Ushi - ART School Journey

mitsuki-youko 2024-06-12 00:35:37 UTC #23

ooh love that shading on the last one! it looks so good!

Ushillust 2024-06-12 02:39:07 UTC #24

@daceronine Yeah perspective is definitely one of the areas that makes less sense to me the more I look into it lol. Wish it was as simple as most people make it out to be like 1point, 2point, and 3point perspective. And yeah I should have chose to draw a living room or something rather than a random hallway xP... does look empty

@mitsuki-youko Thanks! Honestly was a mistake cause I accidentally painted over the sketch, but I like how it turned out. I might try to incorporate shading backgrounds like that in the future. Happy little accident lol

Term 1 - Perspective

Assignment 4: Draw a street corner in 2-point perspective
I tried to pick a harder reference to use and I'm still unsure what to do when there are multiple objects that seem to go to a different vanishing point. I'm pretty sure there is only supposed to be one horizon line(?), but it felt like there was more than one. Maybe I didn't watch the lesson closely enough, or it's explained in a different term.
Wasn't perfect, but finally finished with term 1. I think I will try to keep a fast pace until I get to the lessons where I really don't understand much of it. I might go take some other lessons for perspective.

mitsuki-youko 2024-06-12 04:33:50 UTC #25

yoo this looks rly amazing too!

uggievang 2024-06-12 05:30:40 UTC #26

Nice everything looking nice so far

Ushillust 2024-06-12 14:03:36 UTC #27

Term 2 - Anatomy 1

I probably won't be doing any of the photoshop classes in term 2 for the same reason I skipped them in term 1.

Assignment 1: Practice drawing volumes in perspective
I might try to do these daily whenever I'm feeling bored like Marc said. I think it'll help me train my eye to see 3D space better.

Assignment 2: Practice drawing the main head sphere with its correct horizontal and vertical guidelines and then full head volume
I'm still in the process of watching this part of the class, but I think I got it down enough to be able to do the assignment. Tomorrow I'll try to finish the rest of Anatomy 1 lessons.

daceronine 2024-06-12 18:33:34 UTC #28

Given your past work, I think it's understandable to skip a few points in this second round. Those are nice exercices, you got the main structure from all angles.

Ushillust 2024-06-12 22:22:38 UTC #29

Yeah I'm just mainly trying to get to the point where I left off while still reviewing all the previous stuff to refresh my memory and get the juices flowing again.

Ushillust 2024-06-13 14:56:10 UTC #30

Term 2 - Anatomy 1, Part 2

Assignment 3: Draw facial features seperately without putting them together
I think these were a good review. Relearned more of the form of the mouth and nose and also how the cheeks are formed although I didn't draw them here.

daceronine 2024-06-14 00:39:18 UTC #31

Oy those are all very nicely rendered! The eyes are captivating.

uggievang 2024-06-14 01:46:11 UTC #32

Yup as artist we are always learning something new even if we have learned it before you never stop learning which honestly can feel very daunting haha

Ushillust 2024-06-14 09:11:50 UTC #33

@daceronine Thank you! I do enjoy drawing eyes on most days... I say most since sometimes my hands dont know how to eye, but it's all good xP

@uggievang Yeah... there are even times where I'll watch a guide or tip video on youtube and I'll be like "Damn ok so that's how it's supposed to be drawn" even though I already am pretty decent at drawing said thing... it's like I'm learning but not at the same time ahaha...

Ushillust 2024-06-14 14:11:28 UTC #34

Term 2 - Anatomy 1, Part 3

Assignment 4: Draw the full head with shading when comfortable
This one was drawn from memory so the planes of the face could be incorrect in some parts. I tried using a hard brush with no opacity to fully try and understand the plane changes that are happening in the face.

I will be stopping my lessons for a bit and will be doing a bunch of drawings of just heads for a little bit to fully understand the planes of the face and the expressions of the eyes and mouth. Will be studying hair as well. I want to really get it down this time before I move onto the other lessons.

daceronine 2024-06-14 17:08:14 UTC #35

Looks good! Can't really see any glaring faults at all. Shading is really nice looking too.

