[Drawing] Stienman sketches

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strawman

strawman

I'm using an old wacom tablet (4x5) which is probably going to screw me up. I suppose I'll actually need to draw on paper to avoid using my wrist for everything.

Anyway, Lines and Curves! Woo! The purpose of these lessons (a08 and a09) are to find one's natural movements.




yay!
 
fennewalde

fennewalde

This is actually really interesting. I'm following about 330 threads of daily draws this month and i'm putting this one somewhere in my top 25. I told CogNoman about it and he sounded real interested too (he wants to be here but he is system overload right now with mega challenge).

I guess the thing though is it would be cool to START learning with the tablet. I mean, we all learned with traditional pencil or some kind of traditional media. But you are totally starting out with the tablet. Which makes it so fascinating. I have a 4x5 old wacom too, and you do tend to draw more with your wrist, instead of your entire arm. But to make things more confusing, i actually began to open up using my arm more by drawing with the tablet (because i did everything in reversies fashion).

The one thing i would recommend is that you find a brush that better emulates an actual pencil, or at least one that reacts to pressure sensitivity. Learning line control is basically moot if you don't have an instrument that can respond to pressure sensitivity.
 
strawman

strawman

The brushes react to the pressure, but I think perhaps I don't have the sensitivity set well, and I'm not using the range well. All of the strokes on the previous exercises were done with a single brush without changing any settings. The whiskers on the cat are noticeably thinner than the outline of its face, for instance. Still, I don't have much control at the moment. I suspect that even if I were using a soft lead pencil on paper I'd have a hard time getting more than light, dark, and very dark from it, given my lack of control.

For today I set the brush to one that has a fuzzy edge, rather than a hard edge, and set the color to a gray. There don't seem to be any specific brushes in this program (pixelmater) that are specifically to emulate charcoal or a pencil. I did download the trial of Adobe CS5 so if I have extra time tomorrow I might attempt photoshop.

Today's lesson was on positive and negative space. I chose a small bowling pin toy - very simple, but just a bit harder than a cube or sphere.

I found that when I draw curves on paper, I figure out the end points, and the middle bulge, then affix my wrist or arm so I can swivel the paper or pencil and get a nice(ish) curve. Can't do that on the tablet - there's no reference, it's all hand-eye coordination. Very shaky lines. I assume this is something that will get better simply by practicing...

Anyway, here's today's output:



Since I'm right handed, I was able to get a more reasonable curve on the left side, but you can see I did a lot of work on the right side, which doesn't look good either, but looks better than the jagged mess I started with. The pin was near the edge of the table, so that's the line going diagonally through the bottom. And I could go on (symmetry, the bottom is truly messed up, etc, etc).

I wonder what practices I can do to build the hand-eye coordination I'm going to need with this tool...
 
fennewalde

fennewalde

you can start by using the stylus as a mouse. Just getting comfortable with it's movement across the screen (or screens). I guess you could bring in some lineart from another artist and drop the opacity a bit and try tracing. I dunno, just the more use you get, the better your eye hand coordination.
 
strawman

strawman

Today's lesson was on shapes and proportions:


My 2 year old complained about the lack of color:

Due to the fuzzy edges on my lines (still figuring out how to control my pressure) and even though I used the bucket tool for coloring, it was still more work than I expected. I ended up using a thin brush and did most of the sketching in the background layer, then outlined it with a larger brush, which is what's left at the top (after removing the background layer). The coloring was done by outlining it again in a new layer, zoomed in, over the black line, then using the bucket to fill that, then dropping that layer behind this one - since the main outline was alpha, the yellow blends in properly. Looks like I missed the outline at the tip of the beak - and chances are good that if you look carefully you'll see I did this outline in purple. Since I'm red/green colorblind I wouldn't notice anyway.
 
strawman

strawman

Due to how my schedule worked out today, I used the iPad (procreate) to do this profile of my 9 month old from the photo that follows.

Took more time than I expected just to get this far, but ran out of time before I finished:



The more I look at it, the more flaws I see, but I have to move on. I didn't do a lesson today, just sketching and trying to match the shapes. Tomorrow's lesson is on symmetry.

Working on the iPad is very different than the wacom. I'm drawing on the drawing itself, but I can't see the line until I lift my finger. Perhaps I'll try this on the wacom to see if it's easier, harder, or just different tomorrow.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

This drawspace idea intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter thread. Plus, I don't have a tablet, so I can't really play along.
 
strawman

strawman

Piotyr said:
This drawspace idea intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter thread. Plus, I don't have a tablet, so I can't really play along.
Click to expand...
You don't need a tablet - in fact the first few lessons go into using the proper tools in order to learn (pencils, good paper, erasers, etc). It's very focused on art as produced sans technology.

