Verr's art journey, or: how I learnt to stop worrying and love the process

Verr 2025-10-24 20:49:33 UTC #93

Alright, alright point taken! I apologise for my apology!
You’re right though, I shouldn’t rain on my own parade, need to get rid of that mindset. Thanks for your kindness as always Jim!

Verr 2025-10-24 20:52:13 UTC #94

The print came out so much better than I was expecting for the price too, really chuffed!
Thanks for the comment on my lines, I’ve been trying hard to work on improving my line control. My sketches are still a mess, but it’s getting there for finished pieces I think! (I’m actually quite giddy from your comment, never had someone compliment my lines before, thank you so much!!!)

Verr 2025-10-29 22:56:22 UTC #95

Progress 29-10-2025

Busy busy busy! Been cooking up a few things since my last post!
Firstly, ARTSchool Term 2 is COMPLETE!
I did say I was going to leave until the start of next year, but one of the tasks was to draw/paint a monster from imagination, which seemed fitting for the spooky season, plus, a self-portrait, so just figured I’d get them out of the way whilst I’m still on a high and feeling really good about all this art business.

Also, today, my Twitter account absolutely blew up after I posted a study. I’m talking about jumping from like 10 followers to over a hundred. Normally my art gets a handful of views, but now I have one approaching 7000!
I know this isn’t important in the grand scheme of things but oh my God it’s a good feeling. I just wanted to share that because I am really, really happy. I genuinely don’t know what’s going on but October man, it’s been an absolute banger of a month.

Alright, onto the art:

Draw/paint a monster from imagination

For this one I thought I’d do some painting! I LOVE painting, although I’m not very good at it, I just love building out a picture and layering all the colours and blocking it in, it’s so fun and there’s something about it which I find incredibly therapeutic in a way that sketching/line art doesn’t quite match.

(I call it the Coinback Leviathan)

Okay so a sea serpent probably isn’t the most imaginative of ideas for a monster, but hey, this one is mine!
Genuinely not much scares me, but I am absolutely downright terrified of sea monsters/big fishy things with many sharp teeth. I’ll play all the Silent Hills and Dead Spaces and Resident Evils happily any day of the week, but to this day Subnautica remains the sole video game I have never been able to finish purely out of fear. I won’t play the second.

I kinda like how rough and stormy the water is looking in my painting, I think there’s definitely a vibe which is captured, but it still looks a bit flat. The leviathan itself was meant to be smooth-skinned kinda of like an eel, but I could probably have done a better job of making it actually look wet, because it looks very dry looking at it now! (whoops!)

There’s also a guy riding a platform on it’s back; my reason for this is simply because although it is a “monster”, I’ve always been drawn to the idea of something horrifying and fear-inducing actually having a symbiotic relationship with people. I wrote a little bit of world-building for it:

"Feared by sailors yet revered by islanders, the "Coinback" Leviathan formed an unlikely bond with humankind. Its species’ heads are protected by natural plating, but their long bodies remain exposed as soft, vulnerable flesh. The first recorded encounter ended not in death, but discovery; a captain’s sword lodged in its hide seemed to endear, not antagonise the creature. Since then, Leviathans have sought metal from humans for armour, allowing riders to embed coins and scrap into their skin. They ferry humans across the perilous seas of the local archipelago, a fragile truce between fear and trust upon an unforgiving sea filled with horrors much, much worse than the leviathans."

So yeah, a big scary sea snake that will ferry humans across dangerous waters in return for having metal embedded into it’s skin.

Some snapshots of the progress:

as a bonus, I also drew a little concept sheet for another creature, before I re-read the brief and realised I wasn’t following it correctly. I know it’s just a hand digging into and manipulating a body, but it is connected to an unseen body. Kind of an eldritch/cosmic entity sort of thing going on. I do have a bit of lore for it all, but gonna save it for a rainy day.

Self-portrait

Ohhhhh boy, alright, so when I first made this blog I actually included my very first self-portrait in my initial post as an example image, but I quickly went back in and deleted it out of embarrassment because I just couldn’t hack seeing it. Though, here we are all these months later with some definite improvement to my skill, so now we can look back and laugh just like all my other old art.

Yep. There he is. There’s Verr from June 2025. Flat. Emotionless. Dead behind the eyes. I suppose it was a valiant attempt for the time, but… Bloody hell.

Alright so it’s just a sketch with shading, but damn I think it’s an improvement. There’s LIFE. There’s actual thought behind those eyes. I was going for the “my mum trying to figure out her new phone” expression. It was really fun to do!
I’m getting a lot better at doing these. Still a lot of room for improvement (why, WHY did we have to have lips?!) but overall I’m not actually embarrassed to share this. Though I could do with a shave.

And with that Term 2 is over, and thus Term 3 begins. Taking a look, we’re soon going to be tackling clothing folds, which I actually enjoy doing, and a big part of my halloween piece for this year was specifically for focusing on fabric folds/weight and such, and I think it’s looking really good too! …But I’m not sharing until halloween.

Instead have my side of a quick, impromptu art trade from Twitter today:

And a stretchy boy:

So pumped to keep on arting and keep the fire rolling!

Cheers!

Verr 2025-10-31 20:30:54 UTC #96

🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃

Hope everyone is having the most spooktacular, macabre day! What are you getting up to? Any parties? A quiet night in with a creepy movie?
We’re planning on watching a film called ”Bloodbath at the house of death” later, and with a title as metal as that, it’s gotta be good, right? (Apparently it’s awful - I’m really looking forward to it!)

Anyway, have a nice cozy halloween trick-or-treating picture:

For this one I really wanted to emphasise light/shadow and clothing folds - so having my character dressed up in a classic bedsheet ghost costume for halloween seemed like the perfect excuse really!

I also tried to push myself more on the background than I usually do; just another incremental step up from previous attempts and I’m honestly pretty happy with it! I tried hard not to make it too busy - to just keep it as “enough” it felt the idea that there’s more to the scene without making it so distracting that it takes away from the main focus. It’s a surprisingly difficult balance to strike and whilst I am genuinely happy with how it looks, I feel like there’s a bit more that I still could’ve done with it. It read reeeeeeeally flat at first, but then I applied some light texture brushwork (something I always neglect to do) and adding some autumn leaves on the ground to kind of break up the flatness. here’s how it looked before these changes:

I initially did a very rough sketch of Iso (my character in the ghost costume) to ensure that the sheet fell over him in a way that made sense before commiting, and it matches up pretty well! I think in the end it does look as if the cloth is draped over a solid form so I’m very happy with that.

The light of his armour and visor beneath was also something I wanted to have a play with to see if I could convincingly pass it through to show that there are lights beneath the sheet. The head was easy as the sheet is laying flat against the surface smoothly, so the lights beneath are more obviously shaped and directly passing through whilst the light is diffused further out through the sheet covering the face, sorta like an ambient glow over the head.
The other parts of his armour that have lights (ears, chest, hips and shoulders) were a little tougher because of angle/implied space between the cloth and the armour, so in these instances, I vaguely hinted at them using a much softer touch, though honestly unless you’re familiar with these types of characters these are probably a little tough to even notice or, to a more experienced artist, might look like lighting errors, but I’ve highlighted where I placed them here:

Other things to note about this one are:

I’m pretty proud of the perspective, I think it reads pretty cohesively.
I loooove the colours that I used in this one, restricting myself to almost all blues and oranges for that real night-time, halloween-y autumnal feeling. It contrasts nicely and I can see why it’s such a popular colour choice combination for so many artists/games/movies/media.
The warm light spilling out of the doorway and following the perspective leads the eye through the composition really well from left -> right I think.
An attempt was made at using line weight for overlaps, but looking a bit rough still. Need more practice.

