Selom Sunu's blog

A place to record some of the things I've been learning along my journey. Artists' blogs have been a great help to me so here's hoping that I can help someone too (even if it's only myself).

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Jonah is college student who wants to be a Fashion Stylist.

He spent a summer at NCS, a UK-based, government sponsored initiative that helps young adults like Jonah and teaches them life skills, such as how to live independently, gain confidence and how to get a job.

If you’re 16/17, NCS is a unique chance to live away from home, take part in adrenaline-fuelled activities, meet new faces and have one amazing summer. You can sign up here

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Lol jokes

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Guess who

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Not everyday characters, sometimes country houses

There are 1001 mistakes I can see now but I think it was important for me to just take my time on a piece for a change as most of the stuff I draw is really really quick and I need to teach myself that instant results don’t equate to good results - need to learn to be patient and to finish things! Another thing I’m really bad at

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An idea that came to me yesterday morning. 

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A week of discipline

Hi guys,

So this week I decided to discipline myself in a couple of ways. Firstly in terms of my sugar intake (my wife’s idea) - We both agreed not to have any sugary snacks during the day, since most of the food we consume has sugar in it anyway. We figured that if we could go the whole working day without sugary snacks then even when we come home we would moderate our sugar. Worked for me! I felt really good. Although I’m slim and active I know I’m not immune to things like Diabetes and I also don’t like dentists so it’s a good idea to reduce my sugar intake.

The second way I disciplined myself was with regards to drawing. I caught myself doodling way too much from my imagination and not really learning anything new.

Since I started drawing again 3 years ago I have struggled with using reference as I want my work to be cartoony - that’s the work I’m attracted to. Last week I realised that my mind was empty and my imagination was starving so I knew I had to do something about it. 

I know there are loads of artists who can draw without reference and I would love to be one of those, but they have invested at least some time into drawing from reference no doubt and I need to do the same.

So this week I drew only what I could see - either objects from real life or people from photographs. I tried to copy these references as accurately as I could but in a simplified line drawing format. It was incredibly difficult on Monday but as the week went on it became more and more natural - this was the hope. I am a huge believer in the need to transform your thinking and so I wanted to trick my brain into getting used to drawing from pictures so that it would naturally think of looking for picture to draw.  

One of the things I found this week was that I was naturally using much less lines, I didn’t have to think too much as I could see what I wanted to draw. I know that when I use reference for characters I won’t be copying them exactly but I will be endeavouring to use fewer lines and to slow down a bit before putting lines down.

Another thing I found was that I just went for it as I didn’t have to think overthink anatomy or anything. Again, I know it won’t be that simple when using images as reference for characters but it has made me want to get to a stage where I don’t have to overthink anatomy because I’ve drawn the figure so many times and understand certain ‘rules’ - regular life drawing will probably help this.

Anyway, enough yammering. Here are some of the drawings I did based on reference:

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Dreaded hair

Hair (female hair particularly) is one of the many things which I’ve never been good at drawing because I’ve never understood it. The funny thing is I only just realised how bad I was at it. And the only reason I realised was because one day I was studying the work of one of my favourite artists (by studying I mean redrawing, merely looking doesn’t sink in) and I realised how simply they manage to convey hair.

This led me to want to get a better level of understanding. I started with photos of real people via Google and it looked okay but it was too complex. I was seeing all the detail and not thinking about what was happening.

The next thing I tried was a little more effective... I watched a Youtube video called something like ‘5 ways to part you hair’. I figured if I understood where the hair was coming from in the first place maybe I would be able to make sense of it all and stop overcomplicating it. I paused the video as I went along and paused and took notes as I went and it was definitely a good starting point for me.

Then I went back to the same artist’s work to check if they had applied any of the things I had learned and to be honest, I couldn’t tell. What I did realise though was the emphasis on making it an appealing shape. After further study I began to see how much thought that artist was putting into how the hair wraps around the form of the cranium and how it falls down - all the while using solid shapes but making it look like flowing hair.

This puzzled me a lot so I kept drawing their work and I also looked at other artists and some classic disney model sheets like Hercules, Jungle Book, Aladdin and Oliver and Company. 

One thing I learnt was basically that you can do whatever shapes you want as long as adds wraps around the head and falls in a believable way and it makes sense in the design rules that you are setting out. If necessary, cheat the angles like they did on Meg’s hair for Hercules a la Mickey Mouse’s ears.

I learned a lot and I just hope I can apply these things to my drawings in the future. 

Here’s me fooling around with some random hair shapes:

Let me know if this was useful to anyone.