Post: #26

I liked 2b and 4b If I remember correctly. I found that the really soft ones like 6 b were a bit tricky to blend with hard pencils than 2b and 4b are. They are very dark though. Also they need to be sharpened more and can dull faster than harder pencils. I don't remember how they reacted to erasers though.

Post: #27

Bumping because I've improved recently by doing 2 things, partially inspired by comments by Honan and kbell:

- Finding a cheap live model drawing session near me. Phenominal, mainly because I haven't had formal training in art for close to 20 years and can not only realize what bad habits I've had but also allowed me to see what other artists' techniques were without attending classes.

- Grabbing the absolutely largest pad of newsprint that I could find and playing around with charcoal sticks/compressed charcoal/charcoal pencils. I've been etching in paper-sized notebooks for so long that even though I recommend drawing large with large movements of the arm, it's still quite difficult and my mechanical pencil usage requires a decent amount of force.

Charcoal has changed that, because it's so soft that it takes nearly zero pressure to make a mark. With an enormous drawing pad, I can freehand a decent circle about 6-8inches in diameter in charcoal while using next to zero pressure on the pad. It just glides. It's really a shame that I didn't try it earlier. I will likely try verithin or better pencils as well. Anyway, I can very quickly make accurate foundations for figure paintings. I found myself drawing well-proportioned figures from imagination with very little effort from using charcoal.

For figure drawing, the sessions have short, medium, and long poses, depending on where you go. The quick poses can be as short as 30 seconds. This is when it's damn near impossible to do much more than get a "gesture":


This is actually fantastic because it forces you to look at the pertinent fundamentals of form and proportion quickly. The swift flowing charcoal helps tremendously for this.

For longer poses, it is very important to frame your drawing to take the entire paper and for you to focus on particular aspects. In a particular case, I was focusing on the outline of the woman's form against a very dark background, and the shades of lightness/darkness in her figure. I did okay, but I noticed other artists focusing on different aspects. Pretty much everyone there was better than me, to be honest, but I got a few decent attempts in. One man in particular was quickly capturing the woman's face and proportions much quicker than I could.

Post: #28

Dude, on your next session try a sheet of Canson!

19.5x26" is liberating

Post: #29

The most annoying thing a skilled artist with years of practice will hear:

"I wish I was able to draw like that. You're so lucky to be naturally talented."



Seriously, though. I'm torn at the moment between focussing on writing or art. Writing comes more naturally to me but the red-pill scene is somewhat saturated with good writers so I'm leaning back towards art with a mind to build the skills required to create a graphic novel (ie; glorified comic book) or at very least a RVF themed web comic.

Post: #30

Nice gestures. Always look for the curves that guide the whole body, I see you did it in a few of your pieces though. One of the hardest thing I remember drawing was animals at the zoo, since they didn't stay still. 30 second poses are all about gesture. Don't expect more than tat. Although I guess you could draw the forms using negative space only too, will have to try that out some time in a class. I need to get back into it.

Also conte if fun if you get a 20 minute pose. You draw the highlights and shadows only, and the mid range color of the paper handles the rest.

Post: #31

(06-19-2016 10:19 PM)kbell Wrote:  Nice gestures. Always look for the curves that guide the whole body, I see you did it in a few of your pieces though. One of the hardest thing I remember drawing was animals at the zoo, since they didn't stay still. 30 second poses are all about gesture. Don't expect more than tat. Although I guess you could draw the forms using negative space only too, will have to try that out some time in a class. I need to get back into it.

Also conte if fun if you get a 20 minute pose. You draw the highlights and shadows only, and the mid range color of the paper handles the rest.

Just so I'm not misrepresenting anything, those pictures are from the web. The actual art images in the OP were my work, but I grabbed the gesture picture in my previous comment from online. Could take pictures of some gestures from today but the newsprint I'm using are too large for my 8.5x11 scanner.

