We are almost on YEAR 3

 We are approaching YEAR 3 and steadfast. Looking back at the older posts I have mixed feelings about how fast I've been progressing, but progress nonetheless, I guess I'm just a slow learner.

Merry Christmas 2023

 

 

I don't know why but making foreheads bigger makes the anime girls more appealing, regardless of age. Maybe it's me, maybe I'm the problem. But what I do know is that I can't imagine myself not drawing them this way from here on out.

My parents got me a MIDI piano for Christmas, so I've been practicing my piano fingering and key recognition. The first song I want to play is Tommib by Squarepusher, there's a piano rendition on youtube which is my favorite so I'm doing that one. They also gave the sheet music and demonstration so I count myself really lucky. Merry Christmas everyone.

My lumbar has had enough

Quick 10 minute sketch of a warframe looking thingy, I woke up not too long ago so this is all I got for today.

Pretty sure I have a herniated disc in my lower spine though, doing a good amount of stretching and spine decompression stuff for it. Sitting makes the pain worse though, so I have to get up often from my chair like every 10 minutes or so to take pressure off it. At first I had sciatic nerve pain down my right leg and kind of lost feeling in my foot and knee. The numbness and nerve pain is mostly gone, now it's just the pain above my sacrum. It's getting better, but it seems like it'll stay for another week or so.

Lethal Company hurts

 On an unrelated note, tried getting into C++ today. Got visual studio up and running and was messing around with packages and whatever. Brings me back to high school Java programming.

I found out what lethal company was

 Ok, looking back at yesterday's post the quality was a little low, here's something else that's better imo. This was based off someone but I can't remember who. Think I'm getting the hang of different anime faces, still trying to work from solely off of appeal.

What is Lethal Company

 I've been playing Lethal Company with my friends for a few hours, it's pretty good. Here's something soulless to say I hit the minimum. Gotta do long posts more, but yesterday's kinda took it out of me.

Better is subjective

 Something I thought about while drawing this one, what is actually "better"? It's not "if it's in the right perspective", unless your goal was to get the best perspective possible, and so on and so forth. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I realize I've been going about it the wrong way. I always thought art with strong fundamentals was better, because for a long time, my goal as an artist was to learn realism/fundamentals as best as possible because I heard that was the best way to learn. Become super strong in the fundamentals, then just adjust to any style you want after that. 

 But that suggests fundamentals are inherently better than anything someone actually prefers, or at least it's the norm and what people like is a deviation from it, but I don't think that's true either. What people have called the fundamentals are just rationalizations of what everyone thinks make's things appealing or work, but the problem is that that all stems from personal appeal as well, so it is all subjective.

If someone likes art with depth and someone who like's art that's flat, no one is in the right or wrong, it's just preference, and I think that extends to all aspects as well. The problem is that modern artists, particularly western ones, have built a narrative that goes something like "if you want to get better at art, study the fundamentals". It has to be the most common piece of advice I heard from artists while growing up on the internet, and now I'm almost certain it's not good advice.

The proper advice, I think, one should give is to learn what you want to learn. If your favorite art prefers flatness over depth, and shines with over-saturated colors, then go learn that. Make your own observations of what YOU like because no one is going to make them for you. It doesn't matter if that person's drawing is more realistic or impressive, does it make you happy? Do you get as much enjoyment out of that realistic portrait, or the art from the child's book you can't forget? And who cares what people think of your tastes, you weren't drawing for them anyway.

Worst case scenario, you'll end up someone like me who's visual tastes are warped because you let someone else decide them for you rather than having the confidence to do like what you wanted to like. If I had to give advice to my younger self, it's stay away from the fundamentals. Just draw what you think you like, then work from there. Find how other people's observations can help you, whether they count as "fundamentals" or not. Don't spend years studying aspects of art you're not interested in or at the time.

After thinking to myself, I think I'm the opposite, I'm always trying to work from what people said was ideal, then towards what I like. I want to get to a point where I don't even think about the fundamentals, I just draw the shapes and lines I want that I find pleasing from raw emotion and appeal, with no logical analysis. I've been drawing seriously for 9 years, I expect it will take some time to deprogram myself, so I'm guessing it will take another 9 years.

Why do they call them bangs

 

 

I'm still pretty bad at drawing hair but we're getting there. Still drawing skeleton's and stuff and looking at making polished work, not much to say otherwise.

Spookyness overload

 

Still had some more skeletons to draw even after Halloween, mainly did this to see how the fat pads between the rib cage and pelvis connected. Used a 3d model from sketchfab as reference, interestingly enough I didn't think the ACIS turned in on itself so much that it got lost in perspective. That leaves the left side of the pelvis really flat against the silhouette of the torso, always learning new things at least.

Think before you draw, unlike me.

 Maybe I should try polishing the hair, the face was surprisingly quick to draw at least. Still trying out different eye styles and seeing what kind of effect they give. To me the character is not looking back at the camera but kind of past it, I wonder how other people would see it. I've been playing Skyrim recently, might do some Skyrim art in the future, we'll have to see.

Oh boy

 

 

Oh yes, it is DECEMBER, that time of year again. I will try to improve at anime hair and hair in general this month, I was going to post something here but it didn't look that good, here's something else in the meantime.