And finally here’s a little gif timelapse of most of the process:

…Yikes, I didn’t mean little in the literal sense, but I can’t figure out how to make it bigger! Well if anyone cares, here’s an imgur link for better viewing: https://imgur.com/a/i2tH8VD

Anyway love this piece - I genuinely believe it’s my best art yet. I’m really pleased.
Now, it’s getting late and I have a silly movie to watch.

Cheers!

juromaru 2025-11-03 16:15:47 UTC #97

I havent been here for a while and coming back and seeing what a blast of images you posted!

I love wip pictures, so thank you for includin it for your halloween painting. It is super cute and well defined! And as someone who hates cloths folding with a deep passion I can only tip my imaginary head to you being exited about that in term 3 |D

Also the self portrait especially with the description of your mum turned out really cool. And lips...oh well...

my personal favorite however is the Leviathan. I think Feng Zhu in his artschool acutally let students design saddles for all kind of animals and the students have to keep in mind the anatomy (for example a frog would have the saddle closer to its back legs due to the jumps).
Do you wanna have feedback on this painting?

Verr 2025-11-03 19:01:55 UTC #98

Hey thanks so much for checking back in!

I was actually trying to consider the saddle of the leviathan when I was drawing it, as a platform with a flat bottom plunging into the ocean seems like a recipe for disaster, so we can say I was either being uncreative or lazy haha.

By all means please feel free to give feedback it’d be much appreciated! My blog is open critique/feedback and if you're willing to provide it then I'm willing to listen, absolutely!

juromaru 2025-11-04 10:00:59 UTC #99

Alrighty, then I will do!
Please take everything I say with a grain of salt, I am by no means an expert.

I am a huge fan of value paintings to check if my colors are in balance and if I created enough depth.

This is no issue at all in the furry art you created here,there is a clear value language, lightning, rimlight, and the eye knows what it needs to focus on.

However with the Leviathan picture the contrast is not high enough, weather in color choice nor in contrast.
Furthermore the secret sauce to a proper painting (from what I found out in my humble practices) is to find a good mix between hard and soft brush strokes. You mainly rely on very soft brush strockes for everything and this leads to a weaker contrast.

I tweaked your art a bit to show you what I mean. I would also pay a closer look to lightning.

Verr 2025-11-04 22:25:01 UTC #100

Oh my God this is such good advice! You know I never once considered making a picture greyscale to check the values. I usually do my flat colours and then my values… and I know a lot of artists do their values first - it’s always something I forget to do!

I genuinely can’t believe what a difference your paint over of the leviathan painting has made! it pops! I genuinely love it.

Okay so a few things for me to bear in mind for the next one:
- check values are going steady even after colouring
- contrast, contrast contrast!
- More considered colour choices
- mix up hard/soft brush strokes
- watch the lighting!

Thank you so, so much. I really genuinely appreciate you taking the time to give your advice and doing the paint over! There’ll be more paintings coming in the future so I’ll be sure to check back and remind myself!

juromaru 2025-11-05 09:23:44 UTC #101

Glad to be of service!
(And sorry for all the spelling and grammar mistakes, my English became incredibly rusty during the last years)

Verr 2025-11-10 01:05:15 UTC #102

Progress 09-11-2025

Hey hey, hope everyone is arting and creating and doing well!

A few furry things to share, so brace yourselves. I am planning on jumping back onto ARTSchool stuff ASAP but I'm having so much fun getting involved in community art trades and fights and stuff; I feel like I'm finally coming out of my shell... I'm even making art friends - Actual mutuals I can talk to regularly and share friendly encouragement and feedback and the like which is something I've been desperately searching for! It's a really good feeling, not being so lonely going through it all.

But enough soppy crap; it's fluffy time!

Kuz gift

Art gift for Kuz on twitter, of his sona fox character. This was a really fun one; cool little dude to draw! As mentioned in previous posts, I've been trying to go for more interesting perspectives with my character drawings so naturally wanted to apply that here.

This is the piece currently, but I still have more I want to do with it - I still need to go over and do a pass for line weight, and I'm not too happy with the eyes, but I like the pose and perspective! The background was just a quick paint but I think it does the trick.

Some background variants:

I submitted this piece for critique on Reddit and got some great feedback from a kind soul regarding the perspective. They came back to me with this draw-over as a suggestion for how the perspective could be made more extreme:

I particularly like a suggestion they made regarding extending the limbs further out from the body to give it a more interesting sillhouette/make the pose more dynamic. They also mentioned blurring the tip of the tail as it's the point closest to the "camera" which is actually a really good idea... Can't believe I never thought of that before! I've definitely seen other people do the same in other art. I'm worried I'm not absorbing the kind of observational knowledge I should be from viewing other people's art, despite making conscious efforts. I get told stuff which seems so obvious and I'm just like, "God, how the hell did I not see that?!"

So going off the critique provided, I started the process of a redraw - still a WIP, but the lines are coming out better (went a lot softer and used a larger brush size for more obvious width/pressure variation) and I gave the eyes the re-factor I wanted to make them look much better. To be fair though, even using the draw-over that the reddit user gave me as a reference, I still feel like I didn't quite manage to change the perspective - the character looks slightly different in terms of form and proportion, but perspective-wise I think it still reads the same. Embarrassingly, even though I can tell that it doesn't quite hit the perspective I was hoping for, I can't quite tell exactly why it doesn't look like that! Absolute art blindness.

...But I'll keep soldiering on.

Some WIPs:

And this was an alternative pose when I was sketching out ideas - I actually really like it, so am gonna keep it in the bank for a different drawing I think!

Silly little comic

I've never made a comic before, and a common joke in the protogen community is that protogens are often called toasters due to the shape of their heads. Someone in a comment said something silly so I had an idea for a stupid little comic which was pretty fun; it was fun playing with the expressions. (And I am well aware it is flat and side-on, despite talking about trying to do interesting perspectives and such!)

Lines-only:

And finally just for more to share, I'm currently work on another art thing for a mutual with their character sat on a rooftop. it's in a very rough state at the moment, just trying to feel things out about it. I have new hardware and new software (see: below), so I'm a bit out of my comfort zone trying to get a feel for how it all works. To be honest, the lines look pretty rubbish so I'll probably re-approach once I've found (or made) a line brush I like.

Some WIPs/alternative poses:

Other big news

I thought I'd treat myself! Now I'm back in the UK from my 6 weeks away in Germany, I'm diving straight back in to overwhelming, all-consuming practice!

When I told myself I was gonna stop wasting time and do something fulfilling like actually learn to draw, I was still doubting myself that I'd see it through... But, here we are over a year of daily (or near-daily!) drawing later and I'm more obsessed than ever; it's all I want to do. I don't care about work, or video games, or TV or movies or eating or sleeping or breathing or... God, seriously, it's all I want to do. It's genuinely unhealthy, but I absolutely love it. I've never had anything sink it's claws so deep into me before and refuse to let go. I wish I had this motivation 10 years ago when I had all the time in the world to pursue it. But the past is the past, what matters now is looking forward! The reason I'm saying all this is because I think I've now stuck with it all long enough to justify an upgrade.

Anyway, my iPad and Procreate have been my trusty companions for the last year of art practice, but I figured it was time to step away from the limitations of the platform and return to a more comfortable workspace setup that will allow me to use all my computer real estate, plus it has the added bonus of making it so much less painful to stream art to friends during group study sessions!
I decided to buy a Wacom Cintiq 16; I always wanted a Cintiq (I don't think I could ever go back to drawing on a screenless display), but was always worried that the purchase would be irresponsible and unwarranted; but now I have no doubts I'll more than get my money's worth out of this!

The resolution is a bit weird in the photo because the only Micro-HDMI to HDMI cable I had on hand was some cheap one I bought ages ago. (I thought it would come with one...) but I've ordered a new one which should arrive tomorrow and actually allow me to make full use of the 2.5k resolution the device can actually output, which I'm really looking forward to!

Also struggling a bit with Clip Studio Paint as it's software I've never used before - thankfully the keyboard shortcuts are very similar to photoshop/Krita, which hasn't been too bad, but the interface is taking some getting used to and it took me an embrassingly long time to figure out the pen pressure in the app itself was causing me issues, not the pressure set in the Wacom tablet settings. Not to mention going from being able to use touch gesture to zoom/rotate to having to use keyboard shortcuts again!
I think I'll get there, just need time to get used to it all!
And - oh my God - it's going to make following ARTSchool videos so much easier.

Fun times ahead, I think! Looking forward to putting it through it's paces!

Cheers!

Verr 2025-11-15 22:35:17 UTC #103

Progress 15-11-2025

Happy Saturday!

Been a strange week, some good, some bad, a bit of a meh feeling.

I got talking to someone I was hoping to be an art mutual a few weeks ago - an artist I respected and who's art I admired - and things started off great, I thought we were on to a real winner, but, they recently made some comments not necessarily about the quality of my work (which I'm well aware of), but, like, about my art goals/what I was hoping for/the kinda direction I wanted to go; my inspirations, my practice... I don't know man, it was really weird. I like to think I have pretty thick skin, you know, I'm just a normal adult dude, but it really, really bothered me - like, actually took the wind out of my sails after what I think was my best month ever. It was just so unexpected and out of left field that I can't get it out of my head. I'm not going to give up on art or anything, I'm not going to change what I'm going for and I'm proud of my art and improvement and stuff, for the most part, but there's no denying their words really threw me through a loop, got into my head and I've been struggling with art this week.
I'm not looking for any kind of enocuragement or anything, I just don't know what else to do except write this in my little corner of Cubebrush to just get it off my chest. It wasn't an unwarranted critique or anything, I can handle that, but I don't know if it was malicious either. It was just so weird. Sorry, I know I'm being vague and you probably don't even really care, I'm not gonna share any more details than that, I just, yeah, I dunno.

Anyway, I finally, finally started week 1 of term 3. I figured I could probably do with the structure just to keep me drawing after the above events, plus just to get me used to the new tablet and software. Also finished the last peice I was working on, but not particularly happy with it, though I also think I'm just getting into my own head at this point!

Finished piece - "Solar Powered

Gift art for a friend. Absolutely not my best work; the character was coming together during the sketch, but nothing else about it really came out the way I was hoping - I think I ended up just rushing it honestly; not my proudest moment. I can see so many issues and problems I thought maybe I might not be making at this point in my journey... but I suppose I just wanted it done, to start over with something fresh and just lazily slapped "whatever" on it and moved on.
My friend liked it at least, which I'm grateful for, so I suppose I'm still glad I made it because it made them happy.
Now I do like the reflection in the visor and the knees. Pretty happy with those.
I was considering not sharing thie final result of this one out of embarrassment and perhaps a little bit of shame knowing other people will see it, but I want to stay consistent in posting pretty much everything to serve as something I'll be able to look back on in time, for my own satisfaction.

Silent Hill f sketch thing

Not much to say about this, just a quick silly drawing I made because I started playing Silent Hill f. Also to kinda of try and get familiar with exactly what clip studio paint is all about as I'm still getting to grips with it and struggling a fair amount with the transition, honestly. I miss the brushes I had in procreate. ):
I don't really allow myself the time to play video games much any more, especially not this last year since I've been really focusing on the art, but Silent Hill is one of those series that has a special place in my heart, and for a franchise I thought was dead until they released the remake of Silent Hill 2 a year ago, I wanted to try it out. It's pretty good so far. I think I also drew this to kinda offset that irrational feeling of guilt I get for playing a game instead of practicing art, but quality wise it's very amateurish, even for something I threw together relatively quick.

Term 3 - Week 1 beginning!

Notes on Clothed Figure Drawing video

Started week one of term 3 yesterday and continued on with it today. So far, I've watched and made not for the entirety of the clothed figure drawing video, which was very informative and a good insight into how tension and gravity affect the folds of clothes. It's one of those things I think everyone probably has an innate, basic understanding of, because, well, it makes sense, doesn't it? But I never actually gave the deeper aspects of it much thought. That is to say, never even crossed my mind haha. I do like doing folds in clothing when drawing though, so hoping I'll really see some improvement from the upcoming work this term.

Daily primitive exercises

I actually did rotations + carvings first, then deformation last (hence why I sorta have up with the last few there). I'll be honest, these took ages, way longer than they probably should have done and they don't even really look that good. A bit perfectionist I think, with little to show for it. I think I'm just gonna be a little fatser and rougher with this exercise going forward, because I don't think it should have taken half the time it did, especially for a daily exercise.

daily clothed figure folds

Fun! Enjoyed doing this! Really enjoyed it, actually. Took me less time to do than the primitves above and I feel I got much more out of it. I had some struggles trying to get all the little folds and creases in on some of my attempts, but I think this more because I struggle with propotions and my underlying figures don't match up to have the space to afford for all the details in the actual photos. So, just a reminder to keep working on my anatomy and such as well. I did try not to worry about being too clean with the figures - I drew them pretty quick and with the clothing on top you can't see the horror beneath anyway. Better, more accurate proportions + more space to accurately depict the clothing = happy canvas. Looking forward to doing more of these.

10 Heads from reference - Heads 1, 2 and 3.

More practice needed, but I can see improvement is happening. Trying to not rely on my crutch of thick lines & shading to hide poor construction and proportions.
1 - looks alright
2 - yikes
3 - happy with this wild-haired old man!

Assorted gestures

Did some gestures as warm ups with the new tablet. At first it was a baaaaaad time, I was really surprised by how much of an affect moving to a new piece of equipment can have on your skill. i was really worried at first, it felt like the iPad was the one with all the talent because some of these are just awful... Thankfully though after a little while I think I finally started to get into some kind of rhythm again - and some even started looking alright I think! I need to try and remember that, no, I'm not a pro artist with decades of experience. My one minute gestures will not be a full body extravaganza. I forget that sometimes, need to be nicer to myself.

30s

1 min

2 min

5 min

I've also purchased Gesture Drawing with Aaron Blaise which I'll start working through if not mid-way through Term 3, then probably once it's done. Heard good things about it as a little course, and it also covers gesture of animals and landscapes (didn't even know landscape gesture was a thing!) which sounds really interesting, so quite looking forward to skilling up. I still think gesture is one of my weaker, if not weakest areas.

Yeah, strange update today. My sprint may have come to an unexpected and sudden stop, but I'm making sure to keep on trucking! I'm sure within the next week or two I'll be back on fire again. Happy to have the coursework to keep me busy and give me something to focus on in the meantime.

Cheers!

brohawx 2025-11-16 05:07:14 UTC #104

A lot will depend on peoples age, but emotional maturity is something that has to be learned the hard way. And age will be irrelevant in that regard. It doesn't sound like this person was exorcising it. I wasn't there - but if it was 'un' warranted - it sounds like a misplaced rant.

People don't always know how to be helpful - or teach - but more importantly, recognize when someone is ready for the next step of learning or knowledge in their process for art creation, or life.

Remember the grain of salt saying people always use. Salt that bitch. Now they salty. Blegh.

Remember saying that? That is your rock. That is what you started out with. Where you can go back to.

Art stuff:

It looks like you are speed manifested. Is your stylus on fire?

How long are you spending on your head studies?

From what I can tell - I think you are ready to integrate longer pose and portrait studies into your practice.

