Oct '22

Hey everyone,

I´m a 29-year-old machine learning consultant looking to switch careers to character concept art.

I bought a tablet and started practicing in my off time 6 months ago (March 27) with basically 0 knowledge and have been grinding away at the fundamentals since then.

Currently feeling the pressure of not improving fast enough and realized I need to get myself out there so I can start getting feedback from other people and gather advice on
how to better practice.

I currently create a more refined drawing every few days and then make a priority list of problem areas that I can observe within the drawing. (IE: I need to study hands, anatomy, bounce light, etc.)

I study daily so i should always have something to post, if you have any feedback on anything I do PLEASE HELP ME IMPROVE, BE RUTHLESS.

-- Marigo

There are 55 replies with an estimated read time of 16 minutes.

Oct '22

Here is a few of the drawings i've done in the past few weeks

I usually start my studies with 15 sets of 1 minute gesture drawings follow by 8-10 2 minute ones.
Here are some from yesterday:

Gestures#1.png3840x968 189 KB

Oct '22

Trying to get better at line-art at the moment (since I have a habit of being too loose with my lines)
If I have time I like to start line- art by sketching and just testing out ideas until i find something I feel invested in.

Sketching 2.png3840x2160 422 KB
Sketching.png3840x2160 472 KB

Not feeling too confident in drawing accessories like weapons, pouches and just things a character might have on their person. It kinda limits my ability to output interesting concepts at the moment so i´m thinking of taking a short detour from my line-art studies to study props.

Still doing daily gesture drawings and currently wondering what I need to do to improve my overall gestures.

If anyone has any book recommendations or resources that could help me pinpoint areas to study gesture I would be eternally grateful.

05-10-2022 #1.png3840x962 178 KB

cedricgoModerator
Oct '22

Hello and welcome to the forums! You seem to be doing good so far, especially if you started from 0 and been at it for only 6 months. Your linework is really nice and so are your gesture drawings.

As for resources regarding gesture drawings, I think Proko on youtube has videos on the subject. He also have videos on anatomy which are quite helpful.

I hope you keep going as I think you're showing lots of promises with your art. It will be really cool to see how it evolves.

Oct '22

Thanks for the welcome & kind words.

It definitely doesn't feel like a lot of progress compared to where I hope to be one day. So many topics to tackle, so much knowledge to absorb :sweat_smile:

I watched a few of Prokos videos and this is definitely what I was looking for. I´ll definitely be deep diving that channel in the coming weeks. Thanks a bunch for the recommendation!

Oct '22

Ended up taking that detour from my studies to try out drawing some props and such (Since I realized I have never actually done it as a standalone thing)

Got a pitch from a friend who is writing a short story about a world where bones of large creatures and iron is plentiful but technology is scarce.
The people in the short story discover ancient alien weapons and armor that they then mix with what they have at hand.

I mashed out quite a few concepts, but this is some of the more interesting ones. The idea was that the green parts/metal signified the alien civilization, while the white bony bits and brown iron was tacked on in an attempt make the alien technology usable.

I tried to keep things lose, so not exactly great artistic results, but the entire thing was a blast to do.

Oct '22

I'm not sure if it makes sense or is too much to post something every day.
I hate the idea that most of the things I study and draw get lost in the void of my computer harddrive :dizzy_face: .

Ended up having so much fun making weapons yesterday that I did another set today.
This time focused around candy and condiments. (Oreos, candycanes, waffles etc)

Also realized (after watching the recommended youtube channel proko) that gesture drawing doesn't necesarily have to be constrained to a few minutes and that sitting down afterwards and trying to study the form without any time constraint is immensely helpful.

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Oct '22

Today was one of those fun days where nothing seems to work the way you want it to.

I tried creating a short ol-timey pilot character but somewhere along the way I messed up the drawing and it caused me to go down a spiral of trying out different ways to fix it.
I ended up spending way too long trying to figure out what to do when I make a mistake that can't easily be rectified and In the end (after making 6 different versions and deleting them only to start over) I had to leave it be.

I was planning on using the drawing to figure out what to work on next so in a sense I guess it failed successfully?

At least gesture drawing is going well :sweat_smile:
Still trying out different things and studying up on proko material.

08-10-2022 #1.png3840x2160 341 KB

Oct '22

In extension of yesterdays failure I have spent today practicing the art of correcting mistakes.
I spent like 5 hours on this one file just drawing shapes, shading them, introducing mistakes and trying to fix them.
Main lesson I learned was to not be afraid to wipe out progress by erasing and just starting over.
I´m not exactly fast at the moment so the fear of having to start from scratch was causing me to try all sorts of creative "fixes" that din't work because I don't yet fully have to eye to see how to correct things like bad shading/lines etc.

Still attempting to improve my gestures and trying to add some more extreme/rigid shapes within the curves.
I've seen it produce some amazing results in other artists gestures but boooooooy is it difficult to get down.

09-10-2022 #1.png3840x2160 342 KB

cedricgoModerator
Oct '22

These are all really nice updates! I was wondering, how long do take for your gestures? I'm asking because I almost want to say that they might be "too detailed" for gestures.

By that I mean that you seem to try to indicate anatomy and muscles while I think gestures should focus more on the flow of the pose and the broad shapes. So the whole pose will be simplified and could almost look abstract in a sense. This should however lead to more lively and pushed gestures. Basically, it's all about controlled looseness and energy.

There's not just one way to do it obviously, but here's an example from Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing book (which might be worth checking out) to show a bit what I mean.

With that said, you're still doing good and you clearly have knowledge of anatomy, so that's good! And that lesson you've learned of starting over if things don't quite work is also a good one. Over time, as you get more experience, you won't have to do that as much anymore. Unfortunately it might still happen from time to time though :smile: