Chance and DriveByBaptism build some drawing skills

[Chance.]

First Thing: Introductions.

My name is Chance, literally. It's not just my screen name.
I am an 18 year old "community" college student and am about to apply to one of the top art schools in the country. So there you have my short term artistic goals.

I love to teach (hence the existence of this thread) and I will probably end up as an art instructor somewhere after I have spent some time in the art field.

Since everyone is giving examples of the art they like... Who am I to question what the really good mentors are doing. I plan on unashamedly stealing all those great artists teaching techniques every chance I get.

I don't have time to post images at the moment, but to see art I love search "M@." and "Bumskee" on on the forums. They are my digital heroes. I love pretty much everything they do.

I am also a big fan of the comic artist Mike Mignola (is that how you spell it?)

I will try to post some pictures later.


Now it is your turn, Mr Flamedragon, please introduce yourself, maybe give us an idea of your artistic goals. Tell us what you like to draw (subject matter wise, aka figures, monsters, portraits, vehicles... you get the idea) Then tell us what you want to learn how to draw.
Also, don't be lazy like me, hunt down some of the pieces that inspire you and post them so we can see what you are aspiring for.

Also, please go ahead and post any new stuff that you have completed or are still working on. The more of your art I see, the more easily I can determine where we start working

[FlameDragon]

Here's a timeline:

I'm a 20 year old student who loves art, I've been drawing since I was 5. When I look through my older works now, I do realize that my skill was taking longer than normal to develop. For example, it wasn't until 2001 (age 15) that my art started even looking decent. My when I was younger I was quite creative with some of the things I drew. Around 2001/2002 I started getting into anime alot and so I'd just draw the anime pictures I was seeing instead of drawing from my mind. All those years that I could have been improved, I was relying solely on reference pictures. In fact I could hardly ever recall trying to draw something from real life that was in front of me.

It wasn't until early 2005 when my friend mentioned that she goes to life drawing that I thought I needed to study the anatomy in order to improve my art. I then would ask people on deviantart to do nude pictures for me and I'd draw those, but after months I was only seeing improvement in drawing from pictures but still couldnt draw the figure that good or even from my mind.

In early 2006 I went to New York Comic Con and had a great time, particularly meeting the professional artists and getting sketches. However by early 2007 when Comic Con rolled around again, I thought it would be awesome to go again but I had lost my interest in anime (and haven't been into comics since 1998 ). I tried to think of what I could look forward to if I go, and it brought me back to the meeting the artists. So I looked through my old PSM magazines from 2000 and 2001, where on the inside they would show you the process that the guest comic book artist went through to arrive at the cover image. The one that was always my favorite though was the November 2001 Devil May Cry cover by Joe Madureira. In the 5-6 years since I had that PSM issue, I never thought to actually look his name up. So I looked him up online and was vastly amazed at what I saw/heard. His art was some of the best stuff I'd seen and whats more intriguing was that he was only 16 when he was already starting at Marvel Comics (although his drawings didnt see print till around age 17/18 ).

Even though age shouldnt matter when it comes to art, I felt very bad that I was 20 and Joe was already drawing vastly better than me when he was 17. My mind just couldn't fathom how someone that young could grasp the principles of art so quickly and so well, when it was taking me all these years and I still barely have any art principles down. That's when I decided to take serious effort to improve my art. I started going to life drawing open sessions in July but wasnt seeing much improvement. I found this website (in July) and was getting very harsh critique and so started getting anatomy books and going to life drawing more. I recently went to the Art Student's League to sign up for this affordable class that was perfect (on the paper they gave me it said there was still room in the class), but when I tried to register they suddenly told me that it was always full and that there is a waiting list with 12 people ahead of me. And so I come to the mentoring thread to see if I can get help here, and I'm so grateful that Chance wants to help me!

I mainly want to draw characters but I need tremendous assistance in being able to draw things from my imagination (I lost that ability once I started drawing anime from reference pics so much). My most recent drawing is this first image, but I dont like to say "my" since I used a reference picture for that too (then again, I couldn't remember what he looked like from my memory). The next 5 images are some of Joe Madureira's drawings; I'm striving to reach that level!! Whenever I think of the term "concept art", I think of the first and the third Joe Mad drawings that I posted.

[Chance.]

Your little Bio is great. It gives me a much better idea how to begin helping you.

I am about to say some things that you may not believe at first, but I have a feeling that I will be able to convince you before too long.

1. Everyone develops at different speeds. Yes, some people have that thing that they call "talent" and yes, it does help them to develop at greater speeds than us mortals. However the speed at which you improve has nothing to do with the amount you improve.
I guarantee that every artist you talk to can point out another artist that is either younger than them and/or has been doing art for less time, but has a skill set that they envy. I also guarantee that every artist who is serious, no matter how amazingly good they are, will tell you that they are far from the level they wish to be. It is a healthy state to be in. When you are satisfied with your art, thats when you should start to worry.

2. Drawing from reference is THE ABSOLUTE BEST THING YOU IN THE WORLD YOU CAN DO FOR YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST!!! This is where we are going to start. If you want to be able to draw from your mind, draw from reference. Using anime as your source for artistic reference is probably not the best place to learn how to draw people. We will eventually discuss why in greater detail. The main reason is that you end up learning how to copy someone else's style rather than learning how to draw for yourself.
Figure drawing is the most desired ability for most artist, and also one of the most difficult ones to acquire. It is a skill that you will use often and knowing how to draw people will help you in other areas of art. Before we begin working with figures and portraiture, however, first we will need to build up your basic observational skills... so lets get started

Assignment 1

The first thing we are going to do is demonstrate why drawing from reference is important for developing your imaginative drawing skills.

Step 1: I am a Samurai nut, so lets have some fun with samurai. Spend 30 minutes to an hour drawing a Samurai as realistically and detailed as possible WITHOUT REFERENCE. Do not look at any photos or illustrations! It is essential for the success of this assignment that you do step one from your memory. Write down your thoughts afterwards and tell me what was going on in your mind while you did it. What was hard? What was easy?

Step 2: Get online or check a book out from the library (or rent The Last Samurai) or something. In other words, find a picture of a samurai, and draw it as accurately as possible. This is not a an exercise of imagination, you are trying to make as photo realistic a copy of that image as possible. It would be best if you find a photo online and post it along with your sketch. Try to spend about the same amount of time on this as you did on step one. Again write down your thoughts afterward.

Step 3: Now for the magic. Get rid of all of that reference and draw a samurai from your imagination again. Spend the same amount of time on this one as the first two. Write down your thoughts.

Try to complete these in a week to a weed and a half if you can. If you have any questions feel free to post them.

Good luck, and give it your best.

[FlameDragon]

Your little Bio is great. It gives me a much better idea how to begin helping you.

I am about to say some things that you may not believe at first, but I have a feeling that I will be able to convince you before too long.

1. Everyone develops at different speeds. Yes, some people have that thing that they call "talent" and yes, it does help them to develop at greater speeds than us mortals. However the speed at which you improve has nothing to do with the amount you improve.
I guarantee that every artist you talk to can point out another artist that is either younger than them and/or has been doing art for less time, but has a skill set that they envy. I also guarantee that every artist who is serious, no matter how amazingly good they are, will tell you that they are far from the level they wish to be. It is a healthy state to be in. When you are satisfied with your art, thats when you should start to worry.

2. Drawing from reference is THE ABSOLUTE BEST THING YOU IN THE WORLD YOU CAN DO FOR YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST!!! This is where we are going to start. If you want to be able to draw from your mind, draw from reference. Using anime as your source for artistic reference is probably not the best place to learn how to draw people. We will eventually discuss why in greater detail. The main reason is that you end up learning how to copy someone else's style rather than learning how to draw for yourself.
Figure drawing is the most desired ability for most artist, and also one of the most difficult ones to acquire. It is a skill that you will use often and knowing how to draw people will help you in other areas of art. Before we begin working with figures and portraiture, however, first we will need to build up your basic observational skills... so lets get started

Assignment 1

The first thing we are going to do is demonstrate why drawing from reference is important for developing your imaginative drawing skills.

