Hey!

[sansReAnne]

What's up?  My name is ReAnne and jeez introductions are hard!  I've been studying art on my own for a few years and frankly I'm missing that connection between students and other artists.  I've contemplated reddit art buddy and deviantart (which I do have http://sansreanne.deviantart.com/ ) , but I feel like this place has the values and vibes that I'm looking for.  If you want to be successful you hang with successful people right?  So I hope you guys don't mind!  :)  
Eventually I want to get into illustration.  I usually draw in my sketchbook practicing that draftsmanship and resisting the urge to do chicken scratch.  Digital is hella fun and the colors ohh man are awesome, but there is still a gap between the two and I always get caught up in rendering.  
Anyway I'm looking forward to starting a sketchbook and getting to know everyone.  Thanks for reading.

[Artloader]

Welcome to Crimson Daggers ReAnne :).

This place is great if you are a self learner - there's loads of people going down the self taught route on here.

Personally I have found this place to be a great source of encouragement and inspiration.

I'd encourage you to share your work in a sketchbook thread and connect with other people's sketchbooks.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing more of your work :).

[John]

Hi ReAnne,

there is still a gap between the two and I always get caught up in rendering.

That's a thing about me too. I have to resist my urge to jump into the details and just render away.

In my early days when I decided to be serious at this art thing, I had the opportunity to be mentored by this awesome local artist for 3 days. He told me to not bother with the rendering and just be conscious with the basics (which at that time, I was learning 'form').

I was copying statues at that time. Always told me to look out for relationships between values and be accurate with my lines. The way I marked those information with the pencil (the rendering part) should just be an afterthought. It's been years since I've heard this, and it's one of the ideas I hold valuable.

Here's to hoping you stick with it, whether it be here, or dA, reddit or just anywhere. Looking forward to seeing your stuff and you getting involved with the community. Post your stuff and share stories, crits and ideas!

Welcome to the Crimson Daggers.

[sansReAnne]

@Artloader  Thanks!  Yeah, I definitely will.

@John   Wow, sounds like an awesome experience.  So you were just drawing line work, no shading right?  To focus on planes and proportions.  That's really efficient and awesome advice, need to keep that in mind.
Ahh, thanks!

[John]

I was doing pencil copies years back. Fully rendered, copy the reference to the best of my abilities. They were horrible. I remember just white knuckling through that obstacle course. Boy did I hate it..

But I kinda learn to love doing Bargue copies now... So it kinda worked out in the end, now that I understand what the exercise meant. Especially now that I'm seeing the mistakes I've made on those drawings. It was so frustrating to know that my work looks wrong yet can't quite put my finger on it to fix it.

Talking about the craft with someone else. People pointing me towards good articles, tutorials and reference gave me a better appreciation towards doing life studies, photo copies, etc...

I got this link (http://www.dorian-iten.com/accuracy/) from fellow members. And that got me to enjoy the process more. If I remember correctly, think it was OtherMuzz, Adam Lina, Amit Dutta, Tristan Berndt, all dagger members btw, who pointed me that direction. Stating their names out just in case you're looking for who to ask about all this. All of them nice people!

[sansReAnne]

Oh Bargue plates gotcha.  It's good that you had someone to push you to do those.  I was in a similar mindset when I started drawing, except I would do portraits of celebrities and yeah they were terrible.  I'd heard about measuring, so I'd do that without finding horizontals/verticals so sometimes it'd come out way stretched, like it'd mentioned in that accuracy guide you linked (thanks, and I'll definitely seek them out sometime).  
I'd heard of both the Bargue plates and  the accuracy guide before, but that was before I even knew what fundamentals were haha, so I pretty much blew it off.  A great piece of advice I'd heard and I wish I'd remembered from where is that even if you think you know something go over it again, when you're learning don't stop taking in 'new' information even if it's old news.  Something like that anyway, but it's helped a ton.

[John]

I think I nagged my way to getting those information from them haha! I love doing portraits as well. If you're still keen on doing them, Suzanne Helmigh did a class on portraiture (http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-2727.html) I still do visit the class from time to time.

Oh that's true what you said about fundamentals. There are times I think I can do away with perspective, since I've been doing a lot of them once upon a time. But after taking a long vacation from it, it seems like I'm crawling my way back from square one.. It's a silly thing, at least for me, to claim being a master at one thing since it's so easy to slide back down to that feeling of not knowing anything at all!

Well! Let's get those art stuff out of our heads and on to the paper!

[Vandall]

Welcome to the daggers! Its awesome you're focusing on your draftsmanship first and foremost, a it's an important skill and lets you focus on things like construction without getting caught up in the others stuff. Can't wait to see your sketch book and feel free to check out our character of the week challenge (c.h.o.w down) it's open to both digital and traditional

[sansReAnne]

@John Haha, hey it shows you're serious! Hmm, wow I need to check that out, this time learning to do 'em right.
Most definitely!

@Vandall Thanks! Well, I'd say it's a definite weakness of mine and I found that I didn't have much to share cause it was so mangled haha.
Oh cool! I've totally shied away from character design (and anatomy somewhat) so I think this would be a good thing to participate in sometime.