Where this 'project' took me?

Even though it might see that I did not learn much nor it showed much in my work it's not as it seems. My drawings improved a lot and I learned a lot of things I use. Some better, some worse.

After finishing Leviathan I decided to collect everything I learn and try it out on a series of images. I started sketching a Legend of the Five Rings characters.

The first was a Unicorn clan rider.

The second one was a Mantis clan girl.

A third one in the same row was Togashi monk.

In these images I came really closer to what I wanted to do in my Personal Project. I did not manage it on time but this is what I was aiming for. It is still far from perfect and far from being any good in general. But I will work on it. Thank you George, Pavel and others that supported me. I'm progressing slowly on my own though.

Leviathan - Final Post

Before week one I had plenty of time thinking about what I would like to develop as a personal project. I primarily two things in my mind one being sound production/music production project and the other one drawing/painting one. I decided to draw. Wanted result was a full color drawing that would depict a character and/or some being.

During the first two weeks I was trying to come up with a scene that I could develop. I tried few but all were bad. In the second week I came up with few more, even though I did more sketches of animal beasts than of 'scenes' I wanted. I realized few things though. In each of the pictures something was wrong and it wasn't just the perspective. The placement of objects on canvas plays a big role as well. There are certain rules that should be followed. Also foreground and background can be 'connected' by more ways than I thought possible. Well, at least I know that blur and sharpen at certain places is something that can make wonders as this is something that will lead the ideas from one thing to another - to the principal one.

I also did some sketches in digital form and some on paper. I can have much more detail on paper in much shorter time, but when working on a computer I can get much better results with higher resolution that is resized later.
My final piece is a low res image which is the way I decided to go for one reason (ignoring the fact that I can't put as much detail as I would have wanted to in the image). I've spent the last year doing Magic: The Gathering alters which means that I spent time with a brush of the finest size I could fine and 66mm x 83mm 'canvas'. But I know that on this small area I can have really great details and nice backgrounds. That's why I tried drawing/painting a cloud sky. I started with white background doing a fast sketch of where the colors should be different and were the sun should be. I later added base colors for that and then I started using different hues of those colors so I would make it look better. In the end I came up with a very blurry image of a sky. It might not be seen but there are many short brush strokes (it seems that this is the way to go for me if I want to achieve something looking this way).

Next week I was trying to color my leviathan drawing. It was a pain. I knew what colors I wanted to use (like blue, green etc) but the colors I chose did not go together at all. It looked really weird. Some colors were to bright and unrealistic.

In the following weeks I was trying to fix this and finally I desaturated the image and continued drawing in the shades of gray. Later on I added the colors I wanted to use for the image. The result was far better than the last colored version.

Lastly I tried adding more detail and making it look more cohesive and more sophisticated.

I learned about the cohesiveness of a composition, about colors and shading. I learned just a bit but it is important for me and each realization like this is a huge leap forward for me. It might not seem like that but I know that I will be able to use this later in my drawings or paintings. I slowly go forward and learn about the colors, techniques I can use for certain kind of images and about the perspective/foreground/background. Applying my painting technique was something that I should have done earlier. It showed me that this way I can achieve good results as well. It will be much closer to the style I wish to paint/draw. My style is rather Asian and that does not usually work for medieval Fantasy.




Leviathan

It is a simple drawing of a leviathan, a sea (magical) monster. The creature can fly over the sea water. This one decided to twine around a lighthouse to hide the light it produces. It is there levitating and waiting for a ship to see him. The crew might get scared and never come to the island (were some other magical beings live).

I did not want to express anything special with this drawing, I just drew a sketch of it because I liked the idea. It is a fantasy creature drawn there. I like fantasy and I'm encircled with fantasy imagery, books and other items. The rocks should resemble rocks that you can find in Southern Asia. I really like this kind of rocks.

Now the finalization of my work should take place, but as this is the part I struggle the most, I'm not sure if I can make it. I will try adding details or use more colors to make the drawing more vivid but I've come to an end most probably. We will see what staring at it and trying to use imaginary brushes will lead to.

I learned a lot already and I will look forward to trying using my knowledge on my next drawing.

Here is how my drawing looks like so far...

Leviathan progress report

Well, I tried to work on this image as it probably is the one most promising. The perspective is wrong but I did not manage to fix this. I tried working on this and tried to get the whole image seem somehow integrated. Usually when I concentrate on one thing then the rest seems too different and that breaks the image. So this hopefully looks coherent.

The colors were a problem too. The original colors were a bit different and I used different hues of each color in the process. In the end I came up with this (not too much red - that was a problem). Now the colors look more vivid and more pleasing to the eye (hopefully at least from my point of view).

