Eugene - My Artistic Journey

[snakker]

Dang nice job on all these studies! Keep it up
As for the f15, I still don’t know much about proper vehicle drawing in perspective but do note the proportions are a bit off, the stabilators are shorter than the wingspan and the vertical stabilizers are a bit longer. As mentioned, having a 2D schematic like top down view, frontal view and side views can help when constructing

Cheers!

[battledragon78]

I am amazed how you plan and organize your study. Wow, you are doing great.

[Sthingz]

Hi everyone. I will be postponing my art progress report till next week. I had a bunch of stuff come up last week; as a result, I got little to no time to draw. Thanks for your understanding. Also, happy valentines !

[Sthingz]

How's everyone doing?! It's been a long two weeks since I posted my last art progress. During this time, I learned a lot, not only from Marc's course and the books I have been reading, but also from others in the Art School discord. So I would like to take a moment to recognize those people who have assisted me in my art journey this past weeks. Their names are @Gordon003, @framesperhuman, kirbb, and KrejuskiG. Of course, I would also like to give my thanks to those who provided me with feedback here. Now, here's my art progress:

Gesture Drawings (I tried experiment with different styles as well as time limits- although most are 2-minutes. I also tried to letting my hand loose as I focused less on following the principles of FORCE strictly. Let me know if I am progressing or if there's anything I can improve on):

Head studies (from Loomis book):

More head studies (in Procreate/iPad):

Pespective studies (I analyzed the plane drawing but didn't actually get to redraw it - I'll get to it this week):

Portraits (in Procreate/iPad):

KrejuskiG's correction vs. my original drawing:

Key Takeaways:

• Per my perspective notes, 2-point perspective only ever exists when an object is viewed at an angle at eye level
• Although a curved line is more representative of the actual front plane of the face, drawing straight lines (or a box) help me make sure the facial features are aligned and that the head is proportionate
• More surface lines ages the subject
• Playing with line variation adds more life to the drawing

Next Week's Commitments:

• Redraw plane perspective image
• Practice drawing the head from different angles on my FIRST EVER SKETCHBOOK - super excited
• Up my perspective practice (e.g., rotating cube, simple volumes, etc.)
• Continue reading Andrew Loomis' book
• Take a peek into Dong Ho's perspective book

[snakker]

Dang, great job on these studies. I really like the way you convert the portrait pieces to your style with clean and varied lineart

your gestures are looking good too, conveying all that energy. I would love to see how your gestures would come out if you drew really big 😅

I still haven’t gone on the cubebrush discord - I see it’s been a big help? I’m a bit of a noob about these things, it’s very different from the forums?

Cheers

[Sthingz]

Hey @snakker , thanks for dropping by. I definitely think if I were to gesture draw bigger, my drawings would come out better or at least more expressive. W/ a smaller space/canvas, I feel more restricted. At the same time, I don't want to use 20 pages for only a dozen or so gesture drawings lol - traditional art is expensive . As far the discord, I got talked into using it more by some peers, and I gotta say: it's paying dividends. I have received some really good and extensive feedback from people there. I would definitely make use of it if I was you. It's not too dissimilar from the forums, it's just more active and you get people's responses much quicker. Hopefully this answers your questions

[snakker]

Gotcha, I will give it a try when I get back from my travels. Thanks!

[Sthingz]

Hello friends. Sorry I didn't post my art progress last week. I am in the middle of switching jobs, and this event has taken most of my time, at least the time that I need to reconcile my work and upload it to the forums (surprisingly, it takes a lot of time, like 3 hours). Moreover, I did not try to post an update b/c that would bump down others' posts who are actually sharing their hard work, not just a paragraph of text. That said, I have been drawing and reading during this period. I did not make much progress on Loomis' book (I just read a couple of more pages), and I did not get to the perspective book recommended by @framesperhuman. For this reason, I will be scaling back my agenda for this upcoming week so I can focus on one thing at a time and actually make progress. So, here I present my art progress this past two weeks:

Gesture drawings:

Head studies (sketchbook):

Perspective studies:



(WIP)

Doodles (chronologically ordered):
W/ Rock Lee eyebrows lol

W/out Rock Lee eyebrows

Dynaimic pose practice

Portraits (chronologically ordered):


1st attempt

2nd attempt

3rd attempt

Key Takeaways:

The features of the face can be checked by drawing a horizontal, straight line (it does NOT need to be curved - keep things simple)
- When the head is tilted upwards or when viewing the head from below, think of the face like a mask so its bottom plane is properly shaded
- When drawing from reference, think of drawing its dark and bright spots only. I got this advice from Mmmmonexx's latest video. Check it out here
- Huge shoutout to @Gordon003 and KrejuskiG for providing me with feedback on my portraits

Next Week's Commitments:

Continue reading Loomis's book. However, don't copy every page as I was doing before. It's more important that I understand the concept rather than copying just to give myself busy work
- Start reading Dongho Kim's perspective book and, similarly to Loomis, focus on understanding its different topics
- Start drawing in my traveler's journal EVERY DAY!
- Continue drawing portraits as part of my head studies
- Scale back on gesture drawings to 10 poses, 2-min each

[mitsuki-youko]

ooh you've been busy! these are some great looking studies!

