Day 20

A good day. It's amazing how a day where you feel like things went well, even just well, can turn your perception completely around. For the moment my Artistic Crisis is gone and my confidence has returned. Beyond that, there's not much that I feel needs to be said that can't be said by simply showing.

Now I'm going to prove myself a liar and go ahead and talk at length about this.

It's clearly not finished, and I'm not just talking about the guy on the right. Though I do intend to paint both of them.

I don't do a whole lot of color work and even less color work without starting out in black+white first. But ever since I discovered the videos of Marco Bucci I've been wanting to try out some of the techniques and approaches that he talks about. Apply some of the concepts and mindsets that he explains. And this is the result of what I perceive as a failure to effectively apply those techniques.

Not being all that comfortable working in color from the beginning I was so focused on laying down the colors and didn't think at all about things like texture or value almost until I started laying in the detail. This meant that I ultimately lost a lot of the texture that I was hoping to achieve because I had to repaint over everything.

Even so, I feel really pleased with the results. I feel like I can learn from this and get better. And that means I can't wait to work on the next one.

And thus day 20 comes to a close. More to come.

Day 21

They say (or so I've heard) that it takes 21 days to make a habit. Well, if that's true, this process is now officially a habit.

Today was a busy day and I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time drawing, but I did sit down for a few hours and work on those character portraits.

I spend a decent amount of time trying to refine that first one a bit, but I was getting frustrated because I've now moved past the excitement brought from finding some success with this approach and am now at the point where I can see all the mistakes that it's too late to do anything about without reworking a significant part of the image. Which, for these, I probably won't do. These were always supposed to be just experiments and, despite the many issues, I'm still very pleased with the results. It will be in future work that I really start to refine this process and, hopefully, have a better foundation to build on from the start.

So I moved on to the second one and this time I'm trying to be a lot more deliberate with my approach. I spent a good deal more time laying down texture, value, and color in an attempt to get them working all together before I moved forward. In truth I feel like I should have spent even more time doing that because I still ran into a few issues down the road.

Once I was satisfied with that step I began layering in detail on top of the texture, doing my best to preserve the texture as much as possible. My goal with this one is not to paint over every inch of the image, but only in those areas where I feel genuine definition is needed. Overall I'm happy, but I still feel like I can push this approach a lot farther than I am and I fully expect to be experimenting with it a lot in the near future.

Day 21 draws to a close. Three weeks. I can hardly believe it. Where will it go from here I wonder?

Day 22

I may have said this already, but maybe I'm wrong. This is likely to be a busy week. I've got a pretty significant deadline coming up on the indie game and right now that's where all my time and energy is going. Since I don't plan on sharing any of my 3D work here, at least for now, that's going to mean fewer images to share each day. Nevertheless the journey continues!

Some very quick hand studies today. The morning was rife with distractions and I didn't get as far as I had hoped with these. I also feel that they're nowhere near my best, with a ton of proportional and anatomical issues present. Though I feel one ore two are okay.

These are so simple and straightforward I honestly almost didn't share them. If it weren't for the fact that the whole point of this is to create a record of everything I do to become a better artist I definitely would have just left these out.

Super quick sketches that are more about establishing the overall design language than establishing actual details. Literally nothing more than a blueprint for me to work from when creating the actual in game asset.

And that's it for day 22. The rest of my time today was spent working in 3D and that's going to continue to be the case throughout this week for sure. I don't expect to get time to do more than studies until probably next week. Still, every step is one that brings me closer to my goals.

More to come.

Day 23

As I said, this week is going to be super. So hear I am just doing the minimum. Today's minimum: Artist Studies. Specifically of hands.

This is a study of "Aaron Bard" by Carlos Ruiz. Focusing on the hands, well, hand. though I did do a little bit with the eyes just because I like the simple but very effective shapes used here. I also like how simply the hand is expressed. There are almost no individual details of the fingers, just enough to give the impression of detail and everything else is accomplished with shape and light. Simple, stylized, effective.

Then I moved on to a study from one of my favorite artists (and favorite series) "Happy Halloween" (I don't think that's its actual title) by Paul Kidby.

Following with the theme I again focused solely on the hands. Quite the change in direction from the previous one with these being rendered almost realistically. There is some simplification and exaggeration going on, but not a whole lot. I found it particularly interesting to draw because of the one hand holding the teacup. Paul Kidby's work is so expressive, even the hands convey a sense of manic determination, and I know I didn't even come close to capturing that here.

So, that was day 23. Short and sweet, just business as usual.

More to come.

Day 24

I'll keep it short and sweet today. If you've been keeping up with things you'll know that this week I pretty much just have time to do daily studies before I have to move on to other things.

The key difference today is that I took a break from studying hands and did some gesture and figure drawing.

Pretty straight forward. I feel like it mostly went well, though at times I seemed to completely forget what the hell I was doing. This is evidenced by the gestures that seem to be little more than a random collection of lines.

One minor breakthrough I did feel I had during this session was I finally felt like I was starting to see the gesture. I realized that what I had been thinking was the flow of the gesture (and I was successfully drawing) was in fact still very much a product of the contours. I was still too focused on the specific lines of the figure and it wasn't allowing me to really see the gesture. But at some point, maybe a little before the mid point, I started to see the broader gesture and focus on that.

