Return of the Studies

Since I started working on my animation and halted my studies, I have had a very strange since of longing.  Like something has been missing.  I attempted to ignore these feelings to continue work on the animation and of-course focus on holiday stuff.  However, my since of yearning continued to intensify.  Like a part of me was missing.  It was almost as though it was a form of emotional pain.  Like I had turned my back on a portion of myself I have always wanted.

I think it must be the neglect on my newly found desire to improve my artwork.

I finished of the night by returning to my studies.  I feel at ease.

After searching the Sig's and IDs blog, I stumbled onto a rather nice art resource that is ran by a guy who does professional video game concept design.
Here is a link:
http://www.ctrlpaint.com
The guy gives some really sound advice and I am glad to add this to my list of resources. I attempted to put together a bit of what I used in these body studies.  Again, i was focusing on shapes, and understanding as much of what I have learned as possible.

Body Studies:

I don't have a mirror on hand to try what Mokuu suggested I do with faces, but I did manage to find an old face resource thing on deviantart that will no doubt be helpful at a later date.
http://chronicdoodler.deviantart.com/favourites/41008996?offset=0

Because of how late i started these I only managed to pull off a few images.  The more I study faces, the more I see the need to understand how it works.  I need to study the muscles and bone structure in more detail.
Face Studies:

Lastly, here is another early still from the animation.  I have a more complete version of this scene, but you'll have to wait till it's finished to see it :P

I learned a lot about colors with the guy on the right.  Some day I'll need to dedicate more time to learning proper color theory.

 

As I think back, I cant help but wonder why it is exactly that studies give me such a since of accomplishment, while animating seems to do the opposite.  Especially since animating has always been a huge part of my life, where as studies are rather new.  Then again, so is this desire to learn new art things.

I best not ask questions.  I'm just happy to be drawing again.  I'm sure everything will fall into place.  Perhaps when I have a better understanding of shapes, lines, and other things, I should shift my focus to animation studies.

Until then, I MUST KEEP UP MY TRAINING!

Holiday and Frustration

HOLIDAY!?
Where do these holidays come from, I tell ya.

The Thanksgiving holiday literally snuck up on me this year.  We ended up doing things a little bit different this year which lead us to celebrate  it on two separate days.  This combined with frustration towards my artwork has lead me to making very little progress on everything.

Originally this animation was meant to be completed on Tuesday, and as the days go on, I become increasingly uneasy from it taking so long.


HOWEVER, with all that being said, I've managed to scrape on by with continued work on the animation.  I think the artistic frustration is merely the side effect of the other issues I have been dealing with.  Every complaint I have about my artwork can be sorted out with further studies and training.

Hopefully with the holidays out of the way I can clear my mind, get in a good groove and finish up this animation.  I must stay focused!

But first i sleep.  (staying up till 4:30am is a bad idea)

Crunch time!

LOOK AT THE TIME!  Next animation deadline is creeping up on me faster than I thought!

As i look at the clock I realize i have even less time than I though.  I'm trying to take what I have learned from my recent studies and trying to apply them to this animation.

Here is a single incomplete frame from early in the animation.

Tomorrow I'm set to help out with a 24 hour livestream, (friday and saturday time)  Saturday family get together thing.  Saturday Night Wii-u camp out.  If i can find a place that isn't packed already, though I've heard they wont be doing a midnight release, so we'll see what happens.  Camping is my only option on getting a Wii-U at this point. 

Long story short, free time isn't on my side.
I did, however, spend an unusually long amount of time livestream and actually learned a lot from a few talented artists!  One of them (ID) told me of this DVD set that I think could really help throw me in the right direction. 
http://www.vilppustore.com/anatomydvd.htm

He was kind enough to show me a tiny bit of it, and I want more!  It really helped to put into perspective the ideas behind gesture drawings and the elusive action lines I was reading about the other day.

Another one I met (SiG) was telling me a bit about some really amazing comics from uhhh.. France I think he said (It's really late I'll correct this if I am wrong)
One of them that really stuck in my mind was the "Sky Doll" comic.  The colors are so vibrant and amazing!  Bright colors are no doubt something that I want to incorporate into my cartoons.

