The 100 project

Sweet, work dude! I have been following your 100project and am really glad to see big progression in your work.

TL;DR - Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. 

Now that you have a pretty decent understanding of gestures and are getting the hand of human anatomy. I'd say, this is the best time to implement a lesson plan and get your art fundamentals grounded too.

To implement a lesson plan, I would suggest the following order.

1. Perspective (ref) learn one point and multi-point perspective.
2. Human anatomy. (front view and profile view)

Skeleton breakdown
Skull, Rib, Pelvis, Hands, Legs
Muscle Structure - that cover the above.

3. Human Gestures 30 second (line stroke) (also here, here)
4. Human Gesture 1 min (with primitive shapes)
5. Human Gestures 2min (with shapes)
6. Human Gestures 10min

This lesson plan will help you in the following:-
1. Perspective -this is the most basic lesson for art. Perspective gives depth to a square and makes it a cube, a circle - a sphere. Since we have two eyes, we see things in perspective. This helps  judge distance of the subject from the viewer. Perspective is applied in still, life and background art.
2. Human anatomy - lets look at human anatomy like playing with a toy robot. There are different parts that constitute to make the robot. Learn these different parts and how they are connected to each other.  (not the best analogy, El bow :P)
Back to humans. To know how to draw a head, you have to understand how the head is constructed. learning the muscle breakdown will teach you an overview of what muscles are present there, which muscle overlaps what and how the all combine to create expressions.
Apply the same principle to the rest of the body.

3 to 6. Human Gesture- Now that you know how to draw a toy robot. Let's pose the toy and draw it.
Always start with a 30 second pose. This helps warm up your drawings. Draw for a few minutes, before moving up to the 1 min, 2min and 10min.

Conclusion:

Try and set a realistic goal for each plan. Time does not matter, but the number of pieces to be made does. Work on these goals at any pace you want, as long as you don't stop.

Restating your lesson plan 

1. Better Proportions

2. Better connections between limbs and torso

3. Better anatomical details

4. Learn to draw from imagination instead of references

The above lesson plan covers all that you need in the right order of being a better artist.

This lesson plans does leave out a few things like types of mediums to use, or rendering style or presentation, all of which could make your art unique. 

__________________________________________________________

My three pointers for you.
1. Ignore render style for the moment. The plan is to improve your anatomy skills. Once you have hit your goals, then move on a new lesson plan to work on rendering skills or play with  different mediums (digital, oils, pens, mixed media, etc)
2. Do this lesson plan for you and only you. If' you are uncomfortable showing it to anyone, don't. If you do make it public and work better under the pressure of your peers asking how much you have done, that's fine too.  But make it a point to document your progress, archiving it online or offline.
I strongly say this because time and again, it's necessary to go back to your first drawings and see how far you have progressed. This self evaluation will keep you motivated.
3. Ignore presentation. Work on your goals. If you want to post your stuff here, do it. No ones judging, as this is a practice forum, not the critique forum.
Now with respect to #4. Learn to draw from imagination instead of references.

Drawing from imagination is bloody tough, but you only get better with practice.

My art always turns out pretty ugly the first time. I erase or delete so many times till I get it the way I like. I used to see artists draw live and shietz, these people were soo skilled! It was very intimidating to see some one soo skilled just make something out of thing air. It was only later that I realized that these artists use techniques and practice drawing similar pieces, a ton of times before doing it live/publishing it.

ok, bye bye

Wehee long post. I'll try to go through the list later tonight, but at the moment I have work to do. Thanks for the help :)

Hi El Bow

That is some upload. I honestly haven't read all of it, but what I read I agree with.

Anyway, As many of you know, I like to hone my skill by doing a daily 30 minute class from this website. Recently, however I have found myself not exactly challenged by what I'm doing, so I decided to bring it up a notch and add color.

These drawing are Done in photoshop with the brush tool and the color picker tool. the one on the top is a 5 minute sketch and the one on the bottom is a 10 minute sketch.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvesterhansen/8093282904/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvesterhansen/8093281732/

 

 

I managed to get a few faces in between sessions of Tango Bootcamp. I apologize once again for the abysmal quality of these scans.

