Homepage
 • Blog
• Blog Archive
My Comics
• Morrowind Comic
• Trivium Entertainment
Other Comics
• Hustle
Art Galleries
• Skaarj on a Stick
• Gimpy Stick
Art Tutorials
• ArtWiki
• Inking
• Figure Drawing
Other
• Skaarj.com Forums
Links
• Booster Logic
• Maglot
• ehunno
|
December 30th, 2006 |
Because I had originally wanted to compare fox and wolf heads, here we go...
Not sure I like it o.o I think I was looking at the picture too much and lost track of what I was actually trying to draw. (and I guess the whole fur thing does kinda get in the way) |
|
| Comments |
| Name |
Time |
| Lady_Rose |
December 30th, 2006 |
|
| Hey! That looks really good! But, if you want my opinion, don't you think that the ear on the other side of the head should show a bit more? Keep up the good work! |
| reply to this comment |
|
|
|
|
| Name |
Time |
| Stickman |
December 31st, 2006 |
|
Nothing says you can't lie. Find more picture of the ears to see what their shape is like and add it on, if you think it'll look better.
You did a really good job of accurately rendering the fox's head. It looks great. But if your goal was to compare a fox and a wolf head, then I'm afraid it didn't work out all that great.
What you're doing here is phase two of the design process, exploration and research. Let me grab a few notes on that to give you more ideas about it. Then I can tell you what I would do if I was trying to compare the two.
First, don't be afraid to visit the library. If you're going to be researching something, hopefully you have enough time to grab a few books on the subject and do some serious studying. If not, then a Google seach works, I guess, but remember that it simply does not compare to looking at a real, physical picture in a book. Also, if you do use images from the interwebs, print them out. Having them in physical form is much handier when you're drawing.
The goals of the "exploration and research" phase of the design project are:
1) Research the forms
2) Define primary forms and relationships
3) Gauge forms against commercial function of project
In layman's terms, that means figure out what the thing looks like in terms of shapes, planes, architectural structure, behavior, and anything else you can figure out. The last is a bit closer to the business world. For example, if someone asks you to take an otter and use it for their scuba diving logo, then you're going to want to figure out the aspects of an otter that best reflect scuba diving.
The products of the research and exploration stage, which is what you would put up on Gimpystick, are:
1) Research sketches
2) Thumbnails
Research sketches are what I was talking about above. Here's some hints from my notes about how to draw them:
1) Isolate the visual elements that identify the specific object. In class, the teacher was talking about a polar bear. He said that what makes a polar bear look like a polar bear is that he has a nearly vertical brow, and the back of his head and snout are about equal in length, and his ears are rounded and on the side of his head. [url] Bam, polar bear.
2) Establish variation allowance. This is where you push the drawing as far as you can. Make the feet as big as the body. Does it work? No? Push it back until it does. Make the drawing as simple and as complicated as you can to find out how simple or complex you can get and still have it be easily identifiable as the object you're drawing.
3) Understand the visual/mechanical structure of the subject. For example, arms bend in one direction in one place. For something like a wolf, it took me forever to figure out that their "shoulder" I'm looking at is really their "elbow". The joints didn't like up properly, and I never could figure out why.
4) How do you stylize/exaggerate it? Most people don't want a true-to-life rendition of something. If you want that, go take a photograph. An artist can make things look wiser or happier or sleeker or faster than it really is.
5) Go too far to find the limit of how far you can push it.
6) See how other artists have used subject. Sure, figuring it out for yourself is great, but if someone else already did it, there's no reason to do it again.
7) Connect subject to humanity. This is really important. It doesn't matter how well you can draw a wolf -- if people can't relate to it, then it means nothing to them. And connect it to YOU. If YOU can't relate to it, then why the heck are you drawing it?
The research sources (places you can find information) are:
1) In person. Nothing beats seeing the animation in person, so you can see how it reacts to the environment, to lighting, and see it actually moving in 3D space.
2) Photographic references. Use more than just the internet. Internet pictures are really, really poor quality when compared to a book. And don't copy photos -- that means you can copy a picture, but it doesn't mean you understand the form of the figure. Photos are reference to figure out how the thing looks, not to just copy the finished product from.
3) Other artist's interpretations. If someone else already figured the problems out, why not just see how they did it?
If you care to read it, the original sloppy post on the design process is here: [url]
If you care to have this length advice simplified, I'm going to have to have you read my comment about the six ways of starting a drawing: [url]
I recommend perimeter first and geometric primitives as good ways of figuring out the structure of something. Structural goes without saying. If you use scanning, while focusing on how each piece relates to the other pieces, you can learn a lot about relationships and the details of what you're drawing.
Figure out the basic underlying shapes and the outside planes of the figure, and how they morph when the figure moves.
I haven't actually done much "research and exploration" myself, so I can't give you much in the way of personal experience. But hopefully this information helps. |
| reply to this comment |
|
|
| Name |
Time |
| Tannasg |
January 11th, 2007 |
|
| How long did it take you to write that...? Even if I knew that much about drawing, I wouldn't want to take the time to tell anyone about it. :P |
| reply to this comment |
|
|
| Name |
Time |
| Niarro |
January 14th, 2007 |
|
| *chuckles* And that's why I'm thankful stick's stick XD His feedback's much appreciated :3 |
| reply to this comment |
|
|
| New Comment |
|
|
|
