Semester Review (Final Post)

   Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are at last- the end of the Fall 2010 semester. Man oh man, these months went by quick. I'd like to try and pull something deep and philosophical out of my ass to make this post sound meaningful, but as is the nature of a procrastinator, I am on yet another all-nighter and can't seem to think quite as clearly as I want. Therefore, without further ado, let's skip the introductions and get this thing rollin'!

 Oh, where to start? Well, I guess a good place would be a comparison of me when I started this class to me now. I'll definitely admit that I have learned a considerable amount about human figure drawing, which is awesome on a personal level, since all throughout high school (and even somewhat before that), I've wanted to learn how to draw people better. I tried teaching myself and got okay at it, but I wanted more skill, skill that could only come from an actual life drawing class, and now here I am. My first life drawing class under my belt, and I can honestly say.... that I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, but hey, what did I expect, right? At the very least, I now feel more comfortable with new drawing techniques and am substantially more patient when it comes to longer drawings. I've learned how to better resist the temptation to make every line perfect and can appreciate what drawing simple gestures can teach me. I understand forms better than I ever have and now know the huge rewards of using subtle line variation to express those forms. I am a better artist overall for having taken Life Drawing I, but there's still a ridiculous amount of room for improvement. This has been a major and much wanted step in the right direction for me, and I don't see any reason whatsoever to stop now.

 

 On a side note, I'd like to show you my final drawing of the semester, Shell 4. Although, I think the name sHELL would be more appropriate. You see, after having been gypped out of my brick red ink during the last shell (thanks to some massive, idiotic packaging error) I was hell-bent this time around to get some red.... and create some fricking havoc with it. The gore fest of a drawing you see here is what happens when you mix carmine with just a tiny little bit of black and lay ink to page while recalling the bloodiest scenes of a number of slasher flicks. Beautiful, isn't it? (^  -  ^)

 By the way, here's the link to my Flickr account...

Week 14 (12/5/2010 - 12/11/2010)

   Wow, here we are- the second to last week of the whole semester. Man, this class went by fast! No time for good-byes yet, though. At the cost of a lot of good sleep (at least at night), I managed to get a number of things done this week, the coolest of which is Shell Drawing number 3! Woo hoo! Even as I write this I am reeling from another all-nighter, so how about we go ahead and wrap this thing up quick tonight, k?

   Ah, here we go- my favorite subject of drawing-study... hands. Annie and I were "modeling" for each other here, and as you can clearly see, I was paying full attention the whole time. This certainly isn't the worst set of hands I've ever drawn, I can tell you that right now, although, where hands are concerned, I doubt I will be satisfied for a very long time, regardless of how good they may end up. The sheet got flipped at some point, so you may have to do some rotation if you want to see each pose as it was originally drawn, since I know you won't be able to move any farther down this post without doing so...

   I walked into the classroom late this day and started hastily sketching out what everyone else was drawing- A SKULL!!! Because I went so fast, I distorted the upper jaw proportions a little bit and missed a number of other things as well, so I continued on another sheet...but didn't finish the other drawing, so here's what we have. At least you can tell its a skull, right? The cranium actually looks pretty good, in my opinion, even if it is probably the easiest part of the whole skull to draw. Definitely need to explore this a little more but some time later. Now, comes the post's coup de grâce...

   Yea! That's what I'm talking about! This one's arguably better than even the first shell drawing, although since this one comes with its own ink wash, it's not exactly a fair comparison. I did my best to avoid going the same old grid-style that I did with the other two, instead opting for contour lines that look like actual cracks in the shell's surface. The ink itself is a funny story- I went to the art store get supplies and picked up a bottle of brick red ink. When I opened the vial later, the color that you see above is what came out. Although mildly disappointed, I soldiered on through the drawing and am actually very pleased with the ending results. I managed to pretend that the outline on the round part of the shell is a contour, since it dips occasionally to make it look like the shell's layers. The new line style and the combination of black and green inks turned out great. Let's hope number 4 is just as good!

Week 13 (11/28/2010 - 12/4/2010)

   This is a very special post. Although it is the 13th one, which should be taken as an ill-omen, this post marks the first time that I'm actually completely caught up with all of my blog posts! Woot! This week also marks the addition of shoulder blades to our figures. These are not easy to do, since there are two of them, they can change position independent of one another, and unless the pose causes them to protrude or the model is exceptionally bony, they are often difficult to locate. Here's how this experience went down for me...

   Right off the bat, you'll have to forgive me for the poor picture quality- I was using a shitty point and shoot camera that I didn't realize was so shitty at the time. Anyway, you see those triangles on the backs of some of the figures? There they are- the shoulder blades. These are about as hard, if not harder, to draw than the pelvis, which I still don't have down pat. Some of these aren't half bad, actually. Definitely going to need more practice, though.

   This one is special to me- it's one of the only times in class that I've drawn gestures straight from my head, which, as I've stated before, is my primary goal in drawing. Well, at least the top four poses are all imagined; the bottom-left is actually my attempt at drawing Annie while she was concentrating on the model. I wasn't ignoring the assignment at hand; I had already finished it. Take a peek below...

   Hell yes! I love how this turned out. While almost everyone else was drawing Katharina from the front, I got to continue the scapula lesson by staying behind her. Even though I think I did a great job with the contours and everything else on her back, my personal favorite has to be the head. The hair flows in the proper directions, the ear and jaw are in the right places, and the neck connects to the rest of it perfectly. All things considered, I am very proud of this work.

Week 3 (9/19/2010 - 9/25/2010)

    Well, here it is- the post to end all posts... in terms of the number of drawings that are in it. Herein lies a motherload of 10 drawings of whose exact dates of creation I am uncertain, but they need a place in the blog, so here they shall be posted for all to see throughout eternity. Let's get started!

   Wow. Come to think of it, this one might have actually been made during the first week. Notice the lack of spine? Yea, that wasn't really tolerated after, at most, the second week. I'm clearly focusing on the details too much despite the short time limits granted each pose, plus I remember, after a short while, I started fitting multiple poses into a single square to maximize space. It's interesting to see how far I've come in only a few months.

   And yet another early gesture drawing... This one's kind of strange, though- I recognize how primitive it is in terms of the technique I used to create it, but for some reason I can't bring myself to not like it. The amorphous forms seem less like mistakes and more like intentional stylization, even though they are, in reality, the former. My favorite has got to be the one in the top-left, I guess because it looks the most accurate. You'll notice the line through the bottom-right, which was a half-assed attempt at using a proportion aid.

   Here we go- now we start seeing the spine, but we're still not to the ribcage yet. I'm particularly drawn (pun possibly intended) to both poses on the right half of the paper. They're extremely exaggerated, like they should be, and just feel alive to me, capturing not necessarily the exact image of the flesh but the nature of the flesh.

   While mostly bereft of content, this piece contains, virtually, my first attempt at purposely creating variation in my lines, which you can see on the left side of the page. The incomplete figure is mostly accurate, too. The faceless head really feels like it's turning toward you, thanks to the creases in the neck and the edge of the jaw and ear.

   My only reason for even choosing to save this drawing in digital format might be the pose in the bottom-right. There's nothing else on the page that appeals to me, but it's obvious that this was me in my transition from no-base to spines.

   This is another "transition to spines" piece, in which I also started experimenting with stick limbs. I even tried using some pseudo rib cages. I'm not sure why I really like this one; probably something to do with the largest, center figure.

  

    Hmm... Ok, there's a small problem with these two- I didn't start doing contour drawings until the 4th week, and I'm almost positive that these were done on the same day, so I really have no idea where they came from. ...meh, s'all the same to me. I like the top one for the contours, but it doesn't have the size of the bottom one. They both have nice line variation and use of shape and form, too.

Week 2 (9/12/2010 - 9/18/2010)

   More make up! Since the week 3 post is going to cover all the drawings I've done from weeks 2 and 3, I'll use this post to show you fine ladies and gentlemen, yet again, what kinds of artistic skills I want to hone. If, after this post, you still haven't figured out that I like anime/manga and the drawing styles they entail, then please to go and earn yourself a nice, shiny Darwin Award. Thank you from all of us.

DISCLAIMER: 

I HAD NO PART IN MAKING ANY OF THE DRAWING(S) 

INCLUDED WITHIN THIS POST

   This time around, I'm looking at the fine work of Japanese deviantARTist ALF874. The above work is titled "a half-beast girl" and wins my seal of approval on so many levels. I mean, come on- its a super strong, cat-like female whose holding a pile of what are probably tank scraps above her head with her right hand and carrying a monstrous Gatling gun, ammo drum included, in her left hand! This thing just drips cool! 

 What I want to talk about specifically, in relation to Life Drawing, is ALF874's knowledge of musculature. Almost every female he draws has significantly well-defined muscles like the half- beast girl here, and the best part is that they always feel appropriate, never to bulky or out of control, probably because a large number of the girls he draws are anthropomorphic beasts/demons like this one.

