Plus side: My lines are getting much straighter and smoother (which I suspect is the real point of this exercise), and my boxes are... well they're not great but they are better.
Minus side: Estimating vanishing points for these boxes is really hard and hurts my brain and takes me an embarrassingly long time! Also, I'm beginning to wonder if I've been duped into a sinister ritual to summon an ancient box god?
Good to know that you are still keeping at it! I don't have any constructive advice though because i am struggling as well haha
Doing spring cleaning for the chinese new year, behold my mountain of shame, these are unfinished and barely used sketchbooks and stacks of paper for all sorts of medium accumulated over the years urgh
Edit:
Today I found and booted up my old computer from 5 years ago which somehow contained files from 10 years ago
I am always listening to something for better or worst. My taste is very...anime though hahaha
edit: Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms OST (Original Soundtrack) - Best Compilation29:56 https://youtu.be/Xm0RqtFAZRo
If I'm in the early stages of conceptualization I wont listen to anything. If I'm doing some polishing on a painting or cleaning up linework or cleaning up textures on a model or other non-brainheavy stuff I'll listen to a podcast or an audiobook.
Recently I've just had this on loop because something is broken
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
Not when I draw, but my relationship with drawing is strained enough to begin with. I have a curated list of songs for writing, though, that I've built up over a couple years. Also works well for programming. I firmly believe that drawing, writing, and programming are all very much rooted in the same cognitive processes, so its not hard to believe there would be crossover in the music to ease each as well.
I tend to have the TV on when I draw (nothing demanding), but for writing I have a very mellow jazz playlist which never gets too exciting or too moody.
If I'm in the early stages of conceptualization I wont listen to anything. If I'm doing some polishing on a painting or cleaning up linework or cleaning up textures on a model or other non-brainheavy stuff I'll listen to a podcast or an audiobook.
Recently I've just had this on loop because something is broken
*snip*
You just cheered me up after a shitty day (found out I need major dental surgery). Such a good song.
I've been listening to a lot of KT Tunstall and Dance with the Dead recently while practicing.
I will listen to music or podcasts most of the time while working, but something that's always at the back of my mind is the intro to Richard William's (the director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit) Animator's Survival Kit, where there's a comic about him asking Milt Kahl (the most technically accomplished animator of Disney's heyday, so says popular opinion), if he ever listened to jazz or classical music while working. And then there's 3 whole pages dedicated to Milt whirling around in a fury, shouting, "Of all the S-S-S-STUPID GOD-GOD-GOD-DAMNED questions I-I-I-I've ever heard! I-I-I-I NEVER heard such A-A-A-F-F-F-F-STUPID QUESTION! Iy-iy-iy-iy-I'm not SMART enough to think of more than one thing at a time!!" So Williams' big lesson is: if you want to improve, unplug the headphones, close your office door- and ends with a vintage photo of him wearing a sweatshirt that has the phrase, "Animation is Concentration" stitched on the back.
So there are some dissenting opinions.
Now, I've always worked in an open office plan when working in a professional capacity, because we live in a dystopia where nobody can have an office with a door any more, like these dudes had back in the day. So while I don't think music is ideal, using it to drown out office noise is probably less distracting than listening to people talk/type/chew/sneeze/cough/fart/etc. all day long.
That said, when I need to work on something thorny and technical, or I'm trying to learn something beyond my current abilities, or I know that something's wrong and I don't know what, I have noticed an improvement in my ability to think through the issues when I can turn down the music and work in silence. (Because of one particularly noisy environment, I went out and bought a pair of these huge noise-blocking earmuffs- the kind you'd use working in a factory all day. Sure I may have looked like Captain Dweebus wearing them, but the upside was worth it.)
