There isn’t any shortcut to getting good at art, whether it’s drawing, digital modelling or sculpting. With the right mindset and attitude the whole process can be speed up, but there is no shortcut. Knowledge without doing is no good and can deceive you, and doing without proper knowledge and understanding or a clear guideline is a waste of time. To get better at anything at all we must practice day and night, and we must meditate and dwell on the things that we seek to be better at or become.

As Christians, God saved us to be holy and blameless. He has set forth Jesus Christ as the primary and ultimate example of godliness, and the Scriptures tell us to look to Christ—always. This is because whatever we set our eyes upon we will eventually become that thing. We become what we treasured the most in our hearts; we become what we think, study and trusted in. We conform to the image that we are seeking after. For this reason, Christians are to set their eyes upon Christ, they are to have Christ in their hearts.

As artists, we are to immerse ourselves in the things of art and read good books. We must meditate on these things. We must think and see forms and shapes and anatomical structures. In the same way that Christians are exhorted to read the Scriptures daily, to study it, meditate upon it day and night.

“his delight is in the law of the LORD;
and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”
(Psalms 1:2 KJV)

NOTE: This post was initially written on [March 13th, 2016 @ 12:00am]. It was tucked away in the draft folder and I was not aware of it until today while sorting through. So now I’m posting it as it is.

Sometimes I find myself doing well, and I see that I’m progressing. Then I read a book, or accumulated some new piece of information, and to my puzzlement, instead of advancing and doing well, I noticed that I’m declining and not doing well. I forgot where I read this from, but it’s normal. A lot of us go through this. The mind needs time to absorb and adjust to the new information that is coming in. Give it time. Once this period is over you will do much better with the new information you have gathered. It’s funny how the mind works.

That’s why there are studies that say your mind do better when you’re not thinking or trying hard. Or that you’re more creative and interesting ideas come to mind when you’re relaxing or go about your business not thinking much. So when new information comes in, you’re processing it.

I have heard people say, “Before you run or workout, make sure to warm yourself up first.” It will not only prevent injuries, but you will perform much better as a result. The advice is good, but beginners often see “warming up” as tedious and a waste of time. So they don’t really take it to heart until later down the road. And speaking of warming up, I believe it can apply to art as well. Let me explain…

Last year I had the opportunity to conduct my drawing experiment in Krita. I noticed that I have produced a lot of nice rough before bed, but then upon waking up the next day, I noticed that my drawing and roughing out the form wasn’t that great when compared to the ones done in the previous day / night. I didn’t understand why at first. But noticed that it’s only 1 hour into my practicing session did I start to do well, and my hand and mind was flying freely. This whole thing on “warming up” didn’t cross my mind yet, until I read somewhere about an artist who wouldn’t even begin to start his actual painting until he spent the first 6 hours warming up, doing rough sketches, etc… That’s when I saw the connection. Most of my rough sketches looked great from evening and onward because I was warming up in the morning. And sometimes when I couldn’t get to it in the morning, I noticed that I was only flying around an hour into the session.

I would say this will be different for everyone, depending on your skill level and experiences. Those that do art for a living probably warm up much quicker than those like myself who are just doing it on and off.

Whenever I’m not doing any art, my mind is always thinking about it. Theorizing and meditating on certain principles and theories; seeking for ways to explain difficult concepts or explain things in a way that beginners can understand and put it to use.

The first mindset that took me up one step in my journey is the [Casual Perspective] mindset. A lot of times we’re not building a spacecraft, so things don’t have to be dead accurate. We can guess, estimate and be casual about it. No need to take out your ruler to measure everything and to make sure that all lines are perfectly straight.

Then I thought to myself, what about creating the illusion of depth in drawing/painting? What about painting textures for 3d models? Eureka finally struck again. I hope to touch on this more later on when I finally sit down to test out these theories with examples.

Just realized that it’s not working. Will have to look into that when I have time.

EDIT: Got it to work now. WP security was tight.

EDIT2: If you don’t see your comment after posting, it’s because it’s waiting for its first approval. Afterward, it will automatically shows up.

I have used the internet for more than 10+ years and I know what it’s like to randomly come across a site you want to comment, but hate the hassle of signing up. So there’s no signing up. Even though it says name and email are required, it’s not. You can comment as anonymous. Also, for whatever reason, if you want your comment(s) removed, just drop me a mail with the link to it.