   Titled "waterfall", this is definitely one of my favorites of ALF874's works. The origin of the tail was placed a little high, in my opinion, but everything else works out great. Again we see extensive use of musculature, even on such a slender frame as hers (that's beast chicks for ya). My favorite part, though, has to be the tattooing. The designs have a wild, arcane feeling to them and perfectly accent the subject's obvious ferality. I've actually designed a character myself who has similar tattoos covering her entire body. After seeing these, however, I can tell there's quite a bit I still could afford to learn.

Week 1 (9/5/2010 - 9/11/2010)

   Make up time! Wow, bet you never thought you'd see a post for week 1 all the way after week 12, did ya? Diligence is obviously my strongest suit. In any case, as was the issue with weeks 8 and 9, so is it with weeks 1 to 3; I have a bunch of drawings sitting in a folder on my computer from those first 3 weeks but very little certainty as to which of those weeks I created them in. I actually have a pretty good idea about week 1, so this post will actually be accurate, but I will have to combine the drawings of weeks 2 and 3 like a sick, mutant lab experiment full of anguish and fail. Alright, let's take a peek back at what that first week was like...

   I might as well start with the most rudimentary, and most frustrating, works of the semester- the blind drawings. Yes indeed, we had to draw our new shells without ever looking at the paper. On the first one we could use multiple lines; the second one, we couldn't lift the pencil off the paper at all. Fun stuff. Although it was just an exercise to get our drawing styles more loosened up, it still sucked to do, and everyone hated it.

   Wow, take a look at this fine masterpiece. How did I ever manage to fit 3 whole lines into each of these squares? It's mind-boggling! Ok, I'll stop being retarded; of the many first times Amy had us concentrate solely on the the curvature of the spine, the foundation for every one our our drawings to come, this is my favorite example. They may just be lines, but hey, it's still technically art, right?

   

These are, bar none, the best things that came out of the first week. We did these right after the blind drawings, and I forget what the rules for these were, but they were obviously less restrictive. Drawing contours was almost just as frustrating, which made me finish it fairly quickly. Thank god I'd never have to do that again, right? ...oh wait.

Week 12 (11/21/2010 - 11/27/2010)

   Yet another short and interesting week for us in Life Drawing I. Since Thursday was Thanksgiving, our only "class" was on Tuesday, which consisted of a field trip to visit the Walker Art Center and then the Bell Museum of Natural History. After waiting over an hour past the time our bus was supposed to leave, we were sent another bus and were finally on our way.

   Because of this little delay, our stay at the Walker was a short one, although, I didn't exactly mind. I didn't realize before getting there that the Walker was home to mostly conceptual art pieces meant to represent or convey an idea, thought, or feeling. The results, in my opinion, were underwhelming. We were charged with finding a piece that we enjoyed within the Walker and then writing about it in this very blog post, a task which took me a considerable amount of time given how uninterested I was in most of the museum's interior stock.
 In the end, I found a photograph by Alec Soth almost tucked away in a corner down in the main lobby. Its name was a series of numbers and I honestly couldn't find it anywhere online, but it definitely caught my interest, and I remember it well- it was a photo taken somewhere in the American Southwest. The subject was an under-construction home that was being built right into the side of a red rock formation. I mean, someone was literally building a house within a ground-level, excavated portion of a rockface, with the interior walls of the cave acting as the walls and ceiling of the house itself! Having spent a lot of time in Arizona during my teenage years, I used to look at the red mountains of Sedona and imagine dwellings similar to this one, which is why this photo abducted my interest so immediately. Now that I know they actually exist, I'd love to eventually find one of these tunnel/cave houses and venture inside.

   Now, the Bell museum, on the other hand, with its taxidermy dioramas, various bones, and actual living creatures, was definitely more up my alley of interest. Our assignment here was to pick one of the aforementioned subjects and draw it as we would usually draw a model in class. There were so many choices and so much cool stuff to look at that I ended up spending a majority of the time walking around. When it was about an hour to 30 minutes before we had to go, I figured it would best to get started, so I looked for a good bird with its wings open and happened upon a diorama of several sandhill cranes with one such bird exhibited.
 I had more trouble with the feathers than I thought I was going to, but they actually turned out a lot better than I thought they were going to. Overall, I'd give it a 6/10, maybe a 7. Take a peek for yourself...