[Gordon003]

Looks great man! I think we have already discussed most of it prior to this art blog post but I reemphasis it again.

1. First off, huge congrats with your new job promotion
2. I don't think we can make noticeable improvement to our gesture drawing unless we explore more on anatomy; hence why I'm also scaling back my gesture drawing though my cartoon works count as one! XD
3. Though we have different art styles/interpretation on facial anatomy study, we can see common ground/construction which allows us to critique it easily and fairly. That says a lot about the value of fundamental.

Keep it up and good luck with everything you are doing!

[Sthingz]

Hi everyone! I am just one day late this time - I am starting to get more comfortable with my work schedule. I was able to finally draw on my traveler's sketchbook during my lunchtime. This was definitely a different drawing experience, but enlightening nonetheless. Moreover, I resumed reading Andrew Loomi's book and I got to learn about the muscles of the face and how these move in concert to create emotions. However, I still did not get to read Dongho's perspective book. I will need to postpone this until later as well as further condense my commitments. So here's last week's progress...

Gesture Drawings (2-3 minutes each pose):

Sketches on the go (30 mins. or less):

Head studies (including portraits):

Key Takeaways:

• Using a reference of the Loomis head is really helpful when drawing extreme angles. In case anybody is interested, I used the following 3d model: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/loomis-head-d0b3f4aa633a44d8bda8cfe2f779f1f8
• The proportions of the head, not the features, are the most important factor when drawing a realistic-looking head (at least at this point of my journey it is)
• Drawing the line of action first is incredibly helpful in gesture drawing
• Forceful lines are important, but too many can obscure the pose's gesture. Instead, focus on their placement and their straight counterparts

Next Week's Commitments:

• Analyze first, and then draw 1-2 portrait(s) a day. Break down the planes and muscles of the face for each one of them. Afterward, practice drawing a few 5-10 minute sketches. I got this idea from Angel Ganev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEBnAr4kaxc
• Continue gesture drawing as a warm up for the first 20 to 30 minutes
• Implement some loose sketching into my daily routine as demonstrated by David Colman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvxjdfs7jjY
• Continue drawing on my traveler's sketchbook

[Sthingz]

Hi everyone! I have been gone for another two weeks, but I made sure to practice drawing. Consequently, I have arrived at some startling realizations regarding my study time which I will share with y'all up ahead. So now I present y'all with my art progress:

Art work/practice:

2-3 min. Gesture Drawings (I think they are looking more fluid; let me know what you guys think please):

Traveler's Journal:

10 min. Portraits (all of the portraits below were drawing in the time interval specified before except for 1 or 2 of them which took me 15 minutes, tops):

Analytical Portraits (w/ the exception of one of these portraits--that of the pink haired girl which I realized was wrong and redrew her in 10 minutes--I tried out shading and deconstructing the different planes and muscles of the face):

Videos and Readings:

I watched Mike Mattesi's FORCE Friday videos on arms and legs which clarified for me how applied and directional force operate in these extremities.

During this time, I continued reading Andrew Loomis book up until page 50 which starts talking about the mechanics of the different facial features, the first one being the mouth. I also started reading Dong Ho's perspective book from its very first page till page 44. I got a lot out of these readings which I will share next.

Key Takeaways:

• Using a sphere as the base for the human cranium, I shouldn't shave off too much of its edges when constructing my head, especially when the head is not angled towards the viewer otherwise it looks like the head is being squished.
• Don't be afraid to drop the chin "2 inches" from its neutral position when the model is opening its mouth such as when laughing or shouting.
• If I want to create the illusion of perspective in a drawing by moving the same character or object farther or closer, I need to make sure the horizon line hits the target at the same spot whether he or it moves backwards or forwards.
• Regarding my study habit, I am again reminded by other people in this forum that more work does not equal more results. What matters is the quality of the study and that I am actually learning from it. For that reason, I will take a different approach to studying this upcoming weeks and see how it goes (stay tuned for updates on this front).

Next Week's Commitments:

• Continue gesture drawing as a warm up (try picking up a pen and paper for a change)
• Analyze one piece a day (consider how the different facial features are affected by the planes of the face)
• Now that I know (at a basic level) the planes of the face, start learning about its fat pads--review Marc's Anatomy 1 video

[snakker]

Really great studies all around, your analysis of the face, ability to construct from reference and apply those things and applying your control of the stylus is improving constantly. I feel I am seeing the evolution of a great artist

keep it up!

