Actually, there is no progress involved xD (she said after typing an entire wall of text, hmpf).
As your average girl, I of course own more Pinterest boards than I could ever find the courage to work through in a lifetime, and one of them is entirely dedicated to weapons. So I picked a few references, set a 30‑minute timer, and tried to just go with the flow. I didn’t combine designs or anything fancy. It was really just basic training for the eye, drawing what is there. I would love to come up with my own weapon designs someday, but I know very well that, at the moment, I lack the time, creativity, and, most of all, the visual library and 3D thinking skills to create something truly satisfying.
I spent a lot of time over the past few years browsing ArtStation to study thumbnail sketches, and I also watched a lot of videos on the topic - especially from Feng Zhu and Trent Kaniuga. I absolutely love their art, but they are also fantastic teachers. I even bought one of Trent Kaniuga’s environment art courses (“Click me, I am worth the money”). What both of them really taught me is that a thumbnail doesn’t need to be super detailed to tell a story. The human eye naturally fills in the missing details.
Because of that, I try to never zoom into my images during these 30‑minute sketches. Instead, I zoom out. If the weapon still reads clearly as a small thumbnail, then I know I did a good job focusing on basic shapes and large-value shading. Also check out gray scale from time to time. Another thing that helps me a lot is keeping the references at exactly the same size I want the weapon to be in the drawing.
So, a lot of words just to say: Pinterest board, timer, same-size references, no details, just broad shading + gray scaling from time to time
Over the past few days, between changing diapers, breastfeeding, cleaning the absolute chaos that is our flat, packing for our move, and continuing my professional education, I still forced myself to stop scrolling mindlessly through Reddit and actually make some art instead. I procrastinated for so many years when it came to improving my art, and I really want to change that. Also, I want to draw beautiful things for my daughter once she is old enough.
Another 30‑minute drawing. I experimented a lot and tested different brushes to see which ones I liked. Eventually, I would love to do a proper study of Maxime Desmettre’s art, because I basically just copy how he draws dragons, but that is definitely a future project.
Talking about thumbnails - I miss enviormental drawings much much more than drawing humans, simply because enviorments are messy, and dont rely on heavy 3d understanding, but this project was way too ambitious after such a long break and I won't work further on it, the figures in the foreground are just copy pasted from another project to at least give the piece a sense of size.
At one point in my life, I want to draw the crystal area from our game, it was the hardest for me to create ingame and also the hardest to draw, because you cant fake drawing crystals and all my attempts so far where frustrating. But hey... I tried.
Luckily I was able to work on one of my alltime favorite characters from the game. This little guy is based on a baby foto I took recently, and I am super happy, that I took the time for the details.
I was unsure if I wanted to do the details because I can't do them in 10 minutes and need to be in the right headpace for that but here we are, this was the original sketch.
Also, I’ve been drawing this guy once every year for the past seven years to track my progress and push myself to do better than the year before.
But @Nosnibor is doing an amazing job following Marc’s program, and it honestly makes me want to get back to actually studying art the way it is supposed to be studied instead of what I usually do here: drawing everything all at once and then calling it a day.The next post will probably take a while, though. First I need to survive the move and get through my continuing work education. Job market is grim here in Germany as well, and I would love to have job after returning from maternity leave.
