PLAYTIME W/ JAKTRAYTER

[AngeliquevdMee]

I agree with Amit. I feel youre ready to tackle more imaginative things and when you finish/ render them you will learn even more from that. Time to hop on to the next fundamental hehe. I was really amazed how you progressed! Keep constructing everything you draw.

[John]

----drawing creatively from imagination (just means I have to continue to draw from imagination and not fear the ugly shit. be more playful and correct my mistakes. Pay attention to what walls i hit: push the extent of my knowledge)

At the same time, never be afraid to use references if you're struggling to make it out or when something looks off. Google is your friend. Since you have a tendency to do character based design, grab a mirror and you can always use yourself as reference.

-----studying form/value and having the information stick (currently rendering anatomy studies and mapping anatomy on the muscle masses)

Value also depends on the material and how lighting is set up.

--------MASTER PAINTINGS: i want to know there purpose and when to study them, and how to apply the knowledge to my work!

To know their thought process by trying to walk in their shoes. Kinda like reverse engineering. Constantly ask 'why would this person do such and such'. To understand the thought behind a piece.

Props for studying and the actual application of the studies.

Good luck Jak.

[devinn]

Amit: ah man, that's cool! You think  drawing an idea to the best of my knowledge, finding where I hit a wall and studying accordingly a good idea? Any suggestions? And YES I WILL FINISH SOMETHING FOR SUURE! soon haha 

angeliquevdmee: thanks! Guess I'll jump into imaginative work tomorrow morning! Then study accordingly, I suppose. Sorta nervous to see all that I don't know :(((

John: Material studies, for sure! Gonna do a digital still life painting this week! Let's see what I get from it. Thanks for explaining the use of master studiessss

This morning's studies (did these before reading the above posts)...took some notes after doing some anatomy, value, and sketchy stuff:

value: render each muscle form sorta like a sphere...note the continuous edge of shadow on multiple forms....watch for where the light hits....notice how the shadows fall and wrap around underlying forms.

antatomy: study figure in basic shapes...i have more problems drawing the lower torso and legs

I noticed that the loomis method does not apply to all heads (duh) Feels like I have so much moooooore too learn before drawing stuff from my own brain. Like, I forgot how to draw heads and map features completely lmao


OH and question: I can draw remember poses via shapes and their relationships to each other (basically symbols)  but it's harder to draw things from an anatomical standpoint... Is this bad? How the hell do I fix this? Do need to fix this, necessarily?

[Amit Dutta]

Jaktrayter
Amit: ah man, that's cool! You think  drawing an idea to the best of my knowledge, finding where I hit a wall and studying accordingly a good idea? Any suggestions? And YES I WILL FINISH SOMETHING FOR SUURE! soon haha

Yeah pretty much. It's a good way to test yourself every so often and is a key skill often ignored...finishing!  A finished rendered illustration or design will require pretty much all your fundamentals to work well (except colour if you are going to just use pencil) and it will become very apparent where you struggled the most. Also finished pieces means more fodder for your folio over time. A common mistake I see is that people do all this focus study, and then go on a 3month - 1 year binge of "CREATING A FOLIO". Pressure!! The more you are comfortable with that process, and do it a bit more consistently, the wider you will spread the load.

And a note about drawing "from imagination"   This is, I believe quite often misunderstood to mean you can't use ref, you shouldn't look up anything if you are struggling and to not rely on any outside info.
Bollocks. You simply cannot draw something new, well, that you haven't done before without having seen it and analysed it or something similar to it. That's the purpose of ref.

I prefer to use the term personal work. It's not the same as doing a study and then immediately trying to replicate the study without the reference. Instead just use what you need to do your piece, and rely on all the reference in the world that you need. 
Analyse afterwards and get crits to help you figure out the biggest most fundamental issues that you have!

OH and question: I can draw remember poses via shapes and their relationships to each other (basically symbols)  but it's harder to draw things from an anatomical standpoint... Is this bad? How the hell do I fix this? Do need to fix this, necessarily?

Well I'm not sure what you mean exactly because that's pretty much what all drawing is, shapes in relation to others. I don't see huge problems, but you have mostly only done outline sketches and a few muscle form studies which don't look too bad.  But definitely start going more in depth with specific anatomy and musculature studies if you feel unsure. Check out the Crimson Cadavers group. It's not running at the moment, but Tristan laid out some documents that while not complete are a good approach to really nailing anatomy.

[dodeqaa]

You're getting real familiar with that muscular body type, can you make it do these?




Good gains Jak, keep trucking!

[devinn]

Amit: Thanks man :D I've taken note of all your points, especially the one about reference. I made the task a bit more daunting for myself because I expected to push out more than one coherent drawing using reference and the designs that I found online that I also studied. nothing at all went according to plan haha I got disheartened and stopped. Wanted to have a good post, but it's pretty bare bones...

