Thanqol Learns To Draw IV: NO EXCUSES

[Anarion]

Day 1278: Misc Robots

:T

Links

Countdown to the holidays with the 12 droids of Christmas?

[the_druid_droid]

Countdown to the holidays with the 12 droids of Christmas?

"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - a mechanical druid in a peaaaaaaar tree!"

[Thanqol]

Day 1279-1280: cultists

Took me basically 24 nearly consecutive hours but I FINALLY BEAT ENDLESS LEGEND. Yiss! Hell of a game. I should probably uninstall it now before it kills me. Did sketching in between turns.

[Thanqol]

Day 1281: Mister Manse

Aephero Manse with his shiney new Disruptor Rifle.

Lot of lessons came together here. I'm happy with it.

Links

[Anarion]

Day 1281: Mister Manse

Aephero Manse with his shiney new Disruptor Rifle.

Lot of lessons came together here. I'm happy with it.

Links

Is the circle marking on the left cheek a tatoo or supposed to indicate that it's sunken and in shadow? I kinda fixated on it when I looked at the drawing.

[Madcrafter]

Is the circle marking on the left cheek a tatoo or supposed to indicate that it's sunken and in shadow? I kinda fixated on it when I looked at the drawing.

Given how thin his waist is and how simple the circle, I'm going to guess he's a bit gaunt.

[Thanqol]

Is the circle marking on the left cheek a tatoo or supposed to indicate that it's sunken and in shadow? I kinda fixated on it when I looked at the drawing.

Given how thin his waist is and how simple the circle, I'm going to guess he's a bit gaunt.

Yeah he's just a very thin man. His call sign is "Skeleton".

Day 1282: Mr. Skeleton

Okay I reckon I aced this one. It's exactly how the character is in my head and this level of detail/realism is about perfect for my ideal style.

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[Anarion]

Yeah he's just a very thin man. His call sign is "Skeleton".

Day 1282: Mr. Skeleton

Okay I reckon I aced this one. It's exactly how the character is in my head and this level of detail/realism is about perfect for my ideal style.

Links

So, with that neckpiece and being in the Star Wars universe, would that make him a tie fighter?

[Thanqol]

So, with that neckpiece and being in the Star Wars universe, would that make him a tie fighter?

Day 1283: Runningest

Couldn't say it in words. Learning to draw rules.

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[Thanqol]

Day 1284: Big Pony

Dang I've learned a lot. And also not enough.

Links

[Tiki Snakes]

I still think the focus on line-art is holding you back. It's such a minor, narrow facet of the whole thing, really. Useful enough if you're learning to be a cartoonist I guess, but otherwise very limiting.

Increasingly I think it's time to seriously think about real world media, experiment with chalk and charcoal (You'll want unscented hairspray to fix the work, and Conte crayons in black and white to take it up to the next level eventually), light and shade, blending and all that stuff.

Maybe even investigate actual paint. Might be a bit much for a 30 minute a day schedule admittedly, unlike charcoal. Maybe look into joining an art focused evening class? You would definitely enjoy it.

EDIT - Don't want to spend a whole bunch of money? Great. Here's some simple material suggestions.
Chalk and charcoal are easy and obvious, they really shouldn't cost much. Black chalk, white charcoal, done. Unscented Hairspray is probably a touch trickier to find, but this is basically a cheap alternative to dedicated fixing spray and will stop your work going away.
What to art on, though? I'm going to suggest finding somewhere that sells rolls of brown paper. The type you might use for wrapping parcels. I did a quick search and there's no-where obvious online offering it in the same handy roll sizes as on amazon uk, (90gsm, 20 meter roll and 750mm wide for the princely sum of £5.28?) But you should be able to find something suitable somewhere, it's pretty basic stuff and you know your shops better than I do. Worst comes to worst, buy a single larger roll for a bit more but end up with a couple of hundred meters of the stuff and never worry about buying another.

You'll want something to put this on, so nip to your local big chain hardware store. They'll very likely have scrap packaging going through quite regularly, you should have a pretty good chance of getting a basic piece of otherwise-binned mdf/plywood or something (look for any store that sells things like laminate flooring especially), for nothing, pennies or a token charity donation of some sort perhaps. Trim this to a good drawing-board size if necessary and to preference. Pick up some cheap masking tape while you're here, to attach sections of your brown paper to the board when you're working.

While you're at it, you might be able to get a bamboo cane from the same place. Why?

Spoiler

Show

Cut that thing to decent pen-sized sections and sharpen the business ends to a variety of points and you have yourself a bargain-basement set of ink-pens. Pick up a bottle of ink from somewhere, (black works, but a dark red/brown type goes particularly nicely with the brown paper) and you've got cheap material set number two.

Both these methods are prone to causing mess, so be warned. They both work great on the brown paper and it's a good, cheap way to get yourself working at large scale in real stuff. I heartily recommend them.

[Thanqol]

^^ You've pushed this physical medium thing a few times and my answer is the same now as it was then: That'd be lovely once I have my own place. I simply do not have the physical space required to set up my own art studio. It's not happening until I move out.

When I do move out it's happening for real, though. I've been designing my ideal place in my head and it's basically going to be cut right down the middle with physical stuff, books, easels and paints, all that on one side, and computers and digital setup on the other side. Kind of a two-face thing going on with the décor and layout. Until then it is simply not a viable option.

On the upside, my contract just got extended for another three months today, so that's basically the career break I've needed. I'm well on my way to having saved up the deposit I need and after three more months in that job I'll have some indispensable skills. Can't predict the future though. I've got plans and safety nets but not enough certainty.

