Bishmuth - Art School Journey!

[javavenos]

Hi guys, my name's Hannah Deards, but I go by Bishmuth online.

Here's my extremely inactive instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bishmuth/
And here are my webcomics, which are far more active and a much better representation of my style:
https://tapas.io/series/Fragments1
https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/superpose-soldier-h/list?title_no=428513

I'm an amature webcomic artist and in the future I'd like to become a storyboard artist and character designer in the animation field. I'd like to improve everything about my art though.

I just finished my A Levels (way too early because of Corona) in art and product design. Next year I'll do an art foundation course for a year and then I hope to go on to do a 2d animation course in uni. I don't want to have to wait that long for university level classes though, so I'm doing this course and getting as good as I can, as quickly as I can

I'm probably going to have to go through term 1 really slowly, since I'm currently working on a competition entry for the Webtoons Short Story Contest, but after that, I hope to be completing assignments left right and centre! I'm just honestly so excited to up my art game!

I can't wait to talk to you guys and watch how you progress too.

-Have a great day!

[javavenos]

Finally got around to starting term 1's assignments!

Here's my pen control assignment

[javavenos]

Here's my image adjustments assignment! The thing that I struggled on the most was the mech girl. I couldn't for the life of me get it right, so I'm leaving it for now and I'll come back to it soon.
I still don't really understand how levels and curves work, but at least I have a bit more of a grasp than before.

[javavenos]

Just did the apple assignment!

[javavenos]

Here's my young to old assignment. It's pretty disturbing but I feel like I understand some of the photoshop tools a bit more now. I usually use Clip Studio, but I have an old janky, barely working copy of photoshop on my laptop too. I'm glad it worked enough for this!

[javavenos]

Here's my alien assignment! The liquify tool is actually really fun

[javavenos]

Here's the dream house assignment! I think I might redo it soon because it really failed lmao

[MattD]

The main issue I see with the dream house assignment is the edges. It looks like the fence is supposed to be behind the flowers but the edge on the fence is too soft, it looks like the fence is fading into the flowers instead of behind them. The roof, on the other hand, should have a softer edge, not super soft, just a bit so it doesn't have as much of a cut-out look.

Everything else looks good! looking forward to seeing what you do with future assignments

[javavenos]

Thanks Matt!
I tried making the edges of the flowers being harder, but then there was the whole cutout issue as well. I'll go through that part of the lesson again and give the assignment another go soon

[javavenos]

Today's 30 second gesture drawings before I go back to working on my webcomic!

I typically draw my gestures in my sketchbook with a coloured pencil and I know Marc said in the Nude figure drawing class that I should use whatever I'm most comfortable with for the gestures, but everyone else here seems to be doing them digitally and it is a digital art course... it's not like I can't do digital art either, so I took the challenge!

One thing is that I need to remember to draw feet lmao

[javavenos]

Day 2 of gestures!
Today feels a lot worse than yesterday. My 1 minute poses even look worse than my 30 second ones from yesterday, but oh well :'D We all have our bad days.

[javavenos]

Day 3 of digital gestures!
Although I've been doing gestures on and off for a couple years now, what Marc said about how the poses need to feel grounded has really helped a lot! I try to put feet in on every pose now, although sometimes in the images, the feet aren't visible. so then I don't. I've also been trying to focus a lot more on the pose itself before building up the form, which creates much less complete looking drawings, but I think there's a lot more to be learned this way.

Unfortunately I'm still busy with commitments to other art projects, so I can't get through assignments very quickly, but I figured that just doing 30 mins of gestures every day can't hurt!

Anyways, here are my gestures! I'm more happy with them than yesterday and I also made a photo set, so that I can track my progress on the specific photos, which is exciting!

