Just a quick summary + timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:26 One step at a time 3:34 What to practice - the problem at hand 4:51 Solution 1: Structure and schedule 7:05 Breaking down big topics 10:20 Changing schedules to fit your needs 11:42 Solution 2: Interest goes first 14:06 Problems of too many interests (handy rule of thumb: at least 1h per topic) 14:57 Solution 3: Make weaknesses your strengths 17:07 Double-edged sword of focusing on your strengths too much 18:00 Recap 19:49 Outro Haven't watched the other two videos yet, but I would love if you could enable the RUclips chapter thingy. I kinda like the structured approach. :)
It’s like he looked into my head and pulled the questions right out of it and made a video for each of them. i’m loving Noah, thank you for helping me believing i can still make it, as an illustrator
What you teach is something i havent found in anybody in the past 2 years and i've searched everywhere..... HOW to learn. You actually give us a place to start and then what to do next etc. I havent even bought your courses yet but just from your yt videos I have a perfect grasp on how to actually structure my learning and what to actually practice. I never got that from anybody else, except one other. Crazy how every other teacher (that I've seen) on the internet fails to do that. You and love life drawing, seem to be the only guys who understand not just art, but how to teach it.
Thank you so so much for this! It's something that drives me _insane_ about so much educational content (not even just stuff for art). People can be phenomenal at painting, for instance, but are often atrocious at actually getting across to people what they need to do. So glad I was able to teach you a few things well! :)
@@TeamBradley oh yea its everywhere, i do mma to and some of the best fighters are crap coaches😅, but really, thank YOU for just actually understand what its like for a beginner and helping them progress, such a rarity.
James Gurney's books (Color and Light, Imaginative Realism) are probably the best when it comes to "breaking down" art fundamentals. Not only do they explain specific concepts concisely, but they also teach you how to consciously study art in general.
2:19 Mindfulness meditation can be of great help with that. It's all about focusing on the present moment, acknowledging distracting thoughts that come up without judgement and then letting them go.
I can relate so much to this topic! I started a mentorship last week and one of the first assignments was doing thumbnails for a character. That was when I rerecognized that I suck at drawing humans (I focused more on environments and props for the past months) and have to relearn anatomy. Also, I noticed that I never did that many clothing studies. I guess you can tell how much that frustrated me. ^^° I am learning with a schedule but more a weekly one. I have some issues with my back so I try to only think about my practise sessions for a shorter term. Like, when I feel that my back is making problems again, I reduce the learning time, when I feel fine I will add up the hours. The learning subjects change from week-week or month-month. Last month I did almost only photo studies for example. This week will be a mixture of anatomy and photo studies again. :,D Learning is so hard, haha. I have been doing this mostly on my own for 4,5 years by now and am still nowhere near a professional level. Like, I am mediocre at best in comparison to other "more serious artists" & professionals. Do you think that this is a bad sign, being so slow? ^^°
Thanks! It's fun to just sit and chat. I find I do way fewer videos if I have to do a lot of production or make them perfect, so this works a lot better for me. :)
It's funny because I tried them all. Their all really good, one that you didn't mentioned I like to use is project driven studies. I plan out a project and I might need sertain skills to complete it, so I focus on that while I'm working on the project. Makes it easy to choose and your apply the stuff as you go
That's a good one! I loooooove focusing on big projects and using that as an excuse to learn new skills. I also find the larger projects much better at motivating myself to do a ton of work.
Great, that was useful. I would love to see a video about how do you structure your day when you do client work , where do you put studying and your personal projects there. I'm currently struggling with this myself a bit.
That's a reeeeeally hard one and is maybe worth its own video. Usually when I was working full time I struggled to find time to do much more than 30-60 minutes of studying a day. Which is better than nothing. I'd usually do it in the morning before I got started with whatever I had to do that day.
Thank you for these videos! These videos are especially helpful in understanding and strategizing learning process for a self-taught artist and designer like me.
I realized that your way of thinking and teaching is the best way to learn. Because everybody nowadays is trying to justify their lack of skill (for example being dependent on reference photos). Could you please talk more about how to combine copying and actual construction of anything? Like I am good at copying the shapes that make an image realistic, but the process out of imagination seems to be very different.
