Thanqol Learns To Draw IV: NO EXCUSES

[Tiki Snakes]

Seriously man. Get yourself some chalk and charcoal. You're serious about this, so throw in some black and white Conte crayon for finishing. You'll want some unscented hairspray to fix the images. An a3 sketchpad would do, but any large scale rough paper will work fine, some of my favourite stuff bad when I still had faith in my self and potential left to lose was on rough brown paper the art teacher bought in bulk. Buy or make some kind of basic easel or something to get your work up off the horizontal, even if that's little more than a board and something to lean it against.

Maybe you should be thinking about oil paint. About maybe getting some canvases or some stuff you could stretch and prime and make into a canvas.

Maybe you should be thinking about some serious self portraiture. There aren't many better artistic subjects, man.

[SiuiS]

Lines can only take you so far, dude. Turn back, before its too late and that's all you can do.

100%, all bullshit aside, this. Don't become complacent now. Push boundaries. Test limits. Take chances. Make mistakes. Get messy.

You, if any of us, can do it.

[Thanqol]

Line width? If we noticed that you'd done it, then you would have objectively failed. (Also the lines are not exaggerated in their size and expressiveness, so there's little reason to expect we would).

Also Thanqol you slug, you're still trapped in the god damned line art, cartoon / comic freakin' ghetto.

God damnit soldier you put those lines the hell down and you damn well give me some observational shading and if I see so much as a single outline so help me!

Lines can only take you so far, dude. Turn back, before its too late and that's all you can do.

Edit - I'm not in a good place and I apologise. BUT this is comfort zone bull **** and what's worse, you know perfectly well that's true.

Come on, man. No excuses, remember? You're overdue for taking this to the next level. You wanna be the next penny arcade guy, or you wanna be the next Pablo freakin' Picasso. You're better than this and you know it. You've a work ethic that people would honestly murder for, don't waste it man.

Man I just figured out iterative sketching and this recent period has been the one period where I'm actually producing lineart I'm starting to be happy with. It may not seem like a huge leap forwards but the difference between what I'm doing now and my earlier garbage 2-layer drawings is really profound to me. I'm finally figuring out the concepts of completing, observing, erasing and correcting. This is new territory! These are fundamentals!

Not to mention last week was one long burnout during which nothin' got done. I could barely post.

Seriously man. Get yourself some chalk and charcoal. You're serious about this, so throw in some black and white Conte crayon for finishing. You'll want some unscented hairspray to fix the images. An a3 sketchpad would do, but any large scale rough paper will work fine, some of my favourite stuff bad when I still had faith in my self and potential left to lose was on rough brown paper the art teacher bought in bulk. Buy or make some kind of basic easel or something to get your work up off the horizontal, even if that's little more than a board and something to lean it against.

Maybe you should be thinking about oil paint. About maybe getting some canvases or some stuff you could stretch and prime and make into a canvas.

Maybe you should be thinking about some serious self portraiture. There aren't many better artistic subjects, man.

Argh, money investments! Physical matter! Inelegance!

Actually I should do this because my biggest hangup with colouring right now is I can't decide on brush setups I like so working with a bunch of real brushes might give me more insight into what I should structure my presets as. Will have to be next week, I'm busy this one.

100%, all bullshit aside, this. Don't become complacent now. Push boundaries. Test limits. Take chances. Make mistakes. Get messy.

You, if any of us, can do it.

Ya'll are living vicariously through me aren't you.

[Marcivo]

Argh, money investments! Physical matter! Inelegance!

I'm sure you would spend it all on pony merchandise otherwise.

Ya'll are living vicariously through me aren't you.

Not true! Some of us are ramming our heads against solid walls of science. I don't even have the time to derive enjoyment from your enjoyment.

Come November, mmm, we'll see.

[Madcrafter]

Ya'll are living vicariously through me aren't you.

How ever did you guess? Outsourcing means I have more time to do things.

[SiuiS]

Ya'll are living vicariously through me aren't you.

