uncomfortable posts

Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: A Box a Day Keeps the Demon Away

I made another comic strip! This time it's about the importance of continuing to practice the exercises from lessons 1 and 2 regularly, and the idea that you're never *done* practicing your most basic technical skills. When I mark a lesson as complete, all it means is that you understand the goal and purpose of the exercises, not that you've come close to mastering them.

In truth, no one ever truly masters the exercises, and it's all too possible for one to get rusty if they don't practice them for a while. So, what I always recommend is to pick two or three exercises from the first two lessons each time you sit down to draw - you don't have to do them in any great quantity, just dedicate something like 15 minutes to warming up with them. Then you can move onto your work for that day.

There's two major benefits - in the short term, you'll be warmed up, and will find less resistance as you begin to move onto your main work. In the long term, you'll continue strengthening your fundamentals bit by bit every day, and this will inevitably show in your more advanced work.

2016-06-18 17:46:53 +0000 UTC View Post

Painting Process: Sacrifice

I recorded an illustration I painted recently - it was an unplanned thing, so it involves a lot of floundering to sort out compositional challenges and establish narrative. I also included a fair bit of commentary on my thoughts and a few tricks of the trade that I use frequently.

2016-06-11 01:00:50 +0000 UTC View Post

Drawabox Demo Dump

You can find the dump of 30 demos I've done as part of different students' homework critiques right here:

http://imgur.com/gallery/udZZ8

I posted this largely because free critiques are closed through June (reopening in July), so people would have a few more resources to work with. That said, for all of you folks (that is, those who either supported me in May, or pledged in June) are still welcome to submit your homework for critique on http://reddit.com/r/artfundamentals

2016-06-04 01:05:34 +0000 UTC View Post

Uncomfortable does RGD 09

2016-06-02 13:37:34 +0000 UTC View Post

May 2016 patron supported

Thank you so much for the support this month!

2016-05-31 23:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Uncomfortable does RGD 08

2016-05-29 06:41:39 +0000 UTC View Post

Uncomfortable does RGD 07

2016-05-29 06:41:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Drawing Lines that aren't shitty

http://drawabox.com/comic/1

So, as a thinly veiled marketing attempt, I decided that once in a while I'd like to create short, instructional comic strips about the simpler, but more common issues I see plaguing beginners. I figure comics tend to garner a lot of clicks, and they spread pretty easily, and they tend to communicate concepts fairly successfully so long as they're not overly complex.

I must to admit though, I haven't tried making comic strips for a decade (not since my failed attempt at a web comic when I was in high school) it's friggin' challenging. And of course, you all know how long-winded I can be, so this'll definitely take some getting used to. This one alone took me a good week of figuring out what the hell I was doing.

Don't expect these out of me too frequently (this isn't a web comic after all), but I'd like to continue making them once in a while.

2016-05-14 05:08:04 +0000 UTC View Post

April 2016 patron supported

Thank you so much for the support this month!

2016-04-30 23:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Uncomfortable does RGD 06

2016-04-16 06:22:02 +0000 UTC View Post

March 2016 Patreon supported

Thank you so much for the support this month!

2016-03-31 06:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Rotating Boxes in Perspective

Unfortunately Patreon's post system won't allow me to include links with in-page targets. You'll have to scroll all the way down to the "Rotated Boxes" section, or you can copy this url into your browser:

http://drawabox.com/lesson/1/selfcritique#boxes-rotationvps

A lot of people are struggling with this. Though I've never actually learned a specific approach on how to deal with rotation, over time I have developed a way to think about it. Today I tried to put it into words (and images), and added it to the lesson 1 self-critique resources page.

I can't guarantee that it's technically correct, but it's what has worked for me.

2016-03-27 00:29:02 +0000 UTC View Post

Nathan Aardvark's Daily Tutorials

https://www.patreon.com/nathanaardvark?ty=h

Came across this a while back - Nathan Aardvark's Patreon page has got a lot of great (free) daily tutorials/tips that you should definitely check out. Things ranging from anatomy to establishing depth in a scene, and so on - there's 77 tutorials there now, and new ones are added regularly!. And if you like what you see, be sure to give him a little something to keep him going!

2016-03-18 20:59:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Lesson 1 in Spanish!

http://drawabox.com/lesson/1/lesson/es

Finally got around to formatting and posting the Spanish translation of lesson 1. If it generates interest and traffic, I'll look into getting more translated, and perhaps into other languages as well.

2016-03-13 04:23:03 +0000 UTC View Post

February 2016 patron supported

Thank you so much for the support this month!

2016-03-01 07:59:59 +0000 UTC View Post

How to Approach Drawing Texture

I only had six critiques to do tonight, and now it's 11PM and I've only done two. Why? Because I got distracted and ended up going from doing a demo to writing up this thing on how to approach drawing texture - something a lot of you have been asking about.

Now, mind you it's called the "Texture Challenge" at the moment, but it isn't actually one. I've been meaning to create a challenge around it (à la 250 box/cylinder) but I haven't had the chance to figure out how I want togo about that. Eventually that page will contain some extra resources on the topic along with an actual challenge, but for now it's just these notes on how to draw the texture of a leaf.

I think a leaf is a particularly good example because if you look close enough, you can see a ridiculously complex network of veins which one can't possibly imagine how to render in full detail. The fact of the matter is, you don't render full detail. Hopefully I cover a lot of major issues people seem to be running into.

... Now I have to go finish those other four critiques and then get to bed.

http://drawabox.com/lesson/texture

2016-02-04 03:25:27 +0000 UTC View Post