I think an advantage of specializing, picking that one thing to get good at, is you go through the whole learning process in that area and can clearly see the improvement. Once you learn how to learn, go from beginner to advanced, that skill transfers to other areas.
It certainly does, but the trap of getting good at something is that it becomes very easy to _not_ get good at other things. The social/professional pressures to continue making good work are very real and prevent a lot of pros from progressing their skills in other areas.
@@TeamBradley I agree, I know I've been avoiding doing landscapes and non-human studies (like animals and objects) because the human form is what I'm good at and I've been too scared to post work that's not at the same level.
@@TeamBradley yeah that's true, I was thinking from the learning side but on the pro side I'm sure that's a trap. I'm not on the pro radar yet though so I didn't even think of that XD
Great video! And you said it right! I get easily distracted with a newer subject to draw or new thing to practice in art and lose interest in the previous one. The problem is, after graduating from fine art school I really get confused as to what to draw between realistic/figurative art and non-figurative/abstract art. And on top of that, there is a thought of earning as well. But I guess I will for now concentrate on realistic/observational art and get better at it. Thank you for making these videos!
My pleasure! And yeah it's really hard. I'm an artist with a ton of different interests and trying to find a good balance between all of them is so hard. Just gotta do one thing at a time and not switch between them _too_ often.
Hi Noah, thanks for the video. I have a question about perspective, specifically for environments. Most perspective books and resources show how to construct buildings, cars, and objects that can be placed into perspective, but I'm having trouble placing organic matter (trees, rocks, mountains, pathways) into proper perspective. Can you maybe do a tutorial on perspective for environments?
landscapes used to be my strength and portraits and figures used to be my weakness. so I doubled down on portraits and figures, and didnt practice landscapes, now landscapes are my weakness XD
Great video Noah. I can't stick to a schedule myself and I just do whatever I'm interested in at that point in time. Still works so I'm not complaining. Right now it's perspective and I'm a little bit stuck. I'm thinking about resources for learning how to draw humans in perspective. I'm having a hard time finding anything. Maybe I'm looking for something that can't be found and is something that just works when you know how to put boxes down in linear perspective. Thanks for your time.
I have a great suggestion for a video you can do! Maybe try to do like “what can perspective helps in your painting” so you will just show on a side a perspective piece that you worked on next to something that u didnt use perspective for. I think that might help motivate me and others into learning things that supposedly isn’t “fun”
Thank you Noah! Besides the great video; I am watching on an iPad, and I kept trying to wipe off something on my screen; which I finally realized was a slight out of focus nail or mark on your wall,up over and behind your left shoulder. LOL! I’m laughing at myself!😬🤣🧐😲
Hahaha it's annoying right? The clock that was there broke so I'm working on getting another one but until then... we get the annoying dot behind my head.
When you have a really tight schedule (university exams and work that doesn't end) and you have the summer vacation and yo want really to do more stylized style, do you have to do realism (I'm doing vilppu courses) or you have just to copy , study and reconstruct the artstyle you want to achieve??
I love perspective, find it super fun. I picked up a pen / brush after 25 years during lockdown and now am teaching myself all the basics. Can you share a schedule you saw that you liked pls. i like structure but been wondering what i should put in the schedule so i cover all the basics over a year or so (May be able to dedicate one hour a day, so planning to go round robin on the basics - one a day). Will leave figurative for end of the year but focus now is more on form, texture, shape, value, composition, etc (anything else i can add to this list?) - one more question - what is the list of fundamentals that one needs to study and practice?
If you are interested in perspective there is drawabox, it's a free course that teaches how to think in volumes and in perspective. Take a look and see if it's for you!
I started out studying constructive anatomy. The thing is that I didnt know how to draw forms in perspective, so...Ive been studying perspective for about a month now. Im practicing my forms daily to get back to drawing big tiddie goth gfs I meaaan serious characters for 2D animation. So yeah I advise that you go for the constructive approach for anatomic studies.
Concept and character art types really really REALLY do not like perspective- basically everyone I know in this area, cannot do proper perspective. It's so dry to learn, but unbelievably useful in every area of art. Also find it kinda funny that you also can't do structure either, seems like a common theme among art types. Good info though, thanks for sharing.
