ART/VIDEOS –  Becoming a Professional Artist Part 2:  How Long it Takes to Become a Pro

• In regards to your first job/when you first started making money from your art, how long did it take to get to that point from deciding to become a professional artist? What was that first job/sale? How did it come about? What did it take to become a paid artist, what was it that resulted in the success? Was it your portfolio? How much time did you invest in your portfolio?
• How did you get your current job/what pathways did you take to become a full time artist?
• How long did it take to finally become a full time artist?
• Do you have any plans for the future of your artistic career? What steps have you taken towards them?

I answer these question in this video. The visuals is me trying to come up with a Patreon Banner.  I soon abandoned it and took a different approach.

If you’re just now coming into these videos, an art student recently contacted me and asked me these questions about becoming a professional.  I recorded my answers on my iPhone and sent them to him.  Then I realized other people might benefit from listening to my responses.

So here it is:

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ART/VIDEOS – Becoming a Professional Artist Part 01: What to Learn

• How did you go about honing your skills as an artist? (Were you mentored? Self-taught?)
• Practice is often regarded as the most important part of improving artistic ability. What was your preferred method/s of practice? What did you find to be the most effective method/s?
• What would you consider to be the most important skill/s to understand and hone? (for example: perspective, line work, composition, form, value and shadows etc.)
• How much time did you invest into your training on a daily or weekly basis?

In this video I answer these questions.

An art student recently contacted me and asked me these questions about becoming a professional.  I recorded my answers on my iPhone and sent them to him.  Then I realized other people might benefit from listening to my responses.

I’ve decided to make videos from the recordings. I hope you find my answers helpful:

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Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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ART/VIDEOS – Handy Figure Drawing Tips and Book Recommendations

Studying figure drawing is a big deal. Being good at it really helps you grow as a artist.  It’s one of the most difficult things you can do as an artist because it forces you to use every drawing principle you can possibly know.

From perspective to gesture.  From observational drawing to imaginative drawing.  From anatomy to shading.  From spacial relationships to storytelling.

Everything that you can know about drawing is all rolled up into this one skill.

In this video I talk about some good ways you can study figure drawing and some great books you can learn from.  The affiliate links to the books I talk about are in the links below:

https://youtu.be/ZEGnYMOhL0E

Links and Books Mentioned in the Video

Practice Perfect by by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, Katie Yezzi

Bridgman’s Complete Guide to Drawing from Life by George Bridgman

Figure Drawing: Design and Invention Perfect by Michael Hampton

Figure Drawing for Artists: Making Every Mark Count by Steve Huston

Huston video:

My video on Practice and consistency:

My Video on basic nose construction:

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If you liked this video and would like me to discuss something you think I might know about…

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Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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ART/VIDEOS – Figure Drawing Tips to Keep in Mind Part 2: Torso Construction

When figure drawing, the torso is the largest area of the body. It takes up the most real-estate.  For this reason, when you get it wrong, it’s pretty obvious.

I continue going over fellow artist Andrea’s drawing.  This is part 2 of two videos where I help her solidify her figure drawing.  In doing so, I also hope to help you see learn from this video as well.

I specifically go over the torso in this video using my interpretation of my figure drawing teacher, Steve Huston’s formula for drawing torsos.  I’ve found it to be a very handy formula draw torsos with.

I hope you get a lot out of this video:

Links Mentioned in the Video

Steve Huston on drawing torsos:

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ART/VIDEOS – Figure Drawing Tips to Keep in Mind Part 1: Concerning Gesture

Gesture is important for figure drawing.  It’s arguably the most important thing to get right.  Especially when you’re learning to figure draw.

I made two videos in order to go over fellow artist, Andrea’s figure drawing.  This is part 1.

By going over her drawing, I’m hoping to show her and by extension, you what she did well, and what she could improve.  I wanted to show her and you what to watch out for when approaching the figure.

In doing so, I hope that you can learn from this as well:

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Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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ART/VIDEO – Drawing Consistent Noses – Basic Nose Construction

In this video I give you the basic nose formula that helped me get a grasp on drawing noses.  After I started using this formula, my nose drawing took a turn for the better.  Before then I was simply drawing a wedge and didn’t quite know why my noses didn’t seem to work as well as I’d like.

