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tomasoverbai — Skullface
Published: 2014-07-22 06:11:17 +0000 UTC; Views: 1147; Favourites: 68; Downloads: 14
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reddit gets drawn 10Related content
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Mind giving me a little insight into how you design your art? Almost looks like a tracing on top of a photograph
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Hey Josh.
It really depends on the reason of the drawing. Most of my recent drawings are just experiments in technique as I am still trying to figure out what I am doing. Sometimes I lightbox images and sometimes I dont. I have spent hours getting the proportions right on a drawing in what I could do with a lightbox outline in a few minutes. And sometimes a natural free line is just better distorted than a guided one, it all depends. The reddit gets drawn stuff was fun to mix between the two. But either one I would need to draw it fast to get any response before it fell off the reddit page.
In school I would spend hours and hours and hours attempting to reproduce whatever I was drawing as accurately as possible. I dont have hours and hours and hours anymore.
I used to think it was cheating but that's ego speaking. It's about making art and the lightbox is just another tool in the process. I am making the same creative decisions using a light box or not, what type of line, tone, texture, erasing, composition to render whatever I am rendering. For me the lightbox speeds me up and helps remove the constant measuring and erasing and remeasuring. Im not interested in that stuff and get it enough in my life drawings. I picked up the Drew Struzan book and he spoke eloquently on the whole subject, I think he uses a projector to transfer images onto his board.
I go back and forth as much as possible to exercise different parts of the creative brain. Sometimes I will use the lightbox to redraw my own freehand drawings to further render and define them. I did an experiment once and redrew my friends dnd character about 9 times. Redrawing it and redrawing it using the light box.
Feel free to ask any questions you have.
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Wow that's very insightful, I'd never even thought about using a lightbox. Most of the stuff I do is completely free-hand and "free-eye" if that makes sense, and usually very simplistic in design. I wouldn't consider myself "bad" at drawing minute details, but I really admired the way you use all these little simple marks to render a drawing further than just basic outlines. I guess texture isn't my strong suit, which is why I want to improve in that area. I feel it would really help me achieve a creative breakthrough with my artwork, and like I said your style of detail is really influential to me. Thank you very much for the reply as well, it's awesome to communicate with other people who are passionate about creating
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Thanks.
In school I kept two separate sketchbooks. One I would fill with observational drawings, objects, people, things, landscapes. The other I would fill with drawings from my imagination "free eye". I feel it is important to excercise both skills. They can really help to strengthen the other, you will be able to draw an eye from imagination much better after drawing 100 actual eyes.
Another thing that helped was limiting my time on drawings. I used to work for the California State Parks as a graphic designer and would practice during lunch. Most of my lunch sketch characters I would do in 45 minutes. Since I didnt have a lot of time to dink around with the drawing I would just have to go in kind of fast and make quick descicive pencil marks. That limit of time really helped, another that can help with that is timed gesture drawings. Give yourself only 2 - 5 minutes to draw. Go to quickposes.com for some nice timed drawing practice, pick up some cheap copy paper and do 30 - 2 minute drawings in an hour. You can get much better pretty fast if you stick with it. But really after 2 minutes go on. Drop it wherever you are in the drawing. Start a new one, 2 minutes pass, start a new one. If the drawing is not working wait 2 minutes for the next one. Do it over and over.
It was the artist Mike Mignola of Hellboy that really taught me that economy of line. Those little marks in the right place can really define an image with little pencil work. If I can communicate a "tree" to you the viewer using say 100 marks vs. 1000 marks. The 100 one is better because it took less time, so I can draw 9 other things. Its also better because you the viewer fills in some of the rest of the tree. If I spend 1000 marks on it there's not much left for you to add to the experience, I have done all the work for you.
Just keep at it man, the textures will come. There are some amazing stock images here to practice on.
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Once again thanks so much, Mike Mignola is another big influence of mine and I could see his influence upon you as well, I actually just recently bought the library edition of Hellboy vol. 1. I've gotten really good (in my opinion) at drawing poses because that's basically all I've focused on in the majority of my drawing time, yet I'm thinking it's time to delve deeper into rendering. I really admire both yours and Mike's ability to capture "simplistic complexity", which I admit sounds a bit paradoxical, but kinda like you said giving the viewer more work on their part by definition gives the artist less work in a sense. I can see how limiting the amount of time that goes into art can be beneficial, because it is easy to get lost in the lines. Are there any techniques you've used to improve your rendering skills? I'm very interested to know!
