January Day 1 to 7: journalling approach begins!

Hullo my wonderful friend! Yes I’m talking to you. (:

I have been inspired by this gentleman’s journal here [Matej Jan/Retronator as he’s also known as] to do a daily journal like thing to record what I draw everyday. He’s been updating his deviantart journal everyday from January, he’s pretty inspiring! (:

What am I up to?

I’ve begun some online workshops this month so I’ve been pretty busy. I don’t have much of a social life anyway while I’m learning so much! I’m just sad I couldn’t start one of these courses yet because of my current workload…the time will come!!

Anyway, my 3D animation course will also recommence soon but I can hopefully manage. So you would see a only few snippets of the things I do for these courses below (without me getting into trouble of course as all of these kind people got livelihoods)!

I’ve got a journal to begin but…
This is what I’ve been doing before the 21st, all of them work in progress (WIP):

WIP: Don’t Be Shy, Lad!

WIP: Everyday

WIP: Composition Thumbnails that I did after the one below; loads of things to improve here

WIP: When Boy meets Foot

WIP: Composition Thumbnails; not there yet 🙁

WIP: Composition Thumbnails…I still need to practice some more

 

About these journals

Ratio of text to images is not going to be even! The text at least records my efforts without feeling I have to show something visually (so no, it’s not a personal diary full of mundane, everyday things).

Hoping that this inspires others somewhat just as Matej has for me, to keep myself on track without having to show images all the time and to show that finished images don’t magically come out of thin air. Shall all be tagged as “journal”.

I guess these journals will be mostly text with maybe some images. Progressively I hope I will be able to show more images as I do these journals though when I become more confident in my learning journey (which will span for as long as I live probably)!

I’m going to approach it as at least bi-weekly or weekly thing but this first one will be for 7 days (as I started late!). I will keep appending new entries as I go along and then actually post them up publicly at the end. I am hoping that I would make this weekly eventually if there’s too much things to pack in one post. Think of this as a different approach in my blogging adventures, still regular but not too much in one post. I may post selected pieces out of my blog to my tumblr and maybe my other sketchbook threads too when time allows.

Enough rambling. Let’s go crazy!

DAY 1: 21st Jan mon

• did only a bit of the morning drawing exercises
• busy reading content and catching up with the wonderful feedback from the BABA workshop

DAY 2: 22nd tues

• drawing exercises through the morning & day in between breaks
• reading the BABA content continued

DAY 3: 23rd wed

• BABA: reading content continued
• BABA: lighting research

DAY 4: 24th thur

• BABA: lighting research continued
• Anatomy proportions & key skeleton features overview, study & homework
• Loomis’ Figure Drawing for all its Worth (FDfaiW) notes (with my infamous bad photo quality…one day I’ll afford an actual camera. One day.):

DAY 5: 25th fri

• Anatomy readings & notes continued
• BABA: lighting analysis
• BABA: lighting homework

DAY 6: 26th sat

• BABA: lighting homework continued
• BABA: values homework

DAY 7: 27th sun

• BABA: values homework continued
• Anatomy homework review
• Loomis’ FDfaiW notes continued:

Reflections so far & what the distant future would bring

I
am not sure if I’m looking forward to the holidays ending; don’t feel
ready as I’ve focused my energies on 2D foundational skills and there’s
many more years of hard work to go. I do feel conflicted somewhat in
that the real life course I’m doing is 3D whereas I’m going for the
preproduction/concept art route. I do enjoy sculpting however and I have
yet to learn Zbrush and 3Dcoat properly (only when I can see the wireframe for my retoped mesh though!!). Not sure how relevant the course is to me now
though I do hope that I could control what areas I’d like to focus on
towards my portfolio rather than allow the course dictate everything I
do this time around.

I’m also thinking what lies
ahead at the end of the year. Admittedly, I fear I won’t find a job of
any kind by the end of the year as I feel like I have ages to go before I
am at a professional level of skill and by my introverted nature, I
believe I’m finding it difficult to make lasting friends, let alone
balance between being pleasant to others and being yourself as you
network (that is, if you know who & where to network with in the
first place, and I have no clue).
I’m finding I’ve got increasing
mountains of foundational things to learn and I don’t think trying to do
it all during this year would cut it. Let me tell you, self teaching
route is not easy. You need to find a support group who are also
learning beside you and/or mentor as you go along as well as the time to spare. And I don’t think I have that yet.

How
do people juggle these things (job, life, learning, portfolio,
networking, business, health, recreation) when I’m the kind who likes
focusing on one or so thing at a time? Amazing if you are one of those people.
Honestly I prefer to hone my skills in many areas before anything but I
know it can’t be helped and sometimes things must be learned along the
way.

Currently my future past this end of the year is drawing a blank with a heavy cloud of uncertainty hanging over as I have nothing planned. Every fibre of my being just wants to keep working at my foundational art skills and worry about the other things later. Still it keeps nagging in the back of my mind. What is a specific next step I can take, right now so that the future past this end of the year isn’t full of questions?

Indeed I sound pretty negative in my
outlook; I have been conditioned deeply that I am supposedly going to
fail especially in a highly competitive industry so I’m trying to be
objective and realistic by looking at all possible options. Perhaps I’ve
overlooked some due to my tunnel vision and due to feeling like I don’t
know where to go next from here in order to keep going. Am lost in terms
of where & how and with whom I fit in the industry. I’m too much
of a hermit to know any better. Perhaps I really need to “get out”a bit more though the thing is specifically, to where?

And why am I sharing this publicly my fears, insecurities and thoughts in terms of my future? I’ve even considered deleting this whole thing in fear of being seen as not confident and too personal. I guess I feel it is relevant towards my art learning journey towards an uncertain career in the creative industries and I don’t feel so alone with my thoughts by putting it up here.
Outlet I guess!! And who really reads my blog unless you actually care and am curious about what makes me tick behind my art learning journey? Am human after all as fear is a normal part of life & it’s all about what you do with it. I’m just…not sure specifically what I want fear to drive me to do.

For now, I’m not going to worry myself out and I’m just going to keep focused on learning as I’m juggling with learning on its own already.

So: Begone negative thoughts! Begone!!  Let’s step things up!! fist pump (:

I hope you’re working and playing hard towards your dreams! Thanks for looking! (:
Connecting with me, commenting and/or constructive feedback would be welcomed and appreciated!
Until next time,
Leonie aka UUUinfinity aka Triple U infinity