June 24, 2013 - Nice Day

I want to start working towards a style I like.  So i drew these cool dudes in a style!

Then the sketches.

 The first round looked a bit stiff, but the 2nd looked more lively.  These were all 1 min sketches from http://www.quickposes.com/  I tried to keep some ideas of form in mind.


A friend said to draw spiderman or he would kill everyone.

I took what I learned about forms and threw thew all of that into this.  Kinda pleased with the results.

Then Sir Pika happened.

I needed a new picture for my Facebook (Doggy080) and Tumblr (Doggyzart).


Pretty good art day overall.  No boxes, but training was done.
I wanted to do more but things are getting a bit late.  More tomorrow!

June 23, 2013 - Hate Boxes & Physics Lesson

Hate boxes.  I hate box forms, I uuugh...
I have never been able to draw boxes in 3d space.  This is a very important thing and I am absolutely terrible at it.  I suppose the same could be said about gestures... the same can be said about forms...  but oh man.... boxes.  I will really reaaaaallllly dont like boxes. 

Now...  With that being said, I am not discouraged from giving it my all.  If your gonna start somewhere it might as well be on rock bottom.  While there is in fact a part of me that just wants to run from the box, I know that doing that will do no good.  I remember a very important lesson I learned in my old high school physics class.  That was simply "If you never study it, you will never learn it."  Of-course it was referring to studying the new material in the class, but that lesson really stuck with me and has been a key point here in this blog.  I was afraid of the human figure, I was afraid of the gesture, I was afraid of the spherical forms.  While I am definitely no master in any of those area, I now at least have at least a basic understanding of them all.  Boxes will be no different.  BRING IT ON BOXES!

Now for another character of mine.

This guy is what i called a "Native Bot"  He was part of a robot race that thrived in lush forests.  Like a crazy plant robot hybrid thing!  These guys were among the last few things I made before I stopped all art things prior, but I really like their design and their "mystical" nature.

Till next time.
Training training training!

June 22, 2013 - So I drew.

After a night of babysitting, all I wanted to do was draw...
And so I did... for 5 hours...

The first 3 were in flash and the others in photoshop.

I am SUPER pleased with the amount of time I was able to focus on art tonight.  It's super late and im super tired, but here they are!
Worth noting, the several figure studies on the right were all missing legs, so I did some of my own.

And ghost spawn with wings showed up.  And one got colored.
I'm not sure if I like the coloring job on the one I colored, so here is what i had before I colored.

and here are the figure poses of the few i added the clothes layer too.

If I can keep up focus like I did tonight.  WOW.  Huge pat on the back there me.  You did a swell job.

June 21, 2013 - Have a Goal.

The more I continue my studies, the more I am learning why having a goal of some kind is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.  It really gives me something to work towards and gives me some kind of progression meter. 

I noticed there are definitely right and wrong ways to go about setting goals.  When I was younger, I would always try to stay away from goals because I would always set very hard or impossible art goals that would discourage me from doing the very thing it was supposed to help me get better at.  Drawing.

My goals are simply to draw more, and continue my studies.  If life gets in the way, dont make a big deal out of it, continue when I can, but always continue.  I'll talk more about this when it's not so late again.  In the meantime, here are the sketches!  These were 1 min long sketches.

I wasn't too thrilled with these.  I think I lost my grip on forms a bit, so I went back to watch Vilppu chapter 2 one more time.  I took a few notes again...  But I noticed something rather peculiar.

My circles looked pretty nice! haha, so i did a ton of those and played a bit around with forms.  I think the random form studies turned out rather nice also.  I actually learned a thing or two from them.

Among the random forms, this thing was born.  A random figure.  I used zero reference for this one and thought it turned out nice!  Had i tried this months ago, or even before I started my form studies, I think it would have had drastically difference results.  I am happy.  And tails is there.  Because freakin tails.  just because.


More stuff tomorrow!
Hopefully I'll have more free time for studies.

