Kodaigon's Art Blog

[kodaigon.go]

Hello everybody! I've just graduated from game design courses and my portfolio is not really at the state I've liked it to be. I'm also having second thoughts about going in a career of games but I still want to do art. I might want to do more in the lines of visual development!
I'm a pretty reclusive person so to break that I've decided to do this!! I've always wanted to share my process/thoughts on drawing and liked to hear others' thoughts/ feedback about it so any of it is welcomed!!

I'll mostly be doing sketching exercises and rarely my own pieces BECAUSE I LACK THE SKILLSS but I'll do WIP of it.

My fundamentals are still lacking so I'll try to brush up on that too!

Sorry if the posts I post are longwinded and repetitive. I guess when writing these I'm also trying to reinforce the ideas into my brain more lol

[kodaigon.go]

Here are some head practices I did, I decided to practice this because I really have trouble figuring out the perspective of heads. I can't really trust the perspectives I assume the heads are in, it will be wrong once I broke it down.

I believe the gesture of the head is somehow messing with how I see the heads in perspective normally thus I decided to practice using Andrew Loomis method's more and use the features of the head and its as the guide.

I also don't know if this is right but when practicing do you guys normally stick to a certain style of drawing so you'll be more consistent or be wishy-washy as long as you got the fundamentals down and it looks good, it's okay?

Practiced figuring out the perspective of eyes too. The pic on the bottom right is just a breakdown of someone's fanart that I did on impulse lol ( her art is very nice! @_tuu0 on twitter)

[Shellac-Belly]

Hey Kodaigon!

These are looking pretty good! If you're still not feeling confident, I'd recommend watching Marc Brunet's video "Learn to draw the head in any angle". I already knew the loomis method before watching it, but I felt like watching someone else do it really helped me!

As for style, I don't really intentionally try sticking to a style when practicing. If I'm practicing, I'm probably focused too much on what I'm studying to really worry if it's my usual style or something more realistic. It's practice after all; no one's expecting it to be perfect!

I've also found this 3D head really good for practicing. I hope it helps!

Good luck!

[ggrazziano]

Great!

You should try doing some illustrations for you to also practice doing a more finalized work. You will learn a lot even if you don't like the result.

Keep doing these exercises!

[kodaigon.go]

Ah thanks so much Shellac-Belly <3 !!

I'll watch that when I have the time. To be honest, I've spent a lot of my time watching art youtube videos but they are not really that effective on me :'D It's probably because of the Dunning Kruger effect. After watching them, I tend to focus less because I feel LIKE I ALRDY KNOW. ( = u =\) It's really a bad habit but I'll get over it hopefully. T uT

Ah, I see! Yeah, it's better to focus on one thing at a time. I'll work on figuring out my style next time. UuU

Yeah, hey actually I was searching for a 3D head that's like that. Omg for so long. I got so desperate that I tried to make one on my own lol. Not, that I managed to :'D.

Man thanks and you too!

[kodaigon.go]

Right!

I should but I think the fear of failing is stopping me from finishing. I'm trying to get back into them but it's all still WIPs hahaha cause I'm stuck. I'll work on them again once I brushed up on my foundations more.

Yes!

[kodaigon.go]

Another sheet of head practices. Decided to learn more about planes and eventually light and form T u T.

Spent roughly 2 hrs on this... I feel so slow ;;

[kodaigon.go]

Another set of head practices. Should sketch more heads from photographs after this. I realized I'm still not too familiar with head forms... T-T

There's also one more thing I find oddly fishy. For some reason, I sketch better on paper than digitally with my tablet. I guess when I sketch I can kinda ghost over the paper to feel out the forms before laying down my lines but digitally I can't do that... That's why I have so much difficulty figuring out the perspective of my forms. I don't really have a solution for this but doing more sketches digitally and slowing down more will probably help...

[Shellac-Belly]

Hi!

I think these are started to look pretty great!! Sketching from photographs would probably be a great idea though!

I hope you don't mind, but I had some time and decided to redline over your sketches because the top left head was kinda bothering me but I couldn't figure out why. I think the inner circle probably needs to be moved back to touch the outer circle. The brow angle also seems too steep and the eye too low. I put both of our drawings over a photograph to check.

I really like the line work on your finished drawing! It's really nice and has a sketchy but clean feeling. I think maybe the eyes feel a little awkward because either the upper lid is too big, or the distance between the eye and ear is too small. I tried transforming the eye a little but couldn't really decide. Everything else matched up perfectly though!

Also I really love those eyes in the middle!

Keep up the good work! I think you're improving a lot.

[Shellac-Belly]

I used to have a hard time learning from videos too, but then I got a boring job where I could watch them all day and I guess a combination of being bored to death and watching them nonstop seemed to make something click for me lol

I'm so glad that 3D head helped! I remembered another one I've used that's for studying the planes of the head and lighting. There's male and female versions.

[kodaigon.go]

Hello!

Yup, I don't mind go ahead! I really appreciate any breakdowns. We can learn together

I don't really quite understand what you mean for the side profile breakdown, but from what I understand, the outer circle is there because it's supposed to represent the flat surfaces of the sides of the head, the cranium. It comes from cutting the sides of a sphere.

The drawing I did is completely in side view. So technically, I don't think the inner circle needs to be shifted back to touch the outer circle. If it is shifted back the ear position will also be wrong. I think only when the head is turning right, will the inner circle touch the outer circle

Sorry if it's longwinded, my English is not too great. If I can I'll get back to you, once I got it figured out.

Yeah, thanks so much! Actually the sketches down in green are all traced from references. I'm not that good TuT. It's just there to help me figure out why something looks right. They are references from my favorite artists ( U Kyung An- this artist is so good https://twitter.com/annim1011 her studies I froth lmao ) The or art books ( ANDREW LOOMIS/ MICHAEL HAMPTON ).

I agree, I really have an issue with 3/4 even though it's one the easiest profile of the head I can get right but I don't know what goes wrong when it goes wrong lol. I think it's because I distort it too much once it turns.

Thanks so much for the kind words. I definitely feel like I understand more now a bit

Hope you're doing good too!

[Shellac-Belly]

Hey!

omg I was totally doing the profile wrong the whole time and didn't realize it until you mentioned it! I think I've been seeing this image and thinking it was a perfect side view when it's not. Thanks for correcting me!

Also the shoes studies from Kyung were really cool! Thanks for showing me their work.

P.S. Don't worry about your English! I taught ESL for a while so I really don't mind, and your English seems really good anyways.

[kodaigon.go]

Hello!

Haha I see XD I don't think that guide is wrong, it's just different, it just have a bigger chopped of surface. I think guides change depending on how you understand the head shape and there are many kinds of head shapes. The most important thing is I think is to understand why the guide is designed that way

Proko's Loomis head video is pretty helpful in showing that XD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC2ZppKHCqU.

Yep! No problem glad you like their work XD

Aye! thanks so much! T U T

[kodaigon.go]

I originally sketched this in my sketchbook lol and I wanted to draw it again but digitally. I really can't figure out how to draw the other parts well. I guess I will just come back to it another time.

I liked my sketch more T^T
I always wondered why whenever I do something on paper, it will always look many times different than when I do it digitally AND IT'S ALL BASE ON HOW MUCH YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN DRAWINGS UGH.

It's like what Steven Zapata said in his rendering demonstration, you will have to draw things in different sizes to know what you do things by habit or understanding UGH.

I'm trying to change my mindset but it's hard to stick through because I love to just draw freely. I'll work some kind of process out so I can feel less disappointed in myself whenever I do this sigh. TT

[kodaigon.go]

I wanted to do some breakdowns of bodies with perspective in mind. It's always pretty frustrating to me that whenever I use references, I don't really understand what's going on in the picture. Eventually, I'll end up copying it instead of understanding what's going.
Usually, after such drawings, I'll feel pretty empty

My impatience also makes my drawings much worse, it leads me to rush which kind of leads to bad drawing habits? Like drawing without a clear goal or purpose and all the skills you end up learning becomes just flat, dead lines.

This happens to me so much and I've always felt bad afterward. It made my future practices worse even if I've drawn more. The drawings were rushed and I never take the time to process my drawings.

Ugh, it kinda sucks to think that these problems are something you set for yourself without realizing. I guess writing in forums like this help you reflect more and hopefully make the problems you have more tangible and fixable

Never give up, keep going

[kodaigon.go]

Some leg flow practices. Trying to get the essence the pose down more.

[kodaigon.go]

More legs. Trying to think about how I can represent curves better. I think taking note of where the knees are, hip tilt, and foot placement has helped me draw them better. It's better to start with that than with an empty brain.

[Shellac-Belly]

Hi!

You're studies are looking really good! I think studying bodies in perspective like that is a really neat idea. I've never thought of that before.

I always have a problem getting impatient with my studies too. I think it really helps to do some gesture/life drawing sessions because it allows you to do many drawings fast so you don't have time to get impatient. I tend to do an hour a day and usually start with 30 second poses and then go up from there. I think it helps me focus a little better.

Good luck! Keep working hard!

[kodaigon.go]

HI Shellac!

Thanks so much! I know right. I got it from looking at Nesskain works. His people drawings are always so solid and the main reason for that I think is he always uses perspective grids in most of his drawings. I wish to draw people like him too someday

Hahaha about gesture drawing, I think the main contributor to my impatience was that I only did one kind of practice for a very long time. During that period, my knowledge about art was pretty limited so I didn't know any better about what it was for. I thought it was a one-trick pony to improve my art skills ACK so I only did that all the time ( I think what's worse is I mostly did 30s-2mins Gesture drawings, rarely 10 mins ).

It affected how I treated my drawing studies, I would just draw in rapid succession without looking too deeply on my problems and then just kept moving on. I think for studies, they really have to be broken down and fixed before continuing on, or those issues will just keep recurring again I only have to experience this frustration for a couple of years before I'm finally fed up enough to do something about it lol.

Yep, sorry about my rant and thanks so much again! You too! I hope your art school goes well!

[kodaigon.go]

I think I'm understanding heads a lot more now! I really have made a lot of progress once I switched up how I practiced. I don't even know why it didn't come to me from the beginning to practice this way ugh. I guess it got to do with it being a lot like " studying " instead of what drawing meant to me which is something that is supposed to be free and easygoing. So whenever I practiced drawing, I would just sketch instead of breaking it down every step of the way. Never using enough brains and making enough logical deductions.
I think another reason why I didn't like to do this was I considered it/ felt it was cheating which was so so stupid. I think it got to do with the feeling that it felt like copying instead of something that comes from you but I now realized that art comes directly from what you observe and you should do whatever you can to understand the things you are seeing. I think right now we're really blessed to have photoshop and all these art tools, it really makes learning art easier.

Observe, breakdown, test yourself without seeing and rinse and repeat. I think I'll continue learning this way

These are some painting practices I did. I did some head plane practices base on head references before the painting though, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GX3Ax1. I tried to get a lot of different angles ( Above HL, AT HL, Bottom HL ) so I can understand the relationships of the different face features better and just practice from there.

Once I practiced that, I decided to test my understanding by drawing from photographs and that made me realize I don't really understand where the eyes, nose, and lips lay on the face once the perspective gets more complicated.

Like I get the overall picture right but the face is so off. The main issue was that I treated it very flat and I didn't adjust it to the tilt of the head AUgh. I'll work more on that more sigh.

For painting, I'm really happy with the progress I made so far. I felt like I understood more about it now once I have broken the picture into planes. It made understanding how light hits on the surface easier and more manageable. Another point I'd like to make is that it's best to treat your painting every step of the way, makes it more manageable. I used to paint straightaway without many guidelines and that was so difficult and time-consuming. It made me backtrack a lot and "feel" my way through the painting, instead of basing my painting on my understanding, you'll naturally just end up copying in the end and I believe you won't learn much like that in the end I feel.

I used art from https://twitter.com/mamongmay, and just bought https://cubebrush.co/naranbaatarcg?order_by=popular stuff ( I'm really excited to learn from this ). References are all NCT really like their aesthetics . Looking at their stuff really helped me understand a lot more now.

Future stuff I'd like to practice more on,
- Heads in perspective/ alignment
- Hair Parts
- Greyscale and Lighting Transitions
- Eyes/ Nose forms
- Brushes/ Blending/ Textures