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.

Focus on this week (11/4/22 - 17/4/22)

Sorry about the late response as I was out on a family holiday for the whole Easter break... which is basically a long trip driven by me.

Anyway, here I go with W2 of my weekly blog.

Update

Facial Anatomy

In this week, I continued to work and review on head construction and later started on ear construction. But due to impending deadline of uni assignment (which is done thx god) and the family holiday drive which I already mentioned, I didn't much art study as I hoped before.

Anyway, I continued to practice head construction by focusing on head perspective in ALL angles. This is done via observing and retracing head parts that I struggle with (e.g. extreme left upper angle). A particular problem is the side part of the head but I later got used to it as I keep observing it.

Ear-wise, I admitted that I skip through ear construction too quick as it looks simpler when tracing it. However, when I tried to draw it without any tracing and tried to construct it, I realise that it was harder than expected, in particular the inside of the ear and the side view of the ear which looks like a hat like mentioned in the video. So I was kinda glad that I get to go back and review on it.

Weekly TD Sketches

I continued the challenges of doing a daily sketches of Total Drama arts. Going back to previous week, I acknowledged that I went too long on my drawing as the original purpose was to reignite and maintain my drawing habit at the start, not to showcase my art skill.

With that mindset, I later become looser and not worry too much about key measurement I used to take when actually drawing to the fullest (e.g. proportion, construction) and just take this as a warmup.

So far, so good. Kept my drawing to max 1 hour so that I can start my programming job in a better mindset and have art practice to keep my art hand working.

Holiday Sketch

Even though I was outside for most of the time, I took this time to do some non-technology drawing. Not gonna lie, I kinda forgot how to took my time when drawing so it was a pleasant experience to do some paper drawing which taking my time.

Look toward Next Week

Yes, I haven't done any figure drawing at all which is something I want to work on too.

But I have too much art interest so I need to find a delicate measure between art practice (facial anatomy, figure drawing and perspective) and project (total drama art) to ensure that I don't burnout this week.

I also need to work on perspective too... my god I have way too much work lmao.

Proposed goal this week:

• Continue to do weekly quick TD doodles
• Review Nose construction and blending practice
• Review 2 and 3 points perspective
• Have fun lmao

Anyway, that's my goal for this week. Don't have much time since I posted this on Tuesday night! Better get going...

Focus on this week (18/4/22 - 24/4/22)

Week 3 of this blog and I got a uni test to get ready for next week. But once done, it's all art at night time!

Update

Overall Art School

I decided to group both facial anatomy and perspective together since I haven't done much to it this week. Not only I was busy with uni work but I also have an upcoming TD project for the next months.

But once I finish my uni studies early next month, I should be able to continue my art studies with minor trouble. But as of this moment, I feel it's better to temporarily stop my art studies this week and focus on both uni test and personal art project before resuming.

Weekly TD Doodle

Week 3 and I'm struggling to keep this habit in the morning, mainly because I believe that I woke up too late which give zero time to do art doodle between wake up and my primary job. Plus some of them are not doodles as some of them are for my personal art project.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to know that I remain committed to make this a daily habit.

If there's one thing I learnt, it's that I'm becoming more quicker and observant in breaking down the reference pose before converting into cartoony pose. Now, I have a consistent process of making my doodle which is:

1. Break Reference pose into key parts
2. Experiment around on making the cartoonistic version based on the reference
3. Work on the basic skeleton cartoon form
4. Add basic meats/muscle into the skeleton
5. Add extra detail if desired. (e.g. skeleton)

Upcoming TD x NBA Project

This upcoming Total Drama project was based on part 2 seasons. An NBA fan, I wanted to make Total Drama version of NBA but I wasn't able to complete both season due to frustration and art burnout. Although I wanted to do it again, I put some measures to ensure that it won't happen again.

1. Much like my TD doodles, I wouldn't focus too much on getting it "accurate" and "right". Rather, I should encourage to just look at the gesture and not worry too much about the proportion.
2. I set up the background template so that I don't need to keep making from scratch for each playoff.
3. I make a quick sketch of both teams winning so that when I know which team has won, I can just focus on the line art and basic colouring.
4. I would do line art but it wouldn't be accurate as before. Rather, it will be more practice than actual skill.

Wish me luck on that project. I will post it on my weekly blogs.

Look toward Next Week

This week wouldn't be too much on art studies so I won't make much promises aside from getting ready for the final test on next week and starting on my personal art project. Thanks for reading my week 3 blog!

NB: I also revamped my Trello schedule board which contains my personal workload of uni and art. Here's a link to check it out!

https://trello.com/b/DTp48fzl

Focus on 2 weeks (25/4/22 - 8/5/22)

Apologise for not blogging on last week as I have university final exam (only 1 so no pressure... kinda) and also was busy doing other stuff.

Despite the fact that I haven't done much art for those 2 weeks, this is the best week on a personal career basis as I managed to secure a ongoing permanent contract with my current company after 2 fixed-terms contract.

With that contract, hopefully I can continue to do art without my parent bickering on why I'm not working. XD

Anyway, I recount my brief art progress in the last 2 weeks.

Update

Art School

Again, haven't done much human anatomy and perspective. It's easy to pinpoint my uni as the problem but it's also my lack of motivation to continue on anatomical studies.

But with university term done and not planning to do it next term (not that serious anymore due to work), I planned to continue more on anatomical work. However, I don't want to go straight into work in fear of burnout.

So, I took a light approach on coming back to my studies:

• Do some basic gesture/figure drawing
• I also bought a book on anatomical studies for motivational purpose and give myself another medium to study at (paper rather than digital)

Doodles

I continue to do doodles albeit not as common as the first 2 weeks. The main reason is the time I did it as I ideally want to do it before my work starts (so around 7 - 9am). However, I often wake up late or not bother to wake up at all so by the time I'm ready to do some doodle, my actual work has started and I can't do the doodle at all.

I also notice that I draw in different colours as I began to draw in any colours aside from black. So far, blue is my preferred sketching colour at the moment.

TD NBA

This is going pretty slowly both because of university schedule and lack of motivation. Initailly, I want to do basketball pose but I eventually understood that not only many people that like TD also likes NBA but also I don't have the interest to do it too.

So to mend that, I decide to not do basketball pose but rather have funny expressive interaction that describes the NBA result rather than an iconic basketball pose which not many people understand.

So far, I only got 2 done but there's a lot more to do as the second round is heating up!

Look toward Next Week

So next week will be more of a revisit than an art study for me. Just try to reengage myself on anatomical studies while working on my personal projects at the same time... at least my uni is done so that's one less stuff to worry about!

So in summary, I will:

• Re-engage on facial anatomical studies (mostly review)
• Re-engage on perspective (review on 1 and 2 points perspective before moving onto 3 points)
• Set up an effective morning art habit
• Just have fun! All works and no fun makes Gordon a dull person.

Anyway, I'm active on Discord so feel free to hit me with a dm if you want to (Gordon003#7031) and thx for reading Week 4-5 blog!