(03-11-2014, 03:16 AM)EduardoGaray Wrote: i see you are working hard mate! and it shows.
Nice anatomy practice as usual, and i particularly like the character designs.
Your proportions have improved noticeably already.
Extra points for doing Girls und Panzer stuff haha.
Thanks:)
Well, GuP stuff is mandatory at some point lol:D
(03-11-2014, 03:52 AM)Ji-Li Wrote: Woo you study hard! :) Keep it up! They look good. xD
I need to do more book studies too O:
I actually never heard of Hampton. I used Loomis, Vilppu, Bridgeman, Hogarth, and Hamm books for studying.
Interesting seeing your anime style change as you go. I used to draw anime, but lost the desire to draw that style as much since I went to art school (although for programming not for art lol).
Thank you very much:)
Well, Hampton is something like distilled Vilppu as far as I saw, he uses same way of gesturing and building up shapes...
Why did you lose the desire to draw anime because of the programming, don't have the time?
I am not being lazy, it's just that I draw awfully these days, so I mainly do tableflip/exit without saving thing:D
So, a skinny update...
Doolio did perspective. Doolio failed. And got a big FU in the process!
Studied some leddiz...
Thanks to the skinniness and fitness of the lady above, I realized that thighs go wider from the point of connection with the body (you don't say!). Ok, one step closer to understanding how humanz work:)
The studies are looking good man. The pelvis area was always a problem area for me too. I found just doing studies of the actual pelvis bone and taking note of the greater trochanter's relative position hugely helpful. A lot of people I see focus mainly on muscle anatomy but for me they're putting the cart before the horse. Muscles tend to be really easy to figure out once you have an in depth understanding of the bone structures they're attached to.
It's nice to see that you're studying just regular anatomy as you are studying your anime style, in most cases I see people stricktly going for the latter and won't budge. Definitely paying off, your anatomy is great and you've been studying alot! Hope I can keep up with ya!
At least you got a smiling FU, that's way better than an angry FU. :P
Probably not the focus of your studies, but still - I like the smudgy, almost watercolor-y feel of some of your studies lately (i.e. rei in the latest batch), nice combination of soft and hard edges.
I'm quite late with this answer - but I agree what you said about the one trick pony and that it is good to give those things a try every now and then... it can only add to the skill set in the end and trying out different things is always a good thing to do.
Hey guys, I am really touched you noticed I'm gone, even if I'm quite a new guy:)
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Anyway, I seem to have neurosomethingsomething, pinch, inflammation and generally some other happy stuff, which goes from my neck and screwes up the whole nerve branch, which means all of my three arm nerves (radial, median and ulnar) are essentially fucked up... I've done emng, xr, nothing's pinched in the arm/hand, neck is ok in the xr, but I would probably need to do the mr too. Currently I am undergoing medical and physical therapy and they even put me those tapes you see on volleyball guys (and yes, I had to shave my arm lol, so now it's really funny when I take bread with my left hairy hand and give money to the baker with my baby smooth right hand). I am NOT responding very well/fast to the therapy, which is a bit sad, not to mention that I'm pretty drained mentally because of all that, I forgot what it's like to have normal feeling in the arm and to actually draw something. And all that, of course, when I finally decided to push it and go for the two year skill dash and bloom like a super skilled anime flower in the end (that sounded girly lol).
Well, the bad thing (beside all this lol) is that there is absolutely not even a slightest prediction on when I'll recover. It could be in a month, it could be for much longer than that. I DO HOPE I get to at least start some light sketching in the near future, although that's always a catch 22 in the long run... the somewhat good thing is, that I asked the doctor if this could may be some epic mumbo jumbo shit which will cause my hand to whither and die and for me to pursue a new golden career in babysitting or something, and they said no (which for me personally isn't very reassuring as I've had my share of "aahh it was blahblahitis after all". But the level of damage done/compression, whether it's chronic or acute (it's chronic, I think) and other blahblabh factors would certainly affect the time and quality of my rehabilitation. Till now I am not overly satisfied, as some people with the same thing can go and play basketball viciously after like three physical therapies and a couple of medications. Others seem to take MUCH longer...