Not only do I give you my formula but, building on the video on practice that I posted last week, I also show you how you can go about encoding the formula so that when  you draw noses, this formula comes out of you automatically.

Enjoy:

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ART/VIDEO – Get your Drawings to be More Consistent: How to Practice

How the blazes do you practice drawing?! We’re often told that the best way to get good at something is to practice.  We’re also told that if you want to get good at drawing you have to draw.  But over the years I’ve found that isn’t enough.

If you simply draw, you may get better at drawing but you may also get better at drawing poorly.  If you don’t draw well, you may end up creating bad drawing habits that may cause your art not to improve.

So how do you go about NOT doing that?  How do you go making sure you’re creating good drawing habits that will help you get better?  This is what I talk about in this video below:

Links Mentioned In This Video

Dynamic Sketching 1 With Peter Han | Master Class Demo

Dynamic Sketching 2 – Peter Han – New Demo

Drawing Website links:

Drawing Lines
Drawing Shapes

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If you liked this video and would like me to discuss something you think I might know about…

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Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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ART/VIDEO – Character Design Drawing Tips Part 3: Drapery

We don’t walk around naked.  I tend all wear clothes, but when we’re first learning to draw people we study them nude.

Problem is that we when we start drawing people we skip the part about how clothes actually functions when people wear it.  Today on this final character design tips video, I go over drapery.

It’s not an extensive look but I do go over some tips to keep in mind when drawing drapery.  I also go over some good resources to look at if you want to better understand how to draw it correctly.

I even show you how I use those resources.

I hope you get a lot of out of the video:

Links Mentioned

Famous Artist Courses drapery pdf

Mastering Drawing the Human Figure From Life, Memory, Imagination: with Special Section on Drapery

Drawing Drapery from Head to Toe

Vilppu Drawing Drapery: The Clothed Figure

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If you liked this video and would like me to discuss something you think I might know about…

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Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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ART/VIDEOS – Character Design Drawing Tips Part 02: Construction and Solidity

One of the trickiest parts of figure drawing is adding construction to your basic lay in.  The difficulty comes in the complexity of detail of the human form.

It can become overwhelming. What do you draw? How do you draw it?

When first staring out, artists tend to try to put it all in.  This can cause your drawing to get very lumpy while not really making a clear drawing statement.

In today’s video, I help you get around all that.  I write about a simple way of constructing the figure.  I use my favorite figure drawing teacher, Steve Huston’s torso constructing technique to do it.

Also, below the video I link to a lesson where Steve Huston talks about drawing the torso.

I go over an approach you can take to simplify drawing the body so you can draw a well drawn figure without all the lumps and bumps.

Have a look. I think this video will be helpful to you.

Videos Mentioned

Steve Huston: Video 5 Part 1

Links Mentioned in the Video

Drawing Forms

Drawing Complex forms

Drawing Rhythms

Want To Get a Video From Me?

If you liked this video and would like me to discuss something you think I might know about…

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Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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ART/VIDEO – Character Design Drawing Tips Part 1: Gesture and Reference

Figure drawing is one of the most difficult things you can possibly do.  If you want to be able to get work as an artist, it’s one of the things you’re going to be called on to do, over and over again.

If you’re going into concept art, you’ll not only need to be able draw the figure but you’ll be called to design characters.

I’ve been asked for help by fellow artist Andrea.  She’s having a bit of trouble fine tuning her figure designs.

In this week’s video I go over her work.  What’s she’s doing well and what she can push.  I go over reference and using reference.  I talk about what to look for and how to start a drawing using the reference.

I go over what the most important thing is to do when  you first start off a drawing.

Hint: It’s not details, or anatomy.

Have a look.  I think you may learn something:

Want To Get a Video From Me?

If you liked this video and would like me to discuss something you think I might know about…

If you want to suggest a character or drawing you’d like me to draw, feel free to ask or suggest away, either here on my comments or anywhere else you’d like to contact me.

Just be aware that my Patreon patrons get their questions answered first and they get to see the videos weeks before anyone else.

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