Day 29: Week 5 Summary

This wraps up the fifth week of regular drawing practice. I've definitely plateaued with the improvement I can see in my sketch work. It's also been difficult to lock in on a single focus since the book I'm reading this week leans more towards writing and format techniques for comics.

The expression exercises have been pretty interesting. It's equal parts fun and frustrating to see how drastically the feel of a face can change when you shift an eyebrow or tweak a pupil even a little bit. This is definitely an area that can benefit from throwing tones of effort and assembly line style repetition.  The characters I studied came from random Google image searches, but I'd like to give credit to dA's OwlyGem, Monecule, Octeapi to name a few.

 

 

My early approach to anatomy is copying studies that other people have already drawn. I want to work from my copy of "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist", but I feel like that's still a little out of my league right now.

I did a lot of gesture drawings using artists.pixelovely.com.  I haven't worked down to one minute gestures, but the five minute timer is a pretty good pace right now.  I'd like to work gesture drawings into my daily ritual to familiarize myself more with the natural movements of the human body but that might be a ways off yet.

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Metrics

Pages Read This Week	102
Total Pages Read Since Launch	400
Books Completed Since Launch	6
Total Tutorial Run-time	2 hours 44 minutes
Days Since Launch	29
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	29
Drawing Time This Week	7 hour 10 minutes
Drawing Time Total	30 hour 2 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.

** I had to use a some fuzzy math to figure the page count for some of my Kindle books since they only have location tagging.

Day 27: Tutorials by Evan Burse

Here's a quick blurb on Evan Burse from The Cartoon Block's official website.

Evan has been an animation professional for over 10 years. He’s worked on such shows as Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Black Panther, Marvel’s Hulk and The Agents of S.M.A.S.H., and Teen Titans.

I have been using Evan's tutorials on and off for years.  The first one I followed was his guide on How To Draw Superhero Chest (Torso) and I've run through it several times trying to commit the method to memory.

Granted, I'm no Michelangelo when it comes to anatomy but this is a pretty decent reproduction for a guy who had no traditional training in drawing the human body.

His channel's big appeal are the how to's for popular characters.   Below you can see the Krillin and Vegeta head shots I finished from his tutorials.  They turned out much cleaner than the  other two that I copied over from some comic books I had laying around my desk.

For today's exercise, I'm going to run through the Superboy tutorial a few times and see how well it turns out.  You can find that link here:  How To Draw Superboy.

I'd also like to point out that it was the tutorials at Cartoon Block that introduced me to Col-Erase pencils and they're awesome.  They lay down much smoother and more consistent color than any other brand I've tried to use so far. 

Day 25: Klaus Janson's "The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics"

Quick Overview

Level:	Advanced
Tone:	Industry Guide, Reference
Pages:	128
Published:	2001
Arbitrary Rating:	4/5
Plan to Reread:	Yes

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My Opinion

This week I'm going to be working through my Kindle version of Klaus Janson's"The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics." After drawing a bajillion shaded circles it's nice to finally be seeing something that resembles a finished comic.

The guide provides a lot of interesting insight into the comic creation process and the underlying principles needed to be successful.  Part one includes a handful of crash courses in fundamental art techniques like perspective, vanishing points, anatomy and so on.  Part two has some meaty explanation of writing techniques, panel layout, and story flow.  Part three covers penciling techniques and tips for breaking into the industry.

The only drawback is that this is primarily a theory crafting book.  Janson uses a number of comic pages to illustrate story telling techniques but there is a ton of reading for a book that is advertised as a guide to penciling.  That shouldn't be taken as a negative though.  If you've already mastered the basics of drawing you don't really need tons of step by step illustrations to follow along.

This was a fun read even for a beginner, but it is better suited for a more advanced audience.  I'll probably be reading through the whole DC series at least twice to get all of the useful nuggets of advice out. 

Day 22: Week 4 Summary

This is my first week without structured daily lessons.  I did a little speed reading to wrap up "Drawing for the Absolute Beginner".  I mentioned the reason in my Monday book review, but if you're just catching up on the summaries this is why:

This is one of the demonstrations they provide for absolute beginners to practice drawing.  I know two people who have gone to art school that can't draw at this level.  It's ten kinds of crazy to suggest someone who just started learning to draw should start with this kind of exercise.

The earlier lessons covered rocks, planes, and trains which were only a little easier to emulate at my current level.  It's difficult enough to get the perspective, line work, and value shading right at this point.  I don't know why every example has to be jam packed with details.

I got bored with the impossible exercises and switched gears to trace from one of my comics, Giant-size Little Marvel: AVX (2015) #1. It didn't turn out as clean as I was hoping but it was way more fun to draw than anything I've been studying so far.

I took one last stab at learning heads from the Absolute Beginner's book before shifting gears to Klaus Janson's "The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics" and some random head tutorials I found on dA.

My first anatomy study in a very long time, also from the DC guide.  I'm kicking myself for dropping the studies for so long because I had this all committed to memory before.  Now I can't draw a decent action pose even if I dump hours into the sketch.

If the anatomy sketches look a little beefy, that's because I'm following a guide for DC comic super heroes.  They don't really show how to draw someone with a willowy frame.  I dig it though.  It's a good read so far and this is pretty much an industry standard for American comics so it's definitely worth improving on.

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Metrics

Pages Read This Week	150
Total Pages Read Since Launch	298
Books Completed Since Launch	3
Total Tutorial Run-time	2 hours 16 minutes
Days Since Launch	22
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	22
Drawing Time This Week	7 hour 15 minutes
Drawing Time Total	22 hour 52 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.

** I had to use a some fuzzy math to figure the page count for some of my Kindle books since they only have location tagging.

Day 20: Tutorials by David Revoy

I found David Revoy's Pepper & Carrot comic on imgur last year and followed the internet crumbs back to his home page.  He has a very interesting philosophy on creating comics, using open-source software, and closing the gap between creator and audience.  He even encourages people to use his characters to make a profit so long as they give him credit.  So far I haven't found anyone else taking this approach and I really like it.

I also love that his web comics are translated into English and Japanese.  Reading the same comic in both languages is really great practice for me.

Back to the meat and potatoes of today's post.  David's site has a ton of great tutorials here and on his YouTube page, https://www.youtube.com/user/DeevadRevoy.  I don't have a lot to show for the hours I've thrown at Krita but after watching a few of his tutorials I now know how to customize the tool bar to make the smoothing tool easier to find, how to easily turn my sketch into a blue tone that's easier to ink over, and how to adjust saturation to remove left over marks from the sketch work.

I hope my comic can be even half as well produced as Pepper & Carrot.  I may even have to break out the Japanese books again so I can tackle the bilingual approach.

Day 18: Mark and Mary Willenbrink's "Drawing for the Absolute Beginner"

Quick Overview

Level:	Intermediate
Tone:	how to, reference
Pages:	128
Published:	2006
Arbitrary Rating:	3/5
Plan to Reread:	Yes

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I have a copy of the 2006 version of, "Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing (Art for the Absolute Beginner)".  Fair warning, it's not nearly as beginner friendly as it sounds.

This book is broken down into six chapters:  Sketching and Drawing, Principles of Good Drawing, Values, Practice the Techniques, Composition, and Let's Draw.  Each chapter has a series of "mini-demonstrations" that are supposed to illustrate the focus of the chapter.  For example, the demonstration I'm working on today is from Chapter 4 which lays out how to draw a boat in five steps.

I have a problem with this approach because it's the class 'Draw one circle, draw another circle, add details' approach to drawing that is impossible for a real beginner to follow.  Everything from the structure to the final picture is a little too perfect for someone who is just starting out.  Mark Kistler ended each lesson with pictures done by his own students and I could look at those and think, "Hey, my picture looks about that good.  I must be on the right track."

From my perspective, this book is better for reference material than as a beginners book.  If you're trying to draw a boat, plane, car, etc you can find good examples in here.  But if you're trying to learn as an absolute beginner this book just lacks structure.  It's difficult to settle into a routine since the demonstrations bounce around and don't really build on one another.

There are good points to pick up in this book, but you'll have to bring some experience and a lot of effort to get the full benefit.  I plan to run through it again at least one more time a few months from now to make sure I've given it a fair shot.

Day 15: Week 3 Summary

I tied up the last lesson in Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days"on Thursday.  Which actually works out nicely since it gives me the weekend to break in the next book.  As a closing note of sorts, I really enjoyed this book as an introduction to drawing though it ended on a bit of a let down.

The final three chapters had a big jump in difficulty.  You go straight from channeling your inner tween to write 3d characters in Lesson 27 to drawing the human face, eye, and hands.  If you've taken a shot at learning anatomy before you already know how crazy hard these are to do well.  I would have expected more lessons to be dedicated to anatomy in general or for the topic to be saved for another book.

Lesson 25 was another drill on cubes in two point perspective.I got the general idea, but not to thrilled about drawing another box.

