Sketchbook

[Jan Kloidt]

pointless girl is pointless

[Jan Kloidt]

yesterday

[Jan Kloidt]

made this little character today

[Jan Kloidt]

I'm not dead! Mostly drawing in my physical sketchbook right now, I'm actually having fun again. There are tons and tons of fundamental mistakes in there, but I'm using them to explore, have fun and learn in a relaxed way inbetween actual studies. It's basically about letting drawing be a game again and just playing around. For me, that's the root of why I enjoyed drawing when I was a kid; pretty much dreaming/flying on paper. I'm not as free with it as I used to be when I was a child, but I think I know now what to do to get back to that again. The goal is to learn perspective and anatomy and all that good enough that I can do it all subconsciously and play like a child, but still creating nice drawings along the way. I believe that's what Kim Jung Gi does, and it's also why he always seems so happy and satisfied. He just draws and plays and reserves the critical judgement for when he's done and takes a 2nd look at it. I'm conscious now of how many bullshit premises I have in my head of what a drawing needs to be, and I'm getting rid of them one after another until only the most fundamental ones remain. At least, that's the plan.
Until I get back into digital, there won't be a lot of updates but I'm still keeping track of my hours and noting them in my deathline thread!

[Adam Lina]

I can completely relate to your struggle with having fun with drawing. Your sketches look like you were having fun too. I've found drawing without attaching myself to the outcome helps with having fun and freeing ones self. Lets encourage each other to draw like kids again :D

[lurch]

Bizarrely, I was watching some Kim Jung Gi last night having not seen his work before and was blown away by his laid back, fun approach.

Totally agree with you, sometimes when I'm plugging away trying to work something out I lose sight of why I want to draw in the first place!

Love the last update, especially the top one.

I know you said you're gonna post less for a while, but make sure you share some of this nice trad stuff with us!

[Jan Kloidt]

thanks guys! lil mech thingie.

[Jan Kloidt]

sketchbook sculptures based on typography! I feel like I'm on to something here, finally something that doesn't suck

[RottenPocket]

Wow, I'm really loving these character designs of yours. Very expressive, and so different to what we usually see.

[Jan Kloidt]

thanks! I'm having much more fun, too since I stepped away from the pc and went back to just lines on paper. glad that it shows!
here's the latest page from my sketchbook. the 3 small ones were just doodles for relaxation, the guard dude was planned and designed.

[lurch]

These are looking so good, really like your inking style.

The snow globe with the skull in is great.

[Jan Kloidt]

thanks!
here's a page where I just drew something from the top of my head, noticed how little I knew about mechanical joints and then did some joint studies afterwards. I'm skipping the pencil underdrawing now, which forces you to think completely different about your drawing, but it's also way more fun because it's always open for spontaneity. It's also the best exercise for practicing visualization, you just need to know what you do before you do it or it'll be just noodles and ramen. makes you dig in your head for what you already know instead of just copying reference and having it drop from your short term memory afterwards. this approach feels way more rewarding in the long run.
all the pages I'm not posting right now are just anatomy studies, maybe I'll post some of them when I've worked my way through all the main muscles. Btw almost done with my first 200-page sketchbook, yay :D still not feeling the need to go digital again, but I'll have to go back to it when I'm confident with anatomy and design; then I'll do a couple of months with just rendering (boooooooring :D)

[lurch]

interesting to read your comments about working straight into ink. I've been approaching my stuff with pencil first and I've noticed that sometimes i'm trying to make a 'nice' drawing, rather than making a mess and actually learning something that will help me move forward.

these are looking great.

[Jan Kloidt]

thanks lurch!

haven't been posting in a long time, so here's something.

[AngeliquevdMee]

loving the sketchbook. Also wanna compliment you on the still life you did on the first page. looks great :)

[Jan Kloidt]

thanks Angelique! I have to do more of those :)

[Jan Kloidt]

more stuff. gonna do an illustration each week now and the first one will have a girl in it. so i studied some girl faces. went back to the good ol round brush, feels good.

[Jan Kloidt]

week 16 things

[Jan Kloidt]

post post post

[Bookend]

Looking great, Jan! A lot of your work's looking kind of muddy and unrefined though-- It looks like you're really close to pro-mode. Once you get this stuff refined and push it to the finish, it's gonna be amaaazing.