weekly assignments 2

1st image: (mind + ref) = tried to get mood through light and composition, tried to incorporate photos in it. Everything is taken from photos and then painted over, i had a b/w thumbnail as a guide. i didn´t paint from reference though...but i don´t know why...wanted to make it fast..but it didn´t go really fast..(3hrs)

other imgs: (from ref) = the one on the left is the original, i tried to get the value range, and understand how the material would react to light.

ok, this week i haven´t done much...thing is i tried to make illustrations for 2 different contests, while also working on a board game project with a friend that is 3weeks late compared to the schedule (and we got 20 days left =) eheh ).
I ended up doing 2 different illustrations just for one contest, having lots of problems with composition and giving a sense to my pieces, and concepts.

i did some studies on materials and value, since i was a bit struggling with them in the latest studies last week. uhm...i also reworked my goals and made a power point document, quite detailed and that i can update whenever i learn something more. i took the requirements to work as a concept artist at blizzard as they are stated on their site, and tried to understand what it meant, what was required to know, and what´s my actual knowledge. I can say i´m no where near 10% of the knowledge i should have ahahahha, some things like creature anathomy, or industrial design, are completely unknown to me, and i really struggle with environments, but this is giving me atleast a good view on the situation, and whenever i want i can go and pick a subject to learn and get closer to my goal.
For example today i started working with 2 -3 different programs or visual medias to get better results( ie: using photos in my concept art to speed the process (even though it took double time inthe end =) , and learning a 3d program to then import rendered images in ps). I also understood a bit of composition, and simple ways to making it work at a basic level (even if i continue to screw it up uncosciously =) )
uhm..anyway i still have problems believing that i suck at art, wich is directly related to me sucking at art xD and vice versa =)

after 4th or 5th week now, i still haven´t got good at focusing on important stuff, i continue to do 30 things at a time, and this sucks...cause i can´t study, but then again, i like doing them, and they keep me in contact wth people, so i guess they have their purpose =)

gonna sleep some now, take care! (whoever will be reading this =) )

moar stuffz

i did 2 from mind and reference, trying to select some specific areas to focus on, i tried to increase the number of things at a time, the ones i thought i could manage together, in the first one for example i chose: anathomy, color, values, creativity and detail. Eventually as soon as i started i forgot all of those i just kept anathomy and tried some creativity at the beginning. I´m a bit obsessed with time, in the sense that i tried to finish what i´m doing in around 2 hours whatever it is i´m doing, and since rendering takes much time i tend to rush the creative part at the beginning and hook up to the first idea the i have without developing cause i don´t want to loose time. Uhm..gah that´s stupid =) i developed this habit by looking at all those beautifully 2h sped up videos, and i think, if they do it in 2 hours i must be able to do it to...uhm...but i guess art is not a race and i have to give the drawings their time.
I also notced while doing the first that i tended to waste much time doodling between the first 10 minutes in wich i create the concept and the last 40 in with i render stuff out. That leaves more or less 70 minutes in wich i do nothing significant to the piece. ahah maybe that´s a bit too much but it gives the idea. I found the reason for this to be the fact that i can´t really decide on small stuff, i get caught in small details, like the stripes on a scarf for 10 minutes, and the paint everything over cause i realize the pose was wrong maybe, and when i´m back to the scarf, maybe i won´t even paint it xD
in the second painting then i tried to be a little more concrete, so after i had the basic idea down, (which took like 2 minutes, and didn´t evolve much from that ) i immediately started to render the face, as it´s the most importat spot, and would have define the character the most. After that i was already in render mode, so i rendered everything out without doodling much...i would say at all actually...uhm...but still the concept sucks so i´ll try to work more on that.
In the second i wanted to focus on anathomy, costume design, detail and texture. I got maybe none of them =) but i tried to get the materials right =) then i realized that materials and texture are no necessarily the same thing...i was paying attention to the way light hit the surface, and not to the surface itself...uhm
The backgrounds could use some more love =) but i wasn´t focusing on that...
i got more psycological stuff but it´s time to cook something now =)

from mind

1st: i tried to focus on drawing a head in a particular expression and pose i had in mind. Tried to use what i had learnt yesterday and in the days before doing some head "studies". In the beginning i intended to do a portrait of Odin, lacking an eye, that´s why he´s got a pretty bad designed fake eye with not really defined things on the cheek bone=) But again i wasn´t focusing on design, i just wanted the head and the expression to feel right...i´m not sure i did though, some construction problems, and the position of the eye on the left really stand out.

