Help me become a Professional Artist

[Zachary McLean]

Great studies. For those animal studies, are you going by a book to learn (loomis or hogarth?), online tutorials (proko?), figuring stuff out by yourself, or looking at a photo? Thanks!

[Spiffy]

upload in lower resolutions D:

good luck in your journey

[KurtJeremy]

Bumping my thread up,
got no much traditional works to show, so heres what im of to right now.
matte painting stuffs, horrendous looking ones lol.





Zachary Mclean :waaa sorry for the super late reply but i am studying Ken hulgreth the art of animal drawing for those. im very aware of Proko and have watch his videos a bunch of times already actually. mostly i copy stuffs from books and photos. but sometimes like maybe almost not at all draw from my mind . which im trying to change.

spiffy : ha ! i apologize .how can i make the images small though? i only know about resizing the images on photoshop which is actually a very tedious job to do . anyways you as well my friend :)

[KurtJeremy]

Huge art bumppppp!
its been a year sorta! i havent uploaded anything since. but now that i have obtained my most awaited tablet im gonna try posting quite often.
while im at it im going to give myself a challenge:
at least post one personal work may it be a char/enviro/potato every week.
doesnt need to be fancy as long as it is "complete" - color and value all that jazz.
its going to force me to spew something out every week so i could get a visual of things that i have learnt from my studies throughout a week.
and im gonna be expecting some of you guys to help me out in means of crits and suggestions on where i should improve more.
also ive been thinking recently, of what i want to be really in this art pursuit. so note to self: find out tonight on where should i focus my mind on.

so enough of that, time for the fArts.
i have more to post but theyre mostly traditional so i cannot upload them .
but ill try to upload some if i dont feel lazy to take pics.

P.S sorry for the hi res Pics. i may need to fix them sooner or later. just stay away from the first page so you could save yourselves precious seconds of your time.

[JyonnyNovice]

Hi Foxfire! Glad to see you're updating on here again. Nice looking stuff, great colour studies and great to check your proportions on the face study, good to see the mistakes so we can try not to make them again!

About your figure at the top, the lines and hatching look nice but it's gotten squashed a bit, doesn't look 3D enough. Maybe try to use cylinders in the initial block in to get that feeling of the legs moving towards us - I know that right leg is sticking out to the side but where the foot lands the leg should still be moving forward in space a little. Doing just perspective studies and practice in general will help this also! Great work! Keep it coming!

[KurtJeremy]

Experemantation





studies





@Jyonny i know what youre saying about the figure drawing.. i dont know why i dont incorporate basic shapes on the legs sometimes. maybe because the poses can be overwhelming that i dont know what shapes to use. i really am dying to go to a life drawing session. but there just arent any options around my place , the one that i found is miles away from where i live. ill be tired by the time i get to the studio. i just draw people as much as i can , even when theyre moving ...

[KurtJeremy]

oh Failure. thats good .failing.
im getting all dave rapoza on these hitting multiple walls after walls. then determining what i need to work on. Wich is RENDERING. some of these are pretty lazy ones. but ill get some to their finishes. my problem right now is getting frustrated at something and not actually finishing it.

[Samszym]

Hiya! Sorry I took a while to answer.

Really nice to see you're getting back to posting, you're making some good progress with these studies.
Don't think of your drawings as failures, see them as stepping stones to better drawings! Making ninety nine bad sketches is sometimes what it takes to make one good drawing. Nobody makes stuff they're totally proud of all the time, so don't feel bad if your drawings don't match what you want them to be, it means you're improving.

You asked about line quality and measuring angles, one exercise I started doing all the time was drawing straight lines on paper. Sort of like this:

http://www.carrie-lewis.com/demonstratio...ght-lines/

I prefer doing these in pen on paper and usually draw them a few inches long. The idea is to train your arm into a machine that makes straight lines using muscle memory. Oh, you should focus on drawing with motion from your shoulder and elbow instead of your wrist. That will keep you looser and will help prevent carpal tunnel and other nasties.

As for measuring angles and proportions, the first key is to draw simple to complex. When you're looking at a figure draw a quick sketch of the whole pose, then start defining the larger shapes and masses, then limbs, then features and details. You draw the biggest shape you can first and whittle down the shapes, making sure they're all related to each other. If you draw a fully finished head and then get to sketching the body, the body and head will probably wind up being different sizes because you don't have a way to measure. You need to build up the entire drawing in equal steps, get all the general shapes and measurements correct before going smaller.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthr...nguage!%29

I think that's a good example, see how the drawing starts out very sketchy and loose and only after the perspective and basic shapes are decided on does he draw smaller shapes like the spine or bones. That should help you measure proportions.

