Howdy all! I hope your weeks went well and that you all are happy and healthy!
Overall, I feel like I'm making some important progress. This concerns improving my gesture work, core foundational linework (circles, straight lines, etc), my patience when working on more complex/time-demanding projects/assignments, and my own tendency to "negatively frame" frustrations and setbacks. Also the daily habits formed over the last month+ has been fantastic.
Popping back in last week provided some great direction and recommendations that were very helpful to improve my linework, so thanks again for that. I have continued to do daily warm-up exercises to refine and continue these items.
Daily Gestures @ 2min each:
The changes I made to the linework most significantly impacted my gestures. Even though there are some gesture pieces that missed the mark, it feel like when they "flow," they create a more powerful image. I also hit the 20 hour "Beginner" mark on QuickPoses and I'm pleased with what I'm seeing. I think I might be pushing the gesture to be perhaps a little too cartoony, but I kinda like that…
Perspective:
This was fun for the most part. Not having something in mind to create made it probably more difficult. Kind of like a "blank canvas." Pretty unfocused, but its good to practice both with software guide tools and without them. Looking forward to the "room" assignment.
Draw from Reference with Measuring Tool:
The daily practice to draw from reference with measuring proved to be difficult and there are a number of places where I need to focus for improvement. I'm planning on doing at least two more with next week's work in hopes that it all fully clicks. With precision being the goal, there is a need to operate significantly slower than the simple gesture drawings, but at the same time I feel like I need to lay it in as a gesture drawing, then iterate through with a measurement tool to tighten it up before a final pass to establish line thickness as is appropriate to the subject matter. I recall doing a few drawing using pencils in my university drawing courses, but I have not used this in years, so I've been a bit rusty and essentially have needed to rebuild that method of drawing.
The last image was done yesterday, but was not completed because I had to leave the house for the day and did not return in time to work on it further. So I attempted to create a single head-length 'ruler' on it's own layer and use that ruler through the image to make sure everything is internally consistent. I ran into an issue of not being able to "anchor" anything because everything else was relative to something else. In effort to anchor it, I did a quick gesture drawing over it, which helped me instantly pick out some issues. But I ran out of time to explore re-measuring and finishing - which is why I'm going to do a couple more of these next week. I am also going to make an effort to internalize reading angles, as a number of my errors stem from not angling a joint properly which leads to distortions or other angles not being done correctly either.
Character Lineart Studies:
I finished up my Lobo Cover after Simon Bisley and made some progress on the Cohen piece after Paul Kidby. I'm pretty pleased with this, but instantly can see issues (and noted these issues way earlier, but choose to not fix it). I feel like I need to work on some aspects of undoing this "good enough" approach because it is clearly making my final pieces weaker. I think part of it is that I hate having to redo work, but then again, isn't that how we make ANY drawings? I mean it's even ingrained in standard comic division of labor between layouts, penciling, and inking.
Next Week:
Moving on to Term 1 Week 6. I'm a little bit concerned about what a 5 minute Gesture Drawing would even be like. I feel like some of my 2 minute ones had extra time remaining, but I didn't add any details because at that point it becomes something other than a gesture drawing. I guess I'll try to fold in using a unit of measure and sight-reading angles?
I've got 3 targets for the Environmental Master Studies: Mead, McQuarrie, and something from KeyForge (not sure which/who, but I was impressed by the Fantasy Flight Games RPG). Of course I'm planning on finishing at least one more lineart study.
Ok, that's it for now. I'm chilling the rest of the day and hopefully getting some time logged on Phantom Liberty. Feel free to make some suggestions or point out of flaws I'm making. Please, as it's going to make my art stronger as I work to resolve those issues.
Thanks and have a great week ahead!
-Jim
