Andrew's Art Blog

[andrewnimble]

Introduction

Hello everyone!
My name is Ondrej Mrstny. I'm 22 and I come from Czech Republic though currently live and study in Denmark. I am a beginner but very enthusiastic digital artist. I do it during free evenings, when I don't have to study or am not training somewhere. Once I would like to become an Illustrator for fantasy books/games/movies or whatever in that theme though I will be doing a lot of concept art for now as I need to practice my fundamentals to be able to make decent illustrations...
My other activities besides school and art are training and coaching Parkour and Fitness, playing table-top games and eating FOOD!..
Art has been a part of my life as far as I can remember. When I was a kid I was always more creative and skilled than any of my mates around me and I imagined myself being a professional artist when I grow up.. I didn't only draw a lot, but also did music. But as my life continued and everyone kept telling me that it's not something I could make a living of and that I should do something more "useful", it slowly became just something that I live with, but it's forgotten. I kept drawing, but usually only in school when I didn't really want to pay attention to Mathematics or Physics haha
2 years back I started playing with Adobe Illustrator, because I saw some tutorial for it on youtube and liked it a lot. I made few vector paintings with my mouse and started watching more and more videos seeing people paint awesome stuff in Photoshop and other programs. I already knew that that's something I want to learn as well, so a week later I already had my small cheap Intuos Creative Pen Tablet by Wacom and started practicing.. I mainly watched Marcs tutorials and then also some Sycras. Never stopped watching speedpaints.. I made my first 3 paintings, which I was pretty proud of back then, but then stopped painting for a year because of difficult life situation and lack of time. Had to save money for studies, so I studied and did almost full-time trainer at the same time.
Now I moved to Denmark and started painting again motivated as never, watching more and more stuff and reading art books in my spare time... and getting involved in the community..
..Aand that's why I'm here. I would like to help others as well as learn a lot myself! Though I don't have much spare time when studying abroad and working to survive, I want to improve as much as I can every day so I could one day become a proffessional artist and live my dream life.
If you guys have read it all, I clap for you.. didn't think I'm gonna write so much and don't know if anyone is going to read it I'm glad I can be part of this awesome community. Big thanks to Marc Brunet for doing this all for people like me. CYA ALL AROUND AND HOPE THAT SOME OF YOU MIGHT LIKE WHAT I MAKE.

[andrewnimble]

WARNING: ..my Art Blog is going to be a little more personal stuff, but if you don't like to read about me, you can always just skip it and see my art..

ENTRY No.1

My very first digital paintings which I did 1,5 years ago. Those were the only ones that I did before I got "too bussy" to continue painting and stopped digital painting for more than a year. During that year I also managed to break my neck and be so lucky to survive my death while doing freerunning.. didn't make me stop doing it though

1) The Sun God
This one was made when I tried to learn drawing head front view using Marc's yt tutorial and then overpainted it all while exploring Photoshop blend modes haha

2) Green Dragon Guy
I painted this one following Marc's tutorials on painting with values and coloring with gradients. I appologize for also doing the very same composition, but hope he doesn't mind it since it was just a practice for me and my result is just so much worse..

3) Vampire Wrrioress
While doing the lineart it was supposed to be an Elven Wrrioress, but after throwing some colors I played with CB tool and ended up having a Vampire instead

and then I also tried to make a background for it which kinda sucked but will share anyway so you guys can have some fun...

[achronic]

Hey Ondrej! I did indeed read everything, and it was really touching. Hopefully we can help you improve in this forum!

Most people are told the same about art, which is kind of sad. Sometimes its cultural, other times its just pure ignorance. "It is not useful", "You'll starve". I guess people never stop to pay attention to their surrounding. Our cities are literally built by human hands, every house and building we step into was designed and structured by clever people. Yet they don't view that as art. Every furniture around them, chairs and couches were designed with human anatomy in mind, yet they don't view them as artists. Every song that people listen to, was crafted by an enthusiastic musician, and only then, do people start considering them as artists.

I guess they indeed never stop to think about the aesthetics around us, that were imagined and crafted by ARTISTS.

I'm glad to see that this never killed your enthusiasm and love for drawing though. Surviving this stage has always been the toughest, and it is where the most potential artists are lost. It is where most of us stop drawing. Anyway, rant aside, I'm looking forward to seeing more of your blog and see you develop! This forum is quite active for an art forum, so don't be shy to ask our fellow members for help!

[schmigel]

Hi!
Keep studying then you will get to work with that for sure!
Iam not and illustrator, but I have a similar history of yours.
Iam studying 3D for games.

My recommendation is that you create a schedule for your studies.
What are you referecens and wich books are you using for the studies?

[andrewnimble]

Hey Thomas.
I soo agree with everything you wrote in your reply and you wrote it so well.
Thanks for all shown support and kindness. I hope we will be able to help each other a lot!
Btw I really like your 3D stuff and am looking forward to see more. I might be experimenting with 3D aswell in some time
I'll definitelly keep this Blog as active as I could and hope I will be able to make it interesting and very honest.

[andrewnimble]

Hi! Thanks for your support.
I saw your 3D art already and like it a lot!
The schedule is a great idea, I'll do that for sure!
Right now I am doing a lot of gesture drawing using this usefull free online tool or my girlfriend to practice it. I also watch a lot of online tutorials from different artists and my very favourite activity is watching speedpaints, because there I can see the actuall process of much more experienced people, which i then try out in my own paintings and I learn a lot from that. One of my big inspirations is DcTattoo since he paints fantasy stuff really often and his paintings are just so incredibly awesome.

As for the books I don't have money to buy any, so at the moment I use what my school library can provide and since it's not an art school, there's limited resources. However I found one wich I find really good - Beyond Art Fundamentals by 3D Total and then searched for it's previous book - Art Fundamentals. 3D Total have many interesting books and especially for 3d artists.. you should definitelly check their webpage. Have seen just those two books mentioned above, but if the other ones are just as good I would totally recommend their publishings to everyone.

See you around.

[andrewnimble]

ENTRY No.2

So the following ones are my eye quick-sketching practice and two of my finished works I did right after I started the digital art over again and reminded myself of how to hold a pen.

1) Eye-sketching practice
figured out I need to learn how to paint eyes and went to practice it with some 2min sketches

2) Beach Girl
Yes I am a man and I always liked drawing female characters and sometimes even naked women. I've decided to show this painting because it is a style which I really like - in my opinion it feels like something between real and animated look but more towards animated. I also like to make eyes a little bigger than they would normally be, sometimes even like anime-sized.. Note: even when this painting has no sexual intension I decided to hide some parts in case some children would wander these forums...

3) Crazed Mage
This is a painting which I did at the same time when I joined these forums. It shows a mage character possesed by his magic. Have to admit I was pretty lazy with the backgroud.

[achronic]

Woah, the skin coloring on that female is almost on point! Make sure to use more saturated mids and a little more hue variation overall!

[andrewnimble]

ENTRY No.3

I've been asked by my friend ,who has already been developing and writing a story for couple of months with a goal of turning it into short book or comic, to help him visualize some of his characters. He offered me just some little snack money in return, but I took it anyway cause it is a great opportunity for me to practice in this field. It is going to be around 6-7 main characters and later maybe some weapon design and/or environmental concept, which will be one at a time appearing on my Blog (with his approval ofc). Since I don't have a time limit for these and with my lack of free time I don't really know when, but they will..

Feedback and/or Tips are always welcome!

Here's the first one:

[andrewnimble]

ENTRY No.4

Life goes on and I happened to find myself in the middle of examination period. That's the main reason for not being much active lately. Second main reason is that I've found a new part-time job which is great since me and my girlfriend are not going to die of hunger haha, but he bad side of it is that I have less and less time and don't even get much sleep since the job takes place four days a week 2am - 7am which is just crazy to handle. If anyone reads my self-chatting here, just wish me luck and in the meantime check out a little bit of my art practice..

All that I am able to do these days when it comes to the art is just some quick sketches. Right now I am focusing on imagination drawing - drawing quick poses without reference and minimum detail. Still a lot to improve but I feel like I am on the right track to get these even faster and better. Here are some that I've just made..

Looking forward to when I'll be able to post something more interesting haha. Cya

[aika]

Hello! the character concept for your friend looks good. I wanted to suggest you try photobashing. You can use photographs from sketch to finish really its not just for rendering. Mastering the shapes in poses comes through this process easily. Have fun!

[andrewnimble]

Hi @aika. Thanks for the feedback! Appreciate it.
With the photobashing tip, do you mean my last sketches or just sayin it is an over-all good idea to try it?

[aika]

Well yeah you could do it in general. I do it when I have comissions. I posted the process on my sketchbook also if you want to have a look.

[Firathion]

Nice job mate. Those drawings are pretty interesting actually. They could be improved of course (as with everyone's art after all) but i can tell you're getting there .I'd recommend checking Bridgeman's Ultimate guide to Drawing from life. wonderful book that might make you improve really fast when it comes to figure drawing. Definately helped me a lot. And good luck with everything. Seeing you trying so hard even though you are so busy is really inspiring. Really wish you the best. Waiting to see more of you .

[andrewnimble]

Thanks for the tip @aika . Right now I do both gesture drawing sessions and imagination drawing and trying to combine it in a way that would fit my taste and still be believeable. Anyway I checked your method and I'll definitelly try it out for some reference drawing session soon ^^

[andrewnimble]

Hi @Firathion. I'm glad you like my drawings. Thanks for all your shown support and book recommendation! I'll check it out as soon as I can
See you around

[andrewnimble]

ENTRY No.5

So here's what happened during the last two weeks. First of all I passed all the exams.....
eeeey Secondly my winter holydays started and I couldn't be more happy to finally have some free time.. more specificaly a whole month (if I don't count going to work where they didn't give me break even for the Crsitmas heh). Anyway, this means I'm hopefuly going to be more active now.
I am soo looking forward to finally join the ART WAR. I've been thinking about the character that I am going to make since it was announced and now is time to put some ideas onto paper (not an actual paper though - i prefer doing everything digitally)

Now to post some art of mine..
Here is second of my character concepts which I introduced in ENTRY No.3.
This one was a little harder to make and took more time, but at the same time I am more satisfied with the result. It also includes a little weapon desing and the initial sketch.