I'm going through it and performing the lessons on tablet simply because I've discovered that I hate workflow issues. The more steps I have to take to get my art onto this forum, the more likely I am to tinker with it using additional, unnecessary tools. I'm really trying to avoid that, although I've found that drawing on the writing surface (via the ipad) is easier than using the tablet, so I honestly think that starting out with pencil and paper is technically better.
 
strawman

strawman

I forgot to do a lesson yesterday! But I did do a drawing. I was asked to help out with the 11 year old cub scouts last night, and drew a diagram to help them with their project:


iPad, fingers, Procreate.

I really need to block my lettering better.
 
strawman

strawman

Back to the lessons and wacom tablet. In this lesson I am supposed to draw a simple object without looking at the tablet or computer screen - blind drawing by slowly following the curves of the object and mimicking them with my drawing hand without letting my eyes leave the object.

I tried a stapler and failed badly - it's unrecognizable, so I went with my hand.

I have a looooooong way to go....

 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Looks like your brain has not yet generated any .FBX files.

That is to say, it looks like your brain is still approaching the solution to every new drawing exercise as the generation of a new polynomial equation rather than just importing and tweaking an already existing mesh from a library. I suppose that's what experience gets you...building that catalog of deformable mental mesh templates.

--Patrick
 
strawman

strawman

In order to save time this morning I skipped packing lunch, assuming the little deli nearby the client's office would be fast. I came in late to miss the lunch rush, but they failed to make a simple meal in under 20 minutes, so my time was wasted anyway. I did, however, sketch during part of that time, so I'm counting this for today since I'll likely be too busy tonight to do a drawing lesson.

 
strawman

strawman

This post is me acknowledging that I'm going to miss a day of drawing. You have been spared from having to observe my handiwork.

For now.
 
strawman

strawman

Yeah, so I've been a bit busy. Here's my sketch for the day:

Code: 
const int pinLed=13;
const int analogOutPin = 9;
const int frequencyInPin = 5;
 
const unsigned int highFrequency = 5590; // Must be 20,000 or smaller
const unsigned int lowFrequency = 5400; // Must be 500 or larger
 
const double highVoltage = 3.6;
const double lowVoltage = 0.0;
 
unsigned long frq;
double accumulator;
int outputValue;
 
void setup() {
  pinMode(pinLed, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(115200);        // connect to the serial port
  accumulator = 0;
  outputValue = 0;
}
 
void loop() {
  unsigned long int timer;
  unsigned long int repeat;
  int lastread, newread;
 
  frq=0;
  timer=50 + millis();
  while(millis() < timer)
  {
    if(digitalRead(5) != lastread)
    {
      lastread = digitalRead(5);
      frq++;
    }
  }
 
  // IIR filter, new readings affect output by 25%
  accumulator = (((double)frq * 10.0) * 0.1) + (accumulator * 0.9);
 
  if(accumulator > highFrequency) accumulator = highFrequency;
  if(accumulator < lowFrequency) accumulator = lowFrequency;
 
  Serial.print(frq);
  Serial.print(" ");
  Serial.println(accumulator);
 
  // map it to the range of the analog out:
  outputValue = map(accumulator,
                    lowFrequency,            highFrequency,
                    255 * (lowVoltage/5.0),  255 * (highVoltage/5.0)); 
  // change the analog out value:
  analogWrite(analogOutPin, outputValue);
 
  digitalWrite(pinLed,!digitalRead(pinLed));  // blink Led
}
In arduino-land, a program is referred to as a sketch.

Thiiiiis cooooouuuuuuntsssssss....



I'll probably post more about it in the minor victory thread.
 
strawman

strawman

Well obviously I never finished my drawing lessons, but I took the kids to the local Kids Read Comics! Convention and stepped in on a panel where an animator (working on some new Disney show i understand? Something about gravity?) gave a simple overview on how to draw adventure time characters. I was able to do Finn and jake before my three year old crawled in my lap, and I had to do marceline and princess what's her name one handed with a wriggling kid in my lap. All on iPad, using my fingers, with procreate. It was fun.




 
strawman

strawman

I'm not going to promise to draw every day, but here's today's drawing anyway. Lesson b06, which is an introduction to shading. I only completed the first exercise in the time I had, perhaps the other quarters will be filled in later.

Shading is hard and/or time consuming, and on the iPad I have no pressure control, which is a mixed blessing.

 
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