365 Days Milestone.

It’s bittersweet to look back and see my year as clearly as I can. On one hand, it’s really nice to have a catalog of sketchbooks demonstrating a journey of understanding the human figure. I practically dedicated the year to anatomy and gesture drawing. Not much else. There was a lot of form and line study along the way, but every time I go through a sketchbook right now it’s all about the gesture and the human figure. So right away, I know I need to do something different. I believe I’m going to begin with making this year about environments and perspective as this is now my weakest area of skill and understanding. I’ll try to post each day, but I’ve learned it’s more important that I do art every single day even if I don’t post all of it.

I would love to hear your feedback. If you followed this blog this year, Thank you. Sincerely.

Even if you didn’t participate directly in discussion on my post, I cherished each of you who chose to follow my humble little blog. I’d love to hear from you. What did you think about how this year turned out?

Progress Update: November

Last Page of sketchbook. 11 minute pose study.

While I haven’t really been active on this blog, it’s not to say I haven’t been active with art. I’ve been maintaining my figure, gesture, and general life drawing studies. I’ve also been studying line quality and developing my ability to thumbnail ideas instead of spending massive amounts of time on one image only to realize it wasn’t the best idea.

The last month has been crazy. I wrapped 3 professional projects that will be turned into products and I’ve completed a 100 page sketchbook that I started in mid- September.

Quick stats on my sketchbook:

Size: 11 x 14
Started: 9/13/2014
Finished: 11/5/2014
Total figures in sketchbook: 1580
Total time spent drawing figures only: 30.47 hours

2.5 Hour study after Andrea Uderzo

I hope to be posting things here more regularly now as I am venturing out from the comfort of gesture drawing and starting to create my own poses and character ideas.

Your Turn: What have you been up to? Any exciting news or projects you’ve worked on? Share in the comments! 

Fast and Furious – Day 2

I wanted to see if my gesture drawing practice would come in handy to plan out a quick scene. This was fun, but I definitely need to keep practicing my anatomy. 

 

Lonely Forest – Day 1

 

Today is the first day of my second attempt to make 365 days of consecutive fantasy art related posts. Wish me luck. 

Well I failed. Sort of…

Level 2 Gesture Drawing Certificate

My goal was 365 consecutive days of art being dedicated to getting better as a Fantasy Artist. I was on a roll. Not only was I on a roll, but I lasted for 173 days. Including the 100 day anatomy challenge on conceptart.org and 2 levels of certificates of gesture drawing on quickposes.com and other private corporate projects, I definitely had a lot going for me.

I was kicking ASS! Man, I was pumped! I was creating art every day, I was inspiring others to make art every day, and I was advancing at a very noticeable pace. Then my mother took ill, she ended up in a Hospital and I dropped everything to go and be with her. I had my art supplies with me and I truly wanted to work on it while I was there, and actively sought opportunities, but it just wasn’t possible. Nine sleepless and highly emotional nights between the ICU and another ward sapped every ounce of energy and creativity I possibly had.

It was depressing and I’m depressed now because I got back from that trip ready to work, and eager to make art, but I just couldn’t. Between my level of exhaustion and the guilt that I felt for having let this goal slip, I just dropped everything and slept. I slept and slept and slept. Anyway, while this sounds dramatic and like it could be the end, but it’s not, 

I am planning on relaunching my 365 goal as of the first of August and intend to see it through. 

I might have failed my initial goal, but I succeeded at so many other things.

100 Day Anatomy Challenge Certificate

Level 1 Gesture Drawing Certificate

Your Turn: Have you ever worked so hard for something and were sure that you were going to make your goal only to come up short? Share your story in the comments. 

P.S. I’m Trying something new. The TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) version of this post appears in bold throughout the text. Share your thoughts on whether this made the post more accessible or more annoying.

 

The Strong Silent Type.

Hey everyone, just wanted to drop a note. First, let me tell you I am on day 148 / 365 in a row of doing art. I stopped blogging everything, because it was all just gesture studies and a lot of people seemed to be getting bored with those. On top of that, the rest of everyday has been devoted to two corporate projects that require art, illustration, and design work, so my days are completely packed with art and art related study every single day. So that’s great news; the sad part is that I cannot share any of it because of NDA. Once the NDA is lifted and the projects go public, I intend to show some of the process pieces as well as the final products themselves.

I know there were some folks that were worried since I hadn’t blogged that perhaps I’d failed my 365 challenge to myself, but rest assured, I am definitely on track! 

Also, there are only 5 days left in the 100 day anatomy challenge I signed up for on Conceptart.org and that is pretty friggin exciting to me to have gotten to this point. After I complete the challenge, my daily blog should be back up in full steam and you guys will be getting to see some new and exciting art from my crazy imagination and perhaps some of the projects I have (and will be) working on.

Your turn: No big philosophical art question or hypothetical art situation this time. Just want to hear back from you guys in the peanut gallery. Anything at all you’d like to share?

Art above is just a sampling of the many, many, figure and life drawings I’ve been doing lately. 😀

What Does the Fox Say?!

 Ink on Moleskine Sketchbook: Acryllic ink and pen nib

Spent half the day studying how to draw foxes for a commercial project I am working on. It was pretty fun since I never draw animals and through a series of form studies, I was able to draw the fox above. Below is a variant that I turned into my Facebook cover photo.

Also I’ve been drawing everyday as promised, but since most of it was anatomy studies and gesture drawings, I figured I’d hold off on posting until I had anything substantial to share. I also drew some gestures for today and in keeping with the challenge from myself and Cousin Keith, they are all female.

Put Some Hip Into it

Delayed Posting from 4/25/14

Today I studied the TFL (Tensor Fascia Lata) and other muscles of the hip region, I felt that it was one of the things that I was missing in understanding, the connection of the torso to the lower limbs. Then I went on and drew some more legs to fulfill my challenge requirement with Cousin Keith.

 

My Legs are not Sexy…

Yet.

These may look simply shaded but I struggled with each one trying to figure out what to show and what not to show, particularly when they were muscular. Continuing with day 3 of the all female challenge I figured one thing that I should know how to draw is a sexy pair of legs. Turns out, I need a lot more study time to get to that point. However, much like with anything else I’ve dove into and studied, I know I will progress and that I needn’t worry about how my legs currently look. In due time my friends, in due time.

 

Girls, Girls, Girls Pt 2.

Pencil: HB over Non-Photo Blue

Day 2 of the all female challenge between myself and Cousin Keith. Today I sat down and watched some of Sycra’s videos on Proportions of Females and some of his other videos in succession. I did a few sketches of proportions and his approach on laying out female bodies. Then went and did some warm ups and finally executed a unique character concept as seen above. It’s not finished and I’m not sure that I will finish it, but it was fun to work on and now I must be off the interwebs and go spend time with my beautiful wife.