30 Days Of Art Improvement Challenge

30 Days of Art Improvement Challenge

Are you tired of feeling like your art just isn’t improving? Do you want to do a 30-day challenge that’s actually useful? Welcome to 30 Days of Improvement Hell. >:D

I made this because I’ve been feeling super ‘blah’ about my art these days, and I needed something to kick-start myself. Who wants to do this with me!? Start now or whenever you can (now you procrastinators!). Challenge yourself and have fun at the same time!

Tag your posts with #Improvement Hell so everyone can follow along and see each other’s awesome artwork. I may even create a blog and reblog them! :D

What are you waiting for? START!

Self-Portrait - Introduce yourself

Draw a figure using a reference - link to reference

Draw a figure that’s in action, using a reference - link to reference

Draw a part of the human anatomy you have trouble with. x20, with atleast 5 being skeletal/musculature studies.

Draw more figures. Quick gestures and silhouettes. x20, with atleast 10 different body shapes

Let’s have some fun. Design a character from this character generator. (created by PreservedCucumbers)

Pick the weirdest object in your house/room. Draw it. Shadows and Highlights.

Find 2-3 objects, make a scene with them. Draw it. Bonus points for creativity. Double points for dramatic lighting.

Draw a landscape of a place you’ve never been or drawn.

Draw a BG with 1pt Perspective. Negative points if it’s a railroad or an empty street.

Draw a BG with 2pt Perspective.

Look out a window. Draw what you see. Bonus points for adding something interesting.

Draw an interior setting with the character you designed on Day #6 in it.

BG with either bird’s eye or worm’s eye view.

Halfway there! Draw three ‘action’ scenes with different compositions in each. Quick sketches are fine, just make them interesting and understandable! Bonus points if it’s the same scene, but different composition.

Draw a single page comic with 5-7 panels (the story begins and ends on one page). 

Draw an animal you’ve never drawn before. x10  Link references.

Draw a car. Negative points for whining. Hint: Use a perspective grid.

Think of the thing you hate drawing the most. Guess what? Draw it! Negative points for lying to yourself.

Pick an object in your house/room. Now design a character from it, color scheme included. (often known as a gijinka). Also link/post the object you used. Negative points for using a humanoid action figure.

Draw a character/object/scene, and shade them using ONLY solid blacks and whites. Bonus points for good use of lights/shadows

Draw a different object/scene/character. Shade using hatching, crosshatcing, and/or pointillism. Bonus points for lights/shadows and textures.

Colors! Pick a color palette, and paint a scene/character/object using only those colors (some blending allowed). Bonus points for good use of lights/shadows.

Draw and color a scene/object/character - no lines allowed! (aka - lineless art). Don’t forget light and shadows!

Draw a scene/character in a style you’ve never drawn before. If emulating an artist, credit+link. Bonus for color style.

Draw a character. Draw 10 emotions/expressions. Bonus points for ‘uncommon’ emotions. (i.e. anxiety, guilt, despair, loneliness etc.)

Draw three random shapes using your opposite hand (or your foot). Now design characters from those shapes.

Turn on the tv (or load your illegally download movies). Pick an actor and draw them.

Almost done! Let’s have some fun. Draw some fanart. Bonus points if it’s super obscure and unknown. Make people guess what it’s from.

Last day! Find a drawing you did within the last year. Now draw it again using what you’ve learned! Link it for comparison!

 Look at all that amazing improvement! Congrats!

On the surface, it looks very convincing.  The biggest clue that this is a scam is the email, which links to a .de address. (The only official Patreon messages you receive will be from “bingo  AT patreon.com”)

 Please spread the word so nobody falls for this!

my creative energy is either a gaping void of nothingness, or an endless overwhelming stream of ideas.

Remember, it’s not a competition

Five animated shorts for five female animation pioneers

 For this year’s Annency animation festival, the students at Gobelins made five 1-minute animations to honor five female animation pioneers.

They’re all phenomenal. If you have five minutes, please watch each of them. Warning: some hit HARD.

Mary Blair (1911-1978)

Worked for Ub Iwerks, MGM, and eventually Disney. Known for creating incredibly vibrant watercolors, which clashed with the studio aesthetic at the time. Disney eventually let her loose, and her aesthetic can be strongly seen in Cinderella, Peter Pan, and especially Alice in Wonderland.

Evelyn Lambart (1914-1999)

Hearing-impaired Canadian animator who worked with Norman McLaren on several pieces that the Canadian government would later declare masterworks. She directed her own films, making her one of the first women in animation to take the director’s chair. She was known for scratching up film stock to create “jazz” like patterns, the sort of thing you’d later see in Fantasia, Donald in Mathmagic Land, and the like.

Lotte Reininger (1899-1981)

German director who created the technique of silhouette animation, preceding Disney by 10 years. Started out making titles for movies and moved on to make her own animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, in 1926! As for the rest of her career, well - watch the short.

Claire Parker (1906-1981)

Created the “pinscreen” animation technique, where 240,000 tiny metal rods were manually manipulated in and out of a board in order to create an animation – think tweaking pixels by hand. She and she alone owned the patent on it.

Alison de Vere (1927-2001)

One of the first women to work in British animation, and was design director for The Yellow Submarine. She went on to create many animated shorts at a commercial studio, winning prizes for virtually almost every single one of them. She is often credited as Britain’s first female animation auteur. 

(much credit must go to cartoonbrew for posting about this in the first place - thanks, y’all!)