Being inspired by art you see on the internet is both good and bad. It's bad when you copy the style, and not the substance. This video discusses the danger of digital painting fads like 'speed-painting' and 'painting silhouettes'. In this video I break from tradition and use some examples of other artits' work: David Levy and Mike Yamada. To see more of their paintings, make sure to check out both vyle-art.com and myamada.com.
Do you keep an "inspiration" folder? You should! This video explains the benefits of keeping a folder of inspirational paintings, and organizing them with Adobe Bridge. There are a variety of programs that offer similar tagging and organizing, but Adobe Bridge integrates well with other Adobe software, so I like it a lot.
Painting requires you to think about many things, and one of them is color. Learning to accurately observe color will translate into more efficient painting. The less time you spend re-painting the same area of yor canvas searching for the perfect color, the quicker you will be able to finish the work and move onto another. This video offers a color drill which is all about careful observation. How close can you get? Reader Aaron M. reminded me of a fantastic follow-up: The Munsel Hue Test. This is a fun way to test your hue observation skills. I would love to see scores for both of these games in the comments!
I'm having a blast making these videos for you guys. It's great hearing the interesting conversation, and swapping techniques with all of you artists. That said, I need to keep the lights on here in Ctrl+Paint tower, so you guys need to help spread the word! I hope you've noticed that the website has no advertising, and lost of free videos! None of this is free for me, so another way you can help is by purchasing one of the premium series from the store. Thanks, everyone - and keep being an amazing community!
Do you ever feel like you're treading water? You're stgnating, while the rest of the art community is progressing at lightning speed? You're not alone.This video is a little detour from the standard ctrl+paint technique videos to talk about inspiration, mindset, and 'getting better'. Ultimately, we're all experiencing this in one form or another, so it's worth talking about. Remember: even professionals feel sub-par a fair amount of the time. Art is mind game. UPDATE: It's been really, really great hearing these responses. Art is one of those challenges that we all take on personally - and can feel isolated by the effort. Knowing that everyone else is wrestling with similar issues can be a big help.
So keep the conversation going -- It's an important one to be a part of. Additionally, reader "Jonathan" reminded me of a fantastic series of videos by the radio host Ira Glass on storytelling and inspiration. He's the host of This American Life, and has a lot of experience fighting through the self doubt and frustration involved in creative work. It's definitely worth watching.
In the years I've studied drawing, "constructive form" has made the largest impact on me. The general idea is to visually reduce complex forms into simpler ones, and make your drawing challenge more manageable. Especially as a concept artist, drawing from one's imagination is essential. Teaching yourself to envision objects in this simplified manner is a key concept for improving your imaginary drawing skills.
What happens where two faces of a cube meet? I'll give you a hint: it's not a a razor sharp divide between the two surfaces. This video zooms in on edges and bevels and explains their importance in painting. Additionally, industrial design lives and dies by tiny details like the radius of a bevel or corner - so this is valuable information for aspiring designers of all stripes.
Whenever a new medium emerges, artists are quick to dismiss it as inferior -- and digital painting has been received negatively by many artists. This video is my attempt to argue in favor of digital painting. Of course, there's no correct medium to work in. Working digitally, though, brings some wonderful new opportunities to the table. Besides, when was the last time you hand-wrote a letter? With my commercial work I find the best solution is almost always a combination of tools: some 3D, a little photo-texture, lots of reference imagery, and digital painting to pull it all together.