sixteen-bit
Member
lol that's awesome
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Art Self Study |OT| Putting the Fun in Art Fundamentals
- Thread starter DEATH
- Start date
lol that's awesome
mostly been lurking here but I been somewhat busy while learning how to paint with oils. Had some lessons from a tutor/artist who'd been living in France for last 30 years.
it's not all pure oil paint some is painting using tempera and others are mixed along with casein
Also took painting outdoors
Just recently did a quick portrait painting
it's not all pure oil paint some is painting using tempera and others are mixed along with casein
Also took painting outdoors
Just recently did a quick portrait painting
Wulfric
Member
Yo, oil painting question here. So I understand underpainting, but I'm a little confused as to what this guy is putting straight onto his sketch.
https://youtu.be/hcAVcjUnSps?t=52s
He covered the whole panel with the brownish liquid, and it was rather runny as well. What kind of glaze or medium would this be? I'd like to try it myself.
https://youtu.be/hcAVcjUnSps?t=52s
He covered the whole panel with the brownish liquid, and it was rather runny as well. What kind of glaze or medium would this be? I'd like to try it myself.
That kind of reminds me of what I did in my painting class last year where we would cover the entire canvas in a very watered down acrylic burnt sienna before working with oil paints. We generally did it before the drawing but I can see doing it after being fine as it was very translucent.
My first solo project in Blender, not following any tutorial. Yeah, It's just another noob posting some low poly crap, but hey, we need to start somewhere, right? I'd like to add some mist to the scene, but I forgot to save the project and my nodes started to get all messed up, so I decided to leave it this way before I ruin everything.
I started with the ANT Landscape add-on, adding a mountain and giving it the size and shape I wanted. I decreased the poly count and unchecked the "smooth" option to get this blocky looks. Then I made the first engine from a cylinder with only 10 vertices (again, for the blocky looks), subdivided and gave it the shape I wanted, and left it closed (without that big opening) and made copies with ALT+D to link the proprieties among them. After placing them where I wanted, I used a Boolean modifier to get rid of the rocks inside the engines, and only then I deleted the face that was covering their "mouths". I used the solidify modifier to five it substance and added the rest of the space shuttle (wings, tail and body), and applied the materials with Toon Shading. Then I made the stars with light emition, and placed a huge curved object covering all the background, and added a sphere emitting light behind the mountain and the shuttle to get that purple haze over the horizon. Latter I added a glare node to make the stars shine, and everything after that was just tweaking polygons to improve the overall look (stars size and placement, for example) and I also added more mountains to the sides to get a less unnatural look on the horizon.
EDIT: oh, and I ruined... cough ...I mean, I used this piece of art as a reference.
Thanks, mate! I made it following this easy tutorial, if you're interested in trying it by yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHOoGth9ea8
Fulminator
Member
Looks like it's just watered down burnt sienna oil paint to me
Really liked how you handled the lightning. Decent use of red on the first picture, too.
I'd think watered down acrylic, it helps the oil stick iirc.
Fulminator
Member
Looking at some of his other videos he does seem to do acrylic underpaintings
Fulminator
Member
Does anyone have any experience with the new masters academy drawing fundamentals course? I am slowly improving my skills, but I realized recently that I never had a proper fundamentals course of study,and I really think it's holding me back
This took me more time than it probably should have (1 week, perks of being a noob). I made it for the r/low_poly montly contest inspired by one of Hiroshi Nagai's paintings, with a bit of my own twist to it, all with Blender. I tried to evoke a bit of that Sega flair with their racing games.
EDIT: Dammit, my monitor was too bright and my original scene was too dark. I just reuploaded and it's fixed now.
EDIT: Dammit, my monitor was too bright and my original scene was too dark. I just reuploaded and it's fixed now.
I would recommend it. Going for painting before you can draw is kinda like trying to run before you can crawl I feel. Though, there's no hard rules here (generally) so do what you wanna do
BotoxAgent
Member
man Scott Robertson's book on drawing and rendering really helped me a lot. I've been a casual hobbyist illustrator I guess, but after reading going through his books and practicing some of his concepts for a few months, i feel like i have a good foundation to learn how to do proper designing and concepting.
This took me more time than it probably should have (1 week, perks of being a noob). I made it for the r/low_poly montly contest inspired by one of Hiroshi Nagai's paintings, with a bit of my own twist to it, all with Blender. I tried to evoke a bit of that Sega flair with their racing games.
EDIT: Dammit, my monitor was too bright and my original scene was too dark. I just reuploaded and it's fixed now.
