MUST improve

[eclip-se]

Stick with proportions for some days and they will help you alot.

[Ghast]

You draw lots of hands which is more than a lot of people can say, so don't stop doin' em! I'd throw more bridgeman studies into the mix, especially in regards to the torso. Getting the core down will help you a lot with giving motion to your characters. Continuing to do pages of cylinders cubes and basic shapes in perspective will also help you with construction greatly. But don't ignore getting reference either. Nothing beats shooting your own as oppose to only going by what you find on the web. I also noticed that you are giving yourself specific things to do, among which are gestures. Ever try the gesture tool on pixelovely? You can set it to give you steadily increasing times which really helps warm you up and keep the momentum of the shorter sketches during longer poses. Keep pushin dude

[kamikazel33t]

@Elias Leonard Thanks!

@Christoffer Actually I ain't sane at all! Thanks for the comment, I really hope I make major progress! >_<

@XCarbon Imma push harder!

Nexuun Thanks man! your advise is helping I am starting to see what you mean by visually seeing the line before drawing it. Good luck and push hard!

@Umbravita I don't intend on stopping and I am going to fight this battle to the end!

@eclip-se Thanks buddy, I'm going to get started on that!

@Ghast That's some good advice! I've used pixelovely before but then I sort of started using quickposes a lot because of the goal marker it has there where I have to put enough time to get this certificate(not doing for the certificate it's just that I am a sucker for challenges.) I am almost done with the challenge so then I will shift over to pixelovely. I technically have to battle two things, to get down readable gestures quickly as well as to not be too impatient when doing long poses.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright! I just realized the portfolio I have to do for Sheridan has to be done and by there doorstep(half way across the earth!) by Feb 22nd instead of march 6th. I honestly don't think I am good enough yet as well as I have not really gotten around to finishing a single piece though luckily I have a general idea of what to do for the portfolio but then again I still did not do any room drawings as of yet and that is a must for the college.



Above is a picture of the stuff I did not post now that I did for the past three days because I was getting lazy about scanning the documents and all of the work piled up and I realized that I am possibly responsible for taking down an entire



Here is the drawing I drew since the start of the sketchbook, I am actually quite happy I drew this much!

Anyway! onto what I did for today! Since I really need to get a well rounded idea on my portfolio although I really am going to zero in on it starting January but for now I just wanted to get a rough idea for what to do. I made a half-assed character rotation along with the expression sheet. I also did practice drawings of figures focusing on trying to build the mass onto the gestures rather than immediately and impatiently starting with the construction. There was also this character which I was drawing in variations and in a different gender to get an idea for character to roleplay in a writing forum I am participating in. I also have a couple of fail hand constructions(second post) which i did. I also went over vilppu's other book on drawing hands which mention to get down the gesture first. Surprisingly this was something I was debating with myself to do before ever reading his book because I was thinking to myself why does something just as expressive as the human body as a whole not have a gesture of its own. If I did not read his book I would have chickened out of actually doing them for my hand sketches.

[kamikazel33t]

The extra stuffz!

[ilmenhin]

Thanks for the really kind comments in my SB!

Keep drawing and working your studies! Also you could probably save paper by shoving your doodles into one paper- you want to scrawl as much as you can everywhere. Looking forward to more posts~

[LtPlissken]

Respect for the true viking warrior soul, your
endurance and persistence goes beyond any materialized
substance. Your hover over the south mountain pond
was crucial for your further enhancement. Good luck
with your portfolio creation, and don’t think too much
about the supplemental sedation. Hammer and scythe
in your hands, motivation is at it’s highest performance.

[Rhubix]

Go team animation .
I'm a Canadian animator, l went to Max the Mutt in Toronto, but I work with lots of Sheridan grads.
It can be a tough school to get into because of steep competition. But if you're determined you shouldn't get discouraged. I know one man who had to apply 3 times before he was accepted and now he's a professional working in design and layout.

having said that - here's the tough-love guide to a portfolio:

-Ditch the lined paper. You can get packs of printer paper cheaply enough, you can even get pre-hole punched stuff and fill binders - this is what I used to do when I couldn't afford better sketchbooks.
If you hand in a portfolio on lined paper it will be thrown out immediately.

- slow down. if you're doing a perspective study get a ruler and take your time. You want your work to look thoughtful and complete. These are not only a method to show your understanding of perspective- but also to display patience -which is hugely important in animation. If you have to complete 200 drawings, you can't start rushing half way through because you're bored.

