A learner's journal for digital art

[wan2learn]

Hi All,

I have been referred to this forum from reddit. I am excited to finally get a place where I can submit my daily practice sheets and get useful input on them. A bit about mysef:
I am from India and I aspire to learn Digital art. I am using a Wacom Bamboo One tablet right now and using Manga Studio as the software to start my learning. I have started with Loomis's "Fun with Pencils" as I found it to be more useful for a rank beginner like me. I intend to improve my drawing and illustration skills and use them to capture my thoughts and feelings through the medium of visual art. Maybe create a digital comics and even publish it some point of time.

[wan2learn]

These were the drawings that I made in the first three days:

I have still a long way to go from here and I realize that I have to practice almost everyday.

[wan2learn]

God! These are HUGE. I should ensure that I downgrade their resolution before posting them here. Will be more careful with the next uploads

[wan2learn]

On the next day I had tried drawing using a blook ball as instructed in Loomis This time I used Photoshop instead of Manga Studio. I am not very sure on how to use photoshop to draw. I had used it for photo editing before. It didn't come out as bad as I expected .

I received a lot of constructive criticism on how to use my shoulder/elbow for drawing instead of the wrists. I was also referred to conceptart by one of the comments. I decided to start a sketchbook here to collect my practice drawings. Please feel free to leave your comments as well.

[VioletWhirlwind]

I might not be the best person to post critique, as I am definitely no expert, but...

You might want to try to use a newer drawing book. If that's the drawing book I think it is, it has some charactachures(sp?) in it that would be considered very offensive to certain races, because of the stereotypes that show up in it.

Edit: Or maybe not...I'm not entirely sure. It just looks like that style, but I'm not sure.

[wan2learn]

Hi,

Thanks for the comment. I am not exactly sure what you're saying with racism and all. While the caricatures that I've drawn till now seem pretty inoffensive to me, I will try to be careful with the lessons going forward. Will also remove any material if somebody takes any offense against it. Just learning, no intention to disturb anybody at all.

[wan2learn]

So, today I tried to draw these figures from Loomis's book but my man focus was to reduce the "trembling" that I get in my drawings, by which I mean the multiple lines instead of one single line. This is what I ended up with .


I used Manga Studio again. I created a base layer where I used a pencil to draw the blue sketching. Then I created one more layer for my drawing and used the "Brush" tool to draw the bold black lines. The pencil I used was Mechanical pencil with 0.5 mm thickness.

[StressCavity]

Hey man, it's me Good job on practicing every day, but if you want some advice, try to do things quicker and pump out more content. If you can get through 30 heads, even if their not perfect, compared to 6, you'll learn so much faster. Working faster also forces you to draw more fluidly and quickly which is good too. I hope to see you post every single day

[Slothstuff-J44]

Hey! I agree with StressCavity I would also like to add that line weight is important Try varying your brush sizes from time to time. This makes the drawing seem less "stiff." Another thing you might want to do would be to use the technique, but draw from your mind. This will strengthen what you copied. I am already seeing a massive improvement from your first few uploads and I strongly encourage you to continue uploading every day no matter what quality your work is! Its what I do and it allows you to see your previous work and the improvements you've made! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK DUDE! Bai! :3

[wan2learn]

Hi there dude. Thanks for referring this site and replying to the thread. I will definitely try to draw faster and get a hang around drawing these figures comfortably before moving to the next level in Loomis now. I had to miss practice due to my work for two days. Will make it up by pumping out more drawing in the weekends now. Thanks again for your advice. Have a great day!

[wan2learn]

Hey! I agree with StressCavity I would also like to add that line weight is important Try varying your brush sizes from time to time. This makes the drawing seem less "stiff." Another thing you might want to do would be to use the technique, but draw from your mind. This will strengthen what you copied. I am already seeing a massive improvement from your first few uploads and I strongly encourage you to continue uploading every day no matter what quality your work is! Its what I do and it allows you to see your previous work and the improvements you've made! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK DUDE! Bai! :3

Thanks dude. Will definitely try to wary the line weight next time. I think I will change the pressure sensitivity in the options in Manga Studio. I am also trying to draw in photoshop where changing the brush size is way easier. Will also try to draw more using the technique till get comfortable with it. Thanks for the advice

[wan2learn]

Today I started my next lesson in Loomis and I also decided to draw it on Photoshop. Then I realized that I am doing it wrong by neglecting my basic lessons and moving too fast. So I decided to draw quickly on Manga studio and this time draw more from my imagination than just copying the figures from Loomis. Result : . It was nice drawing from my imagination than just copying, but the result is not so satisfactory. I am still trying to squeeze in some more time for my practice from my tight schedule and still hoping to get a window of time where I can start drawing from real life. Need to improve a lot from here.

[wan2learn]

Phew! Finally got some time to draw again. Had to miss practice for 4 days as I was out of town. Now that I am back, decided to make up for the lost practice straightaway. After getting some really useful advice from reddit, I decided to draw more in a single day. So from today onwards I will try to draw at least 12 drawings a day. I will like to slowly increase my output and the quality of my drawing as well.

Today I used photoshop for all the drawings. Will switch back to Manga Studio tomorrow.

[xerenity]

Hey, this is xerenityck from reddit. ^_^

I would definitely recommend drawing from life, even if you're only working digital at the moment. Also, get used to fast and loose gestural drawing; that concept has been helping me out a ton recently. Drawing actual people moving around will help you to learn to get the important parts down first (rather than endlessly drawing details that mean nothing).

I really liked learning from Loomis; Bridgman is good too, but when it comes to teachers you need to find those that click with you and what you want to accomplish. There are many of them, go look for them.

I look forward to seeing your progress, have subscribed. ^_^

[wan2learn]

Hey, this is xerenityck from reddit. ^_^

I look forward to seeing your progress, have subscribed. ^_^

Hi there. Thanks for your advice and I am getting a lot of "draw from real life" from everywhere. Having seen your sketchbook, I've realized why it's such a repeated diatribe across all the drawing forums. You are quite an inspiration! Just one newbie question, how does one subscribe to a sketchbook?

[xerenity]

Thanx for stopping by my sb. I'll need to start posting again to keep you updated. Remember, there is one critical, super important thing to always keep in mind as you're learning; have fun with it. If you're struggling with something, find another approach or switch gears and go another direction. Being unskilled is one thing (and one that you can easily correct), being passionless is another beast all together. So just have fun and you'll go places. ^_^

Oh yeah, and to subscribe to threads, look up at the top of the thread. There's a button called "Thread Tools"; click on that and there should be a Subscribe link there.

[wan2learn]

First real life drawing. Took me a while to complete, mostly because I am going through some excruciating time in my work. Made it by smuggling bits and pieces of time to draw wherever I could sneak some in my schedule.



I think I slowed my progress completely by trying for something big, but I was getting a lot of advice which urged me to draw from real life. Now I will revert back to drawing from the book for a while and try to finish a weekly project of drawing a real life object.

[xerenity]

Eh, don't sweat those feelings. I go through them all the time; am I doing this right, am I taking on too big of a challenge right now. Screw it, just draw.

As far as that real life drawing goes, the proportions and placement look pretty damn good. All I can say is that it looks muddy and like you spilled some water on paper. Don't sweat that either, fabulous brush work comes from years of feeling it out and working on it. Just keep working at it and remember to have fun with it. ^_^