Faharis' homework

[Faharis]

Statement of Intent:
In order to help me focus (read: concentrate) more of my attention in the subject of drawing, I have selected
a goal which I intend to accomplish with the learning of anatomy studies (which is meant the learning of a realistic art foundation)
and other helpful things which may pointed out by helpful and wonderful people.

Goal:
To be able to produce adequately attractive art in quantities large enough to carry content of a literative value.

Pfff.... how to begin?

A bit of history I guess. As a child I didn't really see the point of drawing photo realistic art since you could just take... well, a photo. Besides when I drew anything interesting (such as the day I drew a couple of horses in clothes going to the mall) my designated bullies zoomed in on it very fast. So I decided not to bother with drawing much (bad choice, I know).

Fast forward to when I was about 16 and I'd recently discovered manga, a form of comic I hadn't known before (having read every single western comic my local library had, of course) that featured a wider range of genres than I'd experienced in comics before (it was a rather small library). I was hooked on them. A while later I was bored in class, can't say I remember a time when I wasn't, and copied a drawing of the back of the comic I had with me (Akira, if anyone cares) and realised that, while it sucked, it wasn't horrible. I maybe.. could do this?

And so I began my efforts to get good enough to make my own stories graphic narrative.

Right, now that you're all properly bored here is some stuff to start with. This was prompted by my dearest Jacket-Button who has been so sweet as to offer to guide me along the way. Go on, go be amazed by her art. I'll wait.

... all done? Good. Hope you left her a nice comment.

So here are four copy-drawings of Loomis' anatomy guides from pages 26- 29 in Figure Drawing: for all it's worth

[Jacket-Buttons]

good to see you posting. I'll start off your first critique.

As I said in IM, knowing that these took you several days and multiple hours to complete I feel that you need to loosen up a bit. The more studies you can complete the more you improve.

Keep it up dear C=

[Jeshuea]

Man, that reminds me, I need to finish my homework too. *gets to work* Great job Faharis, the practice is looking great so far

[Brandon Pilcher]

Very nice anatomical studies you have there!

[Faharis]

Thank you for the luv there m'dearest Jacket and Jesuhea, kisskiss to ya both ;3

Thanks to you too Trex, s nice of you to say so ^^

[Jacket-Buttons]

Just poking by dear. I definitely want to see more. I'll bug you later on tonight.

[Faharis]

Yes boss... sorry boss...

[Faharis]

Ok, so here we got a little something more.

My thought process for this picture was something like...

"Ok yeah, I can do this.... looking good, looking good....
oops, gotta fix that.... ah, better....
man, this sucks....... should I start over? Nah......
ok, done.... hey, it turned out kinda nice... scanned
.... no wait, it didn't."

I hope Mr. Model never sees this. He'd probably develop a complex xD

Beware of the fish lips!

....


....feeeesh leeeeeeps....


I know he's all mangled so feel free to take potshots at it. All I ask for is that you keep in mind that this is the first time I actually attempt to draw an actual person from a photo.


Right, so stay tuned for when I actually try to... dundundunDUN... shade this! *gaspshockhorror*

[Faharis]

Turns out that there was sadly little I did right about the last picture so it may not get shaded until some sort of redraw has happened.

... and I'm very lazy to repeat myself xD

Meanwhile, here are some boxes and stuff to enjoy.

Toodles~

[MadLucied]

Amazing! I am liking your stuff already! Your grasp and understanding of anatomy seems to be far better than what I have done!

As far as your history into pursuing anatomy for graphic novels, keep it up! Don't make the mistake I made give up because some assholes, or a large group of them, family included, told you you couldnt do something! If you know deep in your heart of hearts that that is what is meant for you to do, then go do it regardless of what they say! I hate that I'm starting off so late in the game, but hey, at least I got back on board right?

[mariusz]

Nice anatomy/animal studies. Wanna see more - especialy combination of human + animal

[Faharis]

MadLucied- Thank you for the compliment, its nice to know someone likes my stuff ^^ My grasp of anatomy is debatable though :p

I have this stubborn streak, ya know. When people tell me I can't I tend to work hard just to prove I can ;D

Thank you for your encouraging words.


