bp daily sb - beginner

[BaZoOka PoOka]

hi i am new to everything art. i started pursuing animation about 7 months ago. ive done a lot of beginner animations and this week i found out that to become the artist i want to be, i need to go back to basics to build a solid foundation for drawing because i want to be able to get any idea i have down on paper. ive decided to go back and really attempt to learn drawing. its really been helping me a ton with the way i now analyze things, im much more observant. ive done over 5000 gesture drawings so far. when i first started 7 months ago, everything was like a stick figure so i am proud of my progress. this week i just started learning anatomy and perspective (tough!!)

im heavily inspired by the sketchbooks on concept art. i love creature art the most. i have always been a big fan of concept art/digital painting and wished i could do stuff like that . i am very excited now because ive finally decided to dedicate my break time to learning digital painting instead of playing video games.

i guess this will be where i put all my drawings. i hope in doing this, it can be a sort of reminder to me that i am getting better everyday and encourages me to keep working hard and moving forward

my life goal is to be working as a character animator and digital painting/concept art for fun

i would greatly appreciate if people could drop by some advice on how to proceed with learning digital painting/concept art. i dont have a clue as to how to get started and it would be nice to know the best route and gain any knowledge from the experiences of others.

ive been told that ctrlpaint.com is what i should be learning from and i really love it. im currently going through all the tutorials and today i finished some basic exercises. they were very tedious and no fun so i didnt try as hard as i should have, but tomorrow i will try to do my best for each and every exercise. i will try to post something up everyday so it will be like i have homework.

maybe i will end up like that one guy on this site that was a newbie and after many years of hardwork and dedication, is now a master !! =)

[BaZoOka PoOka]

drew these today. i ended up rushing a lot again. i struggle to be patient enough to give each drawing the amount of time it deserves. i plan to run 2 miles every morning from now on in hopes it will help me be more patient with this learning process. these assignments are really great though. they show me what i really need to work on and how i can most simply practice these techniques without getting caught up with all the other things like if i were to work on something more advanced. i hope to master the basics.

[BaZoOka PoOka]

i watched about 60 ctrlpaint videos today learning mostly about perspective and having a positive mindset.
did one exercise which was to draw an ordinary item and put imaginary detail on it. also drew some 30 second gestures. i havent been drawing gestures lately, i need to balance out my schedule so i have time for drawing.

[BaZoOka PoOka]

i finished 3 chapters of ctrlpaint today. i finally got to the painting portion and... it was so awesomely fun! i did really bad on the real life drawings because they were so boring. i learned a lot about blending, form, value and light. i really want to start practicing all these things im learning but i want to finish all of these tutorials first. i have 6 chapters left!! also i just finished some 30 second gestures, i didnt do very well because i couldnt get in a good position to draw for some reason

[BaZoOka PoOka]

today i found out i actually want to become a concept artist. i just realised that it has a lot more of what i want to do than animation. ive always wanted to do creature design, colors, paint, lighting, composition, etc. something i dont really get to do with animation, so basically i have wasted tons of money on all the animation books/tutorials/programs!

but now i am really excited because i will be dedicating my full attention to concept art!! its a refreshing feeling but a bit scary because im so new to art and dont have much drawing/visual library skills yet. I really love watching feng zhu and reading about how his school works. i want to try to self teach myself in that style.

today i finished watching all the free ctrl paint tutorials! tomorrow and the following days i will focus hard on learning perspective. i really want to nail the fundamentals. i drew some quick gestures just now. im not sure if i should keep practicing doing gestures since im not pursuing animation anymore. maybe i should start focusing more on still life

[Gul]

good start, i am also a beginner (well 6 months into it now), i started just like you with ctrl paint, feng and the video tutorials. The most important thing i learnt was that if you get your fundamentals right, you can basically draw anything. i spent 6 months figuring out the fundamentals and theory of drawing and painting. i hope to spend the next 6 months on pure practice.

i will tell you what i learnt, i hope this will be helpful, save you time and set you off in the right direction.


fundamentals are perspective, anatomy and light.

perspective is about technique, its not too difficult to learn the different processes.

anatomy is mostly about memorization, you will save yourself a lot of time if you sit down and memorize the relationships the bones and muscles have with each other than simply jumping in and drawing them.

light splits into 3 things, VALUE: how light behaves on forms, MATERIALS: how light behaves with materials, COLOR how light interacts with itself,



add me as a friend so we can help each other if you want.