[javavenos]

Here's my gestures for day 4!
Today I took the advice of @Shellac-Belly to add markers where the elbows and knees are. I think this made my poses a bit stiffer and it definitely took a lot more time away from things such as form, but it definitely did help me to be much more aware of where the joints actually are. I also decided that it would be helpful if I drew basic ribcage and pelvis markers. This helped me to understand where the legs attached a lot more than without.

The suggestions I've been getting have been really changed my view on what it is to make a gesture drawing. It's difficult, but I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it!

[javavenos]

Day 5 of gestures!

I didn't get round to doing any yesterday, oops! I'm not too worried about that though. I think it's more important to do it as frequently as possible rather than being incredibly strict with a streak and then feeling like you've ruined everything if you miss a day.

Currently, what I have learnt with doing gestures in a lot more of a structured way than usual, is that it has been helping me to spot the line of action a lot more quickly and to begin to spot subtle bends in joints and such. I wonder if this is because I'm using the same photos over and over again, or if I truly am learning. Maybe I should mix it up and try some different photos to see if I can apply my skills elsehwhere. Idk
I think today I was a bit too stiff with everything. Hopefully I'll loosen up a bit tomorrow!

Also, as a bonus, here is a WIP of some Lucifer fanart that I'm making. I usually prefer much thicker lines, so this feels quite odd tbh.

[Vonschlippe]

Good work on the line-art!

Using thin lines feels weird because thicker lines tend to hide mistakes. As students, we should aim for thin lines because they require confidence and more attention to detail to suggest volume. Keep at it, I promise that when the thing is finished, the sketch will look crude in comparison to the final line-art

[javavenos]

Thank you so much!!

I actually really like thick lineart because of the line weight variance that you can get. Since starting to make comics this year, I've been leaning a little bit more on thin lines. It's funny because I feel like you can get away with more having thin lines, since they're less noticeable when coloured. I dunno. Thinner lines are definitely making me more conscious about proportions though! In hindsight, I think using thicker lines made me make the features of my faces, such as eyes and noses a lot bigger than they really should be, because I simply couldn't achieve enough detail with the right sized features. Ahh I've been doing art for so long and yet I have so far to go. It's an exciting, albeit occasionally irritating journey haha.

[javavenos]

Here's day 6 of gestures!

Today, for some reason, I think I fell back on some old habits. Like I kept forgetting to put markers in for joints or drawing the direction that the head is facing. In the first 30 second gesture, I even forgot the line of action!! Oh well, we all have our bad days. I'll make sure to try to fix these issues tomorrow

[javavenos]

Day 7 of gestures was a failure D:<

First, half way though my 30 second gestures, my drawing program decided to do this thing where it basically freezes until I reboot it. So, I restarted it and decided to start from scratch. Ok, take 2. Now, usually no-one messages me on my phone, so I don't put it on full silent, just a buzz. Well, someone I barely know started spamming me with messages. That sort of repetitive, intermittent buzzing really stresses me out. I guess it's like a sort of sensory overload. I paused the Quickposes timer thing and turned my phone onto silent. I continued with my gestures, although I was just feeling annoyed at that point. I did more gestures and then my stepdad starts calling me because he wants to play on my Nintendo Switch. That's fine, but like WORLD GIMME A BREAK I JUST WANNA PRACTICE MY ART!! Even worse was, I guess I forgot to press pause, so I lost my place with the poses.
Ehh, I guess the world is telling me to get on with comic work because I have deadlines coming up.

Anyway, here are my wonky 30 second gestures. They look so bad. I guess this just proves that you need a calm work environment to work well.

[dangras-almeida]

I totally understand what you are saying. And you already got it: when practicing, try to get a "disturbance-free environment" mas much as you can. This way you can progress with no one disturbing you and you will feel less annoyed or stressed, which will definitely have an impact on the pieces you are making.

What usually works for me is to practice in a time where everyone is sleeping (I wake up very early 😅)

In any case, keep up the amazing work!

Cheers,

[javavenos]

Do you have any tips for waking up really early? I usually sleep through multiple alarms :')