Josue - Art School Journey

[JosueAnesPaz]

For this week's update, I've practiced cylinders, cylinders over photos, cylinders next to photos, gestures, and the 8-head proportion grid. Additionally, I've completed 3 out of 4 videos in term one and will take a two-week break just focusing on practice before moving to the next term.

My main goal was the 8-head proportion grid and I wanted to show my first 3 attempts. While they're all far from perfect, I was happy about the progress from 9/8 to 9/10. The first try on 9/8 was watching the video and trying to go along (took forever with constant pausing). The 2nd attempt on 9/9 was watching the video for X amount of time, pausing, then drawing to catch up. The final attempt for this week on 9/10 was based off imagination and attempting to remember the information.

I learned a lot this week about proportions and the rough idea of where certain parts land and that's always been a major weakness of mine. I always unconsciously end up trying to do a 1-for-1 in line size when trying to do a study in the past (like the sketchbook drawing), which causes the study to be incorrectly sized or for it to take forever. My plan going into week 3 is to organize my daily exercises and reduce certain exercises like cylinders and cylinders over photos. I've done about 100 cylinders and 100 cylinders next to photos (10 each time) and feel comfortable with the shape and how to read basic muscle flow. It's time to rotate them out and do them about once or twice a week to keep it fresh and make room for other exercises. My focus this upcoming week will probably be perspective, 8-head proportion grid, the full reference, and gestures.

Cheers and as usual, any and all criticism will be highly appreciated.

[prinzmoana]

Good job! I can really feel the volume of this apple 😄

[Lockenheim]

Cylinder studies are looking great! Keep up the good work!

[JosueAnesPaz]

@prinzmoana thank you for the compliment! and thank you for your advice in your own thread about gestures, I tried to actively try being looser with my gestures and starting with the shoulders after the line of action helped me out a bit as you'll see below. Nothing to write home about, but definitely progress for me.

@Lockenheim thank you! you too! as I'm always keeping an eye on your thread for motivation. I've done a bunch of cylinders at this point, so I put them on the back burner and started moving to other exercises.

Now, good morning everyone! (8:30 AM for me) it's time for my weekly update after studying for some certifications early in the morning. This week (week 3), saw a lot of perspective practice! I finished the last video for term 1 back on Thursday (I watch them Tuesdays and Thursdays for 1 HR 30 MIN to 2 HR) and will take this entire week off from videos and fill in that space with extra practice time from term 1 subjects and will kick off term 2 next Monday.

I set a bunch of small goals for myself practice-wise in my notion page and use it as a way to get a ton of practice in while moving through them and doing them once in a while after they're completed to keep the skill sharpened. That can be seen below:

Otherwise, here is a bunch of things I did this week for practice!

I can't upload the convergence lines, vanishing points, and horizon exercises I did as I just googled photos and used them at full resolution. However, I did about 10 of them this week.

Hope everyone is making progress in their own art journey!

[prinzmoana]

It's nice to see your progress with gestures 😄
Also your perspective looks quiet good 👍

[Lockenheim]

Really awesome job on these perspective cubes. You did a great job with the cut away pieces those arn't easy!

[JosueAnesPaz]

@prinzmoana @Lockenheim thanks, I appreciate the compliments! I'm definitely happy with how my perspective is progressing and I know this week I want to really focus on my 8-head grid practice as I know term 2 starts anatomy. I told myself that once term 2 started I wanted to start putting in work on anatomy studies similar to Dave Rapoza's old-school schedule.

Addtionally, I've bought art books (total of 11 currently) that I've been reading through and taking notes on to include "Perspective Made Easy (Dover Art Instruction)," which has helped me understand perspective. I've also bought "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" and "Anatomy for Artists: A visual guide to the human form" to help me slowly understand anatomy better.

[JosueAnesPaz]

Been working on my room in 1-point perspective. The goal is to have a combination of eastern and fantasy inspiration. I play FFXIV, so I took a couple of screenshots of my in-game home, as well as, visiting other homes and taking screenshots of views that interested me. I kept one of Marc's suggestions to heart on a YT video where he said 60% should be something you're confident in and 40% should be the challenge. So you're learning, but not overwhelming yourself.

Here is the WIP:

[JosueAnesPaz]

Small update today as I didn't have a ton of time, but I wanted to make progress on my 1-point room. Added in some more objects like a desk, table, and planning out the floor design. Then started to add details to the fireplace, that alone took a while as it's my first ever fireplace and I've learned a lot from it already.

[JosueAnesPaz]

Small update. Finished the line-art and the next step shading and coloring. I'm going to have to re-watch a couple of Marc's and other's videos on different ways to color. The window will have an outdoors scene, but since it's the background I didn't bother to line it in as it'll be blurry, so I figured putting it in the coloring process would make the most sense. Should have it done over this weekend and before I start term 2. Then, I'll have to work on the street drawing over-time too.

[prinzmoana]

I really like how this turned out and wonder how it will look like with color 😄

I just noticed one thing, but I don't know if you want to make changes after you finished your line drawing 😵‍💫
The top edge in the front of the crimson is tilted downwards, but the edge in the back isn't.

Besides that everything looks nice and clean ^.^

[JosueAnesPaz]

@prinzmoana, thank you for pointing that out. I went ahead and did my best to fix it.

Once it stops bugging out on me, I can upload the correct image.

[Xybb]

Another note on the fireplace: It's not necessarily a perspective issue, but you'd usually have to have some space behind it for the chimney. Yours basically stops right at the wall.

Other than that, only a few minor issues (the support in the wardrobe is slightly out of perspective and the overlap at the top makes the roof look quite thin). Good job!

[JosueAnesPaz]

@Xybb you're right about that, that's something I wasn't thinking about as the reference I was using screenshots from in-game (FFXIV), so players can sorta bypass realism in somethings and allow furniture to clip through other objects to make it look the way they want. But thank you for the information! I can see what you're talking about with the support too! It'll be information I keep for the next drawing.

As for the completed photo, I put it down below plus some perspective practice that I did earlier this week. Aside from the 1-point perspective room I didn't do much this week as I've been busy with a friend of 19 years being in town this week.

[matthewwemes]

Good work on your perspectives, I really like the atmosphere of your room!

[JosueAnesPaz]

Hello everyone, it's Sunday update time! Sadly, I don't have too much to show as I'm in FL and spent this week dealing with the hurricane. This week I spent working on anatomy, color, and gestures as the main targets. I don't particularly like how my gestures are just glorified stick-figures and so, I started reading Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton. The starting chapter about gesture drawing has already been eye-opening.

As for my color studies, I started reading color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney. Down below you can find my notes on them as well as what I've been working on. Please excuse the sloppy sketch lines as I don't really delete the sketch layer until I'm happy with the line art adjustments, so you can easily see areas I've adjusted the drawing at. For the Senku fan-art, I would particularly love feedback as I plan to work on it some more later today and I already know I need to readjust his neck after looking at it with fresh eyes this morning.

[Lockenheim]

Hope you are safe! Keep up the good work!

[JosueAnesPaz]

Hello everyone,

I'm alive, just been busy various responsibilities. I've been really putting practice into learning how to construct the head among other things, here arre a few things I did this week. I've also been going through the entire Gundam series starting from the 1979 original while I draw. So, I sketched Kamille from the 1985 series

[prinzmoana]

Man that angry dude up there haha 👌 Amazing.
Also good studies :}

[Lockenheim]

Head constructions are looking really good! Keep it up!