Five Days Later....

September, 21st, 2024:

On Monday, September 16th, I began my journey deep diving into an art class that focuses on anatomy. My main focuses were starting out & also to consider how to go about completing this course. While I had some initial thoughts from my previous blog entry, I ended up rethinking that entire concept & created a new one. This is also how creating films work, you get a concept, you end up trashing the concept for a a better concept for the film that you are making. The sooner that you learn that, the better it is for you as a filmmaker down the road.

You may be asking yourself, why in the world would you reconsider your entire knowledge of art & animation after five years at a university, learning nothing but the film industry for that period of time? The answer is simple. When you learn to create, that is good, but when you learn to keep working at it until you are at your own high standards, then you are slowly becoming a master at the draft. Now, I have high standards of myself. I am however, not thinking about working at a well established or very well known studio production company because I am simply not there yet. I am what you would consider the "underdog". Just because I am making that initiative to learn more after university, does not mean I am a master. It means that I need much more work & also some networking before I can get into the industry.

Now, this morning, while I was scrolling on social media, someone left some wise words. They were not taken seriously in the industry until they were around 25. By the time they were 30, they were just then getting the respect that they deserve. Finally, at 35+, they were finally being respected as an authority figure. I am only just now shining as a 25 year old just recent post graduate. I am sure that I am considered as a much lower level compared to more experienced peers in my field of work. I do not yet have a job & it came to a shock when one of my fellow classmates made history by landing a local studio job. The instructor claims it was from the course. However, I think it was much more than that. It was the triple threat of having the confidence, the portfolio compiled & also being one of the more talented ones in the course, which also creates a more need for them. Think about the TV Show, Young Sheldon for example. Sheldon goes to a college at the young age of 11, unlike the other students, Sheldon gets everything handed to him due to his sheer talent of brilliance/intelligence. Is it fair? No. In fact, it can be seen as unfair. However, that is how life works. often more than not, people can get things handed to them simply due to their sheer talents, not having anything else to do with their character as a person. Sheldon was considered a pain in the bottom, but he was still kissed up to because he held a "higher power" than the peers around him. Am I trying to say that is how my peers got their jobs? Of course not, but I am saying that the hiring places had a more leverage for hiring them compared to everyone else. Unfortunately, not everyone has that & that is ok. But does that mean we give up? No. It means that we just try harder.

Enough rambling, my first week of my anatomy course was great because I had the control of what I learned but also how much information I took to spend that time. That is something that I enjoy my time with. No stress in a subject that I love deeply. Art is the only thing that understands me sometimes. The world that I can live in because it only exists in my brain. I had decided to get started on only one lesson, to really give myself that time to study the information for the first week. I had ended up compiling my scheduling to take a total of 10 weeks which includes doing the work into 3 different chunks or "units". The first unit would compile over the allotted time of 3 weeks & a total of 5 video lessons. The second unit would compile over the allotted time of 4 weeks & a total of 7 video lessons. The third & final unit would compile over the allotted time of 2 weeks & a total of 3 video lessons. It would have a total of 9 weeks of learning & the 10th week would be focused on building a portfolio along with seeing how my skills are compared to the learning weeks that I had compiled. It seems like a rushed learning experience but it is tailored in a way to focus on only the knowledge & practice. No homework, no stress of grades, & finally no ridiculous deadlines. I set on X day, I complete X amount of work & then I am complete for that day.

Monday: I worked on the first video lesson. I reviewed the material, took notes & worked on some references. This was all I decided to do for my first day. Here is the work that I had completed that day above.

Tuesday: I decided to begin with some research on the Loomis Method. This information was from a YouTube video & not from the anatomy course that I am taking so I am sharing the notes that I took from that video as well. I then took this information to learn how to work from multiple angles as this was something that I was struggling with on my previous day's work. While the purpose of this was NOT to add details, just to work on basic construction sketching. Here are the videos that I used for this information.

Video 1: Drawing in Loomis Method - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6KMT4Potss&pp=ygUaaG93IHRvIGRyYXcgdGhlIGh1bWFuIGhlYWQ%3D

Video 2: Drawing Heads in Any Angle with Loomis Method - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCveT3Hg5Q4

Wednesday: I continued studying the head along with the Loomis Method. I stopped trying to add in shoulders as I wanted to focus mainly on the head. You can start to see some minor improvements in my anatomy work with angles at this point. While it is only minor, you can see a tad bit of improvement compared to the first day. I re-reviewed the two videos that I had used on Tuesdays as well (reference for those are above in Tuesday's section).

Thursday: I decided to get digging deep with some knowledge about skulls! Since what is behind our faces is skulls, this is a great thing to learn as this would help with understanding the basic facial shape. You can also see in contrast to Monday's how much better the facial features were beginning to grow within the shaping. I also decided to forgo anything below the chin. While this may seem unorthodox for some as something I was taught in my university's life drawing & animation courses was that only drawing the head of characters was considered unorthodox. Which I can agree with the basics of animation on that but for learning the foundational learning space is that you want to only focus on the parts that you are learning, you don't want to get all fancy with adding shoulders & a neck because then you are not getting in that headspace of being able to learn properly. This is something that when I started, I was never taught. I was taught that an incomplete piece is ok, BUT, when you are thinking into the aspect of grades, it was not ok because you would get deductions on things that you were not actually learning. The system for art & animation is very broken in the university setting as nothing is properly taught really but instead nothing but deadlines that cause stress. Stress enough to make someone very ill. Anyways, I will share my resource for learning the skeleton below which was helpful when used in combination with the loomis method.

Beginner's Guide: Drawing Skulls - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jGUvbmZWWw&pp=ygUaaG93IHRvIGRyYXcgdGhlIGh1bWFuIGhlYWQ%3D

Friday: The end of the week, this means that it is time to put my research & countless days of practice to the test. You can see a huge jump in the amount of work that my references are getting just simply because of being able to combine the loomis method with learn how to properly draw the skull. My facial expressions do feel much more realistic but also more stronger compared to the Monday references that I had completed. You could also tell that I am getting more improved in the skull as I have been practicing these two together. I started being able to pull in together also my previous years of experience together with my new profound experience. While I am creating the hairlines, I am not trying to make the hair look great, just trying to implement features so that you can see that it is a human head. After practicing some more, it was time to work on the final thing. Every week, I will start by the video lessons that I had "assigned" myself to start on Monday. I take notes during this time. Well, on Friday, I review the material again. However, instead of taking any notes that time, I focus on drawing & comparing from my week from that Monday. This will serve as a "test" to determine if I am improving or gaining skills to where I feel confident to move onto a new topic or in my case, two topics. Below is the side by side from the skeleton that I had drew on my notes compared to the skeleton that I drew while following along the video. You can see the massive difference compared with the notes that I took on Monday, the skull that I drew on Monday.

You can see a much more perspective compared to the original drawing. Also, the skull looks more realistic compared to how off that the original skull does look. I am confident to say that I am improving enough to move on to additional topics. I will keep revisiting this topic as much as I can during my free time.

Time to move unto more art topics & I cannot wait to keep diving into the vast knowledge of learning! I am hopeful that I will show great improvement by the end of this 10 week course.