■ Practice, structure and regiment

[lukadian]

 Lately I’ve been trying to dive deeply back into basics and set aside more structured time for drawing. 

 

I’ve been referencing several YouTube tutorials and channels breaking down gesture, structure and basic shapes, things I never really… properly learned when I first started drawing, self taught as I am. 

 

The end goal has always been “I wanna draw anime style!” Or “some day I’m gonna be a mangaka!” As were probably most of our middle school aspirations. But, public school art credentials never really made basics very fun, and failed to connect them to what I really wanted to draw (animes). So I feel like I’m coming to a lot of these art “fundamentals” much later in life and am only just now connecting them to what I want out of my art.

Even the anime artists I admired as a kid and continue to emulate in my art as an adult have a basic, foundational understanding of anatomy, structure, and various other things that go into drawing figures, paneling comics and creating sequential story telling! 

 

So, in my attempts to create more intentional, structured practice and study time into my routine, I’m gonna just ramble here a bit and try to come up with a schedule or method that works best!

 

■ Warm Ups

 

A friend had told me quite a while back that they usually warmed up by drawing ten boxes and ten circles every day before drawing anything. For a while I tried this but I failed to see any proper improvement. But this past week while going down art tutorial video bunny holes on YouTube (as one does) I finally clicked upon an intentional use of an exercise like this!

 

I am, frankly, terrible at basic shapes! Much as I am a visual and hands on learner I have the hardest time groking things in three dimensional space. I’m also, obviously very unpracticed in the art of drawing things like cubes, cylinders, spheres and such in multiple points, angles and levels of depth and dimension. But a lot of these things go into putting structure to anatomy! 

 

The more I’ve been able to connect and spot these shapes in the art I enjoy and find inspiration from, or in photo references, the easier it’s been to connect these “boring” shapes into the dynamic designs and more exciting story telling I want to pursue! 

 

So an adjustment to this wam up: ten cubes and ten cylinders, just as a warm up, no worrying about making them perfect or shaky lines or how long it takes, just slow down and really focus on making practical, believable shapes in three dimensions to use as short cuts and building blocks!

 

Another little tidbit I’ve held onto for years but have only slowly begun to find a practical use in comes from an old DevArt tutorial from years ago supplied by, I believe Nyan-something (Edit IT WAS NSIO, the figure skating bit on this page). Loosening up my lines, remembering to draw with my whole arm.

 

I’ve had a bad habit of working in “cramped” conditions for a long time, I zoom in a lot, and often fail to draw the whole picture, getting lost in details both in visually parsing things out and in rendering, it’s been hard to zoom out and use not just the whole canvas but my entire arm as well. 

 

I’m hoping to literally loosen up my joints and strokes by making wider ellipses, curves, infinities and strokes to activate the whole arm as a drawing muscle.

 

My plan is to create infinity loops in larger increments of size, slowly branching out and activating my entire arm, making larger and wider loops and passes. Trying to keep my lines consistent and continuous until I start going off track or lose momentum. 

 

Currently I can successfully go between 20 and 80 rounds before I lose momentum! I want to increase or maintain this momentum of passes for larger increments of space and size at a fuller canvas to really train my arms and hands in reaching every portion of my canvas without zooming in and learning how lines look when zoomed out! 

 

Also this literally just loosens shit up for me haha! 

 

■ Gestures

 

Next is gesture, according to this video gesture practice should be between 40 and 60% of my practice time, and I do often see a direct correlation in fluidity to my lines and forms after getting in some solid gesture practice! Presently I’ve really been enjoying the New Masters School video series of nude and clothed timed life drawing videos in addition to my usual go to of using Adorka (formerly Senshi) Stock’s sketching application!  The set time of the videos I think also keeps me a little more structured and focused as well. Their models also feel a touch easier to read/visually parse at times! (I love the literal range and diversity in Adorka’s photos but every so often they can feel very…stiffly posed! A little unnatural, a little too staged.)

 

So, new intent: work on gestures for at least a solid 40% of allotted practice/study time! 

 

■ Studies

 

Studies can mean and be a lot of things, but in terms of bulking up on structure and breaking down the drawing techniques of some of my favored artists I want to intentionally narrow my studies to certain artists, review videos of them working, trace and break down their art to learn from it, reduce it into shape language, redlines, etcetera! Particularly I’ve been taking some leaves from this guy’s videos which resonated with me a lot, his video on gestures and learning through tracing/breaking down the shapes of other artists in particular felt very validating to where I was leaning in terms  of more intentional study! 

 

So, to wrap up, for intentional structured practice time I want to accomplish the following. I’m gonna ball park it and set an intentional study time on weekends (Saturday most likely!) as being approximately three hours (180 minutes)…

 

■ Warm ups - no more than 15 - 20 minutes starting out, warm ups shouldn’t take too long!

   - Infinity loops on 100% canvas or lower (NO zooming in)

   - 10 x Cubes

   - 10 x Cylinders

   

■ Gestures - 40% of my allotted time, roughly 1.2 hours or 72 minutes

   - completing about two New Masters timed Daily life drawing videos.

   - interspersed with some adjustable timed Adorkastock sketching app work.

 

■ Studies - rest of my (intentional) time, focusing on deconstructing and pulling out the shapes and structure of favored artists, from photo or reference books and taking notes or attempting to replicate their styles and forms. In particular I want to focus on the figures of Ohagi-San (Endou Okito), Oyari Ashito (Gnocchi/Ink Pot), Akihiro Yamada, Toshihiro Ono, Yun Kouga, Yana Toboso, Kentaro Miura, Mentaiko Itto, Gengoroh Tagame, Nagabe, Toshihiro Ono, Rui Araizumi and Ryuusuke Mita.

