I got knocked out of my study routine due to getting snowed in for the last week and a half with a toddler.
At first I felt awful that I wasn't studying the 2 hours per day that I had been doing prior to that, but I realized that I just needed to pick myself up and start again from a smaller starting point.
It really did feel like trying to go back to the gym after not going for a month!
I've been kind of slow on the art posts the last several weeks, and the snow really did throw me off my routine. However, I still managed to get some studying done!
The main thing I wanted to work on was value/tone/shading, and discovered that it was difficult in an entirely different way than with the drawing skills I've been practicing thus far
!
My first attempt was muddy-and-not-dark-enough, showing that I had a very poor understanding of the materials that I was working with. So! I spent another couple weeks just trying to figure out how Graphite and Charcoal work, and took extensive notes on Light and Values. My second and third attempts were during and after this process.
I've been pretty consistent with my studies, even though I haven't taken much time to post about them. I feel as though my grasp of both the materials I'm using and my understanding of light is getting better with each piece. I still have a long way to go, but this is a quick snapshot of my progress over the last month.
Things I need to watch out for:
1. Edges. What are they?
2. My gradients could be a little more clear in the light-side.
3. I wasn't going dark enough in the shadows previously, and now I think that is also the case for the halftones.
I'm also finally drawing every day. I had been taking the weekend off, but that frequently ended up with me falling out of practice and having to frustratingly restart the habit from the ground up.
Rewinding and taking notes are not skills I am very practiced with, or staying on task and not clicking on another video when I get frustrated or distracted.
That said I drew a few more hands on paper today.
Going to try to get some in on my tablet here shortly.
And here's my result, which shocked me:
(sorry for the potato cam, my phone got stolen and this is an old-ass thing that has to do for now)
What is super interesting to me is that while it's still not good, it is way better than what I could have produced if I were to just draw a person. I think that whole "shapes, not symbols" thing might be correct? Why have I never heard of that before? Is that something people are familiar with?
One of the major skills of drawing is simplifying complex objects into more-understandable shapes and internalizing them in such a way that they can be reproduced.
A head is a ball with the sides cut off and a box for the jaw, the arm is a cylinder, etc.
I still sometimes have a hard time getting away from the symbols that I've had since childhood.
Sometimes it takes several times of revisiting something before it finally clicks. I know that I have to keep going back to old books and tutorials, and I tend to learn something new almost every time.
Posts
F.L.A.P.R.S - a women's mecha search and rescue squadron that for some reason is 1920s flapper themed. I can't even remember how it started
This is Cave, she's her tribe's hunter (very effective) as well as her tribe's shelter
Wow, and I only just now noticed the compliment Warwick Davis threw at DMAC! That's awesome.
At first I felt awful that I wasn't studying the 2 hours per day that I had been doing prior to that, but I realized that I just needed to pick myself up and start again from a smaller starting point.
It really did feel like trying to go back to the gym after not going for a month!
Anyone else have similar experiences?
Does count chocula not drink blood because his vampirism fucked up the wrong teeth?
I've been kind of slow on the art posts the last several weeks, and the snow really did throw me off my routine. However, I still managed to get some studying done!
The main thing I wanted to work on was value/tone/shading, and discovered that it was difficult in an entirely different way than with the drawing skills I've been practicing thus far
!
My first attempt was muddy-and-not-dark-enough, showing that I had a very poor understanding of the materials that I was working with. So! I spent another couple weeks just trying to figure out how Graphite and Charcoal work, and took extensive notes on Light and Values. My second and third attempts were during and after this process.
got rpg chars on the brain
I've been pretty consistent with my studies, even though I haven't taken much time to post about them. I feel as though my grasp of both the materials I'm using and my understanding of light is getting better with each piece. I still have a long way to go, but this is a quick snapshot of my progress over the last month.
Things I need to watch out for:
1. Edges. What are they?
2. My gradients could be a little more clear in the light-side.
3. I wasn't going dark enough in the shadows previously, and now I think that is also the case for the halftones.
I'm also finally drawing every day. I had been taking the weekend off, but that frequently ended up with me falling out of practice and having to frustratingly restart the habit from the ground up.
Figure if I'm going to start actually learning to draw something with any sense of like... Proprtion? I should
A: start small
B: start with something expressive or dynamic but less intimidating than a Face
C: something that I usually skim over entirely
awesome, maybe I'll check it out soon
I feel like a lot of proko videos go way too fast or over my head usually though.
It's definitely worth pausing from time to time and just doing a study of what's on screen.
That said I drew a few more hands on paper today.
Going to try to get some in on my tablet here shortly.
I can't draw. And I thought man, I enjoyed drawing and doodling once, maybe I should get into it, so I looked at tutorials, and came upon this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170827061950/http://www.colourcow.com/picasso-exercise/
And here's my result, which shocked me:
(sorry for the potato cam, my phone got stolen and this is an old-ass thing that has to do for now)
What is super interesting to me is that while it's still not good, it is way better than what I could have produced if I were to just draw a person. I think that whole "shapes, not symbols" thing might be correct? Why have I never heard of that before? Is that something people are familiar with?
A head is a ball with the sides cut off and a box for the jaw, the arm is a cylinder, etc.
I still sometimes have a hard time getting away from the symbols that I've had since childhood.
That's photoshop?? What input device did you use? That really looks like regular paint!
And the guts pose with the sword behind him
I should practice drawing those poses
I used a display tablet (by Yiynova). The trick is to use streaky photoshop brushes, not use layers, and not zoom in.