Stuff Morie Draws

[morie]

HELLO DAGGERS!!

and welcome to my sketchbook

so the new year has come, people come up with their new year's resolution, so have i.
the thing is, i really want to improve, but it requires a lot of work and discipline. sadly i didn't realize it until the last quarter of the last year. i really feel so angry with myself when i think of how much time i had wasted on nothing! well, at least not proper studies but personal works, fanarts and doodles. and i can only blame myself for that, and my bad time management skills. how do you cope with that? maybe i could use some good tips.

it's not that i'm a very beginner in the world of art, i've just been doing it for fun or my own satisfaction, and needs. but not a long time ago, i just said to myself "STOP THIS FOOLISHNESS! you want to get a dream job, work to earn it!" and then i look at the amount of things i want to master, and my head starts to ache ;<
i kinda feel lost. don't know where i should start. i know that my understanding of basics is incomplete, hence i try to fix that, swallowing every book and tutorial i can stumble upon. still i see only a very small improvement. maybe i need some more time to see the real difference and development.

i would like to hear from you, what was your way of developing your skills? what really helped you in becoming a better and more skilled artist?

there's also the matter of style. sometimes i like the cartoony things i draw, and on the other days they just look so bad, that i hate them and hate the style i can't get rid of. well, this kinda casts shadow on all of my artworks.

so to summarize my rant, things i want to learn or improve this year

MY "TO DO" LIST:

• reinforce basics
  
• learn human and animal anatomy
  
• learn and master values
  
• improve my creativity
  
• learn all about the perspective (and finally master this damn thing ;p)
  
• paint enviros (even if they will be really bad)
  
• learn about composition
  
• learn about visual storytelling
  
• learn about colors
  
• learn basics of zbrush and sketchup
  

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and so to show some of my recent artworks, to let you get the grip on the skillset i already have
(i'm sorry for the watermarks, but i'm kinda paranoid on the copyrights matter ;p)

[Adam Lina]

Hi, Morie! Welcome to the forums. Some book I recommend would be...Figure Drawing For All Its Worth, Figure Drawing: Design and Invention, Anatomy for the Artist, Color and Light & How to Draw. You can take a look at other peoples sketchbook threads too to get ideas of things to focus your studies on. You've got a wide range of everything under the sun on your to-do list so I would pick one or two to focus on at a time. Take a few months to learn about a subject. Remember learning mastery over it is a never ending process. You'll revisit topics over and over, each time you come back to it you'll notice things you missed while studying it previously.

[astute-fool]

Good stuff, I can relate to the wasting time thing, I feel I could always draw more and find myself drawing far less then I should. As for the question of how to develope skill, the little skill I have so far I have mainly aquired from masterstudies, and some photostudies during the last year. On another note I like how you got some texture going in your portaits, looking forward to see some more, cheers!

[morie]

@Adam Lina

oh i've gathered a huge ton of art books (still not as many as i would want to have) including those you mentioned. good, i know from which i should start reading them (:
yeah, pretty much i'm very strict for myself when it comes to art. i just want to be able to draw anything i imagine, and not feel restricted by limits of my own body. and you read my mind or my idea for studies was kinda good and beneficial. that's how i wanted to approach the whole thing. focus on 2-3 subjects and work on them for the next month or more. i think it will be the best to start with perspective, anatomy, and values, since these 3 are pretty much the most basic subjects for every artist to master. thank you.

@astute-fool

ughhh true, procrastination makes me angry, i realize it's bad for me, but then i procrastinate even more and can't motivate myself enough to break this endless cycle. mostly because i have school projects to do instead, attend classes or draw some image i have in mind, and it's a really urgent matter before i forget it ;p but i'll try to be better this year. thank you for the tips, ah and the texture comes from bastiene deharme's brushset (:

[morie]

ugh i hate that time before semester finals, when you sleep for 4h every day stressing out from thoughts of failing for the rest of the day.
and due the amount of assignments i have to prepare for the finals, i can't start working on my new year's resolutions ;n; ughhh *disgusted grunts*

as i said... when i play some vid game, and i immensely enjoy it, i immediately become addicted to drawing fanarts for it.
i managed to find some time last days to paint some.

i used the game screenshot for lighting and color reference, enhancing it a little bit as i found suited. (don't mind me, i'm just a fangirl with my fangirl needs ;p)


also just pulled off this value base for a commission for my friend
what is the best way of coloring grayscale pictures without making colors look dull, desaturated, and dirty?
i've heard something about gradient map.
frankly i didn't use any reference for this one, wanted to test the knowledge i already have (: