Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Frohe Weihnachten and Feliz Navidad! (...almost!)
Probably the last update of the year from me as things are about to get buuuuuusy. (But the aren't won't stop! It will never stop! I won't allow it to!). But damn, what a bloody year! A rollercoaster of soaring highs and low lows. 2025 has been my first full year as a drawing person maybe-artist and I can't believe some of the stuff I managed to get my hands to produce, especially in these last few months and doubly so since starting this blog in July, that's when things really started taking off; the incredible feedback and critique has been invaluable and I know I'm saying this, like, every post I make now, but thanks again to all of you, the community here absolutely rocks.
I know I have my off days, I'm not pretending to be some perfect example of extreme art discipline or hunky-dory practice habits, but it's so great to have a place here I can just log all this stuff out in a structured way, the good and the bad.
Since my last post I've been focused on doing some painting, a lot of gesture, some anatomy studies, reading some of my art books, some other random bits and bobs and I can't remember if I mentioned it when I got them some months back but I finally, finally broke into my watercolour paints and had a mess around with them, though I've not properly painted. Just mixed some colours and played around with how they all work. I was probably in school when I last did watercolour, but it's super fun to be having a go again.
I've also been working a little more "offline"; partly the reading I mentioned earlier, but also just working with traditional materials in my sketchbooks a bit more than I normally do for... No particular reason. Just fancied switching up mediums a bit more frequently, for fun.
Things have been a bit slow on the ARTSchool side of things, but honestly at this moment in time, I think I'm learning much faster just spending my time enjoying what I'm doing and following my own curiosity and motivation rather than a set schedule.
I fully intend to keep chipping away at it slowly and perhaps when I'm next lost and need some structure I'll give it my full attention again; though for now - figure drawing: the year of the figure dawns, and as such I've been making a cheeky head start on my studies for this area, with a focus on the head and facial features alongside more gesture drawing and some other fun bits. I've been having a really good time with it and I feel super focused on my goal.
Anyway TL;DR:
- doing book learnin innit
- Art school slow but not stopped; anatomy study taking precedent
- Lotsa géstúré
- Mixing up mediums for fun
Environment study 1 of 3
It's uh, alright, I guess. I noticed I have a tendancy to make insignificant details much larger than they should be (a consequence I believe, of reference zooming which has been pointed out to me in the past and I'm trying not to do so much...) plus, I'm lazy. I'm so, so lazy and lacking in patience. I considered giving it a lineweight pass but to be honest I just wanted it over and done with so I could move on to other things before Christmas and the new year. I am pretty pleased with how I approached working on this one though, like I detailed in my last post; doing the block-ins and then working big -> small, etc. I understand this is the best practice anyway, but it's a change up for how I was approaching things, and an improvement, so happy with that.
When I get around to the next one, I'll specifically focus on not making random insignificant details larger than they should be and consequentially throwing everything else out of wack. Oh and I actually used a brush that was a consistent non-pressure affected size so I'm pretty happy with how "clean" it looks compared to what I normally do. I do actually quite like it despite the issues; passable I reckon!
Gesture dump
Went big on gesture the last few weeks, have settled into studying the Hampton method, which I totally vibe with, instead of floundering around like normal. I studied Hampton ages ago before shifting away for reasons unbeknownst to me. I enjoyed these gestures; some that are pretty solid in this dump I think! And of course, a few stinkers, but that's okay. I'm pretty sure I am getting better and I find myself much less frustrated by doing gesture now than I did a few months ago.
I'm not gonna dump all of my pages, but a good little selection.
I've been re-reading my trusty copy of Design and Invention as well as watching and re-watching a couple of YouTube Videos on Proko's channel hosted by Hampton which have been really helpful for me. Also been keeping up with NMA's stuff.
I also finally got my next gesture certificate from quickposes , which is the website I started using maybe 6 months ago for the timer/references just because I like the tracking it has and I never bothered looking to see if any other thing serves the same features. Anyway, it's a little bittersweet because it serves as a reminder that I am somewhat consistent and haven't given up, but also that I'm still probably not commiting as much time to doing gesture as I should be either. I also know that the certificate is meaningless in any sort of context besides personal, but I'm still pretty proud. I don't want to take as long to get to the next milestone... But the idea of doing an hour of gesture or more a day when there's so much else I want to get done alongside my personal life is a daunting prospect. I'm gonna try and do at least a 20-minute set daily with a self-review. I also need to do more re-draws.