Is it possible to be a pretty good artist and also be exceptional in anotherfield?> I feel like artists that are really good at their work have to specialize in their work in the field of art in general. Could any one prove the contrary?
Possible? Yes, easy? Unlikely. Leonardo Da Vinci was exceptional in several fields. WLOP is a software developer. Many Manga artists are also writers, many artists are also streamers and youtubers.
@@TeamBradley hope she rest in peace in the haven of clocks (someone need to draw that and made something like a mobile game or a nemo type of movie XDDD , i think i need to sleep )
Sadly, I couldn't watch it before but now, when I did, I must say that it's really soothing to realize that someone as awesome as Noah Bradley can't stick to a strict schedule too. :D Thanks a lot for such an informative video, as always. It really helps to finally define what to work on and where to start. :)
I'm pretty hopeless with sticking to things like that. :) My whole art journey has been one of finding things that I _can_ do and maximizing the effectiveness of those things.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Just a quick summary + timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:26 One step at a time
3:34 What to practice - the problem at hand
4:51 Solution 1: Structure and schedule
7:05 Breaking down big topics
10:20 Changing schedules to fit your needs
11:42 Solution 2: Interest goes first
14:06 Problems of too many interests (handy rule of thumb: at least 1h per topic)
14:57 Solution 3: Make weaknesses your strengths
17:07 Double-edged sword of focusing on your strengths too much
18:00 Recap
19:49 Outro
Haven't watched the other two videos yet, but I would love if you could enable the RUclips chapter thingy. I kinda like the structured approach. :)
It’s like he looked into my head and pulled the questions right out of it and made a video for each of them. i’m loving Noah, thank you for helping me believing i can still make it, as an illustrator
Haha that's awesome. I guess we all think and worry about the same things. :)
Dude, you can't imagine how much you're helping us. As long as you put out this content, you're going to have my likes
Thank you so so much! I so appreciate it. :)
What you teach is something i havent found in anybody in the past 2 years and i've searched everywhere..... HOW to learn. You actually give us a place to start and then what to do next etc. I havent even bought your courses yet but just from your yt videos I have a perfect grasp on how to actually structure my learning and what to actually practice. I never got that from anybody else, except one other. Crazy how every other teacher (that I've seen) on the internet fails to do that. You and love life drawing, seem to be the only guys who understand not just art, but how to teach it.
Thank you so so much for this! It's something that drives me _insane_ about so much educational content (not even just stuff for art). People can be phenomenal at painting, for instance, but are often atrocious at actually getting across to people what they need to do. So glad I was able to teach you a few things well! :)
@@TeamBradley oh yea its everywhere, i do mma to and some of the best fighters are crap coaches😅, but really, thank YOU for just actually understand what its like for a beginner and helping them progress, such a rarity.
Three videos on art practice, and beautifully made, a must watch!
Thanks for the support!
James Gurney's books (Color and Light, Imaginative Realism) are probably the best when it comes to "breaking down" art fundamentals. Not only do they explain specific concepts concisely, but they also teach you how to consciously study art in general.
Thanks for the tips!
2:19 Mindfulness meditation can be of great help with that. It's all about focusing on the present moment, acknowledging distracting thoughts that come up without judgement and then letting them go.
Absolutely! I never expected how much meditation would help me with the art making process. :)
This has given me such a headstart to my decision on taking in traditional and digital art seriously and this time, mindfully. I thank you for that!
This is gold. Thank you
You bet, glad you liked it!
I can relate so much to this topic! I started a mentorship last week and one of the first assignments was doing thumbnails for a character. That was when I rerecognized that I suck at drawing humans (I focused more on environments and props for the past months) and have to relearn anatomy. Also, I noticed that I never did that many clothing studies. I guess you can tell how much that frustrated me. ^^°
I am learning with a schedule but more a weekly one. I have some issues with my back so I try to only think about my practise sessions for a shorter term. Like, when I feel that my back is making problems again, I reduce the learning time, when I feel fine I will add up the hours. The learning subjects change from week-week or month-month. Last month I did almost only photo studies for example. This week will be a mixture of anatomy and photo studies again. :,D
Learning is so hard, haha. I have been doing this mostly on my own for 4,5 years by now and am still nowhere near a professional level. Like, I am mediocre at best in comparison to other "more serious artists" & professionals. Do you think that this is a bad sign, being so slow? ^^°
Awesome stuff, really enjoying this video format of yours!