The crappy thing about sound is that (IIRC from a Radiolab episode, so you neuroscientists out there cut me some slack/correct me if I'm off/generalizing a bit), is that your body is essentially designed to react to it before your brain has a chance to even comprehend it- by the time the idea, "the loudness of that thunder means the lighting must be real close", makes it into your conscientiousness, your body has already been dumping adrenaline into your system for some time- you're not given a choice to not react. Even if you go on working as IF you're not reacting to it, your brain and body still are. So people that say they can ignore noise, or music, or talking, or whatever, and still be just as productive- my understanding is that just isn't physically possible for that to be true. So if you need concentration: no sound, including music, is your best option (and also why open offices are the worst, and make people stressed out and sick and less productive, no matter how much they may look like they're toughing the annoyances out).
So I'd probably be better if I could learn to work in silence all the time- but I'm not sure there's a lot of people that have the zen mastery to maintain that level of concentration all the time, for extended stretches, without getting even more distracted/stressed by one's interior monologue.
Maybe I should actually stick to meditation for awhile to deal with that stuff better. I once went out and bought a book on Zen once specifically because I had noticed in classes that 85% of my thoughts were not being dedicated to what I was actually doing, but on irrelevant garbage, (ie:"What should I get for lunch today?"), or negative self-talk, (ie:"Why am I not better at this by now, am I ever going to get better, all these other people are so much better than I am", etc.)- which is also irrelevant to the task at hand, and the only way I would solve those problems would be to concentrate on the drawing at hand in the moment- not working myself into a stress-panic thinking about too large and nebulous a problem to be able to take immediate, substantial action on.
Learning to draw is difficult enough, without my dumb brain making it even more difficult. Stop doing dumb short-sighted shit, brain! Get out of your own way!
Also, for the rare times I have to write something: no music with lyrics, no podcasts, no talking. I can't pick out the words I want out of my head, if a word firehose is blasting into my ear.
I will listen to music or podcasts most of the time while working, but something that's always at the back of my mind is the intro to Richard William's (the director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit) Animator's Survival Kit, where there's a comic about him asking Milt Kahl (the most technically accomplished animator of Disney's heyday, so says popular opinion), if he ever listened to jazz or classical music while working. And then there's 3 whole pages dedicated to Milt whirling around in a fury, shouting, "Of all the S-S-S-STUPID GOD-GOD-GOD-DAMNED questions I-I-I-I've ever heard! I-I-I-I NEVER heard such A-A-A-F-F-F-F-STUPID QUESTION! Iy-iy-iy-iy-I'm not SMART enough to think of more than one thing at a time!!" So Williams' big lesson is: if you want to improve, unplug the headphones, close your office door- and ends with a vintage photo of him wearing a sweatshirt that has the phrase, "Animation is Concentration" stitched on the back.
It's interesting you brought that up, as in a roundabout way it prompted my original post about this! I recently got the book (which I'm greatly enjoying) and was the reason I was drawing in silence in the first place.
My current thoughts are similar to yours at the end of your post. Sure, maybe if I could sit down and draw in utter silence for extended periods of time I'd improve more quickly. But I'm not a professional animator, and I'm doing this for enjoyment and self-improvement.
Drawing in silence makes me TENSE. I overthink the simplest things and I start hesitating with every pen stroke and botching things I should be able to do. Even with music I find myself stressing out sometimes, but it's better when I'm listening to lyric-less music than with no music at all.
Edit: Also I've now fallen into a KT Tunstall rabbit hole and it rules
Mm. Thinking about it further, I'm pretty much in line with AoB - if I'm writing anything difficult, or doing particularly involved mathematics, or what have you, I do require complete silence. More casual work activities - brainstorming, 3D modelling, editing - I can do in an open office or a cafe, or with non-intrusive music.
