Term 1++ - Jonathan

Hi.
Name: Jonathan
Age: 29
Favorite artists: WLOP, Marc, some works of zeronis and sakimichan.

I've always wanted to be able to draw and it actually started back in the beginning of the PS2-era with games like Final Fantasy X and Silent Hill 2. I had a freak of a friend who could copy a reference on the monitor pixel perfect and put it down on paper and shade it really well, making the picture almost come alive. I thought that it looked really cool and tried it myself with another friend when we wanted to make a game (we were 14 so no judging! :=)) but as one would expect we shut it down pretty fast.

I've had a few times where I tried to learn drawing again, even buying a small wacom bamboo something. Every time I quit because there was no curriculum or any type of plan. I tried to find something but most tutorials were like "here's how you draw an owl" or "this is how you shade a tree", I had no idea what to do what that information, how to put it together or where to go next.

I've always been a lifelong learner with roots in programming and I like creating things.
I might be the odd man out here, I don't want to work in the industry and freelancing is not something I'm aiming for either.

One of my goals is to be able to draw good enough to put my ideas and visions down on (digital) paper.
One of my end goals is to create a game, my game. I want to be an active part of the creative process and rather than giving a general description of key assets which the artist then interprets I'd like to be able to join in or have things ready already that they can iterate on if necessary. I've finished a few courses in Unity and I'm currently learning UE. Maya is not completely unknown to me either (Gnomon was the shit back in the day).

I've kept an eye on Marc's stuff for a long time and when he announced art school it seemed like a really cool idea and it really clicked with me since I really need structure and organized stuff when learning basics otherwise I get demotivated really really fast.

Learning strategy:
I'll get through the classes as soon as possible to get an overview of the material and how to turn it into segments of practice.
Without knowing too much about the material at the moment I'll probably split the practice into two categories depending on the material:
1. X strict repetitions following a set of steps. (like drawing the head base or face features)
2. X min of drawing Y with no clear steps or directions (like drawing a wall in perspective)

After X reps I move on to the next thing while spending a few minutes/reps each day working on old things.

I'm putting down 2 hours a day. Slow and steady wins the race (also consistency).

Christmas is done. I managed to snag term 3 during the sale too. I'm currently drawing headshapes (no jaw included, 5 different perspectives) and I'm aiming for 50 of each. They look like shit at the moment. Which is good and expected. Now I'll have something ugly to look at when I can draw better :=)

Math time:
I'm averaging around 1 complete set per 30min (5 heads).
2 hours a day will yield around 4 sets of heads (20 heads).
Assuming I keep the same pace or get quicker I'll have them done in 12 days or less.

After that I'll move on to the jaw.
I kind of want to drag things out a bit, I could go ham and draw like a mfker and finish 50 ugly headshapes in one day but I'm not sure how much would actually stick in terms of... muscle memory maybe?

I'm struggling with circles, so the heads look a bit off right now. I'm thinking of doing some warmups drawing only circles for 5 minutes each day.

I think the ovals for the top red head are way too wide, to me it sort of gives the impression that the face features have to be crammed together. I'm not completely certain of what the ovals represent yet except that they're helpful for specifying head direction. I might learn that later in the video. Until then monkey see monkey do.

Here are my first ever jawless headshapes :>
Red = Used photoshops ellipse tool.

Capture.JPG925x806 24.7 KB

So schedule right now:
5 min warmup drawing circles
30 min sessions of drawing headshapes
Total of 2 hours a day.

So I'm done with 50 heads looking in various directions. A total of 250 heads. It took 11.5 hours. That means it took, on average, 2.76 min/head. In a perfect world that's a total of 4-5 strokes depending on head direction. In reality I probably redid the headbase / first circle a lot as well as checking the oval size.
I spent approximately an hour a day instead of the planned two hours because life got in the way.

Conclusion: The heads are in no way perfect and below decent I think. But I got some drawing time in and I'm going to continue with the jaw and the rest lines in the face and try to pay some more attention to detail. It will probably be more interesting to draw something that actually looks like a head.

I still have trouble drawing circles. It shows especially when adding the oval and center line because everything gets very uneven. So if you're ever kidnapped and the kidnapper demands you to pick someone from Art school to draw circles, don't pick me

Also the center lines are a bit tricky to nail sometimes.

Plan: I'm going to watch the class again to refresh my memory on the jaw and various face lines. I'm probably going for X repetitions again and I don't have anything previously learned to work on so I'll continue to practice drawing circles before doing more heads (now with jaws).

Finished 250 heads.jpg2889x5628 1.66 MB

I'm currently living and breathing code as one of the last projects at my university are due this sunday so I haven't been able to do 2 hours a day. Things will calm down next week. Until then I try do between .5 - 1 hrs a day. I did do a rough sketch thingy from a scene that popped up in my head and I felt like I just had to put it down on paper before it went away forever.

Aside from that I'm still drawing heads. I'm having a hard time with the headshapes. Sometimes I nail it, other times something's off but I'm never sure what it is. I think it has to do with the oval width or rather the center of the face-line along with never perfect circles.

I still have 40 heads left to draw until I move forward with my first head feature... I think it's the ears?

I'm also not super sure of the chin. Is the chin supposed to be straight-ish or curve parallell to the bottom of the circle? I guess it depends on the perspective? But does it really? Argh.

Looking at the image, I think I've failed every head when taking the vertical line into consideration. It's supposed to curve almost identical to the oval, right? But my lines always start out to stiff at the top. Maybe if I draw with the mindset that the line wraps around to the back of the head instead of starting exactly at the top of the circle then it will be easier to draw it.

Finally done
It took longer than expected. I spent, on average, barely an hour a day drawing. But in truth some days I didn't draw at all while I kept other days to a maximum of 2 hours. Stupid life getting in the way Thanks to my setup I can watch movies and stuff on my other screens that makes repetitive work like this a little more "bearable".

I think it's time for ears? I'll keep doing heads but I'm not sure how to structure the daily drawing yet. I'm thinking 5 heads a day + when I draw the ears I'll draw the head as well.

[Done].jpg3394x7570 1.73 MB

It's so much easier drawing on a tablet with a thin drawing glove than pulling down my sleeve enough just so my hand can kinda rest on it and consistently glide across the tablet.

Also yay, first ear done. Something looks very off but it's my first ear so I'll cut myself some slack I can't put my finger on it but It's probably the shading.

I'll probably do like... 50 ears in 3 different perspectives, alternating between left and right. I can't shade well at all so I want to get into that too. I might grab or draw some volumes and swap my circle drawing to shading 10 min a day or something. So:

Main focus: 50 ears in 3 different perspectives, alternating between left and right.
Warmup/Other Stuff: 5 heads, Shading volumes 10 min

Ooh, thinking in terms of planes makes it so much easier. In hindsight it's so obvious but it still took someone to point it out. Thank you
I honestly wasn't sure exactly what the "boba fett"-lines was setting up and how to treat them in terms of their proportion to the rest of the face, unless I've missed something I assume Marc will explain that in more detail later (I'm on the ear-part, the first facial feature).
I will keep in mind that whole shaving off a bit of the circle, I've definitely been avoiding that for some reason.

So I'm definitely guilty of just putting out geometry pieces that kinda makes up a head rather than actually trying to construct a head and thinking twice about placement and such. So from now on I'm going to be more mindful of how I'm placing stuff and how it affects the rest of the head.

Also, TIL the method Marc teaches has a name. Great stuff, this helped a lot! Thank you so much!

I'm still alive d8D
I've got a lot IRL stuff to deal with. It's very hectic right now but I'm managing 1.5-2 hours every other day. I think I'll cut down on the number of ears to 25x3. I want to start putting some noses on my heads I've been drawing during the warmpup sessions.

PS! The antihelix is driving me insane.

Oh well. Back to coding. Here, have an ear:

Man, the ears are really starting to piss me off

I really need to get the form Y form down and the way it seems to bulge out but still transition softly to the space between the two points. This space seems to be uneven more often than a flat plane so drawing a Y-shape and then keeping it flat between the two points won't work and looks super off - I kinda tried with the ear above ^
I think I'm going to go switch to the first technique Marc showed where you actually draw the Y. Up until now I've been painting the inner ear pitch dark and using the eraser to block out the Y.
Maybe I'll just skip "shading" alltogether and save that for another time when I know what I'm doing :>