Post: #32

(06-19-2016 02:39 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  The most annoying thing a skilled artist with years of practice will hear:

"I wish I was able to draw like that. You're so lucky to be naturally talented."



Seriously, though. I'm torn at the moment between focussing on writing or art. Writing comes more naturally to me but the red-pill scene is somewhat saturated with good writers so I'm leaning back towards art with a mind to build the skills required to create a graphic novel (ie; glorified comic book) or at very least a RVF themed web comic.

I wish you the best. I suspect the market for more manosphere type comments is on the rise.

Personally, my choice for art is assisted by my existing technical skills. I could analyze the hell out of very technical subjects, but couldn't come up with anything new or fresh that hadn't been there before. Art totally broke me of that disability.

It helped that I could already visualize things in 3d, though. Turns out a lot of very educated people can't do that.

Most of the comments I hear on writing, especially places like Wallstreet Playboys, is that the time invested is enormous for what little you get out of something like blogging. Creating actual products is much better.

Art can help the creative process for anything, whether it be graphic design (like logos or webpages), product design (visualizing things in 3d), or true art (sold to be displayed).

At the very least, I would recommend learning the basics of form, color, and composition. Why? It helps you recognize good and bad design. You may not be able to replicate excellent design, or come up with it on your own, but you can recognize good from bad. This is essential for product designs or where you are selling something. Sure, you can buy the expertise of a graphic designer or artist, but can you recognize the good from the bad?

I couldn't.

Now, I have a better eye for it. Still not superb by any means, but it starts to become very obvious.

Say you write a book, for instance, which could be a great product if you enjoy writing. But, you need a good cover. Do you know enough to recognize what will be a horrible cover from a good one? Especially if you go to an online graphic design service (there are many, and I believe Roosh used one for his novel). This is more difficult than it seems, and is why he asked us for an opinion. It's difficult, when you're not strong in composition or colors especially, to select among many designs, some of which are obviously bad to the trained eye.

Train your eye. It's the most important tool.

Post: #33

Any likely problems with skipping traditional media entirely during the learning process if I never intend to produce anything non-digital? I'm learning to draw and paint with a Wacom tablet and Clip Studio Paint (my favourite painting software so far, primarily because of the UI and the brush engine, and very reasonably priced) on a pretty good 22" IPS monitor.

Post: #34

If the time comes one day where someone asks you to hand-draw something you won't be able to.

There was a guy in my illustration class who was a total pimp with Rhino and SolidWorks. The entire class was dazzled by his digital renderings of tractors, guns and fighter jets.

Then came the part where we actually had to paint something by hand. His looked like a 4-year old made it. You could see the frustration i his face.

That's my beef with digital drawing. Its a supplement. But you gotta have the kung fu underneath it all. That only comes with raw mileage.

Post: #35

If the time comes one day where someone asks you to hand-draw something you won't he able to.

There was a guy in my illustration class who was a total pimp with Rhino and SolidWorks. The entire class was dazzled by his digital renderings of tractors, guns and fighter jets.

Then came the part where we actually had to paint something by hand. His looked like a 4-year old made it. You could see the frustration i his face.

That's my beef with digital drawing. Its a supplement. But you gotta have the kung fu underneath it all. That only comes with raw mileage.

Post: #36

(06-21-2016 02:43 PM)HonantheBarbarian Wrote:  If the time comes one day where someone asks you to hand-draw something you won't be able to.

There was a guy in my illustration class who was a total pimp with Rhino and SolidWorks. The entire class was dazzled by his digital renderings of tractors, guns and fighter jets.

Then came the part where we actually had to paint something by hand. His looked like a 4-year old made it. You could see the frustration i his face.

That's my beef with digital drawing. Its a supplement. But you gotta have the kung fu underneath it all. That only comes with raw mileage.

If you're planning on using your artistic skills for employment then I definitely agree that it's probably vital to start with and likely continue to use traditional media regularly alongside digital.
In my situation it's hobby and potentially at some point trying to make a bit of extra money online with the digital art skills I develop (whether that might be light commission work - the least likely option as I've always preferred work of my own choosing, Patreon supported art or whatever similar options exist, a long term comic book project for online distribution or something else entirely).