[BaZoOka PoOka]

hey i really love your advice and i completely agree! i totally learned my lesson when i was studying animation and kinda skipped past the fundamentals. the big lesson i learned from that is that mastering fundamentals will end up saving 100x of your time and headache. since im starting over on a new career path from animation to concept art, i plan to master the fundamentals this time before moving onto anything else.

that is pretty crazy that you have done the same things as me haha.

thats exactly the order i have planned to learn! perspective then anatomy then light. mastering each before moving on.

thank you for your tips, doing that will definately save me a ton of time. i would love to add you

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progress report for today

i dedicated the entire day today to learning perspective. i finished learning about 1,2, 3 point perspective and how to use it for constructing anything. it was surprisingly much more simple than i thought it would be. the next subject i have moved onto is anatomy. i am currently learning about the head and trying to memorize all the proportions and names. i have drawn a page of 25 heads but i am not going to post it because i had a really bad mentality while i did that one and didnt really try. i started over on a new page today and drew 10 heads so far.

i plan to fill up the whole page and memorize the proportions and names tomorrow!

[BaZoOka PoOka]

arg. i lack patience and keep feeling like i should be learning faster so i end up drawing lazily and not trying my best. i really need to work on that.

today i started reading drawing the head and hands by andrew loomis and i love this book. he made me realise something that matt kohr from ctrl paint said as well. the fact that i must get the construction lines correctly down first or else the whole drawing falls apart. thats what ive been having trouble with.

a great analogy loomis said was that a carpenter, no matter how long hes been working, always has to measure before cutting the board. so im going back to basics and just trying to get the construction lines down correctly first. then when i feel comfortable with that, i will move onto adding features instead of overwhelming myself.

i also got a kindle in the mail today. i want to work on building my visual library so i hope to read a few chapters every night. i currently have almost no visual library. the first book im going to read is the hobbit because feng zhu said he read it hundreds of times so it must be amazing.

here are the drawings i did today. the digital one is the one that i was being lazy on because the drawings werent coming out the way i wanted so i got a little discouraged.

but andrew loomis is a great teacher and really inspired me to keep trying my best.

i decided to start over more basic on real paper because it just feels a lot easier to draw traditionally. i feel like im starting to understand it better now!

im going to be staying up a couple more hours working on heads today because its amazing! im starting to be able to visualize these heads as 3d forms and it doesnt feel like im drawing anymore but more like sculpting, and ya basically having fun.

though now im working on putting features on. its tough because i dont really know how to draw the nose, eyes, lips, etc in perspective, so im going to be practicing all night

[Gul]

great work so far, you make a good point about the carpenter, whenever i measure out the proportions and placements first it all falls into place. there is an application called Facegen, and its a good reference i find for different types of heads.

nice to see you still have the drive and energy to do so many hours.

[Sundry Addams]

I got to up my game, I feel ashamed looking at your output.

[argaelie]

Hi, nice drawings! The first ones look useful for the rendering part
For the last studies of the head [the first set], I would recommend you to draw the features after the vertical line of the profile. For example, in the head no. 62: the position of the eye is correct, but both the highest part of the nose and the highest part of the lips ends in the same line. Also, the bridge of the nose starts just below the eyebrows, not below the eyes.

These are a couple of observations, hope they can be useful
Anyways, your studies in general look very good c: !
Cheers and keep it up!

[Dahlium]

Hey nice start!
The best tips i can give you is thinking about the form and draw a lot from life.

[BaZoOka PoOka]

thank you guys for the helpful tips and encouragement, i will try to keep them in mind

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progress report for today

i actually didnt stay up drawing yesterday, though i did start reading the hobbit. it really is a great book! i didnt even finish reading chapter one yet and i feel like my visual library is getting a lot better. i also think its great that ive started reading. its like i get to work hard all day and read a book as a reward. it feels like im going on an adventure till i pass out. im going to try to draw a picture from the hobbit everyday of what i imagine from reading it. i think doing this will really help my visual library improve.

i have decided to dedicate this whole week to learning about heads. i plan to study andrew loomis drawing the head and hands and finish it this week. i also thought of an idea, which was to get a stack of paper and draw on it all as an assignment.

i recommend this andrew loomis book to anyone trying to learn to draw. he really is a great teacher. simple explanations, great analogies, and fun to read. its not just a bunch of cold hard facts but he also puts his personality and motivation in it, so its an easy read.

