If anatomy's been one of those areas you've known you need to work on but it's just too much of a pain to work through all those tedious textbooks, I would recommend checking out this resource: [link]

I haven't gone all the way through it so I can't vouch for it in its entirety, but it looks like a good, user-friendly way to take bite-sized chunks of learning anatomy! Now, knowing the bones and muscles isn't all that's required to draw great figures, but knowing what pieces exist and being able to name them helps you remember that they're there and you can be more specific when you draw and study.

If you enjoy this and want to dig in to anatomy and figure construction even deeper, I'd recommend checking out this book list: [link]

Since all I've been posting is studies lately, here's a tiny snippet of a piece in progress. Contrary to the last few of these I've posted, this one is well on its way to being finished, expect to see it sometime next week! I've also been saving the steps and plan to make a tutorial out of it (like I promised ages ago, hah).



Guesses on who he's fighting?

Cheerio!

After over two years, I've decided to resurrect the once awesome study group Daily Challenge! If you're wanting to improve your artistic skills and get feedback/critiques from me and other artists, check it out and apply for membership!

What is it?
In short, Daily Challenge is a study group for whoever is dedicated about their artwork and wants to improve a specific area of their skills. Those who participate will design a project and plan how they're going to improve, and then draw/study every day to attain their goal! We want to inspire each other by posting regularly and giving each other feedback. If you want to boost your skills and get a kick in the pants to work harder, check it out!

Hope to see you there!
-Jon

Howdy folks, it's been a while! Quick journal to let you know some of the things that have been going on lately,

First off, I entered a couple pieces in the Infected By Art contest! If you have a few spare moments and wouldn't mind signing up real quick to drop a vote, I'd appreciate it! There's some cool prizes and the most popular work will get published in their book!
You can check out the entries here:
[link]
[link]

Thanks in advance if you have the time!

SECONDLY!!! The kiriban tutorial, yes it is still coming! I'm still not sure if it will be video or text, but it'll probably happen after the holidays. I'll try and get a preview of the piece up soon so there's something to chew on.

And laaaastly, I'm kind of getting in the habit of posting my studies and such to facebook, so if you guys like seeing these kind of posts:

Feel free to add me on facebook, cause they get posted a lot more often on there! You can check out my page here: [link]

And that's it, hope you're all doing well and have a happy holiday!

EDIT:

And thusly it has crossed, 100k pageviews! Thanks again everyone, read below the dashes for the full version of the sappy dA love story. TL;DR you guys are awesome.

It sounds like the popular vote is a tutorial! So I'm thinking of doing an in-depth video tutorial documenting an entire painting from initial ideas to final polish. And though I'm not doing a kiriban, ~fankisten took the time to page camp anyways, so I'm letting him make a suggestion to what the painting should be. Looks like it might be something to do with dragons, which I guiltily confess I've never actually drawn or painted, but every fantasy artist needs a good ol dragon in their gallery so... there you go!

For timeline, I have a chunk of freelance work to finish and this tutorial will probably take a while to put together, so I'll post WIP shots of the piece or something as it progresses, or maybe even post the tutorial in individual segments as I finish each one. We'll see.

Thanks again, dAFolk! You da bomb!

I have to go learn how to draw dragons now...

-----

Wowza, just noticed that my pageviews are almost at 100k. SOUNDS LIKE CELEBRATION TIME!!

But no, that's really awesome, I've been on dA five years and can honestly say that I wouldn't be where I am today without all the help, encouragement, advice and support from all you lovely folks on dA, and I'm hugely grateful for the friendships made here and I really appreciate all your guys' kind words about my work! You're all awesome, and if I could bake you all a giant fudge cake I would!

However, I cannot bake a giant fudge cake, so instead I'll do something art-ish instead! So what kind of stuff would you guys want to see? A traditional kiriban (probably a quick character illustration)? Perhaps an in-depth tutorial showing an illustration from start to finish (text or video)? A more specific tutorial covering one specific aspect? A ridiculous painting of a zerg llama? Something else completely? Let me know! We'll make it happen. AND FOR REAL THIS TIME cause I might've forgotten about the last one?