Knowing where the longer poses go and what steps they need will actually help you set up a short pose more consistently. Doing that same rhythm of process will also help with your own pieces, with the foundational drawing, value, edges and color.

If not no biggie, keep doing the dailies.

Those clothing studies look good.

You are on a fast track because of how much you are taking in. it is important to walk and journal and process this stuff that you are learning and have enough rest for it to be set into the long term memory bank.

You're doing fine. You are going to hit more breakthroughs than you ever realized in these intermediate/advanced stages.

Verr 2025-11-16 21:57:47 UTC #105

Hey Bro,
Can always count on you to keep me on the straight and narrow. Much appreciated for your words as always - salt has been applied.

To answer your questions:

• Stylus:
It has already turned to ash. A replacement is currently en route. Will be gentler.

• Head studies:
I usually spend 20–30 minutes on each one. I’m trying hard to break the perfectionism habit - I keep falling into those hours-long loops of reworking tiny lines and ending up with something worse. Same thing happened with my primitives yesterday; it took me probably bout two hours of reworking and overthinking for what should be a warm-up. Just not sustainable with everything else I want to get done.
So I’m shifting focus from “maximum quality” to “balanced quantity.” I think I’ll learn more from 2–3 heads in an hour than one I obsess over endlessly. I’m slowly becoming zen Verr - learning to love the errors, accept them, and grow from them.

For the longer studies, I absolutely love the idea. It’s intimidating in the best way, but I already know exactly what I want to tackle. It feels like the right next step, and the fact you think I’m ready gives me even more confidence. I’m genuinely excited to lose myself in something longer and more focused.

Thanks again as always, mate.

Verr 2025-11-19 01:33:10 UTC #106

Progress 18/19-11-2025

Still struggling a bit with art, I'm motivated, but I don't think my head is in the right place. Admittedly, I might be motivated for the wrong reasons. Since what happened the other week, I've ended up in a bit of a messy comparison spiral, lots and lots of self-doubt. I keep doing stuff I think looks alright, but then I'm coming back to it later and struggling to see anything positive. I'm frustrated, I think, by a perceived lack of progress matching the speed I desire, not being able to output the quality I want, seeing other people who started around the same time putting out stuff I can only dream of, wondering what I'm doing wrong! I still feel like there's just something I'm not getting, some sort of knowledge that everyone else seems to know or understand but me and it's really winding me up. I don't feel like I'm doing any of this right but I can't identify what the problem is.

Yeah yeah don't compare, focus on your own stuff, patience, keep on trucking, more practice, more this and more that. Argh! I know it's all irrational nonsense, inconsequential stuff that doesn't even matter and I try not to rant but this is my little corner so screw it, I'm pouring it all out. I already feel better anyway.

I have done art stuff regardless, some of it I like. Lots more I want to do but haven't had the time; I have a billion ideas and even more projects that I've started but need to finish.

Head studies 4, 5, 6 and 7 of 10.

I quite like 4 and 5, 6 and 7 not so much. Clearly struggling with more extreme facial expressions, which make sense I guess. But I have improved IMO compared to what I did in late August/early September. I've already got my refs for the remaining 3, so I'll probably get them boxed off tomorrow, then move on to the 3 environment studies for this week.

Clothed figure drawing daily practice

Stuff from the last couple of days. I thought these looked pretty good at the time, but now I'm not so happy looking at them. Messy, not enough time spent probably. The figures look bad and messy, it's all out of proportion, the shading for the folds is poor. I don't know why I decided to do 4 for each daily practice... I'm thinking perhaps I'm not giving each individual one the time and attention it needs. For the next one, I might just do a single figure and spend a lot of time trying to get it absolutely as perfect as I can. But I just know it'll take hours and hours of going over and doing it and erasing and re-doing and I still won't be happy with it. But I'm going to keep going regardless!

Primitives rotation/deformation/carving

I didn't spend as much time on these as I did the other day, but it was a chilled exercise. They may be messier, but I quite like what I ended up doing with them. Unfortunately I've not done any for a couple of days as I've been using what time I have to work on some other bits. I might spend a good few hours just doing a boatload one day to make up for it. (And I find it surprisingly difficult to think of what shapes to draw in the moment when I'm doing this exercise, which is amazing considering I could literally draw any shape. So bizarre.)

Imagination gestures & quick protogen frustration sketch thing

These were some gestures I did from imagination. Messy, sure, but loose and fluid and fun and I think shows some pretty good gesture for the most part, besides the large one lying down. I unironically believe that these are better than the ones I do when drawing gestures from reference. Lines are too messy, though, not happy with them.
Still have Aaron Balise's gesture course in the bank which I'm desperately hoping is going to kick my gesture in the direction of improvement I'm looking for.

Nothing to say about this. Typical of the sort of stuff I do. Comfort food and stress relief. Messy. Probably won't do anything with it, but never say never.

Demon/succubus woman

This is the main piece I'm currently working on. It's an art request from one of my IRL friends to draw her succubus/demon girl character. Which leads me on to another thing - I actually told some of my IRL friends I enjoy art and am trying my best to learn how to do it! I even showed some art. It was weird. I'm not ashamed of drawing or anything, but am oddly embarrassed and I don't really like the idea of people I know personally (besides my fiancé) knowing that I enjoy drawing. I'm not sure why that is. Anyway, I finally got the guts to show some friends my halloween piece and got a positive response, which I think I really needed. It was nice.
One of my friends then jokingly asked me to draw her OC but I seriously answered with a "sure, why not.", so, here we are.

Oh, also, it's not furry! It's actually pretty close to human and I think it's turning out pretty alright all things considered. Trying to apply the anatomy knowledge and such I've been learning, to mixed results. But I have been applying fixes and identifying issues as I've developed it out, which I've noted onto a breakdown image below.

It's not finished yet. Currently a WIP at the lineart stage.

the piece in quesiton in it's most current state:

And some WIPs:

The very first rough sketch:

A cleaner sketch:

The final, cleanest sketch. (See a massive, glaring issue that took me ages to notice?)

And here's a little breakdown thingy of each WIP stage:

So still need to finish up the lineart, but I'm also not entirely sure that I'm happy with the quality of the lines I've done so far. I miiiight carry on with a bit more and see how I feel, or go back and redo it. I think part of the problem may be I use a pressure-sensitive opacity brush for my lineart because I really don't get along well with solid inking brushes, but I may just have to suck it up and get good. Obviously my line weight is still inconsistent and very much an issue also, despite my best efforts. Hmm.

Oh and some references of my friend's character I'm using:

And for the way that she's holding the scythe, I essentially just copied the pose made by the character Demi from the video game Lunacid, which I played a couple of years ago:

(I'm very sorry for the poor quality screenshot, it was the only one I could find!)

So coming up in the short term, I have a few things I'm wanting to do:

Finish off Term 3 Week 1
Aaron Blaise's gesture drawing course. I'm not sure how long this will last me, but at the very least, I want to box off the human portion, which is what I'll do first. I am very interested in all modules though. Particularly excited to do animals!
Complete the succubus drawing for my friend.
At brohawx's suggestion, I would like to do a long study session. Have some ideas for this. I'm thinking maybe a one hour head study. Then two hours with the same head. And then another two hours again after anlysing it to try and apply fixes. Following that, a long full-body study. Hopefully this weekend if I can.

Finally, I had a pretty fun for some environment study/paintings I'd like to do - So I have a bit of a tradition where every year I'll always return to the Half-Life games at Christmas time and do a full series playthrough.
This time, I'm thinking I might take some screenshots as I go through the games, then select one from every chapter to study/paint afterwards. Will I see this all the way through? No, probably not. But I'd like to try, and I think it'd be really fun!