 

These artists and styles are all mutable and exchangeable with whatever it is I want to focus on at the time. I’m slowly accumulating a collection of art, photo, and instructional books related to areas I want to improve in such as certain stylization (retro future which takes notes and cues from anime art popular in the 1980’s and 90’s for instance), aspects of anatomy (musculature) and erotica (shibari poses and ties!) 

 

Primarily this practice regime will focus on figures drawing, anatomical structure and character design. 

 

I don’t yet know how sustainable this regiment will be, I can already see that gesture is gonna be a fuckton of time and that was going on the lower end of the recommended percentile or intentional practice. I know I’ve often gotten bored and frustrated as few as ten minutes in before wanting to move on, but I think part of that is due to combination not being in practice with this kind of drawing and method and ADD brain hopping around haha! 

 

It will take some trial and error for sure, and things will get refined I think based on sustainability, energy, motivation and ability to stick with it. It’s easy to theorize and suggest a lot of stuff but rarley does it quite pan out the way you planned! 

 

Only time and actually trying this plan will tell! 

Comments

[tempural]

I truly admire your commitment to structure! My workflow is so chaotic, it's really cool to see how you organize your Art Thots and get specific artists in a group to study :3c

[lukadian]

Secret: I’ve really only recently been thinking in more…organized methods haha! I’m seeing where I want to be and seeing where I’m at and in archiving a lot of my art I’ve realized I’ve been drawing for a long time but a lot of my improvement has only been in the last few years it feels like, and even then, that’s going on several years of almost complete hiatus back when [hell job] kept me too busy to draw much for leisure at all!

Putting the art thots to paper (or DW haha) I think helps me commit a little more to acting on them and feel like I’m a actually plotting something achievable more so than just *siiiigh* why can’t I just be [insert Fujo/H Artist/Mangaka] and not doing anything about it XD

[kradeelav]

the cubes thing is legit - only discovered that this past year, and you might enjoy cylinders too since they're a great way to train the eye for arm/leg perspective. :> proud of you ~ but also don't beat yourself up if the desire for the warmups isn't always there, sometimes you just want to sit down and frantically dash out that mental image XD

[lukadian]

IKR like literally it finally hit me a few days ago how to properly use cubes and shit haha! I’m by no means an expert at it but it feels less like some weird big art secret now that it’s finally clicking for me, and it’s not for lack of these wonderful folk whose videos and tutorials I’ve been spending time with and learning from, I’m just kind of a dense motherfucker sometimes! I think a lot of it is..making it make sense to -me-. Someone can say “oh these foundations are very important” but just as I failed to see them as important to my end goals in middle school, it wasn’t till I started trying to pick them out of the work of artists I enjoyed that really illustrated (teehee) these fundamentals in action as things I was unconsciously observing and enjoying in some of my inspirations!

Man you’re right, I do want to try to hold myself to some kind of structure, more so for experimentation, to take notes, to see how and what kind of improvement this kind of studying will make over a set period of time (it’s not science if you don’t take notes!) but I should absolutely keep in mind that it’s cool to have fun meaningless meandering hit the canvas or sketchbook running with whatever the heck! That’s honestly my usual “method” and it’s fun but I’m running into those frustrating limitations of my own ability more often these days. X3

[linky]

I love drawing gestures, I've been doing those since high school and they've made a massive difference in my anatomy + poses. I've done some IRL classes long ago but I've done most via online sites like line of action (back when it used to be called pixel lovely or a similar name) or Adorka's sites!

I also remember that tutorial from Nsio back from my dA days! Ever since then when I saw that post 8 or so years ago I've been doing my best to remember to draw with my whole arm. It makes such a difference.

I wish you all the best with your art endeavors!! :D

[lukadian]

:000 I’ve not seen this site before thank you for the link, this looks like a wonderful resource!!

(Leave it to Linky to have all the cool linkies~!)

I’m actually curious to revisit so many of my old saved tutorial faves in my old DA account and see what I think of them now with more of a…comprehending? Intentional? Studious mind! Digging up some old art memes could be fun too ehehe!

[linky]

It's such a great site!! I've been using it for a long time and swear by it! (And aw shucks! :D I'm always glad to provide cool links to people! Gathering links has been a pastime of mine for a long time now~)

I should check out some old dA tutorials I faved way back too, it would be interesting to look at them now with new eyes! AND YESSS ART MEMES! <3 dA had such fun ones, I should look around too! :D

[hex_grimoire]

Your art style is already so pretty, so I can't wait to see how it evolves from here! I struggle with finding the time to balance studies with art I want to draw, so I usually just wing it after watching a tutorial or two. It's really interesting to see how methodical your approach is!

[lukadian]

Akjdbfkjfsbfjkfhd Heeeeex you flatter meeee omg ;u; thank you, that means so much coming from you, your artwork is likewise very pretty and inspirational to me!

Finding the time and intentionality are suuuch a struggle, I’m honestly a bit nervous about committing to this plan but I think putting it to “paper” and making an effort to make notes on my progress and observations will help! I think next I should set out a set amount of time to perform these studies and begin taking notes or set some kind of means of measuring my improvement? That’s the tough part though cause as we all know, we’re our own worst critics and can get a little blind to our own advancements.

Maybe I can organize a panel of art peers lol XD

Lolol watch a video and wing it certainly *feels* exactly like what my method currently is haha! Maybe I’m more…methodological than I thought? Or maybe it just sounds like it cause I like to complicate things for myself ahaha!