Sorry for the lack of posts everyone. I have been super busy. I have decided to go back to school and finish my bachelors in Illustration. I am currently attending the Academy of Art University and it feels really good to be back. I was doing work as a freelancer and realized I was just not getting work like I used to and needed to. I felt like the one thing holding me back was that piece of paper.
I went to the Academy back in 2012 and 2013. Then I got married and life happened and I had to stop my education for a time. But I'm a good place now (though hectic). I'm working full time and going to school full time, so this will be interesting. But I have done this before and survived in the past. It feels really good though, like I have a goal and purpose. And I think that the skills and challenges of school will be worth it for making better, more professional art. I thought I would share some of the work I made this week with you all.
I am taking a class on perspective drawing. The class gives the option to work digitally, but I'm forcing myself to work in pen and ink for the course as an added challenge. I think I would be too tempted to cheat working in digital and falling into the tools and bad habits I have there. I think working traditionally with pen will help me grow more as an artist. Here is a Sherman tank I made as well as an environment scene:
You might be wondering why the perspective seems... weird. This is on purpose. These are isometric drawings. Isometric perspective is a special sort of perspective where you are viewing everything with a birds eye view and a 120 degree angle. None of that would be too weird, but the added bonus is that there is no vanishing point. There is no convergence of perspective lines. This is a nifty view though for things like level design in video games or mechanical drawings. Both of the above images are using these rules. No convergence and a 120 degree birds eye view angle with no horizon line in the image.
I'm taking a clothed figure drawing course as well. Here are a few images. These are charcoal on newsprint. The tricky part is holding the the charcoal medium properly. You have to hold it like this when you draw:
Image above from Jerry's Artarama.
Here are the images I made:
This last image was actually of my wife watching TV tonight.
I'm learning a lot even though I feel like I have no free time. Luckily, I love art and I would be doing this stuff in my free time anyways. Plus, I think it's important to work full time and go to school. You will graduate with less debt, and as my father would say, it builds character. Plus, I want to get further into game development and concept art and long hours are a given in that field. If you can't hack that in school, how do you expect to hack it in the real thing? Keep a look out for more posts about my journey through school!