So yeah, thanks again for all your guys' support, it means the world to me! Give yourself a hug and whisper sweet nothings in to your ear from me!

Hey folks, just a quick and random heads up, if you missed it yesterday one of my instructors and studio leaders, Vanessa Lemen, got a DD!

Check it out here:


And be sure to check out the rest of her beautiful gallery as well; she's an amazing traditional painter, carrying on the fine tradition of oil painting in a really unique way!



Enjoy!

Here's a little snippet of a (much larger) upcoming piece, the first one I'm doing for portfolio building!
Been focusing a lot on improving the quality of my early stages; the exploration, thumbnailing and drawing stages, and I think it's making a big difference. Really excited for this one! I think you guys will like it!

Go art go!

Haha, so it was predicted and so it has happened. In the wee hours of last night, this thing got a DD:


Before I say anything though, go give *LhuneArt some love and watches!!! She is equally responsible for this ridiculous pony as she did the original lines which you can see here:


So yeah, I find this whole thing absolutely hilarious, dA you are a silly place. xP
Thanks a bunch to everyone for all the comments and faves, and hello to all the new watchers! I might not be able to reply to everyone but I'll read all of them! And also thanks to ^pica-ae for suggesting it and ^Lyricanna for featuring it!

Oh the shenanigans!

Well, two years later (holy crap!) and it's almost done! I'm in my last semester at TAD, graduating this December! Pretty dern crazy, I can't believe how quickly time has gone by. Definitely learned a lot during my time here, mostly how to bust my arse and work the ridiculous hours that are required of an artist, but also plenty about art too.

So yeah, I'm pretty stoked, this semester's going to be all about portfolio building so hopefully by the end of it I'll have 10 killer pieces that I can start flinging around to art directors. I feel like my drawing and painting chops are almost where they should be, and are at least passable to start getting work rolling and I can keep working on them throughout the semester; the main challenge is gonna be coming up with some intriguing ideas and concepts that are actually worth painting and not just pumping out a bunch of sparkly pictures. I'm hoping to steal some of the mojo of giants like Donato Giancola, Jon Foster, Brom, Justin Sweet and others. Should be an exciting 4 months! Expect some arts pretty soon!

Also taking Landscape and Still Life classes as electives, gonna try to get my oil painting chops up. Exciteeeed!

ART POWER AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Mah brofriend *pargile is a pretty cool guy and is offering pretty cool commissions, you should pretty cool-ly check them out if you want some pretty cool comicy style arts!

You can pretty cool them here: [link]

Hey guys, things have calmed down a little for the summer and work is looking like it's gonna be kinda slow this month, so for a limited time I'm offering a batch of character commissions! Check out the example here:




If you're interested in purchasing one just send me a note and let me know what you're looking for!

Prices (in USD) are as follows:

Clean Lineart: $40 USD

Flat Values: $60 USD

B&W Shading: $80 USD

Full Color Render: $120 USD

All I require is either a clear text description or an image reference of your character, and you will receive a single character illustration with a simple background, like the one above, in the form of a jpeg and a high-res layered psd. All payment will be made via paypal and full payment is required before I begin. Also one round of feedback/changes will be allowed after the sketch phase!
Also, I will accept humanoid characters only (sorry dragons, I <3 u)!

Slots are limited, so if you're interested hit me up asap! Cheers!

This is about three weeks belated, but still worthy of an update I suppose! As of last month me and a few TAD bros (Including the infamous ~David-Kegg and ~M0AI) moved down to glorious San Diego to study with Ron Lemen (You know those anatomy articles ImagineFX published?... yeah, that guy.) and his wife Vanessa ( [link] ).

I'm super pumped about it, the new studio is almost set up and we should be there and working within a few weeks! It's gonna be crazy and hardcore and even more time consuming than ever before, and I'm looking forward to every minute of it!

Also San Diego itself is awesome, perfect weather, lots of good foodz, and pretty much everything is within walking distance of us.

ALSO! In art news, this summer is all about figure drawing for me, that's the goal for the day and night and anything in between where I'm not partaking in that silly thing called life that you need to do to keep being alive. Pretty excited, I think it'll be an important step in boosting my work to the next level!

And how've you guys been? IT'S BEEN... *checks last journal*... OVER A MONTH SINCE LAST WE SPAKE!

Also randomly, you know you want this: [link]

Here's a tiny snippet of the sketch for an upcoming piece I'm working on. I'll bet you can't guess what I've been playing lately.

Hey folks, just wanted to give you a heads up that I posted a new video tutorial up on my youtube channel today if you want to have a gander!



I'm gonna try and start making some of these quicker tutorials and posting them more regularly. This one was going to go straight on to dA too, but I forgot they have a 20 minute max, so youtube it is for now!

If you're interested in more short video tutorials let me know, and if you have any specific topics you'd like to see covered! Tell me wacha want, wacha really really want!

Cheerio! Have a good weekend!

Hey folks, got some more epic for ya, go check out ma boi *NateAbell and give him some watches and llamas! He's got a few pieces up with lots more to come, super cool painterly stuff with some really interesting designs! Definitely worth a watch!

Spread dA luvv!!!







:thumb299584403:

Hey folks, anyone going to Spectrum live next month? [link]

It's gonna be suuuuper badass, I'll be there with the TAD booth so come say hey! Inspiration out the wazoo.

Hey guys, just wanted to drop you a line for some sick arts that are making their way to your future inboxes! My buddy ~David-Kegg just (finally) got himself on here and is posting up some of his work! He's a kick-ass illustrator and concept artist with some really sweet work and definitely deserves some recognition, I lovingly request you to all give him big sloppy watches, faves and llamas!



:thumb286094018:

:thumb286093138:







Cheers, yo!

Howdy, all! Just writing a quick journal to say thanks for all the birthday wishes, I appreciate it!
T'was a good b'day, did some work, met some deadlines, played some 40k tabletop, went to a John Williams concert. All in all an excellent start to a new year!


And to make this journal slightly more interested, an update on the demo I promised a while back, yes I'm still doing it and it's gonna be a video tutorial on painting process. Here's a little snippet of the piece so far to whet your appetite!



It's still got a long way to go, but I think it'll be pretty spiffy when it's done, and then I'll compile all the video footage, time-lapse it up and record audio over top to explain the process as I go, from thumbnail to finished piece! Should be fun!

Hope you're all enjoying your holidays and have a great new years!

Updaet- ACCURSED GENEROSITY! Go give *Lancerey lots of love for being a goose and giving me a premium membership. THANKS LANCEREY ILOVEYOU!!!

Aaaand in terms of le` journal, it looks like at the moment things are leaning towards a video tutorial on painting, which sounds gud to me! I probably won't have time to make it all fancy and produced like the textures one (which is horrible now, eugh) but I'll record the process of a painting and provide commentary of the process, which should be edumacational. Soyeah, look forward to that! In the meantime, MORE DROARS!


Can't make polls without premium membership ololol, so here's a quick journal instead. I'm gonna try and put together a tutorial over winter break, would you rather see:

1. A video tutorial on painting.
2. A(nother) text tutorial on painting.
3. A video tutorial on character design.
4. A text tutorial on character design.
5. Something else? (Comment)

Let me know and we shall see. AND NOW BACK TO WARK!!!!

Tagged by *pargile

Rules:
1. You must post these rules.
2. Each person must post 11 things about themselves in their journal.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and create eleven new questions for the people you tag to answer.
4. You have to choose 11 people to tag and post their icons on your journal.
5. Go to their page and tell them you have tagged him/her.
6. No tag backs.
7. No stuff in the tagging section about "you are tagged if you are reading this." You legitimately (AKA, really, truly, with all honesty) have to tag 11 people.

About me:
1. I'm currently a 2D Entertainment Design student at The Art Department with 3 semesters done and 2 more to go.
2. After the above is done, I plan to be a professional illustrator and concept artist.
3. My idea of an ideal workload is totally effed; I usually get to the studio between 9 and 10 in the morning and am excited for the easy day if I leave at midnight. 2am is the usual.
4. I am currently eating a delicious enchilada. It is nom.
5. I play piano and cello when my brain starts to leak out my ears from arting too much.
6. A very few of favorite artists are William Bouguereau, Dean Cornwell, Wei Wang, Justin Sweet, John Singer Sargent, J.C. Leyendecker, Frederic Church, N.C. Wyeth, and Tom Scholes.
7. There is currently a disrobed woman about 25 feet away from me and I am paying more attention to my dA journal. Lol @ ignoring figure drawing.
9. I have 7 different pens, pencils and styluses in my pocket at all times.
10. I pretty much never play video games any more, maybe 2-5 hours a month. BUT, I do play the tabletop Warhammer 40k RPG and DnD, which are significantly awesomer. Go nerdiness!
11. My enchilada is gone.

Questions to me:
1. What is your most embarrassing memory of the last 5 years?
I don't really get embarrassed, but probably when some of the guys from school and I were cruising around downtown before halloween we were talking about one of our models directing her ladybits in our general direction during a session and I didn't really hear what they said and amongst the laughter I just reactively said, "gross" and one of the other guys heard me and a moment of awkwardness ensued.
2. What is the dumbest thing you have ever injured yourself on? Or your dumbest instance of self injury?
A dog food can. I was opening it with a can opener but the opener left one little bit of metal still attaching the lid to the can. I then proceeded to grab a plastic spoon and push down on the sliver as hard as I could, the recently sliced metal lid flipped upwards and sliced my index finger open. It took like 10 minutes to stop the blood and I totally freaked out cause I am a pansy.
3. Assuming reincarnation is possible and you get to choose, what would you want to come back as, and would you rather remember this life or not?
Either a dolphin or an eagle. The former cause A: swimming and breathing underwater, awesome. B: flying and being a badass, awesome. And yeah, I'd want to remember this life, just so I could be the coolest dolphin or eagle ever and be totally smart and get whatever I wanted and be highly entertaining.
4. If you could self insert yourself into a relatively well known story, what would it be and who would you be in it?
I'll go with Harry Potter cause I could be an awesome wizard but still have the opportunity to live a typical life. I would probably be genericsauce mcgee, main characters are too dangerous.
5. If any non-existant creature could be made to exist, by you, what would it be?
Mermaids. Nuff said.
6. What would you do if you could have any non-mainstream, non-destructive or combat orientated super power? Like something really silly, or just something to make life a little more convenient?
The ability to never need sleep. Think what I could do with those 4-8 hours every day over the course of 80 years!! Either that, or the superpower of having all photoshop's tools work in real life. Duplicate money? Free transform candy bar? Lens flare fingertips? Awesome.
7. If everyone in the world had a lame 80s TV show style catch phrase, what would yours be?
Let's blow this popsicle stand!!
8. What song has been stuck in your head most recently?
edIT's Artsy Remix - [link]
9. Last film you cried at?
Deathly Hallows part 2, when Snape discovers Lily's dead body. (Oh gravy, that's twice I've mentioned HP in one meme. No I'm not obsessed!)
10. Talk about yourself in a haiku?
I am of the swag.
Nobody canna cross it.
Race to daffodils?
11. What is the nicest story, nicest thing, or just general niceity you have seen or heard about recently? Tell us a story of niceness.
[link]

My questions:
1. What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
2. Coke or pepsi?
3. What sort of music do you like and why?
4. If you had to go to a desert island for the rest of your life and could only bring 5 movies, 5 books, and 5 video games what would they be?
5. What's an interesting personality quirk of yours?
6. What was your favorite childhood toy? Do you still have it?
7. What's something you'd really love to do before you die?
8. If I could be anyone else on the planet for one week, who would it be?
9. If you could either have a private island in the carribean or a never-ending supply of pizza, which would you choose?
10. What's your biggest pet peeve?
11. If the zombie apocalypse happened tomorrow, what would your first actions be?

I tag... people who want to do this! I know, I'm an ass, but everyone I know has already been tagged and I've dwindled here too long already, olololol.