(I promise I didn't draw over an image I found; I just obscured my real name and wrote over it!)
Blue proot
Last week I shared this WIP:
Well, it's all done now:
before/after progress gif:
...A friend described it endearingly as "fluff-mush" and I'm inclined to agree, I think I perhaps got a little carried away with the fur, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun which I guess is all that matters, and the recipient very much enjoyed it. I'm done making digital paintings of Protogen heads for the time being though; if I do make any paintings soon, I'm probably just going to focus on studies to actually try and improve my technique and understanding.
Oh and a contrast check:
Yeah looking alright I reckon.
Lovely lips
I've mentioned previously that lips/mouths were one of my biggest shortcomings with art so I've made some efforts to rectify this, mostly by watching some videos and taking a look at other artist's work on Twitter and Artstation. I'm particularly fond of the way that Proko approaches constructing them in this video, so I've mostly been sticking to that.
Now, I feel like I'd done more of these than I'm able to find, so I fear I may have forgotten to save a bunch at some point! That's fine though, I'll just make more. :3
^ For this sketchbook, I've been sticking to using one of those cheap quad-colour bic pens, firstly because it's fun, but also so I can't just erase mistakes which I am prone to do. There a few instances here where I am still rushing my lines for some reason, a few slips and moments of poor control, but also, some lines where I really commited that look really good! I'm particularly pleased the mouths at the bottom-left and centre of the right page!
I still am not entirely comfortable, but already feeling better than I was. Now just many more to go!
Morpho Studies
So i have my "holy trinity" of frequently recommended books to get me started on my year of figure drawing improvement; I've already gone through Hampton, and have yet to touch Loomis, but the Morpho book has been a great reference for anatomy as well as just being good art in general; I really admire the work of the artist (Michel Lauricella).
I've read up to the torso section so far, and whilst the text is very technical and informative which I greatly like, the main attraction is the sheer volume of art with all the technical anatomical breakdowns and inner workings from just about every angle. When I get around to doing some actual in-depth muscle/skeletal study this will probably be my go-to reference.
Anyway, I've been taking some time in the evenings before bed just to go through and do sketch copies of the drawings within, starting with the head section just because that's what I'm currently focused on. Been doing these traditionally away from my PC as a sort of relaxation/learning focus thing.
(I'm particularly pleased with the rear-view head of the woman in the top-left. I know it's just a copy, but still!)
(With bonus Moogle!)
So yeah these have been a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that just by doing them in a stress-free, chilled manner right before I sleep is gonna help me retain some of the information passively, but the exercise and change in medium has been really nice in a way I can't quite articulate with text. Just good. Chilled.
Watercolour play
Not much to say about these, just a test page I made with my watercolour paints; played around with the brushes, mixed some colours, tried to see how the water would affect it on the page. It's a lot different than what I'm used to and I can tell will require a lot of foreplanning/patience that I know I don't display very often. It'll be a challenge, if nothing else, but perhaps will teach me some much-needed patience, too. I particularly enjoyed seeing the differences in how the paint behaves on wet-on-dry vs wet-on-wet.
Oh my God it looks like something made by a young child, and my shitty scanner absolutely blew out the colours.
I also did a test on some various inks I had to see which would smudge/run - you know, just in case I ever wanted to do any linework with my watercolour in the future and... The results were surprisingly solid.
The fineliner smudged to heck, but all the others held up fairly well despite some mild bleeding on the fountain pen that you can't make out in the can. I was really surprised by the ink brush pen, I thought for sure that would smudge to heck - but then again what do I know about ink? I've barely touched anything outside of digital.
I've not decided on what exactly I want to do for a "proper" piece with the watercolours yet, but I have a few ideas floating around I'd like to have a crack at. If anyone has any watercolour tips 'n' tricks, I'm open to ideas - I've just been watching videos online... Though with everything else I'm guessing it's just "practice"!