Step 1: I am a Samurai nut, so lets have some fun with samurai. Spend 30 minutes to an hour drawing a Samurai as realistically and detailed as possible WITHOUT REFERENCE. Do not look at any photos or illustrations! It is essential for the success of this assignment that you do step one from your memory. Write down your thoughts afterwards and tell me what was going on in your mind while you did it. What was hard? What was easy?

Step 2: Get online or check a book out from the library (or rent The Last Samurai) or something. In other words, find a picture of a samurai, and draw it as accurately as possible. This is not a an exercise of imagination, you are trying to make as photo realistic a copy of that image as possible. It would be best if you find a photo online and post it along with your sketch. Try to spend about the same amount of time on this as you did on step one. Again write down your thoughts afterward.

Step 3: Now for the magic. Get rid of all of that reference and draw a samurai from your imagination again. Spend the same amount of time on this one as the first two. Write down your thoughts.

Try to complete these in a week to a weed and a half if you can. If you have any questions feel free to post them.

Good luck, and give it your best.


Thanks, I'll give this a shot! Hmm, but the thing is that I cant remember what a samurai looks like from the top of my head. A samurai wears like a black robe? That's the thing, I have poor visual memory. Like I've seen Homer Simpson about 300,000 times but I still wouldnt remember what he looks like when it comes to drawing him. What can I do?

[Chance.]

For starters just draw whatever you can remember, it will make sense once you work through the other steps of the assignment. The whole reason for this is sort of just to make a point. Drawing with reference HELPS your imagination, not the other way around. You will see.

[FlameDragon]

For starters just draw whatever you can remember, it will make sense once you work through the other steps of the assignment. The whole reason for this is sort of just to make a point. Drawing with reference HELPS your imagination, not the other way around. You will see.

I'll give it a shot, but I really cant remember how a samurai looks. Man this is going to come out terrible but I'll try

[FlameDragon]

Hey I'll try doing the drawing today, got a bit caught up with school and studying

[Chance.]

Well, Flamedragon had some things come up and now cannot be my mentee, Time to start looking for a new one.

[Chance.]

We are going to keep using this thread so as to remind me of my first failed attempt at mentoring.

Hopefully this time we will be more successful.

Baptism, why don't you introduce yourself and give us a more in depth idea of your goals for your art. Just to help the lurkers who will be learning from us as get started grinding graphite into paper.

[drivebybaptism]

OK.

Well im a 20 year old guy who has been wanting to draw for a long time.

I spent 3 years in high school doing art but alas thats where it ended for me. Now almost 4 years later I want to get back into it. I was never into still life and loved the design aspect of what my course taught.

Now that I'm in college and doing a computer game design course I feel having a good artist skill would be very helpful for my career.

Through the course of this thread I hope to improve upon my drawing skills and gain some new skills along the way. I would like to develop my figure and concept art skills. Thou any other drawing skills/techniques i pick up along the way will be awsom.

My influence's are too many to mention and most I dont know their names as I take inspiration from pictures 9 times out of 10.

I hope this mentoring partnership is fruitful for the pair of us :)

[drivebybaptism]

Hey Mr Mentor, when your ready feel free to give me my weeks work and I'll get started on it ASAP

[Chance.]

Sorry, lots school happening right now, I should have something pulled together in a day or two.

If you want something to keep you busy here is a project:

Personally I find still life as boring as all get out. Usually those things we really dread are the best things we can do for ourselves.(school and exercise being excellent examples)
So we start with a still life.

To make it more interesting, I'm going to assign your subject rather than just tell you to find something lying around the house. I know, you are probably freaking out as you read this thinking "Oh no, he's going to make be draw something I don't have, and then I'll have to get online and look up reference photos instead and he will be able to tell I cheated and..."
NEVER FEAR!!
I have chosen subjects that I am sure you have, and if you don't you must live under a rock or something.

Assignment !1!

Step 1:
Find the oldest, most worn, foot apparel that you can. I can be a boot, sneaker, clog, whatever.

Step 2:
Find some sort of nice shiny kitchen utensil. A fork, or knife, or spoon, or vegetable peeler, but nothing complicated or electrically powered.

Step 3:
Place them somewhere within view from your favorite drawing spot. Preferably with a single light source. Aka a window, or a lamp. It's ok if you don't have single source lighting, but it would make it easier for you if you do.
Place them so that (from your vantage point) they are overlapping in some way.

Step 4
Pull out your favorite pencil (preferably something that can make dark marks) and a piece of paper (not the super smooth kind, get something with a little texture. If you have a kneeded eraser, pull that out too, if you don't have one, try to get your hands on one, it will be a useful tool later on.

step 6: With everything in position, sit down and draw, as accurately as you can, what you see (of the two above mentioned objects.)

As you draw, contemplate lofty concepts such as proportion, tone or value, shapes, contours, and textures. We will talk about all of that junk after we see what you come up with. Spend an hour on it at least before you post your progress, or you can post it once you consider it done. Either way this is an excersise you get you to start seeing (very important for any type of art) and for me to see what we need to be working with.

I just typed that really fast, so if anything seems nonsensical just post your questions. I'm trying to get it all typed up while I'm still at school with the high speed internet, before disembarking on my 45 minute drive home. So it is probably a little rough around the edges, but I can tell you are a smart guy and should be able to figure out what I'm asking for despite my best attempts to confuse you. ;)

Once we get going I should be able to pull my thoughts together better.

Good luck, have fun, (and don't choose a shoe that is too smelly)

[drivebybaptism]

OK here is my finished work for project 1. Really don't like how its come out but there we go. If I thought I was awsom at this then I wouldnt be asking you to be my mentor :)

Sorry I dont have a scanner, only a crappy camera phone. You can still see most of the detail thou. All in all took me just over an hour.

Felt a lot longer thou...lol http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/Obi_/027.jpg

Dont be nice and sweet with the feedback either. Just lay it one me. Only way I'll learn.

[Chance.]

Hehe,
For now I'll be nice and sweet and say great start.

Tomorrow I'll get mean, only then will the real fun begin. We are gonna have a field day Bwahaha ahahaha ha.

P.S.
I forgot to ask this earlier. Is there any way you could maybe post a photo of your shoe. the way it looked when you drew it? Its fine if you can't but it would help me help you, better-er. Whatever. If you can post a pic, twould be great but if not, it isn't a problem.

[drivebybaptism]

Yeah no worries I'll do it tonight when i get back from college. Funny thing is I thought about doing it as well lol

[drivebybaptism]

Ok here is my still life reference pic


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/Obi_/006.jpg

Sorry the photos aren't as clear as they should be. im going to be seeing about getting a scanner soon

[Chance.]

That is spectacular, once I get home from school I'll get to work on lesson 1... while I work on my self portrait for selfportraitday. (gotta get it in before midnight!!)

I hope to have something up in the next two or three days. I promise I'll give you a mouthful to chew on then.

[drivebybaptism]

O i bet you say that to all the lucky ladies out there :P

[Chance.]

I came up with this page thing, then realized how hard to read my handwriting is...

So if the thing below is completely annoying, I'll think of another way to do it. I just hate aranging text and pics in word documents because I'm lazy.

Anyway, time to rip your drawing into tiny little pieces. I talk Little about value below, but just to go over it twice (since it never hurts the memory) well look at the basics.

Value means light to dark.

There are five levels of value that we are interested in, from black to white.

Our goal is to look at our reference and break it down into the 5 values.

Things to watch out for:

Not getting those darks dark enough. If it is black or dark grey, (aka 5 or 4) DON't BE AFRAID TO MAKE IT THAT DARK!!!

Start by indicating the darkest areas but don't make them really black until you are sure that's the way you want them. It's easier if you keep it light until you get it right, then darken them to the right level.

In your drawing:

I'm going to assume that your camera is changing your tones to more of a middle gray than it actually is. Assuming that you are working on whit paper, it doesn't look like you got much darker than a middle gray. Maybe a dark (4) gray in some areas, but no black at all.

In the the ref, the shoe is almost completely black(5) and dark gray(4), with some (3)'s and (2)'s for the highlights. What you have now, is exactly how you want to start a drawing, you've lightly indicated where your values are, deciding if you are getting them right. Now it is time to start getting darker.


Assignment
Your next assignment is to re-evaluate your drawing, decide if your values are in the right places, if you are happy with them get that shoe down to those really dark levels. Try to have a full rang of values in the drawing. Not in every object of the drawing, but in the whole composition. That fork is mad up of only 1's 2's and 3's.

Side note
A very accurate representation of your shoe proportionately, good job.

The fork seems to have given you a more difficult time. I'll explain why that is later.

Apologies
Sorry for my disorganization, I'll get better as we progress and I get a feel for this.

Spelling is not my strong point and I type fast, so please bear with me.

Good luck, I hope you can glean something out of this.

[drivebybaptism]

ok here is my new and darkened bi-atch shoe.

Still not too sure on it thou...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/Obi_/004.jpg

[Chance.]

Still moving in the right direction.

You are still a bit tentative, which is ok, you'll build some confidence as we go. For right now remember this isn't something you are going to frame and put up on the wall. You can't "mess up" this is all practice. With that in mind, attack all this stuff we will be working on!

I'm going to post a step by step over the next few days which will hopefully help you visualize the process.

[Chance.]

Something I neglected to mention earlier, in order to improve your art the first and most important thing you can do is to do art as much as you can.

So in your case, draw every opportunity you find. Some things you will begin to pick up on you own.

So start drawing a lot, and post what you do in here. Don't limit yourself to the things I assign you. The way I can help you most is to guide you. You need to take the initiative if you really want to learn.
So any art you have, please post it and we can talk about it while we work on these projects.

Now for the step by step I promised. Sorry for the hasty drawing, I had to fit this in between a funeral and homework. Boy my life is getting busy.

Sorry for the crappy picture, I this camera is somewhat of a piece of junk.

Also, I apologize for any inconsistencies. My light was failing so the end drawing wasn't quite the same values as the initial photo.

1: establish lightly the proportional points, you don't want to heavy a line drawing since this is realistic and lines don't exist in reality. [you did this step well]

2: begin to lightly indicate where the darkest values are. Keeping it light allows you to alter it until you are happy with it. [you seem to have accomplished this also]

3: Now start to indicate the lighter values, while further darkening the darks. [you started this step]

4: Really start getting those dark areas DARK. Bwaaaahahahaha!


Anyway, if you have any questions fire them off. I'll comment on your progress when you update. If you are still having trouble with the values, there are some exercises that we can do to help you to start seeing them.

This sort of thing is just going to take time and practice, but once you start to get it, it will improve your art drastically.

[drivebybaptism]

Cool mate. Sorry to hear about the funeral dude.

Is there anything you'd like me to draw in the mean time? Beside from what ever I want :)

[drivebybaptism]

Here is a wee something I did tonight

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/Obi_/029.jpg

Not a huge amount of Detail but didnt have much time

[drivebybaptism]

Hey dude I hope all is well your side of the world! :)

Just a wee message to let you know I'm still here and up for doing what ever you'd like me to do (within reason!). Dont feel you have to rush something thou. Take as much time as you need.

If you've got some shit going down your end where you cant take a mentee just now lety me know dude. And no hard feelings shall be had. :)

[Chance.]

Hey, sorry haven't been on top of this. After this week I should be able to get in here more often.

I am completely finishing my portfolio and college application this week so my attention is going to be somewhat diverted over the next few days.

Please feel free to post any projects you are working on with short descriptions of what your goals are for the piece and we can talk about it. That is probably going to be where my strength in teaching you is. The classroom for all looks like its going to be a great place to learn some good foundational drawing skills like you want. You should work on those assignments and post your progress in here so we can talk about it. Sound cool?

[drivebybaptism]

Yeah man. As i said dont worry about here, I know you got your own shit to deal with what with college and what not :)

Hope its all going good for you mate

[drivebybaptism]

ok here is my latest stuff for the classroom

suppose to be a self portrait through to manga in stages

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/Obi_/031.jpg

starts upper left through to bottom right

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/Obi_/032.jpg

[Chance.]

Okay, if you haven't already wandered off disgusted with me, here is an assignment to keep you busy till I can think up something more interesting

Draw me 50 parallel lines going the full height of the page. Use your whole arm to draw them make them as straight as you can.

Have fun!