Tuesdays are the busiest days at Uni, So I don’t have that much time for drawing. So here is a doodle from the morning lectures. The word of the day being “Hungry”- I stuck with a theme of Hunger for Knowledge, Peace, Perfection… yadiyada…
To compensate for the low quality (Ballpoint/Gel pens) and the bad photo: there is a list next to the drawing giving advice on Creative Block. Isn’t great? 😀 Thank me later.
You can find the final drawing here: https://axoupixou.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/august-eh-persevering/
Well, If you want to get good in Art. It is all about that old saying we hear everyone talking about:
“PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!”
You hear every good artist saying that they had to practice and draw/doodle everyday. The more you practice, the more chances you get in developing a dictionary of references in your head which then helps you breakdown drawings/concepts to be able to draw them faster and easier! I feel that I am definitely improving, it might feel slow but I feel confident that next year I’ll be much better!
DO NOT GIVE UP!
I feel like sharing my timetable on my blog now. So if anyone wants to join in and practice they CAN!
Monday:
Creature/Animal Study (Sketches of animals or plants/insects etc…)- Helpful for character concepts
Tuesday
Masters Study (Copy a painting/drawing of a professional)- Learn new techniques (Composition, lighting, shapes/forms etc.)
Wednesday
Anatomy Practice ( Learn where the muscles are, the bone structure on the body etc)- Helpful again for character concepts/portraits etc.
Thursday
From Memory Sketch (Demonstrate that you have learnt/remembered something)- Combine your ideas with whatever you remember (DO NOT USE REFERENCES ON THURSDAYS!)
Friday
Gesture Drawing (Practice gesture drawing to get use to body movement and shapes etc) Relaxing Fridays/Passive learning
Saturday
Self Portrait Project (Draw yourself each week varying the styles/ideas/emotions etc.)
Sunday
Relaxing days nothing has to be done. If you insist on drawing: From imagination day!
We had homework that the teacher never looked for or even tried to check. So, I’m just going to share it with everybody.
Okay. These animation I must add are not Bvh motions that I downloaded from the internet, I actually tried studying the movements and having to act the specific movement myself to see how the body really moves. Of course, I am aware that these little animations are not perfect, but at least I tried. Here is the other one:
One thing I realized is; the action is really slow, I do not know whether I mess up the key frames or if it is the render/save that mess the animation up by slowing it down. With my previous animations I also encountered the same trouble, where some of the scenes are way too slow. I am thinking about changing the keyframes and making it go faster before rendering. Just to have the perfect timing.
Other than that, I am satisfied of the outcome. The animations are really short but I could always put something together on photoshop or after effects. I could even create my own Bvh motions. I can also add that I admire animators and artists who study movement and observe the shapes and muscle of any living thing to then recreate its movement in an animation. I understand that some of them use motion tracking devices just so the work goes faster, but being able to recreate a perfect natural looking movement is kind of hard. I’m just saying.
But even if animation is hard work and means a lot of stress, it really is a lot of fun and rewarding. You get to see your final creation and see your progress, and that is great \(^-^)/
I remember last year rendering my piece of animation till the very last minute… I remember having the worst dark circles (I mean, I had worst gaming till late and not sleeping but…)- It was pretty bad. Creating an animation is hard but rendering takes a lot of time. It makes me wonder how the big companies like Dream works and Pixar do it? (Of course, they have great computers) but rendering is still TIME CONSUMING.
So, I would encourage myself and try to learn from my mistakes. I have to complete the animation early, just to have plenty of time to render properly! Hopefully the software will not crash. I’ve been using poser last year, and this software kept crashing. I wonder if Maya works better. I feel like poser is more user friendly, less buttons and less overwhelming tabs that are scattered all over the screen. On the other hand, Maya looks strong and reliable. Multitasking and rendering might turn out to be better.
So I’m encouraging anyone who is interested in Animation to always test their renders, and plan to have a lot of time to render as it really is time consuming. (I have to put emphasis on the time here!) [Get loads of computers and dress as a farmer]- And I am also asking advice to the experts, Are you a Maya, Poser, Vue or 3D Max person? why?- Anyway! Let’s see whats happens this year.
Axe's 