Artists, I have a question to ask of you

Alright, what sort of learning resources would you recommend...because art classes are just out of the picture

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Originally Posted by Walker of Darkness

Alright, what sort of learning resources would you recommend...because art classes are just out of the picture

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I'm entirely self-taught, so I completely understand where you're coming from. (Actually, I never picked up a pencil before about 3.5 years ago, to give you a frame of reference as to how doing dedicated studies can work for you.) Go to the bottom of the first post here and there's several links at the bottom that link to anatomy books, references for master studies, and gesture drawing tools.

The best anatomy books are super cheap (under $10 each) are by George Bridgman. These two are the most helpful.

Then this book for learning how to use colors and light is pretty much my bible. (And it's also inexpensive, under $20.)

Those three books are infinitely helpful. (And you can get them used off ebay for even less, even though they're already fairly cheap.)

Draw from life -- anything around you -- people, pets, spoons, shoes fruit, boxes of tissues, etc. Try to understand the forms and how light is affecting them. How are the colors working? What color is the main light source? What colors are in the shadows? Etc.

Master studies will bump your skills ahead -- Pick an artwork from someone you admire and try to copy it as close as you can -- this will teach you how the original painter used colors, rendered form, conveyed emotion through colors and expression, and it will help you get a better control over your own anatomy/brushwork. You learn a LOT from doing these. Srsly.

You can totally teach yourself -- a lot of the most successful artists I know are self-taught.. You just have to have the discipline to stick with it and do the work.

Now, obviously, I'm gunning to be a professional artist, so my studies are a lot more hardcore because I'm trying to get as good as I can as quickly as I can. This is the schedule I generally follow every day. (Well, I should be following -- I've been a bit lax lately between work and getting ready to move.) It gives a good structure of how to organize your studies that you might find helpful.

*Losses internet connection after asking spam serious question. Comes back hours later to most amazing tidbits of information ever.*

Sherly, I love you. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Walker of Darkness

*Losses internet connection after asking spam serious question. Comes back hours later to most amazing tidbits of information ever.*

Sherly, I love you. Thank you.

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No problem. If you have any other questions, I'm alway happy to try and help.

Amazon gave me the kindle edition of The Human Machine for free! :D
Here

Different book. Nevermind. :(

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Originally Posted by Sherlock Holmes

This is the schedule I generally follow every day. (Well, I should be following -- I've been a bit lax lately between work and getting ready to move.) It gives a good structure of how to organize your studies that you might find helpful.

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"Absolutely NO IM until 4pm unless totally necessary!"

:p

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Originally Posted by Sophistikit

"Absolutely NO IM until 4pm unless totally necessary!"

:p

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Yeaaaah.. I used to be much better about that. XD

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Originally Posted by Sherlock Holmes

This.

Look at even the old masters of surrealism and abstraction.. People like Picasso and Dali started off with realism -- they had to learn how the rules worked so they could understand how/when it was appropriate to bend or break them.

Pretty much every professional animator/comic artist I know (and several who work in manga/anime specifically) started off learning realism and that's why their work works. They understand how to construct figures solidly -- you can't make stylistic choices if you don't understand why you're making them.

Every week the artists at Pixar have life drawing classes to help their artists be able to punch more depth / life into their works, even though their movies are quite stylized.

When you have a basis in realism, you're not limited -- you'll be able to create anything you can imagine and make it look convincing. If you start off with something already stylized, you're cutting off your nose despite your face and it's extremely difficult to evolve beyond that point - you've stunted yourself. The best you'll be able to do is have work that never looks unique because all you know is how to work based off choices someone else has already made, not choices you've made. You'll be a hack or a copycat artist at best, to put it bluntly. Don't do that to yourself.

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I've been learning art backwards my entire life.

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Originally Posted by PaladinFoster

I've been learning art backwards my entire life.

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Well, no time like the present to try turning things around, right?

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Originally Posted by Sherlock Holmes

Well, no time like the present to try turning things around, right?

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Well, I have been working on my realism. Still, I think I'm better suited to art of the written word than art of the drawings and paintings.