Brett's Art Blog

[Brett88]

Hi everyone,

My name is Brett and I thought it about time I started an art blog. Please be gentle I'm new

I started taking drawing/ digital art seriously about a month ago now. Before then I'm not sure I held a pen to do more than write (normally quickly) since highschool two decades ago. So a lot has been working on simple pen control and the basics.

I have been interested in art my of my life so I have some awareness of more complex theoretical topics.

I have always loved storytelling, I even have a Degree in Creative Writing, and while I don't have any major goals in mind at the moment, something with storytelling in it I think would suit me most (indi computer games, graphic novel/ webcomic) but I do also love the world creation aspect and have been finding concept art drawing me (pun intended) more and more.

So stick with my bad art for a little bit and hopefully we can get to good soon.

[Brett88]

This is my first attempt at a 1 point perspective more complex than a cube. Inspiration taken from my Star Wars character in a TTRPG. I've left a fair bit of space for more complex personal items of hers.

It was a good learning experience and there is a lot I want to come back and fix up. Some things that were more 'proof of concept' than polished (the multiplayer layer shadows and the lighten layer lights/ holocron glow).

I must admit to a little cheat with a distort transform and the target poster at the back but such is life

So yes, I'm happy with most of what is there. Have a lot of room for improvement and am very aware of how much empty space there is and have planned story to insert into that when I come back to do the assignment properly (I also want to move away from how close it is to Marc's example in a lot of the basic layout).

[Brett88]

After moving house and getting out of the habit of practice, I have felt a real lack of motivation.

So in order to try to get over that I've started a couple of things:

I'm doing "DrawABox" and am finding it to be very helpful. My line work (on paper) has dramatically improved and learning the techniques has also helped my digital line work, after making it worse for a little while. I would love to have something like a Cintiq I could draw straight on as that seems to be the main problem when converting my line work to digital. I'm up to the 250 box drawing challenge and even 25 boxes into it I can tell there is slow but significant improvement in my 2D/3D spacial/ drawing skills.

I have also started a graphics novel. Very childish but I have to remind myself that I am new enough that a child's drawing skill is appropriate. I'm using it to just get in the habit of drawing things I know I am not good at. Working my way through the bad stuff in a framework where that is ok and my anxiety/ perfectionism doesn't start to kick in.

The people are laughable, I only use colour sometimes, perspective is done by eye mostly, and I'm learning software techniques as I'm going.

Yet. It is helping. Even only a couple of pages here (that I'm not about to show) I can feel improvement. I am also trying to work on specific things in different cells. Perspective here, doing colour in this one, thinking more on lighting, characterisation and storytelling in the next. I'm no colouring them all but obviously I am trying to include all the other stuff as I go.

I'm also working my way through all the course videos in Art School and trying to use what I remember in it. I'll go back on theory days and try to learn bit and pieces in more dept.

In case you are wondering. I am using a plot I made for a TTRPG (Table Top Role Playing Game) as a story guide. I've made character sheets and will use dice to decide things so I don't have to worry too much about the plot/ story as improvising that in RPGs is kind of my best skill. It's Mage: The Awakening (Chronicles of Darkness version) for those curious. They haven't awakened yet but are about to.

[Brett88]

My Invisible Man Monstasona for Halloween.

Considering how little I knew 2 and a half months ago (and that I've moved house during this) I am very happy. I can pick it apart of course but I've learned a lot from doing this including where I should focus on and staring to see what I like (and don't like) for a personal style.

Yes... the Invisible Man was a cheeky way to get out of drawing a face