Leonie draws boxes from imagination.

Yeah I was winging this sketchy illustration without measuring perspective. I did these boxes at random ;D

I didn’t really bother checking if it’s technically correct and went by gut feeling.

9 pages & 505 boxes studied from other artists + my own imaginary ones

Study references, teachers & resources credit: Marshall Vandruff, Form intersection pack, DrawABox, ArtWod, Krenz & ModernDayJames (note I don’t know these artists well, I’m just learning!)

Essentially I studied what they demonstrated and then I did some of my own boxes in between. Trying to be less rusty and get a little bit more confidence to do it from my own tiny visual library and muscle memory. Whenever it’s a mix of studying from other artists and my own boxes, I’ll keep it within this blog with credit from generous, educational artists!

I keep most things documented here either way :’)

Note I didn’t count/number forms that are not boxes ;P

So after doing so many boxes, is it worth it??

I didn’t have to do so many and I probably went overboard trying to get through the resources I had. I don’t remember and I didn’t track how much time it took to do these! :’)

It’s more about getting comfortable drawing and rotating boxes. I’m not sure if I’m there yet from memory so I have a long way to go. It’s a fun little exercise! It gets my visual brain muscles exercising!

It’s definitely more of a muscle memory & perspective exercise for me. Boxes are the basic building blocks of many things! Also I wanted to see how far I can go, experiment, rotate/manipulate boxes and make & accept mistakes along the way.

You can argue that I manipulate boxes already in my HW voxel artist work but it’s not the same ;P

I did start getting existential in later pages because these pages are definitely not enough on their own. I’m no expert in perspective as I’m just eyeballing it the best I can. It’s good, simple revision and practice!

I know this could potentially lean towards structural fundamentals, industrial design and technical illustrations which are not my interests but I don’t mind dabbling a bit. I hope to revisit these drawing fundamentals and boxes when I get around to studying from other resources.

Social media and me (again)

Striving to care less, manage my performance anxiety and to allow myself to make mistakes, explore and practice! I definitely use social media to post rather than consuming it so that I don’t fall into the unhealthy, comparison mindset. Admittedly I do long for more reach, I have plateaued on social media for years and I lament about the lack of growth – I’m still trying to minimise these comparative, negative, jealous, toxic thoughts! Striving to take it less seriously and keep a distance from social media on a day to day basis. I’m already isolated hermit as it is and seeing the best/social/toxic/overwhelming sides of many internet people doesn’t really help.

I have often wondered on whether I should post more sketches and space it out on twitter but metrically they don’t really do too well. I don’t want to post too frequently either so I’ll just stick to 1-3 times a week (I don’t want to spend too much time on social media)! Undoubtedly I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

Tracking progress, habits and not worrying about grand art goals/dreams

Steven Zapata’s talk on forgetting your art goals/resolutions is a great reassurance to me. Because I’m too tired, burnt out and jaded to have *art goals*. Or at least art goals that are based on results and destination.

Goals and making stuff of “value to the industry” paralyses and stresses me out on how I’m not doing enough and how far behind I am. My standards are too high for me to reach. Ultimately I don’t care about doing grand, ambitious things and fitting into the industry anymore. I feel numb with the industry in some ways. Is that a bad sign?

I am complacent/content just doing the creative process and tackling one thing at a time like a little turtle.

Recently I’ve been tracking and documenting what life and art habits I do each day and it’s much more encouraging and forgiving to document whether it happened or not, how much and how long for a given day. This is more encouraging than an “all or nothing” mindset when striving to do things consistently. This is more of a “what kind of a person/artist/profession/friend you want to be right now on a day to day basis” and “how much effort you’re putting in towards it” kind of goal rather than striving for outcomes in the distant future!

It’s not about disappointing myself and more “how much progress in my habits and routine” I can make today or this week? It’s okay if I don’t progress on a given day since life happens too.

As a result I’m more focused on consistent effort/growth (in slow and small increments), on what time blocked habits/things I want to keep as part of my routine and see where that takes me. At the moment I’m tracking 15 things in a spreadsheet, some of which a bundled together! Learning to be more compassionate with myself and that it’s not possible to juggle everything in a single, given day :’)

Ultimately I just want to learn, create things, share/document that and enjoy this process for a sustainable living. Maybe that is a dream but a very vague, flexible, distant, “living in the moment”, manageable and idealistic one :<

It’s comforting to hear that I’m doing okay, doing what feels right for me :’)

Been feeling super groggy, tired, sluggish, sore and in pain all over since my booster vaccine so my weekend wasn’t really good nor too productive. A lot of grumbling and groaning in contrast to my first two doses. At least it forced me to relax and to do the minimum (or have much lower expectations) for the habits I’m tracking!

I didn’t focus and really didn’t feel like doing anything. I’m better now but still sore and back to the usual level of tired :’)

Digressing. Thank you so much for reading! Please have a good day and week ahead!

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