Blahdiblah, nothing productive from me this time, also, I'm typing with my left hand (in the meantime, before I finally went to the doctor, the thing seem to progressed so now I do things like both turn the wheel and shift gears with my left hand lol) so this took a while. But I guess it was rude of me not to update you on what's going on after all - in my defense, I didn't think you would notice. So, even if I did it before, I must again apologize for the potential lack of activity or lateness in responses, or laconic posts:)
Long story short, I hope (but it's not very convincing) I could start to shyly draw something like 30 mins a day a month from now and that I would get to full steam some several months from now, but I doubt it.
Love you guys, I'll check the forums and I'll update as soon as I can and thanks for bumping the thread and asking about me:D
Thanks for the sign of life Doolio! Sad to hear that your hand are so serious. No need to apologize for being inactive, but thank you for the update nontheless!
And I know that it must feel frustrating, but don't forget that learning and improvement also happens in your head, not only through drawing. So even if you can't draw you can observe, improve your visual library, understanding of light etc.
I wish you all the best and a recovery as quickly as possible! D:
It's not rude to not update... please don't think that. I'm sorry to hear about your arm, and I can't even imagine what you're going through. Not to try and say you should be chipper but the good thing about being an artist is there isn't an age cap like athletes, so you can still kick the rest of our ass in art when you recover or master the art of ... making art with your other arm :)
Hey Doolio! I was also wondering where you were, I'm sorry to read you are in such trouble health-wise. I wish you all the best and hope that you'll recover soon!!!!
Holy crap! Hey Doolio, I was cathcing up with so many sketchbooks I didn't have time to read the long post,which I just did, I didn't want to sound unsensitive.
I'm sorry to hear about your health problem, I hope you recover fast. Remember you can also learn by watching and observing in the meantime. Relax and once you've recovered, just keep kicking some ass!
Hey everyone:) Thanks for the support and interest and also I'll again apologize for not responding to your posts with more than a "like of acknowledgment".
Arm update - basically, I haven't responded to therapies, so now they are washing their hands off of me lol. My condition is more or less the same ("more or less" because it varies on a relatively long and random basis, 1-10 days, so I can't really tell without a six months graph or something like that). It has been three and a half months.
During the therapy I got worse (which they told me at first it's normal and now they're telling me "well, if you don't respond well to the therapy from the very start, it's not good") and now I am at the point zero, more or less - like before I went to the doctor - only several hundreds of euros lighter lol:)
Essentially, the neurologist swears there's nothing neurologically wrong, he stands by the emg tests which showed quite mild cervical radiculopathy, which shouldn't "behave like this after therapies". Also, he did some manual tests and concluded that I have no nerve problems whatsoever. He says he could send me to mr, but there's no need to. Which I might actually believe, as it means more money in their pocket if I go to scan.
Considering the tingling, pins and needles, numbness, burning etc. I might VERY shyly say that it might be slightly less present, intensity-wise (it's still present non stop). Which I guess it's a good thing - then again, I might be wrong, as I don't know anymore what is like to have normal feeling and no pain, so I might be just confused and without reference after these hundred-ish days...
The pain though, is the same as always and it goes down the ulnar side of my forearm and also down the medial(?) side as well. Physician also tested me and she insists there is no symptomatic nerve damage (my grip/strength/tonus/whatever is non-lacking - although it doesn't FEEL that way to me - in other words, I could squeeze something with full or almost full power, but my subjective feeling is that I squeezed it like a 7 year old kid with a temperature). About the pain, she tested me some more, palpated some trigger points etc. and said that the symptoms resemble golfer's elbow and tennis elbow, but that they are very mild (apparently, I should cry out and jump in the air when she finds the spots, which I don't do, but just say "yes, there's the pain" instead. I don't know what to think about it, I might simply have high tolerance or whatever. It doesn't seem like a convincing method to me, but as far as I've seen on the net, it's pretty much like that).
