Thanqol Learns To Draw!

[Ninjaman]

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I LOVE THIS THREAD!

[Thanqol]

I LOVE THIS THREAD!

Total agreement. This was one of my better ideas. Ya'll rock.

Day 24: Profiling Is Not Discrimination

I'm going to try more blind/semi blind draws tomorrow, when I'm at a tabletop and will have a lot of chumps sitting around being all sketchable (perfect place to get models is tabletops RPGs). Today, though, I just worked on proportions some more.

The finished sketch is kinda bare bones simple, but I tried a bunch of things and this was the most presentable piece. Heads are way bigger than I thought they were.

Sketch:

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Time: 2 Hours
Materials: 2B Pencil
Music: Premonition

[SiuiS]

Thanks a lot for the advice, I'll work on that.

So will I; that sounds rather productive.

The finished sketch is kinda bare bones simple, but I tried a bunch of things and this was the most presentable piece. Heads are way bigger than I thought they were.

Eeeyup. We tend to think of important details as bigger, and less important details as smaller. So eyes and mouth, being the archetype of the face, always seem huge compared to their actual sizes. Doesn't help that anime is based off of wonky eyes, and it's what we are shown.

Try getting ahold of some old marvel or DC comi books, give those a sketch. The eyes are really good facsimiles, for those times you want an eye to look like an eye and need to fudge it. I call it faking proficiency.

Just, if you do decide to branch out it should be in addition to your current curriculum. Don't take time out of actual productive work for a simple thought exercise, aye? If all you have is an hour, then spend the full hour an actual art workings, not cheats like cartoon eyes and proportions.

[Smight]

this guy has lot of how to draw videos maby some of tham can be useful

http://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley

[Thanqol]

Day 25: Exactly The Right Number Of Terrestrials

Did a tonne of sketching at tonight's game. Also, my character didn't end up being murdered by either the party or the NPCs but MAY have become next season's big bad in the process. I consider this a total victory.

Here's one random pick, but I filled many pages.

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Time: 5 Hours
Materials: 2B Pencil
Music: Searching

[Glass Mouse]

In short: Thanqol rocks.

So very seconded.

I know I'm just being an echo here, but I think it's downright awesome that you just do it. The progression through these 25 days is very, very impressive, as well. It really looks like you're starting to get the hang of faces.

An exercise you could try if you don't have enough already, is drawing negative space. Look at a chair, then draw where the chair isn't. It's another way to take in objects, and it's pretty fun.



Heh. Your project sent me down memory lane for a moment here. I drew (badly) when I was younger, then stopped out of boredom. Two years ago, I picked up drawing again, and in that time my skill level has gone from this (2009) to this (today). That's with drawing almost every day, but - admittedly - a pretty lazy way of learning, so I probably could've progressed a LOT more.
Just to tell you, you're not alone in having started late, and with the way you're going right now, you're sure to go far in a short time.

Once again: You rock!

[Thanqol]

So very seconded.

I know I'm just being an echo here, but I think it's downright awesome that you just do it. The progression through these 25 days is very, very impressive, as well. It really looks like you're starting to get the hang of faces.

An exercise you could try if you don't have enough already, is drawing negative space. Look at a chair, then draw where the chair isn't. It's another way to take in objects, and it's pretty fun.

Totally doing this tomorrow, thanks for the suggestion!

Once again: You rock!

Thank you so much That's really encouraging to hear.


Day 26: Up Like A Pyre

Oh god, did not have much time for practise this evening, have a test tomorrow. Apologies for the super dodgy image; got a Commerce final tomorrow and couldn't do more than the bare minimum. At least I made up for it with sheer volume from yesterday.

Oh gracious, going to need a new sketchbook soon.

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Time taken: 45 mins
Materials: 2B Pencil
Music: Aether Shanty

[Thanqol]

Day 27: First, Draw Nothing

Tried drawing negative space today, as Glass Mouse suggested.

Woah.

I think I accidentally blew my mind.

My experiments all look wrong and dodgy tonight, sure, but I think I had some sort of epiphany when it comes to drawing objects. After drawing a few incomprehensible shapeless masses of negative space I started realising that objects have shapes. It's a pretty lame realisation, but realising that I've got to draw the SHAPE of the object before I draw the object is like... woah.

