Leo's Sketchbook

[leo_7]

Conceptart has been down for week now so I've decided to make a sketchbook here to force myself draw more. I will try to post something everyday.

Lately I have been trying to work on the fundamentals, and trying to figure out how to rotate 3d forms in space.

[darktiste]

Careful with your vertical you want them to be at a 90 angle otherwise the cube with be either interpret as not a cube or a tilted cube.As you can see not all your vertical are vertical some of them are diagonal.It not a major issue but to draw tilted cube you need to understand this principle.

[leo_7]

Thank you darktiste,  I didn't realize how off my vertical lines were. I think I was going too fast and not taking the time to make sure they're actually vertical. Thanks again for the insight.

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Some more perspective. And I also found some great video lessons on how to add and subtract from cubes and boxes.

[leo_7]

I got lazy  I watched video tutorials for the past 2 days instead of drawing. I barely drew 1 page.

[darktiste]

I understand your frustration there so many tutorial to watch and it look so simple but it because the people are skilled.The actually hard part is applying the theory because not every tutorial explain how to turn the theory into practical exercise.

This why i recommend https://drawabox.com/lesson/0

The website is design like a book but there also exercise.

[leo_7]

Thanks darktiste, I actually started the drawabox lessons about a month ago, but I got bored of it and quit less than half way through the 250 box challenge. I really needed to get back into drawabox, so thanks for posting the link. I will try to pick up where I left off.

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Drawabox lessons, and page of me trying to create things out of boxes, and cylinders.

[darktiste]

Your cylinder could be better but if you can place them in perspective you will be in much better position than most ''artist''.I know it tempting to go for the human form right away but before that it would be good that you learn other basic about the human anatomy anyway i am not gonna go and tell you more just slow down and go back to the drawabox.com exercise do them multiple time.

I think a good exercise for now would be this one.
https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/rotatedboxes

and this one to practice different degre of ellipse even if i saw you do one it doesn't hurt to keep practicing this until you die(meaning it never gonna get old just do it on a regular basis)It help building confidence.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/funnels

[leo_7]

Thanks for the suggestions darktiste, I will try to focus on the basics before I go back to drawing humans.

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drawabox lessons - I did some funnels, and some more cylinders. 

I struggled a lot on the rotated boxes lesson. It's so difficult to get the back of the boxes to line up just right, and if the first boxes are placed wrong, all of them will look wrong. Hopefully I'll get better at doing this after some more attempts. 

The organic arrows were difficult to draw too, but I will move on to organic forms tomorrow.

I also finished my 75 page sketchbook, it took almost 6 years but at least it's done lol. On to the next one.

[darktiste]

Some of your cylinder are made inside rectangle rather than square that why there making them look like squash tube.To make cylinder Ellipse must be made inside square not rectangle.This where it important to be able to draw square in perspective.

[leo_7]

Thanks darktiste for pointing that out. I couldn't figure out why some of my cylinders looked squashed. Now I know I have to learn how to make squares in perspective. Thanks again.


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Didn't draw much today. I'm trying out a different paper size and the 18x12 is too big. I will probably go back to normal sized paper. The organic forms were fun to draw. Some of them came out a little more flat than I intended.

[darktiste]

You should do atleast one page with see through ellipse.Email me for more critic i will be giving less direction for now on.

[leo_7]

Thank you so much darktiste for the critiques you have given me so far. I greatly appreciate it.

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I attempted to do some organic forms with ellipses. I couldn't figure out how to draw the ellipses on most of them, but they were fun to do nonetheless.

Most of my cylinders came out squashed on the end, because I keep drawing rectangles instead of squares for some reason. I guess I will get better at this with more practice.

[darktiste]

One last thing make sure to alway go back and read the ''common mistake section'' of the exercise to correct yourself.

https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/contourlines

[leo_7]

Thanks darktiste I totally forgot about looking at the common mistakes section.  

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I didn't draw anything today because I'm getting a little burned out from drawing boxes, and cylinders. 

On a side note, I've always wanted to get into digital painting but I don't know where to start. Is it too early for me to start digital painting? Or am I better off waiting a few months until I get better at drawing traditionally?

[darktiste]

Thanks darktiste I totally forgot about looking at the common mistakes section.  

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I didn't draw anything today because I'm getting a little burned out from drawing boxes, and cylinders. 

On a side note, I've always wanted to get into digital painting but I don't know where to start. Is it too early for me to start digital painting? Or am I better off waiting a few months until I get better at drawing traditionally?

The general art advice you generally get is do not go learn digital painting until you can draw traditionnaly.If you go to quickly into digital painting you might hurt your progress doing so.Because without proper fundamental you will just complicate thing up.Let just make a quick metaphore learn to juggle with 3 ball before trying with 4.

People will encourage you to try digital when they will think your ready.

If you feel tired don't force yourself to draw what i recommend is to draw atleast a bit each day and when you can try to draw more.

[leo_7]

Thank you for the advice darktiste.

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I haven't drawn in a week . I need to find a way to stay motivated...

[darktiste]

Thank you for the advice darktiste.

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I haven't drawn in a week . I need to find a way to stay motivated

Art is not a matter of motivation it a discipline of discipline.Only in battle can you forge your skill.Motivation is just like an energy drink it what help you stay on track.But discipline is like a marathonien who wake up every day to run.To many artist approch art like it a sprint when in fact it a never ending ''race''.They burn out because they don't listen to there limit and when they reach there limit something there afraid to ask for help.

[Artloader]

Hey Leo, good work with the drawabox exercises. That stuff'll turn you into a sketching tyrannosaur!

As for motivation, do a search on Mini Habits.

Good luck dude, keep up the good work :).

[Sifter]

One thing that you can do to help with your verticals and horizontals is to compare them with the edges of the paper, since that tends to be always consistent with the verticals and horizontals. You can even look at the corners of the page to get reference for right angles. So next time, when you draw a vertical line, for example, just focus on the edge of the paper, and leave the line you're about to draw to your periphera.

Furthermore, you could even grab a sheet of paper, or a ruler if you have one, and put it on top of the line, so as to diagnose the issue without needing to wait for someone's critique and feedback—faster and more effecient that way.

For the boxes at the last page, you should make boxes as perfect as you can make them because you will build that up on top of other things. For example, if you want to draw a human head, and you wanted to box out the cranium, but the cube doesn't look like a cube, then you're sort of setting yourself for failure early on. Don't be aftraid to use reference for boxes as well because it'll help you in the long run. Just a default box in any 3D software will suffice.

Good amount of effort I'm seeing here, and I hope you do more :)

[leo_7]

Thanks for all the help and support guys! I really appreciate it.

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I drew some more cubes and boxes over the past few days. I was trying to find an easier way to draw them, so I tried to draw a box around them and measure their exact angles. 

Then I tried to draw a page of rotating cubes from memory. Most of them came out like boxes instead of cubes, and last few were just terrible.

I think I did okay on a few of the cylinders, but most of the ellipses came out wrong.

Organic forms were fun to draw, I'm not sure if I was overlapping them correctly though.