Drawing I literally do only to relax, so I'm not gonna be approaching it the same way as the professionals here. But I think as Didge says, that audio 'distraction' does feel like it's helping to shut down the parts of my brain that otherwise would do nothing but get in the way of the process. I'm sure it detracts from my ability to be analytical about what I'm doing, but it also gives the parts of my brain that would otherwise be occupied by [generalised anxiety, looming deadlines, writing hypothetical letters about climate change to elected officials, wondering about minor plot holes in superhero movies, etc] something to do.
update: i did the thing, as anticipated it was good for me and my art and I enjoyed it. Join me next week when I'll inexplicably drag my feet on this exact same activity.
... oh look I'm doing this again ugh it's cold outside though
I actully have a life drawing class starting in April that I'm really excited about! If I ever drag my feet for it, do feel free to throw this post in my face
well ... I got a few hundred metres out the door, went 'nope' and went back inside to work for another hour instead.
(it's in a place that is not well serviced by public transport, so minimum of 20-30 minutes walk each way, and since it's a 3 hour session the buses are really intermittent by the time I leave, meaning it takes an hour to get home).
Next week looks warmer though!
Hey, 'not freezing to death' is an admirable goal too. Can't say I'd be willing to trek that far in the weather we've been having!
Okay questions for y'all! I originally asked this on the holiday forum but then didn't save the responses because I'm a dumb-dumb and now I can't access the replies.
What digital drawing program do you guys use? I currently have downloaded Krita but haven't messed around with it much. 'Free' is pretty nice, but I'm willing to drop a bit of cash on something if it's accessible for beginners.
Also if the level of abstract thinking required to use a screen-less drawing tablet is too much for my feeble mind, do you have any recommendations on an entry-level tablet?
Edit: Also I have reached box 65 of 250, this is taking a very long time and boxes are haunting me
If you want to draw on a screen, I’ve recently moved to an iPad, and while its not quite up to the cintiq/photoshop combo I had going on before, I would recommend it as a low cost portable setup. I think apple are still offering Procreate for free, too.
I know cintiq have just released a small tablet but I dunno what the pricing is like.
Software ... I’m not sure what the newest freeware options are, but sketchbook pro isn’t bad. Already mentioned Procreate, which is pretty high powered. On the non-free side, paintshop pro and clip studio paint are excellent options, and you can often find them on sale. And of course there’s always photoshop.
I would recommend getting and using photoshop for like a year (with the photography plan at $10(?)/month as well stalking clip studio paint until they announce a 50% discount sale and grabbing the pro version. It's definately the best value you can get for your money.
If you are trying to get a tablet and program combo for the pc don't forget to see if your computer can handle it too, having a pen stroke lagging will be one of the most frustrating thing ever
I've been using Krita a bit recently and it is pretty good.
It's lacking some filters, some brush creation options and it's text tools are really rough, but it does have ellipse, parallel, vanishing point and curvilinear perspective guides, which are great.
Overall I think it's a pretty solid alternative to Photoshop for drawing and painting if you're looking to avoid Adobe's ever creeping subscription costs.
As for tablets, I have never drawn on a screen (with the exception of a Nintendo DS). For non-screen tablets, I can recommend the Wacom Intuos 3, because mine has survived about 10 years now.
Update on the 'music or silence' issue- for the last week or so at work I've been trying to get as close to silence as I can manage- the most powerful earplugs I could find (Howard Leight/Honeywell MAX), over which I've got some over-the-ear noise headphones blasting pink noise. It's pretty effective at drowning out other distracting noises.
Upsides of the experiment:
-I think my overall general stress level is lower.
-I think my decision making/execution with drawing and painting is better, though this is a vague thing to try to quantify.
Neutral (Midsides??):
-There's certainly a level of antsiness and mental wandering I need to get through, though I think it's overall more peaceful.
Though to @Didgeridoo 's point of being tense in silence due to overscrutinizing, I suspect I may have an advantage from just having drawn for so long (and knowing I've got deadlines to meet), that my emotional response to mistakes are pretty limited at this point- not because I don't make them, but because I've made a trillion of them, and make a million more every day. If you're walking through a rain, stopping and cursing at each individual drop of rain that hits you, makes you a lot wetter and upset than if you just keep walking.
