MUST improve

[kamikazel33t]

My name is Danny Atari I am currently 17 and I am aspiring to become an animator and make it into the Sheridan Animation Program in Canada. I decide to keep some sort of archive of my studies as an incentive to drawing every darn day since I normally do most of my sketches and studies on random notebooks and papers, which either get lost torn or thrown around. Even the thought of me planning to post of CA motivated me to keep a binder with me where I do all my studies in and mark the date whenever I start a drawing on a new day.

I was planning to submit my SB on the forums and was waiting until I got access to to the scanner.

So far this is what I've done in the last 3 days:

I started off on my binder with Michael Hampton's Book









Here I did a small anatomy studies on Loomis as I have already went through the book although I did not feel like I got a fraction of what it is worth out of it so I did this sketch for fun to motivate me to get back into it.

Over here I took a break and started drawing heads for fun. I did not like how it turned more so I am planning to hit the books later on and do more head studies.
[
I did really quick 1 minute hand sketches and tried to break it down into simpler shapes.



I Later continued my trip of Hampton's book here



Then I took a break and tried to create a stylized cartoon character.

I later found Hogarth's book on dynamic hands and sped through it and did some finger sketches

I then continued to George Bridgman's book on constructive anatomy to further understand the shapes of the hand




There are still some more sketches from today which I have not scanned so I will post them tomorrow with the next day's set of sketches.

[kamikazel33t]

I was having problems with the scanner so I was unable to post daily anyway here is the rest of the sketches I did from the rest of the week.

[black-swan]

good effort with the anatomy studies.

One thing I would suggest though is to practice drawing basic still life objects from life first, before getting too deep into anatomy. Your strokes are a bit feathered, try to be more economic with your lines- say what you want to say in one stroke, and if it's incorrect, erase it and start again.

Also, you've done several anatomy studies but haven't applied what you've learnt to your drawings from imagination. Try to think constructively, what have you learnt from your studies that you can apply to personal drawings?

If you want to be an animator, spend time doing gesture drawings. A good place is quickposes.com, also go out and people watch, try to capture some of the gestures of people around you. Walt Stanchfield's books on Disney animation are also excellent resources for an aspiring illustrator.

I wish you all the best, I hope you keep drawing

[gingerbreadcat]

Hey, these are a great start to a thread! It's nice to see so much enthusiasm for studies and so much work!

I would, however, really recommend you either buy a proper sketchbook or at least some non-lined paper to draw on. It's all right to doodle in your notes in class and such, but if you do some really great work that you want to later on use for something, you're going to have trouble photoshoping the lines out. Save yourself a bunch of unnecessary work! haha

[kamikazel33t]

@black-swan thank you so much for the book suggestion as well as advice on linework( I REALLY NEED IT), as I was always getting these weird mixed opinions. The reason why I never posted any shaded work is to practice my work with lines. I actually did some gesture work but I am having trouble with the attachment manager, it does not upload everything! Thanks again I will heed your advice through out my sketchbook so keep watching ^^.

@gingerbreadcat I checked out your sketchbook, it's really awesome your and your studying animation too!(lots of competition ). I am getting a real sketchbook soon because I normally have issues at two ends of the spectrum. I sometimes end up drawing finished work on lined paper and I have a tendency to waste sketch paper with useless sketches xD!

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Here are the rest of the sketches which failed to go through the attachment manager.

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

Very nice SB. Good to see so many studys. I suggest you to stay away from more complex anatomy for now. I did the mistake that I practiced complex musculature and stuff without really getting my proportions and shapes streight. These are essantial for your anatomy studys so first work on them. Try to simplify the body a lot and make more postion studys to really understand the 3dimensionality of your subject. If you can make a boxy stick figure with perfect proportions than work on some more organic shapes. If then get to the point where you can draw some more human looking stick figure from diffrent perspectives you may start with more complex musculature and anatomy. Keep up the nice work. Good luck!

