Xybb (Sascha) - Art School Journey

[Xybb]

Hey guys,

after about a week since I started Art School, here is my first entry for my journey. I am aiming to update about once, maybe twice a week and mainly use it to keep track of my own personal progress and pick up some feedback along the way.

As such, any kind of constructive feedback is more than welcome.

About me: I am Sascha, 32 year old from germany and have been drawing on and off basically for my whole life, but never seriously or frequent enough for it to get me anywhere. I am hoping that Art School will first and foremost motivate me to stick to drawing more frequently and lead to me being eventually able to make an income based on my art. A dream of mine is to one day enter FZD Design School, but currently I lack the skills (or confidence rather, it's a school afterall) and the money to being even close to applying.

Following are the assignments I did yesterday, including my first full figure drawing with measuring.

Painting cylinders onto photo reference:

1-minute-gestures (30s still feels way to fast for me) :

Full figure drawing from reference with measurements:

The reference I used was bought from Proko a couple of years ago, coming in handy now :D.

And last but not least, one of my (only) full pieces. I did this for a Swatches challenge about 1 1/2 years ago and still proud to this day =). A reminder for myself of what I can do right now and how much more would be possible if I set my mind to it:

[Opal]

let me just say your talented and you got this

[andysawesomemovies]

Ooh! I love the lighting and atmosphere of the final pic!

[meme.aijou]

Oh, we are in a similar situation, I hope you will reach your goals
I love your painting, especially the mood, really creepy
I think your gestures are quite "detailed", maybe you can try to use a stick figure for the limbs if you want to try 30sec ones
In any case, looking forward for more

[creARTive_Paul]

welcome ... nice and creepy little creature u got here... ur doing a solid job on the figure drawing as well ... good confident linework too ... when u see one of feng's drawing sessions on youtube it looks so easy, but is extremly hard when u try urself ... keep up with the good work ... Übung macht den Meister

[Xybb]

Thank you all for your kind and welcoming answers =). Reading these is always very inspiring and motivating.

And since I don't want to post without there being something to look at, here is my latest full figure practice with measurements:

Will do a couple of gesture drawings today and then start with the 1-point-perspective assignment.

[Lockenheim]

Very nice! and welcome! I think you are going to do very well here! Welcome to the group!

[Xybb]

1-Point-Perspective Assignment:

Took me (once again) way longer than I expected. Kind of pleased with the result and certain I could do much better now with the stuff I learned throughout drawing on it. I do overall like the shapes I used and the layout of the room. What bothers me though is that the stuff that should be squares (base of the oven, support beams) are not. First thing I'd do is establish a proper square in perspective if I was to redraw it from scratch. It's especially noticeable on the beam second to the left, the distortion makes it quite apparent.

Also, noticing just now the window is massive, probably should be way smaller :D.

Apart from the detail (which I was too lazy to do) there's also room for just more stuff to put (blank wall on the left, ceiling). How do you guys deceide if it's worthwhile to add onto a piece?

Edit: Feedback of course highly appreciated.

[Lockenheim]

This is amazing! Great job! I'm new myself so I don't have much advice on when to finish. But marc frequently advises people to have a story to tell about your room. So I guess when you feel like the story has been told is a good time to stop! Fantastic work. Keep it up!

[Opal]

I think the 3d ness of the drawing is great and it all depends, you want to enjoy your drawing if adding detail is not enjoyable then don't add it but also make sure to challenge yourself here and there. (Don't take what I say completely to heart as I'm a begging artist more so) Keep at it.

[Xybb]

Don't have anything exciting to share, so instead here are my 1 minute gestures for today and about 3 hours worth of WIP on my 2-point perspective assignement. Kind of impressive, how it's basically just construction. It feels like I need to get another 3 hours in before finishing the construction phase, but I wanted to make sure that everything is correct so far as far as perspective goes. No actual measurements though, so the proportions may be off.

As always, feedback highly appreciated.

[soft.raincloud777]

hello, your 1 pt perspective and full figure drawings are impressive!

I've recently finished my 2 pt perspective, and something I learned was: Marc Brunet teaches how to draw in perspective in a way that people can also do this on physical paper. However, if you are drawing digitally, you can actually make the process a lot easier.

For example, I use Clip Studio Paint, and so I searched up a tutorial on Youtube, and found that I can set up lines in perspective that automatically will make my lines fit to the perspective I want. It made the process less stressful and I could dedicate more time to details. So perhaps you can search up something like that to aid your efficiency. Hope this might help! (sorry this is long...)

[Xybb]

Heya, thanks for the reply. I am drawing with photoshop. While I am not sure that there's a premade grid you can enable there, I do know of a way to at least construct the vanishing lines.

What I think costs me the most amount of time is figuring out the depth of stuff. I am not sure if there's tools in photoshop to aid with that. However, after some struggles figuring out ellipses I bought lazy nezumi which is basically a toolbox for photoshop that also has perspective rulers. Learning how those work also helped a ton at understanding how to setup correct vanishing points in the first place and makes the workflow much easier. Still, the tough part always seems to be figuring out how to keep proportions correct and translating complex shapes in space.

That being said, I chose to push myself using complex shapes in the first place, so it might just be due to me trying to make it harder for myself.

