Posts published in “Sketchworks”

Woke up at 2:45 am realizing I hadn't drawn today. Same idea as two days ago, informed by the comic-book style from one day ago, but done in a consciously cartoony style that abstracts away the details, like a Bill Holbrook drawing. I like how it turned out, though it isn't a substitute for planning for success.

The drawing at the top took not much longer than the drawing at the bottom left, even though it looks way more like the drawing at the bottom right.

Drawing every day, even if I've forgotten to.

-the Centaur

Pictured: Cinnamon. It took about as long to draw this one

Technically, still a quick sketch, but this shows the difference between drawing in the late evening at a leisurely pace set by the drawing, and drawing at 2am at a pace set by exhaustion.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Literally fell asleep twice trying to finish the blogging today before I got to the drawing, here's as fast a sketch as I could do of Cinnamon, goodnight.

-the Centaur

Super quick sketch since Clockwork Alchemy is tomorrow.

Drawing every day, even if I don't have time to.

-the Centaur

Pictured: super quick sketch of Jeremiah.

Got interrupted twice when finishing this drawing - once when I tried to finish it before the trip, and the second time when the plane landed and I had to pack up. So, it is what it is. Might tackle this one again.

Drawing every day is a discipline. I wish I was better at that.

-the Centaur

More stick figure studies from "Wizard: How to Draw". They look simple, but part of "planning for success" in drawing is creating rough sketches to help find the right composition of the piece - and you can't do that if you have to do a full drawing every time, or if you don't know how to draw a simplified sketch.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Another study from Goldman. It's interesting how different the structures are INSIDE the body from the landmarks they create OUTSIDE the body. So much complexity, in something as simple as a heel and its joint to the rest of the foot - a joint that enables you to waggle your feet independently of the positioning of your ankle and the wriggling your toes (try it). Yet all that complexity must exist inside for us to achieve something as simple on the outside as stretching your feet a little bit.

Drawing (on average) every day, posting every day if I can.

-the Centaur

Back in the day, I felt embarrassed about practicing with stick figures, always wanting to move on to the actual drawing. But now, I see real value in learning an approximation, so you can test ideas out and get proportions right with rough sketches, rather than ending up with an unbalanced or malformed drawing.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

More Goldman studies. Interesting how many fiddly bits there are in something as basic as the heel of the human foot, much less all the bones that make up the rest of it.

How much of this do you really need to know to draw? Conversely, how much does knowing this at a muscle-motion, stone-cold sketching level give you an invisible substructure that helps you get the shape of the outer structures correct?

Time will tell. Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

I know from experience how relieving it is to have a big buffer of artwork in my Drawing Every Day queue - I couldn't have gotten through GDC without it - but I also know it takes time.

More time than you expect; it was already getting dark by the time I finished this (compare with Day 97). Though, now that I think about it, I took a call with a potential sponsor for the Embodied AI Workshop, so I guess it is to be expected for it to get later if thirty minutes gets snapped out of drawing time like that.

Still ... drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Trying desperately to get ahead prior to the eclipse. More Goldman studies.

I really think these methodical studies help, and so does the mobile studio, but I also feel that a solid series of practice on ink rendering, also done in a larger format, would do me good as well.

Ah well. One (sub) project at a time, or even three at a time, but not five or ten.

Drawing Every Day.

-the Centaur

So I don't completely burn out on arms and legs, I'm building out my buffer with sketches based on a completely different anatomy book, which has very good planar breakdowns to help analyze shapes:

Well, I guess you can't see it well in that view because I put a clear plastic library-style cover over the book to protect it, but I also guess you'll start seeing more closeups from this book as we move forward, so you'll get the gist eventually.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

More Goldman studies. Starting to get the buffer built back up.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Out of time due to working on Camp Nano and lots of other stuff, so here's a quick sketch of Viv from Legends and Lattes. It was surprisingly hard to get the hands right without prior pencil sketches, so that's still an area I need to work on practicing.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

More Goldman studies. Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Ran out of time to postprocess this due to prepping for Easter dinner.

Actually, I got kicked out of the library because Loki is already having his midnight snack prior to going to bed, and it is best not to (literally) open the door to another round of zoomies. The mobile studio to the rescue!

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur