I wanted to write something in here before the New Year of my art journey so far even though I am sleepy so I will probably forget stuff and this will probably be a jumbled mess.
Anyways before we start talking about that I wanted to talk about my new Wacom Intuos first!
As some of you may or may not know I got one for Christmas but haven't gotten around to using it until today, it took quite a bit to set up but luckily I managed to figure everything out. Unfortunately I can't use my pencil grippers for the stylus/pen because it is much thicker then I anticipated but at least I still have my glove which helps.
I still need to properly adjust to drawing with the pen since I haven't drawn traditional art in like four years and using the Wacom pen in my hand feels awkward. Using the Wacom pen as a mouse to select things in Krita feels really awkward so I am just going to stick to using my free hand to operate the mouse and using the other to draw with the pen. There are express keys on the Wacom Intuos and buttons on the Pen you can set up as keyboard shortcuts but I think I am just going to disable the shortcuts for now.
The cool thing about the pen is that you can tilt the pen while drawing and it makes your brush in your art program look different and you can shade with it that way and it's like shading drawings with the side of a pencil in real life.
This is my first ever drawing with my Wacom. Here is Lily it's not the best for my first time but I still trying to learn
Now let's talk about what drawing progress I've made so far and my goals for 2024 and beyond.
What I have worked on this year:
- Learning a shading/lighting method by lowering the opacity of a layer
- Learn to make better sketches by first making a rough sketch on one layer and then lowering it's opacity and start a new layer and trace a cleaner sketch on top of it and correct errors from the previous rough sketch on the former layer
- Play around with brushes more
- Practicing anatomy more
- Start drawing background that aren't solid color in my drawings
- Practicing with new things I haven't drawn before
- Experimenting with trying to find my art style more
Goals for 2024
- Start writing dates on my drawings and keep proper track of how many drawings I have done and organize my drawings in my folders better
- Start working on trying to learn anatomy for Anthros(and to a lesser extent Ferals) I haven't drawn before. So far the only Anthros I have drawn are: Wolves, Foxes, Bunnies, Squirrels, Bears, Crocodiles/Alligators and Eagles(I hope I'm not forgetting any)
some Anthros I would like to try drawing next year: Elephants, Rhinos, Frogs, more Avian species, Felines, Rodents, Primates, Deer, Horses, Pigs, Cows, Sheep, Giraffes just to name a few.
Start working on drawing Feral/Quadruped animals more
- Start working on drawing other things that are not animals, I would like to try out drawing Pokemon, Still Life, Landscapes, Mythical Creatures, Cryptids, Monsters, Fanart for things to name a few.
- Learn how to do lighting properly and learn how to identify where the light projects onto a subject and where the shadows cast
- Learn more shading methods
- Learn about angles and how the subject faces things in a drawing
- Learn how to animate with blinking(and maybe other stuff)
- Learn how to draw textures like fur and hair
- Learn how to draw clothing and accessories better
- Learn how to draw more different body types for characters(skinny, chubby, muscular, petite etc.)
- Figure out my art style more
I'm probably forgetting stuff but I'm tired and going to sleep now