Week 11 (11/14/2010 - 11/20/2010)

 Since this was yet another short week in Life Drawing, and we did virtually nothing other than experiment with ink washes, the results of which I feel don't merit being put up on the blog, I'm going to take a detour for this post and explore something a little more personal in the way of drawing. Just like any artist, as a video game artist, I base a number of my skill aspirations on the works of others. One site that I frequent, deviantART, exhibits the works of many amazing artists, and there are a few that I would probably kill to have their amount of talent and skill. Let me show you what I mean... 

DISCLAIMER: 

I HAD NO PART IN MAKING ANY OF THE DRAWING(S) INCLUDED WITHIN THIS POST

 This is a piece titled "Amala of Sanctified Edge". The artist's username on deviantART is takaya, although you can see that his whole name is Takaya Lee just by looking at the signature at the bottom- right. If one needed an extremely brief summary of what I aspired to eventually be able to do as a game artist, all I would have to do is show this image. I mean, this is fricking IT! The actual human form in the center is beautiful enough, but the armor she's wearing is just phenomenal. I can't even imagine the amount of understanding of form it would take to be able to create something like this from your head. Seriously, what is all that even made of? It looks like some kind of bone/metal composite, but you can't really be sure. The color is what gives it this fantastic ambiguity, though, and what truly brings the picture to life. The whole thing was digitally painted, which is a skill I have very little expertise with but desperately need to learn, especially if I ever want results like this. The only elements of this work that I can learn in Life Drawing, though, is the human figure aspect, as well as form in general, which is why I so value dynamic poses like the one Amala is giving us here.

 

Week 10 (11/7/2010 - 11/13/2010)

 This was certainly a very unique week (heh, that rhymes); not only was it shortened because of Mid-Program Review, but we critiqued our second shell drawings and drew feet for the first time!

I'm going to admit right off the bat that I'm not as happy with Shell 2 as I was with Shell 1. That was also the general consensus among those in my critique group, though not to my extent of distaste. Although they weren't as awed by Shell 2 as they were with Shell 1, most of them still really liked it. One of the main issues, I felt, lies with my use of dark lines; it worked perfectly in Shell 1 to create a sense of depth, but there's just too much darkness concentrated into one area on Shell 2. Everyone else thinks it works fine, but I still get the sense that I overkilled it. I do like the top-most area of the operculum (the shell's interior), I guess, because of an innate sense of realism I get every time I look at that exact spot. All in all, Shell 2 looks decent enough,  but I know I can do better. Guess I'll have to not rush the next one like I did this one...

After the critiques, we had an extensive lecture on the bone structure of human feet before actually sitting down/standing up and making our first attempts at drawing them. On a side note, this marked the first day that Katharina posed for our class without disrobing. That didn't make things any easier, though; feet and hands are my personal nemeses when it comes to drawing people, and I could feel the old frustrations coming back as I laid charcoal to paper. Surprisingly enough, though, I did pretty well, especially in spite of the facts that she didn't change the positioning of her feet once and that, therein, I only had view of a single good foot to draw. I craved variety like you couldn't believe, but it was this very limitation that forced me to focus on the details and actually create a pleasing product.

Week 9 (10/31/2010 - 11/6/2010)

   As I stated in the week 8 post, this post for week 9 will include a combination of the works I did in class during both the 8th and 9th weeks, since I kind of forgot which drawings go where. Also, as a first, instead of just saying a whole lot in a few paragraphs and then lumping all the drawings together at the end, I'm going to go into detail about every individual drawing, so you can get a better understanding of what's going on in each...

   I'm guessing the day the I drew this, it was one of the first, if not the first, attempts we made at adding the pelvis to each of our figures. Gesture drawings as these may be, I still found it difficult (and still somewhat do) to figure out the placement of the pelvis in relation to the ribcage, as well as its general shape in any given position. I will admit, though, these do look rather lively.

   I got a little help from Amy on this one, but it illustrates my as-stated-above difficulty with proportion and placement of of the pelvis. That damn triangle thing always throws me off.

   Now this one is unique in a number of ways. The primary reason was that it was our first full, 2-hour drawing, meaning that it was also Katharina's first time posing for a full 2 hours, with breaks every half-hour our so, of course. The pose is also personal, since during the afternoon class period the previous Tuesday, I happened to be the model and had to endure this same exact pose... for 2 freaking hours! Obviously, just sitting in a chair isn't exactly tough work, but good lord was it boring, especially considering I couldn't move any of my body parts. Katharina was actually in the class that I posed for, so she knew what was coming.
 I actually like how the drawing itself turned out, despite it not being picture perfect after looking at the pose for as long as I did. In fact, Amy said that she didn't want us to even try for a perfect drawing; it was all still meant for practice and learning, so we were prompted to draw the ribcage, pelvis, etc. and leave them there. I was happy that the length of time permitted me to draw the head and face, for a change, which really brings the whole piece into another reality.