[Gordon003]

Was meant to check it up and comment a week ago but got work at hand before the long easter break.
Anyway, here are my notes I made while reading your latest blog.

• Your gesture drawing looks great so far but the key definition/question for yourself is what aspect of your gesture drawing do you want to be fluid at? Is it the flowing line/line efficiency or the movement/expression/momentum or something else? I know it sounds more theory-wise but it's a bit ambiguous to just say i just want to make my gesture drawing fluid without specifying which area you want to be fluid at. For me in my interpretation, fluid gesture drawing is movement/expression which doesn't involves too much construction which I can see in your gesture drawing. But your interpretation is different to mine which is fine by me.
• Your traveler's journal looks great so far. Try to incorporate people interacting with object (especially past object you drawing) into your journal if you can.
• Nice to see your Loomis Head study comes into play! (Kinda convince me to look at Loomis book too!). Also good to see that you are playing around with different facial expression and shading too.
• Regarding about more work != more results, I think it depends on your purpose. If you need to reinforce key concept, I think more work and more practice makes sense in order to reinforce that understanding. But if required to understand key new concept, then it makes more sense to be practice deliberately. I'm currently working to implement deliberate practice for new unknown concept as that's why I was struggling with facial anatomy last year.

Good luck with this art study!

• Tips: You should write a quick summary of what you have learnt from Loomis book or his plate.

[Sthingz]

Thanks Gordon for your feedback. You have given me a lot to think about and I appreciate it. Let me address your points in order:

• I believe my main focus with gesture drawing is not so much fluidity but making my gesture drawing looks alive. To that end, I believe Michael Hampton's gesture drawing style is more reflective of what I want to accomplish. Nevertheless, there's a lot to take away from Mike Mattesi's FORCE approach, for which reason I often go back to it. That being said, I will make sure to focus more on the "aliveness" of the gesture, that way reducing the ambiguity that is currently presented in my gesture drawings. So, to answer your question, I want my gesture's construction to be fluid, with each part of the human body connected to each other in a seamless and natural manner. But please, let me know if this answer suffices as I would be more than happy to revisit this question.
• Roger! I will focus more on drawing people interacting with objects (it's always awkward, though, when people find you staring at them - that was my biggest challenge when drawing people eating or simply sitting down, hence the reason the drawings come up weird)
• I will be changing my study schedule so that learning Japanese and practicing drawing don't conflict with each other. I have found that doing these two hobbies on the same day is inefficient as I either find myself not doing one or the other due to the lack of time. Going forward, I will be drawing on Mondays and Wednesdays, learning Japanese on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and, finally, doing both on Fridays and during the weekends (since I have more time then)
• Last but not least, I will take you up on the suggestion to write a quick summary for each Loomis plate I review. I saw your post and I see a lot of value in doing that. Thanks!

[Sthingz]

Hi everyone! Another 2 weeks have gone by without me posting anything, but here I am. Same deal as last time - I was very busy . However, I have come up with a new schedule that will hopefully balance my other hobbies and work with art. So, without further ado, here's what I worked on:

Gesture drawings:

Facial muscles studies:

Mouth studies:

Portraits:

Key Takeaways:

• Thanks to @Gordon003, I have been able to narrow down my goal when gesture drawing. I want to achieve fluidity in the figure's construction, that is, I want my sketch to flow naturally from one head to toe.
• Play with 2d shapes when drawing portraits of people to accentuate their unique features. In other words, not everything has to be a sphere. Nevertheless, keep in mind the shape's three-dimensionality when placing the features on top of it.
• The key to drawing expressive portraits is remembering what muscles pull on the face to draw that expression and how these affect the facial fat pads.
• The teeth sit in a downward-slopping, angular position. Therefore, when drawing the teeth at eye level, remember that we can "see" part of the top portion of the three-dimensional shape that represents the teeth.
• Boxing in the figure when gesture drawing is a great way to understand how the model sits in space. I learned this tip from a recent video by Love Life Drawing, which was previously recommended to me by @Pattu_w.

Next Week's Commitment:

• Instead of trying to cram art and learning Japanese every weekday, set aside Monday and Wednesday to the former and Tuesday and Thursday to the latter. On Fridays and during the weekends, study both. I believe doing this will help me be more efficient with my time (P.S. I swear I didn't copy @Gordon003 ).
• Resume drawing on my traveler's journal at least a couple of days a week (I am still trying to figure out when I should draw on my journal given that I was training for my new job before but now I am not).
• Continue studying the mechanics of the mouth and drawing skulls from different angles to understand how the teeth look relative to other facial features. While working on this, resume reading Dong Ho's perspective book and applying its concepts to my studies of the head and mouth.
• Draw portraits in a timed setting and then in a non-timed setting, pointing out what muscles are operating and what facial fat pads are being affected. Make sure to also label the planes of the face.
• Once I am done studying the mechanics of the mouth, whether it be this week or the next, write a quick summary of what I learned as suggested by @Gordon003.

Thanks for stopping by! Any feedback is appreciated

[Gordon003]

Going by your definition of fluidity (sketch to flow naturally from head to toe), I think you did a great job capturing quite a lot of detail in your gesture (regardless of how long it takes), I still get the feeling that you are not pushing/exaggerating the pose to better define the pose energy.

Of course, detail are nice but it wouldn't help much if the gesture is much too stiff or expressive enough to showcase important muscle (e.g. holding a sword may require more detail on the arm).

Facial practice wise, that looks impressive that you are working on different facial expression and how each muscles work to make that expression. Maybe you can use another colour/layer to showcase the mouth muscle (forgot the name lol) to make this facial expression in the first place.

[Sthingz]

What's up peeps! I am yet again posting my progress after two weeks, but I have a good reason (I think ). Currently, I am undergoing some more training at work which has been very exhausting and time consuming. For this reason, I have not been able to draw during my breaks. In addition, I will be taking up a bilingual role, which has me studying Spanish outside of work to rebuild my vocabulary. Therefore, it's been pretty hard to find time during the weekdays to not only draw, but also to study Japanese. I understand I am not alone in this, for which reason I can find solace in people like @Gordon003 who travel the same journey and encourage me. After my training is over, meaning the week after the next one, I will hopefully get back some time to draw on my traveler's journal while at work. As far as reviewing Spanish goes, I will have to figure out a way to balance this out with art and Japanese. Although I am fluent (since I spent practically my whole life in South America), it has been around 4 years since I last spoke Spanish on a regular basis. Sure, I frequently speak Spanish at home with my parents, but not doing the same outside really took a toll on my vocabulary. Anyways, getting back to the topic of art, I will post my next progress report two weeks from now, just like I have been doing. Now, here's my art progress for the past two weeks:

Gesture Drawings (3-4 minutes):

Head-only studies:

Mouth-only studies:

Head AND mouth studies:

Key Takeaways:

• Hair is (still) so hard to draw lol
• The less guidelines I draw, the better my portrait turns out. Focus less on details and more on the big picture
• Drawing the skull helps so much in the construction of the head as it helps explain the different facial planes as well as where the teeth go. In retrospect, I should be drawing the skull first, or at least imagining it mentally, as the distinctness of our faces primarily steams from our unique skeletal structure
• Don't be afraid to draw more protruding noses. I tend to make the angel of my drawings' noses a bit too shallow and not as steep as they should be

Next Weeks' Commitments:

• Continue to practice drawing the teeth and jaw, but pivot more of my time to drawing the lips and understanding what parts overlap each other
• Draw (open) mouths from more extreme angles to understand what part of the teeth show and if the tongue is visible
• Limit my gesture drawings to 30 mins. and try doing this on paper (w/ a pen) rather than digitally
• If I have time, resume reading Dong Ho's perspective book which I committed to doing last week but didn't get to (this is more of a nonmandatory task than a commitment)

[Gordon003]

Man, your gesture drawing and facial practice on teeth and jaw looks top notch! Not only that but you also managed to find are of improvement in existing area (nose).

Go nothing much else to say aside from you may want to draw more detail into the person head in gesture drawing (e.g. the middle point of the face) Keep it up and good luck mixing all your work and art hobby at once!

[mitsuki-youko]

Great studies!

Good luck with learning Spanish and Japanese! i also wanna learn more Japanese haha (i only learned up to Japanese 2 in high school like 7-8 years ago so i still only know the basics but know enough to google translate/reverse google translate and know when the translation is wrong and how to roughly get it right lol)

In addition, I will be taking up a bilingual role, which has me studying Spanish outside of work to rebuild my vocabulary.

Ooh congrats!

I can totally relate as i have an opportunity at work that i may be able to get into if i learn OOP coding.

Up til recently, coding was just one of my many hobbies, but recently ive been spending a lot more time learning coding and have been feeling a bit lazy art wise due to the fact that if i don't finish learning coding and get that "out of the way" i can't concentrate on my fun-est(?) hobbies like drawing, worldbuilding, character building, plotbuilding ie work on my personal passion project. that and the fact that i finished a mv that took 200+ hrs across 2 months to make recently made me slow down so i havent posted in my thread since i finished the mv i am also on vacay as well so hopefully i will get back into it in a week or two. i kinda feel bad when im not working on my personal project since i often complain that i dont have enough time to make significant progress but have realized over the years that taking breaks is very important so my "excuse" is that "life's getting in the way rn" and "i just popped out a mv" so i can take a bit of a break and not feel bad