A Year of Drawing - 0 months to go

[equilerex]

Hello!

Here goes my first post
ive been lurking around here for years but it has always seemed a bit big to try and become an active member... well, now i have a reason to do so.
Until now ive worked mostly with Digital mediums (3d, web design, general photoshopping, etc) but since i tried getting into a certain art school for 3d/animation/concept design and failed for not knowing how to draw properly, ive taken up a goal to learn a bit of life drawing this year. ive always liked drawing but never had the chance to learn it properly.

This is a beginning for a long journey...
if youre interested, you can view my digital stuff on my hompage here
and the level of drawing i was at when applying in a pdf here

lets begin!
like i said, i have no previous experience exept doodling for fun on edges of notebooks in school (been out for a few years)... downside of living in a small city with no art courses


Week 1
First i picked up a book called "figure drawing for dummies" (horrible brand but i liked the style the drawings were.) so for the first week i did that, followed the exercises, learned to draw different parts of the head and body


then the book lost itself somewhere in my opinion... it told how to draw specific parts but putting them together was rather vague, so i went ahead and tried doing a portrait with what i had learned




and after that the book flew into the corner...

Week 2
So now i picked up this video from gnomon- figure drawing by Dave Finch
it's really exellent! The drawing style fits me perfectly and the way he builds up the body really did it for me... ive always struggled to draw a natural figure- i never knew where to start and it always end up like stiff disproportioned log... well, not anymore





ive mostly been following he's progress... only tried my own stuff a few times but so far so good, once im through it il start drawing from my own mind.

and now back to drawing... the week is far from over!

For thread thumbnail:

[phoenicorn]

wow your off to a great start. you may want to try posemaniacs 30 second poses. Posemaniacs.com.
Keep it up and you will go far

[equilerex]

thanks!
and that link is really nifty.. will definitely try it out after i chew through mr. finch's dvd

[equilerex]

Todays scribbles.. a bit little but il try better tomorrow

[element1988]

i wish my studies looked that good haha nice work, keep pushing and you will be great in no time

[equilerex]

thanks! but unfortunately im just following the video.. il see how well il to tomorrow when il start sketching from my imagination and photos (keeping my fingers crossed)

and in other news, got some more projects rolling...
making a little video to learn after effects

making props (gun and the outfit) and just finished first part of the storyboard.
more photos of the build process and finished products on my blog: http://blog.koivistik.com/?p=222

[Istmin52]

I should check out the David Finch video also. I didn't even know they had a figure drawing video at gnomon workshop. I would say just keep drawing. Your anatomy studies are looking good.

[strange1900]

This looks like a really great start, keep it up
I also have to say that I'm glad you kicked that book you started out with XD it sounds like it was something that basically taught symbols for the different features and that's seldom a good thing, It'll just keep you from creating anything other than a lifeless mask. The video you found seems to be doing much better for you. I would also recommend life drawing of any sort you can manage, as good as the dvd surely is nothing can compare to working from a live model.

[aLDoDarK]

hi equilerex,
I like your proportion study, you learned it very well!
Keep it up =)

[equilerex]

thanks guys!
and yeah, il definitely try out drawing from real life once i sharpen my skills a bit more... although it will be just sketching in public places since theres no places around here where you can sketch a model.

well, havent been home much the last couple of days put tried to do atleast something...
so found some stock photos as reference and did some sketching.. i think its coming along real nice since ive never managed to properly sketch down what i see, something is always out of proportion. The last few weeks have really helped and now i can easily get the rough figure done without any effort... just have to keep learning to refine and detail it


and today i continued following the dvd for some shading studies.

[Diarum]

Looks good, But I would say streach your self just a little bit, I am sure the dvd is great but try and do some anatomy and perspective from books. Andrew Loomis and Goerge Bridgman (If you didn't already know) are some of the best people to learn anatomy from. But the more sources you can get the info from the better. And remeber (if you didn't already know) not to just copy but really look and feel what you are doing so you can use that in other projects. And drawing from like is (Depending on who you asked) the single most improtant thing you can do while learning, because it teaches you how to turn 3d into 2d and how thing in the world work

[equilerex]

Looks good, But I would say streach your self just a little bit, I am sure the dvd is great but try and do some anatomy and perspective from books. Andrew Loomis and Goerge Bridgman (If you didn't already know) are some of the best people to learn anatomy from. But the more sources you can get the info from the better. And remeber (if you didn't already know) not to just copy but really look and feel what you are doing so you can use that in other projects. And drawing from like is (Depending on who you asked) the single most improtant thing you can do while learning, because it teaches you how to turn 3d into 2d and how thing in the world work

yep, that pretty much covers what ive been trying to do so far
just using different sources... last week was a book, now its a dvd and il see whats next. The reason why i like this exact dvd the best is because it fits my style and workflow perfectly and by following it im learning a great deal (ofc its not the only thing il be using since this is like week 3 and theres a whole year ahead...)


