I have a lot of questions about the basics of studying

[drifter93]

Hi, I am new to this forum and am here to improve my art. I want to get a job as a professional artist for a small and/or indie game company or just do freelance work of some kind. That is more secondary to the fact I just want to improve my art as much as possible over the next couple years and onward.

I've been reading some of the forums around here to get an idea of what to do, and for the past week I've been practicing gesture drawing, and starting to construct 3D forms to help make my stuff look more realistic and less flat. I am new to this kind of studying though, and realized I had a lot of doubts and questions.

So here's a list of questions I came up with last night:

1. What order should I study topics in? (for example, gesture, then figure drawing, then anatomy, or all at once? Mainly I am unsure of how early to begin with values and colors as I feel like my lines and sketches are still lacking.)

2. How do you practice color theory? Just doing color studies from photos and life? How do I apply it to my own work to make sure I am actually learning something? Currently I just get confused with what colors to use for shading, highlights, bounced light, etc.

3. If I were to start doing color studies and value studies, should I draw the basic forms underneath first with a sketch or does that matter if it's not the main focus of my study?

4. I feel like the gesture drawings I have been doing are still stiff and lacking shapes and flow that Loomis' figures do. I'm not sure if this will get better by just drawing and not worrying about the outcome or if I need to spend more time on my lines and really THINK about what I'm doing. I'm also struggling with knowing if I should put a curved vs straight line and not just drawing contours of the figure. You can see my sketchbook on the sketchbook section of the forum "drifter93's sketchbook".

Thank you in advance!

[darktiste]

Here how i personally see how the bare minimum art fundamental goes something like this :line making,spacial measuring,pattern making,box in perspective 1 2 3 point perspective,at this point you start to go your own way and start exploring certain fundamental more specialize to your goal.

For value&color the general rule would be to start learning how to do a grey scale on a flat surface than on a rounded surface.Don't think about color if you don't understand light and shadow(value).

I am not an expert on color but color study are more about color transition and accuracy of tone than anything else if i would have to guess.But a color study can have way more goal than just this but it would be a long thing to explain.Color is one of the most unique thing an artist can play with and make it is signature.

If your gesture feel stiff always try to avoid boxy shape try to play with cylinder and sphere but also remember that sometime it you who is stiff and you need to draw many gesture to get that thighness out of the way.So remember to relax and don't press to hard on your tool.You can do small circular motion in the air with your tool to express the idea of fluidity of movement so that you can translate it into your subcontinent .Do some circular motion with your wrist and shoulder and relax your neck.Breath slowly and fully through your mouth release the tension with every breath you exhale for 30 second before a drawing session.

[chubby_cat]

In terms of gesture, figure drawing, etc. I found Proko's Figure Drawing Fundamentals course to be very useful - https://www.proko.com/figure-drawing-fun...als-course - it breaks these things down step-by-step. You might find it useful as well since it basically gives you a road map on what order to approach things.

He also has a podcast with Marshall Vandruff that he puts up on his youtube too. It's a great listen to because they talk about a lot of topics like Pros and Cons of Studying Multiple Disciplines, Adopting Art Parents to Develop Your Style, What Are The Fundamentals, etc. So I would also suggest listening to those as background noise because they have some good tips you can pick up

Hope that helps

[drifter93]

Here how i personally see how the bare minimum art fundamental goes something like this :line making,spacial measuring,pattern making,box in perspective 1 2 3 point perspective,at this point you start to go your own way and start exploring certain fundamental more specialize to your goal.

For value&color the general rule would be to start learning how to do a grey scale on a flat surface than on a rounded surface.Don't think about color if you don't understand light and shadow(value).

I am not an expert on color but color study are more about color transition and accuracy of tone than anything else if i would have to guess.But a color study can have way more goal than just this but it would be a long thing to explain.Color is one of the most unique thing an artist can play with and make it is signature.

If your gesture feel stiff always try to avoid boxy shape try to play with cylinder and sphere but also remember that sometime it you who is stiff and you need to draw many gesture to get that thighness out of the way.So remember to relax  and don't press to hard on your tool.You can do small circular motion in the air with your tool to express the idea of fluidity of movement so that you can translate it into your subcontinent .Do some circular motion with your wrist and shoulder and relax your neck.Breath slowly and fully through your mouth release the tension with every breath you exhale for 30 second before a drawing session.

Okay thank you so much for the explanations and suggestions!

[drifter93]

In terms of gesture, figure drawing, etc. I found Proko's Figure Drawing Fundamentals course to be very useful - https://www.proko.com/figure-drawing-fun...als-course - it breaks these things down step-by-step. You might find it useful as well since it basically gives you a road map on what order to approach things.

He also has a podcast with Marshall Vandruff that he puts up on his youtube too. It's a great listen to because they talk about a lot of topics like Pros and Cons of Studying Multiple Disciplines, Adopting Art Parents to Develop Your Style, What Are The Fundamentals, etc. So I would also suggest listening to those as background noise because they have some good tips you can pick up

Hope that helps

Thank you for the reply! I've been watching Proko's videos so far and they are very useful. I've also listened to some of the podcasts but I'll keep listening to them.

[drifter93]

Oh also RapidViz is extremely user friendly to learn how to draw and think visually :
https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Viz-Method-...159863268X

It is recommended from a lot of artist's

Thank you so much for all the resources Mariyan!

[bonesworth]

If you have the money for it, Dynamic Sketching, from Peter Han, is very recommended. If you don't, you can go with Draw a Box, it helped me a lot! (Just stay clear from the draw 250 something challenges).