Roll Initiative

The last several posts are the result of a new system of warm-up exercises, which I shamefully stole from my fellow artist Geoffrey Stone. It's very simple. First you start with a list. Fill it with all manner of drawing exercises. Assign each one a number, one through however many you have. Then, when it's time for your warm-up exercise, take your list, look over it very carefully, and roll the dice.

Whatever the dice say, that's your exercise. Now go do it.

I love this system. For me, the worst part of having lists like these is actually picking one. Making a decision always feels like such an investment, like there are so many choices, I'd better have a good reason for picking this one over the others. Most of the time I end up not doing any of them. But now that's not a problem. The dice make my decision for me.

My list is below, for anyone who's curious. (Extra nerdy detail: some of these also have secondary rolls from other lists, and one of them even requires me to roll again from the same list. Yes I do enjoy this a little too much.)

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DRAWING EXERCISES
(roll D12)

1 - SKETCH OUTDOORS FROM LIFE
2 - NOIR SKETCHES
3 - COSTUME REFERENCE
4 - FIGURE SKETCHES FROM REFERENCE
5 - FIGURE SKETCHES FROM MY HEAD
6 - SELF-PORTRAIT
7 - COLOR SCHEMES
8 - SONG SKETCHES
9 - FAN ART
10 - ARTIST STUDIES
11 - AMBER'S CHOICE
12 - PIXEL ART FREE SKETCH