And thank you for the the feedback, i definitely keep it in mind

[equilerex]

its been a while... graduations, birthdays and struggling with motivation but i finally got some stuff done.

I'm pretty much finished with finch's figure and head dvds... it has been fun but i dont think anything can improve my damn heads! so i have mostly following the study and scribbling a bit.



But last night when i tried some shading with a classical 9B pencil i got some ideas!

i wanted to try drawing gesture figures or what ever theire called... didnt turn out that well:

but i found a way to make use of it...


the shading seems to become much more simple and straightforward this way... just have to get over my habbit of drawing small.. hard to add detail on a figure 1/4th of an A4


and did a few more


this one's to compare my skills with a year ago (army in between) when i made my portfolio....
vs the old

what the hell was i thinking adding this to my school app when i managed to make the one above with a month of studying?? to make it worse i gave in like 30 of these crappy scribbles


ah well, got 12 months until retry... got to keep drawing.
on another note... when making the progress shots i noticed that comparing the drawing with the stock photo really gives a good overview of what went wrong... seems like im drawing my legs and hips too short and narrow :/

have been reading a bit of bridgamn- a bit too heavy for me but il get there... got to take up a book now that im through the videos (ah, well, still got one for hands n feet.. havent learned that at all... never... ever!)

[equilerex]

been slacking off a lot... and doing other projects.

only got had time to play around a bit... im still damn horrific with heads.. need lots of practice.. and reading

self portrait gone wrong:


did this out of my head but something was really wrong with the jaw... couldnt figure it out so just covered it with hair.. am i cheap or what

[tourtu]

work on some hands too! i like your studies, keep it up.

[mary-cherry-me]

Keep it up dude!
Can't wait to see the way you will improve over time!

[equilerex]

work on some hands too! i like your studies, keep it up.

thank you ^^ and ive been doing that for the last 2 days btw! should definitely improve my drawings once i chew through the dvd (3rd and final!)

Keep it up dude!
Can't wait to see the way you will improve over time!

thanks, and thats you and me both ^^ (i just love keeping some type of log and taking a look back 5 years later the progress in quality can be really visible as on my devart page (2005- 2010).. though its just general photoshop/3d/etc.)

[mary-cherry-me]

thanks, and thats you and me both ^^ (i just love keeping some type of log and taking a look back 5 years later

Me too XD I've kept all of my sketchbooks since I started drawing. I look at the very first ones from back in 2008 and cringe, while my ego boasts

[BlackDelphin]

Lots of studies, that's the way to go about it!

I see quick, and i see rendered figures, i see portraits, and i see portraits, great!
But they all have line weight issues. Try doing more secure lines. Working with a permanent medium like ink or even paint will help you out with that. Perhaps even contours. They're good, but why not be better?

Cheers

[equilerex]

Lots of studies, that's the way to go about it!

I see quick, and i see rendered figures, i see portraits, and i see portraits, great!
But they all have line weight issues. Try doing more secure lines. Working with a permanent medium like ink or even paint will help you out with that. Perhaps even contours. They're good, but why not be better?

Cheers

Ahh, thanks for pointing that out, i had kind of forgotten about that... i definitely have a problem there, i can never draw a line right on the first time so i start with lots of messy lines over and over each other, clean them up a bit and end up with thick one width lines.. i guess inks would be a good idea, will add that to my to do list ^^

[gordebak]

I like the nude study from photo in #13 especially.

As they all suggest me, you can try to study more from photo references first. Then you can learn what has to go where by heart. I'm saying this especially for the chin you covered with hair You could just look at a photo.

But, you're getting there I think. I wish I was working like you. Keep up. I'll be watching.

[equilerex]

I like the nude study from photo in #13 especially.

As they all suggest me, you can try to study more from photo references first. Then you can learn what has to go where by heart. I'm saying this especially for the chin you covered with hair You could just look at a photo.

But, you're getting there I think. I wish I was working like you. Keep up. I'll be watching.

