Watch Me As I Expand My Consciousness

Renzatic on 20/6/2013 at 00:07

First, a forewarning. The following post is going to be filled with a lot of musing and introspection on observations I've made over the years, so chances are good it's will bore at least half of you to tears. Basically what I'm doing here is inflicting a self absorbed blog post upon the boards. Yeah. I know. Sounds like a kick in the pants. That said, you should all read it anyway, because I'm still holding a grudge over you people not letting me into the super secret TTLG Kru IRC channel back in the day, and I feel you all owe me one.

So follow the fuck along. :mad:

This is the story roughly a decade in the making, give or take. See, since I was a kid, I've always liked to draw and make cool stuff (you...sit your ass down in that goddamn chair). Pencils, crayons, Lego's, I loved it all. Problem was, I was never very good at it. It was something I wanted to do, but I didn't have that je ne sas quoi. Any attempt I made to do something at least a little realistic looking only met with failure and frustration. When my middle school art teacher told me that if you couldn't draw at least decently by the time you were 12, you'd never be able to, it pretty much cemented the deal for me. I relegated myself to the ranks of the wannabes.

Wahh! Pity party! TRAGEDY! Don't worry. I'm not gonna sink into the depths of despair and start cutting myself for attention (that's what this post is for). Life was pretty good for me even after discovering this sad fact about myself. I mean hell, I got to play with a few naked boobs in high school. And they were hot boobs on hot people, so I can't complain too much. Things could've been considerably worse for me.

I mean I could've been that kid in my class who was born with a tooth in his forehead....that grew!

So cut to about 10 years ago. Some weird random guy no one had ever heard of before named Fingernail gets this goofy idea in his head about making some bullcrap Thief mod for Doom 3. The collective Thief community were all reeling from the supposed lack of an editor for TDS, so it was bound to happen sooner or later. For some reason, despite my apparent and complete absence of artistic ability, I sign up for the mod. I had a few textures I could donate, so I figured why the hell not. I won't be able to contribute directly, but it'll be a fun experience.

Very long story short, I end up being able to do...well...some stuff, but not as much as I want to do. I'm frustrated at my lack of skill, and I somehow end up getting voted in as the art lead over someone who can actually fucking draw. I end up doing the cowardly thing, which is freak out and bail on everyone there. I still don't think they've totally forgiven me for that.

But my leaving left me with something. A love for 3D. I wasn't at all practiced at it then, but I figured it was so exacting and mechanical, even someone like me could eventually get good at it. Well, yes and no. It still takes artistic ability to model, which was something I wasn't good at it. Frustration continued again. I couldn't do what I wanted to do. It seemed so damn hard, almost impossible. I couldn't wrap my head around what seemed to be the most basic things. I dropped it...but for some reason, I occasionally come back to it. I'd dabble. Drop. Dabble. Drop. Years pass. Then one day, I realized I was getting kinda good at it. Things that were super difficult that'd take me forever to do were an afterthought now. I could look at shapes and copy them out. I could add stuff and make it look elegant. I was actually getting decent.

Then I picked up Photoshop and started practicing with that. I needed some textures for my models, and it was the best way to do it. The same thing happened there. I sucked at it at first, but realized the more time I spent with it, the better I got. Nowadays, I'm actually capable of doing moderate amounts of painting with it.

I guess it was about 3 years ago I suddenly had this epiphany. My middle school art teacher, who I based so much of my opinions of art around, was basically full of shit. Artistic ability isn't something you're born with, gifted from on high. It isn't something you either have or you don't. Like anything else, it's something you can learn. All you need is the will and the drive to learn it.

...and probably taste, but god knows I don't have any of that.

To get to the actual subject of the thread, I've been making this neat thing over the last few months. Pretty much like every project I've started, I reached a certain point and got stuck, and ended up dropping it to practice on something else in the meantime. This makes me about the flakiest person in the world, but the whole process works for me for some reason. I'll fool around on other things, then come back to an old project later, suddenly and magically able to finish what I wasn't able to before.

This time though, I came to realize my skill set is about uneven as hell, and I needed to do something about it.

I needed to learn how to draw. Return to the one thing that made me throw this whole pity party for myself in the first place. This time though, I wasn't looking at it as some mystical thing, rather just something I needed a lot of practice in before I get good at it.

I picked up a few books (including one that did nothing but reinforce my hard fought beliefs stated above), and headed into this brave new world of lead on paper.

This thread is basically going to be my diary of what I've done thus far (and as a way to brag). You're all welcome to join in and criticize all you want. Since I'm not getting feedback otherwise, I'd actually appreciate it.

And here we go...

