Grieffon in the post "My thoughts on inspiration and motivation, and how to deal with their absence"
2015-09-15 03:51
This is a problem that has been plaguing me for the past 3 years. I keep trying to find the answer to "how can I do this" before doing the work, not realizing that it's an answer that can only be reached through a lot of trials and errors. Your course has provided a relief of that, since you actually answered that "how", but I'm still stuck with my problem. I'm still drawing a lot less than I would like to, because of that fear of "I don't know how to do this; the result will suck". I'm going to keep trying to shut that criticizing voice in my head though.
A quote I like relating to the subject:
I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at 9AM sharp. - William Somerset Maugham
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-08 17:33
At this stage, would it already be considered an "interesting shape", or is it just a balance of value?
There's also another part that puzzles me:
Your biggest priority is hammering down shapes that look interesting together. At its core, composition is all about graphic design. Once you've nailed that down, you have to start explaining. You take a shape and say, "well this looks like a person" or "this looks like a big rock".
When I watch your thumbnail videos, and also of other people, it seems to be the other way around: what the shape is supposed to be is already decided (rock, person), but the shape will still be experimented with to make for an interesting human shape or interesting rock shape. For example, for the second thumbnail, the moment you lay down the Y shape, hadn't it already been decided to be support for a tent? Same for the human figure after that. And wouldn't that way make more sense? I feel like if I just start laying down random shapes, a round blob here and straight bar there, it will just become an incomprehensible scribble.
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 21:57
Also, there's something that I have heard a lot about, including here, but still don't quite understand: what kind of qualities would a shape need to have for it to be an "interesting shape"?
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 14: Composition"
2015-09-07 21:44
There are some errors in the lesson:
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"Where do I put my Focal Points" section: second paragraph of rule of third, there's "You can look at figure 4.3". The correct number should be 5.3
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Leading the eye: the last two paragraphs is from some human anatomy lesson.
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"
2015-09-01 07:19
I added 1 extra page of lay-in and the rest of the assignment.
I don't know if these are up to the standard, but I have to say, drawing the emperor scorpion and the Hercules beetle felt awesome. Also, I'm glad I asked you about the lotus seed pod, the disappearing line is really handy in this exercise.
With that said, I have a few problems throughout the exercise
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The biggest problem: I feel like I'm fighting against the pen. I can't quite control the ink flow of the pens I use yet, so the micron pen's is a bit too little, while the steadtler liner's is a tad too much.
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Getting the correct proportion is hard sometimes (see tarantula's wrong sketch lines). Insect/arachnid is somewhat forgiving of proportion, but I can see myself getting into a lot of trouble with the next lesson.
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One particular problem: the splitting horn tip of the Hercules beetle is tricky for me to detail. Could you give me some tips for it?
Also, can you add lesson 14 and 15 to the subreddit description on the right?
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"
2015-08-25 02:21
I finished the 2 pages of block-in (the paste-in beetle was due to me accidentally skipping page), but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Things don't look very clean, and I have trouble with the legs on the further side of the insect, especially with shadow placement. There's wing problem too, but that's just me not planning it out carefully enough. Normally I would finish the whole thing before asking for feedback, but I'm occupied with other stuff for the next few days, so would you mind giving me a few pointers in the mean time?
Here's the references I used.
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-16 23:44
Thank you for your feedback! And wow, yours is really on a different dimension of skill. Just curious, how long did you spend on that seed pod? I don't mean to compare myself to a professional, but I would like to know what can be achieved, just for a bit of motivation to reach higher skill levels.
On an unrelated note, do you know any online course that is structured similar to yours (with lessons and exercises from simple to complex), but for painting? I would like something that focuses on the fundamentals, and not the techniques exclusive to different media. Or if you plan to make one in the future, that would be great to.
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"
2015-08-16 09:04
Despite having done some drawing and painting before, this is the first time I feel like I have actually "learned" something. After finishing the exercise, I was able to draw them from just memory, so that was quite satisfying.
Regardless, I would like your advice on some specific issues.
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The lotus seed pod. There's a bump surrounding every seed holes, and I'm not sure how to represent that while keeping things simple.