Mariusz- Thanks If Jacketbutton gets anything to say about it, you'll be seeing more soon..... lots and lots and lots more xD

The furry heads on the anatomy studies (copied from Loomis) were mostly about me goofing about than anything else. I find it very hard to be serious for any length of time, I gotz me a hyperactive funnybone I do

[surfandsnow]

you seam to have a good start here, keep working with loomis, hes very good at covering the fundamentals that give you a strong foundation to build upon. When working from life or reference, a very good tool you can use would be triangulation. Its basically when you use a angle to compare how key points/landmarks align with each other. The most powerful angles being horizontals and verticals, which are very useful because its quite easy to see if two point fall on the same horizontal or vertical line both from ref/life as well as on the paper.

since your just starting out here Id say posermanics http://www.posemaniacs.com/ would probably be the way to go either the any of the timed modes should be fine, mostly to get some bulk work in to weed out a lot of the major errors as well as gesture, perspective, proportions, and just sketching in general.

[MadLucied]

MadLucied- Thank you for the compliment, its nice to know someone likes my stuff ^^ My grasp of anatomy is debatable though :p

I have this stubborn streak, ya know. When people tell me I can't I tend to work hard just to prove I can ;D

Thank you for your encouraging words.


Mariusz- Thanks If Jacketbutton gets anything to say about it, you'll be seeing more soon..... lots and lots and lots more xD

The furry heads on the anatomy studies (copied from Loomis) were mostly about me goofing about than anything else. I find it very hard to be serious for any length of time, I gotz me a hyperactive funnybone I do

I know that feeling because I live with it everyday. Not so much from other people anymore, but from myself! I use my own doubt to fuel my desire to become a better artist and to reach my goals of art.

Anyways, as you continue to practice, during days where you THINK your work sucks, I'm pretty sure you'll see that it actually IS good, even if not compared to your best work.... if that made any sense

[Icedearth15876]

Your anatomy studies are very good, you are getting better as you go along. Keep up the good work

[Faharis]

Thought maybe I ought to say something since its been about oh, six months or something since I last up anything up here.

I'm really bad at forums and I'm really bad at regularly updating. I keep drawing stuff and thinking "I should put that up on CA" but of course I end up not doing so cause I'm a lazy little bastard.

Anyway, so what have I been doing in the mean time?

I took an art course, something about drawing with the right side of your brain. It was a bit on the easy side so I'm considering taking another one soon as the school year starts again. It seems a bit unfair that just cause I wanna learn I have to go by the school calendar. C'est la vie, I suppose.

I've been somewhat keeping to a 'something everyday' kinda thing. Everything counts as something, even tiny doodles or working on an old piece. Basic idea is to keep at it, getting enough quantity out there and eventually some of it will turn out to be quality. Tis a statistic guarantee it is.

So far its been keeping up my productivity and I think it might be paying off. But that might just be my dear Jacket's tutoring. She's awesomely awesome.

Right, now I don't really remember where I was going with this post but I assure you that it was hilarious.

Bottom line: I'm forgetful and somewhat lazy, expect sporadic updates.

So to end things off, have some WIP goodness that I had laying around.
Enjoy~

[DSmith]

Hello!
Really good sketchbook you have here!Those last digitals are great,and the Loomis studies are nice and clean!Keep it up!

[Faharis]

Hey ho there.

Computer's still borked so I've just been working on paper and such. It should be up and running within the month I hope.

So yeah, snuck to use the office scanner while my boss went to the dentist so here are some gestures for you people to gaze at. Try not to cringe to much, your face may stick like that ;P

Most of these were done with Posemaniacs 90sec setting and some are better than others. Its quite a bit of fun at least.

There's also one foot, one hand and one mangled hand, also done using reference from Posemaniacs 'hands for drawing'

Enjoy ya'll
Some more to come I hope.

[Faharis]

Man... its been a while...

So yeah, stuff that's happened in the meanwhile.

