Sketchbook: Valtyr
polycounter lvl 11
So I've recently been feeling that my lack of drawing skills is limiting my abilities as a modeler and game designer. It's really frustrating not being able to conceptualize my designs, and have to depend on another artist to try and illustrate my vision. Or give me addition views of something because my perspective is to weak to realize the form.
But every time I've tried to hunker down and strengthen my foundation. I have a hard time working past the "I suck" and seem to stream off into some other task.
I'm fed up with sucking. So I'm going to force myself to sit down every day and do at least 1 drawing focusing on improving my foundation skills and one on designs for a project of mine to give myself some incentive to keep going. The goal is to post them up here every day.
I know there are some really skilled artists on Polycount, So if you guys could give me some feedback and recommendations for my exercises I'd extremely appreciate the help improving!
So here is what I've done today!
. . .
But every time I've tried to hunker down and strengthen my foundation. I have a hard time working past the "I suck" and seem to stream off into some other task.
I'm fed up with sucking. So I'm going to force myself to sit down every day and do at least 1 drawing focusing on improving my foundation skills and one on designs for a project of mine to give myself some incentive to keep going. The goal is to post them up here every day.
I know there are some really skilled artists on Polycount, So if you guys could give me some feedback and recommendations for my exercises I'd extremely appreciate the help improving!
So here is what I've done today!
. . .
Replies
Today's art exercises were:
Proportion and color practice from a photo reference
Color mixing
And a design doodle for an architecture theme.
Found this image while I was looking for some architecture reference. Thought it had an interesting feel so I used it for today's practice.
Found this cool pallet mixing exercise. Not sure if it is actually helping me ID difference in colors but its kinda fun. So think I'll keep doing them. Though I need to make a larger sheet. This one was a little limited.
Was thinking about an architectural theme for faction in a game I'm designing. Had a sweet visual pop into my head and wanted to attempt capture some small part of the scene I was seeing.
The day is still pretty young 11:16am. But I didn't want to put this off and risk it staying in the "mental goals never to be realized stage." At worst I'll post up some more work at the end of the day. =D
Day 01 complete! .* <(''<) (^''^) (>'')> *.
http://ctrlpaint.com/
They have a lot of good useful videos. Some are free.
A tip for your proportion and color. Squint and look at both images together. You will notice that the overall color is darker in the original image. Also, you will see there is more saturation in the sky, shirt, pants. It a good exercise and will help a lot. I need to do these exercises more often.
@ Fenn That is a good point hah, now that I think back I think I stopped squinting after a few shots at the color. I'll try and remember to do that tomorrow. I can see it in today's as well. I tend to make the value higher than it is. Thanks for the tip. =D
Day two!
Alright! I'm going to count that as making it for day two!
Been changing my sleeping schedule to be awake when normal people are, but I passed out at around 6pm. woke up at 11:06 and was like "SHIT!... if I hurry I can finish a photo ref!!!"
So I flew through my photos I had collected for today and pick one that was as close to 1-point perspective as I had. Then proceeded to do that and add in a little color. Very rushed. was noticed that I was running out of space to properly form things. it was very scrunched
Now that I'm done I'm looking at it and notice that a lot of the proportions are off inside and between objects. As well as being slightly off from the composition. Oh well try and keep those connections in mind tomorrow.
oh! and Photoshop was chugging for some reason...? I also lost the brush size visualizer for a bit, but then it poped back. is that tied to a hot key?
Anyway I'll call today a success more or less. Like a last minute test turn in.
Day two Complete!!
I'm still exhausted so I'm going back to bed. x.x
Good night you all!
Hey yall,
So I fumbled day 03 but that's ok. I had settled on doing some figure drawing. But when I sat down to do it. I was having a high amount of resistance to starting. On top of being exhausted after being up for 19 hours. it wasn't a good mix. But I'll keep worken away at improving. All I can do right?
So since I had so much resistance yesterday to figure drawing I thought I'd give it another go today. As I was getting ready, I ran across something that I thought would fit well with my 30 days of art goal. An article on performance training at Link. I liked what it had to say so thought I'd add it onto what I'm doing since it seemed synergistic.
So I gave some thought to what I should focus on and I think that a better grasp for proportions will give me a much easier time with conceptualizing my ideas. So here is my focus statement.
Whether that is an achievable goal I have no idea, But I'm bound to learn something right?
Alright SO! Here was my proportion practice for this morning. I did 9, 5 minute figure drawings. I started out just trying to see and identify the volume/size of things and their angles in relation to one another. After a few I turned on transfer and was trying to remember to use one confident line with a thick to thin. But it was kind of a secondary goal so I was flipping back and forth a lot. I was starting to feel a little confidence when I was doing #6, but after I looked at it and was kidna happy it seemed to start going down hill after there. =/
Now that I look at it probably should have given them a little more viewing room on the page. But wasn't sure how big they would be while I was drawing.
If I have the time and energy I'll do some more proportion practice maybe architectural or mechanical stuff since I've done some organic today.
Day 04, 1/2 complete! lol Still need to do a page of development stuffs for my project.
As always critiques and advice are welcome! =D That's it for now, thanks for reading!
the days you don't feel like drawing, put on music and just make marks and random doodles on the page. it doesn't have to be about anything. it's just to build discipline that you set time to draw everyday.
Here is some development stuff on the project to finish off the day. A modular kit for a high rise. Haha not 2d but its what I got.
UDK
Good night yall!
I think they definitely have merit. I'll give them a go for tomorrow, two hours would be a long time to doodle though. I'll give it a shot, for as long as I can anyway. Got a lot of work to do too. =P
Day 06
Attempted to copy a carnage cover. Kinda a mix mesh of me trying different stuff. Started with measuring the distance from the edges and angles with my pen. Then did a blob of the rough masses in red. Then did a line sketch of were it looked like the skeleton was. Wasn't really to worried about details. Just trying to get proportions.
Wasn't really feeling it, but was still kinda entertaining, not very accurate though =P Its a lot easier to see the mistakes when they are directly side by side and not on separate screens.
Anyway been really busy so that's Day 06! I'll post day 5 when I find the pictures. I went on an image reorganization rampage and lost track of where I put them. Best reorganization ever!