We'll call it day 5 and 1/2...

 I did some color theory studying for a good portion of today, and the rest of it was drawing. So we will call it a half day on that... so i'll make up for it tomorrow by going extra hard on the drawing skills, we'll see if it finally payed off!

the power of the g-pen... i can see it

 Found out there is a g-pen brush included with Clip Studio that I can use, it has a textured and non-textured version, and I prefer using the non textured. Line art became so much easier with it, do note however that the face above is not made with a g-pen lol, that was me using the default sketch brush. Just trying out some things, and still drawing to focus and concentrate on the act of drawing itself.

New treasure unlocked

 Just finished Angel Beats! last night, it's now my second favorite anime of all time. Beautiful story with a beautiful soundtrack to go along with it, 10/10 on all fronts. I found out that the creator is actually the composer for a lot of the music, including the amazing opening track.  I've never told anyone this before but, I would like to compose similar music someday, and I've felt that way for a long time. I don't know if I have talent, but I'm willing to put in a lot of work if it means making something that much better. Of course, I would have to put in the mileage for it, and I'm worried that I'm running out of time to dive in to music before age gets to me. I need to round up some cash and buy a MIDI piano, and get to work on that. But until then, it's art and story for me. Well, maybe just art, I haven't really done anything story related, but that's up next.

It's hampton time again

 

Reviewing Michael Hampton's figure drawing course again, trying to keep in mind all the principles in mind I set out for my week of drawing. Speaking of which, in yesterday's post I said I would talk about my plan to improve my drawing skills. It's nothing fancy, basically I listed 5 areas where I think I was particularly bad in and try to approach my drawing with them in mind.

These were the 5 I listed:

1.) Patience, no rushing - calm
2.) Finished Work, take to completion
3.) Visualization, see - then draw
4.) Clear shapes, shape design/language
5.) Line economy, efficient marks

I think I'm particularly weak in these areas, so I'm trying to shift my process to a much more deliberate and clean one rather than fast and sketchy. Also, they're kinda in order, but progress in any is welcome so I have no particular focus between them, just trying to learn to juggle them. Also, this is day 3 of that week long improvement plan, I'll let you know by day 7 if it worked or not.

Full speed ahead

 Welp, the post days I missed ended up the days I drew the most on, how ironic. The past few days I've been drawing roughly ~7 hrs in an effort to improve my drawing skills within 1 week, and this is day 2 on that. I'll share more on the specifics on what I'm improving on tomorrow, but I need some sleep now.

Doing it wrong, all these years.

 

 

 

After some analyzing I figured out why my faces look so terrible for 7+ years. Basically, I've been putting the corners of the nose on the same axis as the front of the forehead. It does NOT work like that with real life faces, instead, where the septum of the nose meets your face (your anterior nasal spine to be specific) is supposed to be on the same vertical plane as your eyebrow ridge. Did an illustration to show, and how doing my bad habit makes the bottom half of your face look terrible. This messes up with the lower half of the face AND the far half of it, since the nose covers up more space, I did the 3rd image because I had to make the eye closer and bigger because it was closer to the viewer. Basically, just been doing faces wrong for 7+ years, no big deal.

Form people

 Doing some more figure drawing practice, I think gesture comes way more naturally to me now. Won't try and get too cocky about it, sometimes you're just having a good day with something. That's it for today, did about 6 of these and they took like 20 minutes each, had to do a process step by step ya know.

See I have proof

 This is a re-draw of the face I drew on the post from April 16th. Look's much better no questions asked, and in a short span of time as well. Still can't do hair though, will have to work on that™.

Finally figured it out

 I finally learned how to draw anime eyes, ignore the flashy eyelashes, that's not what I'm referring to. I was over-complicating things with the angles and perspective when in reality it was much simpler to do. Not saying that I'm good at them now, just doing way better than before, still suck at hair and mouths though. Also I sketched different eye styles in different positions several ways and they still looked decent so that's why I think I understand them now.

Despite what it may seem

 

I know that this is another filler sketch... but hear me out, I actually did quite a bit of studying today. Specifically on composition and trying some things out with it, analyzing some pro artwork's lines and contrast, trying to piece together what makes their stuff work. Also did some figure drawing today, but none of that is worth showing. You will see the results of this studying very soon.

