Giang - Art School Journey

[giang.sofl.k58]

It's been a while. Here are some nose sketches. This facial feature is a really challenge for me, and I find that Brunet's nose drawing method is way too complicated. He did a really good job on explaining the forms and structure, but I could not follow the drawing steps, didn't know why tho. So I looked it up for some more tutorials, and Proko's and Marco Bucci's were really helpful. Anyway, I really appreciate constructive criticism, thank you!

I felt really burnout in the last month. There are so many things that I have not known, so many things to learn, and I tried to learn a lot in a short period of time. I felt rushed when drawing and painting, and nothing came out good. I stopped drawing for like a week or ten days to think about what I should do to improve my art skills.

I decided to go back to the basics - you know, lines, shapes, forms,... all that stuff. I went through the first lesson on drawabox, and powered through the 250-box-challenge. I found out that my pen control is not really good, especially with curves and circles. My observation skill is not good either as the proportions in my drawings are often off, and it takes really long time to measure to get it right. Do you have any advice on how to improve those skills? How do you often practice drawing/painting? Just some personal thoughts, but I think this community is a great place to share those kinds of story. Really thankful to be a part of it.

Anyway, I feel much better now, so I decided to come back to practice drawing human heads. I also plan to continue follow the lessons on drawabox in my freetime, and I strongly recommend it as I believe it helps to establish a strong foundation for drawing.

[Pattu_w]

I know what you mean by Marc's way of drawing the nose, i also felt like it was a bit overly complicated, but the volume knowledge that it gave is priceless.

Overall, i would say to not stress too much about results and to really try not to overwork yourself. It's a gradual improvement, let's say you never run in your life, then the first time you go for a quick jog, you go out filled with expectives of how you will perform, most likely than not you won't manage to run not even 10 min straight. But if you keep at it, maybe next week you will manage to run for 10 min and the one after that maybe you run for 12 min and so on. Small victories are the key.
When in the day i don't feel like drawing or when everything i do look awful to my eyes, i stop, look at my old drawings and see how far i managed to go in comparison, then i just fill 2 pages with circles and call it a day lol just to not lose that daily drawing habit, but you can bet those are some goddam pretty circles lol

[giang.sofl.k58]

Thank you so much!

[giang.sofl.k58]

Mouth drawing practice. The 3/4 view was a tough challenge, but overall, I'd say this feature is easier to draw than the nose. Constructive criticism is welcome, thanks.

[daceronine]

If you haven't try to draw them from references. It helps to keep those proportions tighter. Also noticed you have two lines for the lower lip, but it's intended to have one single lip line in the middle. Lower lip is like two pieces while the upper is three.

Personally I find the mouth a bigger challenge... mostly because drawing lipstic and shadows on them can be tricky. Gets even more tricky with expressions since the lips pull in different ways.

Keep truckin man.

[giang.sofl.k58]

Thank you so much! I used references when drawing the features since they are all new to me. Gotta pay more attention to the proportions tho.

[Gordon003]

Just a piece of advice - if you are overwhelmed by head and figure drawing or study in general, it's alright to do some study in your preferred area like Pokemon cartoon style for example. In other word, personalise your art journey to avoid being burnt out or being overwhelmed.

But looking at your nose and lips practice, looks you have relatively little trouble so keep it going!

[giang.sofl.k58]

That's a great idea. Maybe I will spend half an hour or an hour a day to draw whatever I like or what make me feel comfortable. Thank you so much for the advice!

[giang.sofl.k58]

Today practice is all about the ear. Just one facial feature left: The eyes. Hopefully I can start study full heads this week. As always, I really appreciate constructive criticism, thank you!

[daceronine]

I have to echo what @Gordon003 said. It can be easy to get frustrated with progress (especially when you turn around and see all these amazing artists and other peers who seem to be progressing at an impressive rate), or by not getting the recognition one would want, especially when those likes start coming around.

Make sure you enjoy the process and stop to appreciate the progress you are making. It's really all about having fun while doing this journey.

[giang.sofl.k58]

Thank you, I'll be enjoying the learning process more, rather than just focus on the results that I try to get in a short period of time. I have been slowing down the process in the past few days, and actually I could take in more knowledge. For example, instead of trying to learn all the facial features in one day, I just tackled one each day and spent time practicing drawing them until I got familiar with the shapes and structures. It's much better than trying to absorb a huge amount of knowledge all at once. Anyway, thank you guys so much for your kind words and advice.

[daceronine]

That's the spirit!

For example, instead of trying to learn all the facial features in one day, I just tackled one each day and spent time practicing drawing them until I got familiar with the shapes and structures

Marc himself mentioned he does exactly this, he'll do a piece, come to something he's unsure off, like the knee, then go into a tangent to learn knees, maybe do 5 or 10 exercices on the knee, and once he feels he gets a good grasp on it, come back to continue with his character, repeating the process if he bumps into a similar piece, like the nose.

Not necessarily what you have to do, but it is indeed a good idea to focus on individual elements at a time instead of trying to take a whole bunch at once.

[giang.sofl.k58]

My eye studies.

[daceronine]

Very nice eyes works! You are also improving on that shading

[giang.sofl.k58]

Finally, my first not-chibi-head study ever! And it was tough! The 3/4 view ones are really off, even though I tried to construct to head carefully, gotta practice more. Any tips on how to practice drawing heads?

Also, quick question. I really like semi-real and stylized styles. I'm not really into realism. I only study heads from real models to understand the shapes and the proportions. Should I continue studying from real references, or should I study from other artists' work to practice my desired styles? Sorry for my bad English, but I hope you get my point. Thank you.

[daceronine]

Hey, good practice man. These are the first of many more heads, I'm sure you'll see improvement as you work through the terms.

Something that helps me check the proportions of my heads, may it be front, 3/4 or otherwise, is to flip your drawing horizontally, it's a nice trick to force your eyes to see your drawings from a fresh perspective quickly, which will allow you to easily identify missproportions.

Placing the reference side to side also helps easily identify mayor points, I think I found one of the references, or at least one that looks very similar. Finding something similar, or even taking a photo yourself can help as a base.

For example, here you can see how the left part of the face doesn't keep the perspective, in the original the right eye is slightly bigger than the left one to account for the perspective among other points. The forehead is also cut short on the top but stretched to the left, and the nose and mouth could use some adjustments.

As for practice, pretty much yes to all you said.

1) Practice from references, first from real photos to understand how proportions work realistically, then also from famous artists you want to imitate to see how they stylize the specific parts. You don't have to "move" from real to stylized at some point or anything like that. When practicing you can do both, do a photo, and do one from an artist. Marc's exercices will frequently include both types through out the course.

2) Continue practicing your fundamentals, figures, volumes, 3D spatial awarness, observation, gestures, sketching, as you continue to refine all these, your overall skill will improve. Like improving the ingredients you cook with.

3) When practicing from references, you can just copy what you see to compare it, it's a good exercice, but what I found works for me better is to use the reference as a base, but still change it to force me to "get the essentials", like the gesture, mayor lines, form, structure, etc. Using a model as a base but use a different character. Marc does something similar in his studies where he will use references, but create a different character or pieces.

For example, from my Term 3:

[giang.sofl.k58]

Thank you so much! The flipping-the-canvas trick will definitely come in handy with my future practice. Also, from what I understand from your comment, we should study to understand the fundamentals, not just copy the references pixel by pixel, right? That's a great mindset that I'm trying to follow, but sometimes I find myself catching up in copying the references without thinking about the fundamentals. Anyway, I really appreciate the advice, thank you!

[daceronine]

we should study to understand the fundamentals, not just copy the references pixel by pixel

This is exactly right! If you can get the essentials, you can then use those to build other things for your work. Initially it is good to try to copy, but slowly you want to understand how things work to reproduce them, and not just copy them.

Like cooking, you want to make a pizza, you first copy what someone else does as closely as you can, but as you do it more and more and get better, you start to understand how the ingredients work and start tweaking things a bit to do something a bit different, maybe something you like more.

[snakker]

Absolutely agree with @daceronine. As a matter of fact, copying pixel per pixel is one of the hurdles I had at first when doing portraits, I would lose focus on construction at some point and start copying the reference as a 2D object rather than analyze the volumes and why the shadows are where they are, this led me to unexpected mistakes. What helped me was mid way to draw a wireframe of the contours to double check or try to draw the skull underneath and take a breath

That said, there is no right or wrong way to do anything here. As a matter of fact many masters used reference and painted as 2D as you can imagine. Their underdrawings were basically shape and shadow maps rather than constructions and it's ok, it worked for them. In the end, having a grasp on both construction and direct copying is very useful, I typically find myself doing both things a lot. A little bit of direct copy for block in, then construct within proportions, then copy shadows or shapes then understand construction to place the appropriate shadows, midtones etc. I'm constantly juggling mindsets within the work.

As for style, my personal philosophy is to be style agnostic and style fluent XD What I mean is, you don't learn "style" to begin with, rather the fundamentals. Style is usually an abstraction - in stead of drawing what you see you draw what you want/ a symbol/ omit details/ simplify something/ exaggerate something. So if you learn fundamentals and study a style, you will be able to replicate the style. A lot of people fall into a trap of "developing a personal style" to the point where the style defines the artist but in reality as you do art, you will develop a certain artist's signature in your work regardless, no need to look for it directly.

What I am not saying tho, is to avoid doing what you enjoy. I think if you want to draw in a particular style because that makes you happy, you should go for it!

cheers

[giang.sofl.k58]

Thank you so much!