2nd: i tried to focus on values and texture here, tried to give him different materials in the outfit and rnder them as i thought they should look like...the chest piece was supposed to be made of bones..the material at least =) head piece metal, cloth -> cloth, gun metal, the thing behind the back some kind of red ceramic, and the band across the chest of some kind of heavy cloth. The design is completely fucked up =) and that pissed me off a lot in the beginning, I intended to stop after 10 minutes of scribling on the paper, but i´m trying to work on my endurance, and bring stuff to completion, so i worked on it for 1 and a half hour more =) (2 hours for that crap??? =p but thats what i´m really thinking, even if i laugh now =) )


3rd: yesterday before going to sleep i was doodling, and i happened to have a face, so i tried to include in it, the 2 things i had learnt from the 2 drawings from photograf that i had previously done=) ehhe cool!

ok, i did 2 more from mind uhm....i´m having a hard time with beliefs...especially the one that says: "i suck as an artist, and i all i draw is crap" wich has got me from drawing the past 21 years of my life =)
I need to convince me to believe that i´m a great artist, but every time i try, i have this voice telling me: you suck!! xD ahahah it´s quite fun actually, untill i start drawing in this negative status and the drawing sucks, an then i say, ok, now i proved that i suck, let´s prove that i´m a great artist, and so i start to refine the picture untill it looks decent...i just need to skip the first part now...=) remove the belief that i suck...i´ll try to find a solution while sleeping, so tomorrow i´ll produce some mindblowing art =) really...i´m starting to realize that it´s all there, if i think i´ll do amazing art (most of the times because i see it in my mind) then i just sit down and do it, otherwise i just draw some marks, and start telling my self that it sucks, i´m not drawing everything, they look like scribbles, and the drawing is lost (usually this happens after 10 seconds, if i don´t start warning myself that i will draw random scribbles at the beginning untill i come with an idea)...if i start with the idea of producing something, without nowing what it is, and then of course failing at it, because i´m expecting to take the rabit out of the hat without having any rabit in it, i become negative and tired...uhm..nice...this sort of talking through my thoughts, is really helpfull to me...otherwise i would loose focus quite fast =)

i have some life drawings, i´ll try to put up tomorrow,
cheers!

maybe...

i´m starting to see where this is going...but i´m not completely there yet =)
in these 2 i tried to work on 2-3 things only: visualize the drawing, focus on proportions and structure.

in the first one i didn´t focus much on structure, not hard to tell =), but i did intend to get proportions right and visualize it before drawing it. I think that visualizing it didn´t work at all, it´s hard to do it if you don´t have a way to separate all the little bits that create a so complex image i guess. Maybe i should try to focus on visualizing just the most important thing..the eyes for example..but that´s something i thought only now.. =) But as i said i did intend to work on the prportions...and as you can see...they really don´t work =) it´s a pretty fucked up face, eyes doing strange things, and so on...i felt a bit constrained by the charcoal, so i didn´t get to erase much, but still what i realized later i that...i wasn´t focusing on the proportions at all.

When i did the second one, i started with a not so positive mood, tried to visualize it longer, look at the relationships between the features, tried to draw it abit in my mind, but it didn´t really work that well at first...this time i worked with pencil so i was more carefully erasing and adjusting things...but it didn´t really seem to work well untill i decided that...i had to do it right...eheh otherwise why doing it? so i simply started to check for proportions with the pencil, and fix stuff. Eventually i saved a bit of the expression but still it´s not a good likeness. What is important though is that i actually felt like learning something ...maybe for the first time...i though, ok the chin and the turning of the lips are on the same vertical line....that´s something i can use in my nxt drawing, and i´m sure i will!!! uhm...but that was it ehehe i´m quite sure i thought about some more stuff i could remember but now i don´t really recall =) Anyway as i said i´m starting to see where this is going..and it´s very interesting =)

one more thing is that in the first one i neglected the use of measurements, because i feel that i´mso bad at eteballing proportions that i should try and do it without taking measurements, as an exercize. Now...that can be good if my goal is to learn guessing proportions...BUT if my goal is to learn the proportions of the face to remember them later on in another drawing...then i should by all means use measurements..otherwise i can´t really expect to learn much by guessing...=)

i feel good about this, i´ll force my-self to continue on this path ahah...

now some sleep, tomorrow life-drawing =)

yes!

Week 3: beliefs

Beliefs:

What are my beliefs on my self, what is holding me back from being the artist and the person that i want to be?

In many cases, especially in relations with people i think i´m not good enough to do a crtain thing. i see myself as not being able to do that, i don´t have fear of failure, i´m sure of failure and i try just for fun not expecting much from it. This is probably a defence from my fear of failure. If i don´t give much importance or credit to what i´m doing i won´t disappoint myself or other people when i will fail. If i fail, well that´s something i already took for granted, so it´s not really something new, but if i succede then it will be a big step forward. I think this is a 2 edged sword, because, yes it is true that failure is part of the learning process and shouldn´t be considered as something bad for it-self, but by reacting this way to the problem i´m just giving up to the challange even before trying and not really pushing my-self to overcome my problem. Of course this doesn´t happen always, many times i would think that something is really simple to solve, especially when it comes to other people´s problems...then why don´t i have the same solution orientation towards me aswell? I think it depends mostly on bad habits and beliefs. I know at the moment that i can do whatever i want, i know it, and i say the same thing to other people, evento myself. But it doesn´t come as an automathic attitude towads things. Actually this belief that i can do whatever i want, holds me back from doing stuff most of the time...ehehe i know that if i want i can cook very well, i don´t really need to prove it to myself, but it would require time, and well maybe tomorrow...Lazyness is one of my main problems....even though i´m not sure it is a belief...i don´t believe that i´m lazy...no wait...i actually do...uhm...i´m sure that i´m lazy, because i am...but i´m also trying to overcome this problem, by forcing myself to do stuff that i don´t want to do...as an excercize. Maybe i should start to think that i´m active..uhm...i´m starting to uderstand why it is suggsted to write all the goals in a positive personal and present way. It´s to convince yourself that you are actually there, to start subconciously think that you are what you want to become, and thus start acting like it....uhm...I am active...i am very active...