Days 1285-1286: Make It Right

Anyway this is all kind of ironic because my tablet is being troublesome. Some more P&P sketches, hopefully more and better time over the weekend.

[Tiki Snakes]

It's mostly that I think you'll enjoy it when you finally give it a shot.

Though chalk/charcoal doesn't need space or size. Sketchbook and a place to sit is plenty. You'll still want the hairspray to fix of course, and to not be wearing your best clothes. Short sleeves of any kind is probably the easy fix, just be careful what you handle while you work because you'll be using your fingers a whole bunch to smudge.

Working at size is totally something to look forward to though.

[Madcrafter]

Mmm yeah, it's not whole art studio or nothing.

As a matter of curiosity, do people generally buy or rent in Australia?

[Anarion]

Mmm yeah, it's not whole art studio or nothing.

As a matter of curiosity, do people generally buy or rent in Australia?

I am tickled pink at the thought that one could effectively describe the housing habits of an entire continent. My guess, by the way, is that young people and poor people rent, while old people and rich people buy. Like most places on the planet.

[Madcrafter]

I am tickled pink at the thought that one could effectively describe the housing habits of an entire continent. My guess, by the way, is that young people and poor people rent, while old people and rich people buy. Like most places on the planet.

In general that is the case for anywhere I believe. But I know that in NA for example, it is much more common to actually buy, as well as that purchase being a house, whereas in Europe it is very much more a renting climate, and tends to be more apartment based, regardless of age and more due to the infrastructural and cultural environment. I'm guessing Australia follows a more American model because it is a relatively new country with a large land area, but I figured I'd ask in case its following its Euro roots.

[Tiki Snakes]

I am tickled pink at the thought that one could effectively describe the housing habits of an entire continent. My guess, by the way, is that young people and poor people rent, while old people and rich people buy. Like most places on the planet.

The ability to usefully generalise is easy to undervalue. Firstly, I would agree with Madcrafter that you can totally characterise an entire subcontinent's approach to something, but that also kind of misses the point.

Australia might be a continent, (A small one), but its also an island, (the biggest). More importantly, despite this it's also got something like a third of the population of the UK and I can generalise the approach to property of the Uk easily.

Which is to say, the rich buy freely and lots of people rent. Increasing amounts of the housing stock is given over to renting. However, there is a noteworthy trend in recent times wherein the young simply cannot afford to leave home at all. Renting is so much more expensive than having a mortgage and the banks require significant contributions towards the value of a property to even consider granting one of those. And they can't afford that because increasing amounts of the working young are trapped below the level of the living wage with little prospect of rising higher if they even have reliable hours due to the prevelance of zero hours contracts.

Those who rent increasingly rely on housing support stuff to make do, even with both partners in full time work, depending on the region.

The rich buy, the middle class struggles to rent and the young and the old despair.

[Thanqol]

Days 1287-1288: Limited Hyperactivity

That's it, I'm going to uninstall my entire Steam library. Losing a weekend to EU4 means a lot more now than it did when I wasn't working.

[Thanqol]

Day 1289: He Does Art Too

Trying something suggested by Vince Baker. It has the possibility to be shockingly effective.

Links

E: What the hell, one more

[the_druid_droid]

Day 1289: He Does Art Too

Trying something suggested by Vince Baker. It has the possibility to be shockingly effective.

Links

E: What the hell, one more

You might be onto something with this...

[Madcrafter]

You might be onto something with this...

Mhmm. Can you elucidate the process? Anything special?

[Thanqol]

Mhmm. Can you elucidate the process? Anything special?

Right here, yo.

[Thanqol]

Day 1290: Self Indulgent

who is that handsome martial artist.

I think these work best when there's already dramatic lighting in place, but they're really interesting lessons in shading and light/dark zones. Might start switching up my brushes and get into more depth with them. Hopefully lessons learned will apply to shading techniques elsewhere which'd be great 'cause I've only got rudimentary methods right now.

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[Thanqol]

Day 1292: BRANDISHING A KNIFE

Super distracted while doing this. Previous number was wrong, this is right

Links

Music: Shia LaBeouf

[Thanqol]

Days 1293-1294: The Atlas

Cloud Atlas was a really good movie! I'm impressed it didn't explode under it's own weight, that must have been a crazy challenge.

Day 1295: Instigator

Trying my hand at some character design. Kind of blargh right now. Sustaining a really high creative output which is meaning that I'm crashing on weekends. I think I need to take it a bit easier.

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[Thanqol]

Day 1296: Always Know Your Name

If I spent my lifetime mastering all the crafts of men, all those skills together would not be able to capture an instant of that thunderstorm.

But damned if I'm not going to try.

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Music: Pink Side Of The Moon

[Thanqol]

Day 1298: Angry Wizards

Want to do more expressions! I'm caught up doing very boring expressions. GENERIC SCOWLS. Lame! I need to figure out them big, gooey mouth things

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[Thanqol]

Day 1299: ANOTHER SCOWL

I say that and WHERE DOES IT LEAD ME!? Liking this so far though

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[Thanqol]

Day 1300: Dues Done

Nothing special for the day, but I finished both of my sketchbooks. I'll see about posting the highlights tomorrow.

Phew! What a week!

[Thanqol]

Day 1301: L, Do You Know?

Whoops got distracted by a conversation. Oh well! I'll try and get some paints in soon though!

Rewatched Death Note. So cool.

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