Head from reference
I wanted to get around to doing more of these, but the next project I'm about to show sort of side-lined me. Anyway, I did this just for fun/practice/personal satisfaction.
I'm not too worried about things being super clean, more just about getting comfortable with heads/facial features. I think the lip practice paid off though - I'm quite pleased with them in this drawing!
I mentioned above in my environment piece that I have a tendancy to make things much larger than they should be and looking at my past work, facial features were no exception - huge eyes, massive, enormous mouths and noses all combining to made lumpy, oddly shaped heads like some bugger went mad in the Oblivion character creator. So, when working on this, I was making a real concious effort to keep things proportion and stop myself drifting back into that habit. And yeah, really pleased; now I just need to do a thousand more, not just one!
Gobbo girl stabby stabby
Warning: crude artistic depictions of stabbing with a bladed weapon and stuff intended to look like blood (it's literally just red paint for a joke)
This is something I've been doing just for fun. Goblins are fun, troublesom, wily little creatures which I guess explains their enduring popularity in fantasy and for those of us nerds who enjoy playing D&D have certainly bashed in the heads of more than our fair share. Anyway, I drew a goblin girl for fun during a doodle session and decided to just expand it out a bit. Goblin girls are popular in... Certain circles, but I can totally get behind the appeal of a wild, manic feral shortstack monster girl, so I figured why not. She doesn't have a name.
I was just playing aorund with her in different situations and changing little bits of her clothing mostly, but hopefully it still looks like the same character (I think it does!) - just to reiterate I was just drawing for fun, this isn't some serious character design sheet, I'm just sharing because I'm happy with how it turned out!
Initial sketches/doodles:
Flat colours:
Rough shading: (No consistent light source - I just winged where the light was coming from for each pose... And then didn't even mark the direction. Sorry!)
Shading by itself:
Lineweight pass (focus on outline/overlaps)
Animated gif:
Out of all of these I quite like the one where she's dropping down, and the bottom-right one where she's intending to look like she's being a little sneaky/corner peeking.
The "stabby stabby" comic
Not quite sure why I'm making this, but it's been a joy just messing around and being playful - plus, I get to use the comic panel tool in CSP, which is a pretty cool feature. I'm not shy about voicing my struggles/frustrations with the art process so i guess this is a sort of catharsis through art, and why not, right? So i just wanted to draw her maniacally stabbing the shit out of a tube of red paint, because then it sort of doubles up as a cheap joke. I'm not really one for depicting actual violence, so don't worry, I can't see myself ever drawing anyone actually getting stabbed.
Initial scribbles:
Cleaning up:
Looking better I think:
Current WIP:
I'm trying to go for cleaner lines but honestly, I'm not sure if that even works. Maybe given the unhinged vibe, the more sketchy/messy look works in it's favour?
As for the layout, I know it's a bit rubbish, but I have tried to put some thought into it:
1 - Wide and open for the drop-in, bottom of the panel angled to lead eye to:
2 - smaller box (probably still too big, looking at it now) action shot of the knife plunging into the paint tube.
3, 4 & 5 - rapid overlapping "staircase" panels which I hope imply quick and repetitive motion
6 & 7 - sort of "tumbling" down the page and askew - when she's at her most unhinged so I think it fits. Plan to have the laughing spilling out of these panels too.
8 - Wide and solidly structured; some catharsis and to give room for the punchline that it's just a tube of paint.
I hope this is alright to share? I checked the forum rules and I think it is. But yeah, this is just something stupid and personal so I hope people don't mind it. The change of character has been a lot of fun to draw, as has just doing the comic and the challenge of keeping it looking like the same individual and trying to convey some motion. Shocking anartomy still, but I think passable. Most importantly, again, I had fun.
Phew, that was a beefy update, but I just love making these blog posts so much! I hope that if you managed to make it this far you at least weren't fighting the urge to fall asleep.
It'll be a quiet period for me now until the new year, but I'll still try to get as much art in as I possibly can until then and try and wrap some of this stuff up. Probably will end up focusing on antaomy studies in my physical sketchbooks more than doing digital work, so we'll see when I next update here probably in January! Hope you all have an amazing time doing whatever with whomever as we enter the final days of the year.
So long and thanks for all the fish!
Cheers! 