There was somebody else, but I cant seem to find her link!  I'll have to hunt through my history to dig up her name.  She had quite a few tutorials on her youtube channel that I'll have to check out.

It's always fun to learn of other artists and to learn from them, even if it's simply by observing.  There is so much wisdom and knowledge out there, it feels as though I haven't even scratched the surface.  I guess that's my advice to other artists.  Don't be afraid to look externally for help or understanding.  That was my biggest mistake before I had quit.  I didn't listen to others.  Although, now that I type I am reminded that there are in fact people that you really don't want to listen to... hmm...  I guess it's all a matter of knowing who means to help you, or hurt you.  WHICH IS ANOTHER TOPIC ENTIRELY OF ITS OWN.

But alas, as I've said before, I guess you could say it's better to learn late than never. 

OH WAIT, quick note before I end this blog.  Because of the business of this weekend, I may not have the usual studies that I have been doing.  I'll still try to update, at least with screenshots from that animation to carry you over till the next study session.

Also, here is a link to SiG's and ID's art blog:
There may be a few images that might offend some people... but it's art stuff, it's the nature of the territory. 
StarvedArtists
Thanks again for tolerating this silly dude in your streams.

Now sleep, long stream tomorrow.

THEN MORE TRAINING!

More arts ARTS

I went back to edit yesterdays post with the details I originally had planned for that.
Click this link if you want to check those out:
http://doggyzartattack.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-draws-and-book.html

The more I practice and study the human body, the more I feel my grasp of understanding it is getting stronger.  It was fairly weak to begin with, so being able to have learned at least a little bit is truly humbling.

My lines and shapes are becoming more precise and my eyes and hands are becoming more in sync!  I will probably continue to carry on these longer studies with this character guide for a while longer then try my hand at some more 30 second drawings.  In the future, I might up the time from 30 seconds to 45 or maybe even 60 seconds at least that way I can insure to get the proper amount of training in and that I will be able to complete the figure.  Speed is VERY important in animation (and other areas of art), so training to do things quickly and precise is definitely in my best interest. 

Todays studies:

Face studies
More Eddsworld style faces.  I originally had planned to do a different style again, but unfortunately got distracted and wasn't able to pull up the resources at the time.  I did however have a 2nd sheet of eddsworld expressions so I thought I'd give those a go.

Recently, a good friend and fellow artist Mokuu commented on with some pretty sound advice on how to approach the face.  I'll post what he said here:

"A mentor of mind hinted at remembering how the face can be squished and stretched depending on how the mouth and eyes moves.  Maybe try the extreme of it all by considering the face as some pasty play-doe you can squish and stretch as you frown and yell.  The mirror also seem to be a great tool to look cool....oh i mean for referencing your own expressions then pushing it further/exaggerating them for kicks." - Mokuu

It's definitely some sound advice and will put it into use next study session!

Face Studies:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain:
WOW is all I can say.
This book really surprised me.  Chapter 4 of the book, really put a lot of things together for me and pulled everything together.  Not only did it put together a lot of the mumbo jumbo stuff from early book, but it really put together a lot of I've heard other art people say.

I still think the first three chapters could have been severely reduced to fit in one chapter, but after reading the first portion of chapter4 I can kind of understand where the author was going.

The first official lesson!  (took bloody long enough)
The  focus of this lesson was to teach you how to switch between the left (logical) and right (artistic) side of the brain by drawing a face vase.  The image on top we were to draw a face on the left side then horizontal lines to the right then draw the vase face in reverse.  This was supposed to activate the right side of the brain.

A similar exercise was done on the 2nd image.  Only instead of a human head we were to design a monster head and basically flip it over on the other side.

I couldn't help but feel as though my skills might be a bit higher than I had origianlly given myself credit for.  This particular exercise was pretty easy, but the information I learned I can potentially apply in other areas.  I can also see how this could potentially be a game changer for people who are new to art.  I'm glad I stuck with this book, here's hoping the rest is helpful also.

