This is still a QUEST blog, after all

I have a new purpose for this blog, since the original "draw and analyze daily" is now achieved.
There's something very powerful I discovered, and I'm teaching myself to control it: habit.

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You'd think this is related to the post. It's not. It's actually a bad, quick custom brush test.

You're welcome.

GOAL 1:
Rediscover what I'm actually passionate about. Which subjects I'm actually interested in. Draw them because my personal art should be personal and free.
Status: I'm horribly influenced in my choice of subjects by what is mainstream (avoid at all costs!) and what is unpopular to the masses (I'll be ignored!). For so much time I failed to realize it's impossibile to feel the drive to draw for myself, if I'm incapable of focusing on what I like to draw.
I'm so wrapped up in this "but all I produce must be appetible because I have to make a name for myself!!" state of mind, that I literally can't understand what I love and what is induced by external pressure anymore.

GOAL 2:
Pick up some healthy habits and report results here:
- Make some physical exercise everyday. I live on the edge of a huge park, I have an exercise bike in my bedroom and my mom is a physiotherapist. I defintely have what I need
- Go to sleep at 12:00 am and set alarm clock at 9:00
- Stretch and make posture exercises everyday for my back and muscles
Status: I've been travelling every week this summer, but during a 10 days stay at home I've already started an experiment. It went great: I could manage all of this, although starting gradually, and be productive with art and meet with friends too. Now I just need to regain my routine.
I'm a very dynamic person and I love sports, so this isn't a huge sacrifice; I'm actually only worried about time management. I'll make adjustments if needed.

Hello watercolors

Why hello - here's a watercolor sketch I made roughly two years ago. Finally introducing some colored traditional stuff! Now for the sad part: I haven't touched watercolors since this flamingo.

Let's see here:

• My beloved fineliner seems to cooperate with watercolors too. I'd like to try different media and/or ink colors for the line drawing part
• It doesn't look too dull for a watercolor sketch

• The face part looks confusing - too many details when a few wide blothes of color would have worked fine
• Colors need to look more lively. I want to see more contrast (duh) and clash 
• I probably worked with dirty water and slightly murky colors

Experience gained: 4 points!

- I want to practice more with mixing various media and watercolor. I like the outcome! I'll experiment with different ink colors, too
- I need to work with wide areas of base color before jumping into details (its face D: )
- Some consistent speedpainting from reference should help me manage tones and values better
- Be clean, Dev. No murky water! You want your watercolor paintings to be bright

Overused

Tigers are an easy choice when it comes to animal portraits but what can I say - they are such scenographic subjects.

Same as last times: one brush, no color picker, no outlines. Analyzer mode: ON!

• It seems that I'm moving towards more decorative solutions - the rough parallel scribbling in the background was spontaneous and doesn't look bad; those almost rectangular patches of fur seem to work nice; I think I'm improving with framing and cuts too - negative space foliage and fur look good, I'm gonna try that again with other subjects

• Still struggling with contrast
• I feel it's too soon to start tweaking colors - no trippy interpretations for now
• I wanted it to look fine with bigger blotches of color and less detail

Experience gained: 2 points!

- I need to improve on synthesis. I should try shrinking and blurring the original reference picture, so as to be unable to go into details and forced to stick to the general impression
- I'd love to get better at managing negative space and making it a part of my style

Standing on nothing

Another speedpainting I did back in July. 

Oh deer, you don't seem to be standing on very solid ground!

Limitations:
- no color picking
- only use one hard brush
- no lineart, sketching and such; apply color directly

• Messy erasing on the edges looks interesting
• The background is very rough and painterly but does look like forest. A bit
• I managed to keep myself from touching up the background
• I actually didn't use the picker at all this time around!
• I can see I'd do much better now - this was from last July

• I couldn't keep myself from touching up the damn deer
• Speaking of which, it looks stiff and the neck is especially off
• The deer looks really bad exactly where I went back with a smaller brush to "fix it"...
• ...and it doesn't seem to be stading on the ground. The problem was that bunch of branches/stray that cover its feet: in the picture it's actually a lot closer to the viewer and out of focus, so the deer's shadow wasn't visible and I couldn't really deliver a sense of distance
•  The colors aren't fresh and bright as they're supposed to

Experience gained: X points!

- Work work work on freshness and brightness of colors, perhaps even pushing values and saturation a bit

- Do NOT zoom in and go small brush on speedpainting like these - I need to work with large solid blotches of color and get better at being expressive with few strokes 

- Do NOT go for details if the base stucture is wrong 

Mustang

This came galloping on a lonely Photoshop blank canvas in a few seconds.

It's not good, it's not accurate, it's just a few brush strokes. But it's fast and spontaneous and I think this kind of random outbursts can give out a lot about our inclinations and what we need to improve on.
Analysis!

• More dynamic and fresh than my usual stuff
• Values seem decent for a very loose sketch
• Took very little time

• Anatomy is off here and there. I wanted to keep this one as it came out, but if I were to pick up from here I should really grab some references and fix neck, legs and whatnot

Experience gained: 4 points! 

- I should start doing (very)speed sketching from reference and concentrate on communicating values with just a few quick spots of color. This should boost my skill with perspective, volumes and synthesis
- When planning an illustration I should let loose more often and produce a wide arrange of spontaneous dynamic sketches, hoping to be able to keep everythng fresh while progressing...
- ...then prepare a nice set of reference pics and fix what doesn't work
- Using a heavily texturized brush helps keeping some elements out of control and favors happy accidents