At least I know, this is definitely not composing.

 Just getting the post in, I got 3-4 hours of studying but it was mostly review and starting a new topic, I'll be posting about it tomorrow.

Is this composing, cause I have no clue.

The assignment was to setup a 3 value system, then manipulate the values to add contrast to areas of intended focus for the viewer. So, which one looks better to you, the top or the bottom? I'll explain what they are in tomorrow's post.

Well we did at least try.

 

Actually had some things to take care of today, that on top of sleeping late, didn't feel like studying all that hard. But I wanted to do something, tried drawing some anime faces but man I kinda suck at them. We'll call today a rest day and leave it at that, gonna get some sleep for tomorrow so I can study hard.

Gotta focus ya know

 

Did some decent studying today, think I will go harder on it tomorrow. It's been composition mostly but I'm not gonna lie it's getting pretty daunting. So much stuff to keep track of for me personally, I think that will get better though if I compose more often.

Setting the mood

 Assignment was to take one of the references and make 9 different value plans and maintaining a focal point. Took me a couple hours but I see what the lesson is about, I knew what they effect of these were with words but painting them and seeing the change for yourself really makes a difference. That might be that mileage thing people were talking about.

I also did some figure drawing, and this session I learned a lot about gesture. Nothing new, I just learned I could apply the same stretch/compress principle to the figure as a whole (ribcage, leg, etc). Kinda hard to explain, but I tested it out and it does help. These drawings don't really reflect my progress though, as I learned it after reviewing my work. Each gesture had a 2 minute time limit, and I did 20 of them total, here's half of them.

composing ah yes

Just some more composition studying, I'm also experimenting with the things I'm learning and that's going good too, small steps it is. 

I may have passed out again

 Passed out, was too tired and fell asleep with the lights on in my room, that guarantee's me waking up in 2 hours and not go back to sleep for another 4. 

Anyways, this is a composition study of Norman Rockwell's Spelling Bee painting. The idea is to decide whether a shape needs to be portrayed by it's Notan or Chiaroscuro and render whichever has the dominant contrast (or both). For instance, the kid in the middle has his shadow and light shapes on his sweater rendered, whether as the other two characters have their local color rendered instead. The girl on the right actually has a decent amount of shadow and light shapes showing on her shirt, but her shirt against the grey backdrop overpowers that contrast.

I have to do some more of these, but I should probably try and make my own compositions using mostly these ideas, that would probably be a good idea.

"design matrix"

 I did this for the daily, I did work on composition today and figure drawing, but this looked more interesting to post. Hopefully I make something cool related to my studies for the post tomorrow, gonna try and get my sleep for it.

Blank face

 

Didn't do a ton of studying today, will be working on composition and figure drawing tomorrow. Got to get to bed to catch up on sleep.

Gotta stop passing out

 I don't remember how I fell asleep last night, didn't even get ready for bed. Didn't brush my teeth or change my clothes, just me laying at a 70 degree angle off where I should have been. Ended up getting only 5 hours of sleep in, but with the power of coffee I stayed up until now.

how 2 draw animay plz

 Probably the lowest resolution image I've uploaded yet, trying to find an anime style I like. I also did some figure drawing review today, specifically with gesture. I will try to make 100 gesture drawings over the next 7 days.

Not my most productive day

Didn't do too much today, did some figure drawing and some 4fun sketching here and there. I want to go all out on facial expressions/styles tomorrow. On the bright side, I'm starting to get back in the groove of working out, hopefully I can eat well along with it.

It's a skinball

Well, it's kinda a skin ball, I'm getting something wrong with the color saturations again... Gonna use reference next time to take it to the next level. Ignore the cast shadow, I really didn't care about it at the time.

Creepy face, but skin rendering got alot better.

 I just got a random sketch I did around a month ago and redid the color/rendering, and it's safe to say I improved in rendering for sure. Or at least a little, trust me this looks creepy but it looked a lot worse before I redid it. I blurred it because the edges were awful and the sketch wasn't the best either, so I just wanted to show off my rendering and not the bad drawing. I think the weird part is her mouth, I previously drew it in a way that was not intended to show her lips, but when you paint the rest of the face it makes the viewer think she has no lips at all. At least the colors look better than before.