Scoss posted:

My personal theory is basically that creativity is sort of inseparable from anything you do in art, so it doesn't make sense to think about creativity and process as separate concepts. The corollary there is that if you have problems with creativity, what you really have is a problem with process execution-- and it is very possible to refine and train those skills. To boil it down, I think people become more artistically creative in direct proportion to their draftsmanship skills and understanding of nature.

Let's imagine for the sake of demonstration that you wanted to draw monsters. Classically, monsters are approached as an exercise principally of animal anatomy. That is to say, when you are imagining and designing a creature, what you are really doing is designing an animal that doesn't exist. If you want to draw even imaginary animals with any kind of believability or authority, it is necessary to have a fundamental understanding of how real animals are put together. To achieve that understanding, you have to spend time studying anatomy almost as if you were a Veterinarian or Zoologist. In concrete terms, that means something like assembling a hoard of reference material on animal skeletons, animal musculature, reference that shows off the surface materials and features of their exterior, potentially even videos or trips to a Zoo to better understand how they move and behave. For each of these kinds of reference you would carefully analyze, attempt to copy in a sketchbook or something while thinking very intently about how your subject fits together structurally, compare your copy back to the genuine article and try to assess where you made mistakes or still have insufficient understanding, and then repeat the cycle again with more analysis and copy and self-assessment, over and over and over.

If you were to do this kind of study as a daily regimen for months, you would achieve some basic proficiency in understanding what's going on inside of most animals. You would begin to see the structural similarities between different animals that are the fingerprint of evolution, and you would realize surprising things like, "fundamentally, Cats are made of basically the same parts as People". The more you fill up your memory banks with how nature works, the more inevitable it is that those ideas will swirl around and intermingle and start drawing their own connections in your imagination. What if I took the head and wings of an Eagle and synthesized it with the hindquarters of a Lion? Now you're designing creatures.

All of this knowledge also has to exist alongside a sort of fundamental competence with drawing and representing volume in 2D that people generally call "fundamentals". It's not much use to be an expert anatomist if you cannot draw a box or ellipse in perspective, or struggle with understanding light and value. There are mountains of resources online dedicated to teaching art fundamentals, which is why I have not focused on them overmuch here, but they are the other critical half of the puzzle. To briefly summarize my thoughts on learning fundamentals, I think it all really comes down to mastering observational work and learning how to truly "see" and not just "look". There is a good reason that traditional art education has for hundreds of years highly emphasized observational study and working from life. It will train your brain for more ambitious (and ultimately "creative") artistic challenges in the same way that an athlete prepares their body in a gym.

When I see people describe themselves as "pretty good" at observational drawing, or really any artistic skill set, more often than not it sets off alarm bells in my head. The Greek philosophers and their notions about "the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know" come inescapably to mind. I hope you will receive this with the warm and constructive intent with which it is offered, but from looking over the work you've posted in this thread, I think you still have quite a lot to learn about observation. Observational drawing and painting is another subject which the internet has no shortage of information about how to train, but if I were to proffer up a single suggestion for study, I would say that you should find a very good piece of photo reference, with good descriptive lighting that has both form and cast shadows, (or set up your own actual still life, always the best option if possible) and spend seriously 10+ hours on making a single study of it. Establish the structure of the drawing very carefully and accurately at the very beginning before moving on to value. Do it in whatever grayscale medium you're most comfortable with. I find that doing these kinds of long-form studies tends to effectively calibrate people about what it really means to observe carefully and how much focused intent it takes to truly nail something accurately, in a way that is impossible to ever really see if you're only ever doing 30 minutes sketches or if 2 hours seems like a long time. When it's finished, show it to other artists and ask them to help you see mistakes that you couldn't see on your own, stand back and critically assess it, and try to do better on the next one.

In conclusion, drawing from imagination is very hard, but you can nibble at it over time.

Scoss posted:

Otherwise, you end up following shape contours like a trail from anatomical landmark to landmark, desperately hoping you don't get lost along the way.

smallmouth posted:

I love your way of drawing--develop that. There's more than enough figure artists that draw "correctly" or "academically," and not nearly enough that draw emotionally.

d3c0y2 posted:

When you where drawing this piece, did you keep an idea of where this reflected light was coming from? Or do you keep it more as an idea of ambient reflected light and just go with what feels right?

Radio du Cambodge posted:

I feel this too. Do I actually like looking at portraits by that dude Prokopenko? Not really. I don't think they are totally mutually exclusive but I am worried that I will lose some of the poetry and joy that makes me really love drawing the human body if I delve too deep into technical construction. Maybe I can dip my toes into it, get some value from those exercises, and then not worry too much about it. I dunno.

my buddy Superfly posted:

lofi posted:

Looking good, loving those defined muscles! How long are you spending on those quick studies?

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Hehey, getting nice linework all up in this .. female dog?
No but seriously, I know I'm linework-biased but even those simple hatch-shadows do bring out so much more 3dness to the doggies.


I'm working on some christmas cards. It's never too early, but it IS hard to get in the mood.

Frown Town posted:

insomnia garbage

Al! posted:

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Him chonk.

Pick posted:

I'm a simple creature and I like Spock so I doodled him

d3c0y2 posted:

How do you get this effect? I'm not even sure the word i am looking for to describe it, but I love how the colours seem almost iridescent.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Him chonk.

smallmouth posted: