Well, hello there... it’s been like three weeks since my last post. I guess there is a lot to talk about. Much improvement indeed, maybe with better focus better results will come.

Today I took the day off from drawing or any other of my endeavors and just played some videogames and watched some tutorials. I guess it was necessary, It’s been too cold lately here in Santiago, It’s hard to get up early in this weather, that definitely has impacted my mood in these past few days. Nonetheless, let’s begin with some of my latest work, shall we.

Drawing Skills:

So I picked up this book online which is great, “Keys to Drawing” by Bert Dodson. Incredible book, if you want to learn how to draw seriously I would definitely recommend this as a first approach to drawing. It emphasizes in the technical aspects of drawing what you see and not what you think you are seeing, for example, in reality the human mind tends to fill more information about what we are looking at - if we see an eye, we tend to simplify that in a drawing as a circle and a dot, but in reality there are many layers to that eye, there’s an eyelid, a round sphere covered by that eyelid, a pupil with many layers inside too, so it’s a far more complex thing than a simple circle and a dot. So instead of focusing on looking at a body part or anything for that matter as that thing itself, we have to focus on the lines and shapes that compose it, the curves, the outlines, the straight lines, etc. A hand drawing in a sketchbook is not an “hand” itself but a representation of it created by shapes and a variety of lines and/or colors, the human mind may see a hand but in reality these are means to create that picture so to speak.

Well anyway, I’m halfway down this book and there’s been a huge amount of improvement in my drawing skills, here are some examples:

A lot better from what I did before. Now please note that these images are still way off from the original references, they may look kind of “right” but there’s a lot of mistakes in these drawings.

I’m pretty happy with myself since this is the first time in my life that I’ve done some sort of realistic portraits, but that makes me just want to progress faster more than ever hahaha, there’s still a long road ahead (and I still hate these drawings though, I guess that’s inevitable for any artist).

Moving on.

3D/Blender Skills:

So for Blender I bought this great course from CG Boost Academy called “Blender 2.8 Launch Pad”, highly recommended indeed. By far the most complete beginner course out there for Blender.

More info in the following link if you want to check it out: https://academy.cgboost.com/p/blender-2-8-launch-pad

Not much practical work has been done since I just started modeling the car that’s part of the course, I mostly delved in the technical aspects of the software, such as the main tools, interface fundamentals, etc. Just a few days ago I started the doing the cool stuff, here’s a picture of my progress so far:

It’s some kind of cyberpunk/futuristic flying Dodge Charger 1970. 

By completing the course I’ll have made a fully animated shortfilm, which is amazing for me. There’s still lots to learn.

And lastly...

Gamedev/Godot/Programming Skills:

Now this is by far the most lacking area these past few weeks. I focused on reading the official documentation, which honestly it is very useful and I should keep reading it entirely, BUT, it leaves me with less time to play around with the software itself. So I went back with some of my basic Udemy courses from Gamedev.tv for Godot and got back into the 3D aspects of the engine. Moving slowly I’m afraid but I should be reviewing those aspects well enough to move on to my real project.

Well, to sum things up. This month I will focus entirely on studying and finishing these small projects, finishing all the exercises in “Keys to Drawing” and the “Blender Launch Pad” course, unfortunately the Godot thing is the one that I may leave behind for now and will return to it after I finish with these other things first.

It’s a long journey but I will make it through, I’m obsessed with it  and to be honest I hate taking days off from work. Sometimes it’s necessary I guess but I always end up feeling so guilty at the end of the day. It’s just like when you miss a workout day (which happened today too, haha).

Also I wanted to add, I apologize if there are some mispelling errors or bad gramar. I do speak english quite fluently but I think I’ve been getting worse over the years :(. I’m in my 30s, I feel old haha.

Take care whoever reads this.

It’s been exactly a week since my last post and a lot has happened since then. Progress has been very positive and much has been achieved in these past few days, so let’s begin.

Drawing Skills:

A lot of progress in terms of anatomy and perspective (at least to my level) as I was introduced to a free online course taught by Glenn Vilppu, great stuff, here’s the link if you want to check it out:

Timed Model Drawing Session 1 // Instructor: Glenn Vilppu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOtVUHgJqQk

Amazing stuff to be honest, very instructive videos. It’s amazing what we can do now in the digital age.

3D/Blender Skills:

Not too much stuff done in this area, but I made this cool 80s style animation loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM9kTi8Hpzk

Pretty cool, huh?

Gamedev/Godot/Programming Skills:

I finally finished this shitty ass Jackie Chan game. You can play it at: https://eldelnacho.itch.io/jackie-chan-tta

Nothing fancy, just a finished short project. I hope the guys at the gamedev.tv gamejam like it.

Here’s a video with ALL the gameplay footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvW6N2AZrx8

Now let’s focus on making a 3D game.

Today was kind of a good day for me. I think I leveled up a little.

Drawing Skills:

First of all, I changed to Photoshop, I don’t know why on earth I wanted to try Krita for drawing, I guess I just wanted to try something new but looking at all the great youtube artists they moslty use photoshop for drawings and paintings, so experience says that you should follow the steps from the people who know better, and this time they really knew better. Photoshop is 100x better than Krita, not that I got anything against Krita, it’s still a great software, but it just doesn’t compare. My strokes are far more better using Photoshop than Krita, so I’ll be using that from now on (I still draw like shit though) . Ok here goes, I drew these turds today

Definitely a step up.

3D/Blender Skills:

No 3D today as I mentioned yesterday. I will begin studying 3D again on monday, after I (hopefully) finish this videogame I’m doing by tomorrow.

Gamedev/Godot/Programming Skills:

A lot of updates. I’m almost done with the UI and the first (and probably only) level. Tomorrow I will focus on the enemy’s script, boss and ending. I will try to keep it simple, no fancy stuff.

Here is a progress pic:

Ok, let’s go. Drawing Skills:

I made these turds today.

As you may see the anatomy is clearly way off from the references, I need to build up my hand/eye coordination skills for that.

3D/Blender Skills:

I made this.

A little proud, but I still need to fix up my lighting set ups, I’ve got to change my background colors too - I always end up using some sort of light blue material. Also, I gotta remember how to use more of blender’s toolset, that is being smart in ways to save time and effort.

Gamedev/Godot/Programming Skills:

Sadly no gamedev today, I spent too much time doing that floating island thing. Although I’ll post the name of the game I’m currently working on.

Yep.

I will focus only on finishing this game this weekend, no 3D for now unfortunately.

So today was a kind of a slow day, I had to clean my apartment so I started to work later than usual. It was necessary though, I moved my cool little white board right next to my computer which now I get to see all the time instead of where it was before (somewhere in front of my bed because I was a planning on using it right after waking up, but after a few days you just don’t pay attention to it). Well anyway, to sum things up. Drawing skills:

I drew this piece of shit.

I’ve got a long way to go... I managed to kind of pull off the body structure, it is still a little off but good enough for now. The face and hair are all fucked up, even while having the armature I still manage to fuck up the eyes’ position, I gotta practice more.

Yusuke Murata is awesome.

3D/Blender skills:

I’m recreating a low poly scene using this photo as a reference:

(credits to @stephs_delrio, follow her on instagram or something, to whoever reads this bomboclaat journal) So far so good, just did a little hot air balloon. I will keep working on this tomorrow (I think the balloon looks a little awkward now that I’m looking at it again).

GameDev/Godot Engine/Programming Skills:

Not so much programming and more like finishing a pixel background and that’s it.

(feel free to use it, no need to give credit)

I’m using the old gameboy aesthetic, that is 160 x 144 pixel resolution.

Man, writing this took longer than I thougth, I might just give myself weekly entries or 3 times a week or something like that, we’ll see.

Alright, so here’s the thing. The last time I used this website was back in 2017. A LOT has happened to me in these past few years, but to sum things up, I changed a lot.

I’ll be focusing on learning these 3 specific skills: Drawing, 3D on Blender and programming in the Godot Engine. I’ve learned so much just this past month and I’m not about to leave that knowledge behind.

Ayer caminando por el centro de mi ciudad sin rumbo alguno (un ejercicio bastante bueno) me encontré una fuente de agua clásica de esas típicas de películas romanticonas. En fin, siguiendo la tradición (nuevamente) de las películas quise pedir un deseo tirando una moneda al agua. Pero como soy una persona indecisa por naturaleza pensé en los cien mil y uno posibles deseos que podía pedir (me encantaría pedir superpoderes pero está claro que no va a pasar), me pasé por lo menos unos 10 minutos pensando. Cuando finalmente ya agoté mis opciones simplemente le dije esto: “Sea lo que sea que esté buscando... que me encuentre”, la fuente cobró su tarifa y me despedí bastante satisfecho con mi decisión.