How to get better at art...

[sparrow]

just found this advice, and thought it applies to me. thought it may help others...

an artists thoughts on how to improve...
http://rhineville.deviantart.com/jou...-art-214181861

his work now...
http://rhineville.deviantart.com/gallery/

and his CA page started in 2006 examples are crude
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=73583

-to current 2012 fantastic work that jumps out of the page.
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...=73583&page=32

[J.K. Riki]

Interesting stuff. I'm not sure how I exactly feel about it all, to be honest.

I don't want to put someone down for trying to help others, so please don't interpret this post as such. It's only what's going through my head and I thought I'd share as I was thinking.

The giant mass of text written about improving is absolutely true and useful. I wonder, though, if it couldn't stand to have a very large scalpel taken to it and edited down to only a handful of words?

He says "Newbie teachers will tell you the key is 'practice practice practice'" but then looks down on that advice. YES, you need to practice the right stuff (as he then says), but the triple-P advice is totally sound. The truth is, many of the people on Deviantart aren't looking to make careers out of art, they just want to improve. And honestly much of what they want to improve is imitation. For that, the concept of "practice practice practice" is exactly the truth.

Likewise he says to avoid tutorials. I really don't think I can agree to that. Until you learn HOW to see (the point of tutorials) you're stumbling blindly in the dark. True, the tutorials should be looked at as guides, not rules, but without them you're at a severe disadvantage.

It reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons. Lisa was taking tap dancing lessons. The instructor's advice was "tappa tappa tappa!" It wasn't instruction at all, and as a result Lisa was stumbling along blindly. Avoiding teachers (tutorials) is like only having "tappa tappa tappa" to go on. You need more than just tappa tappa tappa. If an instructor says "You have to do it this exact way, and NOTHING ELSE" then obviously there is a problem. But you don't avoid the teacher completely and forge the trail on your own. Why not learn from others who've been down that trail before you? Use tutorials as guides, don't avoid them.

Finally there's no denying that there's improvement in his work from the two links you posted. The most recent stuff is very nicely produced. The thing that stands out to me, though, is that the foundation there isn't really much better to be honest. What's gotten better (INSANELY BETTER) is his rendering/finishing skills. Look at two images that are NOT rendered:





The first is not scanned as well, but apart from that, where is the huge improvement? I honestly don't really see it. It merely looks like he had an easier/quicker time achieving similar results with the newer one. The images really don't seem at a far and away different level at the core. Now you compare the top one to this:



And it's a night and day difference. But WHY? Well, because the bottom one is very nicely rendered.

Meanwhile if you want to look at real, core improvement, you might see two images like this:





With the images of Scar above, there's no rendering to hide behind. ALL you have is the principals and forms and solid (or at the top, not so solid) drawings. I think these days thanks to Photoshop there are some digital wizards out there who really aren't great artists but act the part thanks to rendering skills. You take away the shading, effects, and colors and it's completely, unfortunately average.

For ME (and this is just a personal opinion) that's what you shoot for. Being a great artist without the coats of paint. Because if you can draw Scar like Andreas Deja, well, you're golden. Rendering will only make it a visual masterpiece. The improvement you want to see isn't with your rendering skill, but with the bones beneath all the shiny gloss.

Anyway, that all probably sounds a lot meaner and more harsh than I intend it to be. It's just my thought on this particular topic. Again, I don't mean to be cruel about it. I'm always happy to see someone pointing newer artists in the right direction. I just hope he is really sure of what the right direction is, and there we disagree a bit.

Of course, he's probably still better than I am, so I'm not speaking as some master artist or anything! (I just hope in five years I will have improved my core drawing ability more than I see the difference in the links you posted. Otherwise I must admit, I'll be very disappointed.)

[NOOB!]

I'm not going to speak in length about,but for the most part,j.k. riki, I agree with you.

[neeters_guy]

Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between form and surface techniques. I recall a teacher in figure drawing class asking a student to stop using charcoal because he spent more time shading and blending rather than drawing the model in correct proportion.

I largely agree with Rhineville's point. I think what he's saying is drawing skills will improve faster if you practice with intention. That is, draw with an idea of what you want to improve.

That's not say you can't draw for fun, but if all your drawing time is spent mindlessly draw whatever you feel like, just doodling, then your work will improve very slowly, maybe never progress past a certain level.

Interesting posts anyway.

[J.K. Riki]

Originally Posted by neeters_guy

I recall a teacher in figure drawing class asking a student to stop using charcoal because he spent more time shading and blending rather than drawing the model in correct proportion.

Did he listen? Ha ha, I only ask because the first time I was in art school I would never have taken such advice. But then, I wasn't ready to hear it then. Things change, you grow, and eventually it turns out those wise teachers were right all along.

EDIT:
In the same regard, one of the best drawing tips I ever got was from Drawn to Life by Walt Stanchfield. He said to do your gestures and studies in pen. Regular old pen. And it's such a good call, because it forces you to be confident and work with line rather than fancy shading (though you can still cross-hatch, but that's not the point obviously!).

[brettwmccoy]

"practice practice practice" is also a mantra repeated in the music world, for those playing musical instruments. The typical way someone might follow this advice would be to pick up their guitar, noodle away on some riffs or scales, get bored after 15-20 minutes and go do something else. I imagine for a lot of people doing artwork it's the same thing... they aren't being told what to practice or how to structure their practice session.

[PeterC]

Originally Posted by brettwmccoy

"practice practice practice" is also a mantra repeated in the music world, for those playing musical instruments. The typical way someone might follow this advice would be to pick up their guitar, noodle away on some riffs or scales, get bored after 15-20 minutes and go do something else. I imagine for a lot of people doing artwork it's the same thing... they aren't being told what to practice or how to structure their practice session.

ok then define it here, because "Foundations" have never been explained to me. Ever.

This is what I've gathered from "foundations."


Practice form and volume: Ok yeah, I get that, make the drawing look like it appears in 3d space. But no one ever explained to me how the hell to go about doing it. "your drawings look flat, you need to practice the and know the form." Ok, how? Can you explain to me how? Now your taking out and comparing my drawings to someone else. Oh wow, yes, that dead guy is a lot better than I am now. Thank you for that insight that I already know, but that still doesn't explain to me what I'm suppose to pay attention to when I'm drawing. The forms you say? hmmm... I think we just went full circle.

poseing: Yes posing is very important to animation, make the character happy make the character sad, pose the character so he feels enlightened from eating a spicy burrito. Look at the silhouette make sure it "reads" look at the action line. Make sure you know can read how the character "feels." Really? Can you explain to me how? How do I know if the pose is with the character and "feels?"

"You need to make your lines feel heavier and powerful."
"I do not understand."
"they aren't heavy enough."
"I have already deduced that."


This is what is so gosh darn infuriating to me.

[J.K. Riki]

I'll take a crack at your questions, Peter, because I was VERY much like you up until recently. I heard those same things, but had no idea how! Here's what I've discovered from reading, learning, and searching:

Form and Volume: This is a tricky one because honestly one day I just "got" it. I can't tell you what happened, I just SAW how to do it. But I think there are things that will lead you towards that concept.

The best advice I can give is to not draw anything ever again. Instead, SCULPT the images you're creating using pencil and paper. That sounds weird, but it's an important mental shift. Look at this image from Glenn Keane:



See that one at the bottom that says "feel the form of the cheek when you draw it?" That image/sentence can change your life. It won't happen overnight, but if you look at it every day when you "get" it everything will change. Suddenly you're not drawing outlines of things. You're sculpting with pencil. You're FEELING the roundness of the cheek, through your hand, down the pencil, and around the paper. And honestly it will come with practice, but you have to try to feel it. Eventually you get there, it's a process.

Another thing that helped me SO much was this:
http://www.floobynooby.com/ICAN102/H..._Animation.pdf

Specifically pages 5 and 6. Now, I will sound full of myself here, but do yourself a favor and ignore most of the stuff past page 25 or so. The artist is BRILLIANT when it comes to the principals and basics, but the more complex stuff is really pretty bad and you don't want to take the same path. That's okay, I'm like that too. My simple stuff is MUCH better than my complex stuff. Everyone has their strengths. (I wish my simple stuff was a AMAZING as his, but I'm working on it!)

Anyway, pages 5 and 6 introduce you to the flour sack. The flour sack can CHANGE YOUR LIFE. (I know I keep saying that, but it's true.) When you start feeling AROUND the form of the flour sack, and making it squash and stretch as if you're carving it out of the paper, everything changes. Practice that, it will help a lot. Study those drawings. Look THROUGH them, not just at the outlines. The outlines are not what you're drawing. You're drawing the SURFACE of the forms. Say it again and again to yourself. It won't click like a lightbulb tonight, but it WILL happen if you keep at it.

