"The Art of Studying"

While recently scrolling though Facebook i stumbled onto a post that one of my fellow game artists liked and shared. It was a post by an artist called Anthony Jones entitled "The Art of Studying", the post was about how he recently got a lot better with his digital work in a short space of time, and how he did it. The post is as follows.

"The Art of Studying

I get asked a lot how I got so good in such a short amount of time. Well it’s relative. I spent tons of long hours (Still do) practicing and finding ways to improve! So the follow up question is, what did I do, SPECIFICALLY, to improve. 

I call it A.S.A.P. (everyone loves acronyms)

Assess
Study
Apply
Practice

Let me explain.

-I usually ASSESS the problem at hand. Something like “I need to work on my anatomy, but more specifically the arms.” Once I have done so, I do one painting/sketch to evaluate how bad I am, and try to pinpoint details that generally stand out to me. Gesture, edges, values, structure. I pick one, and begin the next step.

-STUDY my ass off. Not literally, but you know what I mean. And when I mean study I mean, “a detailed investigation and analysis of a subject or situation.” as found in it’s definition. It just doesn't mean copy paste, it means to STUDY. I gather books, videos, tutorials, images, blogs, whatever I can get my hands on and begin to learn. I spend countless hours of analysis until I feel ready to start the next step.

-Which is APPLY what I have learned without reference or any real guide. This is a great way to see what information I retained and what I left by the wayside. And what’s great is I still have my notes and studies as a guide to remind me and keep me informed on my findings. As I APPLY my learning to my new painting(s) and feel like there may be some progress I jump to the final step.

-PRACTICE until I get sick of it. You see sometimes things will slip your mind if you only do it a few times. Repetition and PRACTICE helps me cement my findings to more practical use later. Letting my study actually become something of use which helps propel me forward.

But let’s say you don’t see much improvement. The next thing you need to do is just rinse and repeat everything I said. I assure you if you devote tons of times to this method you will see improvement. Do not just copy and paste what you see. It will help for sure, but you will benefit so much more if you approach it like a scientist looking for the truth.

Good Luck,
AJ

Oh yea, Meet Joe, and his brothers. (IMAGE ATTACHED)"

As I am always looking for ways to improve my digital work, and this post literally gave me a checklist that was easy to follow, i found it really helpful. It got me thinking about what i need to improve on, specifically, not just everything. Which is what it feels like a lot of the time. With this list in mind, wrote myself one, just thinks i thought of at the time, i'll obviously add to it when i think of something new. But for now here it is.

Anatomy

• Faces
• Hands
• Feet
• Body shape
• poses

Natural 

• Rocks/Cliff faces etc
• Water flow/Look
• Trees/Foliage
• General Landscapes

Vehicles

• Cars/Vans
• Motor bikes
• Planes
• Boats

I think i'm going to try and work on one a week, as a rough time limit, In no specific order, I might work in the groups they are in, or I might vary them to keep things more fresh, thus keeping everything in mind at once, with less chance of forgetting previous topics. Faces seems like a good place to start regardless of the list order.

This is a painting a did of a female face that I did the other day. It didn't take me long, probably about half an hour maybe, i wasn't really timing myself. This is going to be used as my before picture to see how much i improve, if at all.