My training journey
Once in 2016, I left my job to start my own business, opening a small design studio. And, as I vividly remember, I really wanted this freedom to give me an opportunity to learn. Six years before that, I had been professionally involved in creating patterns in the wallpaper industry. And at that point I wanted to shift to illustration, as I had planned when I was a student.
one of the patterns of those years
I wanted to get a comprehensive bundle of knowledge, which I had not completely received at the university, and this took me about 6 years of study. I figured out what I needed and what I didn't have among disciplines, and I decided that if all went well, I should have been done by 35 (I was 29). I was aware that growing a business, building a family, and learning illustration took much longer than just doing the latter.
My personal program included CG base, perspective drawing, sketching, anatomy, Matte Painting, 3D and more. Having set up the processes in the new studio, in the middle of 2017 I realized that I could start.
Different years carried different events and sometimes I studied a lot and well, and sometimes for a long time I could not start studying. But overall, I think life has been kind to me, and I've really done pretty much everything.
In order to understand why I even needed to study, it might be good to show what I could do by 28. I attach works of different years, which generally give an understanding of the level. Once again I will remind you that then I was more engaged in patterns than illustration (I worked as a surface designer).
There were both clear traditional (even oil) works and digital (including vector). My favorite tool was a rapidograph or liner. The most common pipeline was to draw with liner/rapidograph, and then color in Photoshop, apply textures, and color correction. The second approach was a sketch on paper and drawing in vector (I drew a lot in vector then).
At that time, I did not study accurately and consistently, I just followed my instincts somehow. And in general, it was possible to go on that way and live/earn and even develop somehow. I have seen and continue to see many of such examples. Hiding flaws by stylization, not drawing what you can not manage and so on. Or choosing the topic "I draw animal heads on prints in front/profile". That's kind of how the triceratops is drawn. It is salable, and it looks quite good. But I set my sights on professionalism rather than amateurism or a similar super narrow niche. Moreover, I wanted to develop the design studio in the direction of illustration.
By then I had developed enough self-criticism to understand the shortcomings of my work.
More precisely:
It was difficult for me to draw people properly. Especially anatomically correct.
Angles and perspective was a headache in general - it was quite difficult to draw something not flat and not in front/profile.
I could not quickly, immediately with an ordinary pen, catch the shape, only with a pencil and an eraser. And I wanted confidence in the lines, clarity, and understanding of the design.
There was no understanding of pipelines. That is, I sometimes looked at a work I liked and did not understand how it was drawn.
I always liked the stylization and was quite successful in it, but it was intuitive. And I needed an understanding of how I could 100% make it so that it would hit the spot, with any specification.
Having understood the problems, I took up training. Here is a list of the main courses I completed from the beginning to the end.
Concept Art with Klushkin (I had to take some time off, but I'll finish soon)
There were other courses that I took partially (so I did not include them in the list), filling in some gaps. Then there were lessons on YouTube, some books and so on, I can't remember everything.
Also, at the same time I arranged a lot of different practices and learnt a lot by myself. Among the most memorable independent activities:
Obviously, constant non-stop practice and application of all this on my projects and customer orders
Constant style search in practice and its honing
A lot of work to hone stylization
Learning 3D packages from basic such as Tinkercad and SketchUp to Blender and Zbrush
Training my studio staff
I don't know if that's a lot or a little. I only know that for my rhythm and lifestyle, I practiced as I could and did not loaf. It feels not even a third degree, but something much larger. And I did fill all the gaps in education, which I wrote about above. Now this period has come to a certain end, and new horizons lie ahead. And the results of this learning journey can be seen here on this website, in my portfolio, and in the articles.
