JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[JyonnyNovice]

Taken so long for me to finish this... need to speed up and get more focused if I want to take on paid commissions! Anyway, I think this is just about done. I'll probably have another session tidying up a few more places but I think this could be it. Let me know what you think / anywhere I could improve it?

[JyonnyNovice]

Phew, think I am finally finished with this.





I'm gonna jump on the game of thrones bandwagon and try to do one caricature per week or a character; testing out with instagram and seeing about boosting followers (not sure what good it will do me since most of the people looking are artists as well, but might be helpful in the future!)

Here's a WIP of George R R Martin:

[xelfereht]

Looking good with the barber pic.
Much easier to know where to look now!
I just started doing the GOT art thing too haha.. I really love the show anyway
was thinking similar instagram wise maybe get some more followers if i posted bit more fan arty things..
will see, i hate the algorithm changes..
i like the bottom right George btw
keep up the good work man

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks dude, thanks to your help I got it to this level! Gonna go to the printers tomorrow and take it to them this week.

I don't know anything about the algorithms, but worth a shot. I guess having a lot of followers means you got people who will buy your stuff, or read it if its a webcomic or something. That's how things start I suppose. Fanart should hopefully bring in more people who just enjoy the show, rather than people who are into art. Not sure which group is more likely to buy stuff from you.

[Artloader]

That barber piece came out great Jyonny :).

Hope you get a good reception when it goes up :).

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks Artloader! Got it printed now, gonna take it to them tomorrow. A little nervous really, but I know it'll be fine ^_^


Going ahead with my game of thrones caricatures; trying to get a lot of sketches done first so I can just focus solely on painting practice one after another over the next couple months.

[JyonnyNovice]

gonna call this one finished, managed to paint it from the sketch in about 4 hours, pretty happy with that! Practising using a monochromatic palette, it's a nice step up from values; just have to worry about saturation in addition to the values, the hue is not involved yet. Might do another few of these before I move on to full colour.

[JyonnyNovice]

Got to work on an album cover for some friends (but a paid job finally!). Here's the result and some WIP stuff. I was inspired by Persona 5's artwork with the strong red, and tried to mimic an Al Hirschfeld style of drawing in the final.

[Artloader]

Hey congrats on the paid piece man!

Looks cool, nice linework, I love how you can move from painting to linework from one piece to the next :).

Onwards and upwards my friend!

[Tygerson]

Wow, this is like when you see a nephew as a kid, and then the next time you see them, they're in law school! You've come a long way!

Really like the caricatures! They're expressive and appealing. Good shape, great painting too. The barbershop tells a story in an instant. Keep it up!

[JyonnyNovice]

Tygerson! Wow! Was weird cause I was wondering the other day what you were up to. I'm glad you started posting again ^^ And thanks for your comments! I like the analogy, and like someone out of their teens I can look back and see how much I thought I knew and how little I did lol. Good lesson for today as well!

Funny story about the barber shop caricature I did, the two in the picture have fallen out, the guy has quit, so it wasn't appropriate for her to put it on the wall BUT! she liked it so much, she's commissioned me to do another one just of her, this time getting $$cash money$$! Pretty interesting turn of events, although I'm not planning to charge her much, its nice when someone likes your stuff so much they'd pay money for it.


Here's some other recent caricature stuff: 

[Tygerson]

Go figure on the barbershop, but round two should be great.

I like the variety of color schemes on the next round of studies. Your people have such personality!

[JyonnyNovice]

Wow almost exactly one year since I posted in here! Kind of serendipitous!

Tons of new work and improvement happened in that time, just fell out of the habit of posting on here but if anyone is interested my instagram link is working now!

Also I have launched my first webcomic, this is a real milestone, when I joined CD my goal was to become a comic artist. This is the point I can now say I am a comic artist! Time to set more goals like getting published/paid/1000 subscribers but yea! I made it! Here's a link to my comic for anyone interested:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/th..._no=214636

[Artloader]

Hey well done on the progress and on the WebComic dude! It looks awesome, I love the endless scroll format and the story looks intriguing :).

So are you the artist and Dai the writer?

Subscribed!

Looking forward to more dude!

[JyonnyNovice]

Artloader Nearly two years late reply but yea Dai writes the scripts (It's a Welsh name although it sounds japanese XD) we still work together and he's writing the story for our new comic, I am getting published in print for the first time with it, pretty awesome milestone \^_^/

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I'm going to try and maintain this sketchbook thread again! 