Thanks! It's fun to just sit and chat. I find I do way fewer videos if I have to do a lot of production or make them perfect, so this works a lot better for me. :)
I really needed to listen to this. I was so overwhelmed with what to practice 1st. Thanks for the sound advice.
You're so welcome! Glad I could help. :)
thank you
It's funny because I tried them all. Their all really good, one that you didn't mentioned I like to use is project driven studies. I plan out a project and I might need sertain skills to complete it, so I focus on that while I'm working on the project. Makes it easy to choose and your apply the stuff as you go
That's a good one! I loooooove focusing on big projects and using that as an excuse to learn new skills. I also find the larger projects much better at motivating myself to do a ton of work.
Great advice! I'll be sure to apply these
Thanks, hope it helps!
Thank you.
You're quite welcome!
Great, that was useful. I would love to see a video about how do you structure your day when you do client work , where do you put studying and your personal projects there. I'm currently struggling with this myself a bit.
That's a reeeeeally hard one and is maybe worth its own video. Usually when I was working full time I struggled to find time to do much more than 30-60 minutes of studying a day. Which is better than nothing. I'd usually do it in the morning before I got started with whatever I had to do that day.
Thank you for these videos! These videos are especially helpful in understanding and strategizing learning process for a self-taught artist and designer like me.
That's great, happy to help! Hope you can create a great study program for yourself. :)
I realized that your way of thinking and teaching is the best way to learn. Because everybody nowadays is trying to justify their lack of skill (for example being dependent on reference photos). Could you please talk more about how to combine copying and actual construction of anything? Like I am good at copying the shapes that make an image realistic, but the process out of imagination seems to be very different.
Thank you so much, I needed this.
I think an advantage of specializing, picking that one thing to get good at, is you go through the whole learning process in that area and can clearly see the improvement. Once you learn how to learn, go from beginner to advanced, that skill transfers to other areas.
It certainly does, but the trap of getting good at something is that it becomes very easy to _not_ get good at other things. The social/professional pressures to continue making good work are very real and prevent a lot of pros from progressing their skills in other areas.
@@TeamBradley I agree, I know I've been avoiding doing landscapes and non-human studies (like animals and objects) because the human form is what I'm good at and I've been too scared to post work that's not at the same level.
@@TeamBradley yeah that's true, I was thinking from the learning side but on the pro side I'm sure that's a trap. I'm not on the pro radar yet though so I didn't even think of that XD
Great video! And you said it right! I get easily distracted with a newer subject to draw or new thing to practice in art and lose interest in the previous one. The problem is, after graduating from fine art school I really get confused as to what to draw between realistic/figurative art and non-figurative/abstract art. And on top of that, there is a thought of earning as well. But I guess I will for now concentrate on realistic/observational art and get better at it. Thank you for making these videos!
My pleasure! And yeah it's really hard. I'm an artist with a ton of different interests and trying to find a good balance between all of them is so hard. Just gotta do one thing at a time and not switch between them _too_ often.
Hi Noah, thanks for the video. I have a question about perspective, specifically for environments. Most perspective books and resources show how to construct buildings, cars, and objects that can be placed into perspective, but I'm having trouble placing organic matter (trees, rocks, mountains, pathways) into proper perspective. Can you maybe do a tutorial on perspective for environments?
Always love your videos !!
I would love to see some more videos on master studies :))
landscapes used to be my strength and portraits and figures used to be my weakness. so I doubled down on portraits and figures, and didnt practice landscapes, now landscapes are my weakness XD
I've waited for it!
Hope it was worth the wait! :)
Please do a video dedicated on Perspective. Wanna see how do you render a piece with perspective.
Good idea! I'll see what I can do. :) I do touch on it in my course, Art Camp 3: artcamp.com
Thanks for the video, I found it really constructive! The only thing I'll add probably is the list of art fundamentals
Thanks! And yeah I'll try to do a video about those. :)
the hardest part is choosing what fundamental to try and go for, might have to spin a heel to decide
Yep, ya can't go wrong!