Now I'm stuck as I don't know what else could be done to help the image. Shadings/Lights that's something completely incomprehensible for me in such a 'drawing'. It needs more detail, but it's much better than from what I started.

BTW it's a low res image (as I couldn't work with the original files, my computer was gone.) Still I think it is a good exercise. I know that working in high resolution is better and it gives much better results, but first I need to learn how to draw and color something in low res and make it coherent. If I manage this I can continue adding details (thus having bigger resolution as well).

Cloud tutorial^_~

On Saturday we went to visit my grandmother in Valasske Mezirici. During our trip it was mostly clouded and we encountered few storms. I was amazed by the clouds (I always am when the clouds are low in the sky and moving fast). I stared at the clouds and was comparing the colors I usually use to paint the sky and the colors my eye perceived. I realized that the colors are somewhere between dark gray (greenish) and light blue (but cold tones). When I was younger I couldn't draw a cloud and usually my clouds ended up blue and the sky was white with tint of white. When I started painting on magic cards I realized that clouds are usually gray/white with tints of tan (in the magic illustrations). I had to match the colors right and make the clouds look as clouds. My nightmare was finishing Doom Blade as I couldn't figure out the colors and I couldn't make the big cloud look right. But it helped me realize some things. Other cards showed me that clouds are 3d objects and should get the depth and many colors are used when painting them.

Today I woke up around 6am and couldn't fall asleep once again. So I got up and decided a small cloud tutorial. I kept in mind my painting process I use for the cards and tried to copy a scene from Saturday's trip to Valmez. I used shades of dark green, dark blue (greenish but not that 'warm blue' I used to use...) and tan as that is the color that makes wonders^^. (at least while painting with real paint).

After 'finishing' many layers of the sky I added mountains in and some trees. Then I wanted to add some living creatures but couldn't come up with anything so I just drew a frostwind invoker (it was pain to draw!). Now it seems that I should have placed the sun further right on the image and keep the invoker at the same spot. That would probably work better.

I know it looks as two different people would draw this image but well that's my usual problem. When I concentrate on one thing it usually ends up looking good in some way and the elements I add later never fit in. I will try working on this later.

Progress Report #3

I've spent some time drawing and sketching some scenes and perspectives and even though that I have an idea what I would want I just couldn't apply it to what I was drawing (someone coming out of a cavern in a trolley/ the leviathan/ lynx on a tree... )

In the end I tried just a slight change of perspective on my leviathan picture from last report. It seems to be better in my eyes. In my sketches having the upper part more 'big' or closer is something that has a bigger impact. But I couldn't really get to doing it right. I still have a long way to go. The two in comparison.

Progress Report #2

This week I made few doodles. Some better, some worse. In all there was a creature and a background. I tried to work with the space but I miss the main points most probably as everything I draw seems to be close and the idea of space cannot really be seen.

Here I present you my two best sketches. In the first picture to achieve a better result I should change the perspective it should be a view probably from the shoreline or sea level. That way it might have much bigger impact on the viewer. In the second one the viewer is somewhere between the ground and first level. Maybe the viewer should be standing somewhere behind the samurai's running to intercept that whatever being. I'll try to figure out what I should do with those.

Well the first thing is to realize something and then learn from the mistakes. I will try to think about this when drawing another sketches.



I also tried finding out what's wrong with my previous images and I slightly changed one of them and I think I achieved a better result.

Progress Report no. 1

A week has passed and it is slowly the time to show my progress.

At first I wanted to come up with a composition I would use for my drawing and with that I wanted to concentrate more on the background of the image. All this idea came from an image of Drizzt Do'Urden and his leopard Guenhwyvar coming out of the underground to an eternally snow covered surface. And that is where I started or tried to start...


I realized that doing this is much more time consuming than I expected. Coming up with a composition is really hard for me but this hopefully gets better with each week^^. When I found out what I would like to draw I realized that doing it is much more difficult as well. The biggest problem though was with colors. I did not manage to come up with colors that would express what I want and in the end the Drizzt sketches look really horrible. After the two first drafts I decided to try a new one being completely different. On Saturday played in a Magic tournament and I came across a Frostwind Inwoker . I decided that I could draw a dragon, a huge bird or another big creature that can fly with a person riding it. I ended up with a dragon yesterday.

For the next week I will most probably try to come up with a composition I want so I could keep to it. I have no idea if I will manage it though. I expected to start working on the character or the animal in the image the next week but that won't be possible if I don't have the whole drawing drafted. Anyway yesterday night I also came across an old drawing of mine. I added a background to it. I know it's just some blurred trees and such but I realized few things while doing it. One thing is that I was never capable of doing something like this just by deciding "doing it". I drew the trees, used layers, opacity settings, blurred it even more and in the end it came to look quite good (in terms of my earlier attempts at backgrounds both simple and more sophisticated).



