just more practice

Dear Readers,

my blog has been super boring lately, with nothing but figure drawings. :\  I'm in such a hurry to get my "10,000 hours" to become a master, and I think that figure drawing is the key. The reason is that you're not staring at your paper thinking about WHAT to draw, you're just drawing. Hence, you get nice solid chunks of hours that are just drawing and not day-dreaming about what to draw. (day dreaming is great tho, i would love to be a master day-dreamer too.)

So I went to school for for 4 years, and have been in the game industry for 10. Why haven't I gotten my 10,000 hours yet? I think that school possibly steered me wrong because the majority of it was how to use software which is mostly obsolete now. (Ever heard of Autodesk Animator Pro? Macromedia Director? Excuse me while I barf into a paper bag. Ok I'm back.) And my career in games has all been 3dsmax like crazy. Even though I've been categorized as "artist" in all of my jobs, I rarely got to draw. All the drawing had to be done after work hours, which I admit I haven't been diligent at until I moved to Austin. I still get lax when I get busy at work, but it's absolutely no excuse. There will always be a reason to not practice: work, laundry, dishes, your favorite TV show is on, but I've resolved that life will just have to adjust around figure drawing sessions and not vice versa. I dont wan't to be a master when I'm 80, I want to be a master through my good years. :) I want to be as productive as possible.

Figure Drawing, plus a rant!!

These are all 10 minutes or less:

This week I stopped thinking about draftsmanship and focused on staying loose. My drawings seem to turn out better that way. It's weird. It's as if something else takes control of the drawing, not ME. I think when I "let go" it's like when a musician plays on feel, rather than thinking about every individual note and where to put their fingers. Soon, you've played the piece and you don't know how it happened. It's muscle memory.

It's very hard to push yourself in that zone, because you always want to control your work. It's how you feel mastery. You want to feel that you control every aspect of your art in look, feel, style and, if you're an animator, how the drawings move through space and time as well. We crave the control over our art, but really, control could be just knowing how to stay loose. Like the musician knowing when to close his eyes and just play. When to let the muscle memory take over.

I have a book called Alla Prima, by Richard Schmid. He says in the book that "Looseness is not a frivolous departure from control.... It arises from the freedom which comes from superb control." It's funny, that looseness looks like the opposite, doesn't it? Sometimes brevity, and the absence of rendering feels like the artist has nothing more to offer than a few carefully placed lines, but in this artist's humble opinion, those very few, select lines are the hardest ones to draw.

Anyway, back to the Schmid quote, *SIGH*, I would definitely never presume that I have superb control, but I do get better results being loose. I can't wait until I feel that the control is superb.

Until next time,
Tiffanny

Figure Drawing

Horrayyyy! I made it to figure drawing this week :) Feel soooo rusty. Must.... practice..... more.... !

When I Was A Stupid Kid - Sleeping Stupid

When I was a stupid kid, I tried sleeping with my arms straight up on several occasions. I don't know why. Strange kid, I was. Strange kid.

Is art like brushing your teeth or more like body building?

so here are my sketchies from today:

Because of winter, I haven't zoo sketched in a while. I was a bit nervous that I would publicly suck. but that feeling went away because even though I haven't drawn animals in a while, I feel like I just picked up where I left off. It makes me wonder how necessary it is to be obsessive about drawing daily to be good at it. Is it possible that it's like body-building, where rest is as important as doing the lifting itself?
Or is it like brushing your teeth - do it everyday or your teeth will rot? (Teeth being analogous to skill.)
I really don't know. I'm just rambling. All I know is, it was 80 degrees out and I had a day off, and life doesn't get any better than sketching all day at the zoo :)

ps. drawing pigs are my favorite. just a bunch of circles put together :D I like circles.

Illustration Friday - Grounded, with youtube video!

The inspiration for the doggie is of course, my darling Gracie, my gorgeous red Toller.

Isn't she gorgeous?!

To watch me paint this in time-lapse, click here!

Tiffanny

Mish Mash Blog Post!

 I spent much of December working on Trivia Adventure's Promo Video. It took about 3 weeks to do all the setup, animation, compositing, and effects, and an additional week to learn Particle Illusion and do yet more effects.  

 This one-minute video was accomplished in 4 weeks by me and my husband doing the animation and compositing, and with my co-worker Adam doing the logos. Sound was outsourced. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Working straight through Thanksgiving and Christmas was worth it. (Only someone who loves making art that much could say that).  But working 16 hour days for a month has to end, and now I am basking in relaxation. I'm sleeping as much as I can, exercising again, and have a blast doing some digital painting at work, which I can't wait to share!!

These sketches are from Ikkicon, where the promo video had it's first public showing! Our booth was unfortunately in a low-traffic area, (DOH), but the promo video did it's job and brought some curious people in!  Anyway, these sketches were done when the traffic was low. We have lovingly called our girl character "Generica" because she's basically your customizable character, so she starts out generic until you make her your own. All of the stuff she's wearing can be found in the game when you're higher level :) Her pet is Action Kitty, the first pet you can find in the game.

And finally, I started the year right by attending figure drawing. Gotta keep the skills sharp, sharp, sharp. I do a lot of digital art at work, but I find that the infinite undos can be used as a crutch. When I go to figure drawing, I generally use oily crayons that are hard to erase, to keep erasing at a minimum. This teaches me line-economy, and to be as sure as I can be of every line I put down. This actually makes me faster, because I'm not searching and erasing as much. :)

 Any-who, it's 4 am so I guess it's time for bed :)
Thanks for visiting my blog! See you at the next update!