Here's my last bit of form advice. One that, again, changed my life.
http://joshuatabackart.blogspot.com/...appy-2012.html

Joshua was kind enough to take a whole blog post to respond to one of my comments. (As an aside, when you get good at this please pass it on to some up-and-coming artist like he did to me! Gotta keep this cycle going!) One thing he said I read, but didn't give much thought to:

"As far as practicing, we can never do enough of it. But in my opinion, the number one best way to improve your drawing is to animate, traditionally. Not with Flash or Maya or another CGI equivilent. Traditional animation will make you think in ways you wouldn't by doing single illustrative drawings. It shows you things you never would have thought of otherwise. You find things you never would have found. Animating traditionally will undoubtably improve anyone's drawing."

Like I said, I stupidly ignore this for a few weeks (thank GOD it was only a few weeks and not, like, years). Then finally I took the advice and started practicing BY doing animation. With paper and pencil. And OH MY GOSH HE WAS SO RIGHT! Suddenly you find things you never saw before. The forms have PURPOSE. It isn't "here is a character in a pose" but "This guy is jumping, and in the middle of the jump it looks like this." By adding the element of TIME (something came RIGHT BEFORE and something will happen RIGHT AFTER) it changes everything. Like I said, there's purpose now. It's no longer a "pose" it's an action. I can't tell you enough how much of a difference this has made over just the past month. It's like a whole new world, just from this one tip.

Posing: This one I'm even more excited to talk about because it was only two days ago that I had a MAJOR breakthrough with posing. Here is how I'd recommend you think about it: A good pose tells the story. THAT'S ALL. You don't need to know anything else. You don't need to worry about line weight or silhouettes or lines of action. (Well, you do, but not right this second. I would argue that the best story-telling pose will trump any pose that specifically tries to consider silhouette or line of action. Why? Because the best story telling poses are made UP of those things. The story needs to be the FOCUS, and the blocks will fall right into place.)

What you are trying to do is tell the story the very best way you can. And guess how you do that? (Or at least, how I do that?) You draw 100 poses of the same pose. Push things. Pull things. Something work? Put it into the next pose. Something weird? Take it out. Draw draw draw draw draw. Draw until you hate whatever story you are telling. If it's a guy enlightened from a burrito, draw every possible way you can think of to have that guy tell that story in a single image as SIMPLY as possible, but as WELL as possible. Here's a (kind of crappy) example from my files:



I wanted to draw a guy waiting while looking at his watch. The story is "Man, I've been waiting here forever, where the heck is Joe? Why isn't he here yet? Look at that, it's been 20 minutes already. That second hand just keeps going tick tick tick tick tick and I'm getting tick tick tick ticked OFF!"

My first attempt wasn't awful. It tells the story. Things could be better, though. Next pose is pushed farther. Not enough. Next pose, pushed even MORE. Getting there. Next pose, halfway through I hate it, this isn't right, moving on. Next pose seems almost TOO much, which means we're starting to really cook!

Now, I only did five poses there. That is 95 poses short of me finding the right pose. (100 is arbitrary. What I mean is "A LOT.") Then once I find what REALLY tells that story, REALLY well, I will start thinking about lines of action, silhouette, and the rest. And guess what that means? Yep, another few hundred pose attempts to make it even better.

That is a stupid amount of work, right? That's craziness.

Well here's the awesome part: You don't have to go through this process forever! No, this is part of the early stages. Before you know it (though never soon enough for our liking) the 50th pose you do will hit the jackpot! And then a while later, the 10th pose will get you there! And one day (I can only hope) you and I will be like Andreas Deja, Glenn Keane, and Eric Goldberg and find that golden pose on the first or second try. Unless it's a super important pose, and then we (and they) are still going to do 100. But it will be a breeze by then, because we'll have been doing it for so many years.

I wish beyond almost all wishes that I could point my graphite pencil at you and ZAP! You'd see things in form and understand the idea of "carving" a drawing. But it doesn't work like that. The only way you'll get there is through a LOT of drawing. But like I said, LOOK for it. Keep it in your mind. Check that Glenn Keane "feel the cheek" image and KEEP that in your head. It will be frustrating for a while, but you WILL get there. It took me about three years of real practice on top of about 25 years of bad, copycat, not-really-trying practice. It doesn't happen overnight is what I'm saying.

