Lockenheim - Art School Journey

[playforwho89]

Awsome work as always

[Cha0s]

Nice piece! I like that you added some texture to your painting. Your 3D also model looks really good for your first time! My only critique is that the legs are a bit off.

I'm not the best at explanations but, I find it very useful to think of the forelegs/blacklegs in the context of human arms and legs. It helps me keep in mind where the joints go and how they might work. I also found that using the shape of a horse hoof and splitting it in half can help simplify cloven hooves. I hope this helps! I know animals with hooves like horses, deer, pigs, etc. can be hard to draw.

[Lockenheim]

@playforwho89 thank you for the kind words. @Cha0s thank you so much for this detailed breakdown! This is super helpful! I really appreciate that you took the time to do this and I will get good use out of this advice in the future! Thank you for the kind words on the 3d model but I have to admit I just imported it from the Zbrush lightbox and re-arranged it! I did arrange a few of the elements around the scene but really I am no where near that level. I have been working with Zbrush to help with lighting mostly for now but it definitely is not easy =). Thank you so much for the detailed breakdown @Cha0s this is super helpful and much appreciated!

[Lockenheim]

This is my work for the week, Marc suggested that I focus on pushing the level of one portion of my piece to a higher level so I focused on the face for this piece. This is my work for the week. Feedback always welcome!

These are constructions done over a face

These are quick 2 minute head constructions not over reference.

and thats it for this week! Thanks so much for checking out my work, feedback always welcome!

[Apath]

Hello, Lock! Just wanted to say that I genuinely admire your work ethic! If you don't mind me asking, what is your goal in taking the course? Have you already figured out what you wanted to be or are still considering different options?

I'm sorry if I'm being a bit intrusive by asking all these questions, but it's just something that just keeps coming up in my mind lately. The more I learn about art, the more I realize how much I didn't think about things thoroughly enough.

[Barry_]

Amazing progress, Lock. Really inspiring.

[Lockenheim]

You arn't intrusive at all. My goal when I started to take the class was to make DnD maps but as I got better I thought that making top down assets only may not hold my intrest long term. So my current goal is character illustrator. I would like to get good enough to do some freelance / comission work to buy me time to get skilled enough to do work for CCGs or something of that nature. @Barry_ thank you for the kind words!

[ErroIsTheFool]

Ooo I love this! She has a beautiful design, and I think you did a great job with the shading. The only error I notice is by the jaw and ear. The section that connects to the ear is a lot shorter and blends more into the ear, while the mid section is longer. The ear is also more rounded and comes further out.

I'm certainly not a good painter, but I hope my example makes sense.

The amount of practice you put in is inspiring! Keep up the great work!

[playforwho89]

Hello great to see the new batch of studies The piece look amazing and the bubble manatees definitely add the charm. I really like the colour palette. If you dont mind me asking did you ever deal with the feeling of burnout if so how did you manage that? The amount of work you put in so diligently every week has directly inspired my to work harder on my own studies. Keep up the good work!

[Lockenheim]

Ohh yes I can see what you are saying here! Thank you for pointing this out Errols! It is much appreciated and I appreciate the paint over!

@playforwho89 thank you so much! I appreciate the kind words. I definitely deal with burnout for sure. So my answer may not be of much help but I will explain how I do the work the best that I can.

So a few things, firstly I have ADHD. Which comes with several advantages and disadvantages. I try to lean into my advantages with this and mitigate the disadvantages. For example, when I'm super focused on something, like a long term goal I have really really high motivation and drive each day to get better. So that makes it much easier having that long term goal that I know I will hit. However, Its super hard for me to focus on one thing for any period of time. For example if I do a sheet of 10 2 minute gesture drawings, you can be sure it took me over an hour to do, maybe two. So my mind wanders a lot while I'm doing anything. So I think it takes me almost twice as long as someone else to do anything. But, I set myself up in a way that Im OK with letting my mind wander as long as it wanders to something art related. So maybe i end up watching a video about art in the middle of my gestures, or my practice, or maybe I read an art book, or an art tutorial. So I can't focus always on what I am doing short term but I am still doing something art related. This also keeps my burnout down because im constantly bouncing to different topics im interested in and Im not physically drawing all day.

So This helps me with burnout and while I may not be lazer focused on what I am doing I am still gaining skills that help me later when Im focusing on something else.

I also leverage my ADHD by using it to my advantage. ADHD works well under pressure situations and deadlines. When there is a ticking clock I perform my best. So I wouldnt recommend this to anyone else but I currently don't work and am living off of my savings. So I have a constant pressure to improve for financial reasons.

I am also older and have changed careers several times, so I think this helps me be a bit more flexible and helps me focus on how to learn as I have had to teach myself a lot over the years. I also don't have as much time as younger artist so I know I cant screw around to get where I want to be. I don't know if that is helpful or useful in anyway. As everyones situation is different. But, my main advice is think really hard and honestly about what your strengths and weakness are, leverage your strengths and mitigate the downside of your weaknesses.

I know I put out a lot of work each week, but it probably takes me 2x as long to complete compared to others I would think. So I do have to contend with burnout for sure. I think taking constant breaks while im doing things to watch art videos does help. Ultimately I have to listen to my body and mind. When I'm feeling the burnout I know I have to slow down, Istill do art things but I do more reading or videos instead of grinding. Listen to your body and if it says slow down do it.

Maybe thats helpful I don't know. If you are interested in my weekly schedule I can write something up if you would like. Let me know if anything doesnt make sense. Ok bye!

[playforwho89]

Thank you for your response, "think really hard and honestly about what your strengths and weakness are, leverage your strengths and mitigate the downside of your weaknesses." I will have a long hard think about it today. Thanks again that helped me a lot.

[zonalar]

Thanks for coming by my threat so often Lockenheim. Your art here looks really cool too. i figured i'd visit and leave a comment

[jww1994]

God dang man, you're put in a lot of work and I can see it as you go throughout the lessons and then back to them again later. Nice improvement overall!

I really like that giant serpent/dragon that's coiling around the bridge, that'll make for a nice cover piece for something you choose to pursue in the future hopefully!

I also like seeing all the head studies you've after doing to try and practice different proportions and shapes, that's something I really need to do at some point as well because right now I suffer from same face syndrome a little more than I like to admit.

[Lockenheim]

@playforwho89 you are quite welcome! @zonalar Thank you for coming by! @jww1994 thank you so much! I worked super hard on the snake piece and got super burned out on it. I wanted to push it further but didn't have the skills at the time or really know anything about shading. I would like to go back to it or re-do it at some point! I pretty much do a full study inlcuding all the term 1 stuff for most pieces I do. I think it just helps a lot to keep practicing those things especially term 1 and 2.

This is my work for the week! A lot of my work this week was studying and focvusing on composition. I have some notes, I dont know if they are helpful but will post them for completion. Feedback always welcome the focus this week was on composition and storytelling.

Thanks for checking this thread feedback always welcome!

[Cha0s]

Nice work this week! You take some very detailed notes!

[playforwho89]

I like the pose and the story telling is strong

[000_peanut]

Hi Lock!!
I love how you put work into studying the lessons, like you literally take notes and share it here. Also, the effort you put in your work and study inspire other artist to study like how you do.

However, this latest piece you did, is just too chaotic (for me). Like there are so many details that are happening and my eye can't focus on one particular subject. Maybe try providing some contrast in your BG and FG and direct the flow of your art to your subject by introducing some dark areas and light areas to your piece. This maybe a bit complicated to understand but you can study how @danilo_tedde did his work

Please consider that i'm just providing you some knowledge so next time, if you create something again, you'll do better - which i know you will

GLHF

[Lockenheim]

@Cha0s Thank you! @playforwho89 Thank You! @000_peanut Thank you for the feedback, I agree with you and Marc also agrees with you! Marc showed me a bunch of things on how to organize this better. This was qutie a big step up in difficulty and juggling many things. I was not super happy with the result but it doesn't bother me its all about the learning for me than the end product. Trying to get my workflow down a bit better, I feel like there is a pretty big disconnect for me the way that I manage values, since I do the shadows on a black and white layer and then do the lights on a hard light layer. It makes things super hard to understand and control and the results show it lol. I think im just going to stick with the one layer for now and then gradient map it, then once I understand colors just do the one color layer. I appreciate the feedback peanut this is very helpful. Thank you!

[Lockenheim]

Just going to post my submission for art school this week to save some time. Busy part of the summer for me last week and this upcoming week. Hope you are all well, feedback always welcome.

[playforwho89]

Hey Lock, I lkie ho the Gwen fanart is comming together. Its intresting to hear that line art is the more time consuming part of your work. I find that when im going for painting like ilustration sketch and linework is like a scafolding on whitch you can build the final forms. But by all means if you want to increase speed the best way is to practice, character sketches with time constrains shoud help you hone your dexterity thats a good idea.