The reflection in her eyes should be different as the source of light is elsewhere but well...I will learn how to deal with this later or on the way. Good thing is that I realized this while looking at the picture. This wouldn't probably happen to me earlier.

First official entry

What is it that you propose to create?

One full art drawing. That would consist of an humanoid creature, animal creature and background.

What form will it take?

It would be one real or digital image. Most probably the first sketches and process would be done on paper. The final image would be digital.

What is the scope of the project?

What I had in mind originally is this. Each week I would do sketches based on 'topic' I would choose. Example would be Animals for week one. I would produce sketches of animals. This way I would continue till I would have sketches of 'items' I could put together and create one final piece that would be colored in the end of the project.

What I want to achieve now is something like this in composition. (it's an example - elf, leopard and some scenery. Does not need to have this composition but I want something that would force me to come up with a background of a bigger scope and more different elements to draw/paint)

What is your conceptual basis behind creating the piece?

Well, since my childhood I was fascinated by fantasy paintings and it was always my dream to manage to paint/draw something like this in the future. One of my dreams was having a full art piece submitted and accepted by Wizards of the Coast. I'm far away from that as I hardly can produce anything like a full art piece (in WotC terms) but this is the time I could try to produce one.

I will probably ran into many problems starting with composition, drawing human, animal and even the background. Choosing right colors and doing highlights and shadows is something that was always a mystery to me as well. Anyway this is my chance to try to work on one piece for a longer period of time and trying to finish it - so it would look finished. That is my goal.

WotC ArtBlog

Drawing challenges were coming to my mind quite often but I never got the topic. There are many things I would like to try but how to put everything together?

There is a new Magic: The Gathering expansion set. Sometimes with the set we can decide what type of illustration we want or try to draw/paint our own illustrations (as we get the description of the cards as well). The given description is only for a few cards (usually max. 3) and this happens once per 3 months (if it does).

During this night I remembered that some of the people I know from a forum are doing some art contests that are run by someone from WotC.

This person is Jon Schindehette, a Senior Art Director (for the game Dungeons and Dragons) from Wizards of the Coast. Each 14 days he usually comes up with a challenge people can follow and submit. The actual challenge is preparing a concept that could be used for SFX team to create a magic spell effect.

The description follows:

Level 9 Warlock Power

Feast of Souls
Souls trapped in the Nine Hells are hungry for life. Opening a temporary rift, you give them a taste of your foes' vitality.
Daily • Arcane, Cold, Implement, Psychic, Zone
Standard Action
Area burst 1 within 10 squares
Target each creature in burst
Attack Constitution vs will
Hit: 1d8 + Constitution modifier psychic damage, and the target is dazed (save ends).
Effect: The burst creates a zone of hungry spirits that lasts until the end of your next turn. The zone is difficult terrain. Each creature that enters the zone or starts its turn there takes 1d8 + your Constitution modifier cold damage. As a move action, you can move the zone 2 squares.
Sustain Minor: The zone persists

This kind of challenges is something I would like to follow, but it has some problems. I need to create something on a weekly basis and something that would be 'doable' for me. My drawing skills are not that good. But if I could come up with a drawing challenge for each week this would be something I would like to do. But we will see, I still have few days to decide^^. But coming up with the challenges might be a problem.

EDIT: Daarken is a god of digital painting O_O

Brainstorming no.1

Today we had our first class of Cultural Interpretation. We learned something about the first project that awaits us. That is the reason why this blog is being created.
We are supposed to create a personal project that is not bound by anything except our own limitations. The class is mostly devoted to the understanding and development of personal artistic style and that is what we will try to achieve in our first and 9 week ongoing project.

I started thinking about the topic for this project but can't come up with anything. It's the first day (few hours) so it's ok that I can't come up with anything.
I always come back to painting as there are some things I would like to learn to do.
And that is learning how to draw landscapes in proper perspective. I do Magic: The Gathering alters and that is where I would start and continue. I plan to do a series of textless lands to learn something about the perspective but it's time really time consuming and I might not have the time at all as I should spend my weekends in the game store I'll be owning in few weeks.

The second idea is - why not do a documentary movie about the game store? I know what I would want to take videos of and what to show in it. But this is something I can't plan and do on weekly basis. So this probably won't work either. (Since today we have a working website^_^)

There is one more thing I wanted to do in near future and that is work with some samples and my synthetizer to create some 'music'. No sense of rhythm does not help this and no experience whatsoever with all this might not help either.

Maybe a good night's sleep will help with brainstorming^_^. I need it. I haven't slept in a while.

That's all for the first unofficial post.