Drawing cylinder or box forms for your figures as was suggested is also SUPER helpful. Don't worry too much about drawing the right shapes, just use really basic boxes for the rib cage and pelvis and cylinders for the limbs. Getting those forms in correct perspective will help you make sense of the figure and see what parts of the body are closer and which are further away. When you get them looking right then you can add on muscles and anatomy and squishy parts, but if you draw those first the drawing will lack structure.

One trick I use for measuring angles is to actually hold up a pencil and match the angle of my reference, then move the pencil over to my drawing to check it. Most of the time you'll try to auto-correct angles to be closer to 90 or 180 degrees. It's the same deal as fixing a tilted picture frame, we like perpendiculars and parallels. If you can learn to ignore the urge to straighten up angles your drawings will be way more dynamic.

I don't really have advice for improving line quality on a tablet specifically, I always had a hard time with that and prefer drawing traditionally. How big is your tablet? If it's very small you might want to consider getting a bigger one. I started using paint tool sai for lineart because it has a smoothing function that helps make nicer lines. I've heard manga studio is good for lines too.

I don't think you really need to worry about rendering at this point, focus on values and perspective and construction. I think you should do some more stuff from imagination too. You gotta make sure you're studying with a purpose and applying what you learn from the studies, otherwise you're just practicing how to copy photos.
Don't ever just copy a photo or painting. Think about what you're studying, why it looks like it does, and learn something new that you can put in your own drawings.

Good luck!

[KurtJeremy]

figure stuff trying to intuitively know the gestures and balance of the figure




faces from ref.they still look so wrong



crimson dagger challenge.



master studies and rendering stuff via painting




these are very random , they are mostly paintings from ryan church. seeing just how colors interact with each other. picking them randomly and putting them wildly. theyre done like 10 min. each.


@sam wow thanks so much for the sincere reply. i can safely say that im at a position where i see my works as stepping stones not so much as just sucky drawings. when i say that im failing , i mean it in a good thing. because whenever i fail im starting to realize certain weaknesses.

youre right VALUES is really a pain in a butt right now. sometimes its hard to see things on a photo where everything is so blown up and theres so much details going on , its very hard to see simplified values.

looking at angles is very much a challenge for me especially when im drawing from life. but even when drawing from a book , i find it hard to judge an angle i always draw it skewed for some reason , its just a mileage thing right?

anyways really appreciate your help !

[JyonnyNovice]

Studies are looking great, that master study portrait turned out really nice! I've been working on improving angle judging recently - Bargue drawings really help, you take a lot of time to judge the angles on those, also just drawing cubes from a reference image - either from a 3D program that you can rotate them how you want or just photo's of boxes, its a good exercise for that. Holding finger or pencil up to the reference image then moving it across to your paper / photoshop window is good to check as well. Keep going man! Together we'll win ^^

[Adam Lina]

Hey, man nice work with the studies. Sam had some great advice for you. Especially the bit about drawing more from imagination. I was stuck in study mode for the last year and didnt do a lot of imagination work but Im starting to break out of it. Its hard because you put pressure on yourself to draw something that you like. What I did was really sit down and reflect on how I use to draw as a kid when I didnt feel any pressure at all and drawing was just something I did for fun.

I remembered how I would always stare at textures on walls or clouds and see ideas for drawings in them. You have to get into an abstract mode of thinking where you're scanning everything for shapes and forms that are interesting and visualize what you're going to draw. Also it takes about an hour of drawing to get warmed up so dont feel frustrated when its not working out 20 or 30 minutes in. Just know that eventually you'll come up with a cool idea and then run with it. Hope thats helpful for you.

[meat]

Yeah, what Adam said... I'm also trying to break the rust off imagination drawing muscle. It's like starting to train jogging muscles - there's just no other way than just do it, consistently, and everything else that comes with that (tears and cursing included).

[Joe]

Hey

Just wanted to add a little something about measuring angels: mileage helps but learning how to take your time and improve concentration will instantly improve your ability to measure – when drawing from life or ref that is.

Proko’s video on measuring is really good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzDGO0LssEM

If you’re drawing digitally there is a bunch of ways to check your accuracy too, such as dragging your image to overlay ref to see how they match or drawing guides over the ref image and placing it over your drawing.

If you are going for accuracy it will always take a whole lot of time and be a bit tedious, no matter how good you get. It’s not the only way to create an image though so eventually it becomes a case of deciding what works best for you/ what is the purpose of the image. it's a good thing to study either way.

