[PAINTING] Learning How to Design

[Artloader]

Hey Miracoly - those Proko figure sketches are awesome dude! However did you get so good when you've only just started with this? Nice going - keep it up!

[miracoly]

Thank you Artloader! Really appreciate! :)

Todays 45m Warmup, based on a little sketch I scribbled in my SB the other day. :)

[miracoly]

Weird one today :D

[miracoly]

[miracoly]

Testing all dem stylez.

Doubled the time and applied some color, at least I tried :D But had fun anyway :D

[Artloader]

Great vehicle designs dude! Are these drawn freehand by the way?

[miracoly]

Thank you Art! :3 I def used the shift key for the straights, so more or less freehand. Did that answer your question? :D

[miracoly]

[miracoly]

One year makes a difference! 

(All rights for this claim belong to FZD School, lul) 

- aka. my first year of practice in REVIEW

This years Industry Workshop in London is over. I didn’t attend that one but I was in London the year before. I remember sitting in my chair, surrounded by dozens of people sharing the same passion watching the genius Mike Hill holding a keynote about storytelling through design. At that very moment, I decided to give this „drawing for a living“ thing a shot. Fast forward one year I’m right about starting my industrial design studies at the university. I think this should be a good time to look back on the progress I have made so far.

Lets get started.


About Volume

As of today, my total months drawing are roughly 13. 

The first 9 months I practiced in the evenings after my full-time job. My weekly volume was roughly about 10 hours on average. 

After those 9 months I quit my job to go full-time, resulting in 4 months of 5-8 hours of practice every day excluding weekends.

When looking back at the stuff I did, there are a lot of things which I feel really good about. In general I definitely feel that I can go somewhere with this, although at the same time, I’m realizing AGAIN: this stuff needs a lot, a lot and A  L O T of work.


Examples

That being said I found some of the earliest attempts at drawing. Its quite fascinating to see how much of a difference consistent practice makes. I collected some examples showing the first weeks compared to my latest stuff.







As you may have noticed besides a few master studies (which I loved btw) I rarely dabbled into painting and value. I think my linework, or rather my fundamentals aren’t there yet. If I had to plan the next 6 months of practice, I’d guess that I’ll mainly focus on project based design exercises. And then slowly transitioning into slight value application.


About the future

Sooooo, I tried writing a few short stories on a weekly basis. And there is something I learned: You can have the most beautiful crafted sentences, with the most accurate descriptions, but without a solid idea about the story and what you want to happen, those words are basically meaningless. Its just technical beauty. 
That technical beauty without real content and without thought as its core is one of the biggest leaks of my drawing so far. That being said the next months will be focused on learning about subjects on a content-related level. And thats concept design in a nutshell. People are giving you money for the ideas - in other words - for the content, not the drawing. The drawing is just the medium to deliver the content. For the last year I delivered only drawings with the purpose of being drawings (which is good to get the fundamental skills up and running). 

But the next year I should aim to deliver ideas.

And that concludes my little review. I’ll be on a quick „holiday“ for a few weeks and then continue the struggle. And THANKS to all who commented on my stuff and who are pointing me in directions, really really appreciate!!

See you all!


Ressources

A collection of my primary ressources to learn stuff, listed in terms of influence with the first being the most influential:

- Foundation Group by John Park, Matthew Zikry and Daniel Park
- How to Draw by Scott Robertson, as well as his youtube
- FZD Galleries
- Gumroad: Joe Peterson, John Park
- Proko Premium

[Artloader]

Awesome Miracoly! Man your improvement in a year is incredible! Just shows what hard work and dedication does for a person!

Onwards and upwards my friend - have a nice break and keep living the dream :).

[The Lama]

Hey Miracoly, firstly congratulations on one year, you've really made leaps and bounds in your art. Your linework is top notch so I look forward to seeing what you can do when your colour and painting get up to that standard.

What you said about technical beauty is so true, it doesn't hold much water without a strong idea underpinning it. I feel like it's easy to fall into that trap as an artist because we get so absorbed in the nitty-gritty of everything (not that that's a bad thing) but it's good to see the bigger picture once in a while.
Keep up all the hard work dude :)

[miracoly]

Thank you both very much! Really appreciate your kinds words :)

@The Lama cant wait to get into painting, so much fun stuff ahead!

[Zipfelzeus]

Happy anniversary! So cool that you stayed determined through out the year despite having to work a full time job and stuff.

Your design stuff really improved and ton and makes me hopeful that I can catch up on that as well!
Thanks for sharing your progress with us <3<3<3

[miracoly]

Thanks Zipfelzeus! Just keep it up dude, you'll get there!

Random doodle, getting back into the groove.

[miracoly]

Messing around with hard surface stuff. Trying to emulate Sparths simplistic sketching style. Looked at the Sukhoi Su-22 for the jet.

[miracoly]

Borrowed some colors from Brian Sum (https://www.artstation.com/artist/sum Check him out, his stuff is insane!!!) and went at a color pass. Really enjoy just playing around at the moment.

[miracoly]

Feel like posting today, so quick update: random sb scribbles

Btw: Anyone doing Inktober this year? Maybe we could start a dedicated thread here on cd...

Anyways, see you all!

[Artloader]

One thing I've always loved about your work Miracoly is how it's so tidy - do you do any construction on your sketches or do you draw it first time?

Good to see you making a start on colours as well - looking forward to more from you :).

[miracoly]

Thanks Artloader! Really appreciate :3

Man, I wish my drawings weren't SO clean, a bit more grit wouldn't be too bad I think :D

Basically I start every drawing with blocking in the basic geometry very very lightly and then work on top. I actually made a process shot of one of the sketches. So I do construct but I do it "all in one".

[nymph0]

really really really cool stuff mate! you'r doing great!