04-11-2014, 10:34 PM
Don't bother trying to improve speed. It's a completely wasted effort. Place your effort in understanding what you are studying. Spend as long as you need. If it takes 30 minutes or 8 hours, doesn't matter but I guess depends on your focus. What do you want to learn? Is it implied detail, texture, instant read, pose, likeness, painting techniques?. It actually doesn't matter. Take the time you need to get what you want out of the study. The moment you stop learning from it, stop the study.
Speed comes with lots of practice, not a focus on speed. Every pro artist I know says this one thing, so it must be true. I talked to Ben Mauro once and he was telling me how when he came out of the Art Center in Cali, he was quite capable of busting out tons of designs a day.When he started at Weta he kept wondering why he was spitting out double the amount of designs, but people like Aaron Beck and the great Broadmore would get the greenlight on their designs and his would be dismissed even though he produced twice the volume. He then began to realise what made a good designer. It wasn't speed and volume that was the key...it was efficiency, good design and a solid approach. So ask yourself what do you want first? Do you want to be fast, or do you want to be good?
Speed comes with lots of practice, not a focus on speed. Every pro artist I know says this one thing, so it must be true. I talked to Ben Mauro once and he was telling me how when he came out of the Art Center in Cali, he was quite capable of busting out tons of designs a day.When he started at Weta he kept wondering why he was spitting out double the amount of designs, but people like Aaron Beck and the great Broadmore would get the greenlight on their designs and his would be dismissed even though he produced twice the volume. He then began to realise what made a good designer. It wasn't speed and volume that was the key...it was efficiency, good design and a solid approach. So ask yourself what do you want first? Do you want to be fast, or do you want to be good?