Lost...?

[C3rb3rus]

I like to draw. Surprising on an art forum, huh?

I got sent here by a friend, and the first thing I said when I started looking at some of these pictures was: :wtf:

I'm 13, going into 9th grade. My drawings aren't terrible, and I can get props from people in my school for being able to scribble something cool down on a piece of notebook paper after a test or whatever. My older brother, Jason, is amazing, like a lot of the people here. He paints, spraypaints, and draws amazingly, and his stuff comes out looking like crazy.

My stuff doesn't.

Now, I'm only 13. I have time, I guess. But I think I want to take my art from a little black notebook in school up to a higher level, so naturally I have a few questions. My life lately has been preoccupied with cardistry, another art, which is stuff like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnNMJMFiHio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8rlLG4lkBA

etc. I'm trying to get back into normal art, and here's some questions hopefully I'll get a few answers for:

1. How the hell are you guys so good? Jesus. How much work do you do weekly, and how much time do you spend to get that good?

2. Was there a time before you were amazing? When you're drawings were okay, and something just clicked and made them great?

3. What do you use for painting on the computer? I have GIMP and my brother has Adobe Photoshop CS2 on his computer, so I have a good setup. Do you guys use tablets or a traditional mouse, or something weird like a laptop pad or TrackBall?

4. When you do a speed painting, exactly what thought process goes into it? How do you start, when do you apply shading, when do you get into detail with it?

5. How do I (can I) cross over from being the mediocre kid sitting and drawing boxes in 3-point perspective at his desk to being, not amazing, but a serious artist who's work is worthy of the time he spends making it?

Thanks. Peace.

C3RB.

[Viridis]

Eh.... honestly I think for the most part it just takes time. I remember I was at about the same position you were in at 13; I used to watch my art teacher do comic-book style sketches and boggle because I thought they were amazing and I'd never be able to do anything like it. (At the time, I was basically drawing mostly terrible Pokemon fanart). He assured me that eventually, I'd be able to do exactly what he was doing, if I wanted.

And you know, he was right. Now I'm 22, I'm in my fourth year of art school, but even without that and the classes I've taken... over time, if you work at it, your perception will grow sharper, little by little. You'll look at people and realize little flaws in how you draw anatomy, and you'll get better. You'll look in magazines and museums and books and see other people's art, and think hey, that's really neat. I wonder if I can do that? and maybe you will. Even if it doesn't come out the way you wanted, you'll learn something in the process. After reading Sandman for the first time at 15, I tried to make a comic of my own. It was terrible-- I got six pages before I realized that I couldn't draw backgrounds at all and my characters were all rubbery and I didn't even have a plot. But the next time I went to do a comic three years later, even that short experience I'd had helped me. Little by little, the knowledge and skill builds up, and you get better, and you begin to see where you want to go.

So basically, don't be worrying too much now, and don't try to plan everything out exactly. Art is an organic thing, and sometimes you have to leave it alone to let it grow. (Just remember to water it sometimes).

That said, I'll try to answer some of your questions:
1) I actually don't sketch nearly as frequently as I should, I'm afraid. At the moment, though, I am taking 18 hours a week in studio, and I will occasionally paint a bit on weekends, more when I've got a project due.

2) I did actually have a "just clicked" moment with color. I could never do well with color, and one day I did a painting where it just... worked. After that, I never had any real problems.

3) I have Photoshop CS2, and a 4x5" Wacom Intuos 2 tablet. It's tiny, but it's never failed me yet.

4) I have yet to do any speed paintings, although... most of my finished work rarely takes more than 5-6 hours. I work quick.

5) Don't knock the 3-point perspective. I seriously hate perspective and avoid it wherever possible, so you're probably a step ahead of me already. But my advice would be... expose yourself to as much art as possible. Check out the museums, go to art fairs if you can, look at sites online, get in discussions in forums. You can learn a lot from talking to other people, hearing their techniques, and getting critique. I once astonished my entire drawing IV class by doing a piece in colored pencil over acrylic washes, a technique I'd picked up from looking at tutorials of several artists' work (notably Kyoht), but which they had never even heard of. You never know when some little grain of knowledge is going to be helpful, so accumulate all you can.

