Term 2 - Photoshop (2)

Beginning of Term 2 and I again start with Photoshop first. There are 2 sections in the lesson but I mostly focused on the last part since I have done graphic design before and is familiar with pen tool and vector works.

Part 1 - Tools for Graphic Designers

Primary Tool - Pen Tool

Pen Tool involves anchor (to make points) and handle (to make curve line)

Layer Style - Add special effect without editing the original image (e.g. basic shadow)

Smart Object - group multiple layers together which can be edited in another window

Like mentioned before, I did some graphic design before. I do Total Drama art style which involves consistent line art, making sense to use pen tool. But I don't use Photoshop to do lineart; rather, I use Xara which is another software program that has pen tool along with the ability to dynamically change line width, hence why I work on Xara to digitise my TD work.

Despite that, I will definitely do those exercise at a later time to refine my pen tool skill.

In summary, I'm all too familiar with the pen tool so I didn't do much in this section aside from watching the video. Here's an example of my TD vector work which involves pen tool. Notice the consist line width thanks to the pen tool.

Part 2 - Tools for Digital Artists

Primary Tool - Brush Tool

Can use default or customised brush

Can do blending via smudge tool or good pen control (more recommended)

Can use blending to achieve shading and remove visible line difference

Can make custom pattern brushes to avoid drawing the same thing (e.g. seagulls far from the user view)

This section is more interesting as I have little experience in brush tool, let alone trying to blending with it! So the challenge of blending 2 to 4 colours is hard but very cool. Will definitely add those challenge to my daily art practice.

Here's my first blending assignment. Yeah, I know it's poor.

Overall

50% familiar, 50% not. The brush uses and blending application is one of the reasons I joined the art school. Although I did a lot of graphic artworks via TD, I'm absolutely hopeless in doing digital painting or using the brushes. As a result, I'm glad that I'm in this art school as it offers me good perspective on how to use digital art brushes.

I just simply enjoy doing Total Drama art style. Don't know why but it's just my childhood stuff which later got me into art at a later age. Alas, although I'm pretty good at TD, it's also kinda a curse as I struggle to explore other digital art medium such as digital painting and anime. This is why I joined the art school in the first place; to rework on my flawed fundamental to allow me to explore other areas with ease.

And thanks for your tip on blending! I keep the idea of using soft edge brush in my mind. Even though I do know how easy it is to use soft edge, I figure I need to work on my fundamental so I will continue to practice with hard edge till I'm used to it.

Term 2 - Facial Anatomy

It has been.... 2 months since I last made a post here. Don't worry, I haven't quit art; rather, it's the first time I encountered my art problems and took my time slowly; albeit not very consistent. It's important to note that my drawing head skill is still sub-par but I have learnt essential concepts required to keep practicing drawing facials over time.

Head Construction

This is pretty easy for me since I learnt the Loomis Head method before. But I haven't got much experience constructing it so I spent most of the time just practising.

The biggest challenge is setting up the circle inside the sphere to differentiate the front and side plane. But Proko explained pretty well on it.

Ear Construction

This is where the challenging part starts but at a small scale. There are technical terms for each ear parts (e.g. Lobule) but the more important facts is the steps taken to deconstruct an ear in order to reconstruct it again, preferably in a different angle.

If you ask me how to draw a ear, I will just say "Draw a semi-heart, draw a '9' on inside it, draw a circle at the bottom and connect them". I don't remember the technical words for key parts of the ear but I know enough visually and conceptually to deconstruct it. But I know in the future that I have to eventually learn the anatomy term for each part.

Nose Construction

The first big challenges. This is the part where I legit questioned myself "Am I good at doing art at all?" I learnt a lot not only on nose construction but also how I learn art overall and integrate other people methods to draw particular parts.

I will admit straight-up that I now don't use Marc's method of drawing nose. It makes sense at the end but when practising with it, I struggle to even finish drawing the nose at all! I eventually remembered that some methods doesn't fit for ALL people so I decided to browse Youtube, watched other artists explained how they deconstruct noses and not fully switches to their methods but rather have a mix of steps that makes sense for me and allows me to draw nose more easily.