 

  More pelvis gestures here. I started to embrace the concept of "stick" limbs this time around, since I noticed a lot of other people had good results with it. My favorite one is the top left figure in the lower right quadrant. See how I bent the arm sticks to create the illusion of shoulders? I love little things like that.

 

   This was another long pose, but thankfully not 2 hours. Our focus for this one was learning how to foreshorten, and I think I hit the mark pretty well. The chair Katharina was sitting on was raised up higher than normal upon boxes and stacks of books, so trying to figure out the proportions of the surrounding objects relative to the actual figure was my primary issue. I spent too much time trying to figure out the shoulders, so I decided to concentrate on the legs more, which is why they stand out so much. We hadn't tackled feet at this point either, so I largely ignored them. It's not that I couldn't have drawn them if I'd wanted to, it's just that I hate drawing feet, so I didn't.

Week 8 (10/24/2010 - 10/30/2010)

Ok, we have a small issue here, but not too big of one- you see, I can't exactly remember what I did during this week. By looking at some of my drawings, I can get a pretty good idea, but I'm still not positive, so I'm just going to take all the drawings that I did during weeks 8 - 9 and just lump them all together in the week 9 post. Here, on the other hand, I'm going to do what I did with my week 11 post and comment on other artists who already have the skills that I desperately desire...

DISCLAIMER: 

I HAD NO PART IN MAKING ANY OF THE DRAWING(S) 
INCLUDED WITHIN THIS POST

 This lovely little gem is the creation of South Korean artist Kyoung Hwan Kim, who goes by the name tahra on deviantART. It has a simple title,"Illustration", but good lord is this thing beyond simple. I might as well get it out of the way now before I go any further, but yes, the girl in the picture is cute and has a considerable bust, both of which are alluring, but this work is definitely not riding on those features alone. One primary aspect of tahra's drawing technique that really sucks me in is the subtle line work he uses; if you look closely, the shading and form-shaping lines that he uses during the sketching/drawing phase largely remain behind after the digital painting phase. Far from accidental, its these lines that give the whole piece a unique texture with its own weight and grit. I love it! I won't even go into his use of color, since that would take me forever, but I have to at least touch on his knowledge of human form, which is especially prevalent in the girl's elbows and hands, but I feel I need another image to really explain what I'm getting at...

Yea, check this thing out. This one's just called "kick", and boy is it ever! Obviously, the subject has been drawn stylistically and exaggerated, but her motion and anatomical form are still completely believable. I guess it's true what they say, "you have to learn the rules before you can break them" otherwise you won't be able to fudge them anywhere near as good as this.

Midterm Review

Although drawing the human figure is possibly my favorite art subject, as well as one of the only subjects of study I went into teaching myself, I've always known that there was far more I could learn and that I could do so much better. Therefore, I enrolled in Life Drawing I in order to better understand the human figure and how it can be moved and formed.

Over these past several weeks, I have indeed learned quite a bit- not only about human anatomy but also how to express different forms through the use of dynamic lines. I used to look at the great anatomy drawings of others and wondered how exactly they were able to produce those kinds of lines. Since I've been in this class, I've actually learned how that is possible and have begun to execute the technique on my own, which essentially requires varying the thickness of the lines while surrendering most of your control over how you make them. This greatly expands the interest of the picture as a whole, especially when creating cross-contours.

Although my understanding of the human figure has increased dramatically, as well, I still feel there is much more I can learn. Starting each drawing with a spine and then adding a ribcage and pelvis has helped; I've learned before this class how to break the figure down into its foundational components, so that already makes sense. However, I still think there's something I'm not catching onto, especially where proportions are concerned. I feel that my gesture drawings are suffering because of this, since I follow the proper steps but still have the figure usually come out looking like nothing after I'm done. Whatever the issue is, I hope to resolve it during the next quarter, as well as improve upon the skills I've already gained.

Although I'm now double-posting this drawing, in my opinion, it's the best that I've done thus far.

This goes to my Flickr account...

Week 7 (10/17/2010 - 10/23/2010)

I can honestly say that I'm actually very excited about this week's post- were assigned to make a very large drawing of our shells, and I'm extremely pleased with the results! Pulling this off was extremely labor-intensive and required concentration and a lot of patience... a lot of patience. The only thing that I overstepped the boundaries slightly as far as criteria were concerned was in how much foreshortening my drawing included- too much apparently, but it still worked out great in the end, especially since I made the closer lines darker and further ones lighter. I've noticed lately that, ironically, the less control I give myself over each individual line the more interest I create within each, which is an issue that a lot of other people still seem to struggle with. Since this is just the first of five shell drawings we're going to do, I can't wait to see how the next ones are going to go!

Week 6 (10/10/2010 - 10/16/2010)

It's hard to say anything about week six really, since little to nothing actually happened. Amy taught us about the the gluteus muscles for our next mannequin assignment, but she cut the class short, because the classroom was too hot, apparently. Little did any of us know, however, that the extreme heat she perceived was due, in part, to a fever caused by a cold that would actually force her to cancel class on Thursday! Therefore, the week was uneventful, save for the fact that we all got our third muscle assignments done early, which I have taken pictures of. I've also debated it heavily and, since I know you all must be wondering, I have decided that my mannequin is to be named Manny. REJOICE!

Week 4 (9/26/2010 - 10/2/2010)

   So...yeah, before I start, I might as well point out the fact that this is the fourth week and I haven't been keeping up with these weekly posts. I guess how we were supposed to go about doing these kind of escaped me early on, then I ended up putting it on the back burner, and now this is the result- a rather empty blog. Well, fear not! I will stop my procrastination on this subject and really get on it from this point forward... I hope.

   In any case, on Tuesday, we had a critique of our mannequins following the first modeling clay muscles assignment. I hadn't gotten mine yet since I was absent the Thursday prior, so all I could do was observe. As I am finding out, the small size and number of the individual muscles I say sculpted upon each mannequin belied how ridiculously difficult they are to actually create and attach properly. Modeling clay almost never dries out, but man oh man is it a beast to work with, and the vague instruction books don't make it any easier. However, Amy did direct us to a website that shows a full 3D model of each body system, so I might give that a shot... if I could just remember the url.
 Once we started some actual figure drawing, our main task was to practice drawing the central line of curvature relative to each pose, as this is apparently how we are, from now on, supposed to start every drawing. Doing this makes sense, and I enjoyed it for its simplicity. Later on we tried our first cross-contour drawing, which takes a considerable amount of time and patience. My results from this endeavor probably would have been more appealing had I known to draw the horizontal contours as well as the vertical.
 I was actually scheduled to model on Tuesday for the afternoon class, but Amy had accidentally signed up someone else as well. The worst thing that happened was I got paid for three hours while I did my homework, so I'm not exactly upset. I'm scheduled for next Tuesday for sure, although, for the open drawing session at 7:00pm.

   On Thursday, we continued on with the central line exercises, but this time we were instructed in how to add a rib cage to it. The result was pages full of what amusingly looked a lot like sperm cells, although, I still enjoyed the technique, once again, for its simplicity and ease of execution. Near the end of the class, we attempted yet another cross-contour drawing of the torso. I remembered to actually cross the contours this time and my results were much better.

The techniques I have been learning are much different than how I am used to drawing, and the process often tests the limits of my patience and frustration, but I know that nothing worth doing is ever really easy to learn... at least where art is concerned.

Intro to ME

 Greetings, the few of you who will ever read this blog!

Since you're curious, (AND YOU ARE) my name is Matthew Anthony Louscher. I usually just go by "Matt", but will also accept Luscious, MAL, Mathen, or on occasion, even Steve The Anorexic Stick Man. Now, this is an art blog, so let's get down to business. I am in the art concentration of the Game Design and Development major here at Stout, which, as you may have already guessed, is filled to the brim with, arguably, the sexiest and most interesting males in the entire college, including yours truly. Games and the design thereof has been a dream of mine since elementary school, a dream which has been fostered by hundreds of hours of tireless...study. As it would turn out, I am also good at art, a skill that can, incidentally, be used to great effect within the game design industry, so here I find myself in Life Drawing 1.

Human figure drawing is possibly my favorite art subject and one of the only art forms that I've gone at length into teaching myself. Unfortunately, it's still fairly arduous even with prior training, so I figured that a full class dedicated to this one area would be incredibly beneficial. Let's hope, for the sake of my sanity and tuition, that I'm not wrong!