After the frustrations of these, I think I need to change the focus of my practice to nose positioning for the next dozen sessions or so.

Wow, you guys have made so much progress! Even going back 1 or 2 pages in the thread shows a real improvement in everyone’s pictures, keep up the good work :) No new drawings from me, I’ve been wiped out with a cold for the past week, but everyone’s posts have inspired me to break out the sketchbook again

@ El Bow: ah well, feel free to ignore my suggestion then ;)

@ A_A: congratulations on finishing 100 gesture sketches! You really are an inspiration to the rest of us, and I hope you’re proud of all you’ve accomplished, because it’s fantastic!

@ sylvester: I love all the pictures you post; you manage to cover such a wide range of different subjects and styles. And your dedication is frankly impressive

@ Kim: I like the way you draw their eyes. Good luck with the noses..!

Drawings from last night. The proportions are far from perfect (particularly #17 and #18) but now that I've learned to recognise the mistakes, I can start working to fix them.

 

#17

 

#18-19

Hi again

Once again I tried my luck with drawing a portrait. It maybe true that I'm not really challenging myself here, but I figure that some practice is better than none at all

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvesterhansen/8103627847/

So. I took my time to read this now. I'd agree with most of it, but I have a few remarks to make:

[…]
Restating your lesson plan
The above lesson plan covers all that you need in the right order of being a better artist.
This lesson plans does leave out a few things like types of mediums to use, or rendering style or presentation, all of which could make your art unique. 

Dude, I didn't plan to be perfect after these 100. Why would I restart? Isn't the whole point of this to improve in certain areas and NOT focusing on everything at the same time? After the first 100 there will be the next 100 with new possibilities, until then I'll stick to my plan.

My three pointers for you.
1. Ignore render style for the moment. The plan is to improve your anatomy skills. Once you have hit your goals, then move on a new lesson plan to work on rendering skills or play with  different mediums (digital, oils, pens, mixed media, etc)

You just said I should restart my plan and consider rendering styles @_@ That comes later @_@ (When the time comes, the medium will most likely be tablet pen on Wacom board and the render style will be realistic first and manga later)

2. Do this lesson plan for you and only you. If’ you are uncomfortable showing it to anyone, don’t. If you do make it public and work better under the pressure of your peers asking how much you have done, that’s fine too.  But make it a point to document your progress, archiving it online or offline.I strongly say this because time and again, it’s necessary to go back to your first drawings and see how far you have progressed. This self evaluation will keep you motivated.

Well you have seen my tumblr blog, haven't you? ô.o

Now with respect to #4. Learn to draw from imagination instead of references.
Drawing from imagination is bloody tough, but you only get better with practice.
My art always turns out pretty ugly the first time. I erase or delete so many times till I get it the way I like. I used to see artists draw live and shietz, these people were soo skilled! It was very intimidating to see some one soo skilled just make something out of thing air. It was only later that I realized that these artists use techniques and practice drawing similar pieces, a ton of times before doing it live/publishing it.
ok, bye bye

At the moment 70% of what I draw is from imagination and only a few figures are drawn from books and pictures. I usually mention it in the picture if I drew a figure from a book. As I said, I feel like I only learn how to trace the lines rather than the way things work if I do that. It might come in handy for details like facial expressions and stuff like that, but for now I try to do as much as I can from memory by constructing the figures. What I do instead is, that I look at references for different topics and then try to iplement those in my drawings. I usually start by copying one or two images from a book, but after that I try to work from imagination most of the time.

Finally I'd like to suggest to you to stop using the eraser, at least until you're done with the drawing. You are erasing your line of reference and you'll have a harder time finding the right line with the next stroke once the "wrong" one is erased.

Status update: Here are some of my more recent stuff 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33
I have started working on muscles around the front and back upper body.

in response to Vyse

So. I took my time to read this now. I’d agree with most of it, but I have a few remarks to make:
[…]

Restating your lesson plan 

1. Better Proportions

2. Better connections between limbs and torso

3. Better anatomical details

4. Learn to draw from imagination instead of references

The above lesson plan covers all that you need in the right order of being a better artist.

This lesson plans does leave out a few things like types of mediums to use, or rendering style or presentation, all of which could make your art unique. 
Dude, I didn’t plan to be perfect after these 100. Why would I restart? (restating, not restarting) Isn’t the whole point of this to improve in certain areas and NOT focusing on everything at the same time? After the first 100 there will be the next 100 with new possibilities, until then I’ll stick to my plan.
That post was just a suggestion, take it or leave it. No hard feelings.  
My three pointers for you.

1. Ignore render style for the moment. The plan is to improve your anatomy skills. Once you have hit your goals, then move on a new lesson plan to work on rendering skills or play with  different mediums (digital, oils, pens, mixed media, etc)
You just said I should restart (refer first comment) my plan and consider rendering styles @_@ That comes later @_@
I was agreeing with your lesson plan. Ignore rendering styles like colors, tones, shadow, highlights, etc. or mediums like paint, water color etc. (When the time comes, the medium will most likely be tablet pen on Wacom board and the render style will be realistic first and manga later)
2. Do this lesson plan for you and only you. If’ you are uncomfortable showing it to anyone, don’t. If you do make it public and work better under the pressure of your peers asking how much you have done, that’s fine too.  But make it a point to document your progress, archiving it online or offline.I strongly say this because time and again, it’s necessary to go back to your first drawings and see how far you have progressed. This self evaluation will keep you motivated.
Well you have seen my tumblr blog, haven’t you? ô.o   yup, your feeds popup on the dashboard. good progress so far
Now with respect to #4. Learn to draw from imagination instead of references.

Drawing from imagination is bloody tough, but you only get better with practice.

My art always turns out pretty ugly the first time. I erase or delete so many times till I get it the way I like. I used to see artists draw live and shietz, these people were soo skilled! It was very intimidating to see some one soo skilled just make something out of thing air. It was only later that I realized that these artists use techniques and practice drawing similar pieces, a ton of times before doing it live/publishing it.

ok, bye bye
At the moment 70% of what I draw is from imagination and only a few figures are drawn from books and pictures. I usually mention it in the picture if I drew a figure from a book. As I said, I feel like I only learn how to trace the lines rather than the way things work if I do that. It might come in handy for details like facial expressions and stuff like that, but for now I try to do as much as I can from memory by constructing the figures. What I do instead is, that I look at references for different topics and then try to iplement those in my drawings. I usually start by copying one or two images from a book, but after that I try to work from imagination most of the time.

 

Finally I’d like to suggest to you to stop using the eraser, at least until you’re done with the drawing. You are erasing your line of reference and you’ll have a harder time finding the right line with the next stroke once the “wrong” one is erased.

I use the eraser tool, only because I draw digitally and can. I do hide most of my reference layers, wire-framed body, muscle structure layers in Photoshop and export the end product. Sometimes I drop the opacity of those layers to <10%.

I should try and avoid using the eraser though. 

 

 

Ah sorry, I missread that part about restating and restarting :o

Looking at my post again now makes it seem kind of hostile actually :<
That was not my intention. I'm greatful for the advice actually. Sorry if it came across overly agressive :<

Hi again.

Wow, there really is allot of text going on here. You could practically write a novel. Anyway, here is another piece of my daily practice:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvesterhansen/8105564872/

 

I made some more (and I can't help but feel like I made el bow angry :<)

1/5th of the way through my 100 sketches now.

 

#20

Status updated: 34, 35, 36 and 37.

@sylvester_hansen: as mentioned earlier, I tried working on that method of avoiding line art and using only shades of color for depth. I think I am getting the hang of things. I like the direction where that's heading

@Vyse. Just a little mis-communication. No biggies. We cool

More Updates

It was kind of frustrating because the first one felt like I had forgotten everything I learned so far. It looked terrible and I did some heads instead. the second one turned out quite well after correcting it for quite some time and the last one are two figures I drew from a book. I will probably do this more often afterall since it helps me understand how to draw certain sections of the body a little bit better.

 

Does anyone know how I can posta  comment on my own tumblr uploads? I just can't find the option allthough I wanted to comment on some stuff multiple times already. It's driving me nuts. And while we're at it: How can I change my Avatar in this Forum? It's evidently possible since some people managed to do it, but I don't seem to have the option in my CP. D: