Brandon returns (dinosaurs, ancient warriors, and studies)

[Brandon Pilcher]

"Am I stupid or something?"

You clearly are not stupid, as you can write intelligently about your subjects.

...

If youre stil not feeling it, maybe visual art isnt for you. Try playing the guitar. Or learning to ollie a skateboard. Or get really into maths. The worlds your clam baby.

My parents, although they do like my drawings, tell me that I'm even better at writing, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, and now that I think about it, writing does seem to be easier for me than drawing. Maybe that's the art I should be pursuing.

It was nice participating in this community and receiving critique anyway, even if the critiques were often critical. I'll conclude this thread with three pages of arm studies:

[Velocity Kendall]

yeah but taking those two quotes out of the context isnt what i meant. you cut out the bit where i suggested "using other media; ok so pen isnt working for you. Use paint. Or ink. Or watercolour. Or Photoshop. Actually use photoshop first as its the least messy and the easiest to play with.
Try 3d software. Try clay. Try cloth. Wire. Crayon. Throw yoghurt at a wall and take photos of it. Draw faces on cans of paint with a marker pen Ian Stevenson style. Whatever. Etc. "

i didnt say quit!

[bish0p2004]

Yeah, don't quit...unless it's something you just don't want to do. But, you seem like you want to draw so do it.

Remember, that no matter what you do, it will take time, dedication, and research. Nothing will ever come easy.

Your new arm studies are looking good.

[Ven S]

Do not quit dude! AHhh!

[Brandon Pilcher]

Changed my mind back to not quitting drawing. I shouldn't have given up just because it looked too hard. That would have been cowardly and underestimating myself.

That being said, I do resolve to do more studies than I had been doing previously.

[Jetpack]

I'd say you're just stuck in a stylized rut. You can do all the studies you want, but if you keep returning to how you like to draw, you won't progress. The only way to learn is to forget everything you know and start from scratch. Your anatomical studies are very good, but you don't utilize that knowledge in your artworks as your figures become very flat.

But seriously, forget everything you already know, and just start from the basics again. You'll learn a lot faster without having bad habits holding you behind! Good luck!

[Valyavande]

Hey Brandon, I was a bit looking around in your sketchbook and reading the comments.

First of all: if you do drawings and paintings just because you love it, than don't care so much what happens or how good you are. If you don't need to make a living out of your stuff, there's no need to improve fast. So, take away the pressure. You have all time in the world. No need to quit, if it is against your feelings.
And other thing: try to do what Velocity Kendall mentioned. Go and run wild. Try new things. Find new ways to think. Learning is not about driving the same way every day. Sometimes it is new ways, sometimes it is going back. You can never know, so you need to try.
I know it's hard. But as I said - you can have all time in the world. Don't put yourself under pressure.

Before I started to work digital, I had a time that lasts for something like two years, there I had really little improvement. I lost the fun in making pictures, because I just was in a dead end. Digital Painting was really a new start and I think, I learned,
when I have problems to improve, I need to start new at the very beginning. Basics like forms and shapes. That gives me a higher chance to find my way.
Maybe you can have a similar way. I don't know. But I think, people around here gave you already every possible advice

[Brandon Pilcher]

I probably wasn't as artistically productive as I should have been today, but I did have an awesome book by Michael Hampton titled Figure Drawing: Design and Invention at my disposal for references.

[Brandon Pilcher]

Not really a study, but an effort to construct a male human figure using what I've learned so far from my recent studies:

[Lightship69]

Hey Brandon

Sorry I havnt been on your book for a while!

whats this I'm reading you went through one of those "I Quit!" moments did you?

Then its time for one of those back pats that you need from time to time as an artist, Just take a minute and go through your own sketchbook from front to back and with the fresh eyes of experience on your side you will see that yes there are mistakes in the work.

However on each and every page there is progress and improvement, the anatomy studies you are doing will help a lot too. Just beleive in yourself man! you are getting better in each and every image you do.

you have just gotten to the part in life that we all go through where we realise that theres more information out there than we have room for in our tiny little heads and its more than a little off putting.

Suck it up soldier! and get drawing! LOL keep it coming and all the best my mate.

[Naidy]

Goodness! Must say I'm pretty surprised about that turn around you had, I'm glad you're taking art more seriously and digging your claws in those studies.

Now, it's good to see you're actually starting to try and utilise what you're learning from those studies. I always like doing some imaginitive figures after a bunch of studies just to see if anything's sticking.

Anyways, keep up the good work, mate.

[Brandon Pilcher]

Hey CA,

I've been working on a short novel in the last few days (it currently has 7,000+ words and five chapters), so I'm sorry to say that so far I haven't been as artistically productive as I should have been, but I do have three pages worth of Hampton studies for today's update:

[Brandon Pilcher]

Mostly studies for today's update, but at the end I have a herdsman from ancient Israel staring at a night sky. I actually didn't know what was the proper way to color the subject and landscape; my method was to use daytime-ish colors (e.g. brown for the guy's skin, dark gray for his robe, etc.) and then convert them to a bluish-purple tint using GIMP's Colorize function.

[Izi]

ancient israel +1

your muscle studies are getting more awesome (btw the one you called "it isn't really a study" is actually a study by definition and your definition)

[Voodoo_Mama]

Hey!
Nice to see you didnt end up quitting art.
When art gets tough, you don't quit, you try harder!
What I can see from your SB is that you have some problems with your observational skills.
I think that drawing objects from life would help you a lot! Try to make your drawings exactly as the object you're copying.
Even if it's just one drawing a day from life, your observational skills will improve
Much luck to you!

[Brandon Pilcher]

Here's a still-life of a lamp I have in my living room. Still-lifes like this used to give me hell, but I found that scribbling a little gesture drawing of the whole object before rendering the individual basic shapes was helpful. The gesture was almost like a skeleton on which I hung the shapes.

[Velocity Kendall]

Check out James Jean that guy is a master, you can learn loads just from looking at what othre people do..

http://www.jamesjean.com/blog_detail/DB072B_detail.JPG

[Lightship69]

Hi brandon

Glad to see you back and posting again mate, the studies look better keep em coming. Like veryone keeps telling me practice practice, what the hell is that man!! practice some more !! ha ha ha ha go for it dude keep grinding and we'll all keep coming to help and cheer you on mate.

all the best.

[Brandon Pilcher]

This is the variety of cow traditionally herded by African peoples such as the Zulu, Maasai, and ancient Egyptians and Nubians. Descended from a North African subspecies of the aurochs (Bos primigenius mauretanicus), African cattle may have been domesticated in Sudan at least as far back as 7000 BC (source). In African cultures, cattle are symbols of wealth and are slaughtered for meat only on special religious occasions; the rest of the time, they provide their herders with milk and blood.

Photo reference

[Velocity Kendall]

If you look at the long horned ox's head from the front and rotate it through 180 degrees you get a rough letter A. This is where that letter originated from..

[Brandon Pilcher]

^ Yeah, I remember reading about that from an encyclopedia.

Naomi may like this:

A lower-ranking soldier from ancient Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq). A more elite soldier would have worn an armored cloak and helmet, but I wanted to show off this guy's torso anatomy.

A lot of artists reconstruct the Sumerians and other Mesopotamians as light-skinned people like Europeans, but the few Sumerian paintings we have recovered suggest that they were significantly darker than that (see here and here), so I've rendered his skin tone as fairly dusky.

My photo reference

[Velocity Kendall]

"A lot of artists reconstruct the Sumerians and other Mesopotamians as light-skinned people like Europeans, but the few Sumerian paintings we have recovered suggest that they were significantly darker than that (see here and here), so I've rendered his skin tone as fairly dusky."

I am confused by this one, his skin in the picture you posted is largely pure white..?

[Naked Ninja]

Glad you didn't give up on the art Brandon. I know that frustration, the feeling that you're not making progress and making the same mistakes no matter how many studies you do. But it's an illusion, you just have to push through it.

Matt Kohr has a great video about this problem : link

It's great that you're thinking about what you're drawing, the details and background. Thinking about that kind of thing will make your painting much richer, in the long run.

[Brandon Pilcher]

"A lot of artists reconstruct the Sumerians and other Mesopotamians as light-skinned people like Europeans, but the few Sumerian paintings we have recovered suggest that they were significantly darker than that (see here and here), so I've rendered his skin tone as fairly dusky."

I am confused by this one, his skin in the picture you posted is largely pure white..?

Scanner must have ruined it. It often makes my people seem lighter-skinned than they're supposed to be. Anyway, I used a 2B pencil for his skin and 4B for the shading.

BTW, a good DA friend told me that my people's muscles are too curvy. I'm going to practice with muscles some more to address that.

[poetry man]

Hey man, I didn't read through the whole thread, but from the vibe I'm getting from this last page, seems you went through a period of Quitting, and UN-productiveness.

All I have to say concerning zeal is do what you love! period. Concerning art: straight lines help you more than curves do. Why? because any straight line can be changed into any kind of curve you want. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you take a look at classic atelier style drawing. They train with certain techniques, and visually measuring using straight lines to connect things in your image is a lot safer than trying to do "nice" curves from the get-go. Trust me. I took pride out of the way and I utilize the basics before anything nowadays. They are so important.

Also, don't care what people think. Impossible is nothing!

Inspiring video for you man! cheers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGcij...ure=plpp_video

[Brandon Pilcher]

Sorry for neglecting this message board recently. I have still been drawing, as you can observe from my DA page, but it's all been leisurely doodling rather than serious studying.

My mom is looking into signing me up for a personalized art class with my college-trained older cousin next month, and I can't wait for that. I would really appreciate the direction a class would provide.

[Brandon Pilcher]

For the portrait at the bottom of this post, I referred to a photograph of a model for both the facial features and the skin tones. I don't like how her cheeks came out, but hopefully it's an improvement over most of my portraits with regards to value.

[Brandon Pilcher]

Portrait of Julius Caesar, the most famous of the Republican Roman statesmen.

His nose was impossible to get right. The facial features were drawn using a bust of him as a reference (http://www.forumancientcoins.com/Art...ges/caesar.jpg) and the skin tones were sampled from a modern Italian model (http://man.bf-1.com/wp-content/uploa...03/pic0119.jpg)

[Greenhouse]

Hi Brandon! Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook!
Glad you didn’t quit with art, man! You have a lot of cool stuff going on here and it’s unique! Also interesting with that novel you mentioned.
Keep going, the sky’s the limit!

[Whirly]

Great skethbook. You are coming along well. I notice something you are concertrating a little too much on outline. Try some gesture drawing and think a bit more about working inside out and building up. If you are unsure what I mean I am happy to find examples