Lessons:

More draws and book

**EDIT**
I decided to go back and edit in my original thoughts on this post in a less tired state.

After using this figure for a while now, I can now see the importance of seeing things as shapes.  Though the proportions aren't exactly spot on, I can definitely see some improvements in my understanding of basic fundamentals.  Naturally this boosts my confidence level!

Character shapes and studies:

More character emotions.  I have an Eddsworld character emotion sheet, so I thought I would give them a try.  I'm not entirely sure of the direction I want to go with learning faces, so I'm basically trying out as many styles as I can to see similarities in basic face structure.  At the very least, it's good practice.

Face studies:

Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain:
This book...
I must admit, I'm not a big fan of it at this moment.  I'm literally three chapters in and all the autor has done is ramble on and on about the same general concepts about the differences of the left and right sides of the brain.  It's a bit frustrating, I sure hope this whole book doesnt consist of a constant reminder of the same thing she has repeated over and over...

The only thing remotely close to a lesson of ANY kind is to do these few pictures as some form of measurement to compare with your future drawings after you've read the book.
As displeased as I am with the book at this moment, I will continue to read it. There has to be a reason so many people have suggested this thing.  If it helps in the slightest I will be pleased.  (though as it stands, I feel I have learned much more in my own independent studies from this book)

Book Lessons:

Shapes, expressions and books oh my!

Through my last few drawing sessions it became apparent why exactly so many people and books often emphasize on the importance of understanding the basic shapes of characters.  The basic idea is to give us some form of foundation to being able to create realistic 3d representations of the characters in our heads that would make putting them on paper all the more important.  I was silly to have never fully grasped this concept in my younger years, but alas, better late than never.  I do recall having one particular character structure that I really liked back in the day, so I dug through my old how to draw books and drug out the old figure.  I tell ya, it was like seeing an old friend again!

I drew a few of the poses presented in the book to remember his structure, then carried off to http://www.posemaniacs.com/randompose in an attempt to put him to good use.  I took the character structure and tried to figure out the basic shapes and patterns of the figures on posemaniacs website.  It was a bit strange thinking in this... new kind of thinking...  Thinking in shapes.  But I very much like it and will more than likely incorporate it into my future studies.  I was getting the hang of things a bit so there aren't as many of these as I would have liked, but alas, another time.

Afterwards, I told myself I would shift a bit of my focus to the headular regain and didn't want to fall back on this weeks focus.  A youtube channel I like that goes by the name of "ShooRaynerDrawing" recently just did his own little emotion thing so I thought I would pull those up and give them a try.  Having more of an anime/manga background (might go into this further in a later date) in drawing, this drawing style is almost completely foreign to me.  It provided a nice challenge.  Having vibrant facial features and expressions has always been something that I think is very important in conveying the feelings of characters.  A concept that my younger self was too afraid to fully dive into and explore.  Here's hoping older me has learned a thing or two!

Link to his video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4za5eEmkcCM

 

Lastly, I finally started reading the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards (which being ADD and Dyslexic adds a whole new challenge of its own!)  After hearing almost nothing but good things about this book from many people, I'm finally going to give it a try.  It's kind of silly because this was one of the last things I bought before giving up art for the longest time.  Almost as though I have come full circle with the will to improve!!  Huge HUGE thanks to all of my artsy friends.  Their enthusiasm towards art has really rubbed off on me and it's really helped me see things in a different light.

More sketches!

Full week of sketches!
OH MAN!  Not sure what happened yesterday, but I'll celebrate anyway!  I did quite a bit of research on drawing and stuff and learned a lot about "properly"doing gesture drawings. Along with the sycra forums, I found this one to be a good read also.

http://www.ndoylefineart.com/gesture3.html

I tried to take what I learned and applied it to some of these studies.  The first few were an attempt to study the "action gesture" I believe it was called.  I feel a need to know a bit more about those before I attempt them so I didn't do very many. 

Afterwards, I did a few15 second drawings.  I tried to focus on the shapes of the shapes of the character.

Then lastly, I finished it up with the good ol 30 second drawings.

My eyes may be fooling me, but I think I am seeing small improvements in my work.  This pleases me!  Over the coming week, I plan to continue these basic studies but hone in on the head, face and hair.  Either way, I must continue my studies.  I also need to learn more about shapes.