Hey there, Snakker here, welcome aboard!
Looking good so far, these are good exercises. I agree with Mitsuki, no set brush size as standard, but thinner is probably better for practice on accuracy as smaller mistakes are more visible, thicker brushes are easier to work with
I notice a bit of trouble keeping horizontals, ofcourse you can help yourself with the software for perfect lines, horizontals etc, if your aim is to improve free hand though, and you are working from the shoulder, I find it helps finding a sweetspot angle. Once you are good at one angle, with one line, you can use that one for all your lines - you would only have to rotate canvas and keep doing the same motion. But then, if you want to challenge yourself you can also try getting good at all angles
cheers, and keep at it!
Hey Snakker, thanks! Yea that was my thought too. Want to focus on accuracy, I guess I was just wanting to be sure I’m not making things too hard on myself too fast ya know?
And yea, I only want to do free hand, feel like if I start to rely on the shift key that it’ll get me into bad habits and won’t help me much. I do rotate the canvas with the draw a box ones, still working on finding the sweet spot though haha.
With the Term 1 Daily Pen Control, I was trying to achieve it from the vertical angle itself, as Marc was in the tutorial. I know I’d probably have a better time getting clean lines from a rotated angle, but trying to work on some dexterity to see if I can master these from that angle.
Thank you for all the suggestions and for easing my mind on the brush sizes. I appreciate it all more than you know!
First day of working with a better setup, I think its made a difference. Noticed my lines are getting closer in my ellipses during my warm up and my lines seem steadier than they were. Obviously still a lot of practice is needed, but again taking the small victories where I can.
03-27-2023 Daily Pen Control - Warm Up- Draw A Box + Sketch
Did a sketch with limited references of "Maliketh" from Elden Ring. Obviously not super accurate but just wanted to do something kind of fun with all of the course work I've been doing. Just really like his design and was inspired this morning. First time I've attempted any flowing hair or smoke/fire. Still lots of work to do for improvement but oh well it was fun.
Thanks for looking, and again any feedback, tips, etc are appreciated!
Had higher hopes for this evening's drawing session, but got home from work and had a horrible headache. Took something for it and watched through the Nude Figure Drawing lecture and took notes, hoping that it would subside by the end of that. That didn't pan out so I just pushed through my warm up, daily pen control, and the daily 5 minute observation. Was hard to stay focused and it shows pretty bad, especially when I had to subdivide with no lines touching. Think that's probably the worst outing I've had with the exercise thus far.
Kind of a disappointing way to end off my first full week of doing these exercises, but oh well. Made it through a whole week of consistent practice so here's to week 2 and the continuation of my journey!
Daily Pen Control and Warm Up 03-28-2023
Didn't realize how bad that green would show up on here, sorry about that. Not entirely sure how I got it switched to that color in the first place and I didn't really care in the moment. Will ensure that I don't get it swapped to that color again in the future and stick to my reds and oranges.
Thank you all for the kind words and reactions, means a lot! I apologize if I haven't made it to your pages yet, was hoping to do that tonight, but I'm gonna have to call it and get some sleep. Just wanted to make sure I did everything as usual to try to cement this as a habit.
Well onto week 2. Not the best work, but gotta start somewhere. Any feedback or tips you guys have for cylinders and my basic skeleton would be great. Still trying to figure out which set up works best for me. Need to test the squares and the mix of squares and ovals tomorrow.
Anyways, here's what I got for the day.
03-29-2023
A lot to figure out with these, like I said, any tips you guys have for how you tackle these would be much appreciated. I got some to look okay, but just not where I want them yet.
Tomorrow I'm also going to use different colors to identify the limbs and the line of Action, just to kind of keep all the parts separate. Might drop the opacity of the reference a bit more too, depending on how it shows up for you guys.
This was trickier than I thought it would be and felt like I was missing a lot during it. I don't know, I'm gonna rewatch that section tomorrow and then give it another go.
Thanks for looking as always, its appreciated.
Yea, sorry about that, a misstep on my part.
I am definitely going to be changing the colors and using multiples to distinguish between the masses, line of action, joints and limbs to make it easier to see. Will also play round with the opacity of the reference image so its easier to critique.
Thanks for the feedback though, I appreciate it