Nosnibor - Art School Journey

Nosnibor 2025-08-10 16:37:59 UTC #85

Hair practice

Since starting this cource I have really struggled with hair. I have watched Sinix designs video on drawing hair and a couple of Marc's - in particular this one:

I am not sure I learned a whole lot from this batch of studies if I am being honest and I am not super happy with the studies I have made. I am going to keep at it though. I think I mainly struggle with understanding hairstyles and breaking them down into simple shapes so that I can represent them on the page.

Additionally a lot of the hair I draw looks quite flat.

Critique is definitely appreciated. If anyone has any good resources on drawing or painting hair, I would greatly value them.

Base Sheet

This is a base sheet of bald heads I drew (just 3 heads copy pasted at different angles) which I used for all my hair studies.

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Big Sheet

Here are all the hair studies I did. I would say 60% are from reference and 40% are from imagination. Maybe a higher % were from reference idk. But here they are:

big_sheet.png4096x2047 2.83 MB

Individual Sheets

This sheet is different from the rest, i tried to draw over reference picture to breakdown peoples hair into simpler shapes, didnt feel like I learned a whole lot from this unfortunately:

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Nosnibor 2025-08-10 16:41:01 UTC #86

Gesture drawing - 1 min

Here is another batch of 60 second gesture drawings. I am still struggling with proportions but trudging along. I can see a lot of the heads are still way too small but I am going to try be a lot more deligent with it going forward and I am going to make proportion the focus of a lot of my study sessions going forward - following the advice @JimSt and @gregorya provided above : )

Once again, any critique to help me push my work further is greatly apprecaited : )

Big Sheet

Individual Sheets

2.png6144x6144 1.83 MB

3.png6144x6144 1.75 MB

4.png6144x6144 1.61 MB

5.png6144x6144 1.56 MB

6.png6144x6144 1.6 MB

7.png6144x6144 1.58 MB

Nosnibor 2025-08-10 16:45:43 UTC #87

Perspective 2 assignment 3: Using 4-point perspective

My intention was to only do one copy of Marc's 4 point perspective person however I did the first one at like 1:30am and completely forgot everything so I did another one. All 4 point drawings were done using a grid for guidance.

I tried to add clothes onto the figure at the end which look incredibly flat, I have not attempted to draw any clothes for months and months so that is not too suprising but it has made me look forward to clothes studies again in Term 3.

Studies

Adding a simple background/environment

I always have a grand idea in my head but in reality when it comes to adding fine little details around the place I find it quite tedious and end up just haphazardly wacking them down. Overally didnt spend too much time on this though so I dont mind it. However looking at this now I am fairly sure I did the background in 5 point perspecitve and not 4 point.

Nosnibor 2025-08-10 16:52:46 UTC #88

Portrait study

My girlfriend has been watching a lot of Dexter in the background when I am in the corner working or drawing etc so I thought I would try to draw him for my portrait study. I think it looks like him which is nice lol. Although I really dont like my rendering/painting (I am very bad at rendering). I have a general idea on how to shade features (eyes, nose, ears, mouth) but when it comes to the rest of the face i get pretty lost (especailly the hair).

The main things I struggle with are:

Rendering hair
I cant picture the form at all and to be honest I randomly just whacked values down
Values
I have a bad understanding of lighting and values
Lips/Mouth
I feel like I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to the lips. Not much to be said here other than I need to just keep practicing
Shading technique
I have heard people talk about hard and soft edges when shading but I dont really get how/where to apply it so I need to look into this more

Moving past from all the negatives I think this is decent and I definitely would not have been able to do this when I first started the course.

phiahart 2025-08-12 01:48:10 UTC #89

Your portraite work is very solid! Also really like your line work, its very smooth.

gregorya 2025-08-12 17:04:30 UTC #90

I see. I just have a pen tablet without a display.

From what I can gather, you can divide the sections into separate chunks. Here's a video I found from Pikat:

I didn't watch it yet, but it might help.

Nice work on the gesture drawings. I also like the 4-point perspective person. The environment is pretty good as well.

I like the portrait study of Dexter. There's another video from Proko for drawing here:

That might help. Mark also has a few videos about hair.

JimSt 2025-08-16 15:54:23 UTC #91

Your hair studies are good and I think I could benefit from doing something similar. I'm not great at making hair. I love the block mohawk! So fun!