Got depressed and stressed because of my job, which I started to hate so I quit. Computer never got fixed because no job = no money.
Tried what passes for art school around here. I didn't like it and I suspect the feeling was mutual.
Turns out that there's no space for craftsmen, especially not illustrators, in Iceland's art community. Its all just Art with a capital A and an extra helping of pretentiousness.

I was unemployed again for a few months but found a job at a bookstore, its not too bad. So far at least.

But this means I'm back on the road of trying to learn on my own and all that. So I've decided to give this another shot. But as has already been established I'm not really good at keeping one of these. When I plan to update when I finish things or have stuff to show I end up forgetting or being too lazy to do anything.

Which is why I've decided to do weekly updates. Regardless of whether I've done something interesting or not. Even if its just to say that I've done nothing this week. So expect updates at the start of each week on sundays, or monday at the latest.

Hopefully it will go better this time.

Ps. Here's a few things I've done while I was away.

Went to the zoo.





Bridgeman rocks.


Rita the monster basher


My room, so cosy (as viewed sitting on my bed)


Trying to reinvent this to boost my confidence. Got stuck in the anatomy.


Boudiccia, my DH character

[DARKTHUR]

Hi there! Hmm, I too have issues keeping sketchbooks here updated... but I guess trying to keep weekly updates could help a lot, so I'll try to do it too
As for your updates, they look fine, but yet you could do some more anatomy studies, trying to get the basic structures. That will give you a big boost. As you said, bridgman is quite cool! but he may be somewhat complex haha, if you have access to some of his stuff then go ahead and copy his drawings, understand them, and then do some research from his point of view. You could try loomis too, that guy is not so complex but his theories are quite usefull!

Good luck with your new job and keep doing what you love!

[Faharis]

Hi yourself! Thanks for the drop by

Yeah, I'd already decided that the next few months will be anatomy all the way. I'm getting tired of having to guess where bits go and how they should look, or being limited to flat poses. A friend sent me some ebooks with Bridgeman's stuff and a few from Hogarth who's also pretty cool, I'll be uploading some copies out of that next time. I've tried Loomis (as you can see in my first post) but I kinda feel that his stuff is a bit stiff and it brings out my own stiffness in bad ways xD So I'll stick to Bridgeman, whom I'm a big fan of. I just wish I could get my hands on some physical copies of his books. Or any book with anatomy drawings. There don't seem to be many of those around in this area.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback and warm words. Much appreciated

[Faharis]

Okay, I know. I'm off to a pretty bad start

Not only did I miss the first update, I'm also pretty late with this one. I don't really like to make excuses but-

Reason the first: I didn't update last weekend because I sort of didn't get a weekend since I was working saturday and then had three social engagements that I didn't really want to go to but couldn't get out of (wedding, birthday, birthday, if anyone's interested)

Reason the second: The last three weeks I've been working 9 hour days 6 days a week. At first I just through it would be one week and so I thought I'd have more time to actually get this started but then it turned into two weeks and from there it became three. Most days, by the time I got home I was too tired to do much of anything.

Reason the third: Also, I recently reorganised my room. Its been a bit of a mess due to the whole work thing and sort of stayed in the chaotic state that things get when you shuffle the settled piles of junk and projects in various states of completion. Its still a bit unorganised but slowly settling.

So yeah, that's why I kinda flopped. Hopefully things will be better in the coming weeks.

I didn't do a whole lot of drawings since most of my spare time and energy went into making a costume for last weekend. I made a minecraft helmet and pickaxe from cardboard. Came out pretty nifty, got my a third place at a costume contest.

But here's a little bridgeman I did recently at least,

Lately I've kinda felt like painting landscapes. Maybe I've just been watching too much Bob Ross. There's also been an itch to do something very Icelandic so I thought maybe I'd try to get my hands on one of those photography books and use them for practice. We'll see next week what I make of it

[Faharis]

This week's update is cancelled due to NaNoWriMo.

