Concept Art 101

[Peter Stapleton]

Thankyou so much for the feedback Seedling, I'll redo the portrait and add in the variations of colour like you suggested. I like to do paintings from scratch instead of modifying paintings because I feel it helps me to improve.
I finished the third assignment but I dont think my hallway was a real difficult environment to do and I focused on characters rather than evironment changes. The kid looks crappy anyway. Guess I'll give it another go.

[Seedling]

Peter – Hahaha! That’s fantastic! Really, it’s okay to modify something that you already feel finished with. Think of it as doing a paintover of someone else’s work – it’s a way to test variations without investing loads of time.

I love the light in this one. If you were to carry it along to a more finished state, I would suggest working on the roundness of the tentacles, and maybe finding some pink laundry detergent to paint a still-life of to figure out how to handle those gooey puddles. :-)

I’ve gotta get my butt downstairs and paint now – cheers!

[Seedling]

Not a lot of people are in a position to devote eight or more hours a day to grinding their way to professional level skills. For most of us, if you want to develop your skills, you’ve got to shoehorn the practice into your already busy schedule.

Think of art-making as music-making. Anyone who has learned an instrument will tell you that you have to devote daily practice to it over the course of years. There are a lot of repeated, technical exercises to go through – scales, chords, fingerings – stuff with an almost complete lack of creativity involved (at first glance). It can be downright boring. From day-to-day it is hard to see any improvement in your skills. All it takes is one look at a better player and you can find yourself in a funk – your motivation smashed, you can go from slow progress to no progress.

So right off the bat, you have to prepare yourself for the slow pace and the danger of losing your momentum. If looking at the work of better artists is going to smash your confidence, then spend less time looking at the work of better artists. (This is something that I have to do myself.) If you are likely to get distracted by, say, television or games or the internet (as I am currently being distracted right at this moment) then do what you can to avoid the temptation.

And at the heart of it all: get yourself on a practice schedule. The most progress that I ever made at the piano was when my teacher had me practice for an hour a day, every day, with no days off. I now apply this to my oil-painting habit. And as with the piano-practicing, much of what I do with the paints is technical. I have been focusing on color, value, manipulation of paint, and so on.

I have found that a particular time of day works best for me: first thing in the morning. I get my hour of painting done, and then afterwards I go to work, run errands, exercise, and play.

Different schedules are going to be optimal for different people. Maybe you’re more productive before going to bed. Maybe three hours every other day suits you better. Maybe you’ve got a bus schedule that gives you fifteen-minute increments twice a day that you can use to draw. That’s great! Figure out when your “power hour” is, and stick to it. Keep a log of the time you invest – it’ll help you get regular and turn the activity into a habit.

If you want to get even more specific with your practice time, then try this: pick a weekly goal. For example, “this week I am doing self-portraits”, or “this week I am doing color studies of light as observed on real objects,” or “this week I am drawing robots using perspective.” Put your goal in writing. Put your daily hour or equivalent towards reaching this goal. And if you want to do any additional art above and beyond the drill, then you can do that – after you have done your daily hour.

I would think up some catch way to conclude this, but I really need to get my own butt downstairs to do my daily painting. Happy art-making!

[Lhune]

Seedling, I want to thank you VERY much for this. I'm only 16 years old and not a well known artist yet. I'm doing my very best in getting better, and when I compared my own artwork to that of a greater artist, it both motivated and demotivated me. In the past few months the demotivation took control and I pretty much stopped practising on new things, feeling as if I didn't make any progress at all in what I drew. I kept looking at the better pictures and just thought I'd never get that good. You just reminded me that progress doesn't come in huge leaps but by just doing it (whatever it is you want to get better at) a lot . Also you inspired me to start picking up my study on animals and their anatomy again .

Here's my version of assignment #4, an animal I have never drawn before, the gecko. It was harder than I thought it would be, and I don't really like the third one. But it was educational either way, so thanks .

[Diablooo]

WOW your guys/girls have come far! lolz I´m only on step 1 ......(will start in 4 days when I´m back from my girlfriend)

and seedling your teaching them really good I hope I can draw good to when I´m coming on step 13 or more

I´m 16 years now and I hope I can draw some cool stuff when i´m 17.
but I thing seedling will learn me how to do it

[Seedling]

Lhune – Awesome!! Glad to be of service! And good job with those geckos!

Diablooo – Thank you. :-) You don’t have to do the exercises in any particular order. I’m just writing down ideas as they come to me.

[stalsby]

cool thread! thanks for spreading knowledge!

[Seedling]

cool thread! thanks for spreading knowledge!

Knowlege is particularly tasty when spread on whole-wheat toast with strawberry jam. ;-)




I think I may have frozen my brains while out taking pictures. . .

[ndp]

Amazing thread, hopefully I will be doing some of these exercises.

[PeteStewart]

Assignment #1.1, 1.2 --- fun stuff. 16 minutes total.


Assignment #2.1 --- First mirror drawing... gotta say in all honesty, 'tis quite the bad representation. Oh well! I'll keep tryin'.


Assignment #2.2 --- And by now I've decided I officially hate my face, as it looks even less like me. ---2.1 and 2.2 took 'round half an hour together.

I'll try to make 'em darker next time... low-quality scanner doesn't pick up everything... AAGH! These excersizes are good, they make me hate my art!!! Which means I'm gonna have to practice the hell out of it!

[halley42]

Wonderful, Seedling... my New Years Resolution will be to follow these classes.

[PMaz]

Thx Seedling for refering me to this class. I really need some basis in life drawing and you gave me the motivation to get my assbusy at it.

I did a few assignment but still nothing that im proud of. So here is the less carpy one i did so far. Assignement #2

[Cup of Joe]

Wow, great thread Seedling! I'll be sure to read through the whole thing when I get a chance.

Skipped temporarily to Project 2. No much, but hey, I've got a thing for flatcaps . Original followed by modified. I might go back and fix the tiny hand.

[Seedling]

Wow guys, great work! *happy dance*

By the way, the assignments aren’t really in any order. You can totally skip through to assignments that seem like the most useful to you.

[boost]

This is a perfect thread. I'll work on an assignment.

[Brett Allen]

sorry if you have mentioned this already, not able to read too well at the moment... you say you are from turbine? as in the major company that was running Asheron's Call 2? (dont know if ac1 also, just used to play AC2 before it went down)

I always wanted to learn how to do concept art

[Godo13]

In response to assignment #1:

Summary: Did a still of life of my wife's hair clips with hair band the other day as part of my New Years resolution to draw every day this year. Unbeknownst to me, these objects had been infused with sentience by an arcane force of unknown origin. The elastic band coiled and wrapped over and into itself, growing in size along with the hair clips, transforming into a writhing organic mass of musculature animating the once benign objects into a shambling spider-like being of destruction... Enjoy!




1st drawing is pencil, 2nd is wacom with Alias SketchBook 1.1

Strengths/Weaknesses? Crits plz.

[Seedling]

Godo13 – Hahahahahaha! :-) Good for you for making a New Year’s Resolution to draw daily! And good for you for having such fun with it! One thing, though – it’s a bit difficult to tell that those are the same hair clips in both images, because the first ones are so dark.

Boost – Sweet! :-) I look forward to seeing what you make!

Brett Allen – Yup, that’s us. We’ve come a long ways since AC2.

[Wasker]

Assignment_1

[Wasker]

Assignment_2

[ManikinDesign]

Thanks for the info seedling! I'll be watching this thread and doing as many of the assignments as possible. can i post them on here??

[carlosranna]

Wow guys, great work! *happy dance*

By the way, the assignments aren’t really in any order. You can totally skip through to assignments that seem like the most useful to you.

Yeah... I imagined it wouldn´t be necessary, but i was willing to make it in the given order. Bad idea tough... Some are much more fun to do than others, and when you are very busy, it´s better to work on the things that you think are fun...

[Seedling]

Hi everyone!

Wasker! You caught the colors of the brass and wax nicely. And I don’t know what it is about that burned little match, but it has a lot of character. Since you are working digitally, be sure to always double-check those ellipses by making a circle and then squashing and scaling it. I don’t know if it’s my monitor or yours, but whatever is in the background is getting lost in the dark. (BTW, a general rule about colors that I’ve been using at work for years is, as far as possible, “make sure the work looks good on a variety of monitors.” If a detail is so subtle that it can only be seen on a particularly well-tuned monitor, then by default a percentage of your audience won’t be able to see it. But then, it’s hard to implement this if you don’t have an IT department who can supply you with a craptastic secondary monitor. ;-) ) Oh, and the eyes in your self-portrait are following me around the room, I swear! They’re beautifully sparkly and alive. You could try for more colors or highlights on the skin, and also that soft edge you have going on the face could be carried up into the smokestack. LOL, smilies!

ManikinDesign – Cool! Yes, you are welcome to post your results here.

DoInferno – I would love to hear your feedback on which of these assignments are the most fun, and why. :-)

[Wasker]

Hehe,
Thansk Seedling, I appreciate your critique. I believe the match come out pretty good aswell. The thing in the background that looks like a box is my amplifier and isn't standing out very much against the even darker wall. Since I was drawing the candle I never payed much attention to it, but perhaps I shouldn't have included it at all instead of confusing the viewer. Choices and choices ^^

I've realised the face is a bit skewed, a friend of mine says it's because I had the mirror next to me instead of infront of me. And it probably have something to do with experience aswell. It could use more hightlight yup. I'll fix it in my 2nd selfpotrait which is yet to come.

assignment_3

Inspiration caught from a café I know of and the Moscow train station. Added pillars and ornament and trashed it.

[carlosranna]

DoInferno – I would love to hear your feedback on which of these assignments are the most fun, and why. :-)

Ohh... I just believe each person has their favorites... That´s what i meant. The assignments are great, and they all push us a little more, so we can get ourselves better!

And Gosh! I need to find me some time to work on more of them!

[Kale]

Assignment #1:

I've started a sketchbook and I hope to encorporate some of these assignments into it... here's my first try:



I don't just make up stuff out of my head very often, so this is a big step...
Thanks for the great assignments and all the advice!

-Kale

PS. My Sketchbook

[Wasker]

The pencil of the guitar is very nice Kale. The digital picture is not equally good. The anatomy is abit off. Check up on anatomy

Assignment 4 and ref below it. Could a horse look more emo?



Reference photo here

[Kale]

My first attempt was pretty crappy but I really liked the concept, so I redid it. Although I ended up using a photo ref for the arms (and look at my teeth in a mirror), everythiing else is imagination.



Sorry about the double posts... I'm just much happier with this version.
Onward to... Lesson #2!

[Kale]

Inspired by you know who... 'nuff said.



Next lesson #3... (maybe I'll skip around a little bit)

[Faye Yong]

Thanks Seedling. You really cleared up all the ? ? ? I had about concept art & how it "works" in the 'real (working) world'.

I've always wanted to draw more fantastical art, and of more variety (than just the usual skinny pretty girls I draw), your pointers really have given me a clue how to go about it.

I'm still not sure whether Concept Art is the "career" for me, but damn it does look interesting!