Also I'm assuming that if you learn to draw (2D) well digitally you can probably transfer those skills to pencil and paper - and vice versa - after a relatively modest practice period? After all if you're doing line drawings you're mostly doing the same process - with or without some digital assists such as stabilization and easier line corrections - whether you're holding a pencil or a stylus.

Going from digital painting to traditional painting is of course an entirely different matter though.
Just like I would guess that strong 3D graphics skills on their own - aside from general knowledge like perspective, scene composition, color theory etc. - also don't translate entirely well, or maybe barely at all, to traditional media.

Post: #37

Nope. Not trying to be a dick or burst your bubble, but it doesn't work that way.

The human body, your nerve endings at your fingertips and a whole slew or other things are making tens of millions of micro calculations in a fraction of a second when you're doing something as intensive as drawing. That's why it takes so many years to perfect, like a golf swing.

There is no tablet in the world, even that badass Wacom with the screen that costs a couple grand, that gives you the fine motor skills that drawing on an actual, tactile piece of paper does. Yes they are both line drawings, but they are not the same thing.

Its like the difference between knowing actual kung fu where you're reacting physically to another human being, and playing Tekken.

Physical drawing skills can transfer to tablet skills, they are the "endo-skeleton" of good digital drawing. But it does not necessarily work vice versa. That's why schools like Art Center, RCA, OTIS and RISD force you to cut your teeth on Verithin pencils and charcoal. Then in second or third term, they break out the tablets.

But you said its just a hobby for you, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Post: #38

Great thread, repped philosophical a while back.

I got the Loomis pdf and the Robertson book and have been practicing, while my skills have improved I really want to take a class in this.

I found some beginners classes that meet twice a week for a reasonable price. Did some googling on the instructor and his stuff looks pretty good, although not sure about his teaching skills.

Anyone have experience taking a class and what to look for or avoid? Or can you reach a decent level just practicing on your own?

Eventually I'd love to be able to draw cartoons like Ben Garrison for example, although I have no idea how long it would take to reach that level of skill.

Post: #39

Kudos to OP and all who have contributed for an inspiring thread.

for those of you who think you can't do it, you can. There are a couple of steps. First, you need to re-learn what you see.Somehow in school they teach you that a tree looks like a green lolipop, and a house is a square with a triangle on top. There are exercises like contour drawing to over come this. Then you need to learn light and shadow. After that its technique - the medium you are using. Pencil is easiest, and charcoal is similar, but there are things you can do with shading etc. Skipping to painting is a mistake before you have mastered drawing in my opinion because you have to learn a medium and color while you are still mastering drawing. Finally, comes practice.

drawing use the right side of your brain. if you are technical or analytical, your left brain is dominant. I am very left brain dominant and when i was in school i took a lot of art classes and while i could master some of the exercises i rarely created anything original. But occassionally, my left brain would shut off and stuff would pour out of me subconsciously. Its really an amazing feeling when that happens. The more I practiced and relaxed my brain, the more it would happen. I am probably an extreme case of this, but if you are a beginner realize that half of drawing is re-training your brain to see things in a different way. Here is a brief example. Our teacher asked us to draw the portrait of the person sitting across from us. Everyone starts by making an oval and then putting two eyes near the top. Because that is what our brain "sees," which is wrong. The eyes are in the middle of the face; the top half of a head is nothing but forehead and hair. Artists know this because they learned this lesson long ago, but if you have never drawn a portrait your brain resists this knowledge.

as for pick up, I would think that if you sat in a bar drawing a portrait, you would eventually lure people to you. Or you could set up an easel in a park and charge $20. There was an episode of Law and Order where a serial killer did this in NYC. If he found someone he was interested in, he told her something like "Oh this is turning out to be one of my best pieces. I can't take any money for it. I'd like to take it home and spend some extra time finishing it and then make a copy for my portfolio; if you give me your number I"ll bring it to you when I'm finished."