=) good we got something here, but there are more beliefs i have to get rid of... socially i think i believe i´m a funny person, that looks stupid to others, and for that reason makes them laugh...still a kid in many ways, i´m probably still seeing myself as the same kid that at school was scared of touching another girl´s hand, and that´s why in many ways i still am...ahahah cool! i like where this is going =) the more i think about it, the more i realize that have a pretty restricted and childish view of myself. Uhm..going back to being funny, i sometimes like that, sometimes i do it on purpose to say something stupid, maybe faking to misunderstand something to make someone laugh..uhm...i guess mosly cause it proves to me that i know what makes people laugh and that i can make the laugh if i want...uhm..still it´s quite childish in it-self, even though i like makin people laugh, and i like when people are happy...but i don´t like to be taken for a stupid ahahah, uhm...but still atleast i´m aware of it now...
Also this could be an interesting addiction to why i tend to be a different person in sweden and in italy. A bit is depending on the language, we develope certain language patterns, and we subconsciously answer in a certain way to certain imputs...for example, when being showed somthing new i didn´t know the existence of in sweden i would say: cool!, in italy i would say: that´s crap!...and well in italy i would use a fouler language, cause i´m used to it, everybody does, and i subcontiously learnt to use certain terms instead of others. But i guess that in sweden, in the first year when i didn´t know the language, and was mostly silent, listening and thinking, i developed a different personality...and then when i go back to italy i retain only a little bit of it...uhm...I probably has also to do with my beliefs, of being or being able to become a different person here in sweden, and still being trapped in my old self while in italy...
I also find that sometimes my beliefs are influenced by the way i dress. It surely is not a direct influence, but more of something like: i think that if i dress that way i am cool, then i dress that way, and even if i don´t look so cool to myself , i still feel cool...because of a subconscious belief i guess...
And the same thing goes to when i play drums of guitar...uhm...when i think i´m doing good, then i enjoy it, and also feel like i´m playing well...if i believe i´m not performing well, then i start playing badly...uhm..
Another thing i noticed is that when someone is given a tip, or an opinion, or maybe a lecture on something that is supposed to change their way of thinking, we tend to only internalize only that which is inside our comfort zone and tend to forget the rest...for example if i tell someone to to pay attention at the skin tones, don´t draw the same cloths and try to draw more often. It´s very unlikely that they will do all of them, if they haven´t already thought about it. They will probably draw more, as they already think it´s necessary, but if they don´t understand that there is something wrong with the skincolors they are using or with the cloth designs...they will probably continue doing it. It´s normal, but it´s interesting if we apply it to ourselves. Many times i got advices and i probably applied the same rule for subconsciously choosing wich ones to follow...if i think at this in terms of proportion, i feel the need to find a sort of system to overcome the subconscious mechanism that separates comfortable advices from the uncomfortable ones. It got very long, and i´m cutting it here for now, but i hope i´ll add more soon.=)