The silence just makes the same mental battle that's always there for everyone -paying attention to your drawing vs paying attention to your ego- more visible. Which could also make it easier to confront and deal with in the long run, even if it's uncomfortable in the short-term. Just a thought.
Downsides:
-Putting on the stuff and taking it off is a whole deal (you have to squish down the earplugs, then hold them in for 15 seconds as they expand out), so if someone has to get my attention, it is 1000% more irritating. I guess pick whether you like being a little irritated all the time, or very irritated in short, intense bursts.
-The lack of audio distractions makes visual distractions even more distracting- and I think I'm pushing the envelope on looking anti-social as it is without jury-rigging some horse blinders to my face so I don't see people in the corner of my vision gawking at my screen or swinging their legs about or whatever.
Still haven't really been able to keep with the silence all day- but 5-6 hours a day, maybe?
Ignore the fine details
Squint
Sketch in big abstract shapes
Assign values/colours to the shapes
Fill in values/colours
Gradually work on smaller and smaller shapes.
Thanks for the links Chicoblue!
I know I gotta somehow start to do instead of just thinking about the problems, it's really slowing/killing any attempts in improving
Just came to an important realisation after starting Brent Evistons Gesture figure drawing course on Udemy. I'm going to need a shit ton of paper. It's going to be like that scene in Jurassic park with paper instead of dino poop. Went through 10 sheets in 20 minutes just on practicing lines of action.
Got some old A2 newsprint pads from a few years back. A2 paper of any quality is expensive in the UK so I'm going to switch to A3 as a compromise going forward. I've only just started but it feels good to draw nice big loose strokes focusing on the lines of action in the figure instead of being distracted by the features (which I can't draw well yet). One thing I didn't appreciate is how much easier to identify mistakes in larger drawings than smaller ones in a sketchbook. The legs are all too long in the smaller gestures I'd been doing for Figuary but it was easy to tell it was off from a few lines of action on a larger surface.
Going to go back to Figuary and try some of the exercises in the course on the poses Croquis Cafe have been posting this month.
I have also been messing around with digital drawing and it's a lot of fun! I'm surprisingly not thrown off by the screen-less drawing tablet, so I've decided to invest in a Wacom Intuos per Chico's suggestion. Thanks Chico! The Vekik I currently have is... serviceable. But it frequently decides it's just not going to register your pen movement, or your button press. Kinda jagged lines too, especially when I try to draw a curve or diagonal. I may be bad, but I'm not THAT bad at drawing a smooth line.
The Intuos is arriving tomorrow supposedly. Good timing, since my free trial of Clip Studio Paint runs out soon, and the Intuos comes with a free subscription to it!
Looking forward to see your digital stuff haha
What are you folks working on now btw, for me I am kinda stuck on what I should do next because I have a million things to learn and improve on lol, been having fun just fooling around with brushes and textures though
I'm mostly doing BOXES. It's wearing on me a bit, as I really want to move on to the next Draw a Box lesson. But I'm guessing the tedium is part of the lesson. I'm also doing my best not to rush it so I get the most out of the exercise, but it's really tempting to just sit down and power through a crapload of boxes, accuracy be damned.
I've been kicking around the idea of a 'Draw Along' thread, riffing on the cook-along thread in SE. Different theme other week for a quick sketch or illustration. If people are interested it would be fun to see different takes on the same prompt. Maybe it'd even lure out some more beginners if I post some of my stumbling attempts! Whatcha think?
+1
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gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
You're gonna want some break from boxes. Do you have any colors to play with? Can you practice shading with pencil or mixing with paint? Just something for every third day so you don't start dreaming of rotating boxes.
I'm mostly doing BOXES. It's wearing on me a bit, as I really want to move on to the next Draw a Box lesson. But I'm guessing the tedium is part of the lesson. I'm also doing my best not to rush it so I get the most out of the exercise, but it's really tempting to just sit down and power through a crapload of boxes, accuracy be damned.
I've been kicking around the idea of a 'Draw Along' thread, riffing on the cook-along thread in SE. Different theme other week for a quick sketch or illustration. If people are interested it would be fun to see different takes on the same prompt. Maybe it'd even lure out some more beginners if I post some of my stumbling attempts! Whatcha think?
More people coming here would be good because I am starting to get worried about being too creepy or clingy lol
Btw your digital art is really impressive for your first time, I think you really have a good head for it, with the clean lines and all. I am not a master at CSP but if you have any questions about the tools feel free to ask. It's also pretty similar to photoshop in a way so if you see something in a PS tutorial you could most likely do it with CSP. Coloring wise I still prefer using a photoshop style airbrush which is the opposite of clipstudio (I think) so if you run into trouble later on trying to replicate the stuff from tutorial videos it might be that.
You're gonna want some break from boxes. Do you have any colors to play with? Can you practice shading with pencil or mixing with paint? Just something for every third day so you don't start dreaming of rotating boxes.
You're right, I should probably take a breather and just draw fun stuff for a session or two. I just got a tablet so I think I'll mess around with it a bit more. Not super interested in physical media other than pens and pencils, but digital painting is pretty fun!
Btw your digital art is really impressive for your first time, I think you really have a good head for it, with the clean lines and all. I am not a master at CSP but if you have any questions about the tools feel free to ask. It's also pretty similar to photoshop in a way so if you see something in a PS tutorial you could most likely do it with CSP. Coloring wise I still prefer using a photoshop style airbrush which is the opposite of clipstudio (I think) so if you run into trouble later on trying to replicate the stuff from tutorial videos it might be that.
Ha, thanks! Unfortunately ole Seteth ended up looking kinda Bert-esque, but I enjoyed making it. Learned a lot about layers in the process.
I went ahead and splurged on Frenden's brush pack for CSP, and there are some really nice ones in there, including some photoshop clones. So hopefully I won't be thrown too much by differences between PS tutorials and the reality of CSP.
A travel kit sounds fun. The weather here is too bad for that now but it's getting better. Might give it a go sometime when I know how to paint in like 6 months or so. Haven't painted since high school like 20 years ago.
I ordered a starter gouache kit, brushes and a palette at the weekend. It'll be here on Thursday. Just hope I can do the painting. Doing the thing is the main block to improvement for me at the moment.
Posts
Plus side: My lines are getting much straighter and smoother (which I suspect is the real point of this exercise), and my boxes are... well they're not great but they are better.
Minus side: Estimating vanishing points for these boxes is really hard and hurts my brain and takes me an embarrassingly long time! Also, I'm beginning to wonder if I've been duped into a sinister ritual to summon an ancient box god?
Doing spring cleaning for the chinese new year, behold my mountain of shame, these are unfinished and barely used sketchbooks and stacks of paper for all sorts of medium accumulated over the years urgh
Edit:
Today I found and booted up my old computer from 5 years ago which somehow contained files from 10 years ago
Someone kill me pls
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
I find I get a bit too tense if I draw in silence and end up hunching over/ clenching my jaw and generally stressing myself out.
Current favs in spoiler tag below:
edit:
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms OST (Original Soundtrack) - Best Compilation 29:56
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
If I'm in the early stages of conceptualization I wont listen to anything. If I'm doing some polishing on a painting or cleaning up linework or cleaning up textures on a model or other non-brainheavy stuff I'll listen to a podcast or an audiobook.
Recently I've just had this on loop because something is broken
You just cheered me up after a shitty day (found out I need major dental surgery). Such a good song.
I've been listening to a lot of KT Tunstall and Dance with the Dead recently while practicing.
So there are some dissenting opinions.
Now, I've always worked in an open office plan when working in a professional capacity, because we live in a dystopia where nobody can have an office with a door any more, like these dudes had back in the day. So while I don't think music is ideal, using it to drown out office noise is probably less distracting than listening to people talk/type/chew/sneeze/cough/fart/etc. all day long.
That said, when I need to work on something thorny and technical, or I'm trying to learn something beyond my current abilities, or I know that something's wrong and I don't know what, I have noticed an improvement in my ability to think through the issues when I can turn down the music and work in silence. (Because of one particularly noisy environment, I went out and bought a pair of these huge noise-blocking earmuffs- the kind you'd use working in a factory all day. Sure I may have looked like Captain Dweebus wearing them, but the upside was worth it.)
The crappy thing about sound is that (IIRC from a Radiolab episode, so you neuroscientists out there cut me some slack/correct me if I'm off/generalizing a bit), is that your body is essentially designed to react to it before your brain has a chance to even comprehend it- by the time the idea, "the loudness of that thunder means the lighting must be real close", makes it into your conscientiousness, your body has already been dumping adrenaline into your system for some time- you're not given a choice to not react. Even if you go on working as IF you're not reacting to it, your brain and body still are. So people that say they can ignore noise, or music, or talking, or whatever, and still be just as productive- my understanding is that just isn't physically possible for that to be true. So if you need concentration: no sound, including music, is your best option (and also why open offices are the worst, and make people stressed out and sick and less productive, no matter how much they may look like they're toughing the annoyances out).
So I'd probably be better if I could learn to work in silence all the time- but I'm not sure there's a lot of people that have the zen mastery to maintain that level of concentration all the time, for extended stretches, without getting even more distracted/stressed by one's interior monologue.
Maybe I should actually stick to meditation for awhile to deal with that stuff better. I once went out and bought a book on Zen once specifically because I had noticed in classes that 85% of my thoughts were not being dedicated to what I was actually doing, but on irrelevant garbage, (ie:"What should I get for lunch today?"), or negative self-talk, (ie:"Why am I not better at this by now, am I ever going to get better, all these other people are so much better than I am", etc.)- which is also irrelevant to the task at hand, and the only way I would solve those problems would be to concentrate on the drawing at hand in the moment- not working myself into a stress-panic thinking about too large and nebulous a problem to be able to take immediate, substantial action on.
Learning to draw is difficult enough, without my dumb brain making it even more difficult. Stop doing dumb short-sighted shit, brain! Get out of your own way!
Also, for the rare times I have to write something: no music with lyrics, no podcasts, no talking. I can't pick out the words I want out of my head, if a word firehose is blasting into my ear.
Twitter
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It's interesting you brought that up, as in a roundabout way it prompted my original post about this! I recently got the book (which I'm greatly enjoying) and was the reason I was drawing in silence in the first place.
My current thoughts are similar to yours at the end of your post. Sure, maybe if I could sit down and draw in utter silence for extended periods of time I'd improve more quickly. But I'm not a professional animator, and I'm doing this for enjoyment and self-improvement.
Drawing in silence makes me TENSE. I overthink the simplest things and I start hesitating with every pen stroke and botching things I should be able to do. Even with music I find myself stressing out sometimes, but it's better when I'm listening to lyric-less music than with no music at all.
Edit: Also I've now fallen into a KT Tunstall rabbit hole and it rules
Drawing I literally do only to relax, so I'm not gonna be approaching it the same way as the professionals here. But I think as Didge says, that audio 'distraction' does feel like it's helping to shut down the parts of my brain that otherwise would do nothing but get in the way of the process. I'm sure it detracts from my ability to be analytical about what I'm doing, but it also gives the parts of my brain that would otherwise be occupied by [generalised anxiety, looming deadlines, writing hypothetical letters about climate change to elected officials, wondering about minor plot holes in superhero movies, etc] something to do.
... oh look I'm doing this again
ugh it's cold outside though
I actully have a life drawing class starting in April that I'm really excited about! If I ever drag my feet for it, do feel free to throw this post in my face
(it's in a place that is not well serviced by public transport, so minimum of 20-30 minutes walk each way, and since it's a 3 hour session the buses are really intermittent by the time I leave, meaning it takes an hour to get home).
Next week looks warmer though!
Okay questions for y'all! I originally asked this on the holiday forum but then didn't save the responses because I'm a dumb-dumb and now I can't access the replies.
What digital drawing program do you guys use? I currently have downloaded Krita but haven't messed around with it much. 'Free' is pretty nice, but I'm willing to drop a bit of cash on something if it's accessible for beginners.
Also if the level of abstract thinking required to use a screen-less drawing tablet is too much for my feeble mind, do you have any recommendations on an entry-level tablet?
Edit: Also I have reached box 65 of 250, this is taking a very long time and boxes are haunting me
I know cintiq have just released a small tablet but I dunno what the pricing is like.
Software ... I’m not sure what the newest freeware options are, but sketchbook pro isn’t bad. Already mentioned Procreate, which is pretty high powered. On the non-free side, paintshop pro and clip studio paint are excellent options, and you can often find them on sale. And of course there’s always photoshop.
If you are trying to get a tablet and program combo for the pc don't forget to see if your computer can handle it too, having a pen stroke lagging will be one of the most frustrating thing ever
Wacom One (2020)
$400 *13.3"
XP Pen Artist 13.3 Pro (2019)
$300
XP-Pen Artist 15.6" Pro Pen Display (2019)
$400
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
It's lacking some filters, some brush creation options and it's text tools are really rough, but it does have ellipse, parallel, vanishing point and curvilinear perspective guides, which are great.
Overall I think it's a pretty solid alternative to Photoshop for drawing and painting if you're looking to avoid Adobe's ever creeping subscription costs.
As for tablets, I have never drawn on a screen (with the exception of a Nintendo DS). For non-screen tablets, I can recommend the Wacom Intuos 3, because mine has survived about 10 years now.
Oh my god I drew a (mostly) correct box, with the vanishing points estimated well and with straight lines and shit
I am way more excited about this than I should be, it's box 72 and I've just now managed it!
Now
THE SPHERE
After
OVAL IN PERSPECTIVE
AH HAHAHAHAHAHA
Upsides of the experiment:
-I think my overall general stress level is lower.
-I think my decision making/execution with drawing and painting is better, though this is a vague thing to try to quantify.
Neutral (Midsides??):
-There's certainly a level of antsiness and mental wandering I need to get through, though I think it's overall more peaceful.
Though to @Didgeridoo 's point of being tense in silence due to overscrutinizing, I suspect I may have an advantage from just having drawn for so long (and knowing I've got deadlines to meet), that my emotional response to mistakes are pretty limited at this point- not because I don't make them, but because I've made a trillion of them, and make a million more every day. If you're walking through a rain, stopping and cursing at each individual drop of rain that hits you, makes you a lot wetter and upset than if you just keep walking.
The silence just makes the same mental battle that's always there for everyone -paying attention to your drawing vs paying attention to your ego- more visible. Which could also make it easier to confront and deal with in the long run, even if it's uncomfortable in the short-term. Just a thought.
Downsides:
-Putting on the stuff and taking it off is a whole deal (you have to squish down the earplugs, then hold them in for 15 seconds as they expand out), so if someone has to get my attention, it is 1000% more irritating. I guess pick whether you like being a little irritated all the time, or very irritated in short, intense bursts.
-The lack of audio distractions makes visual distractions even more distracting- and I think I'm pushing the envelope on looking anti-social as it is without jury-rigging some horse blinders to my face so I don't see people in the corner of my vision gawking at my screen or swinging their legs about or whatever.
Still haven't really been able to keep with the silence all day- but 5-6 hours a day, maybe?