There are two things that Christians are made fully aware of, the first is that: There’s nothing new under the sun:

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (KJV) The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

Christian artists can never run out of ideas because The Book they study daily is full of historical events. Take the story of Moses for example. God preserved him and sent him into Egypt, and then later used him to deliver the Israelites. Moses is a type, foreshadowing what Christ later would do when God sent his beloved Son into the world to save mankind. This is one event that gets repeated a lot in movies and stories in our modern days. Transformers and Superman are two examples that come to mind. Just one historical event can generate many movies and stories out of it (see this post: https://www.codeberean.com/weblog/?p=139).

Want to create a character concept based on a Script? You have the Bible, full of Scripts. Want to get into the habit of researching actual places, cultures and people for your concepts? Again, the Bible is full of it (look up biblical archaeology for example). Need ideas for a character? Samson, Moses, Elijah, Jezebel, anti-Christ, Ahab etc… Creating fantasy characters and environments? Hell, Heaven, Spirit, Soul, Angels and Demons… it’s all there in the Bible. The subject of the old Masters was either Biblical or based on it, take the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci for example.

When it comes to art’s techniques and methods, there’s really nothing new under the sun as well. When ZBrush and digital Sculpting first came unto the scene, people were exploring and studying it. Now, these techniques and methods are out there. Which brings us to my second point.

Acts 8:26-31 (KJV) And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

The second thing that Christians are made fully aware of is: We are to learn from and be taught by others. It’s how babies learn and grow, and the same goes for us Artists as well. A lot of painters and sculpters of old learned and copied from each others. Spurgeon once said, “He who is his own guide is guided by a fool.” This is a good principle to live by.

When you look at creation, there is much to learn, and many have. When you look into the lives of other artists, there’s also much to learn, and many have. Whether it’s techniques, methods or ideas, it’s all there for those who will see themselves as “student.”

I don’t know too much about 3DBuzz, but based on a quick search, Jason Busby, the man operating 3DBuzz.com, died of cancer back in 2017. Out of their kindness, they have released all the contents for free. Someone has made a torrent out of it here: https://archive.org/details/3dbuzz-archive

Since my main focus here in this blog is concept and design, both 2d and 3d, I found a set that is relevant for this blog: Creating Compelling Character Concepts.

Creating Compelling Character Concepts

In this series, professional concept artist and illustrator Tyler Edlin will walk you through the workflow needed to create pro character designs like those used in AAA games and major films. Through the creation of a Fantasy Mage called Kari, Tyler will demonstrate a professional workflow, as well as covering all of the design considerations needed to create concepts from scratch, and why design is so important to artists in these fields. By the end of this course, you’ll be armed with all of the tools you need to design compelling, complex characters that make sense within the world they are created for. Tyler also includes his personal Photoshop brushes, as well as the final .psd file for you to deconstruct and review.

Artists aren’t rich. So it’s better to err on the side of caution. This is not intended as legal advice. Just something to keep in mind.

Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog – My Story

I’m actually thinking of switching back to PC. A custom-built PC is a lot more powerful and costs a little less when compared to a Mac. I want to focus more on Sculpting and Drawing, and macOS is giving me a lot of headaches. For research and biblical studies, macOS serves me well, but not when it comes to 3D. There are a lot of cool apps that are only available on Windows, like DesignDoll for example, or Black Ink.

I’ll blog more and share a lot of things once I have everything setup.

A while back I blogged about things I would like to see in future versions of Krita. In that post I mentioned:

“3) Hotkey to toggle on/off “Snap to Assistants”: This will definitely speed things up a bit when using perspective guides.“

I’m not sure if Krita added that in with newer updates [or] it was there the whole time and I didn’t know about it. Someone emailed me a month ago pointing out that Krita has it: “Go To Configure -> Keyboard Shortcuts and look for “Toggle Assistant”,”

Thanks!

At this moment in time, I find it difficult to get back to Krita for two reasons:

1. Krita messed up my keyboard customization when I updated it to a newer version. I can’t use Krita’s default. Re-customizing it would take some times, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to get to it.
2. One of my siblings passed away recently (unexpectedly). The sad part is that he didn’t know Christ.

Art is still my passion, and Krita is still the best open source / free drawing app. I will get back to it again, somehow, God willing.

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)