So yeah plenty to be working on going forward. A thousand ideas and not enough time, but I'll do what I can as I can and hopefully make some improvement along the way.

Cheers!

brohawx 2025-11-20 03:55:09 UTC #107

The self doubt that you are experiencing is normal. Most people at this stage start to wonder if they are ever going to "get it". And what "it" actually is. If they are actually cut out for this.

HAND VS. EYE
I don't know if I have mentioned this before with you specifically - but the life of artist is an athletic one. It takes focus and practiced motion with coordination of the eye and hand.

Consider your art life as a constant never ending drag race between those two things - your EYE, and your HAND.

When you are feeling great, loving your stuff, surprised by your own capability that means one thing - your HAND is currently ahead in the drag race. You are more capable, athletic, and enduring of the task at hand. Your nailing it - and your eye cannot tell what is bad.

When things start to look bad, you cannot tell what is wrong, you have probably seen some great art and inspiration and wonder if you will ever be able to achieve it, and nothing you make surprises you anymore - That means one thing too -- now your EYE is wining the race. You have trained your mind and "eye" (critical observational skill) through books, lessons, observations, critiques, and suddenly - nothing you make looks good and you wonder if you ever knew how to make anything good at all. Time to learn process and train the hand - the eye can rest from studying and pouring over all of those masters.

THE WALL
I will say this. This feeling you are expressing is common amongst the students on the edge of the advanced learning stages. I've felt it and seen it before. This is the wall that people hit and decide whether or not this is for them and many give up here. They are deciding whether or not that everything they have made before for years was not good enough, and that the truth is out there and you are going to find it no matter what.

Or they decide that where they are is fine - this level of art is all that they ever wanted to accomplish -

But - the ones who climb over the wall, they start to break images down into their core principles for fun. Analyze and learn. Creating master copies and taking notes. Appreciating and love art that others make instead of comparing it to themselves. Taking what they learned back to their hoard of weaponry - to create an arsenal of problem solving.

Love the art that people make. Consume it. They made it for other people to enjoy - because they enjoyed making it - not make other artists jealous. Even if they are your age, learn to say, "wow - good for them!" And leave yourself out of it.

Save it and make collections of it. The art that you like now - is not the art that you liked a year ago. (and wont be a year from now)
https://www.artstation.com/brohawx/collections
https://www.artstation.com/brohawx/collections/likes

Yeah yeah don't compare, focus on your own stuff, patience, keep on trucking, more practice, more this and more that. Argh! I know it's all irrational nonsense, inconsequential stuff that doesn't even matter and I try not to rant but this is my little corner so screw it, I'm pouring it all out. I already feel better anyway.

YES! Good! Write it down - give that feeling a name, make it a character in your mind that has these thoughts. Real cognitive behavioral therapy type shit. Irrational fears, Unreasonable expectations, Repetitive Behaviors. Look at it - say it out loud and hear how dumb it sounds and then put it to the grave.

TIPS

wondering what I'm doing wrong! I still feel like there's just something I'm not getting, some sort of knowledge that everyone else seems to know or understand but me and it's really winding me up.

I'm going to take the time to tell you a few things that I think you should change in your personal piece, gestures, sketching and copying.

I've started working on it - I will come back and post when I get it finished.

Cut yourself some slack. It's gonna be fine.

brohawx 2025-11-21 21:46:27 UTC #108

---MENTAL STATE---

I tried to make a couple of demos for today - and then started writing about them. I then realized that there is a more of a mentality that we have to get you to achieve before you continue down any sort of growth path forward.

In order to do that - before you start anything right now, (dailies, sketching, illustration, gestures from imagination) you should start writing down or typing out your intention for each page.

---- Where you say how long you are going to take, what your purpose is ( "I want to hit rhythms purposefully to represent the contour of the entire figure for 25 minutes...etc...etc" ) set that timer, attempt those things. And stop.

INCOMING METAPHOR

Berserker
Your marks - are like a berserker with two axes. Fast, chaotic, brutal in its brawling style - but not entirely accurate. Gets the job done, but it's messy - so there is a lot of clean up afterwards. Maybe he threw an axe. A little too much chaos in the brain. Being like this for a long time makes one of your eyeballs twitchy, and laugh out loud suddenly for no reason when you are alone. (LOL)

Swordsman
You need to change your mental state when drawing (with lines) to something similar to a swordsman. Observing a specific stance for the situation in front of him. Using the sword in as many diverse ways as possible in defense and offense, balanced and attempting accuracy, poised and purposeful intent. Long strokes, short ones, riposte, stabs. Different sized swords for different situations as well. (Digital brushes/Pens, pencils and markers)

Nothing to clean up after. He goes home and writes about his attempt at discipline and his errors and cleans up his mind for focus in the next fight.

Not like the 'berserking brawler' expending all of his energy and hoping for the best. Where fighting for the berserker is his therapy. Not his discipline.

The swordsman's fighting IS his discipline.

We don't need you to be a knife wielder, or surgeon, up close and worrying about detail, and you are not a General worrying about the entire army and where to direct them.

TIPS

Mark Making
Brush size for PENCIL sketching - digitally
I want you to imagine what people use for sketching in real life drawing/drafting techniques, and the different ways that they use it - and try to transfer that into your digital techniques here.

A pencil can be used on its side - and have dramatic and dynamic shape when applied appropriately. But this is hard to achieve digitally. You have to have a stylus and screen/pad that can support stylus rotation. Or you have to be very good at tilt.

.
.
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Or you can use just the tip of the pencil -

The reason is to keep your line shape consistent - and NOT to have a varied and dynamic stroke. If we are taking something that does not exist and making it look real, we have to let go of the idea that we are going to create a masterful brush stroke that is dynamic in the sketch stage. Those two ideas don't mix. In these first stages - it is all proportion - no details - and rhythm.
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.
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The Charcoal Chunk
This is the hard and soft edge brush that many digital painters use. It is set to direction for the angle of the brush tip. If your make a stroke to the left, the hard edge is on the top, if you make a stroke to the right the hard edge is on the bottom. Up and down are similar - flipping the sides. This brush has various version of it everywhere - it takes a while to make - I made my own here. The idea is to simulate a piece of pastel when you hold it down on its side - one edge is hard, and the other is soft. It comes in extremely handy for rendering form. I find myself using it for everything sometimes accidentally.

My dark lines, or heavier line weight are more thoughts towards occlusion shadow SHAPES and how it creates the illusion of overlapping form. Not make a delicious calligraphic pen stroke.

You Need to Find the Essence -
Sometimes you use straight lines where you need to other times you are adding too much detail to the edges of shapes. I think you might be zooming into your reference while you are copying it. You need to stay zoomed out where you see your entire reference in another window - and you cannot see any detail. You only zoom in on your work in progress. This way you cannot see any unnecessary detail to cloud your judgement.

START BIG AND FINISH SMALL.

Break down all of the shapes of the elements of a figure, landscape, whatever into shapes with no details. Make sword stroke marks to make the shapes.

Line Quality -
You seem to be worrying about the thick and thin line method at times, and other times you are not. My suggestion for now is to use a 2 pixel brush to connect all your lines during your line art stages - after your rough consistant sized pencil sketch.

Use the 2 pixel Inside and out. Find the essence (above) by simplifying the shapes and hitting your marks like a swordsman. After you can do this - then you can use a dynamic brush to set the weight of things overlapping others, and the contour of the figure as a whole to make it pop off of the page. It's not about making perfect strokes like a calligrapher - it is about crafting a line to do something for your drawings line weight.

Torso Practice - hip bowl.
Your torso's do not seem to represent the pelvic bowl very well in the rhythms and sketching.

