(05-27-2014, 09:18 PM)Wardy Wrote: speaking of which, havent seen work from you in too long man! im having withdrawal symptoms... or maybe thats just the coffee... i imagine you quite busy atm?
I haven't painted anything in 3 months. I still don't have a decent computer to work on since all my stuff got stolen. I will get back into it for sure, but I think the form will be different. I'm not gunning for any specific jobs or trying to "become" an artist anymore. Instead I will just do whatever I want to do and if it leads somewhere that's fine, but I'm done with the constant struggling. :)
oh mate thats rough im sorry about that. how come you giving up the pursuit? thats genuinely made me quite depressed! its a good mental attitude to take in some ways, it means you will keep getting better and even if you dont land a job its not the end of the world because you werent banking on it, but how come its not top of your priorities anymore? (i know you arent a fan of your job atm)
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update including some lighting inside the castle, put some partial lighting on the second tower, added some detail to the tops of the towers but kept them a bit loose (i prefer that). have tried to even out the lighting situation a bit more as suggested. Will be detailing the big castle wall next as its very big and very bland. also toned down the foreground torch flame a bit (though probably not noticeably unless you compare). will be working on this further, would love to know what anyone thinks :)
Nice update. so much better. I would maybe start to bring in some silhouettes and slightly more defined shapes on the left side of the canvas...maybe a treeline or a shrubbery :) more shapes and branches to lean into the focal point. Maybe consider a teensy bit of shape work to imply detail in the plain/marsh, some plants sticking out. Also you might want to plug up the bottom right corner a bit more, you could try another line of vegetation going into the canvas, or to counteract the left side the silhouette of a near foreground tree in the top corner that is closer to the viewer than the figure on the left, for depth.
About myself, well I'm not "quitting" doing art, but I am done obsessing, comparing, endlessly striving and sacrificing my enjoyment of the present for a future state of "making it" which will supposedly make it worth it. We only ever experience any form of happiness in the present, so banking so much on a future state If you think about it, is absolutely bonkers especially given the amount of angst we push ourselves through. But this is the general vibe of wanting to "make it" as an artist that is so visceral in everyone in the community and I have felt it start to infect my own sense of why I want to do it.
I'm not going to let the crazy pressure of the self improvement obsession and march towards a job take away from my enjoyment of life, which exists only in the present anyway, not the future. I mean there is nothing to stop you from going blind, or losing a hand or dying in some freak snowboard accident tomorrow...literally anything can happen, so to put so much emphasis and energy on the future, if it means sacrificing enjoying the present is ridiculous. If I can coincide my present enjoyment with the march to a more fulfilled career in art then that's cool, otherwise there's no point. So, what that means is, eventually when I sort my equipment shit out, I will be painting again, but they won't be "concepts" or "illustrations" or "designs" or whatever, they will be exactly whatever I want to do for me at the time I do them. I ain't doing this crap for someone else (even as a pro you are working on someone else's shit). I'm doing it for me! :)
some surrounding forest maybe breaking up the line of people would be great actually, can add a couple branches or some long grass on the bottom right, thanks, good point.
and i completely see where you are coming from, that is a much more healthy attitude to take than being miserable in the present for future happiness ( pretty much what everyone does ). I think I do pretty much the same, in the sense that I paint when I want to paint, what I want to paint, and yes I'm really hoping that one day I'll be good enough to paint stuff I love for a living, but i do it as meditation more than anything in any case. Like doing this castle, it puts me in a really good frame of mind just carving out the details, making things look drastically better just by adding some new layers and creating a mood that gives an emotional connection (or trying to). Of course there is some ego attached, such as if I got no faves on dA for this when its finished, i would probably be pretty bummed out, but most of the time i recognise that for what it is- a meaningless digital counter, and my art is just a step along the way. Thats basically why i dont feel like im sacrificing present happiness for the future, even if a job didnt exist doing this I would still be doing this for sure, so thats how I know im not banking on being deemed 'good enough' to build other peoples dreams (though some of them are sick! to have worked on skyrim..... yum....). hope getting new gear isnt too painful, i'll look forward to some new personal doodlings from you whenever you can :)
Well I think we all do the compare and strive thing even when we are enjoying it. I thought I had it handled, but then I realised that you have to give up the hope of making it and just do work for its own sake. Anything else is just extra crap you don't need.
