Failing better |TIP69

Last night I was bothered, because I couldn’t draw. I felt that whatever stroke I put on the canvas, It was not correct. It often happens when I try new techniques. It is a feel of frustration that used to make me give up easily. After going through quite a good number of them, I learn that failing is just part of the process.

Failing is actually a great outcome. It shows that at I am doing something, something that I could learn from. It’s very common for beginner to give up early or start procrastinating, a week, a month or multiple years. Then, during that time NOTHING happen. What I would recommend you to try, is to make a deal with yourself. Sit in front of your desk, take some references and draw for 10 minutes. If you still feel not in the mood to draw, then skip it. But If you start feeling that your mind get into it, you just have to continue enjoying it. To learn how to draw, it is important to be persistent and to push oneself out of the comfort zone

Despite of my yesterday “bad mood”, I breathed deeply and carried on. I am working at transforming the frustration into a positive energy which is determination. I continued to open multiple new canvas and failed again, but I kept going.

Honestly, I am not so fan of the result. It’s still very amateur. However I went up to sleep and woke up happy this morning. Because I did a step forward that will drive me to the next one. Whoever we are, beginner, amateur, pro, we all meet this phase of frustration. It’s just the normal process of learning. Just remember that you are the only one to decide or not to carry on. You can think big, but accept to go step-by-step.

I recommend you guys to have a look at Scott Robertson. He’s an awesome concept artist that inspires a lot of product, car, game designers. While sketching I was looking at this video : Scott Robertson (Concept artist for Minority report) with Neville Page (Concept artist for Avatar).

Below my video where 3 hours and 40 minutes become 1 min 40.

This technique is about seeing things in abstract shapes.
1- You start drawing an abstract shape with a brush. Best is that you already have a rough idea of what you want. Do you want dinosaur, a soldier, a tank, and so on… You will roughly build it accordingly.
2- Use a pen to draw the outlines.
3- Refine

It’s a free way of drawing. You start without any clear idea of the final outcome. You build your sketch along the way. You can take some picture of reference for help.

The key skill for this technique is the memory of shape. Bigger is your library, more things your brain will be able to see in these abstract shapes. To build this library, seeing is not enough. You need to draw them to make your hand also remember.
I feel that my memory of shape is actually quite poor. I am planning to take pictures and build my own library.

See you guys for the next tip of the day !
Feel free to leave a comment.

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