Day 34

Aaaaand.... Done! I reached a point where I am satisfied with the piece. It's miles better than my first illustration and I am happy with the improvement. I'll either update this post with my full reflections today or in a future blog post.

My reflections on the work process, the end result and a few thoughts to keep in mind for the future:

• I need to pay more attention to where the lightning comes from in my thumbnail phase. I had to pull out tricks later in order to create some contrast. The dark and light values are not just compositional elements, it's actual light and it has to be applied with the same logic to the whole piece or it becomes too confusing.
• Blurring out the unimportant parts of the piece with a filter/airbrush/smudge tool is awesome! I have to remember this.
• When designing a unique character, make a quick side profile as well or you will run into trouble with the depth of the forms.
• When designing a character, also include the materials or you will have to make them up on the spot.
• Parts that are out of focus or part of a larger shadow shape don't need that much detailing to work.
• Playing around with local values/different materials is awesome. I love how the monster is made up of different materials.
• Don't be lazy with the shading of largers elements such as the house in this piece. I feel like it is the weakest part of the painting.
• I need more subtle things happening in my paintings. I feel like it's often just two things going on and I find that somewhat boring.
• Air particles are pretty cool
• You can render pretty well, stop underestimating your abilities. If the idea is clear and you are willing to commit to it, the end result will be good. The important part is that you have to have a clear image in your head of what you are trying to paint.
• You have more motivation to render pieces that you really like. In this image, I loved the monster so I also had the most energy for painting him. See it as a reminder to paint things that you find awesome.

I am tempted to go for another illustration or a rendered character. but maybe I should do some studies. We'll see.

 

  Day 33

For some reason, I am quite unproductive when I am working on an illustration compared to when I am in my study mode and chugging out studies left and right.

I think it has something to do with fear of failure, which is a bad thing to have as I know that it stands in the way of progress... But how do you fix it? Maybe talking about it like this helps...

What if it failed? I consider my first (this is my second one) illustration a failure in terms of the end result, but not in the learning experience. Why can't I look at this illustration the same way? Maybe I don't want to face that I still have a long way to go and I am feeling... impatient?

But that can't be the only reason. I think I am less productive because I know how difficult an illustration to me is as well. I am either running away from difficulty, or the difficulty requires a lot of rest time. Never been strong outside of my comfort zone. I will keep pushing through because I want to believe in the idea that it will become easier in the future, even if it takes weeks.

Mostly worked on the sky and rendered bits and pieces of the monster. Thinking of handling the exposed steel of the concrete floors next.

Had some troubles sleeping, so I worked on it a bit longer and oh man. What a difference~! Lightning is key.

Day 32

A lot of progress today! Still a lot of rendering to do, at least most of the base values are there and I think the image still reads well. It's not going to turn out amazing, but that's fine. I mostly look forward to reflecting upon the piece once it's done.

A few thoughts about myself as an artist popped up during painting. Before my long art break, I think I focussed too much on the traditional studies of figure drawing and did not do enough exploring into the actual art I want to create. I always felt like I wasn't ready, that you have to go through 10.000 hours of studies before you can get to the fun part. 

Guess what? I am still not ready for that "perfect" piece, far from it - But that doesn't mean that you should not do illustrations until you reach that master technical level. You also learn from illustrations themselves, all the fundamentals that you can hammer with studies are still a part of an illustration. You are not wasting study time.

If you only do studies, such as painting and drawing individual objects and animals, you miss out on so many art skills that I have only now realized existed. There is scale, lightning, mood, composition, design, an actual story and so much more. I would never even think of painting the steel you come across in concrete (I don't know what it is called in English) if it wasn't for working on this piece, for instance. 

The illustrations are also a great guide to see what you need and WANT to study.

Even IF going through mundane studies (I do enjoy them most of the time though, my comfort zone is boring studies >.<) is the quickest way to reach that masterly level of skill. Is it really that bad to take... Let's say an extra 1000 hours, for the sake of having some fun along the way?

Ahh... I wish I could go back and time and tell myself all this.

 Day 31

A full month of drawing and painting daily! Yay :)

Made a lot of progress on the piece I've been working on. Just need to add a few more things (hopefully fix up the poor dog as well, he looks a bit weird) to the drawing and it's painting time :)

 Day 30

I settled on the final composition and tried out Carapace (software) for laying out the perspective grid. I had some troubles at first, but eventually found my footing. It's a great program and I made some perspective variations, without deviating from the original thumbnail too much.

I liked the second one the most and it is probably the one I will be making a clean underlay drawing of. Will only make a slight adjustment and make the broken-down window fit the weapon better for the composition

Unfortunately not the most productive day again, but I am still proud of not giving up on this piece, working on it a bit and building up my ability to be resilient.

 Day 29

Not the most productive day, but I did end up with a rough illustration that I can work out sometime.

Having said that, I don't know if I want to work out this one. I feel like it has become too complex and too much of a puzzle in terms of readability. I might explore more simple options instead, or do something else for a while and take another look at it. Been thinking of doing some Hades (the videogame) fanart.

Notes

* Should probably do some foreground studies. How can something be in the shadow shape, but be a vocal point at the same time?

Day 28

A bunch of silhouettes for a humanoid monster character. I’ll be working on an illustration with some more careful planning this time around.

Explored the design of the illustration’s “hero” as well.

char21768×821 145 KB

 

Day 27

Sandstone study, but I didn't have enough patience and focus for all the ridges. At least the idea of the bumps somewhat reads.

And a metal one, but the appearance is the same as any other highly reflective material.

Marble, happy with how this one turned out since the reflectivity is more complex. It becomes more reflective towards the edges, as the angle towards the camera increases.

Earth/sand from a desert, applied the same idea as the sandstone where the edges become more bumpy.

All the materials together

Day 26

More shapes

Played around with one of the shapes

I've started learning how to study materials by following a course and made a list of the materials I want to study. I chose specific materials that will likely end up in the scenes I want to paint.

Here are two of the materials I did today. I am going to try to do the whole list. I didn't paint the base value of the ball, that is done by Matt Kohr with 3D-software.

Adobe/Mud

Concrete

 Day 25

Started the day off with a couple of form paintings.

After that I did a couple of silhouette paintings as I'd like to design characters one of these days. These are pretty relaxing to do as you don't really to think and can just let your hands do the work. It feels freeing to me and improves my eye for design at the same time.

Welcome to my digital sketchbook

I have set up this blog because I recently discovered that I gain motivation from sharing my art thoughts and my art in general. I will post pretty much everything I do, both the bad and the good. The blog will most likely be filled with art studies, challenges and hopefully a lot of personal discoveries.

The blog is a continuation of a digital sketchbook that I kept on pencilkings. It is the reason why the sketchbook starts at day 25.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback or just what you are up to yourself. So feel free to shoot me a message.

Having said that, I will probably be talking to the void for the most time. Blogs aren't exactly popular and I am not exactly an incredibly skilled artist with a following (if any). Still have a long way to go, and that is fine. 

It is my goal to post daily, improve myself as an artist and to do it all in a healthy way.