I promise you, though, I was absolutely 100% in your shoes just a few years ago. I felt the same frustration, and it felt like it would never end. And some days I STILL feel that way. It will get better, but you have to put the work in. It's a TON of work. Soldier through and one day you (if you're like me) will be nearly in tears and bouncing off the walls because you finally FINALLY "get" it. And that feeling is so awesome.

I hope that was helpful in some way. Re-read it tomorrow and some day next week, because otherwise you'll forget (or like I did with Josh's advice, temporarily ignore it). Trust me on that one.

All the best,
-J.K.

[PeterC]

ah, goddammit. Thank you J.k. for all your insight.

I think I posted bitterly because I was in those "what the hell am I doing?" episodes.

just ask indie, I was pretty wacked out from sleep deprivation and stress.

[bleupencil]

So I'm curious.... does the "JK" stand for Jedi Knight?
Because those are pretty Jedi-like responses JK.

[neeters_guy]

That's some great advice and links, JK! Thanks!

Originally Posted by brettwmccoy

"practice practice practice" is also a mantra repeated in the music world, for those playing musical instruments. The typical way someone might follow this advice would be to pick up their guitar, noodle away on some riffs or scales, get bored after 15-20 minutes and go do something else. I imagine for a lot of people doing artwork it's the same thing... they aren't being told what to practice or how to structure their practice session.

I was going to mention the music parallel, but I'm glad someone with real musical training mentioned it. Yes, I think it's the same thing except that everyone can hear clumsy musicianship, but with bad art, there's a tendency to say it's a "style".

Originally Posted by PeterC

This is what is so gosh darn infuriating to me.

Peterc, if I recall you have fair disdain for animation/art schools, which is fine, but the downside is you're on your own in finding your path. Being an autodidact requires a certain faith and diligence I think.

Also, get some sleep, sleep is good.

[sparrow]

Oh lively! Thx JK for the advice, I think you helped about everyone with that post. And I learnt a few things on my first glace of you post.

I found that post, while at work... drinking my coffee thinking I’d love to get better quickly... as is the age we live in I WANT IT NOW, I DON’T WONNA WORK HARD FOR IT I NEED IT NOW!!!

I draw in the morning before work, lunch time and in the evening, but I think the main point being practice does make an improvement, little by little, it has too. We are all better at things we do more often than things we don’t.

But getting stuck and the only help offered is practice is pretty sucky...

I went to art college, I dropped out. The teachers had NO drawing skill and offered little inspiration slapping curtains on a board with plaster and flicking paint at it is not art!!! Not when you can’t even draw an apple and say it looks sh*t cause that’s just their drawing style, people that masking taped squares on a canvas and painted it colours got A’s and me and a couple of other traditional style artists got fail’s... at the time even the slightest nudge towards improving my art would have been nice, value, light & dark, shadow & edge anything....

I rate my drawing skill as OK, I have talent with a pencil, but no training. I plan to remedy this asap and then get back to animating or something animation related such as storyboarding or something... when I’m happy with my skill.

I really love this forum and the people on it, but for my own personal reasons I won’t be posting for a while till I sort myself out... but I may have a peak at how you’re all doing from time to time!

Good luck everyone!

[brettwmccoy]

Originally Posted by neeters_guy

I was going to mention the music parallel, but I'm glad someone with real musical training mentioned it. Yes, I think it's the same thing except that everyone can hear clumsy musicianship, but with bad art, there's a tendency to say it's a "style".

They do that with music, too... and call it "alternative" or "anti-folk" or "improvisation". :-P

[brettwmccoy]

In terms of structuring a practice, I like to do things that are very focused. Maybe spend the first 5-10 minutes doing "warm ups" -- simple and quick sketches from life (pixelovely.com is great for this) it helps loosen you up.

Then I pick something I specifically want to work on. Since I am focusing more on animation these days rather than just drawing technqiue, I will pick something animated to focus on, like timing out a walk in a sketchbook -- just drawing thumbnails and working out the positions of a walk on 12s or 16s. Or draw a box falling and working out the timing for that.

Or sometimes I might just draw a page full of eyes. Or a page full of hands. Or a page full of silhouette shapes -- just blocking in basic shapes and trying to get some kind of expression or attitude just from the silhouette. This is the kind of thing you ca do while watching TV, in fact!

(Music practice should be the same way, you spend a few minutes warming up with specific exercises, and then pick one thing to work on, like a specific song you are trying to learn, or a specific technique like sweep picking or Hungarian minor scale).

