James O
James O
Earth
Zach Pipher
Sketching is very scary to me and i dont know why. It shouldnt be that difficult but I get anxious whenever i do it.
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James O
Be easy on yourself. If it's difficult, accept that. No need to beat yourself up. It might be worth it to find a warm up to do before sketching that's easy to do, doesn't take much thinking and gets your arm moving like practicing your straight and curved lines on cheap paper.
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Martijn Punt
Here are my sketches for level 1, i really enjoyed the VR girl sketch (although proportions are stretched a bit vertically).
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James O
Lookin good. I think you nailed the arm.
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James O
Great assignment. It felt like I was a detective looking for clues . Focused on seeing how CSI lines describe the shapes that made up the drawings. Measurement was subordinated to decisive, smooth (work in progress) lines. Feedback is appreciated!
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@teolindroos
Day 8 or 9 or something. Yesterdays sketching, I've been going back to my roots with videogame sketching, but after long time I used the brush inkpen. Upper thumbnails were from Street Fighter Alpa movie, I loved that movie so much back in the day. As art it holds up really well today too. I feel like sticking one more day with videogame sketches! Maybe some lifesketching for warm up, or other way around! Have a great drawing day and good weekend to ya'll! ❄️❄️❄️
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James O
Ryu looks great! I've been wanting to draw some SF...
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@teolindroos
Good day! Here's my assigment for the level two entry. Warmups the level 1, then had my Mooses as reference, loose sketches, maybe got the assigment little wrong again, i noticed Stan was doing the original character with the references. But my main character was this dancing Moose. Not sure if it was supposed to stay this sketchy. Anyway, thanks for looking, good March and March of robots to you who participate in that! 🤖🤖🤖
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James O
That moose is the king of the dance. Nice job.
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Linda Alsworth-Elvey
I've learned today that if I use a color pencil that I cannot erase easily that I do better with being more free and relaxed, I know it is weird but it worked for me. I am excited to see where the is going to go from here.
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James O
Colored pencil also works wonderfully for the first rough sketch. I've seen specific blue pencils used for comic roughs because it can be erased easily in digital later in the process.
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Sarah NP
"Sketching is problem solving in real time. It's discovery and experimentation." Thank you, Stan, for that definition. That helps me from trying to be "perfect".
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James O
It's great that he included that. I had a teacher who would repeat over and over " make a mark to adjust a mark". Theres no perfect, just does the mark work or not for the stage of the drawing you're at.
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James O
My cat wondering who is making all the noise. Roughed it out, erased it so it was very light and worked on connecting rough lines with tapered strokes.
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@pedrobranco
I love doing stuff like this, the sketchy feeling brings a lot of character to the drawing. I've been meaning to write this for a bit, but never really know how to put it. I don't mean to be rude by what I'm about to write and obviously, no one owes me anything but I still feel like I need to put this forward. I put a lot of time into art. I got into it for the first time in my life during the pandemic and I was set. I want to create comics and illustrations, they've been a big part of my life. I am in the very fortunate position of being able to afford taking some time off, won't bore you with the details. The crux is that after a few years I came back to my parents, and with their blessing I've taken the last 2 years to pursue art. Due to local policy circumstances I can't enroll into an art program, I am however enrolled into loose art courses, this semester: naked model drawing 2h, Scribbling 3h, 3d software 2h and general art 2h per week. My time in them while packed is very short and the teachers don't go too into depth. Talking to them hasn't really helped much. The rest of my time I dedicate to becoming better at art. After one year, I won't say I wasted my time, my general knowledge of how things should look, line quality and 3d notions have improved significantly, but I'm nowhere near where I though I'd be. I still struggle with quite a few things I thought would I'd be better by now, in particular, I can't seem to draw any details on anything. And lately, it's becoming harder and harder to just do anything art related. I do my drills and that's that I can't muster myself. I actually drew this horse the day before yesterday and a friend of mine that used to do art told me I've been "doing things like these for a while" and "I'm in my comfort zone". I was quite proud of my work and that pretty much deflated me. As someone with so much free time I'd like to fill my day with more meaningful practice, I've been going on a bit of a round trip of invest heavily in figure and gesture > I don't have the fundamentals down > do a lot of geometry > do 1-2-3 point perspective> practice strokes> feeling confident go back to anatomy> do some copies> do some figure> still doesn't look good> go back to fundamentals> ad nauseum at this point. I feel a bit lost to put it mildly. Apart from this course I dip into the figure drawing and I've also started poking at Steven Zapata's shading course. I'm also following Marc Brunet's 1 year plan he made on his Youtube Channel. I've no doubt that this year I'll reach some sort of expertise in the things that I want to do just by virtue of following these, but I'm treating this as my job and some days I just can't do more than the absolute bare minimum. Today was one of those days, and last week I had a few as well. I feel somewhat aimless. Lastly, this is the last year I'll be as free as I am at the moment. Next year I need to get back to work and my free time will obviously dip. I really want to pour it as much as possible in the time that I have at the moment. I'm not expecting to become a professional just like this, that would be spitting on other's hard work. But I'd like to be in a position where I can lift off from the ground confidently. If anyone can help me in maybe getting things in better order? I feel like I'm running in place. I know I am making progress, but for the free time that I have I feel like I'm wasting most of it. And I'll never have a better opportunity to really learn Art as well as now. I'm not asking the course to be sped up, far be it from me to demand anything. But I really don't know what to ask, maybe some insight? I'll probably be told that I'm burning out on Art but honestly, I feel closer to burning out on always doing the same thing, never really doing what I'd like to be doing, and if I ever dare do what I want it just looks horrible, forcing me to go back to the things I'm doing now.