Lesson 26 was more fun with cubes in one point perspective.

Lesson 27 was just weird.  I admit that it was harder to do letters in two point perspective than I would have guessed, but it wasn't a skill that crossed my mind when I decided to start studying art again.  Lesson 28 is where the book goes from beginner to a level 300 course.  No instruction in anatomy = god awful heads.

Lesson 29 covered eyes and the final lesson was hands.  I've put some time into drawing eyes before, so they turned out better than my heads.  Drawing hands is still super difficult because I have a hard time imagining where the fingers are going and I'm weak on foreshortening.

New book, new exercises.  Value shading and chiaroscuro were introduced in the first couple of pages of Mark and Mary Willenbrink's "Drawing for the Absolute Beginner" which makes me really glad I decided to run through more than one beginner book.  I'll be writing more about this book on Monday when I've had a chance to cover more of the material.

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Metrics

Pages Read This Week	88
Total Pages Read Since Launch	148
Books Completed Since Launch	2
Total Tutorial Run-time	2 hours 3 minutes
Days Since Launch	15
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	15
Drawing Time This Week	7 hour 10 minutes
Drawing Time Total	15 hour 37 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.

Day 13: Tutorials by Sycra Yasin

Sycra hosts one of my favorite YouTube channels and has some of the most interesting lessons I've seen.  The tutorials he posts are helpful, but it's the in depth analysis that he does that made me a subscriber.  They can run long and that might not be great for everyone, but if you have the spare time check out these videos as an introduction:

How to Practice Drawing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKFfSl-EBfI

Iterative Drawing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs

His video on iterative drawing was a real gut punch for me.  Especially when he talked about drawing heads in the hundreds as being on the low end of the scale.  The example he used of drawing 20 rough heads per day would have you at the 1,000 marker in less than two months.  At this point in my drawing career I've probably only drawn a few dozen heads tops.  After watching the whole hour long video I was hyped up and ready to work it into my own daily routine.  The only problem is that the exercise would take an hour or more for me to complete at my current level.

So for now I'm going to stick to the basics and keeping refining the fundamental skills.  I will be incorporating the iterative approach into the exercises that it suits.  Like the lesson I'm working on today sketching the human eye.  Taking an iterative approach to improving the same eye feels more rewarding than just doing a bunch of random sketches that could turn out to be a mixed bag of good and bad.

If you like what you've seen, you can find more at his official home page over at www.sycra.net.

Day 11: Dirk Manning's "Write or Wrong"

Quick Overview

Level:	All Levels
Tone:	Casual, Blog-like
Pages:	216
Published:	2012
Arbitrary Rating:	5/5
Plan to Reread:	Yes

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My opinion:

Dirk Manning's "Write or Wrong" was the main influence that pushed me from just thinking about making comics to actually trying to make comics.  I picked up so much from this book that I originally planned to use it for my first review but I didn't want to start a blog about drawing by talking about writing.  That being said, learning how to write is an important part of writing comics so I've tried to collect good references for plot development and scripting.

The bulk of "Write or Wrong" is a collection of columns written by Dirk Manning for www.Newsarama.com.  The casual style used made it easy to read through each chapter without feeling like a research project.  A plus for me is that I didn't need a dictionary or industry lexicon to understand this book since each chapter was written to be easy to follow.  Instead of taking an instructional approach, the author provides some examples of the successes and failures he's experienced.

Two pieces of advice that Dirk gave really hit home for me.  The first was his suggestion that aspiring artists be patient and take the time to hone their skill in private.  Sure, taking the "learn by doing" approach can help you pick up a lot.  What would teach you to make a comic faster than making a comic?  The problem is that people will start to associate your name with that developmental phase and that image can be hard to shake when you finally reach a professional level.

The other major theme I picked up was that you don't have to be a one-man show.  Even if you can't draw, you can write.  If you're not talented with laying down lines you can still ink or color.  I have hundreds of comics with the contributors clearly printed on the cover page but for some reason that didn't click until I read this book.  Knowing that there are different paths to creating a comic makes it feel doable and believing that something is within reach can give a huge boost to motivation.

Day 8: Week 2 Summary

Alright, the first full week is down and I haven't missed any of my daily goals.  So far I've worked my way through lesson 24 of Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days".  Going at this rate I'll be wrapping this book up before next week's summary.

Here's are some of the exercises I completed this week.

To be honest, I felt kind bored doing another lesson on rippling flags.  There's still room for improvement here, so I'll be drawing a lot more flippy flappy things in the future.