Your Dexter is recognizable. I don't watch the show, but can see the resemblance based off what i recall of the ads and stuff.
Your awareness of what you need to work on is an important skill - actually probably the most important skill, because that's going to be what guides your studies after you finish this program.
I think most of those things are tackled further in the course, except for the mouth and lips. Marc covers that in the Anatomy 1 video @ 1:36:50 in the section labeled "Nose." So you might want to spend some time there reviewing, if you feel that way about the mouth. (Honestly, I could benefit from revisiting it myself...)

And I think it's super important to be able to see your own progress. It means what you are doing is working! Keep it up!

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:40:50 UTC #92

Thanks! The block mohawk was me getting frustrated at not being able to draw natural flowy hair haha.

I appreciate the help/critique, it is always motivating : )

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:41:52 UTC #93

Term2 - Block 6

This is the final block of Term 2 and now that it is done I can move on to Term 3 : )
Exciting stuff as I am nearly back to where I got to before I restarted the course. Feeling like I am in a stronger position than last time as I have been following the complete study guide.

Anyway, here are the completed tasks from this block:

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:45:59 UTC #94

Primitive drawings (all 3 exercises)

I feel like my understanding of form and perspective is slowly improving. I quite enjoyed completing this assignment.

Each sheet I completed is split down the middle. The top half being Exercise 1 - Spatial Awareness and the bottom half being Exercise 2 - Form manipulation. And to top it off, Exercise 3 - Carving (the pink linework) was done on both halves afterwards.

Big Sheet

Individual Sheets

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:48:29 UTC #95

Draw or paint a fantasy creature/monster portrait from imagination

So I initially misread this task as just "draw a fantasy creature" not a portait so the first sheet is just some random creature doodles, I dont really know what any of them are to be honest:

This is the fantasy portrait from imagination. I am not sure how I feel about it and I have never really tried drawing something like this before but it was fun to try and mess with some anatomy to create interesting features

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:55:04 UTC #96

Hair Studies

This was a task not included in the block of study I was doing but I wanted to do it before tackling my next portrait study. I drew other reference photos practicing breaking down hair and values. I watched the videos @gregorya linked above and they helped although I definitely still struggle with this.

In pikat's video she talks about getting keeping the overall shape in mind and getting down the "big shadow shapes" first and implying texture by refining shadow shapes.

This image below is from her video tutorial when she is speaking about big shadow shapes.

Hearing all this makes sense but when I look at reference photos to practice doing this myself I am slightly stuck and am thinking "I have no idea where the big shadow shapes are at all and I dont know how to break this down". I definitely need to study values more to get better at this.

Anyway here are the studies, there were a couple more but I deleted them by accident somehow (facial features were quickly traced as I was focused only on the hair for this task):

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:56:13 UTC #97

Draw or paint a portrait

I feel like my understanding of hair has improved a little bit but it definitely still feels like one of my weakest points

Nosnibor 2025-08-29 13:57:55 UTC #98

Gesture drawing 1-5mins

All my gesture drawings were done in 30 minute blocks : )

Big Sheet

Individual Sheets - 60 second studies

Individual Sheets - 2 minute studies

Individual Sheets - 5 minute studies

gregorya 2025-09-04 22:15:28 UTC #99

Nice work. I got stuck on the 4-point perspective, so I'm working on that. Nice work on the shapes. Carving them looks cool.

Those creature drawings are interesting. Some of these look like Yokai.
The portrait from imagination looks interesting. Something about the ears looks off to me.

Glad the video helped. I still have some trouble with hair. But it helps. Nice work with the hair shapes. I think you should work more on the lighting.

JimSt sent me a video on hair on my blog.

These gesture drawings look good.

Nosnibor 2025-10-15 13:23:40 UTC #100

Thanks : ) ! I didnt really have an inspiration for them to be honest they were more just random doodles. I agree with you about the ears too.

Thank you for the link, it is a helpful video but I find it very difficult to represent hair as ribbons and end up falling to random scribbles and hoping that it looks like hair. I definitely need to practice this ribbon method more to get more out of it. I appreciate the help.

Thanks again! If you have any advice or resources on how I can improve and take my gesture drawing further I would very much appreciate it. I know there are some anatomy classes in the later terms so I am looking forward to those and hoping they will bring a bit extra to my gestures.

Nosnibor 2025-10-15 13:24:30 UTC #101

Term 3 - Revisited

Nearly back to where I was before I restarted to course. It has been a rough start on term 3 for me, I have completed what would usually take me 1 week / 1.5 weeks in just over a month. I could make excuses and say I was ill for a week and I was away for a bit (which I was) but truth is I burnt out a little and have been lazy. I think I have been unhappy with my progress so far but the only solution to that it to keep trying, I am feeling more motivated again after taking it slowly for a month and a bit.

Here are the tasks I will be completing this term broken down into blocks:

Clothed Figure Drawing assignment 1: painting clothed refs (0/7)
Primitive drawings (all 3 exercises) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUcYTAiCQyQ (0/7)
Study (copy) 10 heads from photo references (lineart only) (0/10)
Study (copy) 3 environment drawings from professional artists/shows/games you like (lineart only) (0/3)

Gesture drawing 2mins - 30 mins (0/7)
Clothed Figure Drawing assignment 2: Draw clothes over ref (0/7)
Study (copy) 10 clothed figures from photo references (lineart only) (0/10)
Study (copy) 5 fully dressed character drawings from professional artists/shows/games you like (lineart only) (0/5)

Primitive drawings (all 3 exercises) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUcYTAiCQyQ (0/7)
Anatomy 2 assignment 1: Draw muscles over ref (0/7)
Clothed Figure Drawing assignment 1: painting clothed refs (0/1)
Draw or paint a character/creature bust from imagination (but don’t hesitate to use various photo references to help if needed) (0/1)

Draw a stylized barrel in perspective using ZBrush For Visual Production assignment 1 as inspiration (or use a different stylized barrel of your choice as reference) (0/1)
ZBrush For Visual Production assignment 1: using your barrel drawing as reference for your 3D model (0/1)
Anatomy 2 assignment 1: Draw muscles over ref (0/7)

Gesture drawing 2 mins - 30 mins (0/7)
Clothed Figure Drawing assignment 2: Draw clothes over ref (0/7)
Draw 5 character heads from imagination in simple perspective (facing the camera, lineart only)
ZBrush For Visual Production assignment 2: using your character/creature bust drawing/painting from Week 3 (0/1)

Anatomy 2 assignment 2: Drawing muscles over skeletons (0/7)
Study (copy) a fully dressed character painting from an artist/show you like (0/1)
Draw a character that represents you in a simple standing pose, wearing the same clothes you do (look at yourself in the mirror as reference for the clothes & folds) (0/1)

Term 3 - Block 1

Here are the completed tasks for the block I am about to post below

Nosnibor 2025-10-15 13:24:48 UTC #102

Primitive drawings (all 3 exercises)

I structured this the same as I did last time: each sheet I completed is split down the middle. The top half being
Exercise 1 - Spatial Awareness and the bottom half being Exercise 2 -
Form manipulation. And to top it off, Exercise 3 - Carving (the pink
linework) was done on both halves afterwards.

Big Sheet

Individual Sheets

3.png3840x3840 2.48 MB

4.png3840x3840 2.29 MB

5.png3840x3840 2.29 MB

6.png3840x3840 2.29 MB

7.png3840x3840 2.23 MB

8.png3840x3840 2.1 MB

Nosnibor 2025-10-15 13:25:02 UTC #103

Clothed Figure Drawing assignment 1: painting clothed refs

I feel like you can see my lack of motivation here, I didnt really have the motivation to spend a long time rendering a lot of these ( I gave up halfway through number 4). I still see rendering as a massive weakness of mine, I look at the reference and I know what I want to do however I have a lot of trouble translating it onto the page, especially find it difficult representing hard and soft edges with a smooth transition etc. I will keep working on it. I definitely also am looking forward to practicing and understanding values a bit better in the future as at the moment I am just guessing and whacking stuff down.

Individual Sheets

Nosnibor 2025-10-15 13:25:20 UTC #104

Study (copy) 10 heads from photo references (lineart only)

A thing I have realised that I am doing - not just when I am drawing heads, but a lot of the time when I am drawing from reference. I will have the reference pasted into my drawing page at the same scale as the drawing I am doing. I think that I am using that as a crutch at the moment when it comes to proportion - as I can easily measure from the reference right next to my drawing - it feels almost like tracing with an extra step, kind of feels like I am cheating a little. So now I want to improve my proportions etc so I will be having the reference I am drawing from on another screen at another scale so that I can avoid using this crutch.

Other than that I feel that a lot of the heads I draw look very stiff and the lines look like the have little character and feel "measured" even though they are not entirely accurate lol. Not sure how to fix this other than continuing to practice and doing some gesture drawing.