[Matthew Is Godzilla]

bouncing some ideas back and forth, sry f spam

[Matthew Is Godzilla]

Was it you americans call it when an early stage of a sketch? a mockup?
oh dear

[CIRE]

[Brokencow*]

The moment I slow down, you all go nuts!!!! Too many to name so I will simply say, you all are doing amazing work that makes me very proud.

Further more, I wish I also voice my opinion on the discussion....
Matthew, i respect you for your patients but gosh man. Are you ever wrong. It's a bit troubling to hear you say it too since you're a long time member... You should know better than anyone that artist take what they see and reproduce it. This means from art, and artists them selves.

I have no doubt in my mind that some artists will confuse copying with understanding. But that is a mistake you must learn from. One might think for a moment AH HA! but shortly live it with an OH NO! As they didn't actually learn it, but copied it. When you look at the best artists here, you can clearly see they've learned what their doing, and the not so great ones(myself included) are still learning!!!

Maybe there is a bit of jealousy there, since you're not producing the work they are, and at the speeds. But perhaps you're struggling with progress because you won't allow your self to learn by these methods. Expand your mind, switch it up, do something unexpected. CHANGE!!! CONSTANTLY!!!


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I failed everything but art.

[ZUPZUP]

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[octavian]

ZUPZUP, I like that! Your kung-fu is strong

great work everyone
I just got over a nasty flu, hopefully i'll be back in the game soon.

sorry nothing post worthy, but I just wanted to give you all a good night ass pat

[Samsonsreaper]

crispy stuff ZupZup

[Matthew Is Godzilla]

Flame war or whatever, perhaps you started it Cire?

Then again I am not the one thinking in the Hype kind of way, am I?
To me clearly copying artists whether you do it for the knowledge you think you are achieving by doing it or not, you can clearly see who the influences are to the artist.
Bouegereau is bad to copy I believe and let me remind you that this is my personal view and I am not forcing anyone.
So then tell me again what you learned about a wave when you copied it CIRE? How to apply the color like Bouegerau did?


Brokencow, It is the reproducing that kills whatever personal painting tecnique you ever had. This is why I keep mentioning it. Cicinimo tells people to copy Bouegarau, I say it's bad. Whatever in the end. I just shared my view.

Oh no! this doesn't look like bouegerau.

[realextension]

Reality is generally a bitch when you're fooling yourself. And in this case, reality is showing us that copying Bouguereau works great for Cicinimo and the rest. It's also showing us that without studying enough, sketches end up looking like mockups. There is a strong artistic sense in your sketches indeed Matthew, but it's also unclarity, not a pleasant one, but very familiar to all of us as it's the feeling that tells us we need to study more. Masters or whatever.
And one more thing - there is constructive criticism and there is also for-the-sake-of-discussion criticism which is a bad habit IMO. And that's why we appreciate Cicinimo so much.
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[daryl]

Copying a successful painting doesn't mean that you only learn to render the way of the artist. For instance, you might learn what to simplify; what's important in a successful painting, and what you can leave out to make the painting read better and stop you from painting "unnecessary" detail. Saying that copying a successful artist is bad, is to me like saying that learning from anyone else but yourself is bad
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[Rinthe]

[fripp]

Rinthe, I love it!

I think everyone is free to have an opinion. Matthew is not wrong at all and is not telling the truth, of course. Maybe copyng bouguereau is not the most proper artist if we are learning loose styles, but is not a waste of time, of course, can learn new ways to develope a more complex procces of painting, not to paint exactly like bouguereau, but a new stage of complexity, IMO

6 hours matte

[CIRE]

[Samsonsreaper]

A little input on the discussion here:)

I think you(any artist) need to distinct between copy and study. In my opinion you can study an artists works without ever recreating some of his/hers works. The study in it self is not about reproducing, its about understanding the piece in many ways. And it doesn't really matter which artist you prefer to study, Bouguereau, Gerome, Sargent etc etc.

I have seen here on sijun a couple of times a lot of Sargent(and other famous names) copies,and now even Bouguereau, feeling more like a popular thing rather then "studies". And please dont take this as on offence, what i mean to say is, a good Master copy got the inspiration going and people jumped on that vibe and did copies too.And thats great. But the need for the study doesn't come from inspiration it comes from the question from the artist himself. He is looking for an answer to solve some issues. And it doesnt matter once again which artist it is you choose to study. It kind of made me puzzled why most of you only considered to do master copies of Bouguereau at this time.

I do studies myself too but i never reproduce or do any mastercopies. I just simply sit down and watch a piece and study it from top to bottom. I dont really like to do copies. Because it is so easy to fall into the "watch the piece, now repaint that on my own canvas" without giving it a a critical thought, even if you walk away and think you learned a lot from it. I am not saying you guys dont learn i am just saying that its very hard to not get distracted from the initial need of the study.THis from my own experience.

And finally i would much rather see the results of a study in a personal piece rather then doing a master copy. That would also prove the fact that the study wast true and here are the things i learned..

I think all of you guys are right in parts, studies are great and can be inspiring but the individual questions within the artist is what is most important.

I also think the term "copy" has a bad influence on the study.

Sorry for the rant guys, just wanted to share my opinion.

[mattyuk]

Very good post Levente. It's good to see a bit of great discussion on here with some of the world's top artists!

[Destinatus]

I guess I should say something since I've posted about a million master copies up here haha.

Doing a master copy is not about learning how to paint like the artist it's about carefully learning how the artist paints. I think that the studies becoming popular or even trendy is fine and a movement in the right direction. Just as if reading became more popular than watching TV. Most of the people are doing Bouguereau studies right now because they think Jaime was telling them to, he was just giving an example. A lot can be gleaned from many different artists through the centuries.

For the most part you can't copy a painting without giving it critical thought but you can certainly look at a painting without doing so. When you do the copy it forces you to see things that are very hard to see from just observation and that's kind of the point of these studies. In my opinion, it's not distraction it's concentration.

Keep up the good work men!

/My $0.02

[udal]

I don't know why anyone else does studies, but I do them because I'm still learning the ins and outs of painting/illustration - how to create and balance moods, compositions, colour palettes etc. Even if I copy something outright, I think it still does some good somewhere else in my work. Like Destinatus said, it forces me to observe something very carefully and question why and how things are achieved, whether something concrete or more abstract. And also it gives me a goal and a point where I can think 'this is ok, this is finished', because I am still feeling for that sensation in my own stuff. Structure is really important when trying to learn.


anyway 2 hours, trying some slightly different subjects from now on!

[EAD]

ZUPZUP> really like that one, nice contrasts in tone and marks

Personally I took on the Bourgeroux copy to study the subtleties of painting flesh, its not about style (he barely has one) but content as his colours and transitions are so darn good, and you can commit much of that stuff to memory if you spend time on it, especially if you then try some similar stuff from imagination soon afterwards which really forces you to analyze and simplify what you just learnt.
I do see where Matthew is coming from though as he's a modernist and I tend to sympathize in fine art terms, just not in illustration.

[Peris]

ZUPZUP that rocks


this shit has been done a million times.. but it's fun to draw space stations so whatever =)
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[ZUPZUP]

Thanks guys....appreciate it.

Udal, EAD, Samsonsreaper, Peris....cool stuff! As always.
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[Destinatus]

I'm such a pussy when it comes to color, timidly dipping my toe in the water then running back to the shallow end Still fun to play with value and create forms.

Portrait of a friend of mine.

[Chupacabra]

Hey guys,

I never actually posted in Sijun before.. Lovely place.
Some of my stuff, hope you like it.

Khan








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[Jens]

When you do a digital master study or even traditional study, the technique is still your own.. you haven't seen the original artist put down the strokes and you haven't copied that.

[J�ger]

Great stuff everyone














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jaeger-art.com anunnaki.no

[Matthew Is Godzilla]

EAD - Wow that is really good. Damn again I gotta say, you do understand the subtle about the brown.


I am not gonna keep up our discussion people, we're starting to sound like a bad marriage. - �"Todd, you don't listen to me!"
::-"Well honey I thought I did but I do need an opinion of my own? No?"

Cire, not sure what you want from me? I cannot bend backwards.

I just wanted to give tips.. Perhaps we should start discuss movies instead.
Or wait my favourite, things concerning existence.
What do you guys know about Truge?

[samhell]

erm... so, this one is called Emo tears. And yes, it's another oldie that I gave some colour.

Awesome work again on the recent pages btw, Sijun is such a source of inspiration. Thank you all for sharing the art.

*has an emo moment*

[EAD]

thanks guys

la la land

[ELLioT]

Always Great Stuff here... keep the pressure !


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[udal]

Chupacabra - interesting stuff!
ELLioT - who writes your scripts?


gonna spend more hours on it.

[fripp]

Great inspiration every day!

I had an idea today doing a animation with my last matte painting, and I've done this speedies-mattes at the moment. (more time saving the document that working, grrrr)