While we are at this topic: How do you feel about using tools like that as far as learning is concerned? I was wondering if relying on digital tools to make ones lifes easier hinders learning. It feels like skipping those basic steps may not always be a good choice.

[soft.raincloud777]

I totally understand your point on really understanding the fundamentals before going on the easier tools. I also realized that you were the one in the discord channel that pointed out my 3 PP mistake in my 2 PP study 😅 (I haven't gotten to learning 3 PP at this point so I wasn't able to notice the mistake)

I personally have a time limit set for myself to finish art school this year before I get busy with nursing school/college. So that may contribute to me finding more faster ways to learn. I recently listened to a youtube podcast that sort of addresses this topic a bit. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yD_yhmcH5A) It's very long so you don't have to watch everything or any if don't prefer to. I learned that if you want to work well as an artist, such as an environment artist, in an industry that involves corporate involvement, you need to know the latest technology and be able to crank out results relatively quickly. (perhaps they explain this better in the time stamp 2:17:06?) In addition, as the tools give you more time for focus on detail, you can create perhaps more outstanding results like the art shown in the video.

Please don't think I'm saying your method is faulty. I think understanding the practicing the fundamentals is good, and I personally have already practiced drawing and trying to understand 1 and 2 PP before using the tool. Perhaps whether or not you delve deep into fundamentals without tools depends on your goals and time constraint. I think in the long run, your method will help you understand the position of objects way better than me (and you already do ). But I'm thinking personally about, how do I practice and prepare myself in cranking out exceptional pieces of art to enable me to be a potential candidate for a job in the art industry as I am learning? In other words, I'm trying to practice efficiency and learn at the same time under time constraint. Perhaps if I do get stuck on drawing perspective in the future, I will revisit just practicing without the tool if needed.

But also in one way, I just thought to suggest to you an easier way so that you may find it easier in the future to draw in perspective, but you don't need to use it now, since, as you inferred, there is an importance in laying a good foundation in knowing the fundamentals.

I wish you the best in your art journey!

[Xybb]

Thank you for all your input =). I'll have a listen, will likely be nice to have it play in the background while drawing.

As far as my progress goes, I am still working on my 2-PP assignement and I am note quite sure if I have bitten of more than I can chew.

This building features so many shapes that are quite difficult to construct, especially in terms of proportions. So I chose to make an educated guess about the width of the windows infront and also on the 45° oriented walls. At the moment the roof is giving me nightmares. Still, making progress :D.

Also did some figure constructions today, the first ones I ever did. It was quite a lot harder for me than I imagined, especially the pelvis. For some reason I couldn't imagine how the shape fits in perspective.

I'd love some feedback for those. At least I now know that I'll have to make the construction part a bigger focus, as these are quite poor.

[Lockenheim]

These are quite fantastic for your first constructions! Well done. I watched a video a while ago by David finch called How to draw female hips that was quite good! He also has some videos on perspective and translating them in space. Maybe they will be helpful. The perspective will get easier with practice for sure. You are off to a great start. I find it hard when I have so many lines that I get confused. I usually construct one part of a building with lines and then hide it, so I can get it back later if I need, but I don't get overwhelmed. Hopefully that helps!

[Xybb]

Hey, thank you for your help =). I'll definitly take a look at David Finch, haven't heard of him before.

As for the construction, I am kind of doing that already with layers but it tends to get messy anyways, especially on the area where a lot of complex construction is need. For example the protrusion to the right of that building has quite a lot of angles that each need seperate construction. What I feel would help me a lot is better layer management, because a lot of times some of my construction ends up on layers where it doesn't belong or I can't find certain layers anymore so I end up making new ones :D. But I guess that just comes with practice.

[Opal]

I think you did a very good job. As I see it your lines are very confident and it looks great. And yeah drawing things in perspective is sooooo difficult, but keep going you got this.

[Xybb]

Thanks for all the support you guys give, it's always very encouraging. As for my progress, another 4 hours in:

To be fair, the time would probably better spend in figures but since I am quite often not finishing what I started I'll try to make a point to finish the stuff I work on. Most of the roof is still work in progress as well as some of the windows. Window-depth is almost completely by eye as well as the railing and the windowsills. I hope it's not showing to much.

Still some gesture and figure drawing for today left. Definitely have to work on my time management more :D.

Edit: Seeing the image posted, 4 hours seem like such an enormous amount of time for what's there.

[Lockenheim]

This is coming a long quite well! The thickness you have added on the windows is so juicy. Very nice work. The receding arch trim under the left windows is very well done. This is very impressive. I was thinking about your translation question. I was reading a book yesterday while I was fighting with my snake cylinder that you might find very helpful. It's called Successful Drawing by Andrew Loomis. It has a bunch of ways to translate move objects around in perspective. Sounded like it would be right up your alley. I wouldn't sweat the amount of time you put into one piece for now. Marc always says speed will come with time. The amount of time I had to spend when I first started to understand perspective was insane. My first two one point assignments took me easily 70 hours combined, and my 2 point assignment took probably 30 - 40 hours total. I am also exceptionally slow and constructed literally everything. But I get faster over time. Fantastic progress. Keep up the good work!