Construction Technique
Not gestures, construction. The abstraction of form utilizing simple shapes for joints and body forms. Utilizing a simplified construction method - and sticking too it - No matter what it is going to give you some consistency - which you are seeking right now. That constant that you desire isn't there because you are seeking answers from all over the place perhaps. Stick to one method - Change it if you want to later to your own. But you need to finalize being able to draw a mannequin in perspective AND change it proportions.

Zooming into references - don't do it.

Four (4) Values Method for single light source.
(different from the composition lighting talk I gave back on your critique)
NOTAN is the clear separation from the light and shadow. But each of those parts has two more sides within their shapes.

A- Light Side = 1:Highlight 2:Mid-Tone
B - Dark Side = 3:Shadow 4:Fill light
(5: Occlusion shadow last for depth)

Separate A and B first, then within each of them find extra form.

Tried to make an example here - it isn't perfect but I think it illustrates the different stages that one has to think about while making a drawing/painting accurate for rendering form.

Get the 'Willies' out -
You need to draw in shapes and quickly to get some drawing therapy going for a warm up or something. But drawing is too accurate and takes more time than shapes in order to do that. You need to make a triangle brush or flat square brush that you can draw in shapes sharply - so that you can expend that energy to create something. Drawing in shapes will have you something made in a few minutes compared to something that takes hours to draw in perspective. Use layers, flats, attempt being accurate, or not. It is just the warm up. Write down an intention for that too.

CONSTRUCTION

You can already draw those primitives well enough to achieve this stage in the game. You only need this for drawing things without reference. And after a while you wont need them - but you will have to use them for quite some time. I've seen over and over again - when people started doing this (making a base mannequin) they started improving.

The trick is you are going to have to do some homework on anatomy parts of the body one at a time. Start with the Torso masses, and the muscles that hold them together and make them move. Then go out to each extremity starting with the shoulders to arms. Learn where every muscle group is - not every single muscle. But get an idea of where they start and stop on different sets of bones.

GESTURE and CONSTRUCTION PRACTICE

I would start with the Torso mass - which consists of three things always. Head, ribcage and pelvic bowl.

One of the first errors that I'm seeing in your gestures - is your torso mass is not having the top and bottom established clearly. Specifically the pelvic bowl. Your lines are either implied but they are not present.

Always remember top, bottom, side, side, center line.

In the above drawing early stages - Even though you are drawing from an imagination - and have to invent the things that don't exist - we still need to practice some control. Every single part with the human body needs to feel connected and rhythmic in its gesture AND construction. But also has to have bones, and feel solid with that underlying bone structure - and we do that with having straight lines and connected construction drawings at the correct landmarks. It will honestly feel opposite of all of the gesture drawing that you are doing.

Start with the longest side (convex side) first for torso, and every single limb. Then follow up with the short side (concave side) Never have the two sides point towards each other unless you want the figure to remain static.

The reason that we make gestures so outlandish and push them is because when we start adding structures they start to stiffen up immediately. So to avoid that you overcompensate with the gestures.

During this phase you establish your proportions for male or female as well as bulk or slim.

This all takes less time than fixing a bad drawing from the jump.

That is probably enough food for thought for now - if you have any questions please ask I was trying to throw a lot of information up there pretty quickly and I may have left some things out.

Verr 2025-11-21 22:40:44 UTC #109

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this, as always, it genuinely means a lot that you're willing to put this much effort in to helping me.

I’ve read through everything and there’s a lot here for me to sit with and absorb properly. I don’t want to fire back a rushed or half-formed reply, so I’m going to take a bit of time to process it and figure out how to apply things in a way that makes sense for me. There's a fair amount I need to reflect on.

I might be a bit quieter here for a little while as I get my head straight and focus on things with a bit more intention, but I really do appreciate the effort you put into this and I’ll be coming back to it (and the other knowledge drops you've given me) as I go.

If I do think of any questions, I'll be sure to let you know.

Verr 2025-11-22 10:29:19 UTC #110

Progress – 22-11-25

Following Brohawx’s guidance above, I wanted to get my thoughts straight and write out a clear plan for what I’m going to focus on for the next few weeks. This is mostly a mental dump for myself, but I thought it would be good to document it here too.

It was a lot to take in (in the best way), and I’m genuinely grateful for the time and detail that went into the critique. After sleeping on it - and smashing several cups of coffee this morning - I finally feel like I have a proper direction again.
Rather than try to overhaul everything at once (my usual mistake), I want to approach this the right way: intentionally, steadily, and with structure.

Zen Verr mode activated.

Drawing With Intention
One of the biggest takeaways was shifting out of “rushing mode” into something more deliberate.
I know I rush - I’ve said it before - usually from that dumb little belief that fast = “sick art skills m8!!”
So before each session, I’m going to write a quick intention:
“25 minutes – torso/pelvis construction. No details. No zooming.”
It’s a small habit, but I already feel like it’ll help calm the chaos and keep me focused on learning instead of chasing impossible perfection.

Torso & Pelvis Construction (Main Focus)
This is the big one.
My gestures can be expressive, but the underlying structure isn’t consistent, especially the ribcage–pelvis relationship. That’s what I’m tackling head-on, starting today.
For the next few weeks, my main practice will be:

A page of ribcage + pelvis constructions (quick studies)
Clear top/bottom/side planes
A well-defined pelvic bowl
A solid, 3D ribcage instead of a flat oval
A clean line of action + spine connecting everything

The goal is to build this into muscle memory so I can rely on it in both reference work and imagination.

One (or More) Longer Torso Study Per Session
Alongside the construction page, I’ll pick one torso and redraw it more carefully; still simple shapes, no details, no limbs, no head. Just a cleaner, more confident form.
If I have extra time or energy, I’ll do more than one. But the priority is consistency, not quantity.

Simplifying Linework
Clarity first, aesthetics later.
I’m going to stick to a simple 2px clean brush for the line stage. I’ll find (or make) one in CSP that feels good and keeps things readable.

What I’m Not Focusing On Yet
Even though shading/values/rendering were mentioned, I’m deliberately putting them on hold for now. I want a few weeks of pure construction, gesture clarity, and line confidence.
Once the torso/pelvis fundamentals feel solid, or at least in a better place, I’ll start mixing in the next layers.

Final Thoughts
Honestly, this all feels like the right way forward. I’ve been feeling that “something’s off and I don’t know what” sensation for a while, so having clear guidance is a huge relief.
It’s time to tighten the structural foundation so everything else can get stronger. I’m actually excited to see how a few weeks of focused work here will affect my overall confidence.
Back to work shortly; but at a pace that actually makes sense this time.

And because I don’t want to drop just a wall of text, here’s some fluffy protogen art from the other day (Because of course there is)

I kept it light and playful; single brush, single layer, only a handful of colours. I’m really happy with how it turned out (so much so that it’s now my profile picture). The metal rendering came out nicely and I love how fluffy he looks.
And taking Juromaru’s previous advice, I made sure to pay attention to the contrast with this one, especially because I wanted to keep a black and red background too. Holds up even in black & white I think!

This piece was pure fun to make and no stress at all. I should really paint more often.

And once again: thank you so much to everyone who’s given me critique, advice, and support. It honestly means more than you know and it keeps me going when I’m struggling most. I don't want to sound like an annoying broken record saying it over and over again but I promise I'm taking your words to heart and I hope to prove it as my art continues to develop.

Cheers!

Verr 2025-11-27 01:02:26 UTC #111

Oh hey, back so soon?

Hells to the yes. I can't get enough. I just can't quit you, Cubebursh. (Not that I would, this ain't an abusive relationship.)