Both neurologist and physician insist that the tingling and stuff could only be from nerves, but at the same time they are insisting that there's nothing wrong with me neurologically. However, the neurologist says that I am very anxious and have very jumpy nerves, which could lead to psychosomatic "leakage" eventually. So, ok, I guess I need to work on my zen, which I've started to do. Nevertheless, while it can make sense, I don't feel that's it. Mainly because my pain is "too mechanical and specific" - as far as I know, anxiety related psychosomatic stuff usually travels across the body on a more or less daily basis. Even the neurologists told me that the pattern would be different if that was the case. So, their final conclusion is, nerves are fine. Ok, if I'm right about tingling and stuff getting less intense, it could make sense. So, I am left with the pain and tenderness and overall sense of weakness and super quick tiring of forearm flexors and extensors. Then again, I don't cry and jump when I'm supposed to, so that should be as mild as it gets.
I have asked the neurologist "wat do ololo" and he was like "I don't know, take supplements and stuff and go do whatever you do lol". I asked should I try to strengthen or stretch my arm and such and he was like "I don't know, try and see lol, your nerves are fine, it's probably bone/muscular". So, not much info there.
Physician, on the other side, was more busy being puzzled at my non-recovery than anything. Eventually, she sent me back to neurologist, who sent me back to her, as there's nothing wrong with nerves. I'll see them one more time each and then I'll go seek another opinion and/or undertake self therapy and education. Partially because I don't have bunch of money to just go to dozens of doctors until someone gets it. However, what I can do at this point is to employ home treatment plus some generally advised items/supplements (kinesio tapes, biofreeze, simple stretches, lifestyle, braces, gloves, posture etc).
And, while I am on that, I googled A LOT about my condition, similar conditions, symptoms etc. and it seems that the standard development is pretty much similar to mine. People go to doctors, they run round in circles with no progress and in the end, SOMETHING does it for them and that something is pretty much individual. Some swear by stretching, some by kt tapes, some by acupuncture, some by massage etc. Which is fine, because all of those are affordable more or less. The only downside comes from the fact that nerves should be treated differently from tendons/muscles. For example, nerve shouldn't be "angried" by massage, but muscle should. So I must go wtih trial and error and extreme caution. But, what can you do. I'll try this and that and when I have some money again, I'll go to some other experts and see if they can dig it out. Maybe I even heal in the meantime olol:)
Both doctors said that it should be pretty safe if I was behaving normal. For example, when I asked could I draw and for how long, they were like, well, don't overdo it, but don't be too shy, if you draw for eight hours regularly, make it five, for example. Which is lovely, only that drawing starts to bother me slightly after like ten seconds and after ten minutes it's pretty much "let's stop lol". And I can repeat that after another ten minutes or so. Eventually, I was drawing 1-1.5 hours a day (in 10 minute sittings) in the last 3-4 days and I haven't died or had my arm shrivel and die, so I hope that I could maintain that tempo for the time being.
This typing adventure is also sort of a test, as I'm typing this with both hands, through moderate pain. If I still have my right arm when I wake up tomorrow, then that would be magnificent:)
I guess I just have to cautiously experiment and be extremely, extremely patient, because of general slowness of potential progress/regress. So if I try, for example, kinesio tapes, light stretching, biofreeze and moderate activity, it could very well pass like a month or three before I could say "well, this works" or "look, my hand fell off, this sucks".
On the bright side, It does seem (although without substantial amount of consistent time researched) that I don't die if I draw for ten minutes 5-10 times a day (although it's not exactly pleasant, but also very bearable), which is, from this perspective, a lifesaver and a large bonus to sanity. Also, I generally do some doodles and stuff with weak pressure and low precision:)
Now, the update. I won't comment on it, as I already spent my arm mana on the wall of text above:) I'll just say that at the moment, I mainly do doodling and croquis type drawing and stuff like that, more from reference than not. The "prettier" and tighter things were done a bit earlier, while I was under impression I was getting better and when the doctors where encouraging me to "not overdo it and do six hours" - which led me to regressing and taught me a lesson lol.
