Hey hey!
Here's this weeks resources, thoughts, 'aha moments' and announcements directly from my brain to yours.
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- Resources I've found useful this week
Video - TBChoi on Drawing Fundamentals
TB is one of my character design inspirations! Her style is fantastic and I absolutely love her line quality.
Proko happened to do a video with her and is worth a watch for sure!
Video - [Using reference, and why it's important](
?t=763)This one is a little section of a larger interview with TBchoi (mentioned above) and a key take away was how much importance TB puts on gathering reference!
So if you've ever had doubts about or think using reference is 'cheating' take it from a pro, and don't be afraid to whip out those references!
To quote TB "I think reference is one of the most important things in the painting process"
Post - Steve Huston on Style
Another great little facebook post by the master himself, Steve Huston!
This one he tackles the idea of style and how to go about cultivating your own. Such a good little reminder that most everyones 'style' is a culmination of each persons interests and influences.
A quote from the post... " Being a stand out, being unique, is often just a matter of stealing from more than one source!"
A great read for sure.
Video - Getting inspiration vs Taking Action
A great little episode of the 'Draftsmen' podcast by Stan (Proko) Prokopenko and Marshal Vandruff
I had this one going in the background while painting this week.
One of the topics they were talking about were getting inspiration vs taking action
They diver a little deeper on...
- The idea of 'risky' activities
- It's less risky to sit and watch TV than it is to work on your art... because you can fail at practising art, you can do a bad drawing and feel bad etc etc
- But the real risk is not doing those 'risky' things in the long run because you're not getting any closer to your goals.
A great one to pop on while you're drawing or painting!
Video - [Be gentle with yourself when learning new things](
?t=480)Ever wanted to be inspired by Costanza from Seinfeld? Well, this random little video is one for you! (again, not directly related to art, but I think it's worth a mention for learning new things in general).
I was down a Youtube rabbit hole again and this 'acting master class by Jason Alexander' (George Constanza from Seinfeld) came up.
And he dropped this little wisdom bomb that I thought was worth sharing.
He said the below statement in context of learning new acting skills but can be pretty much put in place of any skill, especially art!
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"As you begin to find your way of working and you bump into something you go 'I can't make this work'...be gentle with yourself"
"You don't yell at a bud because it isn't a flower yet, it's gonna be a flower, but it opens when it's time for it to open. If you're working on something that is beyond your ability at the moment it doesn't mean it will be beyond your ability in a month but at the moment it's gonna frustrate the hell out of you"
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I love this statement.
There's really no use to beating yourself up about not being 'good enought yet', it doesn't help the process and there's no reason you're going to be feeling this way a week, 2 weeks or a month from now.
The whole video was fascinating regardless, but this was a nice little gem.
The history of constructing and building figures (thinking in 3D)
This was an interesting one by one of my favourite art teachers Michael Hampton, on the history of constructive drawing.
This isn'ta tutorial or 'how to'; but non the less it's an interesting one I threw on while I was doing some cardio at the end of my monday gym session!
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Art ponderings of this week
Don't skip the damn gesture phase, Ben!
When doing a few character inventions this week, I've been feeling I'm spending a little too much time trying to fix 'stiff' poses after I've already started to add 3D forms.
This led me to the realisation that I don't think I'm spending enough time exploring the pose in the 'gesture' phase.
The gesture is SO important and is basically where the 'soul' of the character or pose begins. It can only 'stiffen up' from there.
I think all the anatomy study Ive been doing recently and the excitement around finding those forms has led me to skim over the gesture phase a tad.
So this is a reminder to myself to spend a little more time in the gesture phase and to not jump the gun when adding the 3D forms.
The blog's coming along well
I've been finalising some last bits and pieces structure wise of the blog, and have begun adding content from my personal notes! Can't wait to share it with you. I'll start doing sneak previews on my stories soon so stay tuned for that!
I've landed on a 'course like' product and have begun work putting it together
This is the first of many 'course type' products I'll be releasing. It's going to be something that allows me to expand on the current things I'm sharing online and will allow me to dive deeper with more context and hopefully more actionable clarity!
A little cryptic I know, but I'll be sharing more in the weeks to come! Looking to release in a month or so.
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That's all from this past week! Hope you've been well and until next week...
Stay consistent, use reference, have fun with it and remember; it's only pixels baybee!
Cheers,
Ben
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