Post: #40

(03-10-2017 10:44 PM)Neo Wrote:  Great thread, repped philosophical a while back.

I got the Loomis pdf and the Robertson book and have been practicing, while my skills have improved I really want to take a class in this.

I found some beginners classes that meet twice a week for a reasonable price. Did some googling on the instructor and his stuff looks pretty good, although not sure about his teaching skills.

Anyone have experience taking a class and what to look for or avoid? Or can you reach a decent level just practicing on your own?

Eventually I'd love to be able to draw cartoons like Ben Garrison for example, although I have no idea how long it would take to reach that level of skill.

Michelangelo said it all:

Quote:Draw Antonio, draw Antonio, draw and don’t waste time.

Post: #41

I finally got around to buying supplies and starting. I did my first practice session tonight. This was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done. Once I started, 30 minutes absolutely disappeared. My mind feels completely clear and focused. Thank you, philosophical_recovery.

Post: #42

Gonna pitch in and say that some people IMO do have natural skill at drawing. My older brother is a great artist when it comes to inanimate objects like buildings and aircraft. Stuff he just scribbled onto paper out of boredom during reading class in elementary school looks better than works I spent hours on in my college years. His humans tend to look slightly weird though, more so if he's drawing from photos or imagination rather than real life.

Post: #43

@Lunostreki:
I do agree that the potential at least can go with the genes.
Though I 'm one of the few to have continued doing it after early twenies, almost all my kinsmen have manifested drawing capacity.

As for your brother, it's funny, I have the opposite issue. I understand "organic" lines (living things) much more easily than objects (the more geometrical the worse)

Post: #44

(03-19-2017 10:20 PM)Lunostrelki Wrote:  Gonna pitch in and say that some people IMO do have natural skill at drawing. My older brother is a great artist when it comes to inanimate objects like buildings and aircraft. Stuff he just scribbled onto paper out of boredom during reading class in elementary school looks better than works I spent hours on in my college years. His humans tend to look slightly weird though, more so if he's drawing from photos or imagination rather than real life.

This reminds me of my younger days when my best friend and I would compete against one another with drawing competitions. I was a natural and would nonchalantly fill a page of A4 with some sci-fi/fantasy creation in about ten minutes flat, and all from my own imagination. My friend would strive laboriously and eventually produce a work that he and I both knew (despite my encouragement) was of a standard far below mine. I actually felt for him as I knew he actively wanted to become a better artist and he deserved to improve.

But here's the thing; I haven't seen or spoken to him for 30 years, but when I saw his social media profile recently, it turns out he has a great job in the graphic design industry doing what he loves. I on the other hand hand have not.

Good on him. Until recently, I haven't drawn anything for decades but seeing his success (and also from reading this excellent thread - thanks for the Loomis pdf link!) has re-invigorated my love of drawing. I've taken to heart one simple piece of advice on this here (to devote half an hour a day to drawing) and have nearly filled two drawing pads already, and more importantly seem to eventually be starting to LEARN how to draw, rather than coast on my dwindling natural talent. Soon, I hope to be able to produce something that I can be proud of and show online. If I could make some spare cash out of it somehow? Well, wouldn't that be sweet.

Post: #45

Following on from my post above, does anyone have experience of selling their artwork via the internet? I'm still not totally happy with my work but people who've seen my drawings are constantly telling me I should be making money from it.

I was thinking about starting a Tumblr blog to showcase my artwork and maybe take commissions. As I say, I'm not as good as I want to be but I'm getting itchy feet and just want to start making it work. But if anyone has some pointers I'd be happy to take heed.

I've no illusions about making a fortune or anything, but even beermoney would be a good start.

Post: #46

Saw this thread a couple days ago and just signed up for a watercolor class. I did that right side drawing book months ago so this class is just a refresher but in conjunction with doing water color drawings at the nearby park that should get me some pussy. Good looking guy that can draw is quite a narrative

That Kim guy is pretty good but I don't think anyone needs to be at that level unless they want to do professional activities (teach, art shows, etc).

Will report back if I get some actions (shouldn't take me more than 2 weeks with this nice weather).

Thanks!

Post: #47

(06-29-2018 07:52 AM)ChicagoFire Wrote:  Saw this thread a couple days ago and just signed up for a watercolor class. I did that right side drawing book months ago so this class is just a refresher but in conjunction with doing water color drawings at the nearby park that should get me some pussy. Good looking guy that can draw is quite a narrative

That Kim guy is pretty good but I don't think anyone needs to be at that level unless they want to do professional activities (teach, art shows, etc).

Will report back if I get some actions (shouldn't take me more than 2 weeks with this nice weather).

Thanks!

I'd just like to post a warning to anyone out there about drawing women you meet. Don't whatever you do depict them as they really are! I once lost a girlfriend at school because I was prompted to pencil sketch her in front of all her mates. I faithfully recorded her face, with all its faults (including a slight double-chin which I found out later she was extremely conscious of).

I was clueless and innocent and got such a shock at her reaction when she saw it that I've always, always made sure to draw any chicks in as flattering a manner as I can from then on. It's not a photograph, so you have a lot of poetic licence to just 'photoshop' and 'snapchat filter' her into whatever the fuck she really wants, slim her down, ignore faults, emphasis on the good stuff etc!

Post: #48

^^

I suck at drawing and I drew a couple of my female friends (not trying to bang them). They would roll their eyes but yeah point taken, if it's a SO don't be too real.

Just got back from drawing class. Teacher said I need more practice but unlike lots of people I don't "right side" draw. I should be cool (I'm fairly good looking) and like I said game plan is to draw in public and get some bangs. Besides drawing is pretty fun and I can only get better from here! I'll drop a post once I get some action.

Post: #49

Background:
Introverted, decent looking guy with a slight athletic build. I know this since I've worked with the public and have point blank been told I should model. Broke as a joke (food service for nearly 7 years) but recently got promised a significant pay day. Lived with parents my whole life and fairly late bloomer.

Making more money has changed my mindset as before I would worry about how I would get a girl back to my ratty house, now it's more I can afford to go to a bar and then transition into a hotel. Also over the years even though I haven't made much money my confidence has shot up (industry vets compliment you and superiors give you rewards) and working with the public forces you to banter a bit. I don't really post here too often I check politics every now and then which is kind of fun.

Whole plan is just simply draw, talk normal, ideally bang at a hotel but if not get a number and date. Like I said, while I can't draw well I'm fairly attractive I just need to interact with more girls. I've done the whole PUA 9 yards have a stack plan, no need for that. Just even basic things like weather's nice is all I need and touch them confidently. I'm more scared that since I'm getting older I might regret not banging more girls. No clue if I want to get a girlfriend or if I want to repeat the gameplan. Options may include driving out to the suburbs to play with some bored suburb girls. Some of them are seriously hot!!!

Just had to throw this in: My artist buddy "D" is 5 feet tall, introverted, balding, dorky glasses (haha, sorry), dresses like a nice guy and tells me hot chicks talk to him all the time. He's married but when he gets that kind of attention that means someone like me with game can clean up. Throw in culinary game and if I ever land a keeper I may settle

Once a get a lay I'll report back and it honestly shouldn't take more than a month. I won't flood the thread since I'm out in the real world but hey if anyone is still on the boat and have similar circumstances like me it's to serve as some hope

Post: #50

I've been thinking about getting back into drawing. It's something I was quite good at in High School.

I was thinking of looking for some classes in my local area, like a weekly night school thing. I didn't specifically think of it as a way to meet girls, but now you've got me wondering - what are the chances here?

I figured it would mainly be a bunch of oldies, but who knows.