Once again, sorry if I don't reply specifically to your potential comments or disappear from active "foruming" for days or weeks, it only means I can't really afford to type (actually, typing bothers me a solid amount, it screws up my forearm extensors, so basically, I'm very gratefull I'm an illustrator and not a pianist, for example lol, I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to play the piano more than five secs).
So, that's it for the update (both drawing based and non drawing based), thanks for the support and comments, guys! I hope this heals, even if it heals in like a year, it would be great, as long as it's "repairable" and/or doesn't get worse. Though, to be honest, it's really a test of psychological stability and perseverance more than anything else lol:)
I agree with Samszym. Really hope you'll find something that works out for you!
And yes WOW. I also wanted to compliment you on those hands and feet. They look amazing! Looking forward to more posts from you, no matter when or in what frequency. (:
Hey man sorry about the stuff you are going through... that sucks >.< I have a lot of neck/head/arm/wrist/hand pain too, basically every day and same as with you, nobody can find out what it is (yet). I only know that I have carpal tunnel for 2 years already, I got send to a psychosomatic therapist and found out that for me it is also a lot of stress signs, not that I am really stressed, but I always put a lot of tension on my shoulders while doing normal activities and after a while i just collapse from the pain if I don't do anything about it. I'm already in the last state of this crap lol. First all signs werent really visible, but after a while i couldnt feel anything in my fingers and stuff, and now my wrist and neck are inflamed :/ You just got to take a lot of breaks and try to relax in between the activities you always do. Try to become calm and relaxed again for 15 minutes, lie down on your bed, let everything go, and then draw for 15/20 min again. It sucks cause you can't do long drawing sessions but maybe it helps for you. :) Like you said '' i gotta find zen '' yes... thats true XD if you take these breaks and just lie down, you will know when your body really starts to hurt, and after a while you can prevent it from happening. But yeah if you don't believe in this you shouldn't try it out, at least thats what I think. what also helped for me was taking various hot and cold showers for the muscles and also warmth is great for them... sunlight and water are really a miracle. So if theres sun outside and it is warm, just spend the day outside drawing :D Try putting on tigerbalm instead of biofreeze. You need to keep it all warm and comfy. Biofreeze didn't really help for me. Swimming is good too, it makes your neck/back/ and arm muscles stronger. But then again, these are only tips, not sure if it is working or not, but it helped for me. I still have pain every day but it is not as bad anymore. Oh yeah I was also send to a normal therapist. She put her fingers right in those muscles that hurt to release endorphin if I remember correctly... hurts like hell, but it feels better for a few days after doing a few sessions :) Hope you'll feel better soon though!!
That sucks about your arm, man. Hope you find something that fixes your problem. I'd suggest strengthening your extensor muscles by wrapping a rubber band around the outsides of your fingers and opening your fingers against the resistance. I do this with thick rubber bands that they wrap broccoli together with at the supermarket. You might need to start with something with less tension like a hair band. Its pretty much a given that your flexor muscles will be over tightened from all the closed handed activities you do throughout the day like gripping a pencil, typing and grabbing things. Im not sure if the physicians you talked to mentioned this at all. It seems that a lot of medical professionals dont put a lot of effort into getting to the root of hand/arm problems like these. Doing quite a bit of research of your own would be very wise imo. Plus knowing more about the subject will help you communicate better with your doctors.