I decided to convert this scene to a high poly version, just to practice:
Both are good and a really interesting look at the effect of a low poly stylized version -> high poly change. High poly loses the charm of the more simplified version. Even just the tree and cloud change was massive.I decided to convert this scene to a high poly version, just to practice:
Yeah, I just wanted to learn to use the tree generator in Blender, so I wasn't worried about making the trees look the same but with more polygons or anything. About the clouds, I decided to cut them entirely because I discovered that realistic clouds are a pain in the ass to render, and my poor computer wasn't dealing with them well.
EDIT: I decided to add a fake sky to it. See what you think:
Might be this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprimatura
An imprimatura is usually made with an earth color, such as raw sienna, and is often diluted with turpentine.
Txαi;247825847 said:
Thank you. I was a little shy in replying back then.
Yeah, I just wanted to learn to use the tree generator in Blender, so I wasn't worried about making the trees look the same but with more polygons or anything. About the clouds, I decided to cut them entirely because I discovered that realistic clouds are a pain in the ass to render, and my poor computer wasn't dealing with them well.
EDIT: I decided to add a fake sky to it. See what you think:
I think that starts to settle how between stylized and realistic it is. Another stepvwould be fabric umbrellas rather than the hard surface version. Might be a cool marvelous designer project if you've never messed with it. Hope you didn't take the previous as a criticism, just thought the difference between the two was interesting.
Marvelous Designer's pricing is completely out of my reach, haha, but Blender actually has a built in cloth simulation, but in that scene, except for the sky, I didn't used any image based texture. It's all plain flat colors and some procedural stuff.
And don't worry, I'm happy you took your time to comment, and criticism is what forces us to improve, so I'm glad that people like you exists to push us further in the right direction.
Cheers!
TickleMeElbow
Member
So when you're drawing is it bad to do it pencil to erase mistakes?
I've been doing that and I think that's why I'm so slow.
I've been doing that and I think that's why I'm so slow.
PleaseDontBanMe
Banned
Subbing.
This stuff looks amazing guys
This stuff looks amazing guys
sans_pants
avec_pénis
same technique in cinema4d
question for you drawfolk: what's a good book for a kid beginner with low attention span. He's been getting into drawing from youtube tutorials, and I'd love some of those too but I figure books might be a little more vetted for quality.
I gave him fun with a pencil but there's some questionable content for an 8 year old in there
Raging Spaniard
If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
How to draw comics the Marvel way. Its a fun read that teaches some good drawing basics. Helped me as a kid!
Have you seen those huge ass patch notes that in the end makes basically no difference in the end result? This is the case here. I have the terrible habit of finding little problems only after I post my renders online, so I decided to fix things that (I believe) improved the ending result a little.
* slightly darkened light posts
* added a fire hydrant to cover an empty area on the background
* made the details on the door on the right less pronounced and moved down a little the peephole
* added handles to the trash cans
* added a plant pot on the second house on the right
* added an ivy to the little garden on the right to cover an empty area
* added another dandelion closer to the camera on the left
* messed with the brown fences to make then look more appealing from the camera angle (made no difference in the end) and slightly changed the brown textures
* moved the left trash can closer to the camera to make it look less floaty
* added a very subtle detail on a window of the closest house on the right
* improved the asphalt texture
* improved the mountain texture on the background
* Improved the contrast and colors with Color Efex Pro 4 by Google's Nik Collection and CameraBag 2.
It looks really nice!
* slightly darkened light posts
* added a fire hydrant to cover an empty area on the background
* made the details on the door on the right less pronounced and moved down a little the peephole
* added handles to the trash cans
* added a plant pot on the second house on the right
* added an ivy to the little garden on the right to cover an empty area
* added another dandelion closer to the camera on the left
* messed with the brown fences to make then look more appealing from the camera angle (made no difference in the end
) and slightly changed the brown textures* moved the left trash can closer to the camera to make it look less floaty
* added a very subtle detail on a window of the closest house on the right
* improved the asphalt texture
* improved the mountain texture on the background
* Improved the contrast and colors with Color Efex Pro 4 by Google's Nik Collection and CameraBag 2.
Dammit, I should have thought about adding that layer of water. xDsame technique in cinema4d
It looks really nice!
Hey guys, looking for some tips, if you don't mind.
I've been interested in getting in to the fine arts again. I used to want to draw manga when I was a kid, but then I lost all interest and just kind of quit.
Now I want to get into 'serious' art, and would like to learn how to paint, perhaps oil paintings and also some pencil art.
I know this is really vague, but I guess I just want to draw again. I'm not really interested in character design or drawing people, but I do understand that I should have a firm grasp of the human anatomy even for 'serious' art.