Great video Noah. I can't stick to a schedule myself and I just do whatever I'm interested in at that point in time. Still works so I'm not complaining. Right now it's perspective and I'm a little bit stuck. I'm thinking about resources for learning how to draw humans in perspective. I'm having a hard time finding anything. Maybe I'm looking for something that can't be found and is something that just works when you know how to put boxes down in linear perspective. Thanks for your time.
Schedule never works for me as well. Thank you for your video!
So how much do you work for each fundamental?
thanks
I have a great suggestion for a video you can do! Maybe try to do like “what can perspective helps in your painting” so you will just show on a side a perspective piece that you worked on next to something that u didnt use perspective for. I think that might help motivate me and others into learning things that supposedly isn’t “fun”
Thank you Noah! Besides the great video; I am watching on an iPad, and I kept trying to wipe off something on my screen; which I finally realized was a slight out of focus nail or mark on your wall,up over and behind your left shoulder. LOL! I’m laughing at myself!😬🤣🧐😲
Hahaha it's annoying right? The clock that was there broke so I'm working on getting another one but until then... we get the annoying dot behind my head.
@@TeamBradley Not so annoying;just funny I kept trying to wipe it off my screen!🤫
When you have a really tight schedule (university exams and work that doesn't end) and you have the summer vacation and yo want really to do more stylized style, do you have to do realism (I'm doing vilppu courses) or you have just to copy , study and reconstruct the artstyle you want to achieve??
I love perspective, find it super fun. I picked up a pen / brush after 25 years during lockdown and now am teaching myself all the basics. Can you share a schedule you saw that you liked pls. i like structure but been wondering what i should put in the schedule so i cover all the basics over a year or so (May be able to dedicate one hour a day, so planning to go round robin on the basics - one a day). Will leave figurative for end of the year but focus now is more on form, texture, shape, value, composition, etc (anything else i can add to this list?) - one more question - what is the list of fundamentals that one needs to study and practice?
If you are interested in perspective there is drawabox, it's a free course that teaches how to think in volumes and in perspective. Take a look and see if it's for you!
I sit here after studying perspective for 2 months loving it and hate the human figure so much haha. I want to go back to perspective
lol perspective is wonderful because it just makes _sense_.
I started out studying constructive anatomy. The thing is that I didnt know how to draw forms in perspective, so...Ive been studying perspective for about a month now. Im practicing my forms daily to get back to drawing big tiddie goth gfs I meaaan serious characters for 2D animation.
So yeah I advise that you go for the constructive approach for anatomic studies.
Pretty informative
Is there anywhere I can buy a print of your artwork for urza’s ruinous blast I can’t seem to find it anywhere?
Not currently! Rethinking how I want to do prints in the future. :) Eventually!
Concept and character art types really really REALLY do not like perspective- basically everyone I know in this area, cannot do proper perspective. It's so dry to learn, but unbelievably useful in every area of art.
Also find it kinda funny that you also can't do structure either, seems like a common theme among art types.
Good info though, thanks for sharing.
This is really helpful stuff, thank you Noah :) hope you’re doing okay too.
analysis paralysis defines my 20s
lol, a common lament. Do stuff!
Is it possible to be a pretty good artist and also be exceptional in anotherfield?> I feel like artists that are really good at their work have to specialize in their work in the field of art in general. Could any one prove the contrary?
Possible? Yes, easy? Unlikely. Leonardo Da Vinci was exceptional in several fields. WLOP is a software developer. Many Manga artists are also writers, many artists are also streamers and youtubers.
Tone of interest and changing interest every time totally me hhhhh
noo where is the clock ; ( anyways great video !
Haha it was broken. :) New clock coming soon!
@@TeamBradley hope she rest in peace in the haven of clocks (someone need to draw that and made something like a mobile game or a nemo type of movie XDDD , i think i need to sleep )
The 8 dislikes are people who still don’t know what to practice
i love you
Haha thanks! :)
Sadly, I couldn't watch it before but now, when I did, I must say that it's really soothing to realize that someone as awesome as Noah Bradley can't stick to a strict schedule too. :D
Thanks a lot for such an informative video, as always. It really helps to finally define what to work on and where to start. :)
I'm pretty hopeless with sticking to things like that. :) My whole art journey has been one of finding things that I _can_ do and maximizing the effectiveness of those things.