Post your noticeable improvements in 2018

[demotlj]

It was hard for me to answer this question, because I've spent the last year experimenting with so many different techniques -- digital, watercolor, pen and ink -- and so everything I do is still pretty beginning level but here are two that definitely show improvement in values, line work, and rendering. The first is from last August and the second is from one I recently finished. Not only is the improvement due to SVS lessons but the second is one I posted to the forum and people's advice helped immensely.

[Jabbernewt]

Thanks for asking the forum, @Art-of-B!

I think my chiefmost improvement was in color, but there has been an overall elevation in my personal ability to do good work. Here's something from earlier in the year:

I labored over this one out of passion for a lovely lady I'm privileged enough to call Girlfriend, but while the passionate side of the work made things come together fairly well, I don't think this could be called much other than a study. At the time, this was the best I had ever done in terms of color, and with all the details involved (a lot for me at the time) I'd say that it was a breakthrough, but not phenomenal. Not to mention, I didn't really know a ton about painting or brushes, so I was at a disadvantage there as well.

This illustration kinda showcases how far I've come this year. I understand color way better, I've begun to understand painting and light, and my composition skills, while not particularly revolutionary in this one, are better, most likely due to Inktober training. It's messy in spots, but I've recently begun branching my skills out again, so, for a little while, I'm alright with that.

Also, lots of the help I've needed to improve has come from the SVS community, so thank you!

[ArtofAleksey]

This year has been a big deal for me. I finished inktober all the way through. Some drawings i loved some I could have worked on a little more. I became better at designing characters. I just started learning composition and color.

The froggy was a character i designed after doing my first few SVS classes. The Baba Yaga chicken house was a inktober drawing (which i will probably use for a story I’m writing) and the little adventurer with the big skeleton is my end of year piece where I’m trying to incorporate composition and value. This actually made me feel a lot better because I’ve been feeling like I’m not getting anywhere lately. Ty

[Jabbernewt]

@swordofodin Ah! I love so many things about the last piece! Your texture has a lot of economy-- I really appreciate that!

[ArtofAleksey]

@jabbernewt thanks! Can you elaborate more on what you mean by economy? If people like thay i wanna hone in on it haha

[Jabbernewt]

@swordofodin Well, economy typically refers to the effectiveness with which a creative makes their marks. To take a look at graphic design, cutting-edge logos these days are super economical, like this one here:

There's extremely effective minimalism in this logo, which simultaneously ends up denoting a B, headphones, direction of the head-- but bottom line is that the logo is extremely economical.

In the realm of illustration economy is even more important because you've got many complicated compositions to render, each with all sorts of texture and weight and emphasis, and yadda yadda yadda. Economy in illustration usually means representing the most with the least, which is what you have done with the textures in your DnD illustration. Your economy is super effective because it is clean, but it is simultaneously very rich in the amount of information it offers to the viewer! If all that stuff just comes naturally to you then I suppose you just have a wicked sense of economy already, but either way you did well with your visual economy. (thereby making everything nice and readable, yet very interesting and detailed)

[ArtofAleksey]

@jabbernewt ohhh ok cool thanks for explaining this! Yeah i tried to study some old illustrators from the 1900s to see hiw they did it and to see if i could incorporate it myself. Im glad that its paying off.

[Jabbernewt]

@swordofodin It certainly has!

[Kevin Longueil]

@art-of-b I am not sure of how to describe the improvement - but i think i am drawing better than i was a year ago.... Was not thinking i would be posting any more Oz stuff here but i think this might be a good example of my possible progress

[Whitney Simms]

@Art-of-B seriously, who knew watching David Malan draw with mechanical pencil would have an impact on my style. If course I’ve known about them all my life, but who knew a constantly sharp pencil would be so much fun to draw from!

Great topic! So great to try and find signs of improvement. And LOVE see everyone’s work! What motivation to see growth in everyone. Keep
Practicing!

[braden H]

@kevin-longueil Oh wow! That's definitely what I'd call improvement! Nice work

[braden H]

@demotlj Fiddling with techniques is one of those things that seems like a waste of time, but almost always pays off I see definite improvement!

[braden H]

@jabbernewt Marked improvement! Your knowledge of colour has certainly improved

[Sas]

@art-of-b Looking good!!! I love your even lines (secretly really jealous of them :p)

[Sas]

@whitney-simms Wow what an improvement!

[Sas]

@swordofodin I love your art That's all I wanted to say

[ArtofAleksey]

@sas aw really? thank you that makes me really happy to hear

[Jason Bowen]

I have slowly begun to realise I can paint on photoshop almost like I can with oils. In fact it has made me a better oil painter because I can do more paintings in photoshop. This year I have improved a lot

[robgale]

This is such a great thread! It's really fun, and encouraging to see how everyone has grown this year. I know I struggle sometimes with feeling like I'm not getting anywhere, but it's always a good reality check to see what you were doing a year, or even two or three years ago.

@Art-of-B the line work exercises you showed are definitely something I've started working on as well, and it's amazing to see how helpful that can be. I now recommend it to anyone I can think of to recommend it to.

I really like the idea of doing a painting at the beginning of the year and then doing the same one again, with a similar amount of effort at the end of the year.

It's not exactly beginning of the year to now progress, but it shows an evolution, so I thought I'd share. Here are a couple shots demonstrating a concept that I'm currently working on and have learned more about this year, which is trying to create more dynamism and 3 dimensionality in my drawings. These are both sketches of similar characters, but you can see how the second one has a more dynamic pose, and I'm trying to think of each and every part as it would live in 3D space, whereas the first one was done a couple years ago, and the pose is more straightforward and the details more generalized.

I don't think I could have done the second one earlier in the year, I learned and practiced a lot of perspective and simple forms in space types of exercises, and I know there's a lot more I can do to help push it even further.