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Time Taken: 1 Hour
Materials: 2B Pencil
Music: Minority (Also, one hour of that song is too much)

[Fri]

That's awesome. And anyway, on the excercise I suggested earlier, it's also not that I recommend you to do that for drawing all the time, it's a training so your mind and your hand could coordinate better. anyway, thumbs up for you as always.

[Thanqol]

Day 28: Sharks In A Bathtub

Note: I did not actually look up what a shark looked like for this. Given that limitation I don't think this was terrible. And it was heaps of fun.

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Time Taken: 1 1/2 hours
Materials: 4B pencil (I actually love my 4B now)
Music: This Song Made Man A Fluttershy

[Flickerdart]

Pro tip: because we are less familiar with the way animals look than with the way humans do, you can get away with oddly proportioned animals. A lot of the time, their real proportions look much weirder.
However, you want to keep an eye on your linear perspective.

[Thanqol]

Pro tip: because we are less familiar with the way animals look than with the way humans do, you can get away with oddly proportioned animals. A lot of the time, their real proportions look much weirder.
However, you want to keep an eye on your linear perspective.

*Nod nod* Yeah, perspective was the major botch in that piece. I'm gonna work on that some more soon.

Day 29: Pictures In My Head

I'm getting better and better at drawing things I'm imagining without referring to models. This is really important as one of the major reasons I'm doing this is to be able to get characters and ideas out of my imagination and onto paper.

Also, there's been almost a week in this thread without a pony drawings. I'll get back to drawing real people tomorrow.

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Time Taken: 1 Hour
Materials: 2B, 4B Pencils, 0.8 Pen
Music: How Can You Sleep?

[Thanqol]

Day 30: The Scary Stuff

Today I tried two things that I have, to this point, avoided like the plague because they're scary, scary things. Namely, foreshortening and clothing folds. Results were... surprisingly decent. I'm almost inclined to say that these are some of the most lifelike things I've ever done. Wow.

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Time Taken: 1 hour
Materials: 4B Pencil
Music: Something's Gotta Give

[Thanqol]

Day 31: Application

Wow. I've been doing this for an entire month now.

I decided to flesh out one of my stick figure poses that I did some weeks ago as practise, applying some of the things I'd learned. Didn't work out perfect, but learned more things. Made progress. Gonna keep making progress.

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Time Taken: 1 1/2 hours
Materials: 2B, 4B pencils
Music: Atom Bomb

[Thanqol]

Day 32: Yes, No, Click

Wow, hats off to my ST for keeping that session's space-time-fate insanity clear and consistent despite being full of space-time-fate bull****.

Also, did some more sketching. Maintain practicals. Feelin' good.

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Time: 3 hours semiconstant sketching
Materials: 4B pencil
Music: Spiral Ladder

[billtodamax]

Your clothing is very good but something feels off about the perspective.

[Thanqol]

Your clothing is very good but something feels off about the perspective.

Perspective is hard! Tomorrow, I'm going to work purely on perspective. Thanks for the comment

Day 33: Contractual Obligation

As an Australian, I'm contractually obligated to draw at least one picture of Ned Kelly. There are things I like and really don't like about this picture, most of the flaws relating to perspective as mentioned. I hear one exercise is to draw the same figure at different distances to see how it changes things, so I'm going to work on that.

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Time: 2 hours
Materials: 2B 4B pencil
Music: Stand

[Recaiden]

Is it just me or does he have eleven fingers? And the hat looks awkwardly shaped. I do like the way he's standing. Keep up the good work. You rock, Thanqol.

[Thanqol]

Is it just me or does he have eleven fingers? And the hat looks awkwardly shaped. I do like the way he's standing. Keep up the good work. You rock, Thanqol.

*Counts fingers* D'oh! And thanks for the pick on the helmet, a small change to the shape of the line at the top should fix that Cheers man.

[Fri]

that one's actually pretty good. Here, I'm going to link you my favourite drawing tips/tutorial, though even if I call it that it's more of a useful general tips/idea, really. I don't think I've linked you this before.

http://goblinqueeen.deviantart.com/a...-Life-22521939

[Thanqol]

that one's actually pretty good. Here, I'm going to link you my favourite drawing tips/tutorial, though even if I call it that it's more of a useful general tips/idea, really. I don't think I've linked you this before.

http://goblinqueeen.deviantart.com/a...-Life-22521939

Oh hey, that's really useful! Thanks!

