Vices Sketchbook

[vices]

Amarok: Thanks! What are you up to in Japan?


The focus of the hagwon is to get students working at game companies doing backgrounds, characters, or 3d modeling. Lots of students (like me) mainly want to draw sexy girls. They strongly encourage the small shoulder - big bust - small waist - big hips formula. And the hagwon itself seems to be following Korean gaming trends and focusing mostly on the fantasy genre.

I agree that I focus too much on girls so I asked him for some recommendations of guy characters to copy and the teacher immediately and happily expounded on why Street Fighter and Capcom are so good. Personally i'm not a fan of the art style but the teacher has a good point.. the body shapes are various, muscles are well defined. He also pointed out several famous artists, whose styles I very much like, and mentioned their respect for Capcom art.

So I guess I'll start copying some Capcom~

[vices]

So far just more copying, I'll be moving onto clothes soon. I do worry about the body proportions, the teachers really like super wide hips, I keep having to transform them after drawing.

Since this sketchbook is for me, and I got my training in college to be a scientist, I do want to document all of my pictures.. so I can see the exact changes from day to day. So this sketchbook is almost all of the lines I put down. (Almost!) I guess that's an apology to the forum for so many repetitive posts~

[vices]

After designing some outfits I realized how difficult it is and went back to a mix of pure copying and 'deriving inspiration'

The teacher keeps wanting me to loosen up my lines and draw rougher. He keeps saying to stop pressing hard on the tablet, but I never feel like I am.. He knows the sensitivity is high so I'm not sure what to fix..

[Morkai]

It's really interesting to read about the school's process and your experiences there, I hope there's more fun stuff to share as your studies continue.
You've shown a lot of good progress through this sketchbook, your dedication is really showing (and already starting to pay off )
Good luck, subbed!

[vices]

Morkai: Thank you ^^ I'll try to keep it up



Thankfully the student beside me speaks pretty solid English and he's always helping me understand what the teacher said. Not that I understand exactly even when the English is clear.. He still wants me to loosen up, hold the pen so lightly it's practically falling out of my hands.. Dunno

Happy mistakes and margin of error, I finally get those two terms. The teacher wants me to draw rougher so he had me try a random brush "pastel on charcoal paper" which is not a very precise brush. It's also a... textured? brush so at small sizes you can't fill every pixel with black, there are some empty white spots. The result is that I feel a bit more comfortable compared to the solid brush I was using.

Nothing exciting yet, just more copying.. Other people said they copied for a month before touching color, and people usually go to the hagwon for a year (Yikes..)

[vices]

The teacher said to change the arm positions and hair, but leave the center of gravity alone, to create a new atmosphere when i'm designing new clothes

[Amarok]

As for Japan, I'm teaching English here as a means to save up money to go to art school back in the states!

It's interesting that your school is so focused on copying and exaggerated proportions--make sure that you're not just turning into a photo copying expert without understanding any of the anatomy! I'm a little skeptical of a school that just focuses on copying photos without telling you anything about how anatomy works, but at the same time, any drawing is good practice!

[vices]

Amarok: Nice ^^ I'd been planning to go to Japan to teach English and figure out what to do with my life but ended up in Korea instead. Love it here
I also totally agree about the importance of understanding anatomy, or understanding in general. I don't want to sound contrary but after experiencing the eastern learning style I'm not sure I understand what "understanding" is. They like to copy instead of formulating words and ideas about things, I guess?


My teacher looked at my pictures and thought for a minute and drew some super rough sketches, croquis style I guess. Then he told me to draw like that.

He wants me to relax my hand and not press so hard on my pen. On a whim I searched for "how to draw loose lines" and found a very cool conceptart! thread about the subject: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...raw-very-loose

Which had a very illuminating post showing Justin Sweet's sketch before painting: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...46#post2849746

I also found a very cute blog post by a girl trying to draw loose: http://didazart.blogspot.kr/2011/04/...-not-draw.html


After reading some I came to think that the difference between "loose" and "sloppy" is "skill" Which is annoying because I'm trying to draw carefully and get skill in the first place! So i've gone a little crazy trying to find loose lines. Feels good~

[jablar]

hey, amazing sketchbook, I really love your progress screenshots (WIP), please keep them comming
adding you to my watchlist...
thanks

[Morkai]

Man, I love that your "eureka!" moment is accompanied by a deluge of gesture sketches, these are just exploding with ...trying to find the word. Somewhere in between energy, confidence, and exploration. You've nailed the loose sketch idea: it explores the forms while you draw. It speeds up your drawing considerably. Loose lines create flow and rhythm, and (IMHO) are key to figure invention vs figure replication. All my sketches start as a complete mess, and I just add a new layer, drop the transparency on the previous mess, and come back over the lines I want to keep, repeat 3 or 4 times.

You're going to keep making wicked progress at this rate, way to keep at it

[Suncut]

The program you are in sounds really interesting, I'm curious about how you will keep developing. I think some of those loose sketches look pretty good, but be careful not to go so loose and fast you loose proportions all together. If you're interested in gesture drawing there are two great books there collecting walt stansfields notes on that, Drawn to Life. He approaches it from an animation standpoint, but the lessons are great for anyone.

[vices]

Jablar: Thank you! George&Guo has some amazing progress shots, I recommend looking for his sketchbook

Morkai: Thank you sir! I'm still trying to find the balance between sloppiness and speed. I haven't gotten the hang of adding new layers yet and working on top, it feels too much like restarting so I tend to erase and rework instead..

Suncut: Thanks so much for the book suggestion, I'll definitely check those out. The Disney animators are crazy, those movies still look great 20 years later..




My Eureka moment actually came in a slightly different way.. While I was going nuts trying to find loose lines and figure out how to draw what I was looking at in a relaxed way an idea occurred to me. I was going way too fast to catch any details or proportions, as Suncut said, and I didn't really want to slow down..

What is the point of taking a year to copy a basic picture? You could go forever and still not reach an exactly perfect copy. There should be some kind of time limit that makes sense for what you want to do. And you have to perform well in that time limit. I'm using some arbitrary time limits for sketching, 1, 5, 10, and 20 minute intervals. It's nice because 1 minute is too fast to get eveything so you have to aim to express the key points, and then the loose feeling carries over to the longer time intervals.

So my Eureka moment is.. keep going harder and faster

The teacher wants me to focus on copying characters and then designing new clothes.. so I haven't really been doing that, I'm being a bad student ^^;;

I'm really feeling a good vibe about the timed copying though and i'm slowly introducing imagination and design work too, so I feel nice and productive~

[vices]

Sooo i'm really loving copying but that is all you do at the hagwon.. copy copy copy.. I'm taking a month long break to work on my copying. I'm enjoying it and it's making me realize I need to be stronger at drawing before my painted pictures will look professional.


I'm trying to get my 5 min sketches to look better than my 20 mins, and my 5 min imaginations like my 5 min copies.. I hope it only takes a month~

[vices]

Probably.. gotta work my way down from the longer times to the shorter times.. instead of the other way around

[vices]

I was disappointed today with the progress of my clothes but then I realized it's only been 10 days, gotta give myself a break.

Also I listened to Brad Rigney's old interview on Crimson Daggers, wicked cool stuff. Amazing artist.

Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEU03Q5H5sU
Artist: http://cryptcrawler./images/page:3/

[Cabbage Caterpillar]

Hey Vice, Thanks for sharing that video link. I remember watching that interview long time ago, but now I'm watching it again! very inspiring stuff.
You got tons of study here!! Copying can be helpful, but looks like you're losing form in some of the drawings. I find that especially with copying anime can sometimes do that. Copying Loomis or Bammes figures can help understand form. Then when you do other stuff you can build the form on top. Keep up the good work!