Yeah, yeah, I know. This isn't going so well. I need to get my stuff in order if I want to keep any sort of schedule. Although this thread doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention anyway so I think nobody's really noticed except me :/

In other news, I'm considering using my bookstore-worker inside knowledge to get a set of Bridgeman books via the special order system. Proper anatomy books are a possibility! (I don't mind ebooks but for studying I much prefer a physical copy)

That's all for now, wish me luck in reaching 50k word by the end of November!

[Faharis]

Sorry, I guess we're still on hiatus for Nanowrimo.

Writing 50k is hard :/

In other news, monday is now officially the update day.

[Faharis]

Alright, a bit late this week. Thought I'd manage to squeeze in some painting once I got home but no luck. Ended up watching Downton Abbey. Well, I did promise my mum I would but I was thinking more like one episode, not three.

Anyway, before you judge me for having done nothing yet again I'd like to stop you and say that I _did_ do something. It just wasn't something I can show here. (No, not like that. Get your heads out of the gutters, the lot of you.)

What I did was spend a whole day trawling through every shop in town (and the next two over) for that one type of paintbrush I saw in a book (okay, maybe two or three types). But no luck. All shops here have the same types. They're all flat and straight on top or round and pointed. And your only option as far as hair is concerned is hard or soft. No variation, no mixes. I swear, I hate living in a small country sometimes.

My trawl did turn up some interesting new brushes though, mostly from the hardware store, so I spend most of my free time this week testing those. Some of you might say "Show us that then!" but really, there's not much to see. I tend to test different strokes and brushes all on the same page, and mostly in the same colour or a close hue. Can't be bothered to mix much if I just want to see what I can make it do. In the end it tends to just look like an irregular wash (I use watercolours by the way). That or something which would be found either in the average five year old's art drawer or on a plinth in a modern art gallery.

So while this week may not have been a huge success art wise, I do have some plans. I've stumbled upon a very nifty art tutorial book series that come with not just very detailed instructions but also transferable underdrawings. I like to think that not having to worry about composition or subject matter will let me just practice working the medium without much distraction.

Right then, I'm up too late as it is (got an early shift tomorrow) but I felt guilty that I hadn't posted my progress.

So good night all.

(ps. if anyone knows some good tutorial or tip websites on watercolour I'd love for you to point me their way )

[Faharis]

Here we are and another monday has rolled along. Nanowrimo still reigns champion as far as my free time is concerned but I did manage to get some painting in this week

Now, before you get too excited I'll have to say that its closer to a paint by number than an original work, but the point is practice so originality isn't all. Its one from the paint along books I mentioned last week. Whenever I sit down to practice I always freeze up when it comes to what to paint and when I do have an idea I get too invested in it and by the end I'm throwing up my hands at how awful it all is. Going about it this way frees me up to not care too much.

Which is good because this thing has a huge amount of fiddly bits >_< I have discovered that I'm not very good at fiddly bits. I'm doing the Arc de Triomphe. Not the easiest of subjects but that is the point of practice, no?

I did mean to have a photo of the work-in-progress itself but after I'd gotten it all set up and looking pretty, I realized that the battery was totally dead. Not even a flicker. My scanner does me no good because I've been rearranging my room and haven't got all the wiring set up again (living in an old house means having to do the 'not enough plugs' waltz every time you rearrange). But the battery is charging and I'll put up a picture tomorrow (before work if I get up early enough).

Till next week, be good

[DMTcat]

nice stuff dude. good to see slow improvement

[Faharis]

Here's that picture, finally! Sorry for the delay, I was a bit under the weather yesterday I spent most of the day sleeping or at work. However, I'm sure you were all patiently waiting for this (or not )

Obviously it looks better in person The drawback with there transparency of watercolour is that both cameras and scanner pick up
the reflection of the paper much more than the pigment, making all the colours fainter. Not that it matters much for this, since its
not exactly a grand undertaking ;P

And to make up for the late upload, have some cats! (because the internet isn't quite full of them yet).



Copied from photos and videos from various intertube locations.

[Taha-023]

I love cats, i really like the expression on all of them!

[Faharis]

Hehe, thanks Those precious expressions were exactly what made me want to draw them.