Looking to learn

[polarRook]

I consider myself to be a complete novice in the art community. However I have great aspirations, every member here gives me that "I want to do that" attitude and I'm looking to improve on it.

I'm new to the conceptart community and have been trolling over the forums looking for some starting point for a beginning artist. I haven't been able to find any really good beginning art threads so I'm hoping to start one. If anyone reading this could share some of their motivations, steps they went through, jumping off points, books that helped, tutorials, motivational stories, things that gave inspiration. ANYTHING that could help me learn and discover and motivate myself to become what many of you already are it would be beyond words to express my gratification. The sheer talent and helpfulness of this community is amazing to me and i'm hoping to become part of it.

I love to draw but feel without direction, so any feedback is welcome and I'm hoping to begin posting some of my new work to get some constructive criticism and perhaps some suggestion on which directions I should take my art.


thanks!

-rook

[Black Spot]

Give us a clue from where you are starting as you can go in any direction from it, but a tiny clue might help. Can you draw a coffee cup from life, maybe a fruit? Perhaps you are doing cartoons or just copying them. Start a sketchbook. Put your best piece up in the critique section and ask what next to get honest opinions. You've given us nothing to go on.

[J Wilson]

Spend a couple days digging through all of the great threads on this site and you'll answer 99% of your own questions. There are a LOT of high quality threads here just handing out, for absolutely FREE, anything and everything you could ever want to know about this kind of art.

Even a couple hours of reading will likely blow your mind so many times that you'll constantly need to stop reading to go try something right away. You will never get that kind of quality advice in a single thread, on a topic that literally gets asked every other day here. You'll get solid, but generic advice to a generic question.

[Psychotime]

I'm new to the conceptart community and have been trolling over the forums looking for some starting point for a beginning artist.

Lolz. The word you're looking for is "lurking". Trolling gets people banned.

[polarRook]

Ah thanks guys.

I'm working on getting some of my stuff scanned and put online. Hopefully that will be happening soon.

And after having posted I did do some more reading and found a couple really good threads relating to exactly what I had been asking.

So a sketchbook should be coming soon and I'll be looking forward to everyone's feedback.

thanks!

-rook

p.s. if any of you know of a really good photoshop coloring tutorial that would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure that I can find one in the forums but if anyone knows of one that's been particularly helpful I've been looking to start experimenting with that.

[RyerOrdStar]

Ghaa!
Why does everyone want to start with colouring in Photoshop? If someone can't draw a pear they have no business trying to colour one, in Photoshop no less!

[whitepython]

Ghaa!
Why does everyone want to start with colouring in Photoshop?

because all cool guys are doing it!!!!!

[creatix]

Stop asking questions. Start doing. This could be directed at so many more people than just you as I've seen tons of threads like this and replied to a few. Follow me here.

Day 1: Post a thread about "how to learn to draw, get better, stay motivated and find inspiration." 5 minutes.

Day 1 (later): Read the replies in your "how to learn to draw, get better, stay motivated and find inspiration" thread. 10 minutes.

Day 1 (much later): Browse through X artists portfolio website (that someone posted as a link in a reply in your thread). Admire this artists work and wish that someday you can be as good as him. 20 minutes.

Day 2: Go the nearest bookstore and buy the book that someone recommended. Sit down for a bit and read it, have a cup of coffee and then pass by a "The Art of Your Favorite Game Book" as you proceed to walk out of the store. Get caught up, and start to tell yourself "I'm about to be inspired!". Browse through the Art book for a bit of time. 1 hour total (browsing + the drive to the store and back).

Day 2 (later): You remember the lead concept artist in that "The Art of Your Favorite Game Book" and so you sit down and type his name in google. You browse his site and again - "start to get inspired", while at the same time - start feeling a bit of that "I wish I could" stuff again. 25mins.

Day 2 (later): All of that favorite video game stuff reminds you of how cool all the latest games are. You sit down and play one, perhaps even to help "inspire and motivate you" as you stare at the beautiful graphics in Gears of War 2 or the Art direction and design in the new Prince of Persia. 1 hour.

Day 2 (late at night): Again, check conceptart for replies, this time you find a link to a "How to get better at drawing thread" that includes the almighty youtube. You get on youtube and find instructional videos and stuff by all sorts of godlike artists. People you admire and want to draw like, therefore - by all means - ABSORB all that stuff. You close out youtube and go to bed for the night, 2hours later...

Day 3: You put DVD X, DVD Y, DVD Z on your Xmas list. Then you read somewhere about materials so you go to the art supply store (Michaels, Staples, whatever) and buy pencils, "special" pens, "special" paper and a pimp eraser. You are now ready to rock! 1 hour (buying + drive time).