[kamikazel33t]

@matelo thanks I went back to reviewing boxy 3d stick figures it's still very annoying to do >_< but I am still doing em...
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I feel like I am getting really lazy the past 2 days where I practically did nothing, I feel like I am going through the "valley of the suck" again. I am currently doing some 30 sec gestural drawing at the same time reviewing proportions( I discovered I am very used to making the legs the height of just the torso, while instead its height is the torso to the neck). I also did line quality practices, even though the lines look vertical I flipped the sketch pad and tried to use my elbow. There are also so many failed attempts at trying to construct a hand, I failed so miserably. For the last picture I practically took my frustration out on it, and basically was like "SCREW THE RULES!" and just started drawing with no concern over the rules just to let me loosen up after the frustrations I've been having.

[anivy]

Hi! Thanks for posting in my sketchbook! You are on the right path here with these studies. I have a few suggestions for you off the top of my head.

Get rid of that lined paper and get yourself a blank sketchbook!
When you do your studies, try and really cram a page full of sketches. When I'm sketching poses for example, I try to do them as fast as I can (though I am still really really slow..)

If possible, try to resize your pages a little smaller. I don't think there's any rule but I try to keep my images around 600px wide max, any bigger and it gets hard to see on the screen without having to scroll down to see a whole image.

Are you using posemaniacs or quickposes for your sketching? I'm no expert when it comes to animation but from what I understand its important for animators to be able to sketch poses at speed, so practicing this skill now will really help you out in the long run.

Thanks again for stopping by my sketchbook and keep posting!

[Heyriel]

Blank sketching paper would be a really good idea -don't worry about wasting it. It's no more expensive than lined paper. Otherwise good studies -the legs are often a bit too short (I'm having the same problem xD) but with the amount of gestures you're doing you'll see definite improvement soon! Keep it up

[Umbravita]

Agreed with the others -- go get yerself a blank sketchbook! It's really good to work on proper, clean paper. It's not as thin and flimsy, either, and doesn't yellow with time, and they're easier to keep. It also looks like the lined paper is throwing your proportions out of whack.

[kamikazel33t]

Hey guys! for the issue with lined paper I am going to get some clean white paper sketchpads and various types of pencils on thursday(can't wait!), So for now I guess you guys and me are going to have to make our eyeballs bleed due to the crappy paper I am using(which reminds me that I have finished the 200 page lined pad and am now drawing on school notebooks xD).

@anivy Thanks for the gesture drawing advice, yeah I am using quickposes(posemaniac has some very rigid figures and a lot of the figures have crazy rotations some of em are sideways, upside down etc.) at 30 seconds(I am thinking of getting that certificate ).

@Heyriel You are too good to compare yourself to me xD! although thanks for the motivation!

@Umbravita that is true because my brain gets confused looking at the lines and then I try to match head proportions to the lines >_<. I better get myself a sketchbook soon(Thursday hopefully!) Although my biggest issue is that I tend to draw wherever as long as there is a pencil and paper around I HAVE TO DRAW! it's annoying in class, alot of people compare me to the cartoon character chowder because of how much of a scatter brain I am! xD

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I have been really lazy with the scanning causing a pile up with the amount of drawings I have to scan which demotivates me too scan so I decided to break the chain and get it over with and scan 59 pages(still not all of it!). I also decided to scan some doodles I do in school as I do a lot of drawings from imagination.

I am thinking of making a double post of scans as the limit appears to be 20 attachments per post(I actually might have to post 3 times xD). I went a little overboard with the amount of gesture drawings though, and I believe that I should not be posting so much of it or at least try to cram them into a pages(I wanted to try and draw a little larger though).

In the past few days I did a variety of work some where I did some gesture drawing at school. I also went to a pet store at walking distance from my house to try and work on the animal drawing(not really my muse) to be able to draw it for my portfolio, my subject was a rabbit although it kept moving so I was not able to make a decent sketch(I would probably have to come in the morning because at that time it is least disturbed and usually napping). I also did some character which I am trying to develop for the sheridan portfolio, I manage to develop an idea for her yet I am still not sure what to do with her costume. I guess I will come up with a backstory and see what I can do also I am not to familiar with the figure of my character so I am going to also play with that.

[kamikazel33t]

I could not fit all the scans into one post so it looks like I have to triple post or maybe even quadruple post

[kamikazel33t]

OMG! Looks like I am going to have to quadruple post >_<!

