Crimson Daggers — Art forum

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Hey guys, got a new goal.

Spend 3 hours a day doing fun unproductive stuff.


But no more than 3 :D


Studied The mountain. Also got a good comp for Illustration.
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Regarding my last post.

I currently have some bad habits,(games, videos, movies etc) basically I consume too much content thats designed to entertain. What that does is it makes me feel comfortable and that in turn makes me less likely to commit to doing art. To get rid of the habits Ive put a 3h limit to how much I can spend my time that way.
What do I do for the rest of the day?
Ideally art, but whenever I get tired or "dont feel like it" I either take a walk outside or daydream or do nothing really. In addition I might watch toturials or improve another skill. The idea is that I get bored and do art because I dont have anything else to do(kind of had the same situation in the hospital). If I really feel tired out and unable to focus then I can spend an hour doing fun stuff. I usually divide the 3 hours over the day.
So far this plan has been going great, theres no pressure to get X amount of hours of art done or anything like that.

Woow you do a lot every day! I really like your paints, especially the first value sketch in your last post! I'd recommend you focus on colour, especially colour theory and indirect light. Try to avoid (almost) pure grey or black when using colour, because it just won't blend in nicely. The other thing i noticed is your pictures come out blurred very often, maybe try to find a brush with a hard edge and experiment with textures to give it a less blurry appearance?

I have a quick overpaint for you to illustrate my points (if you are alright with that!). Things I've done are:
-Increased contrast and rendering
-Used more indirect and coloured light and shadow. (used grey blue for the skull instead pure grey)

Don't take every thing I changed in the painting for granted, I'm still practicing colouring myself. But I think this can help with most of your paintings. I hope I helped, love to see more!

Thank you for the advice and paintover Eve. Yeah some sketches are half assed so they look blurry :). I might start out soft, but as more time passes I get harder(no innuendos, it just came out that way lol).
Imma do master studies, those guys always have awesome colors. Also I plan to look through gurneys color theory notes that Lyraina posted.

Felt like today was more difficult to pass, I quess the effects of my new schedule are beginning to show. Im sure it will get harder, but I must persist and then it will be easier after a month or two.

Also found out that Its really hard to work on a single illustration all day, so spiced things up with some animation and started a rembrandt study.
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Aw dude, nice to see you getting into animation! I suggest trying the bouncing ball assignment, should help you figure out spacing and timing. A quick google search shoul dbring up some results, it's a super popular exercise

Thanks Sam, Ill look it up sometime.

Today was a failure in my part, I went over the 3h restriction I set myself. Lasted only 4 days(which progressively got harder). So I guess Ill try do beat this attempt and go over 4 days.

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Nice colors in the master study, I like the pinks in the skin.

The mountain/Oberyn piece is cool, but could use some atmosphere to push the mountain away from the background. And maybe some more contrast for Oberyn as well, a little reflected light or something to pop them from the ground. Below the mountains's sword you've got a different color on the ground I think, that's a bit visually confusing so far.

Keep it up & stick to your schedule! :)

Woah, that Rembrandt study looks really awesome! I like the pinks and ocher green, it really gives a nice vibe! And about the blurry part: Yeah, I get what you mean. I'm still experimenting with texturing myself, what i find to be helping is to block colours with a rough brush in high opacity, then refining it after. It's hard to find balance, and it's all about personal preference I guess. As long as the result looks good, there's no need to worry. The dangerous part is that when you start out blurry it will be difficult to overcome that with going over it with a hard edged brush, it might make your drawing somewhat faded and smudgey. But with the master study I don't see that problem, it looks really great to me. I guess the best thing is just to try out stuff, do some studies of artists you like and see what works best for yourself. Keep it up :D

Lyraina- Thanks for the feedback on the Got Illustration, the darker values near the ground by the mountain are supposed to be cast shadows, but I screwed it up(the whole illustration is a mess actually). Ill do better next time.

Eevee- Thanks I learned a ton from it. I'd say it doesnt matter how you start, blurry or hard, if you put in the time and effort, it will fix itself(kind of).


