Curtis - Art School Journey

[hyoi]

Hello everyone,

I'm Curtis and I don't really have a whole lot to say. I've been doing art on and off for basically my whole life and I've finally gotten to the point where I want to try and make something of it, so here I am, doing art school.

Anyway, I started the program and worked on the first two assignments today.

my circles are pretty embarrassing but whatever...

I think the next one went pretty well but I know the last picture is a little off, couldn't quite figure out how to get the blue to pop without turning the rest of the image blue along with it. Probably spent over an hour fiddling with dials and decided to just move on.

That's all for now, thanks in advance for any critiques.

[skalik.milan]

Hi and welcome.
It all looks very good. I like how you did last picture thats a tough one

[Julia_J]

Exactly what I thought, this drove me crazy! Well done, and welcome

[Paulda]

Hi Curtis, and welcome; nice work on the value and colour matching exercises, looking good

[hyoi]

thanks for the warm welcomes everyone!

I skipped some of the photo manipulation stuff because to be honest it isn't really what I'm interested in, maybe I will go back to it another day (I won't).

With that out of the way I've started on some gesture drawing and drawing cylinders. I think I need to work on being a bit more loose with my gestures... my brain has a hard time wrapping itself around quick drawings like this.

Here's my first set of cylinder overlays. I tried doing circles and squares like Marc talked about in the video but I decided to do boxes instead because it made more sense to my brain to use a 3D object.

The viking with cat ears is NOT part of the exercise but I liked it so i just left it there.

[hyoi]

back again with some more gesture and cylinders.

also worked on the proportion assignment. I used Marc's image as a reference for this one while checking the video now and again. Might do it a couple more times, not sure yet.

[Julia_J]

Nice proportion drawing! And I love the hat..

[hyoi]

More daily gesture, I think they have gotten a bit better after actually seeing the gesture portion of the class and using a couple of Marc's tips. I still have a long way to go but noticing some improvement this early is encouraging.

I also did a couple figure drawing exercises with reference boxes. The drawings don't quite match up perfectly with the pictures when I move them over but they are kinda close. I have no clue what I'm doing with the paint but I think they turned out okay overall.

[hyoi]

Not certain how many more times I'm going to post the gesture drawings but here's today's work in any case.

Did a couple more figure drawing exercises as well. They still aren't perfect and I still suck at painting but I think there was still a bit of progress compared to yesterday's work. I saw this video on twitter and decided to try a similar workflow for blocking in shapes before doing line work and it worked surprisingly well for me so I might play around with it a bit more in the future.

I also drew a cat in a suit with a cup of coffee based on this picture a friend posted today.

[hyoi]

I sat down today to do some gestures to warm up before starting my perspective stuff and then this happened instead. I did this man without a reference so I know the anatomy isn't perfect.

I think this will be the last gesture drawing set post for a while unless I do a batch that I am particularly proud of.

Aaaaand finally I played around with the perspective ruler in clip studio for a little while. I think I'll start the room assignment tomorrow if I don't get sidetracked again.

[Julia_J]

The expression of the cat ... that's exactly my "before coffee" face

[hyoi]

Spent a lot of time working on the 1 point perspective room assignment today. I've never really spent a lot of time doing environments so this was somewhat new to me. I'm not super happy with the difference in line quality between my freehand stuff on some of the furniture and the crisp straight lines when using a ruler but I don't really know how to remedy that.

Here's the reference image I used, I know I left a lot of little things out but my focus was just trying to get the perspective right.

[hyoi]

So I was going to work on the two point perspective stuff today... but I didn't quite get around to that. I was doing some warm ups and decided to try drawing a pose without a reference and then I just kinda spent all day on it... so I guess I'll post my process.

I'll probably finish up the line art and try not to ruin it when I add colour tomorrow. Then I'll get back to the perspective stuff... probably.

[Vonschlippe]

Hey Curtisdool!

You've got a very promising design and I'm sure you'll do a killer job on the coloring.

I've got a few nitpicks regarding the line-art that you might want to give attention to before you spend any time rendering it out!

I found that there was something lost in translation between the initial pose sketch and the finished line work, and comparing both I find there are things that worked better in the sketch.

First off, make sure you do not lose head height - the eye-line is roughly in the middle of the total height of the head, so push that hair outline up!

The cross-contour lines (i.e. the lower outline on her shirt, the belt, the knee-pad sleeves, etc.) help indicate the form of a volume by giving the brain the context it needs. These lines are supremely important and should not be neglected - make sure you check out the knee brace top and bottom outlines (they should match the cylindrical shape suggested by the thigh-belt).

Give a second check to that hip-bone anatomy, simplify the curves and triple check the pubic area. From the overlap of the legs, it will be mostly hidden by the forward position of the leg. Less is more.

Finally, look how dynamic and balanced that foot position is in the sketch! You should keep that! I suggested a boot position that's closer in spirit to that original sketch.

That's the essential stuff I came up with, keep in mind these are suggestions and to be taken with a grain of salt. Looking forward to see how this piece turns out!!

[haight_nicholas]

For whatever it's worth (which admittedly isn't all that much coming from me haha), I completely agree with Vonschlippe's suggestions, especially the one about the back foot. I think it looks a lot more natural, it also makes it so that the back shoe doesn't look like it's identical to the front (obviously the shoes are the same design, but in their current state they look almost like an exact copy, when it should look like different sides of the shoe).

[hyoi]

Thanks for the critiques, I really appreciate the feedback!

I'll give the lines a bit more work before I move on with the piece and see where it goes.

[hyoi]

I value any and all critiques people are willing to give me so I appreciate you chiming in for whatever that is worth. Looking at it now I can definitely see the issue with the shoes looking the same and I'm definitely gonna give it a bit more work before moving on.

[hyoi]

Quick update on the line art before I go eat lunch. I brought the hair up a bit, fixed the shoe, and simplified some of the shapes a bit. I also finished the lines for the sword(which took way longer than I'd like to admit). Just posting a before and after pic for now, I'll add some colour to it this afternoon.

[hyoi]

Hello again, I finally finished it. I think it's probably the best thing I've ever done and I'm very happy with how it turned out. As always any critiques are welcome.

[hyoi]

Finally back to doing my homework after that two day distraction. I started doing the two point perspective drawing of a building, I know it isn't on a street corner but the principles are the same. I blocked in some basic colour to differentiate the direction of surfaces. I might try to add in all the furniture and stuff another day.

reference:

I know some of the interior is off but I reworked it so many times already and I know to fix it I would have to do a pretty major overhaul to a lot of the structure so it is what it is.