Does skill in penciling really equates to your scale in sculpting?

SummonedSpirit

Hey Polycount,

Wanted whats your take on the subject above? Is an absolute master in penciling making hyper realistic figures in order to sculpt hyper realistic people an absolute? I was having a debate about this with a few art friends on facebook.

Those in agreement mention that drawing with the pencil is the foundation of all art and must be mastered before anyone can be a master at any more specialized disciplines. A weak foundation is understanding your strokes and the reasoning behind them will lead to mistakes in designing in 3d in the future.  Even if you can get a digital pose in 3d to copy and even if you could project textures onto a sculpt you will never achieve the masterful detail of realism if you didn't observe it on paper.

Those against it argue that while its important to know form and its easily and quick to study on paper. Penciling is only really useful for the rest of the art disciplines to the point of understanding basic perspective and anatomy since much of the dynamics in sculpting can be fixed with cameras and posing via rigs. In the end being a master chef at cooking fish doesn't make you a master chef at pastry hence we should only learn the fundamentals and then devote to technique in the art discipline we are learning. Even in digital painting some artist use a pre visual with a 3d model to quickly get a dynamic pose down. Hence its irrelevant to go that far into graphite drawing.

Whats your take guys?

pangaea

http://www.scott-eaton.com/2014/on-sketchbooks-and-drawing

Stinger88

This discussion comes up quite a bit. I see a lot of people (mostly those interested in doing 3D) asking. "Do I need to be able to draw to be good at 3D art?"

TLDR: Yep 2D drawing helps. No, its not essential.

I've seen some artists that are 3D Gods (3D sculpting included) with absolutely fantastic 3D art, but when it comes to 2D drawing some of them cant draw for shit, to be blunt. Thats completely fine though, they have chosen a medium and they have mastered it.

The question is, "Would their 3D art be better if they could draw?" In my opinion... Not much. What would be improve is an understanding of what the final product is earlier in the development of a piece. Also their ability to "design" a concept might be improved. The end product might be "better" from a design or proportion point. But technically it'd be the same with or without good 2D skills.

The same goes for sculpting or any other form of artwork. 2D drawing is the most basic form of making visual art. If you master it you will have a better "base" for all other visual art. Do you need to master it? No, but it helps. Being good at 2D and having that muscle memory from line weight and stroke practice will definatley carry over into sculpting though.

As an example. I spent a good few years doing strictly 3D and very rarely did 2D at all. I can tell you right now that my work suffered as a whole without practicing drawing once in a while. Even today I work mostly in photoshop and I can say that if I don't practice with real media as well, my work suffers. On a very basic level, if I stop practicing drawing circles and doing "daily" exercises, I will forget how to draw a good circle and it takes a bit of practice to get it back.

Rambling.... you get my point.

SummonedSpirit

i agree with that Stinger!

Fuiosg

when you think about it, someone who is good at drawing isn't just good at twirling their wrist around-- they're good at seeing. You have to take a three dimensional form with weight, texture, sometimes motion etc. and translate it onto a flat surface with a number of intentional strokes. If you can't see how that could help you become a better sculptor then...

SummonedSpirit

I do believe 2d skill definitely will carry over to what you do in 3d the thing is how far in 2d does it go in skill that will translate to 3d skill? Once you understand your strokes, you values, anatomy, perspective etc. Will rendering every single pore and pimple really mean that you could do the same in sculpting as the way you would pencil it out vs mold it out are 2 separate techniques of the same concept every artist must learn.