Idea of an alternative to measuring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F4OQcfYEOw

(this is all just opinion, nought of it is fact)

Keep going man, that last masters study was all kinds of good.

[KurtJeremy]

@Jyonny thanks! ive been reading bargue course its awesome.
@Adam yeah , every once and awhile i do imagination. it is fun for awhile but when i realize something wrong with my drawings i get discouraged. but i know thats a good thing , as illl find out my weaknesses.
@joe thanks for the suggestions. funny ive watch the videos you suggested numerous times already, before you mentioned it , im just curious as if you guys do the holding the pen up on your still life all the time.
cos theres others who dont do that, but still have accurate drawings.

its been awhile and i feel bad that this is all i got to show. damn it i hate myself.









and some shitty animation test.

[Adam Lina]

Good update bro. At first when I was learning to use measuring I held my pen/pencil up to measure more now I do it much less. Your eye gets better at picking up on relationships of forms without having to measure constantly. The longer you spend measuring things carefully the more relationships you start to pick up on that you didnt see at first. Noticing things like that builds your eye and makes it easier to measure size/ angle relationships instinctively.

[Joe]

Naa I never measured anything like that. I would normally try to imagine a plum line from their head to the floor (sometimes I’d draw it on the ref if I was working from a photo) made it much easier to judge most of the big angels, then I just tried to construct the rest using idealised proportions (tweeking them a bit if I was feeling brave.) I think you’ll be fine just finding a method that works for you and gives you the level of accuracy that you are aiming for




A problem with choosing your own method though is that you are much more likely to repeat the same mistake over and over. The good thing about the measuring with a pencil method is that it is very mechanical, robotic process that almost eliminates guess work (it just because a matter of concentration) so if you can stomach doing it, it will really help you in avoiding building a habit of consistently making similar mistakes. Also as Adam say, it helps build up accurate instincts

Also will Eek out those last few percentage points of accuracy that you wouldn’t get from another method… if that is what you are after.

[KurtJeremy]

@Adam and Joe i see, maybe ill keep doing the holding up the pen thing more often , as i still have a problem judging angles. doing it just enough then ditch it off and rely on instincts.

================
been juggling stuff recently, learning Unity , Zbrush and Drawing but im mostly drawing on my sketchbook, heres some of my studies on PS though:

Rule of thirds: total images 20




Gestures and figure stuff










1 Hour studies prioritizing color (mostly from nathan fowkes)








Misc



Ok guys i need your help on this one. I Got the reference with me but i have difficulties in making a decent portrait painting out of it. some of my concerns are:

Color: trying to pick color is hard! how do you guys go about it? do you just open the color pick a color from the color picker and hope for the best? or do you guys have some palettes beforehand for more harmony in your colors?

Painting details : ie Hair , folds and the patterns on her dress. its too overwhelming, they said just dont copy it 1 to 1 and to just simplify it, Im not very sure as to how to go about that? can anyone provide some tips?

then again , this was kinda rushed. the drawing wasnt that solid at the beginning. because i wasnt aiming for the drawing and wanted to get to the painting and focus on it. getting kicked in the ass in the process.

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey man! You're working really hard and it's really showing!

About choosing colour and master studies in general, check out this video from Noah Bradley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQfF-P70V2Q

It's a long video... but really worth it. I think I watched all of it and made tons of notes (I can share the notes with you if you like), he gives great advice about how to approach studies and talks a lot about how to choose colours for studies and a couple different ways to train yourself to see colour better.

[Adam Lina]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook. To answer your question you asked there; The longest pose they do in my life drawing group is one 40 minute pose with a 5 minute break in the middle of it. On the first meeting of each month they do a painting night where they do one 3 hour pose as well. And if you want to simplify forms have you tried squinting so the image is blurry?

[KurtJeremy]

nothing much to post, as i just did few "finish studies"
anyway i feel like ive been slacking off lately , so im gonna push myself a lil further , by making imagination pieces as much as i can. just finished watching scott robertson on lv up no. 70 . and they mention something about design and stuff. we should design more , and get out of the "study sickness"
youre never gonna get better without doing it in the first place.

- im also taking notes more. i have them all on my sketchbook . and im gonna post in some of the noteworthy ones so ill be able to refer to them more here in my sketchbook.

- this week im gonna focus on painting . greyscale or whatever . im gonna do them as much as i can just to get the mileage in painting.
master , photo , still life . i must post at least one of each next week.