Day 4: You get home and start to sit down to draw. 5 minutes in you realize you don't have your anatomy down (you don't have that repetition and skill) so what do you do? You type something into google or perhaps look at one of the c:/reference/anatomy images you have. A few websites, links, tutorials later and you find a "good reference" pic. You draw it for a bit but again, struggle. After all, you've spent the last 2 to 3 days looking at amazing shit so you know your piece isn't going to look as good. You aren't happy and remember what someone else once said or something that you once read. You decide to draw from life! 30 minutes (browsing for anatomy reference)

Day 4 (later): A bit discouraged, you go to your favorite coffee shop/starbucks and decide to people watch/draw. You buy your favorite coffee and sit down. Maybe you even go to a Borders/Barnes&Noble. You want to be positive so you decide to take a few moments getting "back into the groove". You pick up a Gaming Magazine or a "Star Wars Art" book and browse to get the juices flowin'. 1 hour (drive + coffee purchase + relax a bit + look at magazine/book).

the process does not stop my friend. Trust me on this. It never will. Now lets come to some resolution.

In only 4 days you have spent about 7.5hrs doing something OTHER THAN Drawing.

Lets be honest, you and I and many other people know that 7.5 hours was me being generous in the "wasted/unfocused time" department. Therefore, for math sake, lets round it up to 8 hours. 8 hours of bullshit time in 4 days.

Multiply that by 7 and you have 28 days, or just about 1 month. In 1 month, assuming the process repeats itself (which it does), you have 8 wasted hours x 7 = 56 wasted hours. Stay with me...

56 wasted hours in a month x 12 months = 672 hours. Thats Almost 700 wasted hours in 1 year.

Lets move on a bit more. Lets go to 3 years time. In 3 years (check the "Journey of an Absolute Rookie" (MindCandyMan) Thread and just spend 5 minutes looking at page 1 and the last few pages to see what 3 years can mean). Ok - so, we have 3 years. At 672 hours a year x3 we have 2016 hours.

In 3 years you will have spent around 84 days or just barely shy of 3 total months of time doing someone to "find the motivation/inspiration/learning process" when you could have simply been DRAWING. Seriously think about that. 84 entire days - at a full 24hrs per day. I know you might think "but its not wasted time" but if you truly see what you could accomplish (in anything in life, let alone art) in 84 entire and complete days you would truly agree - it was time NOT WELL SPENT - i.e. WASTED.

Typing, reading, watching, listening to, thinking about and anything else other than DRAWING may have its merits at some point but I can guarantee - 100%, it will not be as efficient as time spent DRAWING.

It is said that you learn more from birth to age 5 than you will for the rest of your entire life. That is because when you are learning a new language, learning to walk, to eat, to swallow, to cry, to use the restroom, etc you aren't asking people how. You are just doing it. That is all you know and that is all there is.

Sorry so long. Draw!

[Mirana]

p.s. if any of you know of a really good photoshop coloring tutorial that would be greatly appreciated.

Yes. In the "Photoshop" and "Tutorials" forums.

[polarRook]

haha you pretty much hit the nail on the head creatix.. either you've seen that exact same post a million times or been through it yourself. I'm just looking for a good place to start, I mean you got the people watching part right, that's pretty much what I did today because I didn't know what ELSE to draw. That's the reason I posted was because I couldn't find a good starting point and am still at a loss.

And in hindsight that photoshop comment was completely premature, it was just a question of exploration.

[J Wilson]

It really doesn't matter what you draw as long as it's from direct observation (photos being an ok replacement if needed at times, as long as you return to direct observation when you can). Draw anything, because it's really your observation skills and your ability to judge where your work is flawed and then be able to fix it that needs to improve. The subject is meaningless at first. once you feel pretty capable of drawing things you see accurrately then start working on bigger problems like anatomy, perspective etc.

Draw often, post your sketches to get feedback, and repeat.

[polarRook]

Thanks J Wilson that's what I've been trying to do. I have some pictures that I've uploaded unfortunately they're too big. I saw some people say that you can lower the rez in photoshop unfortunately I don't have it.

Is there a different program that you can use to lower the rez, or does it have to be photoshop.

[J Wilson]

I've never used it but I hear there is a program called Gimp which is similar to Photoshop and free.

[~Faust~]

I've never used it but I hear there is a program called Gimp which is similar to Photoshop and free.

Well I use the GIMP for over a year now exclusively and so far it works fine for me. You still need a tablet to make appropriate paint-studies, though.

[polarRook]

Awesome I hadn't heard of that. You've been a huge help.

[Black Spot]

I use Irfanview to resize, also free.

[polarRook]

Gimp works great. Gave me exactly what I need.

[Cohen]

Creatix, that was exactly what I needed to hear today. I'm going to go draw. thanks, dude.

[Marc Surrency]

I have some reference materials for my art students. http://www.surrencystudios.com/Oil%20Painting%201%20ref.htm
Your welcomed to take a look maybe something there might help you. Also feel free to email me any questions - I'll try to answer them

Cheers - Marc