In that sense the learning curve could work vice versa too. If someone learned anatomy by molding clay and creating really realistic sculptures before translating it to pencil. Still even with the fundamentals established I do believe the fundamental understanding only goes so far. As your craft becomes more specialized and involves more techniques specific to the craft, I have my doubts that a hyper realistic penciller would be able to translate the technique into sculpting without developing a technique for sculpting which may take just as long of a time to learn.

thomasp

Fuiosg said:

when you think about it, someone who is good at drawing isn't just good at twirling their wrist around-- they're good at seeing. You have to take a three dimensional form with weight, texture, sometimes motion etc. and translate it onto a flat surface with a number of intentional strokes. If you can't see how that could help you become a better sculptor then...

i agree with this, in my opinion however it also means that there's no need to master drawing in order to become good at sculpting. in fact my impression has always been that those who are really used to 2D - perhaps in particular the analog kind with paper and pencil - have quite some difficulty in dealing with the more technical and fiddly aspects of 3D programs, holding them back somewhat.

pmiller001

IN my opinion and personal experience it helps tremendously. It goes both ways though for me. 
what I mean is, If i go and learn something new in 2D, that new process helps me strengthen 3d, and if I learn something new in 3D I can adapt that to my thinking in 2D to help strengthen my process there. 

Joopson

It can absolutely help, sure, but it's non-essential, no matter how you slice it. Many amazing 3D artists aren't drawers, and never have been, and some I'm sure have zero interest in drawing as a medium. (I myself am an ok artist who doesn't care at all for drawing)

I think, if you can see the world around you in a moderately accurate or unique way, you can be an artist. Drawing can help solidify this "vision" of the world, for some people. Other people just think better in 3D. That's why some people become sculptors and some people become painters. Or in this case, 3D and 2D.

Edit: But I do think understanding the world helps tremendously. Some can do this through drawing (drawing from life, not from imagination), others do it through studying, or taking apart objects to see how they're made, or looking at blueprints, or googling images of different engines to see what they all share in common, or just looking really closely at the everyday objects around them. I think the best artists almost definitely have this in common.

Two Listen

Generally speaking, if you can do it in 2D you can probably do it in 3D, at least in some fashion (ignoring knowledge of how to use the program, if we're talking digital 3D...)  Most 2D artists I know who can draw or paint something in a reasonably realistic, well rendered fashion - they wouldn't have much trouble picking up some clay or jumping into zbrush and getting something together that looks pretty slick.

The reverse, however, doesn't seem to be as often true.  And it makes sense when you think about it - as Stinger mentioned, 2D is the most basic form of visual art.  Nothing is established or communicated for you.  No shadows are cast, no values are defined, no forms hinted at - the only things communicating your image to the viewer are the marks you put there, in their entirety.  In 3D, this isn't the case - you can take a tool and knock out a chunk of a sculpt, and you know there's a chunk taken out because all of those other things are then defined automatically. 

That being said - is being good at 2D going to make you a drastically better 3D artist?  Not necessarily, only to a point.  Sure, it can help - and it probably will, but at the end of the day you're still just going to need to be familiar with what's communicated in 3D.

Edit:  Oh, I guess just to add - I don't think linework would help with sculpting nearly as much as painting, or any manner of 2D work that went to define volume and light as well.

Ex-Ray

You should aspire to be a master in your observational skills, seeing what's off and the stubbornness to correct it, to be able to translate one visual information to another. If you can practice this in another way besides 2d drawing then fantastic.

I believe people recommend pencil as it's the cheapest and quickest in feedback, which can be quite brutal, challenging you to decide whether you want to improve or not.

Blond

I'm still in shock whenever I see senior/lead animators in the industry being able to work through amazing shots without having any traditional talent or experience, and I'm talking feature film here...

pior

This discussion always ends up as follows : 

- Artists with strong 2d and 3d skills will tell you that developing a strong 2d design sense and rock solid 2d drafting skills will definitely help you with your 3d work.
- Artists with solid 3d experience without prior 2d practice will tell you that you don't really need 2d.

It's kinda up to you to make the most out of these seemingly contradictory answers. But you can also think of it from another angle : look up artists that you like to work of, and research how they work. This will take you further !

Now all that said this all really depends on what you actually want to do with the 3d medium. Executing from super accurate, provided concepts sheets is one thing ; creating fully original work is another. And if you want to sculpt a face ... but are unable to draw the outline of the nose in side view on paper ... then there is a problem that no amount of playing around in Zbrush will fix. @Fuiosg is 100% on point - it all stems from observation skills.