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Another thing Mignola has mentioned is with less lines those lines become very important, he has redrawn a single line a dozen times until he gets the right one. The simpler something is the stronger it needs to be to carry the art.
The best technique is just to draw as many things as you can as much as you can. Constantly experimenting with your pencil. Draw from life and draw from imagination. Try out different tools. Lead holder, mechanical pencil, brushes, nibs, digital tablet. Live a life full of experience to give you a wealth of information and emotion to draw upon. Fall in love, have your heart broken, do some drugs, dance in a park, participate in live drawing events, go to a gallery, burn some of your art to realize that nothing lasts forever and that you can always make more art.
Reddit gets drawn is great for quick portrait practice. Quickposes is great for gesture drawing. I have a bookmark for deviantart stock and would practice drawing from those. Most if not all of my art is people so I need more practice drawing cars and buildings.
Scott Roberston has a great book on rendering I am reading right now. One thing I notice in your work tends to be flat. I think this will help you to create space in your artwork.
www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketch…
Another fantastic fundamentals book is Art Fundamentals, it gives a nice survey of all kinds of basic art techniques, doesnt go into too much depth but it includes a lot of info.
www.amazon.com/Art-Fundamental…
A couple blogs I visit all the time are
James Gurney - Dinotpia guy he has an amazing book on understanding color and light
gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
Another is muddy colors - spend a day or two going through all of the posts from some of the top illustrators in the biz
muddycolors.blogspot.com/
There are no magic tricks just practice on top of practice with a bit more practice. While some people might have predispositions for making art I believe talent is an illusion. It's a word created by non artist's to dismiss all the hard work involved or to give them an excuse to not practice something themselves. "I could never draw like that." With enough work anyone can learn to draw, its a teachable craft. "Oh you're so talented. It must be so easy for you." I hear sometimes at conventions. It's almost an insult to the amount of work I have put in.
I tell them talent is a myth, that it has been a lot of hard work, drawing over and over, very few of my drawings have come without considerable effort. And my early drawings were horrible just like everyone else's early drawings. Like anything in life the more time and effort you put into something the better you will become at it.
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Sorry it took me so long to reply, I have one additional question. I have trouble motivating myself to draw. I love the end result the rough part is forcing myself to sit and draw, do yo have any tips that could help? I really appreciate all the help and feedback!
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Thats alright, ask whatever whenever.
For the motivation thing it is such a personal reason for every individual. Sometimes when I am not motivated I think of all the other artists in the world that are getting better while I am doing x, y or z and then I sit down and draw, than after a good few hours I feel productive. I have struggled with motivation myself, although it has mostly been about general depression not necessarily the act of drawing.
Motivation is such a weird thing. You can try to get involved in local art events. I am always super motivated to draw after a convention or gallery show. Nowadays there are so many distractions with the internet that I will sit down to draw and spend an hour just going through Kotaku looking at new games coming out. You can try to set aside a certain amount of time everyday. There are a couple phone apps you can use to help create good habits. You program in something and it records how much and how often you do it.
You could post a few motivational posters about your drawing space. "DRAW TODAY" or whatever. I have a "10 things you must tell yourself everyday" thing above my drafting table. You can reward yourself. Food, drugs whatever. Humans respond well to being rewarded. I have a few steam games that I wont play until I have done a certain amount of work. I actually bought the MMO "Wildstar" becuase it looked cool but I wont install it until after I have finished issue 1 of my comic. I want to play the game but wont until I do the shit I need to do.
You could probably just google "motivation" and use it specifically for drawing more. Better at guitar, or a language, or dancing, or chess, or whatever.
Also you need to be very honest with yourself, why do you want to be an artist? To make money? To create stuff? Why do you want to draw? Becuase you enjoy drawing or you enjoy the praise you get from people saying "great art" or whatever. I see alot of sculpture in your favs, maybe you just dont like drawing and would respond more to clay. Im just throwing these questions out, the important part is that you do what you enjoy. Try different mediums, maybe you just need to find something specific that you are more driven to do.
