Restarting Angel’s Portrait Course- Week 1

Current Course: Angel Ganev Portrait Course – Doodle Warriors
Progress: Level 1
Recommended for: Beginner Artists, Portrait Artists

It’s been a while, last time I was actively taking the course was at the end of 2021… cannot believe it’s been that long!

Since I started to work on the comic I noticed that I’ve been unhappy with the mistakes I keep making when it comes to faces. My anatomy is also lacking but I want to tackle one thing at a time.

I’ve made a study commitment with a friend for 30 days. I was able to keep that up this week and I really hope I will continue with my studies after those 30 days 🙂 I feel like posting here again, once a week, can also help me to stay consistent.

So far I’m still in the ‘Pre Exercises’ of Lesson 1. The course changed SO MUCH since I took it in 2021, but so far I think the changes are very good. I hope that I can start with the real lay ins again next week, and I hope that I will relearn stuff efficiently ❤

I’m very curios to see how this journey will go, my lines are definitely better than when I started last time, BUT I think they were even better when I was still doing the line exercises and everything xD Oh well

Besides the comic I’m working on a new illustration, this is how far I’ve come so far, there are still many things that are not quite there yet, but I’ll keep working on it 🙂

Small Update

Hi guys 🙂
I really want to update this blog more regularly, but there are often so many things going on that it’s hard to keep it up ^^,

I’m working on a comic project right now, together with my wife, this is going to consume our next years. As we’re both not fulltime artists, we cannot produce pages as often as we would like to ^^,,

I’m still noticing so many things in my art that I’m not happy with. I definitely need to take the time to do my studies. So for the next 30 days I’m trying a mini-challenge for myself, to work through Angel Ganev’s portrait course again. Ideally, I want to work through the whole course eventually, but I need to take small steps right now.

I’m going to try to update the blog once a week. I really want to track my progress with what I’m doing. I’m actually fine with switching the tutorials up from time to time. Right now I feel like I really need my portrait knowledge back because I’m unhappy with the way my stylized faces look.

I saw that a lot has changed in Angel’s course, so I’m excited to see what’s new 🙂

Until then I’ll leave you with two pages that I did for the comic project ❤

Starting Marc Brunet’s Art School

Current Course: Art School by Marc Brunet on Cubebrush
Progress: Term 1, Week 1
Recommended for: Beginner Artists, People who want to work on their fundamentals

Color Adjustment

Pen Control 1

Pen Control 2

Pen Control 3

Cylinders 1

Cylinders 2

Overpaint Figure with ‘Skeleton’ & Cylinders

Exercises from Week 1

After quite a while I’m back. I couldn’t really keep up with my studies because of my current job, which I started in October 2021 (that time when I stopped posting…)

I’ve been mainly drawing portraits in the last 2 years. I’m happy that my style developed but at the same time I realized that I wanted to get into studying art again. I still struggle with 3D spaces and full-body drawings. So I was looking for a course that would cover different basic problems. I’ve had the ‘Art School’ from Marc Brunet on my wishlist for quite a while now. I wanted to give it a try this time. I might go back to studying with Angel Ganev in the future, but for now, I wanted to leave my comfort zone of only drawing portraits.

In the end I know it’s not that important which course I’m doing, it’s important that I’m doing the exercises and that I’m creating a habit.

The biggest challenge for me right now is just that: habits. I hope that I can update this blog again, I want to see the progress of my art journey. I want to be able to look back and be proud of the progress I’ve made ❤

Some paintings from the last few months before I started the Art School course

Lucien

Patience

Adrian

Redraw & Art Glow up

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  2008

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  2021

Photobucket sent me a frindly reminder that I should delete some old pictures (or upgrade) because apparently I’ve collected too many pictures on there over the years. I haven’t used that account in a while so it was actually quite fun to go exploring through the different albums. I found a lot of digital paintings from 2008-2014. Back then I’ve been mostly using my painting skills for doing commissions for online gold on Gaia Online.

Sometimes I feel stuck with my art, but looking at those paintings that were partially over 10 years old really helped me see things in perspective. Comparing paintings I’ve spent a lot of time on to paintings I do now I’m proud but mostly relieved. I carry that strange thought that I could never learn anything in art, that I will always be kinda bad.

I’ve read “only compare yourself to yourself of the past” many times. As right as it might be, it’s not always easy. We all know what social media can do to us and our mind. We always see those amazing things around us and it’s hard not to feel some kind of self pity. “Why am I not as good as other people.”

Everyone has their own journey. I had fun lookinig through my old paintings and I felt inspired to do one overpaint and one redraw.It’s nice to see what I’ve learned over the years. How I finally understand the structure of faces better. How it’s easier for me to do a quick digital painting that looks better from whatever I was able to produce in hours back then.

I know that I will still be upset about my progress at times, that I see more mistakes than things that I really like. But I’m happy to see that there is a growth to my artwork. As long as this journey might take me, it’s my journey and I’m moving forward.

Redraw of a painting from 2014

Overpaint of a painting from 2012

Doodle Warriors Level 2 – Last time Planes!

Current Course: Angel Ganev Portrait Course – Doodle Warriors
Progress: Level 1
Recommended for: Beginner Artists, Portrait Artists

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I finally made it through lesson 2! 👏👏👏

The critique I got yesterday was generally very good. I’m curving the upper cheekbone plane too much, but that’s about it. I can finally continue with lesson 3 🙂

I feel like I’ve been forever on lesson 2. It’s crazy to look back at the first Plane studies I did some months ago.

I deliberately didn’t submit every week during the end. I wanted to have more time to really work throught the plane studies that I was doing. I got some extra critique from friends and from the discord to polish the studies that I made that week vs doing a lot of studies I didn’t really understand. I think the change helped me to overcome my frustration with the cheekbone plane.

Study from July and September from the same Photo

It also helped me to use the same references I already used in the past. Those comparisons helped me to see the progress that I was making. It’s sometimes really hard to see that you’re moving forward when you’re studying the same thing for a long time.

I’m super excited to move on to lesson 3, Lineweight!

I don’t have a lot of time these days so I don’t know when I’m able to post new studies but I hope that I have new studies ready to submit at the beginning of October!