Don't get me wrong, in the last 2 years I enjoyed the heck out of almost every piece, but there was always an underlying theme of desire to improve and the impact on the future state no matter how much I enjoyed it. Also when you do it for long enough it sometimes isn't enough to just do it when you consistently get "nowhere" closer to your goals, and that is what I'm cutting out. The fear, frustration and the desire. Also the idea that each piece is a step on the way to something. I don't believe it should be. Each piece should be what it is for the moment it was created, and that is all. :) I know who cares right...but to me the difference is huge.
Art is not meditation for me. I made it too much of a big deal in my life already and that was the problem to start with. Maybe some pieces allow you to flow enough to be only focused on the present stroke to stroke, but these pieces tend to be rare. They do also end up being your best work often times. Goes to show something I guess. :)
i guess maybe i am a bit more down the striving and compare route then, I mean i enjoy every piece but i do see them as kinda a documentation of my improvement more than a piece in their own, which also prevents me from getting attached to them or putting too much value on their popularity. I kinda feel like i have to improve all the time though, because its only going to be a few years until im expected to be working, and I've put most of my eggs in the art basket so to speak so i have a big drive to get pro quickly. I dunno if thats a bad thing, it means im looking forward to future happiness but also enjoying the present- i think thats ok personally but its up to the person i guess. Seriously pissed at accidentally copying jordan grimmers work... need to make it different somehow now. meh. will soldier on...
so i finished it, not really happy with the focal point being washed out because of the necessary atmospheric perspective/fog that affects the people, but there you go. Glad to put this one to rest.
hi thar! sorry this took me a while, just found your comment now im updating :/ the castle probs took me 6-7 hrs? it was a nasty one that...
i may do a screen record sometime if you'd like? ive also got it in all its stages, so can post a mini sequence thing if you'd find it interesting? :) looking at the stages shows how random my brain is really... it changed ALOT. im not a big linework man to say the least.
thanks for the comment :)
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figure studies, one from imagination (the one on the right) and one from a picture but edited the arms, practicing extreme perspective. ive got a character in mind i may do using that as a template, would love any crit :) figures are hard but im gonna beat the crap out of them with studies!
also did the figure in value to see if i could visualise light well.
Though angle you picked there. The right one looks solid, maybe i'd thin up a bit right about the knee on the right side of the picture;
The extreme perspective one, her torso feels too long. The ellipses you have drawn there, they would be more open, since you're seeing her from so down under. And her hips would overlap her ribcage; that would help with the "longness" of the torso. Never be afraid to overlap things, overlap is huge part of the trick :)
Have you looked at Loomis to help with your figure studies? Studying some of his drawings might help you with some of the proportions and construction of your figures.
new figure study from one of proko's figure packs.
@ Ursula, thanks! Yeh you're right the knee is a bit chunky... as for the extreme perspective, its so hard to get it right at such an extreme angle! overlap? yeh you're right, i should do it as cylinders first and see what runs into one another, good point :) will edit if i'm gonna use, thanks.
@Craig thankyou very much :) yes i tried to follow loomis's proportions for this, I use a method i learnt from proko- the robo-bean, because i kinda dislike loomis's approach in some ways, you dont get the same sense of volume imo which led me to drawing quite 2d looking figures. this way works for me anyway, though proportions may be off you're right. gonna read more loomis, though i find his books pretty heavy going with a fair amount of filler... just my opinion, some of it is gold. thanks for the comment!
I've never actually read a word of any Loomis' books, I just copy the pictures from it. :)
Prokos videos are great, I feel like I need to watch them every now and then or else I forget how to draw bodies. Been thinking of buying some his photo reference packs.
haha actually thats pretty much what i end up doing too! just pages of chatting about the philosophical meaning of being an artist.... grinds my gears.
yeh they are top notch, his phot references are quite good too- ive got the Victoria pack, and around 150 have bra etc on and other 300 or so nude. quite a lot of the poses are similar though, like photos taken every 5 seconds, in a very slightly different position. Still, some good stuff in there.
That environment looks killer man. A couple of things right off the bat. After adding the fog, if you are not happy with how washed out the focal point is you can go back in and go over it a little, using local values to just define the different shapes again. Its the problem with using the soft round is that it uniformly changes the affected areas, which is useful sometimes, but around the focal point you really want to control what happens to the nth degree.
Just a little bit of a tip, don't know whether it made sense or not, but yeah, keep up the good work and keep on improving :)
hah anyway i havent posted in a long time so thought i should keep u guys updated :3 been doing lots of paintings i havent finished so getting a bit frustrated, but painting=growth so i'll get there in the end.