Weekly assignments

1st: life
2nd:mind
3rd: mind
4th: mind/life WIP The girl is from a photo but the pose and angle are different, and there is no car...I tried to focus on textures of the jeans, likeness of the face, and finding an idea behind the pice...i wanted a pin-up style thing, but i´m not sure about it now...i don´t like the car, mainly the colors, i am doubtfull about the colors. I suppose (because i got used to it) that the immage is too saturated everywhere, so the next step will be to desaturate even more the background, and keep more focus on the face. I will also have the dark part of the background come a little to the left of the immage to add more contrast to the face. (i didn´t do it now because the face i messed up and more contrast would have shown it really badly =)..i tried xD )

Hello!
thi morning i found a comment by mark, and i was really happy and motivated eheh. But i didn´t really do any setches as i was attending a 24hours workshop at school so i spent the day thinking about a concept to develope and then freezing in the rain trying to take some pictures for a surrealistic image...Lachapelle style =) I ended up drawing humoristic comic strips and i´m still not done with it, but it´s late..too late to actually think about some funny joke in swedish xD

Last weeks sketches that i´m posting now focused on hands, i did many quikc sketches of hands everywhere is was, then i focused some more time to do these 2 ones. Trying to get the anathomy right, without much success, but after a week i think i got the hand of it, so next i´ll go with some heads, that are my other weakest point.
I´ve listened through the whoal book : goals , and i found it very insightfull. Some stuff i knew, some i supposed, some i didn´t know...but hearing it said from someone else had a different sound in my ears, and seriously got me thinking =) I´ll have to listen to it some more times though to get all the informations into my brain xD Anyway i´ve started to state my 10 goals 2 times a day, but as of now i still find myself really out of focus, so i´m trying to select just one goal i want to pursue each day, and write down 20 or so, ways to achieve it, then trying to work on them.
I previously thought that it was easier to draw something that i knew, that i could see in my mind, but didnt really pay much attention to it. Some times i could nail a drawing in 2 seconds, really 2, not 3 =) other times i would doodle on a piece for 3 hours and not get a single line right...=) i really think that it all depended by the ideas i had in my mind. If you don´t have any idea in your mind is hard to draw it...everyone can draw a square, because we know how it looks like, we know the structure, it´s stored in our brain, and we can reproduce it always in every situation or angle. But most important we can see it clearly in our mind, clear, we can see ourselves drawing it, each line, even the color of the graphite on the paper...but i can also draw cubes...i can see myself draw cubes, so why can´t i see myself drawing ipods, or cars, or people...we all dream, and in our dreams we have fully rendered humans, and cars. This means that, at least in part, we should be able to see those things in our minds, and if you can see it in our mind, then you can draw it, it just requires patience, and focus...at least to me. But then these images might not be as detailed as the reality itself, we probably have blanks in some parts, that´s when life drawing should come and fill the gaps, i think... But for example as far as concepting and drawing from mind, it´s all in our minds, we see monsters in our minds everyday, and if we can just stop and focus, on them, we can render them in our minds first, and then nail them in 2 seconds. I tried this yesterday and it worked. I didn´t nail all the details, but that´s because i didn´t focus on them while visualizing the character in my mind. The more you previsualize, the more you´ll be able to draw right away. Aftrall drawing is just mark making. The marks you make depend on your brain, and on what your brain tells your arm and hand to do. The more clear your brain knows what the result should be the more clearly it can give orders to the hand to make it happen...uhm...maybe i´ll find out that it´s more complicated..but for now i´m quite sure it works this way =) now i only have to be more courageous and stop thinking: i´m gonna draw some crap now, before i try to draw something new =)

i´m positive yes! i need to focus more though =) now sleep=)

Weekly sketches

1st and 2nd: life drawing class
3rd: from mind
4th: mind and reference used for most of the props and cloths, aswell as hands and a bit for the stance.

I´m trying to get this done right, but i think i´m still not there. If i should put everything i know into a drawing it would take me a lot of time, uhmmm. But anyway now i understand that the sketches from mind are like benchmarks to see what is my actual level, and what do i need to improve more to reach my goal, so that i can focus on that. This week i worked with concepts, trying to get interesting concepts to draw. I find out that i usually just doodle on a subject and then draw whatever my mind anchors to faster. I start throwing random lines and then try to see ideas in them. But this limits me a lot when trying to come up with interesting and original ideas, cause it´s hard to concentrate on both drawing and concepting at the same time. I still think that it´s good to use some unpredictable method of creation, but it must work in a freamework of pre-thought ideas. I managed to do this in the skecth from mind+immag i think, even if i didn't manage to convey the concept i had pre-though. So this is something i will work on the next week i think. Along side with studying more hand and head anathomy and a bit of gesture...=)

considerations after week 2

ok, reading thorugh the original thread, i think i missed at some points the idea of the three sketches. I wasn´t really going for the most realistic style, i was going for the style thati found i most wantd to draw in , in that particular moment. So maybe the choice of coupling these sketches with chows, and dsg, is not really suited, as they would probably require some specific styles, if i want to do a specific illustration or sketch on a topic, but that´s not necessairly true. What is impotant i think is more to understand the use i have to do of these sketches:
(copying from the thread)

Drawing from life/ reference. This is used in some way to stuff your brain with information that can later be recalled and applied to your imaginative artwork.

Drawing from imagination. This is used to show exactly where you are artistically, to show you what is (or isn't) in you brain that can be recalled.

Drawing that is partly referenced and partly from imagination. This should be your strongest works. what you want your imaginative work to eventually look like without having to reference.

i´m not really working much on the textures for example, so that´s something i have to pay more attention to, when i draw, both from mind and from life.

week 2: goals!

1st image: (life)

2nd image: (mind) all from immagination except the guy reading the book, wich is from life, a bit stylized though)

3rd image: (both) from immagination, but reference was used from the dentist tools, the hands and the pose

4th image: (both) i initially drew a guy from life, but then modified him with immagined elements


--

ok, so this weeks is about setting goals, find what you want to achieve and how. I think it´s very important, and i´ve been treying to think in this way for some time, i think it´s not possible to do much if you don´t know what you´re trying to do, but it´s really easy just to let everything go, and loose focus. So i printed a copy of the list i made, to help me focus on it =) I also try to find these goals in the things i regularly do. For example if i´m sitting on the bus, i´ll try to study people for anathomy and costum design. If i´m working on a line drawing, i´ll focus on line and from, and so on. This way i can come across the problems directly and solving them getting closer to my goal =)

Find you goal:
My goal as an artist is to work in the video game or movie industry, possibly Blizzard, or on a major hollywood production as a concept arist, or character designer/costume designer. I´d also like to work as a freelancer for some time, earning enough money to take a sort of journey around the world and experience different cultres and ways of living life. The ideal would be to produce and sell art while traveling, online would be my first thought, but i guess someone could also be willing to pay for portraits or other kind of art on the streets, so that could be another way of living. (aeraning money before by working as a concept artist, and then taking the journey could be another idea =) )

Why:
i like creating, i like exploring and knowing new stuff, i like learning from other people, i like interacting with other people. If i combine this things with my interest in the visual language, in drawing and painting things i think that working as a concept artist in some kind of group environmet, like a studio, game company or film, would be the ideal. Also counting my great interest in creating video games (ideas and concepts that is), i think it would be a really interesting and giving experience. I also like prople in general, i´m interested in the way people lives their life, as a source of inspiration for my self, and i like interacting with people, as i think that inteaction, if is developed in a get&give manner is a really powerfull and positive experience, and really a boost to once motivation in making the best out of your life. This is also why i´d like to be able to communicate as much as possible through my art, be able to inspire people, and if possible to inspire myself aswell hehe. for more or less the same reasons i wrote a I´m fascinated by other cultures and that´s why i´d like travel around the world and experience them, not just watch them, but experience their way to live life, i think would be great, there is so much to learn from others..

Plan:
goal -> Work as a concept artist for Blizzard

- get hired
- have experience in the field, pubblished another AAA game
- get hired by a studio producing a AAA game.
- Stunning portfolio
- 10-15 pieces that show a broad range of skills applied to env, char, creat, props
- control over illustration fondamentals.
- achieve a good knowledge of the illustration fondamentals
- Study and practice the following subject to reach a good level of undestanding:
- Form
- Lines,
- values,
- color,
- composition,
- principles of design,
- perspective, creativity,
- anathomy,
- costume and architecture,
- visual storytelling,
- good knowledge of at least 1 digital painting and 3d program,
- lighting,
- texture,
- staging,
- detail,

- strong sense of from, shape, structure and silhouette.

- good attitude: self-motivation, good communication skills, team player attitude,

- ability to create design blueprints for sets of environments

- ability to carry an idea from conceptual phase to finished illustration.

1st week : intentions and introductions

The first week´s assignments are too introduce one´s self, state who we are, what we want to do, and post some samples of our work, the ones we like the most, aswell as the regular 3 sketches

- first three are my best pieces, and the followgin are the assignments again 1st 2 are from life, 2nd 2 are from imamgination, and 3rd mixed.


Introduction.

My name is giuseppe lacapra, i´m 23. I studied oriental languages for 4 years in an university in rome, without much interest. I´ve always wanted to draw, but wasn´t good at it, and i didn´t think it was possible to learn. ^^´ About 2 years ago i made this great discovery and so i started to learn to draw, and paint. I dropped university and now i´m studying art in sweden for the 2nd year, =)


ps. i´m mixing this assignments with other activities from ca.org, such as the daily sketch group, and concept art101 thread. =)

let´s start

ok, it´s late and some weeks have passed and i still haven´t posted anything here, but now i have some time, and i´m gonna post the stuff i´ve been doing in the last couple of weeks.

week1.

the assignment was to do 3 sketches , one from life, one from immagination, and one mixing both.

first one is from life, second from immagination ,adn the third is a mix