[kamikazel33t]

Last few drawings!

[Valyavande]

I was happy to see that you had already pages around here where you were just practising straight lines and ellipses. I would recommend to push that even further - draw pages with a looooot of boxes, cylinders and spheres. Work on the 3D forms. Again and again. That will help you a lot in the end to draw the figures and their features right. Focus on how to turn a box in every possible perspective. That can be more difficult than it sounds, but it will push you forward if you do it right.

Keep it up!

[Umbravita]

Whoa, you've been working hard. So you say you don't use posemaniacs -- what site do you use, then?

Also, try sitting down to do a longer study sometime. Like that last face -- it's really well done compared to your faster stuff. Working quickly trains you to recognise shapes more quickly, but taking your time trains you to absorb them better.

[blogmatix]

Nice work. When I was your age I couldn't draw remotely as well. Heck, I doubt if I can now! :-)

[Ryan Provenzano]

Thanks for visiting my sketchbook man. You have a great deal of work here already, and a lot of good things. Your faces need some differentiation, as you don't want to get stuck in same-face syndrome territory. I would visit this thread if you haven't already, it's one of my favorites for this sort of subject: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...d-head-anatomy. Also, gesture drawings are good to do as well, but don't forget to do longer poses. And to mix things up a bit, you could do gesture drawings of animals using this site: http://artists.pixelovely.com/practi...nimal-drawing/ Good luck, and don't worry too much if some days you don't get any drawing done. That happens to me, too.

[Lyraina]

It's good to see you do so many studies! You'll improve fast if you keep that up
Don't worry about scanning everything, I know how daunting a huge pile of pages waiting to be scanned can be - just select your favorites,
or those you think you would like to have feedback on. Or draw more stuff on one page You don't want to spend more time posting than practicing!

Great idea going to a pet store to draw! As someone already mentioned, drawing from life is pretty important.

When drawing portraits or faces, try not to avoid drawing both eyes - I noticed you tend to skip the second eye, I guess because it's hard to get the symmetry right... but that's something you'll want to practice as well!

Keep up the great studies

[kamikazel33t]

@Valyavande Thanks for the advice my college portfolio really requires me to get form into my drawing so i am now doodling tons and tons of shapes into my notebooks xD!
@Umbravita Sure am! Imma draw till my fingers bleed then bandage them then continue to draw if that is what it takes to get me into the animation program of my dreams . I don't use posemaniacs I use quickposes.com for my gestures. I took your advice and tried to spend more time on my studies since I practically finished all the information in most of my books with just quick sketches.
@BlogMatrix Thanks mate, I just wanted to say that drawing level should not be related to age as anybody can achieve any level if they work hard! Keep working on your sketchbook!
@NexuunThanks buddy! I am trying to vary my faces a bit more but I feel like the scribbling technique is a bit too random for me, I thank you for giving me a site with animal gestures available as I do need to submit an animal drawing in my portfolio but I have been a little bit intimidated perhaps this will loosen me into drawing animals more frequently.
@Lyraina Thanks Lyraina, I guess my fear developed for drawing both eyes when the characters I drew came out retarded looking because I would render one eye adding in a lot of detail which made it harder to draw in the second one. Right now I am trying to shake this really terrible habit out. The only thing to fear is fear itself right?

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This Thursday I got a brand spankin new sketchbook, nothing fancy just a 50 page A4 pure white sketchpad. I made tons of drawings before that but ain't going to make your eyes bleed due to the lined pages because that would be too many drawings. I am already half way through my sketch pad sketching on each side. That's about 50 drawings so prepare for a triple post!

I was doing tons of stuff and revisited Bridgman's Book of A Hundred Hands, that book always intimidated me! I tried to copy diagrams on it and apply in both observational drawing and imaginary drawing. I think my last hand is potential portfolio material of a hand anticipating an action. I also tried to brainstorm for a cartoon character to put in my portfolio and ended up with tons . Another thing I did was also doing longer poses between 3-10 minutes. I hope you guys can give me feedback because the drawings I am doing now are highly relevant to building my Sheridan portfolio!

[kamikazel33t]

more stuff

[kamikazel33t]

last N final stuff

[Umbravita]

You're a machine. Keep up the good work!