[Maidith]

I have taken a look at the last 5 years of my painting and drawing life, and done a little calculating.

This is a piece I did in 2002 when I was 12-13:
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k169/herzknochen/artsystuff/sterntaler.jpg

This is a piece from 2007 when I was 17-18:
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k169/herzknochen/artsystuff/deathofsalome.jpg

When I think about it, it's safe to assume that I have practiced drawing and painting every day for 2 hours on average, for these five years. When you add these hours, the result is 3,650 hours of practice.

Just to illustrate the point how it takes time. Sure, there are many folks who improve faster :D But even for them, awesomeness doesn't come overnight.

A few of many ways you can practice are:

- Draw from life. It's probably the most valuable practice that there is. Sign up for a life drawing class so that you'll be actually "forced" to do it. Believe me, it works wonders.
As for studying anatomy from books about figure drawing (Loomis, Bammes, etc.) a good exercise is to copy the body parts and figures in there and then trying to draw the same from your mind to see how much you remembered.

- Look at pictures by artists you admire, and try to figure out things. How do they handle light and color? What edges are sharp, and what edges are soft? Why do they use that particular color there? What technique did they use? How did they work? The more you look at work of others, the more different kinds of styles and techniques you will see.

- Learn from the masters. Copy works you adore. Not for imitating the artist or showcasing your copy, but for the sake of learning. Don't be shy, ask your favorite artist everything you want to know, such as "What paper do you draw on?", or "How do you go about painting a picture, do you start with a sketch?", etc. But be specific, don't ask "how can I paint like that?". And check the artist's website, chances are they already have tutorials, a FAQ or step-by-step tutorials there.

- Challenge yourself. Never used a particular medium? Then buy it, no matter how poor you are, and try it out. Never drawn a still life? Do it. Never used that particular color scheme? Give it a try. At a certain point, when you are afraid of repeating yourself, you are on the right track to improve.

- Look up tutorials. Browse through the tutorial section and study the many different ways and media of the different artists. Also visit the websites of the great artists here - many have tutorials up there.

- Collect pictures. On my harddisk, I have different folders of fantastic art.
They are very inspiring to browse through and can give you new ideas in terms of technique. Whenever I feel uninspired, I look through my folders.
The images I've collected over time, mainly from Cgtalk.com, Deviantart, Epilogue, Artrenewal.org and many other websites.

[Maidith]

Oh, and some more musings (sorry for 2nd posting).

4. When you do a speed painting, exactly what thought process goes into it? How do you start, when do you apply shading, when do you get into detail with it?

My tools for digital painting are Photoshop and a wacom intuos3 a5 tablet.

My painting process is as follows:

I always start with a colored canvas. The color of the canvas will be one that dominates the picture's color scheme or contrasts with it (both can yield nice results).
This is better than starting with a white or black canvas, because it helps you choosing the right colors for your scene, and because you can paint both darker and lighter on it. So this is actually very important!
On that colored canvas, I make a sketch of everything - mostly a small concept sketch, no wider than 500 pixels. In that concept sketch, I try out my idea. I want to test if it actually works - composition, light, shadow, color, everything has to be there because this determinates the picture's final outcome. Just very roughly sketched in.

As soon as I feel it's working, I make a quite exact line drawing on a bigger canvas (about 2000-3000 pixels wide) of the same color. The line drawing is done partly from reference photos and partly freehand; I try to get proportions and anatomy as correct as possible.
On a new layer, I block in all colors, light and shadow. Here in this very early sketchy stage I already try to determine all light and shadow and color composition, because as mentioned, they are very important! They cannot be taken care of too early.