I might get a teacher later on, but my circumstances prevent me from getting one at the moment.
Would it be better for me to just go with still life watercolour paintings like drawing apples and what not, while practicing perspective and other fundamentals using books on the side? I'm sorry for rambling, I have no idea on where to start, I just know I want to get into it again.
Edit:
It'd also be cool if somebody could give me some ideas on what to scribble on my notebook when I have nothing to do. I guess the answer would be 'just draw', but it can be frustrating because I have no idea on how to express the images I have in my head, and I feel like a creep to just start drawing people without their consent
I've been interested in getting in to the fine arts again. I used to want to draw manga when I was a kid, but then I lost all interest and just kind of quit.
Now I want to get into 'serious' art, and would like to learn how to paint, perhaps oil paintings and also some pencil art.
I know this is really vague, but I guess I just want to draw again. I'm not really interested in character design or drawing people, but I do understand that I should have a firm grasp of the human anatomy even for 'serious' art.
I might get a teacher later on, but my circumstances prevent me from getting one at the moment.
Would it be better for me to just go with still life watercolour paintings like drawing apples and what not, while practicing perspective and other fundamentals using books on the side? I'm sorry for rambling, I have no idea on where to start, I just know I want to get into it again.
Edit:
It'd also be cool if somebody could give me some ideas on what to scribble on my notebook when I have nothing to do. I guess the answer would be 'just draw', but it can be frustrating because I have no idea on how to express the images I have in my head, and I feel like a creep to just start drawing people without their consent
Shamrock7r
Member
Painted Jack Burton today. Acrylic on Panel Board
evil solrac v3.0
Member
that looks like liquin to me but I could be wrong.
Just added these books in the OP (some still do not have a description as I'm bordering to the character limit:
Perspective: David Chealsea's Perspective Books. His Extreme Perspective in general is super duper helpful when exploring other perspective systems.
Portrait Section : Anatomy of Facial Expressions by Uldis Zarins (some new stuff about facial anatomy in this book!)
Other Figure Drawing books: Burne Hogarth's books (I neglected his books for a long time. Can't believe how useful it is)
New Section for Vehicle Design: H-Point and How to Draw Cars like a pro
New Section for Sci-Fi Designs: Mechanika and Nuthin' But Mech Series
Career section: The Big Bad World of Concept Art for Videogames
I'm also waiting for Philippe Faraut's Figure Sculpting Book part 2 (which deals with dynamic poses and sculpting drapery), which hopefully come out before the year ends.
--------------------------
Also I have made known about people migrating to other forums. For people who want to move this thread to other forums, you can make changes to the thread as you please. Just please let me know that you will do it and refer back to this thread (so other people can also have the resources that might be deleted in the changed, migrated thread).
-------------------------
For all this drama that happened, I just want to mention my overall stance to the issue to avoid potential drama.
I made this thread to help EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO PURSUE ART AS A HOBBY OR PROFESSION. I will not care if that person browses here, on era, slaent, reddit, or even 4chan. As artists, we should help each other and put out our differences, like other people did.
Perspective: David Chealsea's Perspective Books. His Extreme Perspective in general is super duper helpful when exploring other perspective systems.
Portrait Section : Anatomy of Facial Expressions by Uldis Zarins (some new stuff about facial anatomy in this book!)
Other Figure Drawing books: Burne Hogarth's books (I neglected his books for a long time. Can't believe how useful it is)
New Section for Vehicle Design: H-Point and How to Draw Cars like a pro
New Section for Sci-Fi Designs: Mechanika and Nuthin' But Mech Series
Career section: The Big Bad World of Concept Art for Videogames
I'm also waiting for Philippe Faraut's Figure Sculpting Book part 2 (which deals with dynamic poses and sculpting drapery), which hopefully come out before the year ends.
--------------------------
Also I have made known about people migrating to other forums. For people who want to move this thread to other forums, you can make changes to the thread as you please. Just please let me know that you will do it and refer back to this thread (so other people can also have the resources that might be deleted in the changed, migrated thread).
-------------------------
For all this drama that happened, I just want to mention my overall stance to the issue to avoid potential drama.
I made this thread to help EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO PURSUE ART AS A HOBBY OR PROFESSION. I will not care if that person browses here, on era, slaent, reddit, or even 4chan. As artists, we should help each other and put out our differences, like other people did.
Prax
Member
DEATH™;252911565 said:
Thanks, Death! The other art threads.. idk where they are. They seemed nuked so I just shrugged and left (but of course I did not nuke my own account for these such purposes haha). But if you're willing, duplicate this thread over the other forum(s) too! lol I have provided a link to here thus far.