[vices]

Cabbage Caterpillar: Thank you! The clothed figures were looking flat but I thought it was because I was bad at clothing. In fact the problem was in trying to follow the path of the folds I started thinking in vertical and horizontal lines. "Form" is totally missing and something I don't think about and it's time to remedy that

If you haven't seen Saejin Oh's speedpainting videos I highly recommend them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8VYq...feature=relmfu

I especially enjoy seeing his early processes as he reworks the figure until he's satisified

[vices]

i'm excited to find that imagination work is becoming less intimidating and beginning to look similar to my copy work! On the flip side, I'm becoming much less impressed with myself and am starting to see how long this road stretches out..

ing

[Suncut]

You've definately improved! some of those copies are starting to look really good, and as you said your imagination work has come a long way. You seem to have the most problems drawing muscular guys, I think you're focusing too much on the individual muscle bulges and missing the form they are all anchored in.

[vices]

Suncut: Thank you! You are totally right and I feel very lacking as far as muscular guys go. I really think it would help me draw girls better too to know how the muscles fit into the form. I gotta start remedying this ASAP.

Today I started doing fabrics again and I'd like to plug this guy's blog: http://sevencamels.blogspot.kr/2008/...ds-part-2.html

It was really helpful to think about folds as different types. Before reading this I was trying to "feel out" the physics involved with tension forces causing overlap and etc. Not terribly useful.

[vices]

I finally see the value in studying Hogarth, Bridgman.. even though their styles are not appealing to me, I'm thirsty for their knowledge..

[vices]

Chug chug chug~

[vices]

one of my hagwon friends showed me the pictures he made last week.. He improved so much, it really set me on fire

[Morkai]

Man, congratulations on putting in so much work, it's great to watch your dedication and improvement. I can already tell you're getting a better grasp for details and form in your studies, they don't look as flat as earlier and your imagination work is benefiting greatly as a result. I have to agree on the muscular detail comment someone made earlier, I fall into the same trap: I've learned which muscles are where, but I haven't done enough life study to really couch those inside realistic human form (with fat, skin, and interaction) well.

You've got me all fired up to get some serious studies done, so congratulations, your passion is addictive! Great work, keep it up!

[vices]

Morkai: Thanks so much man, it's awesome to hear that. Maybe we can get a feedback loop going where your work makes me work and my work makes you work.. lol


I am really enjoying the heck out of Bridgman and Loomis. They are too cool.

[Morkai]

I am really enjoying the heck out of Bridgman and Loomis. They are too cool.

Another reference that really clicked for me was Michael Hampton, check out his book "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention".

[vices]

Morkai: Wow yeah, he has nothing but super positive feedback on Amazon. The stuff on his blog is exactly what I'm looking for so I guess I need to get his book!



I'm really digging these 1hr 2hr "epic music mixes" on Youtube, especially Two Steps From Hell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD-A1Ld9P5M

A particularly nice single: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOpKwnAQyw

[jondawo]

You've got a good routine going here of copying and working from imagination but I would say trying studying from actual photographs instead of cghub artists since those images tend to have quite stylized anatomy. If you learn correct anatomy first you can learn to stylize the heck out of it later and actually understand the choices you're making. Keep up the bridgeman and loomis studies, they help a lot too. To help improve your line and eye you can try gesture drawings. You almost came to that conclusion yourself with the timed studies but check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmiwGm32dXU

Good luck and keep it up.

[vices]

Jondawo: Thanks for commenting! You are absolutely correct about gestures. The more I try to make a picture look right the more it becomes rigid. Thanks for that link to Sycra's video, he's got a ton of great stuff. On the anatomy aspect I can't agree about the order of learning, photographs first, other artists first, a little bit of everything, etc. Tomato tomato right?


I had to go to Fukuoka Japan for a couple days to refresh my Visa in Korea. I had a great time and saw a ton of stuff, ate so much delicious food. Still didn't make it to a hot spring though. Predictably when I came back my drawing feeling was sooo not good. I wanted to bust out something in color because they always look better when they're painted but I don't feel like I've "earned" color yet. I haven't accomplished what I set out to do with lines.

The more I learn the more I realize I know nothing...~

[Lucarky]

Wow! What an amazing amount of studies! I love your girls. It's people like you that push me to the limit of my possibilities and make me do more and more. Praise to you!