AceAtelier - Art School Journey

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Hair Drawing Practice [6/7]
Hair is still a complete mystery to me. For now it feels like some alien entity, and Marc’s video didn’t really clarify anything. I plan to spend much more time on this topic and use additional sources. At the moment my hair drawings look awkward and unnatural. I worked from references — drawing hair from imagination is definitely not within my reach yet.

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

4p Perspective Person
This was a pretty interesting exercise. It’s clear that with such an extreme, curved perspective you really need to watch how the proportions scale. Am I able to draw something original using this knowledge? Hard to say.

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Portrait Study
I struggled a lot with getting the angles and proportions of the face to match the reference. I must have restarted the sketch three times before finally using an overlay method to get the proportions right. Once that was sorted, adding shading and details wasn’t nearly as difficult. At least it confirmed the saying that “form is the king.”

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

14.12.25
Term 2, Week 7 Report

This week I decided to spend some time working on a character sheet. My goal was to create my own OC and practice drawing the face from different angles. The most important part for me was making sure it was clearly the same character in every attempt — which, surprisingly, is not that easy. I hope I managed to achieve that to a reasonable degree. 😉 I also added a few different emotions to practice that aspect as well.

I still struggle a lot with drawing hair, so I only included it in the front view. This is definitely an element I’ll need to spend much more time on than I initially expected.

[JimSt]

Your studies are tight and you have great pen control.
Did you have these structures in mind before you started drawing or did they emerge as you drew?

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

@JimSt Thank you! To answer your question: no 😛 At the beginning, I set up vanishing points to establish a specific perspective, and then I simply started drawing cylinders and boxes. The structures emerged naturally as I went along. The only conscious decision was to draw a flying ship. But even then, that was as far as the initial conceptualization went—I only knew that I wanted to draw round engines 😛

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

22.12.25
Term 2, Week 8 Report

Gesture Drawing (1–5 min) [5/7]
This week I mainly focused on 1–2 minute gesture drawings. I still often run out of time before fully finishing a pose, so I deliberately extend the time limit. Hopefully, there will come a point when I won’t need to do that and the poses will still look solid. For now, though, I’m satisfied with what I’m able to produce.

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Primitive Drawings [6/7]
I’m not particularly fond of this type of exercise. I really appreciate the growth potential they offer, but I usually have to force myself to start them. Rotation is still difficult, although I’m slowly beginning to get the hang of it. Deformation remains challenging, and I feel there’s still a long road ahead. Cutting, on the other hand, feels the easiest and most satisfying.

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Fantasy Creature
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this exercise. I’m happy with the result. It’s probably the first time I seriously committed to research — I got deeply into studying bear anatomy and drawing skulls. I plan to continue working on this project and might post a second version here at some point. 😊

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Self-Portrait
There’s clear progress — no doubt about that. I still don’t look exactly like myself in this drawing, but it’s definitely much closer. 😛 Compared to the version from July (has it really been that many months already?!), the improvement in my skills is quite noticeable.

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Catching Up on Backlog
I should technically be finishing Term 2 by now, but I still have some backlog to catch up on, so I plan to dedicate the coming week to that. This week I only managed to add one head lineart.

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

28.12.25

Today I officially finished Term 2. It’s been a loooong journey. After moving through Term 1 relatively smoothly (10 weeks), Term 2 ended up taking me almost half a year. Along the way, I had at least three longer breaks and a few noticeable drops in motivation, but in the end, I managed to push through.

I completed nearly everything, with the exception of two head studies and the Photoshop assignments. I have two major life changes coming up soon, so it’s hard to say how my learning will progress from here. Still, I genuinely hope I’ll be able to find both the time and the motivation to keep going.

Term 3 is up next, and below is a short summary of Term 2

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Volumes

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Gesture drawing

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Anatomy

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Heads (Copy & Imagination)

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Perspective

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Portraits

[adrian.czajkowski.priv]

Fantasy Creature

[JimSt]

Fantastic work! I hope you do manage to find some time to continue and you are making great progress! Best wishes in the new year! And for what it's worth, I'm on Term 4 and getting ready to start in on my third year of the program, so I can relate... Cheers!