DEATH, you are perhaps the biggest reason why I'm still even checking GAF. I probably won't be posting here much anymore, and I don't know if I'll see you in the beyond, but I couldn't possibly tell you enough times how much I love the OP you've curated over the years and the many resources I have actually used from your OP, and you continue to deliver relevant stuff.
Keep on, keeping on, man.
Keep on, keeping on, man.
Monocle
Member
Oh good, this thread is back.
There's a certain logical order to the categories of drawing and painting concepts you should study. Generally, focus on the simplest thing that you're not good at. Aim one step above your present abilities, and advance gradually. It's not often that flashes of insight lead to sudden massive improvement. You're not going to learn what you haven't spent time trying to understand. Determine what to draw by deciding which skills you're going to work on right now, and choosing a subject that challenges you in those areas.
Start by studying fundamental drawing skills. Before anything else, work on line control with specific exercises. Look for chances to practice your lines whenever you're drawing for a different purpose. You want to get past the awkward stage of shaky hands and jerky scratchy lines, so you can draw crisp shapes with confident strokes, and make your lines cross or run parallel just how you want. DrawABox.com's early lessons will show you how to practice your straight lines, C-curves, and S-curves. Pretty much all of the drawing skills you'll learn later will rely on your ability to place lines accurately.
You can tackle line control, placement, and proportion (of 2D shapes, at first) all at the same time. Do still-lifes of household items (food, cardboard boxes, shoes, scissors...), and copy from simple photo reference if you want. At this time you can scour different resources for tips and supporting skills that relate to basic line drawing, observation, and measuring while drawing from life. Check out books like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, YouTube tutorials, art blogs, etc. Dorian-iten.com has some excellent tips on the fundamentals of observational drawing.
Examples of the kind of info to look for:
- when reproducing an angled or curved line, compare it against a horizontal or vertical line to improve your accuracy
- draw large to small, so the arrangement of objects and their general shapes are set before you even consider the smaller parts and details
- draw lightly in the first stages of your drawing, making darker lines on purpose when you want to commit to a shape
- use light construction lines to build a basic blocky foundation that you can refine later, taking the guesswork out of your final lines
- draw through your shapes, as though everything is a wire frame model. If there's a tissue box in front of the vase you're drawing, draw that whole vase so you get the shape right
Don't waste time worrying about color theory, 3-point perspective, or some other subject way beyond what you're currently studying. It pays to build your foundational skills with time and care, so you're not struggling with the basics while you're trying to understand the more complicated stuff. Complexity is nothing more than layer after layer of the simplest steps. True expertise is the mastery of many simple little things, like drawing a clean straight line, dividing a line into equal thirds, or drawing perfect 90 degree angles. Practice this stuff enough to make it automatic, and your brain will combine it in marvelous ways.
Once you're reasonably good at drawing controlled lines, reproducing lines and angles and shapes with fair accuracy, and putting it all together to draw simple objects as 2D shapes in proportion, you're ready to move on to 3D concepts, which include: form construction, depth cues (overlapping forms, drawing distant objects with less contrast and detail), using cross-contour lines to show form and direction, and 1-point and 2-point perspective.
For form construction, see the DrawABox.com lessons that follow the basic line stuff. For perspective, I highly recommend's Marshall Vandruff's super clear and affordable video course.
Study all of the previous subjects before you get into anatomy. And even then, hold off on the anatomy until you've read Steve Huston's book, Figure Drawing for Artists, and learned how to make good gesture drawings and form-based mannequins
Before you get into color, learn about value (see Scott Robertson's How to Render, and at least the first video in this brilliant series of Huston's lectures by Steve). Color practically takes care of itself when your values are right. Jumping into color without a solid understanding of value is counterintuitive to say the least.
So to summarize, you're aiming to get the hang of drawing accurate lines and basic shapes, using simple objects and photos as your subjects. (Draw from life a lot so you get good at interpreting real forms. Photos do a great deal of the work for you.) Then you can learn to construct solid-looking wire frames in perspective, with section lines and cross-contour lines to reinforce your forms. This will allow you draw just about anything with a convincing sense of weight. You'll be able to create accurate underdrawings/construction lines/lay-ins of any subject, which is arguably the most important aspect of a successful drawing or painting. From there you can study value to throw light on your forms and bring them to life. Then comes color, which you can go crazy with as long as your values match your light source(s).
Be patient with yourself, and have fun!
Sounds about right! You can't express the images in your head yet because you haven't developed the tools to translate your mental imagery to visual information on a paper or canvas. Drawing is an act of translation. You need to learn the language of line, value, and color. Good news: drawing and painting are sets of skills you can acquire exactly the same way you'd learn math, or carpentry, or German. You start with the basics in easily digestible chunks that build on each other layer by layer. You practice each chunk to lock it in your memory and understand how to apply it.
There's a certain logical order to the categories of drawing and painting concepts you should study. Generally, focus on the simplest thing that you're not good at. Aim one step above your present abilities, and advance gradually. It's not often that flashes of insight lead to sudden massive improvement. You're not going to learn what you haven't spent time trying to understand. Determine what to draw by deciding which skills you're going to work on right now, and choosing a subject that challenges you in those areas.
Start by studying fundamental drawing skills. Before anything else, work on line control with specific exercises. Look for chances to practice your lines whenever you're drawing for a different purpose. You want to get past the awkward stage of shaky hands and jerky scratchy lines, so you can draw crisp shapes with confident strokes, and make your lines cross or run parallel just how you want. DrawABox.com's early lessons will show you how to practice your straight lines, C-curves, and S-curves. Pretty much all of the drawing skills you'll learn later will rely on your ability to place lines accurately.
You can tackle line control, placement, and proportion (of 2D shapes, at first) all at the same time. Do still-lifes of household items (food, cardboard boxes, shoes, scissors...), and copy from simple photo reference if you want. At this time you can scour different resources for tips and supporting skills that relate to basic line drawing, observation, and measuring while drawing from life. Check out books like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, YouTube tutorials, art blogs, etc. Dorian-iten.com has some excellent tips on the fundamentals of observational drawing.
Examples of the kind of info to look for:
- when reproducing an angled or curved line, compare it against a horizontal or vertical line to improve your accuracy
- draw large to small, so the arrangement of objects and their general shapes are set before you even consider the smaller parts and details
- draw lightly in the first stages of your drawing, making darker lines on purpose when you want to commit to a shape
- use light construction lines to build a basic blocky foundation that you can refine later, taking the guesswork out of your final lines
- draw through your shapes, as though everything is a wire frame model. If there's a tissue box in front of the vase you're drawing, draw that whole vase so you get the shape right
Don't waste time worrying about color theory, 3-point perspective, or some other subject way beyond what you're currently studying. It pays to build your foundational skills with time and care, so you're not struggling with the basics while you're trying to understand the more complicated stuff. Complexity is nothing more than layer after layer of the simplest steps. True expertise is the mastery of many simple little things, like drawing a clean straight line, dividing a line into equal thirds, or drawing perfect 90 degree angles. Practice this stuff enough to make it automatic, and your brain will combine it in marvelous ways.
Once you're reasonably good at drawing controlled lines, reproducing lines and angles and shapes with fair accuracy, and putting it all together to draw simple objects as 2D shapes in proportion, you're ready to move on to 3D concepts, which include: form construction, depth cues (overlapping forms, drawing distant objects with less contrast and detail), using cross-contour lines to show form and direction, and 1-point and 2-point perspective.
For form construction, see the DrawABox.com lessons that follow the basic line stuff. For perspective, I highly recommend's Marshall Vandruff's super clear and affordable video course.
Study all of the previous subjects before you get into anatomy. And even then, hold off on the anatomy until you've read Steve Huston's book, Figure Drawing for Artists, and learned how to make good gesture drawings and form-based mannequins
Before you get into color, learn about value (see Scott Robertson's How to Render, and at least the first video in this brilliant series of Huston's lectures by Steve). Color practically takes care of itself when your values are right. Jumping into color without a solid understanding of value is counterintuitive to say the least.
So to summarize, you're aiming to get the hang of drawing accurate lines and basic shapes, using simple objects and photos as your subjects. (Draw from life a lot so you get good at interpreting real forms. Photos do a great deal of the work for you.) Then you can learn to construct solid-looking wire frames in perspective, with section lines and cross-contour lines to reinforce your forms. This will allow you draw just about anything with a convincing sense of weight. You'll be able to create accurate underdrawings/construction lines/lay-ins of any subject, which is arguably the most important aspect of a successful drawing or painting. From there you can study value to throw light on your forms and bring them to life. Then comes color, which you can go crazy with as long as your values match your light source(s).
Be patient with yourself, and have fun!
Tackleberry
Member
I am so glad I stumbled across this.. Im a semi-professional artist. I tend to draw a lot of pop culture characters. I do a few comic cons a year as a guest artist.
Going to try my hand at more sequential work.
Going to try my hand at more sequential work.