It's like ocean waves. The waves are small at first, but you wait a little bit and a bigger wave chases after them and slams into you. That's kind of how school works for me. All these little projects coming in individually and then later projects pile up on top of each other and slam into you at the same time.
So I just wanted to walk through some different projects of mine. This might be a long post.
Perspective:
So I'm taking a Concept Design class right now and it's part one of the classes. It goes over designing vehicles, mechanics, and architecture. The second part (which I'll take next semester) goes over designing organic beings (monsters, plants, ect). And one would think that it was all very exciting and cool.
Except I kind of suck at designing cars, and buildings, and mechanical stuff. I mean, they all fascinate me and I want to learn how to design cool concepts, but it's a bit of a learning curve for me. Part of my classmates are really excelling at this, but the other part (the one I'm apart of) are having a hard time wrapping techniques around our head.
The hardest part is the advanced perspective we're working with, my teachers explained that we should've learned advanced perspective in the early classes (Drawing 1 and 2), but it's public education and that's a whole different post, needless to say we had to do a crash course in advanced perspective. Anyway, we get to design cool stuff, but it has to be in perfect perspective and 3d space.
I can paint an object to make it look like it's 3 dimensional, but to mathematically have it look 3 dimensional is completely beyond me. I know it sounds like the two should be tied together and easy after you learn one or the other, but like I said - learning curve.
My learning curves aren't graceful arcs like teachers show. Mine kind of resembles someone bashing their head against a wall until the concussion gives way to enlightenment.
So here's how to make something in perfect perspective.
- You make a perfect square (it's such a headache)
- Here's a video on how to do that (the channel is also a great resource for everything else): How to Draw a Perfect Square in 2 Point Perspective
- You have a blueprint of the car you want in 3d space. Make sure you have a grid overlay.
- Divide your perfect square into how many squares long your car blueprint is.
- Connect front view and side view points together
- Connect the dots and you have yourself a 3d model from your blueprints
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| Yeah, I still think it's a little off |
Mine isn't perfect, like I said, I was really hitting a wall with this. It's taken another project which I wan't able to complete for me to finally come blinking into understanding. I guess we'll see if I truly understand by next week (I'll keep you guys posted).
Figure Drawing:
So I've always loved drawing people, but my figure drawing class makes me a little tired of it. My teachers encourage constant figure drawing because the figure is the most complicated thing one can ever draw/paint and if you can do so correctly then you basically have the skills to do everything else.
I have the class Monday and Wednesday mornings for 2 1/2 hours. Plus a 170 page sketchbook filled with half hour figure drawings. Now I've had sketchbooks that are way more pages than 170, but I think I've made my views on my sketchbook practices pretty clear ( see:Sketchbooks ).
Sometimes I don't really see improvement in my work over the course of a semester. Really discouraging and it makes the grind harder than usual.
I do see improvement when I look a year back.
Most of the time it's small, like minuscule (and that can be pretty discouraging as well), but it's there and that tells me one thing: I am improving and I will continue to improve. All of my teachers and alumni that I've talked to have said one thing - it takes a couple years outside of college to really get to that professional level that you want to be at. So it's really going to be three more years before I consider that my work should be at a professional level.
Doesn't mean I'm not going to be disappointed when I look at my sketchbook in the present day. But the hope clings to me.
Personal Work:
So the month of October is a month of personal side projects. It all starts with Inktober:
Jake Parker is a big influence on the Illustration students here at UVU because his friend and co-worker for SVS, Will Terry, is one of our beloved teachers. Jake started a personal project a few years ago called Inktober. It started out as him just wanting to become a better inker and has turned into a world-wide phenomenon where everyone does an ink drawing everyday for October and posts them all on Twitter or other social media.
Last year I tried to do it and only popped out a couple. This year I was determined to do 31 ink drawings . . . yeah, I'm totally behind, but I'm still determined to finish. I've always like inkwork and coloring in marker, so I won't pass up the opportunity to practice.
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| Mikey likes his pizza and Raph refuses to turn around for the pic |
The other personal project of mine is kind of multi-functional. I was invited to a bbq at one of my teacher's house (*cough cough* Jim Madsen *cough cough*) and we had an art exchange going on. So I needed a piece for that. I also wanted to create a banner for my brand, an image that people would see and recognize as a symbol of my work. The other use is for the Illustration department.
The Illustration department puts up a Halloween gallery every year (headed and organized by the Illustration Club). I have never contributed a piece, so I thought this year I should. And I did (I'll write a post on the gallery and all the hulabalu that's been happening with that).
I've had professional artists say that you should always have at least three uses for a piece of artwork that you do. If you make a piece of work for a client that's one use, but also use it for advertising yourself or (like I did) make it apart of your brand. This personal project was a completely new experience for me and I've found that using one painting for multiple purposes is very convenient and helpful. I will definitely keep following this helpful advice.
I'm also still working on my brother-in-laws RPG book. For now, I'm mainly sketching everything out and during the Christmas break I will be inking it all in and hopefully have it finished by the end of the year. So look forward to more updates on that in December.
So that's what's been going on this month. I also have my two other classes: Conceptual Illustration and Senior Seminar, but there isn't anything super exciting going on with them, just work. I might make a post about everything I'm learning in Senior Seminar, we learn a lot about the business aspect of art. I'm hoping to launch my Twitter account this week and look for a facebook page with my name on it.
If you have any questions or suggestions of posts you would like to see, please leave a comment down below!
Fin