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The willow tree. That one was a failure. I think I could understand the form of the foliage (cylinder with half sphere on top), but I wasn't able to take it further successfully.
Grieffon in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 2)"
2015-07-20 23:39
Well, this is embarrassing. I started 3 months ago, and only mustered enough discipline to finish this in the last week. Still, better late than never, right?
I have a question about the upcoming lessons: How do I analyze the real world details, and translate it into details in a drawing? What questions should I ask myself in order to understand and interpret details?
Grieffon in the post "Announcement: What would you want out of a dedicated ArtFundamentals website?"
2015-04-10 20:00
Do you think you can have a lesson zero, where you don't really teach anything, but just ask people draw one item from each lesson in dynamic sketching? 1 plant, 1 insect, etc. And then at the end of each lesson, they can see how they have improved. It will be a good motivator.
Grieffon in the post "Video: Not the usual fundamentals-fare, but here's a digital painting process video"
2015-04-03 17:52
Speaking of which, could you recommend a few digital painting courses with good outline? I mean something like drawabox, with structured lessons, but for digital painting instead. I probably won't actually attend the course since they are often expensive and demand more time than I can spare for a hobby, but it would still be great to have a roadmap made by a professional to ensure a good foundation.
Grieffon in the post "Video: Not the usual fundamentals-fare, but here's a digital painting process video"
2015-04-02 18:20
I understood that reference.
Woah, it's quite impressive that you do it using mostly just a chalk brush, and I assume very few layers. I prefer the handpainted look than the texture brush and photo bashing look of digital art, and I also think layers are kind of distracting, but working that way sounds a bit scary. Should I just paint with one brush and one layer until I become "good" (as in not terrible)?
Grieffon in the post "Video: Regarding Form Intersections"
2015-04-01 02:20
:|
Can you also add a note telling people to just google things like "cube intersect sphere" or "cylinder intersect sphere"? Having the 3d models to observe may help a bit in understanding.
Grieffon in the post "Video: Regarding Form Intersections"
2015-04-01 02:01
You may hate me for this, but I need to point out something that might be incorrect in the video, when you do the sphere-cylinder intersection at 17:22. This is a side view of the cylinder and sphere intersection. When you only follow the curvature of the cylinder, wouldn't that be the red line in the side view? If it's just something with flat surface, like a box or pyramid, it's definitely just the curvature of the cylinder; but when it's 2 curved surfaces interacting with each other, I think it has to follow the curvatures of both. To draw that accurately would require one to channel some Scott Robertson, but that became more like technical drawing than dynamic sketching. Fortunately, I found a simpler way to estimate it:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Is-spherecyl5.png/200px-Is-spherecyl5.png
It actually looks like a diagonal slice of the cylinder, which curved into the curvature of the sphere, rather than a sharp turn like how you did in the video.
If the sphere wraps around the cylinder, it will look like a diagonal slice of the cylinder, without the transition to the sphere's curvature:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Is-spherecyl4.png/200px-Is-spherecyl4.png
If I'm wrong, I apologize, but please have a look.
Grieffon in the post "Announcement: YouTube Videos"
2015-03-25 07:11
I have something I would love to have explained, and it does relate a bit to the lessons, but goes beyond that. I want to know the thoughts behind doing a study. Not the process; there's already thousands of tutorials out there about the process of drawing/painting what I see. What I have not seen much is how to make what I copy become mine. I want to know what goes through the mind of artists when they try to study something. Would you mind giving some insight? A text answer would be sufficient and much appreciated.
Grieffon in the post "How to Approach Drawing Texture"
2016-02-16 23:24
This is quite a creative way to handle texture. I hope my workload can lighten a bit next month so I can get back here to try this and continue the lessons after... 6 months? Gah.
For now, there's something I'm curious about this: How do you handle texture when it comes with local color, especially for extreme cases like an eagle (same feather texture, huge color contrast, with one being very dark)?
As a side note, what do you suggest doing for someone who took quite a long break from these lessons to get back into them? I last finished lesson 4, and I can still draw straight lines, circles, ellipses, etc quite well.