Nov. 28, 2013 - Holiday's Over, Sketches, Figure Drawings & Insect Girl

Oh man, so that break I wanted to take ended up preparing for Thanksgiving haha oh jeeze.

All of that's over and I just wanted to draw a bit before bed.  Here are the sketches sketches.

I found an old sketchbook of mine and it was filled with Nona, so i figured I'd try to draw her...  oh dear.  Normally i wouldn't share these, but this blog is about all that stuff so here ya go!

For the Monster Girl challenge, Insect Girl:

I know almost nothing about drawing insects, so this one was a bit of a challenge.  I kept the pose pretty basic, not sure how much I like it, but it's not terrible.

Lastly.
Figure Drawings:

Some of these turned out pretty alright, but I got pretty tired towards the end there.

Overall, not the best day, but this was at the end of a busy day.
I'm off to bed.

Let's shoot for a better day tomorrow!


Edit:  I've also been thinking about going ahead and starting up that art vlog thing.  Typing this here so i can remember to talk about that next blog entry.

Nov. 23, 2013 - Alpha 1 and Short Break?

A buddy and I were talking power rangers, and he wanted me to design an Alpha 1.  So I did!

Originally Alpha 1, defender of the galaxy!  Alpha 1 defends everything the rangers don't.  Hahaha, it's just a fun character.  I thought it would be silly to give Alpha 1 massive features.  Here is the original Alpha 5 from Power Rangers.

aaaand, Small break?
I appear to be taking a small break this weekend.  I found myself mindlessly watching vilppu not being able to take anything in.  And a recent video game came out that I had been waiting for and I thought I would give that a whirl.  While playing it, I realized I hadn't taken a good relaxation break in a long time.  If it wasn't working on projects of my own, it was babysitting, fixing one thing or another.  So rather than needlessly pushing myself, I'm giving myself a few days to recoop and just enjoy a good game. 

Nov. 21, 2013 - Figures, Zombie Girl 2.0, and Vilppu Notes/ Studying

Another pretty busy day, but I did a thing!
Started off by with some non-timed figure drawings.

I'm trying to further grasp the idea of the human figure. Practice practice practice! and the like.


 Zombie Girl 2.0

 I wasn't super happy with how things turned out on yesterday's Zombie Girl, so I thought I'd give it another go.  I tried doing simple edits tot he original image but I could never manage to get it to look right.  So I scrapped the whole thing and gave it another go.  While I don't think it's perfect, i must say it is better than the original.


Lastly, I wanted to touch on copying Vilppu and why I think it's important to copy things when you don't fully understand it.  When doing the Vilppu studies, i try to take as many notes as I can.  Either things that he said directly or ideas that come to mind when watching one of his lectures.  EVEN IF I don't understand it, i try to copy it to the best of my ability.  Why is this?  Why even bother if i don't know what's going on?  Simple answer,  just because I don't understand something, doesn't mean that I will never understand it.  The closest example of this was the concept of the spherical forms.  First time watching that lecture, my brain was mush.  I didn't grasp the concept, but I kept on.  I kept watching the lecture, and I kept taking notes.  I continued to study the notes and even watched the lecture a few times.  Then it just clicked.  It wasn't all at once, and it wasn't all in the same day, but I was able to finally understand the material because of repetition and "copying" the tools vilppu gave me, even though I did not understand them.

Going even farther back, and in completely different context, a very similar thing happened in a physics class I took way back in high school.  It was a math class.  I have never been good at math.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I have always been terrible at math.  However, this time, I made sure to copy absolutely everything the teacher did on the board.  I didn't understand everything right away, but let me tell you, it sure helped with how I learn things. 

So if you dont understand something, take notes.  Then return to them regularly.  You'd be surprised what you could learn by consistency!

It's late again, I'm off to bed.  Busy day again tomorrow so I'll at least try to finish up some Vilppu and get some figure drawings in.

Nov. 20, 2013 - 75 figure drawings!? - Zombie Girl

I think this has to be some kind of record for one day.  75!  Jeeze!  I was aiming for 100 but but it started to get pretty late.

The first 50 were 1 min sketches.

The next 25 were done 2 min each.

These were pretty good, but I really started to lose focus on the last 5 there.  It was pretty late when I got to those, but I at least made more than I usually do.

And the Zombie Girl

I wanted to give her a different feeling/emotion than my others.  Usually I go for cheery and happy, so I thought why not try one a little less cheery?  I almost feel sorry for her.  She's a zombie, but doesn't fully understand why people run from her in terror.  Oh that poor gal.

Considering how busy today was, I'm honestly very surprised I was able to cram in as much as I did.  Usually on such days I'd just push it off till the next day.  I think this says a bit about how much I'm able to push myself, even if it is just a little.

Another busy day tomorrow, but I'll see what I can get done.  Aiming on revisiting Vilppu chapter 2 and more sketches.  We'll see what happens!

Nov. 18, 2013 - Vilppu Refresher - Succubus -True Monster

Here we are.  Back in the saddle again.
It's good to be back!