I think this learning method is very important to me as I hardly ask or question why the artist does this way or this other way. But now, not only I ask question but also try in a blend of different methods to see if it works for me or not. So yeah, don't be afraid to try new methods and mix some!

So I used Marc's method with a mix from the following 2 videos.

Mouth Construction

This one is much easier than the nose construction as there's not many too key mouth parts to remember and deconstructing was pretty easier; albeit minor trouble when deconstructing from a 3/4 views when one side of mouth overlaps the other side.

I didn't do much practice so I don't have any images of my mouth practices. Sorry lmao.

Eye Construction

Same as Mouth Construction, pretty easy to go through as there's not much parts involved aside from our eye sphere and our eye shape which looks like a quadrilateral. Aside from that, I also didn't do much practice on eye but I have a good idea enough to deconstruct it.

Combine it all together

So the money challenge. Put them all together at one. The biggest challenge is not constructing it but rather shading it to give depth and perspective. Like I said on Photoshop (II ) post, I just started on shading and I mostly draw very quickly and sloopily at the last stage so my shading is mostly done with a big air brush and go around like a maniac.

Here's my first 2 complete facial anatomy work so far.

Overall

Like I said, I learnt a lot not only on facial anatomy but also how to find new ways of drawing if one way of drawing is frustrating you. We are all individuals and we have different ways of drawing key parts with the same understanding of the anatomy.

So even if I quit art school somewhat in the future, the one thing I take is look at something from a new perspective. Try to do the same thing but in a different methods and see if it works out for you.

That's all from me. See you in the next 3 months as I'm doing Perspective 2, lmao.

NOTE: I found this on Discord which is a perfect summary of this video on facial anatomy. Don't know who made this but credit to them for sharing!

Art Pose Challenge (Continued)

Much appreciated for the kind words, @Lockenheim

Btw, I read through your blog and have a question in regard about your sketch line.

I noticed that your sketching line is pretty thin and mostly is only 1 stroke, something I wouldn't say the same for my sketching on figure drawing. Do you contribute this to your drawing line practice or your meticulous slow speed? One of my biggest weakness is drawing line too quickly (hence the "scratch") and I'm trying to remedy that now.

Focus this week (4/4/22 - 10/4/22)

Gonna be more consistent with my blogging. so here we go.

Updates

Continuation of Facial Anatomy

Although I technically finished the facial anatomy course in T2, I decided to rerun everything one more time, starting with the Loomis head construction. At first, I'm still struggling with medium-extreme perspective so I decided to have a look at ALL POSSIBLE angles of the head construction.

One particular method I found from here is the usage of circle to set up the head construction, so I don't need to worry about drawing the circle in the first place. Here's my current work on head construction so far.

I will continue to work on head construction but later move on to ears this week.

Start on Perspective (2)

Since I finished watching and understanding facial anatomy, I decided to move onto perspective. But I kinda lost my knowledge of previous perspective knowledge so I was mostly reconnecting with 1 and 2 point perspective.

Next week, I hope to have a go at 3 points perspective.

Weekly TD Sketches

This week, I decide to challenge by doing a daily quick sketches of my favourite cartoon, Total Drama. No lineart, no colouring. Just a quick sketch and a general test on not only my pencil skill but my shading too. So far, so good.

If there's one I relearnt, it's simply to have fun. All those learning doesn't make Gordon a happy artist, lmao.

Figure Drawing

I slow down on my figure drawing from Discord for now. This week, I did some figure but try to do shading too which I feel is the next logical step since I'm doing blending too in Photoshop (II). I also tried some basic muscle anatomy by looking at other artist's work and practice by tracing and understanding why/how they do it.

Feel for Next Week

I feel I need to work more on my blending and shading personally but this can be incrementally improved by each work so I wouldn't focus too much on it.

I will continue to rework on my facial anatomy while learning some perspective at night time.

Thanks for reading and any constructive criticism are welcome.