Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

New Challenges

Stepping out of my comfort zone isn’t a favorite activity of mine. I’ve said it before. I like comfy, not uncomfy. But I realize that it’s necessary for personal growth. I’ve mentioned before that some of my biggest challenges are not being comfortable drawing people, simplifying my drawings in a more animated or caricature style, landscapes, and drawing digitally.

Well, recently I came across the website of an artist I’ve known about for some time. Aaron Blaise has twenty plus years under his belt doing character design and animation for Disney. What I didn’t know was that he offered the perfect solution for my hang-ups. It didn’t take me long to realize that this guy might very well have what it takes to get me stepping out of my comfort zone as comfortably as possible.

Aaron Blaise – Creature Art Teacher

Aaron offers complete video classes for every one of the skills I mentioned. Individual classes aren’t insanely pricey, but upon finding his website, I saw four or five classes I was interested in right off the bat. It was starting to add up, but I didn’t care. I was willing to consider that part of stepping out of my comfort zone.

Human Anatomy

The first one I plan to tackle is the human anatomy class. He covers everything from head to toe, skeleton to musculature, facial features, hands and feet, and from infant to adult. Yes, there are innumerable video classes out there for drawing people and I’ve watched quite a few. But something about Aaron’s style of teaching speaks to me, and so I have to listen to that inner voice and jump on it while I’m feeling motivated.

Character Design

Another class that I plan on is character design. Obviously, since I have difficulty with drawing humans, I have trouble creating human characters. But I also have trouble with creating animal or creature characters (think in terms of Disney’s animal characters) which have almost human expressions. There are also non-cartoony animal classes that I’d like to take just for a different perspective and style.

Big Cats

Then there’s a class on drawing nature and landscapes. People and creatures need an environment to exist in after all, don’t they? Class by class I can envision my dream of creating a graphic novel taking shape. Oh, and then there’s the whole drawing digitally thing. Most of his classes are done digitally and I seem to have this disconnect with digital drawing. I have an old school Wacom tablet. So I draw on the tablet, but have to look at the screen to see what I’m doing. The same thing happens with I attempt airbrushing. I can manage, but again, there’s a disconnect when I am not actually touching the surface of my canvas. Maybe if I had one of the fancy new tablets where the tablet and screen are one device. I know it’s five months early, but it would make a great Christmas/birthday gift. I just thought I’d put that out there…

Custom Brushes

Another cool thing about his site is that he offers a ton of his custom brushes for Photoshop. Those aren’t expensive at all, but they do add up quickly. So, what to do? I wanted more than half of what he offers! As I was contemplating my predicament on which classes and brushes to purchase first, I continued browsing. I was glad that I did. Lo and behold…if I paid for a premium annual membership, I’d have access to…EVERYTHING!! Yes, EVERYTHING!!

So I did just that. I am now a premium member and ready to go! I’ve loaded up my cart with everything that I want to take and am currently downloading away (some videos are streaming). Downloading takes awhile though, as some of the files are rather large. I’m a little surprised, but…I’m actually kind of excited about stepping out of my comfort zone this time!

If any of you are interested in Aaron’s work and/or his classes, you can find him at creatureartteacher.com/. And stay tuned! I’ll be posting about my progress and hopefully my transition from the struggle to a more proficient status. Practice makes perfect!