Tried out applying what I learned from Rembrand't and Marco Bucci's videos.
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Animations, head studies from archambault, hard edge virtual plein air and a still life.
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Yaay you really colour-leveled up! I guess it is preference, whenever I start blurry I just can't ever seem to fix it, but if you can, just work like you want to!

Nice new stuff, I really, really like the first portrait.

Thank you Eve, it was all thanks to Rembrandt's master study. Yeah, its true, it all comes down to the preferences :) (which may later ever alter your style and might make it really unique. Like this guy http://hardedge-maelstrom.deviantart.com/)



Yeah, I was so out of it today. Buuut I didnt break the restriction. Also went shopping for clothes(because graduation is coming)


From imagination, didnt use refs. This had some potential, but I really screwed up the "hat" and clothing didnt come out good either. Gotta rely on refs more and do more master studies.
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Brainstorming and looking for design ideas(yes they are incredibly messy, but they helped me get to the ideas and flesh them out a bit)
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Pensketches from when I was grilling in the car while my mom was shopping.
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Great job on the master studies! And Id recognize that hydrothermal worm and tardigrade photo ref anywhere. If you want to do more studies like that this site has pages of photos like those.

http://www.lastrefuge.co.uk/php/sitesear...0&q=Clouds

With your head drawings from imagination Id suggest focusing on understanding skull anatomy. Specifically the relationship between the zygomatic bone (cheek bone), the maxilla and the jaw bone. Try not to think of the parts of the face as the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Think of the structures of the skull and how they relate. Then the superficial parts like the mouth and nose will be easier to place once the foundation of the form is laid down carefully.

Thanks for the advice and the link Mr Haze.


Had an exam yesterday, it was the last one. Also my internet stopped working. But its fine today.

Noodled around with this a lot, it isnt working out and its getting more frustrating, so Ill just start from scratch and try again.
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Environment wip.
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aw sweet, does that mean you're done with school? congrats dude!
Environment wip looks cool so far, I think the contrasts and sharpness of that tree in the midground is taking a lot of the focus away from the figure

Mannnnnn look at you go you sexy man beast. Those animations are looking wicked. I really like the last ball one. If you are looking to get into animation (this guy ^^^ commenting above me should be your go to xP ) but Drawn to Life are great books, I have both of them, good read and help even with still illustrations so if you haven't already got a WTB book list a mile long (I know you do, I do as well) add those to it.

Keep up the good work man.

Thanks for pointing that out Sam, I did some checks and you were right. I was fond of that tree however so I decided to make it the first focal point. I figured it would have to be more interesting so I gave it a face.(working up quite a story with this illustration in my head)

Thanks Jaik mah buddy. Sam advised me to do a ball study so I did. Will have to check dem books out.


Found this cool place, where I can study motion. http://www.scott-eaton.com/category/bodies-in-motion
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Thingies.
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Ughh I failed today. I got to this really interesting part in Cryotic's Catherine lets play, so I decided to spend all 3h in the morning. Doing that kinda "corrupted" my mindset and I decided to take a day off, I even considered hiding that fact because I really dont like to fail and show my let-downs to everyone. It does motivate me to push myself more though.

At some point I did get my senses back and did some painting and decided not to hide any shit.I strive to be honest, because many people keep exaggerating their achievements or hiding their failures. It creates a high average and makes people feel miserable.

Im going to try to sum up all the good parts of my experiences and try all the things that helped me at once. I remember how easy the Loomis exercises became in last summer(because I always did them first and got used to it). I remember how much it motivated not to fail to get the monthly hour limit done. And recently Ive seen the positive effects of the 3h restriction, but on its own its not enough.
Lastly I think there has to be 1 day in a week where I do less and just relax. I either get burned out(its happened 2 times, both resulting in serious art block). Or lazyness gets to me. I atleast want to control when I take my time off.

That means I'll make a schedule, set a goal and set a restriction.


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I couldnt agree more with showing "failures" to not paint an inaccurate picture of your skill to others. That means you're ignoring your ego's desire to be validated. Your ego will just drag you down and make your whole art journey painful when it should be fun and exciting. When you struggle at a piece dont think of it as a failure because its in those moments that you grow the most. If everything you're doing just comes easy that means you've stopped improving so dont run from what you might think of as failure.