I finished off all those things I'd been yapping about finishing off for a while and everybody that should know that my main focus will now be art should know.  It's a huge weight off my shoulders.  I was half expecting a bit of an outrage for my decision, but everybody seems really cool about it.  My friends seem to be more than willing to help if they can, and my followers seem to be excited with where this art journey takes me.  It's nice.  It's real nice.  I am extremely appreciative of their support!  I won't let them down.  NOW TIME TO ART!

I decided to kick things off with some Vilppu revisits.  Chapter 1.

Just trying to reacquaint myself with the fundamentals.  Concept of gesture, motion, and fluidity. A common mistake that I used to make in the past was that I always assumed that I absolutely had to master one thing before moving on.  Revisiting the first lesson reminded me that art doesn't really work that way.  Every time you revisit a subject or a topic, it is entirely possible that you can take something entirely new away from it.  Having learned a bit about how shapes and forms work, I think I was able to take a bit away from this and tie things together just that much.  I'm learning how the gesture fits inside and works with the forms, rather than simply being the "first step" of a drawing.  It all has it's ways of working together.  so attempting to learn ALL aspects of one element is  bad idea.

I wanted to start this session off good, so rather than the regular forms and gesture sketches, I thought I would return to the Monster Girl challenge.  The Succubus

I'm actually pretty surprised with this one.  It turned out way better than I though it would, especially having been away for so long.  The proportions seem to all fit, and the overall image just seems to work.  A friend of mine mentioned that the arm placement could have been a little better and I agree, but overall, well done me. good job. 

Still didn't want to do the gesture sketches and traditional study after that, so I did another monster girl.  "True Monster"

I wasn't exactly sure the direction I wanted this one to go, but so I just kind of threw in a lot of things.  Once again, I'm a bit impressed.  Especially with the torso mouth thing haha.  I'm not sure why but the forms dont feel quite as in tact as the succubus, but hey, it's not bad.


I started all these a bit late, but that's just the timing of everything.  I wasn't able to dive in all those hours I want, but I'll get there.  It's just good to be back.

More training!

Going public?

I've put a lot of work into this blog and have made quite a bit of progress with my art.  An unexpected side effect of this blog has been that it's actually helped a few people, or at least double think some things that have been holding them back.

That got me thinking a bit.  What if I tried being more public with this blog?  Not so much this blog, but to expand the idea of this blog to other platforms.  For example, to Youtube.  Very often on youtube you'll find these already established artists sharing things they've learned.  Never before have I seen an artist in my position, or similar position, sharing their story while it happens.  And that could possibly reach and help more people to improve themselves.  And with the big art push coming up (update on that at the end) maybe I could give it a try.

One of the things I love about this blog is its isolation away from everything.  It feels like my own little part of the internet.  By trying to expand the idea of the blog to more socially driven parts of the internet, my main fear would be that I'd be overwhelmed in some way or another.  But should I let my own feelings and emotions get in the way of potentially helping fellow artists work through their own troubles?  That's a hard question.  One that I'm not sure I have the answer to just yet.  I'm leaning very strongly in the direction of giving youtube a shot.  Even if it doesn't work out I'll always have this blog regardless.  Maybe if I didn't do daily vlogs but weekly?  And sense I'm part of a rather flexible network, potential partnership and partnership benefits could also come into play as well.  Ah who knows.  But you bet I'll keep you guys posted if I start that up.

Update on myself.
I have been on schedule with completing those projects I mentioned in the last update.  Things are still very much on track and the two projects in focus will be finished up by the end of this week.  (unless of-course more life happens, then I'll just deal with as much as I can and try to pump out the finale's this weekend.)

No art this time, but progress is still happening!

...in finishing up other things at least.

Nov. 1, 2013 - Where to start?

While this isn't the "BIG ART PUSH!" i was wanting to go for, somethings better than nothing.  More on that after the sketches!

These sketches were done 2 min each.  I want to slow down my times a bit so i can have a better grasp of the images I am drawing.  For not having done anything in a while, I'm pretty pleased with these.  There are two in particular that I can do some improvement on, 4th on top, and 5th on bottom.  But the others turned out pretty nice.  And even the ones i'm not super happy with, i like some parts of them.

So about that big art push I've been wanting to do.  I have decided to hold off on that for another week or so.  Things have been pretty busy around here lately, and there are 2 other things I would really like to finish.  They are really close to completion and I think I'll be able to knock those out relatively soon so I am shooting for that.

In the meantime, I've decided to just fill in what I can when I can.  If i cant sit down and do the hours of study I want to do, there's no reason I shouldn't at least get a little in. 

...but where to start??
While this hasn't been much of a problem for me lately, the thought had crossed my mind.  "Where to start?"  "I haven't drawn in a while, where/ how/ when do I pick up again?"  It brings me back to the time when that really was a big problem for me.  The simple answer... Start anywhere!  Pick up the pencil/ pen/ tablet and just have at it!  You'll never get anywhere if you don't pick it up and just do it!  So freakin start anywhere and just push yourself.  (you as in reader, or you as in me when im reading this later)  Find a thing you like or enjoy and just do that.  Give yourself permission to not be good!  It's ok to not be good.  Everybody is not good at things, it's those who push forward are the ones that prevail!  ...or so I have been told.  But I'm convinced it's true.  I'll end this post with a new favorite quote of mine.