June 20, 2013

Even when super tired some of these turned out rather nicely.
Pretty awesome :D!!

June 18, 2013 - Big Moment also 200 items!

To say today was an emotional day would be an understatement.  After being pretty surprised with yesterdays Vilppu studies I half expected to my drawings to remain very much the same as they were before the studies.  There were some concepts vilppu presented that I kind of understood but didn't fully grasp so early today I decided to rewatch Chapter 2.  I was really able to pick up on several little details that I wasn't entirely sure about the first time watching it.  A few hours after rewatching I returned to start my daily sketches.  I wanted to take what I learned during chapter 2 and put them to use.  Without the helpful aid of Vilppu's guidance, I wasn't expecting much, but any little improvement at all would be nice, but I wasn't going to hold my breath.  I don't even know if I was ready for what happened next.

I started the images just as normal as I had been, repeating a few things vilppu had said during his videos.  "Slow and methodical" "Think simple forms"  and wow...  It truly feels as though I have made a huge breakthrough with understanding forms.  I was able to see and read the figures in a way that I was never able to do before...  In a way that I never thought I would be able to read it.  I was able to break the figure down into forms for once!  Understandable forms!!  I couldn't and still cant believe what I was able to do.  It truly and honestly feels as though I had reached a level that was previously unobtainable.  A myth or a fiction that only others have reached where I'd look on in admiration.  I'm overwhelmingly ecstatic about the whole just... everything.  It really hit me right in the feels.  I cant recall a moment where I felt like this.  It's just... wow.  I am really looking forward to where things take me from here.  I just its, wow, words.

Enough talk.  Here's the sketches.

For these sketches I went back to http://artists.pixelovely.com because I know the figures have the tendency repeat the same images and thought it would be a nice place to compare.  I am very pleased with the results.  My understanding of flow and form is growing, and I love it!  The particular image on the bottom right is one that has shown up many times in my study.  Never before have I been able to look at it with as sharp of an eye as I am able to now.


ALSO 200 ITEMS!!

I've been keeping track of the images I have made and to my surprise I have reached 200 Items!  Gotta pat myself on the back, none of this would have existed without me pushing through the hard times and art blocks.  CHEERS TO MANY MORE!!

A group I follow on facebook just updated and I love the message so I'll share it with you guys

"At this very moment, you are holding unbound potential. You hold within your possession the most powerful learning and creative problem-solving system known to man, far superior to any supercomputer ever invented. It is your brain."

What a nice note to end this blog on.
Until next time.  MORE TRAINING!

Vilppu Chapter 2 (didn't mean to rhyme that time)

Vilppu Chapter 2!
Spherical Forms!!!

Click here to view the full image
 Holy crap, i will never think of figures the same way again.  This chapter put so much stuff in perspective for me.  I will definitely be returning to this chapter in the future, there's no way i absorbed all this in one go around.  Spherical Form is the next step from Chapter 1 (gesture)

"Always learning" is a thing I've been telling myself lately.  Always take time to learn something new.  So a new challenge I've taken up is completing at least one tutorial a day, or some other form of learning or extended studies.  Today's case was Vilppu Chapter 2.




Today's character, Jone El!

This little guy was a main character in a series I had called "The Untitled Series" it only made it a few episodes, but as of where things are currently, The Untitled Series is the longest running animation series I have ever worked on.  It sets the bar pretty low for the runner up, but it will be a nice goal to reach one day.

There were actually 2 more version of this character (3 in total).  One was a more realistic version of this guy (Named Dren), and the other was part of a far more serious story.  A thing I really like with stories is a stark contrasts between characters, situations, and worlds...  Which might actually be why mine were often so "large" and "convoluted".  Unfortunately this serious version of  Jone El never fully saw the light of day as he came about roughly the time I stopped drawing.  More about these when I talk about The Untitled Series.  (I know it's not a character but I think it merits it's own time in the blog sometime)