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.

Slow and steady wins the race!

I’m a bit slow with the updates atm and I apologize for that, but I found a book called “The Natural Way To Draw – by Kimon Nicolaides”, it really suits me and it’s pretty much what I have been looking for.
It’s very organized with schedules and exercises, there’s no swaying feel good “just do what you want, it’s all just for fun and game tihi – bullshit”, it’s very point A to point B, which I’ve been missing in authors like Vilppu and Loomis, imho they take your hand and follow you on the road and don’t really bother with start or finish. Kimon tells you where you’re expected to start and where finish is and then gives you some basic tools, which you need to learn while on the road… and I love that, gimme a fucking compass and I’ll get there! I don’t want some fucking hiking buddy holding my hand… telling me every fucking swing and bump there’s on the road – PISS OFF!
Long story short, there’s not really much point in uploading those drawings, since it will make absolute no sense - heck most of them don’t even make sense to me the day after. I will share a quick one just as an example to what it is I’m working on :P

 On a side note – Contour drawing can seriously go fuck a duck!!!

I did two “normal” drawings as well ofc.
First is a gun from a friend’s book of different firearms, don’t ask…
Nothing big, but still fun to work with that many straight lines, though it’s a fucking hell to piece together, specially without a ruler, you’re pretty much forced to sketch out the whole thing and then start adding “basic” things and make them all fit together as a unit… ugh I miss circles and curves lol :P

Next is another tablet drawing. I wanted to start something from scratch and not from an old pencil sketch, just curious if I could do it really.
Pretty fun experience, though I’m a fucking bull in a china shop when it comes to understanding Photoshop… *sigh*