Since you love the end result of your work, try posting up some of that finished art around your drawing space to inspire yourself. One thing that is super important to beginning artists is that you get rid of your work. Sell it or give it to people for special occasions. Never just give it away, becuase that assigns a value of zero to your work. If you get rid of your work you wont have any and will need to create more. Perhaps in holding on to the art you have you are not motivated to make more of it. Get rid of it! I used to hoard my stuff and so didnt do a whole lot of drawing. I didnt need to draw becuase I had a bunch of art. But when I started selling my work I realized I needed to make more art, so I was motivated. Now my work sells pretty easy so I am constantly re stocking my original art basket at convention tables.
I think I hit my ramble quote for the day. You need to find what motivates and inspires you. It might take a while but I'm sure it is there somewhere.
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Wow, I've never even thought about hoarding art in a material sense, it was always more about building my knowledge, but that's the thing, I don't know what I'm building towards or if it's even possible to know. I think my biggest issue when it comes to motivation is setting goals, and maybe that's why I have so little direction outside of my typical drawing style/routine. I think you've got a point when it comes to shifting mediums. I rarely sculpt but I've always been fascinated by special effects/props and so forth. I think I'll try to broaden my media, which hopefully will get me unstuck from this bind I find myself in. I have a question about selling artwork, I'm curious not only how you became capable of selling art (how you found the market and how you got exposure.) but how you determine the worth/quality of your artwork when it comes to a business point of view. I really want to be able to make a living from my artwork because it IS what I love to do, I just don't know how to do so in the modern world. I'm not sure what standards I should hold myself to when it comes to the quality of my work, and I'm also not sure who'd even be interested in buying my work. I've considered doing commissions but I want to make sure what I create is worth the money whoever will be paying. If you have any insight into these particular matters, please let me know! And once again thanks so much for your help!
-Joshua
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You can take an online drawing course for pretty cheap to help establish patterns of study. I did a massive black workshop in San Fran a few years back that was exactly what I needed.
Commissions are hit or miss for me I need to like what I draw. I have told a couple people that I couldnt do a specific commission. If you truly draw what you enjoy the viewer will see it in the work, which is good at a convention too because I can talk the subject to the customer. A good way to connect with people on a personal level at conventions when we talk about blade runner or dune or whatever.
Hold yourself to the highest standards you are capable of achieving. Treat it as professional as you want. I do sales at cons I want to have my art in mylar bags, to protect the prints and get them to a home safe. I see other artists that put little thought to the presentation but for a small investment can show much more care in the value you assign your art. All my original art is bagged in a hard board backing.
The great thing about the modern world is you can sell your work to anyone across the planet, thats pretty crazy. Storenvy.com is a great place for a webstore and its free. The secret is getting people to go to the website and spend money to buy your stuff. If you are in the US it is basically $5 plus envelope to mail to anyone, $12-$15 for anyone around world. Look up my name at storenvy and you can see the different prices and standards I have. You set all the postage and stuff. Just make the best art you can make and you will make sales. Goto the different places around internet post your work.
The value of your art is whatever you give it. The secret is finding the highest number that someone will pay. As your skill grows you can charge more. A quick way of thinking about value in art is an hourly wage. If your drawing took 2 hours to do than give it a value of $40 if you want $20 an hour of pay. Think of a 40 hour work week. Draw and sell that much art.
For small investments you can make some prints, get a table at a convention. I have seen artists get $30 for 11 x 17 I do $15 for 12 X 18, I think it's a fair price. I sell my small prints for $3, which sell well as gifts.
After I removed inking from my workflow I feel I found my medium. It looks different than other peoples. I think thats important. Don't be the second best whoever artist be the best you artist. Again now you can experiment with who you are as an artist. My "style" is kind of set. I will change somethings but for now I like the way I am drawing so Im not really experimenting as much.
The human body is a great subject for motivation.
Find a website like quickposes.com or something. They have quick gesture drawing routines.
Dont be attached to the drawings. This is pure study mode. You can experiment because no one will see them. Every once in a while you do a good one and can sell at a con or gallery show. You get better fairly quickly. Draw only an hour a day. That becomes a full day of drawing in only 24 days. Imagine drawing for 24 hours straight. It seems difficult but you can do it in only 24 days.
Just keep drawing, with skill the fans will come, dont go looking for fame, just draw and it will come.
Ive been watching a movie while I composed my thoughts on this. SO it might have jumped around a bit.
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Totally OK! Thanks for the link I'm definitely going to check that out.
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