Serbia is gorgeous!

I'm finally away meeting family in Serbia and I must say it's gorgeous here! I'm getting so inspired from being here so I've now got loads of drawings that I want to create. 

So as promised, I've uploaded a picture that I created for my sisters 18th. I thought I'd create something that shoes the different sides to her, although it not very clear on the drawing. 

I was also pretty productive on the flight. Sketched out a drawing I want to attempt using my simple style and planned a couple of other drawings. So hopefully I'll be uploading something else soon. I may not upload something at the end of this week since I get back pretty late on Friday. I'll wait and see how I feel and if I get enough drawn by then. 

A little late

I'm a little bit late this time. I meant to upload on Sunday but I never got round to it. I'm away for a week on Friday but I should be able to upload something either just before I go or while I'm away so there should be a post for this week too.

I've been busy doing lots of sketches. Nothing anywhere near complete but it feels good getting lots of ideas down again. Especially when I'd been struggling before with my artist's block. For some reason I've been sketching a lot of halloween themed drawings. Definitely seeing some improvements as I'm drawing without reference and completely from my imagination. Plus my characters seem to have a lot more "life" in them now - not completely rigid poses. Still plenty to improve on but I'm making some progress.

I've already started work on the drawing for this week's post. It's my sister's 18th so I thought I'd draw her something. I also wanted to experiment a bit with drawing hair so I've got another character on the way. Some day I will actually get that forest scene finished or at least enough done to post an update on this. I have been working on it but as so many ideas came to my head I thought it was best to sketch them before they go. Hopefully I'll have more to show of it when I'm back from my holiday.

Work drawing

Almost time for my week away so been busy preparing for it. This means that the blog post this week will just be of a drawing I did while on my breaks in work. I'm hoping to get some more development done of the snow forest drawing done by next week. Hopefully I'll have the time for this. 

Anyway I'm pretty happy with this drawing. It's inspired by ghibli's princess kaguya. Looking forward to seeing this film when it's out here so thought I'd show this with a drawing. 

That's all for this week. Hopefully there will be a lot more to show next blog post. 

Quick post

Just a quick post this time. I lost track of time drawing so didn't get round to posting last week. There should be another one later in the week (hopefully) to make up for it. 

So this time I decided to create something completely by myself - including my own concept. I've felt very lost and isolated since leaving uni as I've not known what to do and how to move forward - something I'm sure many people feel when they finally set off in the big bad world. 

So really this picture is just trying to tell that story. It may not come across well but I'm learning. Trying to develop my own style in the process so I think I'm starting to see it coming through. Found an artist on deviant art that has a similar style so it's really helped inspire me. It's taking me a while but when I get used to using no references I'll be able to speed up. Quite pleased with the result though. Despite it still mostly being sketchy. 

My creativity is back!

I think my artist's block is going! All it took was a bit of experimenting by myself with no references and a new style. So I decided in work experience I'd stop this copying another artist's work in my own style. I saw an image and decided that I'd do a forest scene. Everything in it was drawn without a reference and even using my own colours. Also, I thought I'd add the flowers myself to make it prettier. I'm pretty pleased with the result. Definitely making progress! Plus I think I'm starting to develop my own style, which is really neat! 

After many relaxing days - plenty of which were spent playing games - I looked through my photos of my trip to the zoo and came across the penguins. They're my favourite animal. I realised that I don't draw animals (at all!) so I'm going to have to start sketching some. Don't know why I never got round to it, especially when it'd help with creating my own characters. Anyway, I just started sketching some penguins, finally got a picture I liked and tried out a new brush. I actually really like it. It's a bit of an adaption from my Japanese girl picture. It's a similar enough style so I think I'm going to be developing it a bit more.

I was so pleased with the penguin drawing that I kept messing about. The colours need worked on but I really do like this style. There are so many things you can do with it so I'm going to keep using it. Looking forward to seeing what I can come up with.

New mindset

It's not often I come home after work and feel like being productive. After a few messages from people on twitter, I decided that I needed to update and start with a new mindset. I've been in a slump lately and found it very difficult to get out of. I've been drawing so much but ran out of ideas and even started to avoid drawing but all I needed was to take a step away and enjoy myself. I had a good time with friends, went to work, the usual stuff minus the drawing and I feel it's helped. Plus I've had a few conversations with popular artists, some even saying that I've to send a message cause they want to follow my work. That really gave me a kick start. It's not often that I get such positive feedback, well not from people who make a living from their work. 

So I've had a flick through all my different accounts and decided that I need things to be a bit more professional. I'm considering doing a redesign of my website, perhaps when I have more time but for now I concentrated on my twitter. I wanted something simple that shows off my work. I think it does a nice enough job.

Some actual work in progress this week too! It'll probably take me a while to finish these as I'm doing them within my own time. Thought I may as well show them to show that I have actually been doing some work! The first was a drawing I did cause I felt a bit trapped, only drawing what people expected rather than what I wanted to show. I also wanted to see how I'd cope with drawing something completely without any reference. I'm amazed with the result. Before I started experimenting I couldn't draw anything in proportion and my characters looked robotic. Think this shows how far I've came just from drawing continuously and experimenting with styles and ideas.

I also wanted to try something a bit more peaceful. I love playing the piano so thought this would be a good thing to draw. With this I'm trying to experiment with my own colours and different brushes. Still got a long way to go but at least it's a start!

I'm learning!

So this week I came down with a really bad bug. Got time off work to recover but I was too ill to go near a computer and do much work. I did create some quick character sketches when I was getting better so I'd have something to show. Plus a friend of mine requested characters that resembled myself and two other friends. Not the best drawings I've done but the proportions are at least better than my older ones. Shows I'm learning. Plus the colours are much better than previous attempts.

My friend is a big "yes" supporter (for the scottish independence vote) so he wanted some artwork that showed this. Since he's not a big fan of drawing he asked me to do this for him and then I decided to experiment with myself and my friend Lilia, along with our favourite "Pokemon".

I do have two other sketches that I'm planning on colouring. Hopefully at least one will be finished by next week - if not then I'll do some more experimentation until they're ready. They're completely my own design (no copying artwork to learn) as I feel I'm ready to start experimenting. Perhaps these won't be great, but at least I'm trying and not getting too comfortable with using someone else's artwork as a platform to learn. 

Also, before I forget. I did promise to show the character design I did a few weeks ago. Dun dun DUUUUUUN!

Here he is. I won't disclose too much about the company - been asked to do some more freelance work for them so hopefully this'll go well and I'll have more to show. This isn't the final character so I'm able to show this as it belongs to myself. The aim was to create a character that kids could like. I'm quite pleased with this as it's not too kiddy. Plus everyone I've shown seem to fall in love with the character so I must have done something right.