- do some life studies - go out into the world, or your yard / school, and sketch some things around you. chairs, plants, benches, ducks etc - the more variety the better. Recruiters like to see you have an interest in drawing as a whole, so you can't restrict yourself to figures.

- on the subject of figures, make sure you get a variety of subjects, young, old, male, female, thin, muscular, fat.

- do some longer studies. - gestures are great, and are really the backbone of solid animation. but when you're learning you need to take your time and really analyze a subject. Extended hand and feet drawings are easy because you have a model handy - old boots and bags are also good subjects because they have a lot of topography to explore. Long study means more than 3 hours. In school it's wasn't unusual to work on a drawing for 15 + hours.

- do some longer cartoon studies. Practice drawing the classics like bugs bunny and mickey mouse - CORRECTLY. That means proper proportions, line thickness, and details.. When you're animating you have to draw a character exactly the same as the guy next to you. It's a real face palm moment when you see a rotation of a character that has 4 fingers on some views and 3 on others, or more buttons on his shirt. (happens more than you think!)

Draw your least favorite subject. If you like drawing military stuff, draw fairy princesses, if you like drawing people, draw some trucks. etc- variety is good.

Below I did a quick sketch with more suggestions. I think a lot of these minor things can be fixed by slowing down- using a ruler when you need to, and being aware of details.
BTW- when I got to my first year of animation school I was totally clueless lol! so just keep pushing. Stubbornness is the perfect trait for an animator.



Happy sketching!

[RissaKay]

It's nice to see you have worked hard since the last time I stopped in! But again, remember to keep the images smaller so that it's easy to scroll through. Also, I'd note that you need to continue working on the form and basics before you jump right into stylization.

[Forrest_I]

Dude you are seriously working your ass off, it's really nice to see that much determination. Keep this up, even if you don't have a portfolio ready by the time you need it and you took a year to get ready for the next semester you are gonna be awesome. Just keep it up you're doing fine

[jellyswirl]

Wow you were given just awesome advice a couple posts back so its really hard to add to that.But you can see improvement in just the couple of pages you have.

[kamikazel33t]

@ilmenhin Thank you, I am going to try and squeeze as much as I can into one page as much as possible from now on. keep it up with your sketchbook as well.

@LtPlissken Imma go hacks & slash on stuffz naow! I am still looking forward to seeing a post by you on your sketchbook buddy!

@Rhubix Thank you so so much for the draw over and I really appreciate it. I am going to take you advice and do longer studies and have patience in my drawing. The reason why I am so focused on a couple of subjects is because sheridan's portfolio requirements are UBER specific. For example they ask me to draw two freehand hand drawings one anticipating an action and on following through with it(e.g about to press a button, pressing a button). Another is two drawings of animals, three life drawings of a human figure and two of the five drawings should show the human or animal in an action pose. I also have been give characters to redraw in a storyboard with a general story guide(e.g finds an interesting object etc. etc.), I also have submit my own character's rotation, expression sheet, and two action poses. Then there is also two room line drawings, one with a character in it and one showing the room from the characters perspective. Finally there is the object drawing where I have to do to drawings of a still life composition one showing a before(everything intact) and one showing an after where something happens to the objects e.g flood, earthquake, bullet and other things. After all this they grade it on a rubric system where they look at things like Line Quality, Perspective and Spatial Volume, Story, Believable Characters, Creativity, Structure and other things out of four. The minimum requirement to get in last year(which affected by the amount of competition) was 3.06 out of four. That is why I am Uber stressed about everything and am constantly focused on certain things.

@RissaKay Yeah I understand, I was never intending to stylize that was my character to meet the Sheridan Portfolio requirements and it was to get a rough of how he looked like. I am still trying to size down the images but I am losing a lot of quality as I do so any way thanks for commenting.

@Forrest_I I hope so! I am also looking forward to seeing some more of your work. I am also still trying to get around to joining your livestream, perhaps in the winter holiday so that I can stay up without school bothering me(stupid timezone related issue).

@jellyswirl Well thanks for making the effort to comment on my sketchbook anyway! .

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Righty O' well, I was getting down to reading constantly about the rules of perspective and then after watching a couple of videos and reading some books I realized it is EXACTLY the same way I used to make maps on the Hammer Editor for Source SDK(except computers are dead accurate with this stuff). After practicing perspective a little(projecting, drawing rectangles, sculpting as well as other elements), I grew this awarness of spatial volume in space when trying to observe stuff so I got a little excited and started to draw still life mostly focusing on trying to fit it in a cube yet I still did not get around practicing my elipses. I still have a long way to go but this is the first step because believe it or not I have never done ANY perspective EVER up until now, instead I just understood the rules. I guess it was because I was never convinced that it was something you ingrain in your skills because there were so many rules. Now I just need to practice being able to draw cubes and ellipses with correct perspective freehand and I will then be able to draw things accurately in three dimensions.

Now onto what I drew in the past three days, I practically did some doodles just to give me time to cool down(non of the drawings are in order though) I then started doing some form studies here and there and I find it hard to be patient with. I also did some longer sort of gestures or shorthand drawings of this kid who sits parallel to me on the school bus. At home I tried my hand at practicing projecting as well as general perspective practices and playing around with what I could do with the cube(EXACTLY LIKE THE HAMMER EDITOR).

I am just putting this up to show the stuff I already do with hammer but drawing it really takes more patients as well as thinking since the computer does the rendering of vanishing points and adding in the general rules of perspective but the essence of try to get good shapes out of cubes is quite the same.

Well anyway I also got a little excited and instead of constantly drawings cubes. I tried to draw some objects I observed by putting them in cubes including my hand xD. I realize I still need the basic foundations of drawing a cube correctly in perspective through freehand before moving onto stuff like that otherwise the proportions would be off. BTW those last crappy boxes at the end are me trying to sketch the box of the tissue box at different angles by just looking at it and trying learn the rules of perspective from life xD. SO HARD!

[Zauselbart]

kamikazel33t:
nice sb
the amount of your sketches is amazing - keep up the hard work.
my little advice go outside and draw the real life. try also too conect the people with objects (chairs, Walls, Room, landscape ...)

[PeopleEveryday]

If you wanna get into animation, I'd focus on drawing in ways that really reflect what an animator would want to see. Weight is one of the big ones, so make sure you firmly plant your figures to the ground. Maybe try drawing people carrying heavy things. Maybe do a drawing study of a dancer, stepping through a movie frame by frame.

I agree that you should definitely ditch the lined paper and spend longer on your drawings. You've got the volume, now focus on the quality. I suggest making every piece of art as if it were one to put in your portfolio, because right now you can't put any of your lined work into a portfolio.

But great work, improvement already, and with this determination you will definitely get there!

[Beartankmaster]

You determination is inspiring man nice to see other people out there with goals of improving. I know you won't fizzle out so I'm going to use you as a benchmark for how much work I should be doing. I'm excited to see you grow. Keep up the good work =D

[Thistlegorm]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook and giving me advice I really like your stuff, and the sheer amount of work you do is awe inspiring, I really do hope you go on to become a great animator!

[LtPlissken]

You cracked the secret of perspective at one shot, amazing quickness and evasive approach,
your mind was flying like a softly sharpened tomahawk toward it’s bald headed goal. Your
move from drawing single cubes to more complex ones, is to remembered. A big forward
approached step toward sparkling success. Mixing up hand studies with perspective all in
one day made a supplemental unavoidable component of your regular routine, fascinated is
what I am. Keep slashing the paradise with your newly bought Indian knife, and do duck
hard when the next obstacle comes. Good ones you delivered one more time, the crowd
at the midnight bazaar is satisfied.

[Xcarbon]

holy shi* DAT STACK OF PAPERS
keep up the insane pace man....
oh by the way thanks for the advice on 1hr 60 sec gestures that really helped me .you played quite an important role in my improvement Thankyou so much :]

[Wingal]

Thanks for visiting me. I saw you were practicing forms. I found these two warm ups to be helpful for me. Maybe you will too! Its nearly been 10 days since your last update Ill let you use the holidays as an excuse for that. I hope you have an amazing pile of drawings for us though! Those perspective drawings turned out decent, keep it up!

[Wingal]

[Christoffer]

Hehe. A few minutes of insanity everyday is good for the soul. "Sugar for the brain"

Anyway, nice to see some life drawings of unsuspecting(?) people.

[Christoffer]

Hehe. A few minutes of insanity everyday is good for the soul. "Sugar for the brain"

Anyway, nice to see some life drawings of unsuspecting(?) people.

[Black Spot]

Draw more from life - it'll help in all areas. Plonk a few random object down and just draw them as realistically as possible. When you can do this, then you can play with them by giving them a character - what character would a hole-punch be? Do they live in a box waiting to escape? Start small and then grow. You're trying to cram in too much, too quickly before the basics. Not saying you're not learning, but you're not learning efficiently.

[kamikazel33t]

@Zauselbart thanks, I will try to do as you suggested because I generally lack this because of silly "fear" which I hate how I succumb to this.

@PeopleEveryday I am going to do my best to sit down for longer drawings, I've actually tried to recently draw out a sequence of a dance scene in the music video of Frank Sinatra's song "That's Life" but because of the poor judgement on my part I am ended with ambigious scribbles as gestures because of how blurry the video was and could not see the rhythm.

@Thistleborn Thanks! I hope so too , and good luck with your own journey as an artist!

@LtPlissken I don't know what to say, your words are just awesome! I did figure out perspective but I need to sharpen that tool if you know what I mean >;]

@Xcarbon Thanks! I am really glad I could help!

@Wingal Thanks for the video, I am pretty familiar with vilppu but the video you shared had some extra information about those form exercises that he does not really talk about in great detail in the book. I am not about to disappoint, nor am I using the holiday as an excuse Though I was lazy to scan all my drawings .

@Christoffer There is a hairline difference between insanity and creativity my friend , and yes he was pretty unsuspecting that I was sketching him although he thought I was staring at him all creep N stuff.

@Black Spot Thank you for the advice and guidance! I've began going back to doing still life and will start elongating the time gradually. The issue was that before I started this sketchbook I changed schools about a year ago and in my old school I used to have an art teacher who let me stay in the art room and do long still life sketches(high schools here don't really respect the subject so they stop art after junior high in my old school but in the school I am in they stop it at middle school 0_0) anyway so I ended up spending the whole other school year casually drawing and doodling from imagination and not really improving so I developed a sort of impatience which right now I am trying to kill! sorry for my rambling it was pretty awesome having you visit my sketchbook.


-------------------------------------

Here are SOME of the sketches which I did over the past ten days, I did not want to have to deal with scanning all the compiled drawings. Non of them are in any order what so ever. I feel as though I've improved yet again in hand drawing , the latest one being the hand done in pencil, I bet you can guess which one since you can easily tell which one is the better one. I've also included a gesture I did to show you what I am experimenting with in gesture drawing. I am fusing vilppu, hampton, and mattesi's approach and I feel as though I am getting a good sense of rhythm. The other pen figures are such a fail although I did them before I started experimenting with the gestures, I also learnt how to easily build form over gestures thanks to rereading hampton's book although I have yet to apply to a long figure study.

[Rhubix]

You've already improved a bunch since I was last here, it's looking good. Keep up all the hard work- and Ditch the lined paper!! lol

happy sketching

[Cojac]

Hi, thank you for visiting my sb and yes I like to help people that are begining to draw because the experienced artists already know what to do to improve. I've seen your sketchbook and I think you are working hard, but there are some points you should considere: try using a white paper because the lines of the paper can disturb you when you draw, keep using the pen because it helps you to avoid erasing too much, do some gestural poses to get fluid lines and study from Andrew Loomis and George Bridgman their books help a lot and you can find them for free on the net. I saw some Villpu's and Hampton's studies here but I think you should work more on the construction of the figures, to do it Loomis helps more.

Well, keep working. Good Luck!

[Eternal Apprentice]

Duuuuuuude kill those trees. Make sure you are learning though because you CAN go too fast. Personally if I draw too many thing in a day I end up not learning as much as I could if I had been careful and drawn stuff properly. But dude I love your ethic keep going.

[Umbravita]

Take your time, keep up with the life studies. Eager to see more. Your figures are starting to look amazing.

[Beartankmaster]

What's up man!? =D That notebook self portrait is looking pretty good. I'm assuming it's your first; if so it captured your likeness a lot better than my first one. I feel like you need to buy a pack of printer paper or something man. Unless you just dig the notebook paper *shrug.

But anyway keep it up man you inspire a lot of people here. That's the best thing you can do as an artist in my opinion

[AK_Guerrero]

Loving the time and dedication you are putting into this. What I would suggest, like many others above, is at least to go out and buy some packs of cheap printer paper. The reason I say this is because when some people use notebook paper, they start to rely on the lines as a way to measure

But hey, if that's all you have available, don't let that stop you from drawing! Keep it up!

[eroquii]

Wow man, you're working hard! Keep going! The studies are definitely paying off.