Day 2 – First Attempt at a Side Profile

It’s day 2, and I have decided to try something a bit different. I spent a lot of time thinking on this and attempting to figure out exactly what type of art I would like to produce, and I landed on anime/manga art for a couple reasons. The first being that it is incredibly accessible from manga I can easily study and replicate, to anime on Crunchyroll that I can easily watch. The second is that it sort of fits the theme of this blog and the eventual YouTube channel that will accompany it. From stick figures to anime waifus!

I also think being able to design characters and eventually create a web comic could be a pretty cool endeavor that gives me a solid goal to work toward. I am definitely going to need goals lined up in order to keep myself on track with this. I don’t really want to go in blindly, because I am afraid that will make it more difficult to see my actual progress.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to start with, and I was afraid if I started with heads or faces it would cause issues for me. I have seen a number of creators do this and really struggle to move over to full body drawings, and my goal is to become a better artist… not just a guy who can draw faces really good. That’s what lead me to Kimiharu Obata’s course on Udemy. He actually starts with side profiles and shows how to proportion them in a reasonable way… which I definitely didn’t do today… but I think it’s a decent first attempt anyway.

To the software!

I have to admit, I almost did this on paper and likely will use paper to practice for a bit, just because I am still really not familiar with Corel Painter 2023 yet and definitely haven’t made it past the “disconnect” between using a tablet and laptop. I think a Wacom display is in my near future, but for now the tablet and laptop combo works pretty well, it’s just going to take a while before my brain likes it.

I did discover this cool feature in Painter though:

It can be found under Window > Composition > Layout Grid and setting it like above puts a vertical guide directly down the page like this:

It definitely helps with lining everything up. I am sure other software has the same grid system, and I am just easily amused, but I am new to this… I spent two hours clicking random buttons and drawing lines yesterday… Go easy on me.

So, what did I learn?

It’s hard… It’s really hard. There is a severe disconnect between drawing on the tablet and having to look at the screen. I kept fighting the urge to look down to see what I was doing. I feel like an iPad or a Wacom display would have made the process a bit easier.

I am also really bad at drawing basic shapes. Part of that is because of the tablet itself and not quite being used to it, but I haven’t had to draw shapes in so long that I am pretty rusty. I probably should focus on that in the near future, but I also feel like I did alright for my first attempt. I mean this is literally day 2, I can’t expect perfection, or this is going to be a real long year.

Lastly, my proportions are a little off. Everything is a bit rough. Lines are more difficult than I thought they would be, and I haven’t quite found the brushes I really want to use. I do like the pencil brushes, but I also need to find a couple good pens for this as well. I think once I get more practice with the tablet my lines will improve a lot. I am going to practice with the female side profile a bit more and I may try the male profile at some point, but I am not sure if I should move on quite yet. I may also give it a shot on actual paper.

In the end I feel like it was a decent day. I learned something and enjoyed doing it. Onto the next!