[J.K. Riki]

Originally Posted by brettwmccoy

The typical way someone might follow this advice would be to pick up their guitar, noodle away on some riffs or scales, get bored after 15-20 minutes and go do something else.

That... that sounds kind of like me when I was trying to learn guitar.

Is that why I failed so badly and quit?!

Originally Posted by bleupencil

So I'm curious.... does the "JK" stand for Jedi Knight?
Because those are pretty Jedi-like responses JK.

Yeah I have a third degree- Uh... I mean... nooooo.... ...

Originally Posted by sparrow

I really love this forum and the people on it, but for my own personal reasons I won’t be posting for a while till I sort myself out... but I may have a peak at how you’re all doing from time to time!

Good luck everyone!

You'll be super uber missed! Don't stay away too long, okay? And remember if you need help sorting things out, you've got a great bunch of folks around here who I bet are more than willing to lend a hand!

Originally Posted by PeterC

I think I posted bitterly because I was in those "what the hell am I doing?" episodes.

Ah yes, well, I think we all have THOSE.

[Evil Demon Creature]

Alright, this topic has only just started going and there are already a large number of words describing the subject. For instance:

Originally Posted by J.K. Riki

The giant mass of text written about improving is absolutely true and useful. I wonder, though, if it couldn't stand to have a very large scalpel taken to it and edited down to only a handful of words?

This quote really stuck out to me the most, but the person it came from is consistently making the longest posts in the topic in terms of overall word count.

So in the spirit of believing what this quote says is indeed possible, here I go to attempt to cut down what this entire topic is saying into a small handful of easy to remember words:

"Over 90% of what an artist needs to learn in order to get better at art can be learned by drawing cartoons."

The way I see it, the more concise the insight is, the more useful it is to helping you practice at improving your skills. Also, the example J.K. Riki posted makes this abundantly clear: It takes an art snob to tell you when you are looking at a badly rendered work of art, but anybody can tell when they are looking at a poorly drawn cartoon.

[Evil Demon Creature]

Also, I just want to add that I checked out that artist that sparrow linked at the start of the topic. For all of that advice he gives, not a single bit of it directly addresses the real reason he himself was able to improve his own artistic skills so drastically.

I can tell why he is so good just by looking at his early work. The only reason he got so good at art was because he is the type of artist who is willing to post his drawings on conceptart.org before he is already really really good at drawing.

That is all it takes really. (It's also why I can concede the fact that no matter how good at art I can be, I'll never be really really good at it. I am definitely not the type of artist who would post on conceptart.org without already being really good at drawing.)

Although all this talk is making me want to get back to posting stuff here though. Maybe if I opened up more in a less intimidating atmosphere, I can get just good enough at drawing to feel okay with myself asking for honest critique from conceptart.org

[J.K. Riki]

Originally Posted by Evil Demon Creature

This quote really stuck out to me the most, but the person it came from is consistently making the longest posts in the topic in terms of overall word count.

Ha ha, good call. Yes, I tend to get very, very long-winded when talking about animation and drawing. That said, I try to make every word COUNT and not include worthless stuff with the advice. (I guess sometimes that doesn't happen, though.)

Also I think it's very important if you're talking art to post images. Nothing but text is still helpful, but pictures break up a huge wall of text.

[Evil Demon Creature]

Well I certainly agree with that. The pictures were what made those posts interesting to start with. It's enough to make me think about going back and looking over the text-y parts just to see what they offer in addition to those pictures.

Everyone here already knows the classic adage. So the way I figure it, for every 1 picture you can add to a post to help illustrate your point, you can also subtract 1000 words from that same post. (I certainly would hate to see how long those posts might have been WITHOUT any pictures!)

[NOOB!]

Originally Posted by Evil Demon Creature

I can tell why he is so good just by looking at his early work. The only reason he got so good at art was because he is the type of artist who is willing to post his drawings on conceptart.org before he is already really really good at drawing.

So your analysis is that he improved because he was willing to post and recieve constructive criticism and not let his ego get in the way? not trying to stir anything,I just need a bit of clarification here.

What I found a little odd EDC is that you seem to have identified the problem in your artistic development,but purposely avoid the solution,by saying "i'm not the kind of person to do so".Forgive me but this sounds a little counter productive.

+ about the cartoon thing

"anybody can tell they are looking at a poorly drawn cartoon"

so? they can tell you its bad,but can they tell you WHY its bad? Its still going to take a cartoon snob (john k anyone?) to tell you why its bad.

I may have misinterpreted what you where trying to say with that though.