To illustrate this: Some years back, I used to paint midtones only, then add highlights and shadows until the picture was finished. Now, on the contrary, I sketch all of those in, and everything else is simply refining and adding detail. I can spend a lot of time on that, because shading and highlight has been done already.

This requires of course some careful planning, especially in terms of light, shadow and composition.

Well, now everything is but refining and detailing. Folds in clothing, facial details, the background, clothes patterns... everything is worked out. Gradients are made more smooth, harsh edges of sketched-in shadows are broken up and dissolved where necessary. Touches of colors are added whereever they can enhance another color (especially when it comes to skintones). Anatomy and proportion errors are corrected. I often repaint some parts, big or small, when I think they don't work the way they should.

BRUSHES:
I always paint with the brush size and opacity set to the pen pressure of my graphics tablet (otherwise there would be no point in having a tablet). The three brushes I use most are: hard round, soft round and a bristle brush.
I have a ton of other brushes too but those are not used often; only if I want to experiment with some ways how to make grungy or oil-painting-like surfaces or textures. Some I made myself, some are from other artists (Enayla, Tascha, Peachysticks and kayness).
Opacity is always set to 100%, the flow is mostly between 25% and 100%.
Sometimes I set the brush to the "soft light" mode; this will make the color darker and more saturated. But this shouldn't be overused.
Generally I can say that I paint with a rather light hand and often paint over the same area several times until I get the color I want. This also adds texture to a painting, as does erasing in a similar way.

The initial line drawing I erase more and more, as the painting advances. In the end, there will be no lines left - either they've been erased or painted over. Form has evolved from the lines through the means of color.

OTHER "TRICKS":
- I always have two windows opened in Photoshop while painting: on the left, one window with a very big (original size) canvas - I can only see part of it, since it's bigger than my monitor. On the right, I can see the whole canvas in a smaller view. This is great since it saves me the trouble of having to zoom in and out all the time.
- I always have my finger over the "Alt" key while painting, because this gets you the color picker, much faster than having to click on it. I always need the color picker so I press on that "Alt" key pretty often.
- If you want to make soft gradients, you have to use more than just two colors! Paint the gradient color in between also - use the color picker to pick the color at the transition you're trying to paint.
- I try to use as few layers as possible, since too many of them will make my computer go crazy. As for layers, less is more.
- Read the workshops at imaginefx.com . There are some kick ass tutorials, totally free.

P.S. I just had a look at your card videos. Awesome stuff!

[C3rb3rus]

Thanks for the help! I knew someone would do a before and after.

The card videos aren't mine, they're of people I know. I don't have any uploaded, but I will. Soon. The'me, the first one, would be Andrei Jihk, and the second one is a group called Virtuoso, which is Kevin Ho, Huron Low, Daren Yeow, and...*can't remember neglected member's name*.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

[Black Spot]

I’m not an expert and don’t pretend to be, but life drawing is really important. I take my 12yo (soon to be 13) every week with me and it makes a huge difference in his work. Okay, he’s trying to do a Madness animation at the moment, but I’m not going to kill his enjoyment of anything art based. He likes doing life classes and I think its giving him something solid to hold onto later. He wants to be an artist, and I’m not going to confine him to any style. You have all the time in the world like my son to discover different styles and methods. Explore them all and enjoy the journey.

[D.C.]

Why don't you ask your brother for help/info? If he's as good as you say he is, he has a wealth of information from which you could profit.

[C3rb3rus]

My brother is more of the silent type...he also fights for Hitman Fight Gear in the UFC, and he's kind of like, huge and wildly intimidating.

Hey, if I get a hold of one of his pieces of work, I'll post it.

[Nrx]

My brother is more of the silent type...he also fights for Hitman Fight Gear in the UFC, and he's kind of like, huge and wildly intimidating.

Hey, if I get a hold of one of his pieces of work, I'll post it.

complete shot in the dark, but maybe part of his motivation for working hard is recognition, ask him worst he'll do is break you in two :P