Brookes Eagleston’s “What could One Week do for Your Art” – A Great Way to Learn, Level-up, Relax, and Improve Your Creative Process!

Brookes Eagleston – Also known as Character Design Forge channel on Youtube, and is also known as BagelDenizen on Twitter, and Instagram – is an artist who specializes in teaching character design alongside other forms of art. One reason why I’ve kept watching and rewatching his videos throughout my career as an artist is that Brookes creates art tutorials in a very interesting but grounded format, as well as suggesting new angles and approaches to studying and improving your craft. Brookes also points out some important things to keep in mind while maintaining an art career such as keeping a watchful eye on burning out, some useful ways to warm up, as well as how to create certain products like pins and trading cards.

One video that I’ve been meaning to talk about is Brookes’s “What could 1 week do for your Art?” For simplicity, I shall refer to what Brookes does as “1 week of studying” or “1-week challenge.”

In short, Brookes shows how spending a week doing concentrated studies and focusing on creating a sort of “retreat” to go and study art can be extremely beneficial. As we see, thanks to Brookes’s routine structure and making sure keeping distractions at bay (such as doing meal prep early, no social media in the mornings, having designated art assignments and periods), Brookes was able to make significant progress not just in improving aspects of his work, but also creating a “positive feedback loop” of getting excited to make art and giving himself time to rest and reflect rather than churning and burning out himself. So I thought why not do the same for me and my art?

Initially, I held off on this, since I had a full-time day job (or afternoon/night job, if you want to get specific about the hours) that rarely allowed for time off. Fortunately, I’ve found a good part-time that did allow me to do a “Lite” version of the 1 week of studying. Brookes does suggest you can focus on one discipline or one area of your work for that one week, or to even ‘catch up on things you always wanted to catch up on if you had the time with such a challenge.

My schedule was similar to Brookes’s, but I also included some aspects that were different.

• Day 1: gesture studies and reflect on why you draw
• Day 2: Master studies (Concept art fanatsy and sci-fi settings) Master studies (classic)
• Day 3: basic Gestures (with Swords, staffs, guns,, and/or spells), and Concept outfits for Warden Character
• Day 4: Character design studies and Master Cheif + cortana Fanart study
• Day 5: Perosnal projects (book 2 Outline and start drafting script 1, DND characters, Refine Galaxy Map)

Other rules I made sure to follow were similar to Brookes such as stopping at 6 PM and holding off on social media and news until 12 PM. Since I was starting a new job, I made sure to give myself the appropriate time to focus on fulfilling those needs, as well as taking care of anything else I could take care of earlier in the week, such as groceries, appointments, etc.

Due to the fact, I did the challenge almost six months ago, it has been a while and some of the work I’ve done will be missing. Though I do have some files, some of the content such as the gesture studies or the Master Cheif + Cortana fanart study were stuff that was more experimental or personal, and not what I would call polished or perfect for social media. Not every artwork you make will be “social media ready” or should be a fully detailed and rendered illustration – and that’s ok. Making room for artwork such as warm-ups, experiments, and especially doodles is all part of a healthy creative lifestyle

However, I have saved some of the files, and am willing to go over how doing them helped me greatly:

Day 1 was full of gesture studies and experiments based on. I wasn’t trying to clean sketches but trying to get proportions and anatomy correct. Sometimes for fun and for experimenting, I will add armor and clothing.

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These are the three master studies I did for Day 2 of artwork done by Charmaine Olivia and Dewhill – while I’ve been doing some gesture studies, I’ve also been thinking about interesting ways I can play with color for my illustrations and my comic.

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Day 3 consisted of studying poses and elements – which made me really excited to draw this stuff when I get back into sketching and inking a comic! Some of these were taken from actions movies and still photos while others are from animated movies and studies of how others shaped elements such as fire or water in thier work.

For Day 4 I was trying to grasp an idea for another member of the main group for an upcoming project (more detail on that below), I wanted to go for a Paladin that combined aspects of armor design that were medical, tribal, western, eastern, eye-catching and Practical. What I did was I started out with a pose and idea of things I wanted to have for the character (dark skin, armor, shield, and spear) and did multiple iterations of the armor of the character. After that, I chose six of the design that worked the best for me. Next was to figure out a color scheme, especially since I wanted to challenge myself to go beyond the typical golds, blues, and silvers that Paladins often use. Once that was done, I had a direction to go in that also encouraged me to continue reiterating the character further.

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on Day 5 I was working on my outline and script for the sequel to Lilian Spacerfarers and Sorcery, as well as and the then-work-in-progress group shot of my Dungeons and Dragons Characters and some other work, such as a galaxy map concept. Of course, thanks to my studies from Day 4, I’m now happy to share Warden’s finalized Look alongside that of Carrie and Lilian for the next upcoming comic!

Now you might be wondering, “Straybard! That video is a year old! and Here you are writing a blog post about it just now! Why?” Lately, I have been in a bit of a creative rut and haven’t been able to draw, especially since I accidentally injured my right hand and have been pulling late-night work alongside excessive gaming. Not that there is anything wrong with gaming, especially when it’s used for recreational or self-expansive purposes, but when used for constant escapism it can be detrimental and keep you from doing stuff you want/need to do. (I’m planning on covering this topic in a future speedpainting vlog).

However, I have been reflecting on the work that Brookes and some of my friends do, and I’ve decided to do my best to start trying to get out of this rut and back into art, especially since I’ve just finished writing the first draft for my next comic’s script. I’ve thought the best way to do that was to start doing blogs and vlogs again, even if it’s only about things that can help me and my friends, as well as other stuff I’ve found interesting.

Are you interested in trying out the one-week challenge? Who are your favorite YouTubers and what techniques and suggestions do they have on improving your craft? Let me know in the comments below!