discovered there are people who are shouting "that's not the only way!", but I was deaf to them, as I was too blinded by the whole urban concept art race and stuff. In a lot of cases it doesn't result in good things. It's questionable for how long are today's "concept art celebs" "destined to last". So, work hard, but don't go in red rpm, as you might end up like a racing horse, spent and unable to race:)
But, but - there seems to be a major hurdle in the beginning (though "beginning" might be months and months) where you are completely disoriented - like modblot said, you suck at everything. That said, when you go over that hurdle (so you still suck but you caught the notion) it snowballs for some time (until you hit a plateau, but that's a different kind of frustration:D). So, basically, for me, the major thing to do is to live through that first hurdle when you virtually can't produce anything sensible and yet you need to apply things and not just copy in order to progress. So, it's a bit of a circus viciosus for some time, but after that, when you laid out the foundation and it's no longer as much confusion as the "only" hard work, it feels like a VERY big accomplishment.
For me, that was with anatomy, for example. Of course, I am nowhere near a good figure artist, but I tackled that point zero start and now I can, well, do stuff and they are decent and I do it without having 99.99% of my brain power getting drained in twenty seconds:)
But, for example, if we talk about perspective or landscapes - lol, I think I am literally comparable to a five year old at a techno gig in the middle of the crowd. You tell me to draw a box and my head will explode.
So, about that, I think one of the major aspects of learning is to soldier through that head-exploding phase (and I really think there's no other way than soldiering through) and then progress more naturally and calmly and feel more like you "belong".
That said, one can pepper their soldiering phase with favorite background soundtracks, small rewards ("I'll go to the store and buy me a large ice cream if I do xyz gestures today") etc. Tracking progress I think is good, but without actually attaching to it, as it might be extremely frustrating because you are bound to hit walls and stay in one place at times.
And also - keep your health in check. Both mental and physical:) I screwed myself up on a physical level from basically overextending with daily hours. Which resulted in year and a half of not being able to do anything as well as debatable prognosis of recovery. So, now I might seem like that old grandpa that warns kids not to sit on the cold concrete or something, but I think it's very important. For a short-term boost, you might pay with long term condition or disability or simply inability to draw. Same goes for the mental health. Walk, socialize, do things you enjoy, DON'T punish yourself and don't think that the hours must be achieved ASAP. They don't.
I thought they must, prompted by some people that are very successful artists, but that's not ENTIRELY true. In the same sense as it's not good to drug your football players every day in order for them to train for the whole day, because maybe you'll get fantastic progress and results in the first year, but in five years, your whole team will probably be dead:)
Even those artists later admitted/saw that they approached it wrongly. So, laziness - no, but going over limits - also no. Why am I saying this? Well, because there's a trend going on for the past ~5 years or so that you absolutely have to beat yourself to death in order to stand a chance. And that is not true. You will only damage yourself. In the long run. The trend started because many young concept artists simply decided to race each other who could do more finished stuff in less time and so on. And the notion remained. The thing is, a lot of those artists were those football players. For example, Daarken has developed carpal tunnels and some other stuff in BOTH hands. He has special ergonomic setup that he uses and all that stuff. That's not very good. Because he did bouts of 15-17 hours. Of course you CAN do it, but listen to your body. Because body will do what you tell it to do, but it might overwork and it isn't very good at handling that (because it won't say no to you, which sucks because you yourself won't know when you must stop).
That said, later, when I screwed up myself:) I discovered there are people who are shouting "that's not the only way!", but I was deaf to them, as I was too blinded by the whole urban concept art race and stuff. In a lot of cases it doesn't result in good things. It's questionable for how long are today's "concept art celebs" "destined to last". So, work hard, but don't go in red rpm, as you might end up like a racing horse, spent and unable to race:)