To start somewhere as an architectural concept artist

[Aarn0ud]

Hi there,

My name is Aarnoud and I live in Belgium. Excuse me for my poor English.
This is a post just to get the word out there somewhere and hear what other people think.

As a recent graduate in architecture I decided to hold of on working like one for at least a year to persue an adventure in arts and illustration. Throughout my education I was always busy sketching and felt that now was the time, with a legitimate degree in my hands, to give some space and time to this "talent" that people seem to think I have. I hate that word so much because it implies I don't practise, while it was all I did in my spare time.

So this school year, with a part time job in architectural sketching research, I rolled in at an illustration school and while I was having a blast, I quickly noticed I'm just too ahead of everyone. So I said to myself why can't I do what this program of 3 years offers me in 1? This week, I decided to take on only some really cool classes like figure drawing and picture analysis and the for the rest just learn it all a whole lot faster by myself.

I also went back to this article of Noah Bradley I once read and thought: well this is applicable to me. Besides the list of books and tutorials I concluded I needed two things: a goal and feedback. I can't just draw everyday endlessly and keep it all to myself so I posed myself these three questions:

1) How I can add something to this world?
2) What excites me? (Tim Ferris trick)
3) What am I good at?

And the answer revealed itself: an architectural concept artist.

It would be really cool if I could visualise ideas and designs for architecture firms. I know from my education in architecture there is a high demand for hand drawings in a sea of absurd 3D renderings. 
Stupidly enough I recognised I was already doing this throughout my career for group assignments and research purposes, but just as something on the side.

With my job now I can draw at least 4 hours every day and then some more during the evening in the weekends. Hell, I'm doing it already. I wanted to ask of you guys a couple of questions:

1) What is the most effective way to learn all of this material that Noah Bradley recommends. 
2) What is the best way to share my work with you guys and the world. 
3) How do I keep track of my goal and structure it in a way so that I put myself on tight deadlines.

I am also blown away by the book "drawing on the right side of the brain" by Betty Edwards. Like a part of me that was always there suddenly came to fruition. I also adore the work of Syd Mead.

Sorry for the long talk, here are some recent drawings I made ranging from illustrative work to figure drawing lessons.

[neopatogen]

Hi! Welcome on Daggers. 
I think that an architecture background is a great start for visual arts. I suppose that you have a strong foundation in perspective already and also have a visual library for architecture stuff? I see an arch illustration in flat style, could you show some of your drawings in perspective? Have you leaned how values and light work? I assume you know some 3d software?

As for your questions:
1. Could you specify what exactly Noah Bradley recommends? I watched some of his vids but don't remember a list of recommended things to learn, although there was a list of books on his website.
I think that you don't really need figure drawing and portraiture if you want to do only arch vis . While, since you're drawing people, maybe you want to try illustration/ concept art as well? Noah is a concept artist and an illustrator specialising in environments, not arch vis.
If you're not sure about what's the difference and what you need to learn for different career paths, you can start with this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piKV5nXL-C4 and then make a proper research. It's important for goal setting to know clearly where your point of destination is. 

If you want to explore, get basic drawing skills which can be applied to anything, drawabox.com is a great resource on drawing fundamentals for beginners.
For figure drawing, if you decide you need it, Loomis is a classic resource (I think Noah mentioned his books). I see you do gesture, make sure to learn some structure as well. Loomis will help :) Drawabox too. You can also try Proko's vids.

For hard surface drawing/rendering Scott Robertson's How to draw and How to render are awesome. But most likely you don't need How to draw book if you already learned drawing in perspective as an arch major. For other 2d fundamentals you can check out Dorian Iten's articles/courses for accuracy and shading and Gurney's Color and light book/ blog.

2. As for sharing your stuff with the world - I don't know websites for arch vis, maybe someone else will reply, but do your own  research anyway.  I know a couple of people on this forum who did architecture in the past but nobody who would specialise in it atm. Also you can make your own website and promote as soon as you have content for it.
To share stuff with us, feel free to create a sketchbook thread on this forum, I'm sure there will be people who will visit it and crit your stuff/cheer you up :) Also check out our Discord, see the icon on top right of this website, there's a crit section in there too.

3. For goal setting and DLs you can check out Smart goals vid by Amit from this forum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7wJoRo5MdE&t=1s , awesome for that purpose.
Also there's a thread with list of books on planning and discipline http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-7867.html , but it takes time to read and apply stuff from that books,while you can spend just spend several minutes to watch  Amit's vid first and jump start your goal achievement today :)