Jons Art Progress Blog

[jonmatheson]

Hi Everyone!

I'm Jon, I'm a Graphic Designer from Devon, UK.
I grew up desperatley wanting to be a concept artist and pursued it through college, but back then I was a little naive to the work that was involved; I thought I could wing it purely on passion alone and skimped out on a lot of the fundamentals. I was young and ended up dropping out of college. Although I enjoy the career path i've made for myself as a Graphic Designer, I've always felt like there's something missing and I always end up coming back to Marc Brunets videos and yearning for the feeling i got when drawing or looking at concept and character art.
I discovered his Art School and decided I'm going to "start again" with drawing. My drawings lack a lot of basic stuff behind them and I find i just end up getting frustrated and unhappy with everything I draw now because of it. So i've starte Art School with a fresh mind and am doing it for myself this time without the necessary pressure of making a job out of it.
I'm pretty busy now with my job and 2 kids, but i feel like i'm building momentum already and am super excited about the journey ahead and meeting other people along the way!
I'm currently waiting for my new pc to arrive so i'm drawing on paper at the moment, here are some scans from the first video on Gesture Drawing:

[dangras-almeida]

Hey Jon,

Welcome to ArtSchool!
Really resonated with your story because I have a similar situation (UX Designer that always wanted to be a Concept/Character Artist).

Hope you enjoy the program and keep the updates coming! Good stuff so far 👍

Cheers

[jonmatheson]

Hi Dangras! Thank you
Ah that's great to hear- and comforting after seeing your progression too! You looking to slowly overlap into full time Concept/character art eventually or still keep UX on the side?
I am enjoying it loads and am hoping my motivation stays the way it's going!
Likewise to you man, keep the updates coming!

[jonmatheson]

So I've finished the perspective video and picked up the Art Study Schedule!

Perspective
So i'm not going to lie, I really struggled with the perspective assigment. Which I guess makes sense as I don't really practice it! Marc's video made complete sense, I think I just struggled to stay focused on drawing my room- particurly sizing proportions of each peice of furniture, so i deffo need to spend more time with it. Super informative lesson none the less!

Schedules
I'n grateful for the free schedules as it gives my days structure and focus. I have to admit that even the "busy" schedule was a bit unrealistic for me But that's purely down to being surounded by two kids all day This would be no sweat if I was still young and single!

A lot of the focuses are on "study" for anatomy of portraits, bodys etc. But tbh i'm not 100% sure if I'm doing the studying right- being able to sit down in peace is a bit of a rare luxury for me so I just try and draw what I can... hopefully it's still going in as effectively!

Anyway, ramble over! Here are some scans from over the past week:

[jonmatheson]

Not had a chance to do anymore videos from Term 1, but i've been loosely trying to keep to the schedule when I can!

My eldest had a meltdown about his drawing not being as good as the example shown in a tutorial he was following. When he went to bed I decided to re-draw a character i'd drawn when I was about 12/13 years old. I showed it to him this morning to make a point that no one gets it right first time and that practice pays off. Hopefully it went in!
2003:

last night:

I then used the Inspiring Artist Colour Study slot this evening to play around with block colour like Yoshitaka Amano does in some of his more Pop Art style peices:

Sticking to the schedule was hard today as I somehow overslept and had to rush into "work" (a computer ungracefully sprawled out over my dining room table at the moment.) but I got excited thinking about looking back on my work a year from now if I stick with Art School. Hopefully i'll cringe!

[jonmatheson]

Hey y'all!
So i did one last version of that block coloured sketch as a poster (my years as a Graphic Designer means i make 100 versions of everything please dont judge me)

I watched the Visual Communication from Term 1 and was pleasently surprised by how short it was! Not a practical lesson obviously but was actually quite nice to have a breather and just sit back and take it in.
Here's a handful of scans from the past week!
I had a bad day when i did this one; was just so exausted and I hadnt actually left the house that day and stayed up late which i regretted. So the intended practice from the schedule ended up being doodles:

But then I got back at it with more gestures- this time stretching out to some feet, hands and faces!





Some breif anatomy study:

and actually did an hour long gesture class rather than 30 mins- i feel like i end up overdoing the sketch though?

Either way, i feel like i'm improving. Ive hesitated the Photoshop for Digital Production class as i wanted to wait for my new computer to arrive (tomorrow!! ) so I can run Photoshop on something a bit stronger than a potato!

I might update more reguarly instead of batch uploading these scans each week as its quite tedious to do it all in one go!

[MattD]

I think this is a good start and I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with Photoshop. One thing I've noticed is that some of the proportions on your figure drawings look a bit off. One thing that's helped me is to put a grid over the figure and draw a grid (with the same proportions) on the drawing surface. It breaks the figure into smaller areas and provides some useful reference points.
Have fun with your new computer (I got a new one a few months ago and it was amazing) and Keep up the good work!

[jonmatheson]

Hi, thanks for the tip! I must admit when i'm doing gesture drawing at the moment it's a timed drawing via Line of Action, so i do tend to focus on the gesture of the drawing rather than focusing on grids for proportions but yeah, I did Marc's Grid for the proportions session and I can deffinetly see why that's so useful!

And oh i will- it's arriving tomorrow and im so stoked for it

[jonmatheson]

So it's been a while and a lot's changed. For a start, I quit my job This has come with mixed emotions but focusing on the positive it means I can work freelance whilst balancing my art progress and family life better.

I had a long break whilst struggling at my old job but i did Marc's Character Design course and really enjoyed it! Here's some of my results I did in Procreate:

I've just bought Term 2 of Art School and really looking forward to sinking my teeth in!

[jonmatheson]

Had a bash at some character design prompts from a generator online in between Art School Vids! Trying to replicate my process in Procreate as I would in Photoshop and im finding it's actually very easy to do! The only snag is some brushes aren't as responsive as I feel they would be in ps and of course, a slight lack of image manipulation tools. But overall I managed to do this 100% in Procreate! In the future I may export to PSD and tweak bits on my computer after.
Hope you guys like my Robot Gangster I'm feeling pretty good about this since it's been quite a while since I've drawn anything bar a messy gesture drawing sesh here and there! Looking forward to redrawing this further down the line when i've improved 💪

[Julia_J]

The design is quite funny! Well done!
The one thing that irritates me is, that due to the lack of shadows on the dress, he looks like he is squatting like he's doing splits

[jonmatheson]

Thanks and well spotted! Couldve deffo done with some shadows for where the cloth would dip in his lap. Will bear in mind for next time

[dangras-almeida]

Turned out really cool, man!

I'm also using procreate instead of Photoshop to follow the lessons along. Indeed a bit limited, but it can get the job done as well. I've seen a few artists use procreate as a start for gestures and lineart, and finish coloring on PS. (Haven't tried it myself, tho).

[jonmatheson]

Thanks man! Yeah it works really well as a combo imho. I do have a tablet where i could arguabley do it all on ps but i just cant scale things right when sketching compared to doing it on a screen like the ipad!

[jonmatheson]

Perspective assignment! I know it could be a lot neater but for the sake of the excersise it felt really beneficial to do. Didnt want to lean too heavily on Marc's example so I went for a Italian castle reference photo i had instead and tried to work out how it would look from this low perspective.

Feels so good having time for dedicated days to Art School. Onto the next assignment tomorrow

[jonmatheson]

Really struggled with the final perspective assignment but glad i did it. Feel like I shouldve gone into basic shapes first rather than a full human bod but hey its practice. Look how happy 4P Persp' guy is!

[jonmatheson]

Not a huge ammont of Art School today- started the anatomy class though and did some more personal work...

One i started today as a redesign of an old character from one of my comics. Looking forward to finishing it this week!

Started this one last week- I had this idea of drawing my characters from Guild Wars 2 and am slowly getting overwhelmed by it! I might do it again but with some more interesting poses rather than just standing. Not looking forward to the center guardians armour! ^^;

[jonmatheson]

Hey guys, looking for a bit of feedback if you have time...
I've just finished the Anatomy 1 class of Art School Term 2 and tried to do the assignement where you tie in all the things you've learnt. Doing each element of the head bit by bit has made a lot of sense to me but now that i'm tying it together it just- as you can see - looks wrong.

I know it's wrong, but I can't figure out what is i've done to end up here or what is I need to do to make it more accurate. If anyone happens to be passing with a keen eye please say if you have any advice! Even if it's just a case of needing more practice.

[mau.wamp]

Heyho, man!
I am not that much of a pro myself, but I've been practising portrait painting for some months earlier this year. What helped me a lot was a lot of repetition, measuring out proportions using reference and studying the loomis head as well as additional info from other sources.
The thing that jumps to my mind first are correct proportions. Thats probably what will improve your work the most at this stage.

I can recommend the youtube channel from Angel Ganev. He has a lot of good videos on portrait painting and provides you with good exercises.
One of the exercises I profited the most of was selecting a portrait reference picture, putting it on one side, duplicating it and then:
1) do a drawover of the construction lines of the head over the ref
2) try measuring out the reference and reproduce it on your own
3) repeat this for at least 30-40 heads and really take your time doing this: the first few heads might take you 45-60mins each, but its worth it, man!

Check out Angel's channel here, just bear with his special style of presenting the info : )

Hope thats useful for you!
If you need some more help, feel free to contact me!
best,
Mau

[jonmatheson]

Hey Mau,
Thank you so much, really appreciate this! I'm gonna have a go at what you suggested next week- does sound like doing a Loomis trace would help a lot and as you said just repeating it somewhat relentlessly!
I do use the gesture drawing app when I can but i must admit I have been slacking on that side of things- I will use it again for portraits so I can re-familiarise myself.
Many thanks again
~ Jon