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This one is digital
This one is traditional (He demonstrates his thumbnail process starting at around 4:11, which is good)
James Gurney has a channel full of little videos of him painting from life
https://www.youtube.com/user/gurneyjourney/videos
They both pretty much start the same way:
Ignore the fine details
Squint
Sketch in big abstract shapes
Assign values/colours to the shapes
Fill in values/colours
Gradually work on smaller and smaller shapes.
I know I gotta somehow start to do instead of just thinking about the problems, it's really slowing/killing any attempts in improving
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Got some old A2 newsprint pads from a few years back. A2 paper of any quality is expensive in the UK so I'm going to switch to A3 as a compromise going forward. I've only just started but it feels good to draw nice big loose strokes focusing on the lines of action in the figure instead of being distracted by the features (which I can't draw well yet). One thing I didn't appreciate is how much easier to identify mistakes in larger drawings than smaller ones in a sketchbook. The legs are all too long in the smaller gestures I'd been doing for Figuary but it was easy to tell it was off from a few lines of action on a larger surface.
Going to go back to Figuary and try some of the exercises in the course on the poses Croquis Cafe have been posting this month.
Like so effing hard man
edit:
Also am I in a reverse hyperbolic time chamber, where did all the time go holy cow I barely did anything
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This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
I'm over halfway there! woah-OH etc etc
I have also been messing around with digital drawing and it's a lot of fun! I'm surprisingly not thrown off by the screen-less drawing tablet, so I've decided to invest in a Wacom Intuos per Chico's suggestion. Thanks Chico! The Vekik I currently have is... serviceable. But it frequently decides it's just not going to register your pen movement, or your button press. Kinda jagged lines too, especially when I try to draw a curve or diagonal. I may be bad, but I'm not THAT bad at drawing a smooth line.
The Intuos is arriving tomorrow supposedly. Good timing, since my free trial of Clip Studio Paint runs out soon, and the Intuos comes with a free subscription to it!
What are you folks working on now btw, for me I am kinda stuck on what I should do next because I have a million things to learn and improve on lol, been having fun just fooling around with brushes and textures though
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I've been kicking around the idea of a 'Draw Along' thread, riffing on the cook-along thread in SE. Different theme other week for a quick sketch or illustration. If people are interested it would be fun to see different takes on the same prompt. Maybe it'd even lure out some more beginners if I post some of my stumbling attempts! Whatcha think?
More people coming here would be good because I am starting to get worried about being too creepy or clingy lol
Btw your digital art is really impressive for your first time, I think you really have a good head for it, with the clean lines and all. I am not a master at CSP but if you have any questions about the tools feel free to ask. It's also pretty similar to photoshop in a way so if you see something in a PS tutorial you could most likely do it with CSP. Coloring wise I still prefer using a photoshop style airbrush which is the opposite of clipstudio (I think) so if you run into trouble later on trying to replicate the stuff from tutorial videos it might be that.
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You're right, I should probably take a breather and just draw fun stuff for a session or two. I just got a tablet so I think I'll mess around with it a bit more. Not super interested in physical media other than pens and pencils, but digital painting is pretty fun!
Ha, thanks! Unfortunately ole Seteth ended up looking kinda Bert-esque, but I enjoyed making it. Learned a lot about layers in the process.
I went ahead and splurged on Frenden's brush pack for CSP, and there are some really nice ones in there, including some photoshop clones. So hopefully I won't be thrown too much by differences between PS tutorials and the reality of CSP.
Music:
“Orchestral-Ambient”
by soundcloud.com/brenticus/
“
Lobby Time”
by kevin macleod
Additional footage used under
license from:
videoblocks.com
elements.envado.com
shutterstock.com
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
Someday I will take out my watercolors and do things with it
Someday
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
I ordered a starter gouache kit, brushes and a palette at the weekend. It'll be here on Thursday. Just hope I can do the painting. Doing the thing is the main block to improvement for me at the moment.