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James O
My heart goes out to you Pedro. I was in a similar situation to you. I had free time to dedicate to art after I graduated and I poured it on. Hours of training and drawing, learning photoshop and painting. I got much much better. I also burned out pretty hard and ended up hating everything i made for a couple years. To put it simply, you have a high possibility of burnout if you keep on grinding without a payoff. If you arent clear about what you want to make and spending times doing the things you want to do, you may end up hating sitting down to draw. Get real clear on the stuff that excites you, that you love making. Write it all down. Comics and illustrations right? Now make one. If you get the feeling "I'm not good enough/I'm not ready" it's a lie. It's a straight up lie. You have to make these things to understand what you like and what you dont like. What skills are strong or weak can only be judged in relationship to what you make. It can feel like you're spinning your wheels going nowhere. Give yourself credit that you're working and thinking about this.
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@vivace
I have to sound like a big ol' dummy here, but the way to go about this would be something like ghosting the stroke in and just kinda gliding on the page for a moment before lifting off right? With some follow through? I just wanna make sure I have the idea right for what my hand is doing. haha
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James O
Seems like you got it. If you're still confused draw a few lines for us to see. Imagine an airplane touching down gently, going down the run way and pulling off and flying away in one movement. That's what your pencils doing.
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@william2
After the critique video, I decided to go back and try drawing the snail using csi lines. I think it went ok? I still find it hard to draw straight lines though.
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James O
I think proko is going to release a video on warmups soon that will help you with your straights. Good effort on trying to understand the snail.
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@polinaagame
Hello:) Here are my level 2 drawings, I need to practice more on paper, I don't feel comfortable without 'undo' button 😁
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James O
The real undo button for paper is another sheet of paper😁
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onigi *pronunce [on-ie-gee]*
My snail assignment before watching the demos🐌 I always like to hear your feedback and critiques!
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James O
Snail looks good. You were able to show the form well too.
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Patrik
again a bit later, finally done the booths, also finally passed 14 day challenge, yay! but the problem I seem to have is forgetting to think about CSI properly, cause I am focusing on drawing what I see and so I hit the right spots and also trying to not have it in too many tiny fuzzy strokes.. and the lines are.. not sure this can be called CSI? but hoepfully, cause some of them are curvy, some bendy.. and not much place for too many straights. I feel like I'm doing it horribly wrong :( (havent seen the video yet)
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James O
It doesn't look wrong! If you're having a hard time thinking in CSI one thing that's helped me is to put "placeholder lines". A mark that can be replaced with a CSI after you get the idea of shape/measurement. As long as you draw lightly the place holder will easily erase.
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James O
Looking for feedback and critique. Here's my camel and skelly. I may have simplified too much? Enjoyed the assignments and I'm looking forward to the next one.
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James O
Chugging along here. Simplified skelly is done. Critique wanted.
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Lynn Fang
Portrait 2 after watch the demo.
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James O
Well done! Your shapes are built really nicely.
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@chickenbutter79
Here are my drawings for the assignment any critique is appreciated. Thanks! I had to attend this multiple times. This was hard I’m not used to drawing with my shoulder. I tried to focus on making sure the lines were fluid. Some of the lines look scratchy but I went over them a few times. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to map out the planes or just focus on drawing the shapes and fluid lines. I’ll probably attempt this again.
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James O
Good effort! If mapping out the planes helps define the form you are creating, I'd say do it.
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@sheabutter
And here are my boots! Okay, so I had way more fun with these than with the snail. Like, SO much fun! So many whooshy shapes!!! And also, I learned from my frustrations with the snail to start bigger. I included my initial sketch to show what I mean. Admittedly this drawing is messy, and I overworked the laces on the left (our left) boot. But honestly, I had such a fun time finding all the little rhythms that it doesn’t bother me. That being said, I do see areas where my line work needs improving. I definitely got too dark too fast, and I can see hesitation in the line work of the smaller detail areas. What do you guys think?
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James O
Boots came out great. I can tell you were thinking in terms of CSI. I think the choices you made with line width also helped.
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James O
What a cool assignment! I've never tried to limit myself to CSI before and it really helped make the shapes. Snail had some really cool forms to problem solve. Had a great time when I came up with a solution to the shell. First attempt - Tried using the flat of my pencil to make different types of mark. Started going towards value instead of line. I like the marks so maybe I'll explore that more. Second attempt- There are some students who really understand form. After looking at their submissions I thought about how to show the structure better and I think I came up with solid solutions.
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