Tag: thoughts

update & some thoughts

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sort of near the finishing stretch of the last 20-25 hours of the olson course that I feel is pertinent to what I wanna do. I’ve been returning to the anatomy studies(and i needed to because wow the knee was foreign) as of late as I’ve been doing way too many perspective diagrams and wanted to do something a bit more satisfies me a bit more at the end of the night.

I’ve also been listening and watching a few of the Watts Atelier demos and streams on YouTube. The idea of putting as much thought in the construction layout as you do when defining and refining forms and shapes is something I’m probably gonna explore. My construction is pretty shitty. The idea of working things out and not having to constantly readjust angles and proportion as I usually do when drawing is enticing af.

I’m not sure if I need to or should mention, but all doodles are done without reference/from imagination, like these below:

By the end of September my goal is to have a basic understanding of perspective in theory, which i think was the biggest gap in my knowledge base. Then in October, start a more structured regimen of object/still life/landscapes/portrait/figure drawing.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before but me being ‘ready’ isn’t some vague goal, the goal of all this studying is to be able to create a commercial illustration(and possible concept/visdev) portfolio that is a tier above industry standard work in hopes of becoming a freelance artist. I think I’m a pretty good judge of where I am and what the industry standard level of work is. I’m far from it.

I don’t go to school, I have a 40 hour/week dayjob that has nothing to do with art, I’m not super disciplined(but much more than I was), I don’t have a mentor or art friends, I’m broke, the more I’ve studied this year, the more holes I’ve discovered in my ability, the farther away the goal gets, this has been the most productive year in my life and I’ve still wasted a frustratingly large amount of time but at the same time, a life where I’m able to draw to make a living instead of a shitty dayjob seems more and more achievable so I’ll stick with it 🙂

Pushing Past Roadblocks

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For pretty much the past 2 months I’ve been attempting to learn linear perspective. Somewhere in that journey I decided, I’m not going to to do anything else until I can draw cubes in perspective, completely freehand, no horizon line, no vanishing points. That was dumb, lol.

For the one or two people that follow this blog, you’ve probably noticed that I’m stubborn and get stuck on things pretty easily. Earlier this year it was anatomy, now it’s cubes. Why do I do this to myself? who knows/who cares. The very idea of it was stupid. Who am I to decide that I won’t continue to learn anything else until I learn this very specific skill that only a few artists alive, who have put in 1000x the hours that I have can just about do? I don’t make money off my art and I don’t even have a portfolio, I’m an idiot. I’ve got my whole life to continue to get better at freehand perspective and even the best of the best like Kim Jung Gi, only gets it about 70-80% right. So I’m off that and over the last week or so, have been trying to progress through the rest of my perspective learning through Joseph D’Amelio’s book and Framed Perspective, to decent results.

Since unfucking my brain, my work ethic is pretty much back to what it was pre-cubes, so that’s good. Here’s everything since my last post.

Stairs are a bitch.

Moment of Weakness & a Small Victory

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Yesterday started off like most days have this year. Woke up tired after around 5 hours of sleep the night prior, showered and arrived at work. Speaking of work, it almost feels shitty to say but the ongoing pandemic hasn’t affected my routine. My job has deemed themselves essential and while work has slowed down , as somebody that isn’t college educated or particularly skilled, I’m lucky to have a job at the moment. I hope I didn’t jinx myself. Anyways, I usually arrive home after work around 6 P.M. Like I said, standard work day.

During the week, I try to start my studies by 7:30 P.M the latest. Yesterday, while browsing internet forums and watching Twitch streams, my eye was on clock knowing it would soon be time to put on the hardhat and struggle with anatomy for the next 4 hours, as usual.

6:30 came and went, still on my ass, enjoying myself. Then 7:00 and 7:30 . Before I knew it, it was 8 P.M and I hadn’t even plugged in my Wacom tablet or opened Clip Studio :/. And as if I hadn’t built up some semblance of discipline this year, I started to make the same mental bargains in my head like I had been doing all those years prior.

“It’s okay, you can just study for 2 hours and study extra hard tomorrow!”

“You’ve been working hard, you can take a day off”

“It’s just one night”

I was so disappointed at how easily I was able to slip into this familiar, lazy mindset. It put my effort this year into perspective. I’ve been consistently studying every single day since late January of this year. what’s barely 3 months compared to decades of procrastination? Sigh.

When 8:30 P.M rolled around, I opened up the Bammes PDF and plugged in my Tablet’s USB cable. Loaded up a 10 hour “rain sound” stream on Spotify, closed Chrome and Discord and studied for 4 hours straight. Like the title said, small victory but I’m glad I didn’t give into the temptation of laziness. Funnily enough, the thought of writing this blog was the driving force lol.

Sidenote: I’m becoming a bit of a Mit Kahl stan. Reading about him on Disney Legend Andreas Deja’s blog constantly intimidates and inspires me to become a better draftsman.