Agreed, its way easier to learn that way, most of these drawings are actually made with reference photos except a few (like 2 woman portraits) when i was just doodling around without really planning on doing anything. Will just keep practicing!

and thanks for dropping by ^^

[SixPrism]

Hey man, great start to your sketchbook. Your figures are already showing progress, keep up the studies and you'll go far.

I know the bridgeman seems daunting at first but i'm telling you, work in a few drawings each week where you copy a few of his figures, mark for mark, and you'll see your understanding of form increase rapidly. Try to see how hes basically assembling a bunch of cubes to create mass.

There is another teacher with material out there that i HIGHLY recommend to help you progress quickly with your understanding of the figure from gesture to form to shading and his method is really approachable ( much easier to get into than jumping right into bridgeman, and in fact makes bridgemans stuff about 100 times easier to understand) and thats Glenn Vilppu.

Get a copy of his Drawing manual. It's pure gold and you won't regret it. It's helped me so much. He'll start you out with gesture then teach you to draw simple shapes, spheres, cubes, and cylinders, and then he'll show you how to combine them and twist them into all sorts of figures. It helps sooo much with trying to come up with something without a reference. He also has a video series out there i highly recommend.

Vilppu + Posemaniacs + Bridgeman will change the way you see the process of building form in a drawing.

Also, another couple of good sources to learn from are any Andrew Loomis books ( Figure Drawing for what its Worth especially, all of em can be found in pdf form online and are public domain now, you can get it printed out at staples spiral bound to study from for like 15 bucks)

and Burne Hogarth books. (his stuff is pretty stylized, so watch out for absorbing his style too much)

Try to get in on as many figure drawing sessions as you can, if you can, you learn so much each time you go.

Anyhow hope that helps, I'm on the same journey myself. Just picked drawing back up a few weeks ago.

Can't wait to see your stuff progress, keep on posting!

[equilerex]

Thanks for the feedback! il try to absorb it in ^^
The plan was to start with loomis's figure drawing once i'm done with hand studies... but il definitely look up Vilppu too

[equilerex]

basic hand studies with dave finch's hand and feet dvd

got main theory through my skull... should be enough to get some basic shapes done on my figures instead of some abstract slabs

also discovered that switching from 0,2mm pencil to 1.0mm makes my hand a bit more confident and its easier to play around with line weights since it requires much more pressure to make sharp/dark lines
now a bit of legs and then il try my hand with loomis

[Tom Fenton]

hmm, ive got the dave finch video. good work so far but i would say get your eyes back on that video and keep studying that throughout and then do so by memory! then move on to loomis and bridgeman

[DefiledVisions]

Nice start! really liking your sketches, and damn some great advice you've been given. Half of it I hardly knew myself I have to check out Vilppu.. by the way, that gun you have further up looks really cool! so you're working on a short movie to learn after effects? sounds like great fun. I haven't made any short movies for many years, though when I was younger me and my friend used to write scripts for all kinds of short movies. It's great fun, post up a link to the finished thing, would we cool to see!
Oh and, is the Gnomon workshop good? I've never checked any workshops.

[equilerex]

Nice start! really liking your sketches, and damn some great advice you've been given. Half of it I hardly knew myself I have to check out Vilppu.. by the way, that gun you have further up looks really cool! so you're working on a short movie to learn after effects? sounds like great fun. I haven't made any short movies for many years, though when I was younger me and my friend used to write scripts for all kinds of short movies. It's great fun, post up a link to the finished thing, would we cool to see!
Oh and, is the Gnomon workshop good? I've never checked any workshops.

thanks, just trying my best

il definitely post a link to the movie once its done... got all the filming done a few days ago, now its afx time ^^

As for gnomon, they have loads of stuff from different authors (usually someone famous like syd mead or alike) so the quality really differes from dvd to dvd.

ahh, what the heck might as well post this here too... first half of the movie:

(needs some heavy color adjustment)

EDIT:
discovered thumbnail.. got a bit carried away though

[Tom Fenton]

could i get some of those brushes they look really nice (photoshop or corel?)

[equilerex]

could i get some of those brushes they look really nice (photoshop or corel?)

sure, theire from "concept on a mac" on devart

(and theire for photoshop)

particularly this 70mb beast http://concept-on-mac.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d229xhx
and this one http://concept-on-mac.deviantart.com...c/1033021&qo=8

theire really nice, lots of useful brushes (like the chain, ones for clouds/fog and those dotted ones.. i really like using those ^^)
made this with them back in the day: