Sunday, January 22, 2012

Art Anecdotally: Controlling Photoshop: Custom Brushes!

Art Anecdotally: Controlling Photoshop: Custom Brushes!: Great post by Art Anecdotally about how to use Photoshop brushes!

Schoolism chronicles

So some of you are following me here on my Schoolism projects! I decided to sign up for the guided courses there after a rough year of arting. I am an ok artist, but this last year my weaknesses really hurt me professionally. I had the fortune to work with an amazing concept artist from a big studio in CA who took some of the classes at Schoolism. Hearing about her experience there made me take the plunge.

I'm currently taking the Character Design course with Stephen Silver, and tomorrow begins Intro to Digital Painting with Andrew Hou. Then, in July, the big tamale, Digital Painting with Bobby Chiu! (insert art swoon here)

So far it's been incredible, Im so thrilled with these courses. The only downside is the timing. Im in the middle of a move, and going through some rather nasty bodily problems. :{ Chronic pain is making every thing 100% harder, but I'll power through.

Please join me in my adventure as I try to re-learn the rules of art! Thanks and happy drawling!

Schoolism: Character Design lesson 2

Here is my work for lesson 2 of Character Design with Stephen Silver. For this assignment, we worked with silhouettes. The point of this was to make our character outlines are readable as possible.

Unfortunately, I did pretty badly on this exercise. ^^; I was a bit confused by what exactly we were supposed to submit. That and I got the due date off, so I was a day late in submitting. Bummer, but Mr. Silver still provided great input. Here is the first round I tried. The exercise was to create character outlines based on the classic, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.



I tried the first round with marker to see how it felt. I made a few good ones, but overall I hated the lack of control. I've definitely lost some of my hand skills. The next batch, for the Hyde character, I went to trusty old Photoshop.



I was overall pretty unhappy with my first trial of these guys, so I also did a second set. I sent them to Mr. Silver, but not for a critique, just for grins. I came up with some nice ones here for the Jekyl character, who I've named "Franklin Freckyl".





I got a 3 out of 5 star on this assignment, and it was very eye opening. Clarity. Must have it!

Schoolism: Character Design lesson 1

Hi all, I decided to sort of chronicle my work here as I toil through the Schoolism classes! Right now Im taking Character Design with Stephen Silver! It's truly amazing, I highly recommend it. Stephen is probably the foremost master of character design. His help and knowledge are just incredible.

Anyways, here is my lesson 1 assignment. In this lesson, we were instructed to draw a character based on a simple description. This is who Mr. Silver could assess our skill level, and how best to work with us. This fellow's name is Walter Chipwitther, age 65, a joyous English entrepreneur who wears a smoking jacket. :)



I got 3 out of 5 stars on this assignment. I learned from the critique that I need to work on legs, and letting my shapes 'breathe' more. I tend to crunch and cramp stuff, and I have some gaps in my anatomy knowledge. Overall feedback was good though, yay!