Ushillust 2024-06-15 10:46:54 UTC #36

@daceronine Thank you! I tried my best xP

Term 2 - Anatomy 1, Part 4

Yearly Redraw
Since I'm on the topic of portraits and the anatomy of the head, I decided to do another redraw of a portrait that I have been doing over the past few years. First attempt was back in 2017 at the end of my middle school years. Time sure does fly...

I think there was a noticeable improvement in all of the redraws, but this year I don't think there was any improvement between 2022 and 2024. It's to be expected though since I was away from drawing for quite a while, but it's good to see that I'm starting to regain the skills that I've had previously!

snakker 2024-06-15 18:26:55 UTC #37

Not sure i agree with your assessment. I am seeing more detailed shading on the structures of the ears, better representation of the volumes on the cheek, better details on eyes and lips, more voluminozatiom of the glabella and nasal mound and better use of value (you are starting to go darker). I would double check to see of you can add some lighter highlights for my dynamic range in value, but its definitely improving

Cheers

Edit: forgot to mention my observations. Be careful with having multiple perspectives when making heads. Looks like that happens to you on the nose and the figure’s right eye. Also not sure if the right brow is supposed to be asymmetrical (people can have facial asymmetry) but i notice the right brow is lower then the left

Ushillust 2024-06-15 21:54:17 UTC #38

I see! It's good to hear a second opinion since I am not able to see much of the diffference. And I'll take that observation into note. The asymmetry was not intention ahaha... and yeah having multiple perspectives for the right eye, nose, eyebrow was always something I struggled with when drawing faces in a 3/4 angle. I will look more into it as I do more studies. Thanks for the help!

uggievang 2024-06-15 22:25:28 UTC #39

I definitely see improvements for example your lighting has improved tones from the ambient occlusion on the hair and skin and the hard and soft shadows used to really emphasize the form of the facial structures. You might not see it yourself but those small things that you learn really add up to make more rendered piece

daceronine 2024-06-16 04:46:45 UTC #40

Have to agree with the othrs, there is some clear improvement even with 2022 and 2024. Mostly better shading from what I can see. As for face or body components from angles, for now I just keep using references, and in case of CSP, I frequently use the 3D heads to set my initial construction. Rarely will I keep the original reference or 3D head structure, but it provides a good base for angles. I also very frequently take photos of myself posing to get an idea of how the body or face works from different perspectives. Or expressions. Photos are very silly, but it gets the job done.

mitsuki-youko 2024-06-16 23:42:12 UTC #41

I see lots of improvement between 2020 and 2024
ther'es a lot more detail and a lot more range in values!

Great work! always cool to see others' improvement progresses!

Ushillust 2024-07-07 08:53:13 UTC #43

Hiya it's been quite a long while. I was on a trip to Japan, so I wasn't able to get much done, but I am back again with a newly developed mindset(?) sort of to speak.
But before that, I'd like to get this out of the way first. I did another redraw of the portrait that I did a few weeks ago while focusing more on lighting and the observations made by @snakker ( Thank you btw! ) I really like how it turned out.

Indefinite Hiatus from Social Media

TL;DR: I'm going to be 100% focusing on art school and original art for the time being rather than working on fanarts for my socials.

I have been super demotivated to draw lately and I've been struggling very hard to locate the root cause of this problem. But it hit me a few days ago when I just so happened to open up free art requests on twitter. And someone asked me why I was doing it. I initially thought to myself that I was just bored in the moment and wanted something to draw, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I wasn't drawing out of boredom. It was for validation.

The need for validation of my art has been sprouting up in me for quite some time now after I've started to receive some attention on twitter and now it's just grown into this toxic virus in my system where I don't want to draw anything if it means no one will see it and give it a reaction. And honestly sometimes I even post on HERE for the same reason. Posting not only for a critique, but a reaction.

It's got me thinking about why I started drawing in the first place. I just wanted to be able to express myself through beautiful character art. Validation from others was never a reason as to why I started drawing. So I've decided to leave my socials behind for the time being and focus on improving my art for the sole purpose of improving to reach my goals and not for the goal of getting more likes.

However I will still be posting on here because I do want to continue getting feedback and also give feedback to fellow artists that are trying to improve alongside me. But this time with a newly found mindset of doing it for myself and not for the validation of others seeing my art. There will be a lot of artworks that never make the light of day on here as well, but I think that's for the better. I intend to only post when I'm doing assignments or when I am in need of critique from now on.