Jalen - Art School Journey - A Fresh Start

[jjjam424]

Greetings all. My name is Jalen Jamison, I'm an amateur artist who is mostly good at pencil and paper drawing have been trying to self teach for the past 2-3 years. The approach I took before to learning the fundamentals wasn't organized and took a lot of time compared to the results I was getting, I wasn't able to get the polished, structured, and lively feeling art I wanted. I knew about this Art School course for a while, and after seeing and appreciating the results I got from another online course I am currently taking to learn Blender I got this one because I think I can make similar progress. My goal is to be able to make beautiful and polished artwork using a solid understanding of the fundamentals and apply the knowledge to my projects and other interests. Below is an example of my abilities before taking the course.

[NikoM]

Hey Jalen and welcome on board. I hope you reach your goals!

[chomper2010]

Welcome to the forums! I think you are in the right place to accomplish your goals. I love the piece, that would be a good one to revisit over time! Can't wait to see where this journey takes you, seems like you already have a good foundation underneath you so that'll be beneficial!

Looking forward to seeing your future work!

[patrycja.lerch]

Welcome to the forums Jalen!

[jjjam424]

Thank you everyone for the kind and supportive words.

Funny story is this linework exercise is what sold me on getting the course, because I was really bad at linework on my display tablet. This is despite the fact that I can produce decent lines on pen and paper. Something about doing it digitally felt more slippery I guess lol. But I can already tell that this exercise will go a long way in helping me be more confident and dexterous. I'll post this exercise again when I finish the first term.

[jjjam424]

This was a fun exercise. It's good thing that Krita has all the same tools that Photoshop did for it with some slight differences. I learned a lot about how the tools worked when trying to get the colors to match.

[jjjam424]

The extended version of the Pen Control exercise is even more of a grind to get through. But will be really useful for dexterity and muscle memory. Still pain.

[jjjam424]

First time doing figure drawing exercises 1-3. I'm finding this exercise pretty helpful in getting a basic handle on drawing dynamic poses with a sense of volume.

[chomper2010]

These are looking good! Keep up the good work!!

[jjjam424]

Finished all the "photoshop" stuff for this week, before taking this course I was in college for graphic design so I already had some experience with these tools. Had the most fun with the clone brush and combining image assignments. I think this editing stuff will be useful for tweaking artwork and throwing together references. The alien face gave me a hard time though.

[jjjam424]

First time doing the first 9 of the daily pen control exercises. I think this is a step up from the sheet and it is really helping me get used to the tools in krita as well as encouraging me to try different brushes.

First day of the 30 second poses. This was a real challenge for me but ultimately worth it because one of my main motivations is to make my drawings feel alive.

[jjjam424]

This Assignment took a while to complete but I had fun with it.

[jjjam424]

8 head proportions left one was based off of an illustration by Loomis

[chomper2010]

Really nice work on those studies! I admire your choices, you chose some pretty complex characters with a lot of details in them. You really handled them well, really nice job! I especially love your Kaine, Spiderman, and the lady above Spiderman (apologies don't know all the characters hahah) Your Spiderman in particular really works, the little bit of shading really makes him pop. Nice job!

[jjjam424]

These are the character Line art studies I've completed for Term 1. These took a bit too long. I think I've learned everything I need to learn from Term 1, which for me was getting used to drawing digitally and pushing myself to complete individual drawings. I will continue to push myself further in Term 2!

[jjjam424]

Starting Term 2 off strong with the week 1 Self Portrait. I had fun with using my phone as a mirror for this. Before I took this course I did draw a lot of self portraits so I got back into this more naturally.

[jjjam424]

Character Heads 1-9 from the week 2 assignment. I'm starting to really push myself with these though I did struggle with Mile's nose.

[jjjam424]

Week 3 Portrait Study. Had fun getting the proportions of the face right with the snake covering it.

[jjjam424]

I think I did a pretty good job drawing the head from memory. But I made his snoot too long.

[jjjam424]

Did all of these in one sitting. Will refine them more when I do the hair assignment. Drawing things from imagination is still very challenging for me but I think this is good for now.