Drawing one year training

Introduction

Before diving into animation, mastering the fundamentals of digital drawing is recommended. I am following Marc Brunet's one-year plan to build a foundation. While his YouTube content offers valuable insights, I find the background music distracting. The videos feel too much like entertainment and clickbait to me. But the content within them seems good.

YouTube video

YouTube playlist

During this challenge, I maintain a YouTube playlist containing learning resources. It's not the only content I consumed, but those videos seemed helpful to me.

Training advice

This page will be regularly updated as I progress through this training journey. Do not give up. Everyone starts with the basics. It is never too late. The best time to start learning was probably a while ago, but the next best time is now.

Month one

Marc emphasizes gesture drawing as a means to enhance imagination and develop an artist's eye for capturing forms from references. The goal is to perceive subjects like an artist. Perfection isn't the goal. You may use your own style. Consistent practice is key.

Gesture drawing

During gesture drawing, I find myself relying too heavily on references instead of thinking for myself. It's a necessary step until I gain more confidence in drawing from imagination. Marc suggests to use references mostly for posing, translating them into simplified forms rather than creating an exact copy. I used the website "quickposes" which did not always give me beginner-friendly poses.

The time limit is short, and my lines aren't very clean yet. Gesture drawing seems great for animators because you can exaggerate things, which can make it fun and useful for the twelve principles of animation.

Tips:

• Avoid drawing the outline first.
• Draw from the inside out.
• Use smooth lines, avoid etching. Smooth lines look professional and clean.
• Exaggerate and have fun. Feel the gestures.
• Take your time. The time limit of the challenge seems too short for beginners. I will use more time next month.

Copy art

My attempts at copying art I like as line art without tracing have been less successful. I acknowledge the need to dedicate more time to refining my lines, possibly by adding an extra layer for focused line work. In terms of anime recommendations, Texhnolyze, Ergo Proxy, and Serial Experiments Lain stand out for their depth and unique themes. I am not an big consumer of common media, but these series have been impactful. Texhnolyze may be the most Nietzschean series I know about, but it is not very approachable.

I additionally copied cartoons. Since I want to explore different styles. Drawing clean lines was a challenge, but with the help of the undo shortcut I managed to get this result.

Perspective

Before doing perspective

Perspective drawing presents its own challenges in the digital realm. Achieving clean, straight lines digitally from traditional methods. While I do not want to use the line tool, I may have to do that for the guidelines. I am used to using an easel for fluid movements. I plan to revisit drawabox after this one year schedule, possibly integrating it with another training to progress faster. It has great exercises for perspective as well.

Perspective

I enjoyed drawing in one-point perspective and even experimented with color. However, I did rely on digital tools to achieve straight lines. My next goal will be to improve my ability to draw from the shoulder, focusing on creating smoother circles and lines. Additionally, for gesture drawing, I aim to avoid limiting the amount of line-type symmetry. My focus is too much on form and too little on action lines and gesture.

Month two

Month two has a big focus on face drawing. Gesture drawing comes back, and perspective too. Drawing a scene in one point perspective is what I will do second, after an initial face drawing study. Gesture drawing is fun to do, and I may be able to fill the gaps with it. I expect to focus a lot on face drawing.

The start of this month I didn't have much motivation. The face drawing didn't go that well, but I kept going. You will never improve if you give up.

Face drawing

I try to somewhat follow the lumus method. Although I do not follow it perfectly. The less rules you follow, the more unique your style will get, but fundamentals help to progress faster.

My first faces look a bit odd, but I still like them. They are flawed though. Two faces are from the Yakuza games, which helps to keep it fun. Doing such drawings can keep the motivation flowing.

Due to certain events in life, I didn't find enough time. But I attempted to draw a street scene in perspective. I did it twice, but I am not happy with the results this week. The person at the bottom is supposed to be Wrekonize of Strange Music. The images were bigger, but I merged them together here.

The month is almost over, and I still have to do the gesture drawings. I will do some, but maybe not too many, as I need to practice drawing more faces as well. I ended up doing a bit of both, but didn't post anything.

Month three

I am starting to discover that this challenge is a good way to find learning resources, but it is too much in a short timespan unless you have much time for it. Although I will continue with it. Most drawings on this page are made quickly, but the challenge does provide something.

This month it is more gesture drawing, body construction, one scene in two-point-perspective and some portrait studies. I am happy that it has portrait studies, as I require more time for the face.

Two-point-perspective

I tried to keep stuff fun, and drew some Fediverse-related things. Waifu is someone on the Fediverse, and they have some characters which are represented in the drawing. My other Fediverse drawings aren't posted here. Although some were portrait studies.

Portrait studies

I did portraits of someone I know, but I won't share them as he isn't a public figure. He would like it if I made it public. I did a couple of portrait studies.

I did not do any body construction this month. It went okay, but I had some computer issues. I would like to do my own thing instead of following this guide. However, I will stick with this one for, and then look for something similar for animation afterwards. After those I can do my own thing. Other things in life ended up taking much of my time too.

Month four

Sculpting a face

I attempted to sculpt a face. It's not perfect, and I didn't have enough clay to make it larger, which would have made the process somewhat easier. It was supposed to represent someone, but due to limited time and materials, it didn't turn out that way. I spent a few hours on sculpting and a few on painting.

It was fun to do though! I would like to attempt it again.

Color theory & upper body muscles

I watched some videos on color theory, which provided useful knowledge. Learning to draw the muscles of the upper body takes time too.

I drew some characters from Omega Strikers because I think they apply color theory well. The game itself is nice, but too addictive. It is pure escapism. I would recommend something like pathologic over it. But the characters and art style is nice. My focus was not on smooth lines, but on colors, as my time was limited.

This month had some unexpected events. I didn't end up gesture drawing. I wanted to do something like figure drawing with a focus on muscles, but I did not do that either.

Month five

I noticed that the most interesting parts of the challenge have been completed. I decide to stop with this challenge, due to other events and stress in life. But I will continue drawing.

I did draw feet, though. It feels like the drawing lessons I take help me better. Going in blind and doing seems better than following guides. That will result in a personal style. After my vacation is over, I may do something similar to this, but with animation.