01-24-2015, 03:35 PM
So if you've realised all the advice given in the thread, and yet you know it is only a matter of time before you get frustrated, then you haven't really "got" the message.
We will all go through frustration to some degree and often that is an indication that you need to practice more or do something completely different.
You say you are satisfied with your life drawing skills but you want to dive into anatomy? You need to have a fair amount of anatomy understanding to do life drawing really well in my opinion. If you aren't seeing anything to improve on, then perhaps you need other people to critique your work.
In fact why not put post a few examples of your work here instead of going just on your own evaluations, and I'm sure we can help you out with where to improve next.
It sounds more like you don't know what or how to study "properly" and all I can say to that is, do whatever feels right for you. There is no absolute correct way to study besides maybe as a general rule, focusing on fundamentals first and then applying that to your imagination work. Rinse. Repeat. But again it depends on your goal? If cartooning is what you want to do, then for sure you probably don't need to do thousands of hours of life drawing. You still need to be able to instill life in your characters and their actions, but you probably don't need to know the name of all the muscles and where they attach; it certainly wouldn't hurt, and it would mean you become more versatile, but technically not needed in the same way a realist illustrator would need to study that stuff.
Perhaps you would benefit from some online or real courses where you are lead through a set process rather than having to set something up for yourself. It is always a learning and valuable experience to be forced into a particular workflow for a while.
I had a look at your sketchbook and you seem to have some nice basic gestures and proportions and figure construction down for sure, but that's as far as the stuff posted there goes. You rarely seem to take anything further to a finished state (or at least don't post it) The anime characters seem fine enough as well, but again never taken very far past sketches. If you feel you have skills enough in a certain area, then the question starts to become "why?". What are you going to do with it, what do you want to say with it? This is actually more important than just being able to technically draw something correctly or make it look pretty.
You have amassed some skill behind you which could definitely be improved on, but I think you need to just give yourself a break, have a listen to what you want to do and don't stress out so much about whether it is the right or wrong thing or how quickly you are improving.
Just knowing something from an intellectual level, isn't the same as living and being it.
We will all go through frustration to some degree and often that is an indication that you need to practice more or do something completely different.
You say you are satisfied with your life drawing skills but you want to dive into anatomy? You need to have a fair amount of anatomy understanding to do life drawing really well in my opinion. If you aren't seeing anything to improve on, then perhaps you need other people to critique your work.
In fact why not put post a few examples of your work here instead of going just on your own evaluations, and I'm sure we can help you out with where to improve next.
It sounds more like you don't know what or how to study "properly" and all I can say to that is, do whatever feels right for you. There is no absolute correct way to study besides maybe as a general rule, focusing on fundamentals first and then applying that to your imagination work. Rinse. Repeat. But again it depends on your goal? If cartooning is what you want to do, then for sure you probably don't need to do thousands of hours of life drawing. You still need to be able to instill life in your characters and their actions, but you probably don't need to know the name of all the muscles and where they attach; it certainly wouldn't hurt, and it would mean you become more versatile, but technically not needed in the same way a realist illustrator would need to study that stuff.
Perhaps you would benefit from some online or real courses where you are lead through a set process rather than having to set something up for yourself. It is always a learning and valuable experience to be forced into a particular workflow for a while.
I had a look at your sketchbook and you seem to have some nice basic gestures and proportions and figure construction down for sure, but that's as far as the stuff posted there goes. You rarely seem to take anything further to a finished state (or at least don't post it) The anime characters seem fine enough as well, but again never taken very far past sketches. If you feel you have skills enough in a certain area, then the question starts to become "why?". What are you going to do with it, what do you want to say with it? This is actually more important than just being able to technically draw something correctly or make it look pretty.
You have amassed some skill behind you which could definitely be improved on, but I think you need to just give yourself a break, have a listen to what you want to do and don't stress out so much about whether it is the right or wrong thing or how quickly you are improving.
Just knowing something from an intellectual level, isn't the same as living and being it.