TL;DR:
Hey folks. As many of you know, the last several months have been spent developing a community platform for the Drawabox website that would move all homework submissions (both free and for private/official critiques) onto the website itself, with proper integration with patreon to simplify a lot of the process that over the last many years has largely been done in a somewhat haphazard fashion t...
2019-12-27 22:56:14 +0000 UTC View PostTo get us started, Happy Canada Day for those of you celebrating it, and an early Happy Fourth of July to those of you in the United States.
There's a few bits of Drawabox news I wanted to report, including some changes to the responsibilities of our wonderful teaching assistants, the next big steps of development on the Drawabox website and community, and some updates on the progress of ...
2019-07-01 19:28:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Did one of my full demonstrations for a student today. This time, a donkey!
2019-05-04 20:06:47 +0000 UTC View PostFor those of you who don't have time to read this whole post, here's a summary of the changes:
Merry Christmas! As my gift to you, I've just completed a full rebuild of the Drawabox website. This includes superficial layout changes, as well as the content being organized into separate pages in order to be more easily digested - and most importantly, it also includes a full revision of all lesson content up to lesson 7, a new challenge, and 19 new videos.
I've been ...
2018-12-26 13:00:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Just finished doing this demonstration for a student, figured it'd be helpful for everyone else as well.
2018-07-17 01:41:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Just finished doing a tiger head construction demo for a student. Figured you guys might benefit from it as well.
One of the most important things about head construction - and this goes for human heads as well - is seeing the various parts of the face like pieces of a three dimensional puzzle that wedge together. Related to that, is understanding that the face is made up of many planes, meaning...
2018-06-24 21:01:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Lice are indeed gross, but it was a good opportunity to demonstrate how to apply construction to organic subject matter, and what kind of things to look out for.
2018-03-26 03:52:44 +0000 UTC View PostDon't worry, Drawabox isn't closing, and I'm still doing critiques. But for the sake of my sanity as well as my growth as an artist, some aspects of how the patreon tiers are organized are changing. You can skip my explanation if you like, the changes themselves listed in bold a little ways down.
My time working on Drawabox and /r/ArtFundamental...
2018-03-01 15:34:40 +0000 UTC View Post
So I made 7 more videos covering issues relating to lessons 3-5. Also, as I mentioned previously, I made the previously patreon-only videos (the no-audio video recordings of demos) accessible to everyone. It seems that everyone who spoke up in regards to the issue was very supportive of that change.
Here are the links to the new videos:
- The Leaves Exercise: 2018-01-02 00:40:51 +0000 UTC View Post
IT'S DEFINITELY NO LONGER FRIDAY. This week's challenge theme is...
Merchant Kitty - Khajit has wares, if you have coin. Cats have been sitting on their cute little butts for too long - put them to work! Alternatively: cats performing any human job. No humanoids.
Also, I wanted to let you guys know that I'm going to ease up on posting the challenge themes/polls...
2017-12-31 20:08:36 +0000 UTC View Post
It's Tuesday again, and this time I didn't forget! Here are your fresh new weekly theme ideas for the discord server design challenge. Vote on the ones you like most - and remember, you can vote for more than one. I'll post the results on Friday.
There are a few runner ups from last week as always, but here are the n...
2017-12-26 17:57:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Yule Tidings, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! In honour of the holiday season, I spent the last couple days recording a whopping 17 new videos - an intro video detailing how to approach the lessons, one for every exercise in lessons 1 and 2, and a new version of 'how to draw a box'.
The results are in! This week's theme is.. a tie! So we're going to two this week, and both are environment design prompts.
Theme 1: Alien Red Light District. Picture the seediest corner of an alien world, and design it. Think about architecture, atmosphere, lighting. Humanoids are fine, but no humans. Doesn't have to be high-tech! Think about more than just the exposed skin - c...
2017-12-23 02:28:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Sorry for the delay! Got a couple of suggestions from patreon supporters this week, and mixed in a few of the runner ups from last week and a couple more new ones. Poll closes on Friday, at which point the week's theme will be announced.
Don't forget that all of the previous themes are still fair game, and you're welcome to share what you've worked on over at #weekly-challenge on the discord ser...
2017-12-20 17:42:26 +0000 UTC View Post
It's *still* Friday, so I'm not late. Here's next week's discord weekly challenge theme (join us over at #weekly-challenge https://discord.gg/hTPY5hb!).
Bottle it Up! You've found the elixir of life - now design a bottle worthy to contain it!
This is our first non-character challenge. You're going to be usi...
2017-12-16 01:26:22 +0000 UTC View Post
Like last week, here's the poll for the next weekly challenge theme. Didn't get any recommendations from you guys this time around, but I had some fun coming up with my own.
In case you're confused by this, we're picking a different theme to draw/design together on the weekly-challenge channel on the drawabox discord server. Firs...
2017-12-13 00:21:06 +0000 UTC View Post
So it's Friday again, which means NEW WEEKLY CHALLENGE THEME on the #weekly-challenge (https://discord.gg/hTPY5hb) discord channel! This week we're doing:
Design a Deity! Pick a culture (historical or modern) and decide what your deity will govern. Then design your character to reflect these choices....
2017-12-08 18:03:48 +0000 UTC View Post
I think I'm probably a little late on this, but I'm still getting the hang of this. Here are the potential choices for the coming week's challenge theme. The winner poll will close on Friday, and the winner will be announced. The runner-ups who receive any significant attention will my carried over to the following week's poll.
2017-12-06 00:36:33 +0000 UTC View Post
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're doing weekly themed challenges now on the discord (in #weekly-challenge: https://discord.gg/hTPY5hb.
This week's theme is "Fantasify Yourself," which I stole directly from a conceptart.org Character of the Week challenge I participated in back in 2011.
The idea is that you choose a ...
2017-12-01 22:02:38 +0000 UTC View PostSo! Many of you know of the discord server for drawabox. I've wanted to do this for a few weeks, but didn't get around to thinking through the logistics of it til now: Weekly challenges!
They will be largely design-focused, and will run from Friday to Friday, with the first one starting today. I've already got a theme, but I'll post about that separately.
Everyone of all skill levels is we...
2017-12-01 20:26:47 +0000 UTC View Post
The fear of failure is the greatest challenge anyone faces. Not just in learning how to draw, but rather in every facet of our lives. Many people are accustomed to feeling that failure is something terrible, to be abhorred and reviled. That's simply not true.
Failure is an inevitable, natural and necessary part of learning a skill. It shows us where our weaknesses and where we can improve. Witho...
2017-10-29 14:15:53 +0000 UTC View PostSo people have been asking this for a while, and eventually one patron by the name of Jasper decided to take things into his own hands and make his own. It's been done in the past to varying degrees of success, but I was very pleased with how it was handled and pretty quickly offered to make it official. So, I invite you all to join the brand spankin' new official discord for Drawabox!
Here's th...
2017-10-14 19:10:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Some notes I put together while critiquing a student's homework today. Figured it might be valuable to the rest of you as well.
2017-05-28 17:38:57 +0000 UTC View PostJust wanted to give you guys a heads up that homework critiques will be somewhat more sporadic for the next couple weeks, with the them being more delayed mid-week. Rough deadlines at work are requiring me to work 12-13 hour days from Tuesday to Thursday, so I've pretty much accepted that I won't be able to get to very many (or any) submissions during those periods.
As always, I still record sub...
2017-05-24 13:37:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Drawing is full of challenges. At every turn, there's something new that is bound to frighten us, or make us hesitate. Something that really makes us realize how new we are to all of this, and how sometimes months, or even years of practice can feel like not-all-that-much.
It's something we all encounter, pretty much all of the time. But there's a secret we don't always realize - these dragons c...
2017-04-23 15:56:50 +0000 UTC View PostHey folks - long time no talk. I've certainly been swamped at work, but I've managed to keep the homework submissions from overwhelming me during the rougher patches, and hopefully I've been able to give some more direct help to those among you who've taken advantage of them.
What I wanted to talk about today is something I don't really touch on. As a rule, drawabox has always been meant to be t...
2017-04-11 16:54:48 +0000 UTC View Post
So along with covering the same principles I mention in my how to draw a box video, I introduce you guys to a somewhat more rigorous method of developing your sense of 3D space.
2016-12-12 02:57:31 +0000 UTC View Post
So I recently had the pleasure of launching my first title - that is, if you ignore the educational games aimed at toddlers that I worked in in my last job. Which we will ignore. Because "Baby Ha-ha Learns About the Seasons" will not go down as my first shipped title.
In honour of this momentous occasion, I decided to write about my experiences working for a small indie studio, and what kind of ...
2016-11-22 00:14:13 +0000 UTC View Post