The more you learn the less you know.

Feels like I had a slow week, didn’t get a lot out of my spare time - being busy sucks!
It takes nothing for me too loose focus, if I got too many appointments, social engagements etc. I can’t seem to zone in when needed, even when I know it’s all about taking the first step and just start.

Nonetheless I did manage to start something “new”, I’ve been busy with Stephen Kings – The Dark Tower series (read it!) and I always wanted to try drawing out Roland Deschain of Gilead. Being too intimidated too start out on such a task from zero I looked up some old Eastwood movies, Man with no name series and Unforgiving for some reference.  God I fucking love that Man with no name series (or Dollars trilogy w/e), Sergio Leone what a focking boss -they don’t make movies like that anymore…

And then… the pictures, I wanted to try “painting” in Photoshop again… anything to avoid drawing crisp lines with the tablet!!!
I made some gif’s of the process, dunno if they serve any purpose - but I think the process itself is interesting, I at least like to see how other people got to their finished… uhm… work? Dunno the word :)

Not sure I’m doing this the most effective way, ofc you could argue talking about effective routes and work processes doesn’t really matter as long as it works for you. Still the way I’m doing these is pretty much finishing 98% with one area at the time and then move on, I think maybe I should try fill out the rough shape and then render it down and do details on the whole thing together, but maybe that’s biting off more than I can chew ><
In the end I added some quick textures and tuned the colors etc. – totally an attempt to disguise my mistakes haha or not, but whatever! :P
On the second one - the profile - I tried to add a bit more scars and stuff for a bit more weathered look.

As so many times before I went from one thing to another, not sure how I ended up with Mila Kunis, but think I just stumbled over a picture in my reference pile (Book of Eli).
Holy duck, this was a slightly bigger project, but for once I thought I would start with the worst first, so yeah… face time.

As you can see when you make gif’s of the work process, you suddenly discover your “oopsies” here I at some point dragged her hair flowing down over her forehead a bit back by mistake… fucking layers man! But ofc I didn’t notice my mistake before now and I already layed down shadows… what a bunch of bullshit Tue! Excuses, excuses but ugh… come on ><

I didn’t have much time to  continue my old project from last week, only got to finish up one more addition not sure if it’s Bub or Bob, but the green fella from Bubble Bobble getting it on with a koopa shell – don’t ask. Anyway, no reason to post the whole thing just for one little addition, so here’s just a small pic of the “scene”.

*NSFW* Smurf smut party with friends 1.0 - this is what happens if you feed them after dark or maybe it's just me.

Back from a little weekend to the ”countryside” plus a great 2 days headache, apparently I jetlag easy (Denmark is HUGE fyi!).
Anywho, last week I was working a bit on a smurf party, not sure why, I don’t even like smurfs all that much.
It started out as just a plain mushroom home.

After that I played around a bit trying to develop a more painting sensation. What I got was a bit darker and gloomy feel, which got me thinking about tripping trolls… obviously!

Then disaster struck! A friend dropped by for a couple of days and… boys will be boys. I take no responsibility here on after - my friend is a pervert and I got a fragile little mind which is influenced easy.

And this is how far I’ve gotten at the moment – It's very much still work in progress, there’s no background and the composition is temporary.

 

-          Shoptalk:

The time it takes to draw out these little fucks is absurd, I cannot for the life of me draw a decent line with a tablet and this is 99% line work. I tried to draw out some of the smurfs on paper too save time, but drawing up the line afterwards was insanely slow. If the entire drawing process on paper took 20minutes with changing designs and trying out different things etc. then the drawing up the already done lines in PS took + 1 hour. That’s not fun!!! (Including some paper sketches in the bottom).
I really enjoyed drawing some of these little fuckers and I admit some of them were done with a little smile :P I wanted to draw in some of my friends, but so far I haven’t gotten around to more than a handful – which is not important ;)
… And no I haven’t included myself yet either, but I assure you if I was I would be the smurf doing the “clam” (A friends coined phrase for a fetal position with a pillow over the head trying to block out all sounds).
Not sure why I jumped over these smurfs, but I suspect it has to do with something that’s relative familiar and very cartoony, without being super complicated – “crawl before you can walk” and blabla :)

Random stuff from the past week - Now with a pirate twist.

More opdates from the darkside of the moon.

I’m still very much struggling with the Kimon Nicolaides schedules, the missing feel of “finished” pieces gets annoying, yeah sure it’s fun to scribble, but not doing anything… I guess “real” kinda kills the feel of drawing, also it’s almost impossible to measure if you’re getting anything out of the exercises or you misunderstood something fundamental, so it’s basically nothing more than a patience exercise.

Here’s four more Modelled Drawings. I finally got some A3 paper, which ofc is too big for my scanner, but at least I got a somewhat functioning camera :)

I got a bit inspired by a track “Kavinsky – Nightcall” (From the Drive soundtrack), so ofc I had to draw two quick sketches from the movie. Normally I would have approached this really meticulously and spend half my day on correct proportions and details, but instead maybe inspired by Kimon Nicolaides, I just wanted to put something down quick, basically not much pen resting or lifting. Prolly in the range of 5minutes +/- on each, oh and on the second one I kinda fucked it up by choosing a #H pencil, so it can be a bit hard to see.

 I’ve been trying to put together some ideas for a basic zombie theme board game for a while now, nothing serious but I discovered I really enjoy the brainstorming and trying to build something up from the ground.
“If only I would have some friends who would get a bit involved as well!” *hint hint Allan, Martin, Søren and …??*
Anywho, as a study in drawing objects for once and with the help of Google I found some simple refs for some of them, others are just from my imagination.
I would like to bring them into PS and have a bit fun with them, but so far I’ve only started on the knife.
So ye, small collage of some of the “objects” – I would like to draw them in a bit more Cartoony fashion, but I don’t really know how :P

 In my time trolling the conceptart.org forums, I’ve discovered you the need to draw some environments as well, apparently it’s considered a good idea…
Luckily I have a big folder of dual screen wallpapers of different nature motives… yes! Anything to avoid going outside, besides the environment here is 90% traffic… no - busses and metros haven’t been discovered yet, that part of my map is clearly in fog of war.
Anyway, I looked through some of them and hesus Christ I can’t imagine starting on some big mountain range with lakes and trees all over the place, that would take… time and… time, ofc there’s prolly 100 smart techniques to go about it, but watching +100 clearly distinguishable trees and thinking I need to draw that… not gonna happen m8.
I did find a space/earth horizon atmosphere picture though… hahaha I’m so fucking lazy it’s a joke really, but 4 colors blue, grey, black and white, and I can see myself finish it lol. It was prolly a bit to cheesy a choice, since it basically took no time and I doubt I really learned much in the process, still It’s clearly a environment, so… it would have to count for something!

Right?

As usual I got inspired by something external, I was watching a Juno Reactor live show, where there was a picture of a stylized Jolly Roger (pirate flag) and ofc if that doesn’t tickle something inside you… then are you really alive, I mean really really alive?
I had some idea of what I wanted to do, I wanted a “modern” jolly roger, it would have to have a hoodie, be evul and having a scarf mask?, if that’s even word ><
I had to draw the basic sketch on paper, I simply can’t use PS for that, it’s too slow and I loose connection, but after I had that down and loaded in PS I was jumping back and forth from one “smart” idea to another, on my experience level that equals “Ooops – Did I just overwrite my save there???” and “god fucking damnit all these layers confuse me, let me just merge them and save”… ARGHHH!!!!!
But here are some of the ideas and roads I travelled, should be in chronological order.

I meant to change the bones a bit, give them a bit more personality? But instead I draw two paintbrushes and added some red, which worked better in my opinion :) I thought about replacing the circles with paint splatters, but I feel it would just complicate and unbalance things with “details” – that’s what I tell myself at least, maybe I’m just lazy… it’s a possibility.
But now I’m clearly “street” since I got my very own JOLLY ROGER “YYARRR!”

My brain is stupid... wtb transplant!

Schedule 3 done.

I had a few days break from this book and its exercises, the frustration over the modelled and weight exercises just beat me. Something had to change or this would just spin out of control, so I decided I would start up some fitness routine again - after about a 4 months break - it’s the worst shit ever to start up after this long a break, but the energy and clearer thought it gives is priceless, especially when you’re in a downward spiral.
Maybe it’s just purely a placebo effect, but nonetheless I did manage to complete the third schedule now. It’s still very confusing and hard, but the modeled exercises do flow a bit better now and that’s at least something.

In the break from the book - and its hell schedule - I tried to pick up a pencil and just go back to “basics”, but wow, something had clearly shifted, I could not for the life of me produce anything… I’m not sure if it was because I maybe tried to force a 100% imagination approach or what, but even drawing an eye again felt weird and alienated.
In retrospect I do feel that I should have started with this book, the tools and habits I picked up from the start feels like crutches now. The way you learn to draw with for example Betty Edwards are good and you will learn the basics very fast, but to me it also feels like it will quickly box you in as well.
This book however does have a feel of wild goose chase, especially if you’re doing it alone and if it’s worth it? … well I’ll have to wait and see, still I prefer this approach to learning over getting an already finished assembly line plan “just do this and that - *boom* you can now draw” in a sense it feels like just asking Google “ how to draw a horse”, that may great if you only care about drawing the same old horse over and over, but if you want more you have to dig deeper and develop your own understanding – that’s my view on it at least and in all honesty I don’t know shit. ;)

Now to the drawings, I don’t have a whole lot, but I can upload the modelled exercises I did so far.

The first one here was my BANE which knocked me down for the count. I couldn’t understand anything at all, and it only succeeded in pissing me off which is quite obvious in the drawing - that’s no drawing done in a “good” mood :P

The second one was slightly better in the sense I wasn’t stabbing the paper with the crayon, so progress on that behalf. The feel of wtf I’m doing is still nowhere in sight though.

 

 Third one, same story as the previous, it’s messy and I have the distinct feeling of drifting in and out of consciousness while I’m doing this exercises, it’s like my brain just goes “*click* let’s see what’s on channel 4”, that can’t be the intention, as far as I’ve understood it I’m supposed to feel like I’m using clay and in the weight part I should have the sense of building it up from the core etc… I got nothing like that, instead my subconscious is watching Jersey Shore or something, it’s definitely not trying to “feel” the shape and weight or modeling with clay… no no, my ego has left the building the moment I picked up the crayon… “ahhh shit it’s time for this again *hangs up sign – DND watching Braindead*”

Last one. Still no idea wtf I’m doing, but I did figure out that I needed to be a lot more gentle and not using a lot of pressure, I should be using a medium lithographic crayon, but all I could get was “very soft” and that shit is way too oily and sticky.
It’s very weird starting these drawings with a 10minutes weight exercise approach, to develop the shape and all, firstly you can’t erase any mistakes and secondly you’re not drawing the contour so trying to figure out proportions are kinda like a roll with the dice. The urge to draw symbols and lines are quite real.

So yeah, these are all the Modelled Drawings I've done so far. 

Maybe I just need to think about "the further away the darker" fuck everything else.

The Kimon Nicolaides exercises makes as much sense as two smurfs sailing a rubber duck.

Still on Kimon Nicolaides book – The natural way to draw. It’s getting harder and harder - the soloing is problematic, basically I got no idea if I understand his exercises correct and they are pretty… out there. 

Lately I’ve been working on some weight exercises which go into some modeled exercises, but the problem is exactly that, these exercises builds on each other, so if I don’t understand wtf is going on than the whole foundation which the next ones will be built on could be utterly bullshit.
In short; the frustrations of not having some kind of mentor or teacher to steer my learning in the right directions… is getting quite frustrating.
In the weight exercises your supposed to mass up your object from the core and out, getting a feel of mass and weight/energy - fair enough, but ffs if I’m looking at the model or object then I can’t fucking mass it out and get the feeling of sculpting out the thing, so when I look I can get the feel which is the intention, but then I might as well be “drawing” a ball, because all sense of form and shape is out the window, likewise if I’m looking at the drawing then I lose the sense of massing it out, because then I’m drawing from imagination more than observation… that’s a problem.

Some examples of my weight drawings.

Now comes the modeled exercise, you spend the first 10 minutes massing it out like in the weight exercise, then you’re supposed to “feel” the object and draw like it was cross contour, first vertical and then horizontal, darker representing depth – again, I get the meaning, but if I’m drawing for example a body and I’m supposed to get the sensation of drawing and touch being linked together, then I HAVE TO LOOK!!! But back to the previous shit, IF I’M FUCKING LOOKING AT MY OBJECT THEN I MIGHT ASWELL BE DRAWING A BIG FAT FUCKING DARK HOLE!

Some more gesture (60 second gesture from photo reference). This is one of my problems; my style goes from one direction to another, I know there’s no right or wrong, but there’s a slow way and a fast way… that I fucking know and me swaying from one extreme to another can’t be smart.

I got so mad about those modeled exercises, I just had to do something else, so why not jump in the completely other ditch and make some smurfs sail a rubber duck? At least it would be imagination for once.
I wanted to make the water and duck look more “realistic” but yeah… no, I’m not sure I’m willing to spend hours upon hours trying to figure out that procedure… O.o In a perfect world I would like to come back to it and correct some of the mistakes, the duck and his huge hand for example… - but you know what they say about big hands… and smurfette does look pretty content - still her skirt should be more animated and he needs a right hand as well etc. blab la blab la bla

... and yes my smurfette got juggs hahaha - I couldn't help it.

Yeah, I had to make a few alterations, moving up the beak on the duck, giving the male smurf a right leg... still no arm, some alterations to the sky and water, plus a little island/beach shit :)

Okay, okay, might as well just continue to do these small updates... :P Still working on the MS FUCK-A-DUCK, it's really really fucking hard to make that bloody duck work, the reflection/shadows kinda help though, but still not satisfied - and no I don't really wanna start a shadow project on the smurfs, I like them to stay somewhat 2D and in a perfect world work more on making the rest seem more "living".

Just looked at the first draft again, I think that duck got downs syndrom or something... O.o

Good fucking night! :)