a thing i want to try to do is be addicted to learning all this. cuz i remember back when i wasted my life playing WoW, i would barely get any sleep because theres always some goal to work towards. i went crazy on that game making 500,000 gold in a month of playing nonstop haha.

so i was just thinking .. why cant i have that mentality towards something useful such as learning all this stuff? imagine how much i could get done with that mentality!!

a crazy thing has happened! after copying the pictures of faces with planes on them a bunch of times and memorizing them, i feel like ive gotten to the point when things just click. hard to explain but its like i went from feeling doubtful of my progress, and feeling like im not getting anywhere and when it clicked, i feel like im really starting to get it now, im feeling a lot more confident. when i started applying the planes to the faces , everything got a lot easier and i am really getting the hang of it from all the faces ive been drawing today , its an exciting feeling.

also i have decided that i want to work hard and try to become a concept artist for blizzard in the future!! it would be amazing because i am in love with starcraft (my most favorite game) and the zerg is my favorite race. also i played wow for like 2 or 3 years !

[Gul]

I know what you mean mean about motivation, to keep going to the next goal in games. I guess it is about the challenge, when you are learning alone and dont have much competition it can get a little lonely and you cant judge your skills or level of performance against others.

I have been playing around with the thought of some friendly competition especially for beginners on here.
you said you wanted to practice heads this week. why not have a challenge of 500 heads this week. This will help us stay motivated and actually get the work done.
if you have a better idea at how we can do this let me know.

[BaZoOka PoOka]

may 2 2013
i made a goal for myself to draw at least 5 pages every day. while drawing the 4th page my wrist started hurting. i did so much today that a lot of the process started feeling automatic as if memorized.

may 3 2013 did 6 pages today, wasnt very happy with the results because i didnt try my best. i just been drawing these so much that i started going on autodraw mode and not thinking. so a lot of these are bad perspective.

but the good thing is that after i stopped working, every face i saw in real life was so interesting and i noticed a lot more in faces and could easily imagine faces as simple 3d forms
may 4 2013
today i started trying to draw heads using real head pictures and it was a lot harder than copying the head drawings in the book so i did pretty bad, got discouraged and didnt do much today. but i read something from noah bradley that said everyday just do one thing and it will end up being a lot. so that encouraged me to quit thinking and just draw 100 heads and see if i improve from there
may 5 2013
today i am really happy because im getting down the head perspective and placements pretty well. i just started study on the facial features . only did eye study so far. also i didnt do as much as i could have today so i wana try to work harder tomorrow. also shading is really fun ! its so cool seeing something you draw look real
may 6 2013
i didnt do much today. i napped most the day and got distracted a lot. i did nose and lip study. tomorrow im going to work hard
may 7, 2013
i just finished watching all the prokotv youtube videos , hes an awesome drawing teacher, i learned a lot bout colors, values and drawing facial features. tomorrow i will start practicing
may 8 2013
i did bad today. i only did 3 drawings . my evil mind discouraged me!! tomorrow im going to try to not judge my work and get some exercise so i can stay positive. im gona try to practice drawing 25 of each ears, eyes , nose and lips. im bad at doing lay ins
may 9 2013
i did a few portraits today. they take me quite a while. so im going to move on and do portraits from time to time so i can get more stuff done. also watched about design and rendering
may 10 2013
did some anatomy and drew page of trolls , trying to work on creativity, its hard, nothing really comes to mind, and my friend who is learning with me at same level made amazing looking trolls and now im sadface. in the past, he took art course in college, went to museums, and watches a ton of documentaries so he has a head start with visual library!! jealous one i am indeed. he said hes gona help me get better at creativity though. the problem was that when i was drawing my page of trolls i was not having fun and was just asking.. what does a troll look like?

his thought process was completely different. he was having fun and asked good questions like wanting to make a troll different from the typical ones , and asked specific questions about the different facial features like shape and size.
may 11 2013
today my friend is trying to help me be more creative so i watched about rhinos, read some art history which made me really appreciate art and understand better. and also tried to work on creativity. drew some pigs and rhinos that came out yucky but the process really helped me think more creatively
may 12 2013
my friend told me to watch wasteland , was awesome, was about people making art out of garbage. and WOW i learned so much more about art and how much meaning and power it can have.

did some sketches (unworthy to be shown) and got discouraged cause i cant draw from my imagination. at the end of the day i realise i need to stop being unfair to myself by trying to draw amazing things from my imagination when i havent developed enough visual library yet

didnt get much done today but tomorrow im going to just keep working on my fundamentals and exercise so i feel better. also did some anatomy study