Hey hey!
There's a mixed bag of resources this week, however there's a slight lean towards perspective.
Perspective drawing from imagination is one thing I want to have complete command of; I've mentioned a couple of resources below that will hopefully help you follow me down the same path + some others I've found useful.
So let's not waste anymore time and get stuck into my resources, thoughts, 'aha moments' and announcements directly from my brain to yours from this past week.
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- Resources
Post -The skill gap
This is a nice little post on why we sometimes feel super frustrated or stuck while we’re learning new things, particularly subjective things like art.
I also like this graph as well. I recommend saving this one when you next feel annoyed at how you’re not improving as much as you want to.
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Video -Sculpting the Loomis head
For those of you that don’t know. The Loomis head is one of many simplified techniques to build the larger forms of the head. This video was cool to see it done in 3D with sculpting.
It might help you see it in a different way as it did with me.
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Live Stream - How to push the shape in character design
I’ve been on a real TBChoi kick recently.
And this live stream with TB is a great example, showing in real time, how she thinks about building up a character based on an initial simple shape.
The fascinating thing about this is how much the initial reference shape idea can change the personalities of the characters.
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Video - Get excited about learning perspective!
This was a really great conversation between Marshall Vandruff and Stan Prokopenko on their podcast ‘Draftsmen’ on how to study perspective.
The process of understanding perspective, at least for me, has been SUCH a freeing skill to have in my toolbox of art knowledge. And I’m consistently trying to get better at it.
It’s honestly one of the keystone fundamentals I recommend anyone to get to grips with ASAP because things like anatomy, figure drawing, environments and lighting rely on it.
Now; a lot of you might have a picture of learning perspective in your head of a bunch of grid lines, vanishing points, and angles.
While this isn’t too far from the truth of how perspective works, the idea is to understand that stuff to a point where you can start drawing, and estimating the perspective from imagination.
That’s the freeing part. Once you understand how to turn objects on the page, without needing vanishing points, that’s freedom!
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Video - Great lesson on rotating objects in perspective
This is a fantastic video on rotating objects in perspective by Modern Day James
I’m a big fan of Modern Day James, and his series on perspective and drawing things from imagination.
One of those people I keep coming back to time and time again.
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Facebook Post - Straddling the line between gesture and construction
This is a great little post by 'Character Design References' on how to have balance between structure and gesture.
The original images are by Griz and Norm; a husband and wife team who are currently working as feature animation artists and the Walt Disney Animation Studio.
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Updates
Secret Project
Completed my first draft of the first instalment of the secret project this week, contemplating running a round of pre orders when I get it to a certain point. Unsure...
Blog
The blog is coming along, it's still not quite there yet, my product/UX design mind has kicked in and I'm trying to make sure it's super usable before launching.
Perfectionism creeping in? Possibly... But I want to release something I'm proud of.
Stay tuned.
Writing about growth on social
I'm thinking about documenting the other side of the art I share like...
- The (soon to be) business stuff
- The habits
- The prep for each post
- My Journey so far on social media/how it started
- What I've learnt about what content works/what doesn't
- How I keep my mental health in check with the pressure of likes/follows etc
- What I've found that tends to 'work' and how I balance that with my own art goals
- Why I started posting in the first place
All just ideas at the moment, I guess I've got to get the damn blog up before I jump the gun on this though.
So much to do, and loving it!
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That's all from me. I hope you've had/are having a great weekend and are ready to hit the ground running for this coming week.
And as always... stay consistent, use reference, have fun with it and remember, it's only pixels baybee!
Cheers,
Ben
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