Hands and feet are sadly all done from reference, I still can't draw "normally", so I'm essentially "drunkenly" flowing without much pressure or delicacy:) So I found some references and done some loose semi-croquis. The first and the last picture are also done like that. The rest is from imagination. The fleshed out girls in space suits was done in the period I actually could move the stylus the way I want it to and sit more than ten minutes at once:)
With these loose studies from references I am also conducting a small "experiment" - will I get anything from it even if I don't actively apply the study afterwards. If yes, woohoo, if not, well, a new knowledge is gained:D
Angelique:
Ah, yes, that sucks, even more so because it just comes unnanounced:)
Thanks for the tips, I pretty much do all of that, beside some things. And I think there's where the individuality kicks in:) For example, I've tried tiger balm, that horse stuff, ben gay, deep relief and one more thing which I forgot how it's called and they all actually worsened my symptoms lol. Biofreeze was the only thing that, for me, did what it says on the box...
I haven't done the hotXcold baths, as I am not so sure about whether it's good for the nerves. Muscles and nerves often collide when it comes to treatment, which makes things a bit complicated:) For example, a hot bath relaxes my muscles, but the nerve symptoms go wild after it...
It just seems that all of us with similar problems wind up self assessing them and going by trial and error and at the end, we (hopefully) get better and our routines range from similar to vastly different or even directly opposed:)
Considering the nerves overall and "zenness", I was always into western psychology/eastern stuff combo, but haven't been very practical or consistent about actual application. We people are like that, we need to screw up ourselves visibly, before saying "well, I could do something about it":) Like getting to 300 pounds before saying "oh look, I'm fat":) But ok, what can you do... anyway, I have quite a few stuff in my arsenal to calm myself and on that side I am going extremely well, since I've actually put some of the know-how to use...
I think we are both similar with shoulders. I am also stressed (which, of course, I don't "see" consciously), which is known to infamously lock trapezoids and then you get neck, shoulder and back pain and headaches, because you effectively have your traps in spasm for like twenty years or so:) For that, as far as I know, meditation and conscious relaxation of muscles involved should do miracles. Like, "ok, I could relax my traps, even if I don't feel they are tensed", then you do it, and you do it again and you do it again and after half of minute you realize that your shoulders should be like three inches lower than where you make them to be:)
If you have neck pain, maybe it's cervical radiculopathy, it's an inflammation of a nerve root in neck, which go to the arm. It could cause head, neck, shoulder and arm pain and overall arm discomfort and it can emulate both carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome, as well as golfer's and tennis elbow. In my case it SHOULD have been that, but it seems it's not:)
Have you done emg?
If you have carpal tunnel, maybe daarken's post about his ergonomics setup can help you. Google it and you will find it for sure.
Thanks for the tips and comments:)
I got a bit carried away again, now i've resetted my arm a bit, I have to have more discipline - which is hard being a scribbomaniac:D
(05-18-2014, 02:42 AM)Hypnagogic_Haze Wrote: That sucks about your arm, man. Hope you find something that fixes your problem. I'd suggest strengthening your extensor muscles by wrapping a rubber band around the outsides of your fingers and opening your fingers against the resistance. I do this with thick rubber bands that they wrap broccoli together with at the supermarket. You might need to start with something with less tension like a hair band. Its pretty much a given that your flexor muscles will be over tightened from all the closed handed activities you do throughout the day like gripping a pencil, typing and grabbing things. Im not sure if the physicians you talked to mentioned this at all. It seems that a lot of medical professionals dont put a lot of effort into getting to the root of hand/arm problems like these. Doing quite a bit of research of your own would be very wise imo. Plus knowing more about the subject will help you communicate better with your doctors.
Well, that was my conclusion too, sadly. About the stretching, yes, I saw that on couple of places. Basically, flexors are often rigid, while extensors are less so, because, well, you don't hold a plate or shift gears with the back of your palm:) So yeah, we tend to claw up our whole arms. I added those and similar stretches to my to do list, but I am EXTREMELY cautious now, as I've learned the hard way that you can screw yourself up by overstretching even if you do very light stretches. So, now I am basically doing what you said, educating myself and cautiously trying stuff...