Dodeqaa: No, no I cannot :( hahaha but someday I will! really wanna do more dynamic stuff poses :D

Tomorrow I'm just going to focus on finishing one thing after study n stuff :/

[neopatogen]

Hey! I really like that guy with collar (1st page, 3rd from left). I noticed that you avoid faces on your finished drawings, great that you decide to face them! But having some characters with covered faces in your folio would look cool, just not all of them!
As for Loomis approach, I think in general it works for all faces cause in the very beginning he writes about variety of scull and face shapes and tweaking proportions. If you mean the thirds rule, it's just a basic technique to get comfortable with face exploration journey.
As for being slow, I doubt there's any artist who's never considered himself slow!
Keep it up and btw what was your problem today? Your plan on finishing one thing after study tomorrow sounds just fine

[Amit Dutta]

Damn son, it doesn't need to happen all in one day! Make love to the canvas, don't bang it's brains out in a quicky in a side alley.
:) take a week, take two, whatever you need.

[neopatogen]

Yep you're right Amit it's probably insane to finish it in one day. I actually tend to overestimate my drawing speed a lot, too, which results in feeling guilty about not having something done on the expected  time.

[devinn]

Neopatagen: Thanks! I like that one too, probably because it's more of a 'drawing' drawing instead of a messy booboo sketch. Idk...saw a very silly high-fashion runway model design online and since then, I couldn't get the image out of my head haha. 
So, you  noticed the lack of faces? hahaha yeah i will definitely try to add features for now on (theres some in this post) it's just that I reallllly suck at design and I'm just devotin' more time to that. Loomis is good. Loomis is god. perfect for trying to learn how to draw a head in perspective but once you learn basic feature placement, I believe it's important to experiment with that stuff or faces will look dull and lifeless. Like the ones i draw :(

Amit: Yeah hahaha you right you right. YOU ARE  RIGHT....Gotta be more romantic. I just want to get a basic dumb design and figure down in one sitting,make it routine.

 

Everything is rigid and basic. Dumb legs makin' my brain hurt...bullshit hands...simple weird designs...hahaha gotta experiment different things and continue to study. :/

[dodeqaa]

Hey Jak, keep pushing what you want to see in characters, what excites you :) designs look boring to you? Experiment and iterate, duplicate the figure in photoshop and change up the shapes. Bigger collar? Smaller collar? Big pants? you can even cut and paste from photos to see if it works. You can clean it up and render till it shines later on :D

You're doing good man, keep up the gains.

ps: hope to see you take that muscle figure and make 'im MOVE one day, its a good test to see if you understand the figure as a form in space or no :D and yes...not yet but you can!

[devinn]

Dodeqaa: definitely, man. I forgot about the "what excites you" element of designing stuff. Hard to get out of the mode of what is popular vs what I like....not that I like any of the stuff I'm farting out haha Still diggin though. Oh, and I'm going to do TONS of dynamic and stuff and more figures with personality after this weekend; I'm actually trying to work on some digital stuff saturday and sunday...most if this is planning and prep for that image! Thank yoouuu 

That dumb figure i keep drawing is suppose to be a basic template i can manipulate and tweak so i can focus more on design study vs struggling and wasting time on anatomy and proportions. It's not all perfect haha but it kinda furthers the process along :/

More stuff. Some farts...not quite shit (me thinks)

Studying form via digital tomorrow D:

[devinn]

Tired and sick. Been working on this for a good hour and...ugh. can't stay awake. Cant stop snifflin'. Cant stop dyin.

Shot my own reference. Blocking in shapes with hard round brush. So slow and messy in photoshop Haha its hard :( Forgot how to tackle this shit digitally D:

[devinn]

Ugh, I'm not doing anything art related ever again hahahaha (being hyperbolic of course) I Just wanted to study top down lighting man, cmon (dat fuckin' shadow rocks tho shet!) :(



(I apologize for spamming my sb link in discord and the shoutbox...although I only posted a link once a day, nobody wants ANYTHING shoved in their face at ANYTIME of the day.)

[devinn]

Bombing: working on a illustration that is based on the lighting on the pear. Just kill me and eat my children. (dont got children). 


Told my brother I would be done this weekend LAWL sorry nii-san

Think I'm just gonna two-tone this puppy and move on. I don't understand form well enough to execute this based on all dat technical shit gotdamn.

[smrr]

Think I'm just gonna two-tone this puppy and move on. I don't understand form well enough to execute this based on all dat technical shit gotdamn.

Hey man, don't be afraid to try. It may suck, it may not - but give it a shot and try to observe and understand exactly why/where you lack understanding, then tackle the problem based off what you've observed

~

Also, haha its called a deadline for a reason! You'd be D.E.A.D rn if it was an actual contract by the same premise that you willingly signed ;)

[devinn]

smrr: I'll do two versions then; one for study and one for my brother. I just want it to look good! Whatever I'm struggling on will be noted and addressed in future studies/finished stuff.

Yeah...I'd be dead for sure if this was back in the day. I should take deadlines seriously. Welcome to 'black time': always late, never on time. Just kidding.


Strugglin'. Woke up late.

[Amit Dutta]

thumbnails...an illustration needs thumbnails as well.. and don't just quit on the first hurdle...that's the point. Finish means finish, not run away screaming with your ass cheeks spread out, hoping for an enemy spear up the ass as a final insult.
Finish to the best of your ability at the time.

[devinn]

Amit: got it boss! I will consider thumbnails for the next piece (can't believe i forgot to do some sort of comp sketches beforehand...i just had this idea in my head for longtime. became too hasty lol) I'm going to finish this to the best of my ability.


Bombing: just went over stuff in photoshop. laying flats soon

[devinn]

I finished this, hopefully my brother likes it.