To be honest I just love dumping my thoughts and consciousness into this little box. It really helps me get things in order and provides an outlet for the artistic shit I want to talk about with artist friends who don't exist... So I just talk to myself pretty much like a well-adjusted member of society. I considered taking a longer break to just knuckle down with my takeaways from last week, but I can't do it. I need to talk about this stuff and get it out of my head.

So I've mostly been doing lots of toros and pelvises (Pelves? Pelvi?), constant construction practice every evening after work (and during work - you're not paying me to work, hahahaha! ...Interspersed with some moments where I've spent time doing some projects for fun, revisiting some older things to box off and get that sense of closure... I'm between two minds at the moment where I'm concerned about the amount I need to be focusing on for my (hopeful) improvement, but also knowing that all work and no play makes Verr lose his bloody mind and forget he needs to draw from his elbow and shoulder, not his wrist! So yeah, been doing some stuff just for personal pleasure, even though I said I wasn't gonna. It's on odd thing to feel guilty about doing something fun which I enjoy and want to do. It's not like I'm not practicing and even then, the practice isn't going anywhere anyway. Why am I racing against myself all the time? Zen. Zen. Zen.

Alright, that's enough chicken and waffles, some visuals:

Construction - torsos and pelvises

So beyond trying to get my thick head around simple concepts and trying to be more considered with my lines, I've been setting my intention for most of my sessions as I was advised and sticking to time limits to try avoid perfectionism and overthinking. Then, reviewing afterwards (if I remember and am not crying in the corner) to try and identify exactly what's going on. For something that seems like such a simple exercise, I actually find this unreasonably difficult. Things have been getting easier, though, which I guess is the entire point so I do think it's working as intended.

Selection of some bits I've been doing:

So I've seen a few ways that people construct the pelvis in particular - the classic box carved up, the underwear method, proko's kinda "bucket" style (probably not actually his, but it's where I first saw it used... Loomis, maybe?) or Hamptons's sorta bowl with a segment cut out of the side. Not entirely sure which I'm more comfortable with, still trying to figure that out.

Longer study

This is a WIP attempt at a take-as-long-as-you-want full-form study. I debated not sharing it as is, due to it's current in-progress state, but screw it, right? It's all part of the process. This is low-stress and untimed, just kinda having some fun and taking things slow whilst chilling out and learning.

Reference:

So i'm wanting to apply a few things here:
- Slow and careful. Yeah, so... It's still a bit exploratory in the early stages, but a step up above stuff I've done before, I think? Still, the construction is there. Just not looking so hot yet.
- Proportions, proportions, proportions!
- Keep reference zoomed out / don't get bogged down in details
- Struggle with the above, bad habits are hard to break. Working on it.
- watch those empty spaces! (Allow the space of empty shapes to inform the structure)
- For lines: use a bursh that is not affected by pressure size (Amazing tip, seems so obvious, can't believe I needed it written out to me to even consider it...)

Stage 1:

Stage 2:

Stage 3 (current stage):

Not happy with her right leg (our left) - the bend of her knee and the twist of her foot is really throwing me off.

Like I said, this is intended to be a long study, so tomorrow I want to continue on with the linework, do values, colour, lighting, the whole shebang. And I've been having fun. :>

Pixel art, baby!

Oh hell yes. My first love. It's been a while. Thought I'd have some more fun.

Simple. Chill. Not finished, but I'm happy with how it's looking. There's one frame where the right-edges of some of the structures are lit - I'm considering adding some lightning and was just having a play about. Considering maybe adding a train whizzing by, too. There's something so wonderful relaxing about the methodical pixel-by-pixel nature of doing this stuff that will always hold a special place in my heart.

As a student of film and a lifelong hobbiest photographer, one of my primary inspirations has always been capturing that "moment in time" feel. For the personal pieces I do actually finish which I'm proudest of, this is always the kinda of thing I gravitate towards - no dialogue or anything, just a character or two doing a normal every day activity. Yeah it's nothing particularly special, loads of other artists do it and I make it sound boring but I can't get enough.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with the idea of cinemagraphs - Animated gifs, usually, with a looping motion to give the impression of a looping video. It's no secret that my ultimate goal in art is to do conceptual art/illustrations of "mundane" every-day life with science-fiction and/or urban fantasy themes, and I think whilst cinemgraphs are essentially cleverly edited videos saved as a gif and generally depict the real world we live in, they still have that sort of essence which just absolutely enthralls me. Does that make sense? I love the little things about the every day, the small, quiet normal of a small part of a huge world that's constantly in motion. Does that make me sound like a tosser? A bit too protentious? I dunno, maybe. Me no articulate thought good.

Cinemagraph examples:

Inspirations

Have I ever mentioned some of my favourite artists before? The kinda people who put out stuff that just gets me-a-goin''? Well here's two I particularly enjoy:

Foxixus

A furry artist who does a lot of art capturing the exact mood I spoke about above. This image is a particular favourite of mine. I love the scale, the painting style, the idea that these characters are just doing their jobs in some fantastical world of some sort. He puts up a lot of his speedpaints on his youtube channel, which is really cool. I've been watching them trying to figure out and copy parts of his workflow, which is getting easier as I'm getting more to grips with art myself.

This is the exact kind of thing I want to end up doing one day - and not even necessarily furry. Just stuff like this, for my own personal satisfaction. If I could do this, then I could die happy. Might be time to have a crack at some studies. I actually attempted one, once, a long time ago. Well, not even that long ago. Like, last year when I first picked up a pen thinking "Oh yeah, no problem. I can do this. Easy. Let's go."
It did not go well.
How unprepared and ignorant I was. I barely even began. I didn't know what I was doing. I was a fool.
If you fancy a laugh at the worst attempt of anything you've ever seen, here you go:

Original: (Protogens!!!)

wtf.png:

(genuinely, what was I even doing)

...A few other images of his I like in particular:

Oleg Vdovenko

[WARNING: VERY NSFW BLOOD/GORE/BODY HORROR CLICK THE LINK AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

This guy is the man, his art is sooooo good. It's painted with such awesome execution I can't even begin to comprehend how he manages to bash the images he makes together. (The answer is obviously years of practice.)
If you squint they look like photographs. The lighting and atmosphere is so thick you can feel the grime on your skin and practically taste the decay and rot that just oozes out of his art. I can't get enough of it. I've been following the development of a video game he's part of the team for called ILL ever since the initial reveal years ago, (and donated on the patreon to support the development!) it looks absolutely gnarly, I can't wait to play it whenever it finally comes out. He only has a few images in his gallery I'd be comfortable sharing here, but as a SFW example:

One of his short art series, "Stork" was even adapted into a segment of the anthology horror film V/H/S Beyond, and it was an absolute delight to see in motion having had knowledge of the original art before seeing the movie. Was it actually any good? Eh, debatable. But if you like horror, weird zombie-like creatures and aliens with resident-evil vibes and lots of filthy, gory action it's a fun time.

Now I'm not really interested in being a horror artist as much as I do love horror, but I find his work very inspiring nontheless and I'd hope one day to be able to make others feel with my art the same way I do when I see his.

Another example:

Other things

...I did do another piece of art, which I'm not ashamed or embarrased of or anything, but the subject matter is dubiously suggestive and I'm unsure if it would be okay to post here. Not the kind of thing I normally choose to draw and it's not hugely explicit, but it was a very personal piece for myself and my partner I'm proud of and I think it came out pretty good. You might just have to take my word for it.

I also got a new phone recently too in the black friday sales - one of the old Samsung ones with the little pen thingy. Finding it pretty tough to use because it['s so small, but it's been amazing so far for doing this sort of quick practice/construction/gesture just when I get a spare few minutes at work - really trying to push those reps in whenever I can. I can't stop thinking about art and drawing, it's tough to switch off and concentrate on anything else. I'm hoping this might help somewhat with that. Or make it worse. But practice is still practice when and wherever so I'm glad I'll always have something in my pocket to conveniently draw on whenever.