Nope. I just know you enough to realize that if you polish your plateau you'll look back in years and regret it.

Take your time. Bank your coals. Stole your flame. But never think you flare enough. Always grow. Always burn.

[Thanqol]

I'm sure you would spend it all on pony merchandise otherwise.

You got my number.

Nope. I just know you enough to realize that if you polish your plateau you'll look back in years and regret it.

Take your time. Bank your coals. Stole your flame. But never think you flare enough. Always grow. Always burn.

Some basic self analysis thoughts right now:

- Being able to adequately structure sharp lines is not a goal, however, it is a really important skill because it lets me hone in on precise details. That is also what interested me about drawing a robot in that moment - lots of fiddly little details to work with. Painting, even excellent painting, rarely focuses on those fiddly little details. It's a very technical skill, very low creativity involved, and that's sometimes what I just wanna do.

- Being able to produce a good set of lineart then gives me the invitation to ruin it by throwing a bunch of new painty techniques all over it to see what sticks. If you'll look back you'll notice that I frequently have taken an axe to perfectly serviceable bits of lineart I could have simply coloured with the bucket tool and a shade layer. Two-tone shading would have reliably been enough but I don't ever settle for that.

- I really like this guy's style and being able to reliably replicate it would be a major milestone for me. It uses hard black ink lines and really interesting colour and paint effects and regularly looks really really good. Not an endgoal but jeez, man, I've got like 8,771 of these days ahead of me. Plenty of time to bust out the paint flats.

Day 1229: crazyhands

Drew one of my Pattern things over four pages and stuck them on unsuspecting corkboards.

[Thanqol]

Day 1230: TimeWasteLand 2

Time management is not my strong suit. Drew a pone. P&P.

[Thanqol]

Day 1231: Haste

Today was a flurry of drawing activity but I'm still out of my own usual workshop so it was P&P. I'm quite happy with today's stuff and will see about doing a bulk upload this weekend.

[Thanqol]

Day 1232: Persistence

Government duty done, sketches uploading tomorrow. For now, just gonna relax a bit. Big week.

[Thanqol]

Day 1233: A Week In A Day

Pictures from this week, and others. This is the most presentable of the cruft accumulating in my sketchbook.

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven

[Anarion]

Day 1233: A Week In A Day

Pictures from this week, and others. This is the most presentable of the cruft accumulating in my sketchbook.

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven

What is #2 from? That one on the right reminds me of a space pirate from the Metroid series, but I can't place the left guy.

[Madcrafter]

The top left one in number one, was is actually drawn like that? Or is that from the photograph?

[Thanqol]

What is #2 from? That one on the right reminds me of a space pirate from the Metroid series, but I can't place the left guy.

Imagination? I dunno.

The top left one in number one, was is actually drawn like that? Or is that from the photograph?

Drawn like that! I was holding three pens at the same time and that was the result. It's a really cool optical illusion.

[Tiki Snakes]

What is #2 from? That one on the right reminds me of a space pirate from the Metroid series, but I can't place the left guy.

Imagination? I dunno.

It looks very Eldar to me. Not, like, specifically. It doesn't look like an Eldar I know of or anything, but that's what it looks like it's supposed to be.

[Thanqol]

Day 1234: Lighting Map

Okay, back to CelestiaBot!

Basically the thing I'm going to try now is to try out some dramatic back lighting; a totally overwhelming sunset palette in the background that drowns everything in shades of orange. This is going to mean painting over the linework and putting together a lineless piece, that's cool, and it's nice to have a solid foundation to start that from. For the hair I'm going to go for something crystalline-y I think, which'll be more translucent in some places than others. It's going to be a disaster, but an interesting one.

Links

[Thanqol]

Day 1235: Ignition

fierhoes.

Did this in a really counter-intuitive way, yet it's looking really good. Still WIP

Links

[Tiki Snakes]

Day 1235: Ignition

fierhoes.

Did this in a really counter-intuitive way, yet it's looking really good. Still WIP

Links

It's all about the shoulder piece for me. Because it has actual shading.
Speaking as the person who has frequently claimed lineart is your comfort zone, I am contractually obliged to approve.

[Thanqol]

It's all about the shoulder piece for me. Because it has actual shading.
Speaking as the person who has frequently claimed lineart is your comfort zone, I am contractually obliged to approve.

Yeah that's basically the painty version of flats. Refinement is happening.

Day 1236: Passion's Overraded

The way I did this is still unspeakably stupid theoretically and yet it's one of the most workable painty pictures I've done.

Here's the theory. I finish the lineart piece. Then I bust out the paints and slam down a bunch of really crude flats shapes over the top of the lineart piece. Then, and here's the stupid part, I reduce the opacity of the painty layer to 80% and make corrections to it based on that. Then, when it's mostly the right shape, I merge the 80% opacity layer down onto a new layer and go into detail and refinement work from there, because that lets me to continue to see the strong, hard underlying linework layer while the slightly faded picture demands increased lighting and shading. As I paint over it in the detail work section the lineart becomes totally invisible.

It's the combination of painty and stencil I've been looking for and it's such a random way to get to that point. This is the point of experimenting, people!

Links

Music: Paradise Circus

[Tiki Snakes]

What exactly is the benefit of merging the flats with the sketch layer? Wouldn't you get the same result by simply starting a third layer?

Not sure I follow.

[Thanqol]

What exactly is the benefit of merging the flats with the sketch layer? Wouldn't you get the same result by simply starting a third layer?

Not sure I follow.

You don't merge the painty flats with the sketch layer, you merge the 80% layer with a new blank layer. What that does is create a new 100% opacity layer with an 80% transparent image on it. This is important because drawing on an 80% transparent layer is tricky as balls because the colours will not look the same as on your palette, you're limited in your highlights, and you can't eyedrop colours properly.

Starting a new layer would be wrong because the point of putting down painty flats is to have colours to blend with your paintbrush.

[Thanqol]

Day 1237: Pow!

Watching Person of Interest. It's good! It's part of the 'dudes in suits fighting crime' genre but it's genuinely fresh and interesting. It's like Batman being run by the God-Machine.

Anyway, lazy day, P&P sketches, enhhhhhhh

[Madcrafter]

Watching Person of Interest. It's good! It's part of the 'dudes in suits fighting crime' genre but it's genuinely fresh and interesting. It's like Batman being run by the God-Machine.

I've only ever seen one maybe two episodes, but this description is hilarious. Definitely sold.

[Thanqol]

Day 1238: change of heart

Today a moth unwisely landed in my sketchbook. I crushed the moth and drew a picture of the moth where it used to be.

I also got a job, updated my LP, and chased Dracula all across Europe. what more do you want.

[Anarion]

I also got a job,

I'm so sorry.

[SiuiS]

What exactly is the benefit of merging the flats with the sketch layer? Wouldn't you get the same result by simply starting a third layer?

Not sure I follow.

Following from his explanation, I think this is actually something our zebra friend from old ponythread did. Can't remember his name, though I have a link to his love streams saved somewhere... Man. He was in this thread, too.

[Colonel Fedora]

Day 1233: A Week In A Day

Pictures from this week, and others. This is the most presentable of the cruft accumulating in my sketchbook.

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven

Number two is one of the Ordinators from Morrowind. Specifically, I think it's from this concept art piece. I started playing it again recently and immediately recognized the helmet.

[Thanqol]

My images folder is full of untagged, unlabelled stuff. You're probably right on that.

Day 1239: Battle!

This is coming together. Any thoughts so far?

Links

[Thanqol]

Day 1240: spent

Did many things today. Drawing was not one of them. Drew a pony that looks how I felt on P&P.

I've got this small headache, very slight, but it's just not going away. Nnh.

[Thanqol]

Day 1241: The Wrong Steps

Can't figure out my next move on the Celestia picture so took a detour into some sketching.

Links

Music: Big Houses