Wanda - Art School Journey

[spiritedwanda]

Ahoy, my nickname is Wanda - I'm interested in getting better at digital art and so far I'm passively interested in monster design, 3D character and creature models. I am fond of enviroment design as well, but there I'm quite lost. I'm looking forward to share my journey and check yours too

Bio:
Soon to be 25 y.o., planning to apply to TAW in Viborg, Denmark (Computer Graphic Arts).

Plan:
My 2022 summer plan is get to know Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign by Learnit (on Youtube), while moving step by step in Marc's ART school. I'm going to try Blender as well, but I want the summer goals to be achievable and surpassable, so for Blender I don't have high expectations.

Illustration of a dream I had years back

[spiritedwanda]

29.5.-30.5.2022

Yesterday I took notes from Atomic Habits Summary by Escaping Ordinary on Youtube. Today I went through Term 7 - Enhanced Learning (followed by recommendation in channel Term 0 in Discord) and Term 1 - Visual Communication. I made notes and printed them out, to have them available offline. Both of them + with the use of SMART goals (use google image), helped me create a rough idea, how I should proceed further:

Atomic Habits

Enhanced Learning and Visual Communications

I'm bilingual, that's why there are some funny words. So far I created a complicated schedule (including other than art skills I want to acquire). I think need to dial it down. Perfectionism manifests in my life a lot and this time it shows as FOMO of not writing enough notes and not planning enough. I'll push myself towards 70%, an idea I got from this Aussie artist.

If you think I'm breaking any rules, please tell me and I'll remove the images/links. I checked the forum guidelines beforehand, but I'm still ready to correct any mistake.

[Lockenheim]

Welcome to the forums Wanda! It looks like you have a solid plan, I look forward to seeing your progress!

[spiritedwanda]

Thank you, @Lockenheim!

31.5.-2.6.

Today I finished Term 1 - Photoshop for Digital Production. I've just done the first assignement "Pen Control". It was fun and reminded me of Drawabox.com, which is a crazy free resource land, if you want to take further line work and not only that. I'll have to check their website soon!

I redid this HW (yesterday and today). First time the most frustrating part was setting the pen, which I couldn't get for 20 minutes (facepalm). The second time I really tried tracing the circles instead of doing them quickly and smoothly. I'd appreciate any advice on why my last brush stroke is much smoother than the original one?

I also had immense fun with trying the Photoshop fuctions that Marc mentioned.

[spiritedwanda]

3.6.-4.6.

Yesterday I finished the assignement below, but tweaked it a bit today. I'm glad I had this pause between, so I actually had a mental distance and a new eye for it today. I had a lot of fun doing the 4th as I combined the previous tools at my own will. The painting from part 2 was frustrating me, used only Curves, I just couldn't get the right colour/saturation (even with Levels. I'd probably achieved it using Hue/Saturation).

[Lockenheim]

Looking good, which are the strokes you are referring to? For me personally drawing quick lines and curves is what makes them cleaner for me. I don't know what the normal persons speed is but I try to draw very quick lines!

[spiritedwanda]

18.-19.6.
I went on a trip for a week, but came back excited to do another assignement!

I immensely overcomplicated it. First I chose a glass house - huge mistake - then I redone it with a wooden house. I tried to remember by myself of all the possible functions to use, but then I got stuck and done things more and more complicated instead of using the right tools. I recheck a huge chunk of Term 1 - Photoshop for Dig Prod 1 (on 1.5x speed of course ) and that helped a lot.