It was a rough few weeks following the end of October when I think I may have hit my lowest lows so far in terms of my relationship with my art, my learning process and my self-confidence. But - the last few days have been a lot better. I feel better mentally, like I'm able to breathe again and there's a path forward, so hopefully we'll be on the up and up, at least for a little while. It's good to be back to drawing with enjoyment and calm again.

Thanks for reading. Onwards. More drawing tomorrow.

Cheers!

Verr 2025-12-06 21:51:54 UTC #112

Aye, shwmae, and a good day to you.

Last 10 or so days were a doozy. Burnt out hard, fell into a bit of a malaise-ridden slump; coming out of the other side though, now, which is good!

The burn out was not surprising considering how much I'm (stupidly) trying to do at once, all the time and effort spent doing this stuff alongside working full-time and generally not being very kind to myself. If I spoke to a friend like I spoke to myself... Well, they wouldn't want to stay friends for very long.
Really weird how hard we are on ourselves, and I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. I know it's problematic and I should be better, but it's genuinely difficult.

Anyhow, I've still been keeping on, mostly "comfort food" drawing to try and get me back into the flow of things, some structured learning stuff on figure drawing and I spent a good portion of one evening just trying to get to grips and understand Clip Studio Paint a bit better. Made some custom brushes which I'm really enjoying using so that's good! I wasn't getting along with any of the defaults they had. And I'm a bit faster with things now I'm more familiar with the interface. And I'm starting to get used to the new tablet too, finally!

So I have:
- Finished off "heads from reference" 8, 9 and 10 (finally)
- Started to do environment 1 of 3
- Done some structured figure drawing learning from a specific figure drawing glass (Goal for 2026 is still to get to a comfortable, confident point drawing humans <--- PRIORITY 1!)
- Working on some protogen headshot painting requests I got off the back of the one I did the other week

Let's gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Heads from reference 8, 9 and 10

Week 1 of term 3 of ARTSchool. (Task finally complete after, like, a month...)

Really pleases with numbers 8 and 10 if I do say so myself! They're pretty clean, and I am pretty proud of the eyes especially!
Head 9 is a demon child who must be cleansed with fire and returned to the depths from which he came. Clearly there is room for improvement with the mouths (as I've said many times before) - and particularly, it seems, mouths which are open.
I've mentioned struggling with mouths (lips in particular) a good few times in other posts, so it's probably time to shut up about it and dedicate a few evenings to some mouth studies. That's what they call focused practice, right? I do a lot of general "practice" but definitely not enough focused practice, which is something I know I should do, but always fall short of.

All 10 heads from the assignment:

So overall I'm particularly happy with numbers 3, 4, 8 and 10 and considering it's rare for me to find myself happy with any of the heads I draw, that's an improvement! And it's almost half of the ones from this set! Banging!

Environment 1 of 3 (WIP)

Starting my first one with this piece by Eytan Zana on ArtStartion. Nice art, pretty cozy. A good, vast environment and not overly complicated for an individual of my skill level, I think. (To be determined if that's something I'll regret saying.)

Stages of progress:

Blocking in the larger shapes first

Really tried to use my noggin on this one and actually apply the art stuff I've been learning so trying to be careful about using landmarks to try and inform the position of everything. Oh and I did a border, too, instead of just straight on the canvas like I normally do...

Details and corrections

Getting cleaner + further cleaning

Looking at the current stage now, I can see some minor issues in my piece with proportional retionships between the main structures in the scene, but nothing majorly, obviously awful, and I think it still looks pretty good so avoiding the perfectionism, I'm just gonna keep on with the cleaner lines before doing my final pass. I'll do a review once done, lessons learnt, then apply to study number 2.

Figure drawing class

This is part of the fundamentals introductory course over on New Master's Academy. (Foundations III, I think?) and it's been pretty good so far watching the videos and following the structure.
I've decided that trying to determine my own study plans with my self-learning just isn't working for me; I get overwhelmed, don't focus enough on each individual thing, stretch myself too thin and then... Burnout, I guess. So during my shitty week, I've just been following this structured learning which has been really refreshing, and I feel it's helped set me on the right path again.

This is just some following along to the lessons / doodling as I was watching.

Protogen head paintings

I just love painting so much I can just get lost in layering and layering and blending the colours. I'm seriously wondering if perhaps I should just go all in on the painting, because doing it makes me feel so good in the way that I don't get from sketching and doing lineart and refining. But I also do want to be well-rounded, and everything all feeds into eachother, right? So I should probably carry on studying the art of drawing even if I do decide I want to be a painter, because... what good is painting a hand if I can't even draw one? And I want a better hand in general. So yeah, just rambling now. Of course I'm gonna carry on drawing as well.

Anyway, these were a couple of requests I got off the back of the painting I did of Iso the other week, one is finished (but has some problems ): ) and the other is a WIP.

Finished

He is super fluffy. Unfortunately, the visor came out far, far more plastic-y than I had anticipated, rather than a glossy, glassy look. The recipient was very happy, but I would like to revisit this one and fix that for him once I've finished the next couple. And also make the visor a darker colour - I think the colour values on my tablet display are different to my other monitors, so maybe it doesn't look quite so dull on a better screen, because I swear to god it looks much richer and deeper in CSP.

I'm quite happy with how the light looks on the fur next to the ear thing, though, and the general angle of the head.
I actually originally had a slightly worse version that I scrutinised after I thought I was done initially, and I'm glad I did, because this "final" version looks way better after I did a little more work.

Original "finished" piece:

Comparison gif:

...He also might be too fluffy. He's all neck, haha!

WIP request:

I'm trying some new brushes on this one with a bit more texture. It's still rough, but coming together quite nicely. I'm pretty pleased with the major blocks, so just started moving on to detail. Also consciously trying to make the visor more glassy, which it's already starting to do, but just not quite there yet - need to do a proper specular pass once I've finished my highlights and such and really nail that gloss.

In other, related news...!

I, uh, got my first commission. Actual real money. For one of these, featuring two characters, half body. I wasn't keen on the idea at first because I can't quite comprehend the idea that someone could look at my art and think it's particularly any good, let alone worth paying for, but, uh, yeah. It's a really weird feeling, and I'm not sure if I regret accepting to do it or not. You'd think getting your first commission would be a super exciting, celebratory moment but I'm just filled with anxiety! I'm absolutely terrified of letting them down, or making something that they won't end up being happy with or just being unable to complete what they want with my current skillset. I'm pretty sure I can and I'm certainly going to give it my all, but I don't think I'm feeling the way I should be feeling about it.
Once (and if) it's done, I'll ask for their permission to post it here and talk about it anyway, so stay tuned!

Final bits

I bought a couple of books from the artist James Gurney mostly as something to read and just stay connected to art during the period of my burnout where I just wasn't capable of drawing. I'll be honest, I'd never heard of James Gurney (nor Dinotopia), but I really like his art and these were highly recommended by a mutual. I don't intend to go through and study all the images and try and copy or anything like that, just read them at a steady pace and maybe learn passively and just enjoy the ride. I've only started the colour and light one, but it's been good so far! So looking forward to continuing.

Has anyone else read these? If so, did you like them?

So despite a crappy almost two weeks, I still managed to do a fair amount I think, and I'm pretty proud of that! I'm feeling much better and refueled now, so really hoping I manage to stay steady leading into the new year. Main goals for now are:

Finish the first environment study
Finish the request WIP and the commission
Some study sessions focusing purely on lips/mouths
Carry on with the NMA fundamentals III course on gesture/figure drawing.

See you when I see you.

Cheers!