Though I still struggled with my usual hangups like proportions, once I made that realization and started to apply it I felt like my gestures came together much much better. The last four (the bottom row) in particular I felt really turned out nicely, and that was primarily because I was able to focus on the gesture first, before adding in the more specific contours of the figure.

Hooray for learning!

More to come.

Day 25

The main bulk of my hand study is drawing to a close. Maybe another week left, maybe be less. At that time I will spend a little time looking at other resources for drawing hands before moving on to a couple of extended studies both from life and reference. Finally, I hope to galvanize my new found knowledge by attempting to break it down and share it in what will be my first tutorial video... a daunting prospect, but nothing ventured nothing gained (to be as cliche as possible)

Today, once I completed the section of the video I was on, I decided to do something a little different. Rather than drawing (usually) one hand in as much detail as I could manage with the time I had, I would draw as many hands from reference as I could with that same time.

It was a good experience and one I think I'll do for a while longer. Or maybe I'll alternate between the two for a while. Obviously there are some issues with some of them and they lack a great deal of confidence but, as I have often said, that's the point of practicing.

Still feels like I'm getting some proportional issues. They tend to be either too long or too short. Hmm, gonna have to work on that.

So that's day 25. More to come.

Day 26

This was one of the hardest days yet, if not the hardest (though that may quickly be overshadowed by tomorrow). The combination of a bad back and an oncoming cold made it really difficult to sit there and do even the minimum drawing. But I'm trying to change my mental attitude toward it and work to become someone who draws every day. Not for anyone else, but in my own perception. As a part of who I am. I am someone who draws every day. So I drew.

Today was artists studies, once again focusing on hands.

The left one is Zombie Sketch by Patrick Reilly. Which has a great dynamism and energy to it that I love. The second is one I've done before, Golden Prayer, by Georgi Gerogiev. The last time I did this one I was focused on the face and, as far as I recall, barely touched the hands. They were quite challenging to pull of as they are deceptively simple. But the complexity of even those simple interlocking forms took some doing to get right.

So that's it for day 26. I'll be back tomorrow one way or the other, I won't let this cold stop me! More to come.

Day 27

Still pretty sick. Just trying to make sure that I'm doing some work and maintain the habit. Bleh.

Decided to start off with a few very quick nose studies. This was an attempt to fix some anatomy issues on my paintings.

A brief experiemnt with changing out the background. Pleased with the fact that it seems to read pretty well without any linework present. Some potential here, but just an experiment.

Working to fix some of the anatomy around the nose and the far eye. Realized that the problem wasn't the nose itself but the way it connected to the face. Still some work to do on this.

Yep, that was day 27. Back to being sick now. More to come.

Day 28

This was such a short day that I'm not even going to bother uploading an actual image. I just did about 20 minutes worth of painting on the character portraits I've been working on and called it. This is the problem with being sick, or really allowing anything to disrupt and established routine. I had every intention of getting back to do at least a little more work today, but because the underlying structure of the day that I'm used to wasn't there it just never happened.

And I'm still sick. I plan to at least try to impose some structure on my day today, even if that structure is just marking time between rests. There has got to be a way to maintain structure even in times like this. It's just such a challenge.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

More to come.

Day 29

Still sick, but I think things are starting to improve. Though it was difficult today I managed to do my normal minimum of of studies, though I didn't accomplish much beyond that.

It's getting there. I feel like I'm starting to draw hands with a great deal more confidence than I had previously. Still a ways to go, but I feel like I'm seeing some improvements.

Did a few difficult hand gestures today with one or two of them taking a good deal of time to get feeling even a little right. Then there's that one just to the lower right of the claw hand, which feels like the index finger is too short because I didn't use enough contrast when delineating the tip. And the less said about that bottom one, the better. Lots of room for improvement there .

So that's day 29 all wrapped up. Starting to feel better and hoping that will continue each day so I can get back to doing more than just the minimum each day.

More to come.

Day 30

Woohoo! I can't believe it's been 30 days already and still going strong. The only significant setback so far is this damn cold that doesn't seem to want to go away completely. As I sit hear and type this I worry that it may be coming back. Particularly frustrating since I thought it was going away. Grr.

Today was artist study day. The left image is #47 by Igor Sid... I think.

If I'm wrong and you know the real artist, please tell me. I couldn't find the actual image anywhere specifically connected to any artist, but after some searching I managed to track down this individual who's name is at least connected to this piece and has a similar style with other similar images. Still, I could have missed something. Please let me know.

It gave me a great deal of trouble, unexpectedly. The left-most hand (her right) I made way to big to start with and had to back things off significantly. In the end I may have backed it off too much and made it too small. Nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty good about the hand gesture itself.

The study on the right is "Gonna Cut Ya" or "Another Sword Wielding Gentleman in a Bad Mood" by André Brown Mealha. Going far more stylized with this one with far simpler hands. For the most part I feel like it succeeded, though that left-most hand (his right) is far too tilted. It doesn't feel like he's actually gripping anything to me. I'll need to watch out for that in the future.

So that about wraps up day 30, now if I can muster the energy it's time for my weekly gesture and figure drawing!

More to come.