[braineater]

first of all thanks a lot for visiting my sb
there are a lot of good-looking sketches in here and your mass of updates seem to be working. there's already a nice progress and realizing that we are nearly same age with nearly same aimes i feel kinda ashamed of my bad skills.
keep on doing what you're doing, i'll try to have a look on what's going on in here

[RissaKay]

You are working so hard to improve, which is lovely to see! I'd love to see the images scaled down though, it's a bit hard to navigate this thread because the files are so large.

[Januz]

Great progress in that last update! Don't forget to study perspective, and make observation studies. Specially with simple objects like fruits.
Do lots of gestures. I mean pages crammed from top to bottom. Vilppu said once in an interview he had his students do this for 6hs on a typical class day, so yeah.. takes a lot of practice

Keep 'em coming!

[LtPlissken]

Just as someone already said, you are a machine, and not just a machine,
you are an absolute unstoppable beast, and no one can handle your rhythm.
You have the willpower, dedication, determination no one should make a mistake
about it, your road is clear and bright future is ahead. I think that there is no big
secret in being and becoming better, all you need to do is work constantly, draw
for days, months and years. Read books, follow other artists, make some notes
and remember more important tips and tricks. So there is one thing that can stop
you, there is one thing that can terminate your progress, and that is if you give
up and stop drawing. But you will not do that, I can feel it, you will evolve and
blossom become better and better day after day. Also my motto is not to get
too maniacally into drawing, you need to pace yourself, cause it’s always better
to be a long lasting slow burning candle, than a short lasting fast burning one.
I am thankful for your visit to my book, I will try to be more active and to
follow your posting pattern from now on. If you have any more suggestions
for me or questions, you are always welcome to write about it here or there.
So keep running this mighty locomotive, and don’t stop for no reason.

[Arteast]

Great Studies im glad to see your staying motivated! Because just seeing you working this hard reminds me ive got to as well! Id type more but im practically passing out as i type this keep going and good luck !

[kamikazel33t]

@Umbravita
Work It Harder Make It Better
Do It Faster, Makes Us stronger
More Than Ever Hour After
Our Work Is Never Over

@Braineater I am glad you have noticed the progress because it is really hard for me to tell if I am improving or not. I guess it is true you need to up your game but I've always seen you at a higher level than me when it comes to drawing so good luck and keep practicing!
@RissaKey Right now I am just hoping for a second page , I totally messed up this first on by uploading larger images and I was experimenting to find that sweet spot. If you are taking about the images on the first post I will try and see what I can do about it.
@Januz That is true I really need to stop neglecting to practice perspective, the reason why I tend to ignore such studies is normally the nature of it because of how confused because I am not really sure about whether to practice each and every principle and whether I get better at each principle by practicing or if I just need to understand all of the principles and then practice by applying then. For the gestures I really try to squeeze out as many as I can but I always feel I am tackling the gestures incorrectly.
@LtPlissken Your words are just too kind, the funny thing is I am not really forcing myself to put out these drawings it actually is coming out naturally because of this burning desire in me to become better. You and I shall ride this locomotive to victory no other option!
@Arteast Get back to work! I thought we were suppose to be competing? thanks for the comment btw.

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I've been browsing through the forums and manage to come across a group of Sheridan hopefuls like me, they seem like great people! Well anyway I was working on my hand drawing part of the portfolio where I have to depict a hand anticipating an action then following through with it. Thanks to Dunnstar(a sheridan hopeful) I was able to find out things which were off with my drawing so I began to study my hand even more by taking a look at what makes it "fleshy". I also did some studies on Glen Keane's style where I would look at it one of his illustrations and try to find what makes them so lively and appealing. During school I caught my friend in class, doodling swords so then I thought to myself "hey I want to draw swords too! " so then as I was on the bus home I started doodling swords(funny thing is that my swords have a lot more personality and character than my actual characters do!). I also had an attempt at trying to draw a dragon which my other friend's drawing muse. I also read through over 90 pages in the morning of Vilppu's book while doing studies and it was if it was almost magical and something clicked and I was able to draw figures much better than I previously was able too!

[kamikazel33t]

second post of stuff