Ian - Art School Journey

Hi everyone! I've been a student since March and decided I should probably make better use of the resources provided to me by getting consistent feedback so I'm better able to correct my mistakes.

Background and Long Term Goals
My goal is to eventually have my own web comic and get into 2D animation. I went to college to get a Bachelor's degree in Microbiology and, after working in the field of analytical science for almost 5 years now... I hate it. I'm really bored. So I'm going back to what I love: Drawing and creating. I've been drawing since 2007, but I naively thought I was good (as a middle school kid) and didn't practice correctly, so this year has been about building a strong foundation from the ground up.

Current Goals
I took this week off from work to really focus on practice (my own little art boot camp) and then I'll get back to a healthier, more sustainable, practice schedule next week. My main goal for this week is to nail down effective practice techniques and exercises.

I'm not sure what to post first, so I'll work on some basics today and post them below when I complete them. Probably some line control exercises, 3D shapes, and one point perspective.

EDIT: adding the last thing I finished before I started the course.

Now that I'm several months in, I see how rough my anatomy was and how flat the whole thing looks. I still haven't done much with lighting, so I know that's a huge issue with this, but I can only get better from here.

First stuff: Line control

I consider line control one of my weakest areas of the things I've practiced so far. These were all first takes (meaning I didnt use undo 500 times like I usually do).

• Going over line segments 8x in various directions for various line lengths (I think diagonal is my best for long lines)
• Hatching (heh... my 'gradient' has the most change in value at the bottom...)
• Pressure control (I notice straight lines are much harder to do when trying to vary pressure)

If anyone knows some additional exercises I can do, please let me know!

I'll add a benchmark to the first post for where I was when I first started the course. I haven't done any finished pieces since March, so I really only have where I started.

I was practicing torso anatomy today trying to focus on specific muscle groups. I got some help with adding form to some flat looking muscle groups, but its definitely something I still need to work on. I only really got through one angle today. I'll try to do more than one angle in the future.

I'll get back to more shape practice and hopefully it'll help with my flatter forms (I'm looking at that far deltoid >.>)

And thanks for the tips, I think I saw something similar to that on Draw a Box with dots and line segments.

SO Takes breath my hand hurts after the gesture drawings. I started with a proportion refresher then I moved on to the 1 minute and 30 second gesture drawings. I shrank them down so they'd all fit in one page. You can kind of tell when I got warmed up and things started making a little more sense.

Practice Sheet Week 2.jpg5100x6600 2.05 MB

There's a solid mix of readable poses and messy ones and I'm ok with that. Its all practice.

My reference images came from https://jookpubstock.com/reference/fullbody/standing/ if anyone wants to know/use the source.
I'm going to try to do a 30 minute session of these daily, but I'll only post gestures once a week.

I want to try and do my 1 point perspective assignment this week. I've started it so it won't be too long. Definitely my goal for tomorrow.

I was gripping the pencil too hard. As I was drawing them, my grip tightened a lot. I don't think i was drawing from the wrist, but I was moving quick and old habits die hard so I suppose its definitely possible. I resized most of these to fit on the page.

I should invest in one of the ergonomic grips for pens. I have a bad habit of gripping the pen too hard.

So I've been working on some personal projects and one of the issues I'm noticing is that my faces aren't really succeeding at that 3D illusion. They're lacking form and not following the curvature of the face like they ought to. By 'they' I mean the facial features.

So I did some studying of the skull itself like when I originally studied the torso and pelvis waaay back in March. This is just one set of examples and They definitely need more work.

My plan is to go through and study the muscles, fat pads, and then each facial feature individually. I want to be in-depth since my goal is to have a webcomic and the focus will be on the characters.

I've also been studying concepts behind perspective and touched a little on light and cast shadow in the past few weeks, so I feel more mentally prepared to tackle the subjects once I finish with my head study. Then I can finally dive into arms and legs.

I ... I don't have a justification for why I'm bouncing back and forth in topics instead of focusing down anatomy then other parts of the fundamentals

Also Papyrus is here to make skull studies fun when I get a little bored.