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One year ago I was sitting at my keyboard coding, planning to finish my BS in CS at UC Berkeley by 2014. Tonight I find myself with pencil and paper, drawing a character from my favorite TV show. Now how did I end up so far from where I was a year ago?
The short of it is that art is not that far off from computer science. I grew up in Waldorf school, if you're familiar with the curriculum then you're probably not too surprised that my creative urges won out in the end. I did a lot of painting and drawing from third to eighth grade, but I didn't really think too much of it as I was spending my free time on the computer. I took the proficiency exam after 3 semesters of public high school. I couldn't stand the mindless coursework and mindless classmates. I started college immediately, taking as many math and computer science course as I could. By the time I was 16 I landed a decent part time job doing software engineering.
Fast-forward 2 years, I'm a term off from transferring to Cal to finish my CS degree. I found myself dicking around with digital art when I was supposed to be programming homework.
I realized that I still had that creative itch, and programming was not cutting it as a creative outlet. When I first started out it was new and exciting. I've always enjoyed learning new things, but that makes it hard to tell if I'm actually passionate about something or it's just the 'learning high' as I like to call it.
I reconsidered my options: I could study CS at Berkeley for 2 years and then land a job not to unsimilar to the one I had at the time, but paying slightly better, or I could study something else entirely new while using my CS skills to help cover the cost of more schooling.
I think every gamer has thought about what it would be like to work at a game studio, but very few know the reality of it. I decided to see if I there were any place for me in a game studio doing a mix of engineering and artwork. It turns out that there are lots of people doing exactly that in the industry. I did some research on schools that had the program I was looking for. I found one that I liked and applied.
Now I'm a year into my studies here in the East Bay Area, and I've come a long ways.
To show just how far, here's an example of my best work from my first term:
+ Show Spoiler + (beware naked dude)
And here's a sketch I finished a couple hours ago:
+ Show Spoiler + (Harvey Specter from Suits)
Here are a couple other recent pieces:
+ Show Spoiler + (Pretty Girl, fully clothed)
+ Show Spoiler + (Boot design, GoT inspired)
+ Show Spoiler + (Leather armor design WIP)
+ Show Spoiler + (Random BART ride sketch)
I surprise myself every time I look at my old work, I see more mistakes every time I go back. Now I'm in a comfortable position where drawing and painting homework doesn't feel like a chore anymore. Now where I struggle is the design, but thankfully I have a concept art course this term so I can focus on getting comfortable with the design process.
I've learned so much in so little time, and the best part is that it's all very straightforward, there is no magic to creating beautiful art or designing cool characters and environments. I have started to put together a series of tutorials for my website that cover the fundamentals of concept art, however it's turning into a comprehensive digital art encyclopedia :D.
I'll post an update here when I push the first few pieces live, but for now I leave you with this:
The Road Not Taken:
+ Show Spoiler +
- Cat In The Hat, over and out *click*
Feedback welcome, I would like to know TL would be interested in learning more about the game production pipeline, and maybe some drawing tutorials.
  
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idk if you're looking for criticism but you should study a bit of anatomy, your proportions are off on almost all your drawings
i'm not very good at drawing but i took art classes for a little bit and anatomy was by far the most useful part of the class
also he means her right leg; it's too thin, particularly at the lower thigh/knee area
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On July 21 2013 21:34 Dead9 wrote:
idk if you're looking for criticism but you should study a bit of anatomy, your proportions are off on almost all your drawings
i'm not very good at drawing but i took art classes for a little bit and anatomy was by far the most useful part of the class
also he means her right leg; it's too thin, particularly at the lower thigh/knee area
Yeah... I was wondering about that. It seemed kinda off. The girl one wasn't bad at all, but your proprotioning seemed to be slightly miscalculated. We need to get one of the speed drawing people in here  . I'm certainly not an art expert by any means.
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On July 21 2013 21:34 Dead9 wrote:
idk if you're looking for criticism but you should study a bit of anatomy, your proportions are off on almost all your drawings
i'm not very good at drawing but i took art classes for a little bit and anatomy was by far the most useful part of the class
also he means her right leg; it's too thin, particularly at the lower thigh/knee area
Thanks for the feedback, the girl is anatomically accurate, if you look down at your own leg, you'll notice that right below the kneecap is the narrowest part. The reason it looks wonky in that piece is that the frame cuts it off right there at the narrowest bit.
The first piece is clearly a horrendous mess, and for the purpose of this post it was intended to be 
As far as the others are concerned, yea, serious anatomy error, though the purpose of those pieces the surrounding design work and not the figure. If I focus on correct anatomy I can get it right, it just takes some conscious effort on my part. I should do more anatomy studies like this one: + Show Spoiler +
Thanks for the feedback guys, will stream some anatomy studies in the near future.
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On July 21 2013 22:10 CatNzHat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2013 21:34 Dead9 wrote:
idk if you're looking for criticism but you should study a bit of anatomy, your proportions are off on almost all your drawings
i'm not very good at drawing but i took art classes for a little bit and anatomy was by far the most useful part of the class
also he means her right leg; it's too thin, particularly at the lower thigh/knee area The girl is anatomically accurate.
She really doesn't look correctly proportioned, whether it's anatomy of perspective. Locally, everything makes sense - the head as a unit looks fine, the legs by themselves seem fine. As a whole, though, some things are really odd.
Her head appears way too small, particularly because it is closer to the front, when compared to her right shoulder. Her shoulder seems to be too high up compared to where her neck attaches to the chest, giving a sort of hunchbacklike appearance. Her legs look incredibly thin - again, they are closer to the front, and legs are bigger than arms, but still her lower arm seems to be as wide as her leg. The right leg, which is closer to the point of view, is much smaller than the left one.
This is a sort of similar pose; notice the differences in head-shoulder and notice how her legs compare to her arms:
http://static7.depositphotos.com/1011061/771/i/950/depositphotos_7711806-Smiling-young-girl-sitting-on-rocks-in-the-forest.jpg
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her thigh shouldn't be concave on the top, and her calf should have more volume
in your anatomy study your legs are too short (shoulder to groin * 2 should be halfway between the knee and the ankle)
some people are like that but it's probably better to just start with standard proportions before mixing it up a little
this is what anatomy practice should look like
here's an example of standard proportions
edit: the girl darkwhite linked actually just has a massive head
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On July 21 2013 22:48 Dead9 wrote:her thigh shouldn't be concave on the top, and her calf should have more volume in your anatomy study your legs are too short (shoulder to groin * 2 should be halfway between the knee and the ankle) some people are like that but it's probably better to just start with standard proportions before mixing it up a little this is what anatomy practice should look like here's an example of standard proportions edit: the girl darkwhite linked actually just has a massive head
Yea, the anatomy study I posted is built more like me than the average joe, her calf could use slightly more volume I agree, and maybe shave a bit off her right shoulder, but both within the range of genetic variation. Her thigh is slightly concave on top due to a sitting pose and fairly muscular quads. The weight causes the quads to bulge up more than normal, and the camera angle exaggerates, I may have pushed this a bit too far though. If I were to continue the bulge of her quad all the way down to her kneecap it would indicate a good bit of fat, disproportionate for how lean the rest of her figure is.
The rest of your advice is slightly helpful, I'm aware of the resources on the conceptart.org forums and appreciate that, however I have access to live figure drawing and a weekly basis and a plethora of anatomy texts, some medically oriented, some artistically so.
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Working at the intersection of science/engineering and art is a great place to be! I enjoyed your story.
Also, I looked at the reddit post: wow, the haters.
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On July 21 2013 22:45 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2013 22:10 CatNzHat wrote:On July 21 2013 21:34 Dead9 wrote:
idk if you're looking for criticism but you should study a bit of anatomy, your proportions are off on almost all your drawings
i'm not very good at drawing but i took art classes for a little bit and anatomy was by far the most useful part of the class
also he means her right leg; it's too thin, particularly at the lower thigh/knee area The girl is anatomically accurate. She really doesn't look correctly proportioned, whether it's anatomy of perspective. Locally, everything makes sense - the head as a unit looks fine, the legs by themselves seem fine. As a whole, though, some things are really odd. Her head appears way too small, particularly because it is closer to the front, when compared to her right shoulder. Her shoulder seems to be too high up compared to where her neck attaches to the chest, giving a sort of hunchbacklike appearance. Her legs look incredibly thin - again, they are closer to the front, and legs are bigger than arms, but still her lower arm seems to be as wide as her leg. The right leg, which is closer to the point of view, is much smaller than the left one. This is a sort of similar pose; notice the differences in head-shoulder and notice how her legs compare to her arms: http://static7.depositphotos.com/1011061/771/i/950/depositphotos_7711806-Smiling-young-girl-sitting-on-rocks-in-the-forest.jpg
This could actually be the phenomenon known as the 'Uncanny Valley' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
+ Show Spoiler +
I'm pretty sure the drawing is actually based off a photograph, can we see the original for comparison? For the record, I see nothing wrong with the drawing/painting.
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I'm glad to hear your story. It seems in the heart of a lot of engineering-types, the desire to make art. It's good to hear someone finding some success along that path. There are plenty of people out there who could use some of this insight.
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On July 22 2013 09:57 hp.Shell wrote:
I'm glad to hear your story. It seems in the heart of a lot of engineering-types, the desire to make art. It's good to hear someone finding some success along that path. There are plenty of people out there who could use some of this insight.
That's really nice to hear, I'll posting some educational content that's definitely written for engineers, hopefully I'll have some insight to include.
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