Pen control assignment: Week 1 - Term 1
Had a lot of fun, nice warm up exercises. Need a lot more practice until I feel more comfortable.
Any questions or advices are welcome. Still I’m going to be doing the exercises daily. Best regards from Costa Rica! Pura Vida.
Hey Humberto! I'm Liam. Nice work on the digital pen control! I have to ask how many years have you been doing art for and do you have any tips for someone looking to start their art journey? I'd love to be able to trace circles as well as you haha.
Cheers 
Hi Liam! Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate them. And you can call me Charlie. 
Let me be honest, I have had drawing tablets for quite a while now, and have been drawing since I was a kid, but never took it quite seriously. You know, life gets in the way and stuff. 
. I took drawing seriously about four years ago when I jumped into Graphic Design, but did not stick to a structured routine for digital art specifically.
Thanks for the comment about my circles, still I find I could improve a lot, lot, lot more.
Let me see if I can help a little. I posted this on your thread as well, but maybe someone else might find it useful.
If your using Photoshop a tip I like to use is to rotate the Canvas to find the right angle for my strokes. You can rotate the Canvas with R, draw, and then hit Escape to go back to the default. Try finding the angles you feel more comfortable, just like you would in a sheet of paper. It takes a little practice but is very rewarding. Also, I use shoulder and arm movements. I try to restrict wrist movements for when I'm detailing.
For straighter lines and circles I like to use 'ghosted lines' combined with rotating the canvas. From what I’ve gathered about 'ghosted lines' is to try to find the starting and ending points, practice the stroke without marking the line and then, when you feel confident, draw the line in a single and fast move to avoid scratching or wobbly lines. Again it takes a bit of practice and I’m by no means an expert. I’m just starting
Some people find the Drawabox exercises very useful, but you should know that his method applies on traditional media. I’m sure you can translate some of the exercises to digital media as well. Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9708PBUvCQ0&list=PLA7yj0dxiUGv7k8ohEt15EtMz9PTckNXw
Sorry about the long answer. I hope this helps, let me know if I can help you even further.
Have a great weekend Liam. ¡Pura Vida!
Welcome to the forums Charlie! I am super impressed with this pen control exercise. Just WOW! I look forward to seeing your work and your progress!
@Lockenheim thanks for the warm welcome and your kind kind words! Means a lot coming from you.
Well, my first study after line control. Week one of journey: Nude drawing.
Happy (but kind of terrified ) to share my study with you all. And on the right side of the image I share some notes I found interesting and worth remembering from the video [inspired by the notes taken by @aphamfx, he shares his thoughts on the process in his posts].
I will definitely keep practicing. Any replies to improve are more than welcome. I know there are lots of things off so I’ll gladly take advice and criticism.
Have a wonderful weekend. ¡Pura Vida!
Reference: www.characterdesigns.com
Love your detailed notes and references from the video! (Love the colour coding too) Keep up the great work! =]
Thanks @aphamfx, really appreciate your kind words. I want to keep sharing notes and thoughts. And your posts inspired me. Just a little something for the community.
Nice work Charlie! These are very well done! I can see you are thinking about the vanishing point on your cylinders. One thing to keep in mind is even if the contour of the cylinder is really close to the vanishing point, the contour will be flatter, but it will be really curved at the ends where it touches the side. Fantastic work! Keep it up!
Thanks @Lockenheim! Thanks for the advice, very much appreciated. You’re right. I’m gonna make sure to pay more attention and practice contours. Any advice on how to study and get better at perspective and shapes?
What I did when I was at this part was to always have a can next to my desk that I would maneuver around to help get a better feel for the cylinders. The perspective one and two assignments will help with that quite a bit as well. I did each assignment several times spending an insane amount of hours on my second one point perspective piece. That will help a lot and then there is an assignment in term two about warping. I make physical models for many things as I feel that helps me a lot, even if its something simple like a can. Hopefully that makes some sense. If it doesn't let me know!
Welcome aboard buddy. We’re all in this together! Can’t wait to see how far you’ll go!
Thanks @alwaysneedsleep! This are the kind words that make my day. I’ll be around for any feedback and sharing tips. Have a great one!
¡Pura vida!
That’s incredible advice @Lockenheim. It does make total sense.
I remember making cardboard shapes and playing with the positions several years ago to get them in different perspectives but stopped because… life. Perfect practice and consistency is key. I’m going back to it. Thanks again!
Quick practice of my room for one One Point Perspective. Just getting the hang of things, perspective kind of wears me down a bit. But perfect practice makes perfect so on to the next study.
Again, any advice would be fantastic and warmly received.
Allons-y!
Looks very cool!
The foreground is perfect, but in the distance, you could improve on the width of things in perspective. Like that door looks like it’s 3 meters wide (which is possible, of course). If you look at a photo reference, you’ll see that the sides of the door are probably much closer together.
I hope this made sense
Keep up the good work!
Thank you @artistchemist! It makes total sense, and I will consider more and more references in future studies. Thanks again for the kind words and please keep helping us grow.
A little study and my version of "male proportions”, as presented in Nude Drawing - Term 1. Again, you can find some notes and interesting facts on the right of the image taken from the lecture.
Any advice on how to improve is always more than welcome.
¡Pura vida! 
Proportion looks solid!
I remember that I memorized where every part lands on the grids back when I was at term 1 ;D.
I see that you don't have pen pressure enabled on the brush size itself, I really recommend to learn how to control your lines even at the beginning.
It's extremely hard when you don't have experience but it will be worthwhile in the end.
I'm pretty sure you've heard line weight at some point, that's something you can improve right now.
@charlieodow I love the simplicity and cleanliness of this 1 point perspective, good work! I agree with @artistchemist the door does look quite wide. also the outer floorboards are quite wide in comparison to the rest of the boards, but that’s just being nit picky. the right bottom corner in the foreground is slightly off from the back wall, if you follow that line all the way to the cupboards you can see that the cupboards look like they are going through the wall. You need to either have the cupboards narrower or extend the back wall further to the right. Alternatively you could give the feeling that there is another room leasing off to the right?