I've started doing these evening studies where I pick an IP or subject and do a page in my sketchbook. My goals are to absorb design skills, gain knowledge about new subjects and start to improve composition/graphic design by trying to make the page look pleasing without the option of lassoing and moving stuff digitally.

I would probably get more benefit out of these if I did a second page of my own designs using stuff I learned from the study page, but I keep finding that when I set myself too many targets I end up missing them, getting annoyed with myself, put off doing the studies cause I know i don't have time to do a second page and in the end I miss many days of sketchbook drawing. Turning over a new leaf I am going easy on myself, just relax, have fun and draw characters and things I like. 

Here's a bunch of them from the last couple weeks.

Disney Princess head shapes



Avatar the last airbender



Random studio ghibli characters



Klaus character designs by Torsten Schrank



Legend of Korra costumes



Avatar the last airbender expressions



Streetfighter comic art by Omar Dogan



Nausicaa character heads



Men's jackets from pinterest



Mutant: Year Zero game



Piggies simplified from photos

[Artloader]

Hey Jyonny - I really excited for you on getting your comic published in print! Hope it all goes well :).

I like your approach of taking it easy on yourself and doing something simple each day. Hopefully for you it will mean you will be more likely to stick to it and build up some momentum.

The idea of doing a second page of your own designs would be really useful I reckon, but not if it puts you off from drawing every day. Maybe something you could do is studies one day and then the next day do your designs from imagination? That way you're not cramming too much into any one session?

Dunno - up to you man - great to have you back though :).

[JyonnyNovice]

Artloader thanks man, I'm gonna get serious this year and try to put out more content to make the most of this print magazine, I think I've toiled away in the art cave for long enough.

I am going to try and mix it up with the studies, maybe do some original characters wearing the costumes from the studies, or draw them in a different style or something. There is just so much stuff to draw to build up the visual library, advice I've seen repeated from lots of pro's has been just to do many many studies of artists you admire, very few ever suggest to apply it immediately after. It seems like an obvious benefit to study then draw again in your own way, but perhaps a sheer volume of studies overrides the benefit you gain? A Sycra video a while back talked about 'hard' and 'soft' visual library; hard being stuff you have totally memorised, Kim Jung Gi being the master, but soft visual library is everything you've ever seen, including all the studies you do since you have not just seen the thing but puzzled out every little line and shape. I think studying and applying it pushes it into your hard visual library but it's kind of like cramming for a test, you probably won't remember it all a year later so what was the long term benefit? Unless you draw that same thing many times at increasing intervals it will all fade to your soft visual library anyway... I dunno maybe that's all nonsense but it seems a consistent thing from some pro's, just make lots of studies, full stop. I will try different ways though and see how it goes! I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on the study + apply vs. straight study benefits (talking about drawing, painting is different perhaps).

Simplified Hawks from photo



Final Fantasy 7 box-art studies, more realistic faces are a struggle! I need to do this more often!

[Zorrentos]

Hey Jon! Cool to see that you are back at the forums! The last post was really a great read.

One thing that has helped me a lot in building a visual library has been to study and then apply the subject straight from my imagination. It really helped me build a visual library of poses and facial expressions, and IMO, this seems like a great way to push stuff into your hard visual library.

Keep posting! ;)

[JyonnyNovice]

Gonna try and get more active on here again and post sketches and all those bits and pieces that just go to sleep on my hard drive!

Here's the first 6 pages of a comic, I set goals when I first started to learn to draw that I wanted to be published by the time I'm 40. It was my 40th birthday last month and I've been published in a bi-monthly comics anthology earlier this year! 

Going by the quote "It's better to shoot too high and miss, than shoot too low and never reach your potential" I'm making my next goal! 

By the time I'm 50 I will sell 50 million copies of a book worldwide!




















Any feedback is really welcomed! Lot's of issues with the artwork, my biggest problem is keeping 'on model', as well as making pleasing facial expressions. Also colour, spotting good darks... pretty much everything needs improvement XD

[chubby_cat]

Congratulations on completing part one of your comic! That is no easy feat. Overall, it's really charming and the art style is pretty clean. The pacing and writing is enjoyable, and the cute little quips (like rinse and repeat) add for some good comedy moments over the more serious backdrop of the narrative.

Keeping 'on model' is a right ol struggle. I think it just comes down to 'practice makes perfect' and understanding how your character looks rotated in 3D space (easier said than done lmao)

Also belated happy birthday!