Retarted attempts from the 13th dimension

[RaginBronko]

Hi there. Hoping that I won't be horrible forever. I'm at a place right now where I don't know how to study I'm really stuck right now and hoping this site could help me move forward. 
Things I wish I could do, 
      1. Render realistically, I feel like I get the idea of big planes to smaller and smaller planes. I think I lack knowledge of technique in this area rather than understanding of  principles. I understand that surface material is mainly about contrast and whether lighting is diffuse or direct, whether a form is round or square are there sharp or soft transitions between tones etc. But I really don't know how to create realistic effects. 

      2.  Draw the same object/character/enviroment in any viewpoint maintaining consistent appearance. For graphic novel purposes. I've studied perspective alot read lots of books and attempted to go through examples. I still find it difficult to have accurate foreshortening where I really arive at the other side of the form. Its one thing to do it with basic forms but I don't get how to get more advanced with my foreshortening. 

      3. How to get right colors. I'm aware of the idea of simeltaneous contrast, how colors will appear different based off what they're around. Which is why I can't ever do my color studies from master paintings or photos right. When I think I see a green, it was actually a de-saturated yellow. That is just an example of the kind of situation I'm talking about. 

Anyway heres some of my crappy practices.

[RaginBronko]

didn't know pics were so huge last time lol

[RaginBronko]

stuff

[RaginBronko]

Some more boleshit im working on

[Fedodika]

Yea you are a lot like me man haha, It's like De Ja Vu looking through here hehe. Man well, yea, same stuff almost, tons of paintings, lack of direction, wild imagination, need to hone it down. Lots and lots of desire, i feel it...

Good news is you'll never lose that, you'll be the same way three years from now, i promise you. But you'll also be dramatically different. Makes no sense? Yea i know haha..

Number one tip 

DONT BE AFRAID OF YOURSELF. 

Ask yourself if you could draw anything you wanted to for a living, what would it be? I don't care how crazy it might be, naked girls, machines, demons, whatever, You name one thing and i'll show you somebody who does that for a career. 

Focus on that over anything, ask yourself, what is drawing stuff like this

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...?aid=90050
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...?aid=90054

Gonna get you in the long run? What are you learning from this? Your tools? Why not learn it on good information like sculpture and anatomy, something challenging. I know drawing animals feels easy because there's a lot of room for error, if it's easy, you're not learning. If you don't cringe, you ain't improving. 

Focus on as little subject matter as possible at a time, take figures for instance, okay, break that down, torsoes, okay, even smaller, pectoral muscles, okay got that down? abdominal, then obliques then so on, there's soooo much to learn in every field, it's best to stay in one field as long as you can.

Good ideas will come to you, the boring stuff is important right now; don't worry about losing your imagination; You've got more than enough my friend :)

Biggest fundamental tip; Painful repetition. 

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...?aid=89646

Stuff like this, there's amazing information in that and you did a fantastic job of laying out that painting btw. Take this down to something like pencil or pen and paper. Okay? Take that same image and draw it until you get sick of it.
Try drawing it 5 times from ref, on paper; don't spend forever on it, like 5 minutes tops. Then pile those five drawings on top of eachother and look at how different they are. That's your observation skill; Always ask yourself questions on why your observations are different from reality.

Then draw it from your mind, it's gonna be really hard; Do a good job, the best you can, then check back and see what you missed. More repetition until you get it right because the quicker you get it right, the quicker people notice and you can move on to something else. Other people will see it before you do as brad rigney once said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEU03Q5H5sU

Also, cubes, cyllinders, boxes, ohh, whooole lotta those. Binders, notebooks full, do it. It makes EVERYTHING work, don't believe me read these:

http://michaelsstuff.deviantart.com/journal/?offset=20

http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/attachme...?aid=89627
Man you are just like me, i could probably find mirror images in my Sketchbook of things you've drawn haha. Clown nose on a hot naked girl, haha you got it bad man, so do I.

Also, take yourself seriously, you might not want to do that, but it's crucial man. You probably have a good sense of humor i reckon, but if that's not what you wanna portray in art, do what really is you.

Reflect a lot, sleep a lot, don't sweat losing time... You've got all the time in the world. You'll work as hard as you need to and that'll do it.

Get Hogarthe, he helped me the most, Dynamic anatomy. "Hogarthe, Hogarthe, Hogarthe," Marko Djurdjević

Hampton and Bridgeman rock too, I hate Loomis but don't knock him till ya try him.


Also get this book and do everything in it as soon as you can, really carefully read everything he says. This is the best art book an intuitive artist could read in my opinion.

https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Way-Draw-...0395530075

Download these to stay on track, and good luck, pm me if you ever need help 

http://algenpfleger.deviantart.com/galle...f-practice
http://miles-johnston.deviantart.com/art...-384868649
http://www.mediafire.com/download/n7v68f...Part+2.zip

[RaginBronko]

Fedodika: Thank you very much for taking the time to make such a good post. I'm following your advice right away. I don't have hogarthe yet but soon. I do have bridgman life drawing that I've always curled away from when it gets hard which is instantly lol. 
I also am drawing my cast 5 times in 15 minutes than doing it from memory in pen. 

If I could draw anything I wanted, I have no idea how I could pick one thing but if I'm honest with myself the coolest concepts I've seen are creatures/monsters but I need to learn anatomy big time.  
I'm getting ready to watch that conversation right now, I'm sure its inspiring. Looked at those appleflenger whatever his name is too that shit is wickedly amazing. Almost disgusting how good it is. A part of me feels like that would never be my reality no matter how hard I work at subjects.  


Heres my start to bridgman and vilppu. I'll update them every 10 days. That will be my main focus from now on. When I can't bare that I'm going to focus on value patterns, and make myself do the boring ass exercises in the Scott robertson book that has collected dust due to the intimidation it brings me.

[Fedodika]

Awesome man... Ey the cool thing about creatures is that there's a lot of room for error there since we spend very small amounts of times looking at animals, lizards etc. There was a dagger on here that supposedly got very far in just one year doing creatures, his name was Brent Hollowell, this is his blog of his old stuff, but he for some reason deleted most the stuff on this site (which is very unfortunate)

http://brenthollowellart.blogspot.com/20...chive.html

[Artloader]

Hi there Ragin :)

Great start here, I love your rendering on the frog and the old Indian guy!

Your figure studies are looking good too - that stuff on proportions will be super important to memorize, l keep on forgetting about it and then having to go back to it so now I make sure I at least review it in my head every day!

Keep up the hard work - looking forward to more from you :).