Day 34: Solving Problems Through Technological Superiority

The way I figured it, sooner or later I was going to have to a) Get a scanner b) Learn how to use Photoshop, so I decided to skip the middleman and order a drawing tablet. Today it arrived!

And we're pretty much back to basic principles, because it feels super different to drawing on paper. Part of it is that I'm looking at a screen rather than the page while doing it. Gonna go back to practising drawing straight lines and basic circles again. But I can already apply a lot of what I learned doing traditional art to this same thing.

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Time Taken: 2 1/2 hours
Music: I Love Work

[Thanqol]

Day 34B: EVEN MORE SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY

Okay, getting the hang of this.

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[Domochevsky]

Tablet, hm? Good idea there.
(And oddly enough it helps already with the "don't look at your hand while drawing" by pure nature of how it works. So i guess that's a permanent checkmark. )

[Trazoi]

Ooh, what type of tablet did you order?

If you've got a small tablet like a Wacom Bamboo, like it and want to upgrade, you can get a decent education discount on the Wacom Intuos range. You can save about A$100-200 on the medium sized A5 tablet. I picked one up a few years back and it's been solid since; even though I'm still pretty crap at drawing it's been totally worth it for the occasions when I've needed it.

[Thanqol]

Ooh, what type of tablet did you order?

If you've got a small tablet like a Wacom Bamboo, like it and want to upgrade, you can get a decent education discount on the Wacom Intuos range. You can save about A$100-200 on the medium sized A5 tablet. I picked one up a few years back and it's been solid since; even though I'm still pretty crap at drawing it's been totally worth it for the occasions when I've needed it.

I got the Wacom Bamboo Fun, the medium size one. Uuuuuunfortunately I paid full retail price from their website without looking into educational discounts. OH WELL.

[Trazoi]

I got the Wacom Bamboo Fun, the medium size one. Uuuuuunfortunately I paid full retail price from their website without looking into educational discounts. OH WELL.

I think the educational discount on the Bamboo Fun is only significant if you're buying the 10 pack.

The educational prices aren't a huge difference for the tablets, but it's big enough to worth looking into for the Intuos. The difference however for Adobe software is insane.

[Thanqol]

I think the educational discount on the Bamboo Fun is only significant if you're buying the 10 pack.

The educational prices aren't a huge difference for the tablets, but it's big enough to worth looking into for the Intuos. The difference however for Adobe software is insane.

Oh, there's something. The Intuos was about $2800 out of my price range though . The one I got came with Photoshop Elements and Corel paint, which I'm still experimenting within.

[Trazoi]

Oh, there's something. The Intuos was about $2800 out of my price range though .

I think that's a Cintiq (the one with a touchscreen LCD panel). Or else you're shopping at a really overpriced store.

The Bamboo comes with a version of Corel Paint? That's pretty neat.

Edit: Just checked the prices. The newer Intuos appears to gone up. I'm sure I only paid about A$250 for mine. Admittedly this was a few years back and an older model, but it's a fair bit less than the A$380 or so they're asking for now.

[Ninjaman]

I got the Wacom Bamboo Fun, the medium size one. Uuuuuunfortunately I paid full retail price from their website without looking into educational discounts. OH WELL.

High five!

[Thanqol]

I think that's a Cintiq (the one with a touchscreen LCD panel). Or else you're shopping at a really overpriced store.

The Bamboo comes with a version of Corel Paint? That's pretty neat.

Edit: Just checked the prices. The newer Intuos appears to gone up. I'm sure I only paid about A$250 for mine. Admittedly this was a few years back and an older model, but it's a fair bit less than the A$380 or so they're asking for now.

Ah yes, you're right that was the Cintiq I was thinking of.

Day 35: Paaaaaints!

Paints are fun! I also do not understand them at all. I also am forced into understanding them because the 'fill' command is a tricky beast, as likely to cover my entire canvass as to fill a select area. I find one specific water tool to be great for colouring because it gives a nice, muted colour and doesn't obliterate the lines under it.

Still playing with the thing. Layers are the most useful thing ever.

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Time: 2 Hours
Music: Skyrim