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_1.JPG) This is one of the exercises from the book I'm reading. Before it teaches you anything, it makes you draw a self portrait from a mirror, a picture of someone drawn from memory, and a picture of your hand. This is the self portrait. I've apparently got a big fat head.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_2.JPG) This is the memory picture. It's of a woman I know. Looks nothing like her, and she'd kill me if she saw it.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_3.JPG) Hand portrait. I'm glad my hand actually doesn't look like that.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_4.JPG) Vases/Face. I'm not gonna go indepth with what the book tries to do here. It's designed to make your brain lock up. I didn't do it right, but I already know that feeling quite well from my previous years experience.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_5.JPG) Upside down line drawing 1. These next three shots are me attempting the same exercise again and again. It makes you draw a picture upside down. I had to redo it because I never could frame it right.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_6.JPG) Upside down line drawing 2. Second attempt.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_7.JPG) Upside down line drawing 3. Third attempt. Would've turned out pretty well if I drew everything in proportion.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_8.JPG) Upside down horse and knight. This one weirds me out. When I was working on it, I thought it was coming out horribly, hence why I call it "terrible horse attempt". Now that I'm looking back on it, it's actually pretty good. I should've finished it.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_9.JPG) A drawing done in the style you drew in as a child. Yeah. The book's kinda full of some weird pop psychobabble. It's supposed to be a step towards making you recognize when you're drawing with learned symbols rather than actually drawing what you see. Still fun though.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_10.JPG) Hand portrait 2. I broke away from the book at this point and decided to redo my hand. Came out much better this time, though my fingers are too skinny.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Hand_Trace.JPG) Hand Trace...and back to the book. I'm supposed to trace my hand through a plate of plastic and a viewfinder. I don't have all the equipment needed to go to the next step, so I went off on a bunch of side projects from here.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_11.JPG) A bottle of water on my desk. I had to do a lot of doodles to get this one done well. I'll show some of them later. But first...

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_12.JPG) Slightly improved bottle.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Examples/Drawing_13.JPG) Some of the doodles. That cap in the middle of the bottom page? I drew it a week ago. Turned out looking like crap, so I practiced a bit to try and get it down by drawing ellipses and cylinders on a few pages. About two days ago, I discovered shading and perspective seemingly at random. I redrew the same cap on the top page (you'll spot it), then drew that other cap on the bottom just yesterday. A week of practice apparently makes for a big difference.

...don't ask me why I keep drawing bottle caps. I think I've got the OCD.

This is it. Since this thread has gone on too long as is, and I haven't done anything worth showing off today, I'll leave it here. If you want to comment, feel free. If not, I'll post here again eventually, and probably talk enough to make up for three people.

AND I OUTTA HERE!

Phatose on 20/6/2013 at 00:28

Well, kudos to you. Practice makes perfect.

That said, you are expanding your skillset. Expanding your consciousness is something you do with LSD.

Renzatic on 20/6/2013 at 00:44

I know, but I needed a hip, edgy title to sucker people into the thread with.

demagogue on 20/6/2013 at 00:55

I don't know if it's a way of thinking, but there's a trick that works so-so for me that I'll offer for what it's worth & YMMV... (I'm not even saying I'm all that good either, but since part of your task seems to be scoping for advice, it's the only thing I can offer, so take it for what it's worth. Here's one of (http://i41.tinypic.com/ngpvo9.jpg) my drawings to get a sense of the kind of style I like to draw though.) Some of your stuff looks like you're literally just drawing lines on a flat plane to try to outline a thing and shade it mechanically (though granted it's getting better as you go).

The trick that helps me is to think of a 3D object literally out there in virtual space, and even with the initial outlining I'm already thinking in terms of drawing "on" it, even as I'm changing (sculpting) things as I go... And then especially when I get to the shading part. I mean the trick is to actually get a feel for the thing there in the virtual space as viscerally as possible, its sense of mass and weight and the texture of its surface.

Edit: Also, I'm thinking about the light & what lines should be missing and what lines should be artificially exaggerated... I mean, my first enlightened moment I think was the concept that not all lines are equal, and it's not only acceptable but important you let the thing tell you what lines to draw & not draw, and not the other way around... And I like building the negative and positive space out of swirly lines or shading, rather than just outlining.

Renzatic on 20/6/2013 at 01:22

Drawing an outline and shading it in is actually what I'm doing. See, I know the basics of what I need to be doing, how I can implying lines with shades and highlights rather than drawing them outright is the best approach, but I haven't gotten into that yet, and don't know how to approach it.

I have attempted something like it, though. If you look closely at my most recent drawing, the bottle cap on the bottom left of the doodle link, you'll see that I tried making it look like there was an angled shelf between the prongs by making a space that clashes against the gradient. That one is probably the closest I've come to "drawing it as I see it" rather than the way I think it looks, as the book I'm reading likes to stress.

If I'm following you correctly, the visualizing an object as 3D is what the viewfinder is trying to each me. I'm gonna try more of that once I'm a little better, but right now, the one thing I think I need to learn most is how to orient and align parts so they're proportionally correct. If I can't get everything fitted together properly, I can't "sculpt" them properly. This is actually one of my biggest issues when it comes drawing and even modelling. Just about everything I make either comes out too wide, too close together, or a little too skewed. I think it's because I try to eyeball everything, rather than relying on any guides or grids.

Azaran on 20/6/2013 at 03:47

Those are very nice, keep at it.

nickie on 20/6/2013 at 06:51

Good for you! I'm wondering what the book is that you're using. Reminds me of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. A friend who was a computer programmer used it to teach herself to draw when she was in her 30s. I remember a drawing of her hand, and a fried egg. She ended up going back to college and then on to the (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade_School_of_Fine_Art) Slade in London.

Sulphur on 20/6/2013 at 07:17

I thought jtr said he was taking a time-out.

Renzatic on 20/6/2013 at 07:21

That's exactly the book I'm using. It really does break everything down to the bare basics and explain everything in...well...infinitely fine and verbose detail.

It hasn't made me do a fried egg yet, though.

edit: Oh, hey. Sulphur. SHUDDUP, DANTES! GODDAMNIT! :mad:

Vasquez on 20/6/2013 at 07:30

Forums main page showed only part of the title: "Watch Me As I Expand My..." and my first thought was that DoTheGeek had posted another piece of <s>ass</s> art.