Pyramids were way harder than cubes and cylinders for me.  I try to scribble them down here and there for practice but most of them look wobbly.

Drawing trees without a reference was fun.  I'd like to do a study on trees when I have free time between books so I can come up with more realistic looking ones.

One point perspective room, one point perspective city, Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Laying the lines for the 1/2 point perspective drills was time consuming.  I need a lot more practice here if I want to put out more than a sketch or two an hour.

After wrapping up Kistler's book I will be moving on to something more challenging.  I snagged a copy of Betty Edwards first edition of "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing" in a garage sell years ago.  It's pretty exciting to finally be working through it.

Metrics

Pages Read This Week	48
Total Pages Read Since Launch	60
Books Completed Since Launch	0
Days Since Launch	8
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	8
Drawing Time This Week	7 hour 22 minutes
Drawing Time Total	8 hour 27 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.

Day 6: Tutorials by Ahmed Aldoori

When I first stumbled on Ahmed Aldoori's YouTube channel I had never heard of him or seen his work before.  I was just binge watching random tutorials and the video he posted on "How I got into Art - Y'know " popped up in my recommended viewing feed.

I have to admit that a few years ago this video would have left me discouraged about my own possibilities.  I mean, here is another artist who started drawing when he was very young, attended art school, and maintained a passion to improve his art throughout his life.  This is a common origin story for many of my favorite artists and it brings me down sometimes because there is no way to emulate it later in life.

It was different for me the second time around.  Listening to Ahmed talk openly about his struggle with unsatisfying schools and under qualified teachers made me feel more motivated.  If he was able to develop even a fraction of his ability through self-education, then that is an example I can try to follow.

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, I highly recommend checking out the following quick tips to see if you might want to subscribe to his channel.

Drawing Figures and Poses QUICK TIP #1

QUICKTIP - Focal points and composition

Once I clear the fundamentals of drawing like perception, symmetry, and shading I plan to burn through his videos to jump start my anatomy and digital skill sets.

Day 4: Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days"

Quick Overview

Level:	Beginner
Tone:	Chipper, Self-help
Pages:	256
Published:	2011
Arbitrary Rating:	4/5
Plan to Reread:	No

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My opinion:

Part of my grand plan for successfully learning to draw is to swallow my pride, start at the lowest possible level and work my way up.  I chose Mark Kistler's "You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less" because it's targeted at young children and adults with no experience in drawing.  It doesn't hurt that I got it virtually for free by cashing in Bing reward points.

If you are interested in reading this book, I would recommend watching some of Mark's videos on his YouTube channel here.  You'll get that same upbeat, "anyone can learn to draw" feel from reading the book.

Each lesson focuses on a fundamental concept like drawing a sphere or cube with the necessary shading to give it a 3D look.  The instructions are brief and each lesson comes with plenty of step-by-step examples to walk you through the exercise.  I'd love to say that my skill set was too advanced to benefit from reading this book, but I have picked up and improved on several techniques in the last few lessons

The only drawback for me is that the book leaves a lot up to the reader.  You have one exercise to complete per lesson and a suggested bonus challenge at the end.  After that you're on your own to come up with some way to draw that three hundredth sphere without losing interest.

Note: Please take the arbitrary rating for what it is, since a book that is good for me at my current level might not be good for me two months from now.  On the flip side, a book that is way over my head today could be an amazing resource down the line.  I'd be happy to answer any questions that weren't covered by my review.

Day 1: Week 1 Summary

It's officially go time. Let's do this!

I realized a few months back that the first post would be a weekly summary, so I've been doing some warm up drills using Mark Kistler's 2011 edition of "You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less".  I'll do a review of the first half of the book on Monday, but for now I'll stick to a quick overview of what accomplished this week.

• Lesson 1: Draw a circle
• Lesson 2: Draw two circles
• Lesson 3: Draw lots of circles

• Lesson 4: Draw a cube
• Lesson 5: Draw a hollow cube
• Lesson 6: Draw cubes on top of other cubes

The lessons start to get more advanced about two weeks into the book when it starts to cover perspective and the use of contour lines.

Metrics

Pages Read This Week	12
Total Pages Read Since Launch	12
Books Completed Since Launch	0
Days Since Launch	1
- Active Days (1 hour or more of practice)	1
Drawing Time This Week	1 hour 5 minutes
Drawing Time Total	1 hour 5 minutes

* I'm considering Friday to be the end of the week for tracking metrics so that it lines up with my summary posts.