Jonas Ronnegard

Anyone would love to be a master at both 2D and 3D, But at the end of the day Drawing, sculpting, 3D modeling is just a tool to get your ideas out into physical or digital form. I can't draw, but trough massive amounts of time sculpting I do sense that during the few times I do sketch something out I have improved at 2D as well. 

Of course someone that is a master at drawing people will have a huge advantage coming into sculpting characters compared to someone new to both character drawing and sculpting, no need for an explanation, but there is a lot of skills you gain in both 2D and 3D that you will have use for in both,

jStins

All the posts in this thread are spot on in my opinion. The only other thing to consider, when first starting out, is that it's important to fail fast. Choose a medium that allows you to work quickly and throw work away without remorse. Traditional, digital, pencil, paint or clay... as long as you can interpret form, assess the results and try again, you will improve as an artist.

almighty_gir

pior said:

This discussion always ends up as follows : 

- Artists with strong 2d and 3d skills will tell you that developing a strong 2d design sense and rock solid 2d drafting skills will definitely help you with your 3d work.
- Artists with solid 3d experience without prior 2d practice will tell you that you don't really need 2d.

I think i've hit a plateau in 3d that i'll only overcome by doing some 2d. because my 2d skills are literal balls. like, total fucking trash.

Shrike

Pencil is just a tool, its your brain having the skills saved. If you have the eye for aesthetics on that level that you can draw realistically, im 100% certain you can do the same in sculpting as your brain posesses all the information to interpret the forms correctly already, of course after you are beyond the small technical hurdle of picking up any specific software. On the reverse that should not scale as well tho, as the 3d perspective takes a lot of interpretation work off you. 

pior

"If you have the eye for aesthetics on that level that you can draw realistically, im 100% certain you can do the same in sculpting as your brain possesses all the information to interpret the forms correctly already"

Yes, but ! To take the nose profile as an example again, doing 10 side nose studies/sketches on paper is definitely faster than attempting to do the same in full 3d. This might not seem like a big difference (since it definitely is possible to do a bunch of zbrush studies rather quickly) but things definitely pile up, and processing information quickly means that one can cover more subjects by the end of the day/week/month/year/life. No time to waste !!

Gadorian

pior said:

- Artists with solid 3d experience without prior 2d practice will tell you that you don't really need 2d.

I thought this way too once. Years ago when I was just learning 3ds Max, doing tables, chairs, etc. I met with my friend, he was a teacher in fine arts academy at that moment, and he told me to come and learn how to draw, and then I'll be able to do some serious 3d. Being naive and kinda arrogant back then I dismissed him, saying that drawing doesn't matter if I want to do arch viz (my goal back then). Long story short, he was right. I went from digital 3d to digital 2d, because It felt like I missed something I couldn't figure out, and no 3d tutorial could give me that missing link. That would be the fundamentals. I learned those. Then I felt another missing link, that was the fact that I wasn't able to touch my work. Fine, I bought some Monster Clay, and now I realized how volumes and masses work, no symmetry, so I had discovered that I am shit at doing the same thing twice, this helped me improve my proportions, observation. But here's a new missing link, to concept something in clay can be time consuming if you want to make broad changes. So here I am drawing with a pencil just so I can get stronger at 3d.

I did my journey backwards but never mind,  i'm here now.

Melazee

I find that when you learn 3D, it's mostly all about the technical side; how to sculpt this particular thing, how to generate that effect... however, there are rarely 3D tutorials that focus on how to give your work artistic appeal. I have come across very few 3D tutorials that cover how to make a character look appealing using shape language and such (I say characters because I know nothing about environments), and you actually get taught all this stuff when learning it in 2D because there is so little technical stuff to cover. Once you nail things like appeal in 2D, making appealing 3D work will be much easier. Matt Thorup's tutorials cover appeal briefly, I highly recommend them. And he can also draw!

Of course, it is possible to pick all this stuff up by only doing 3D, but I think a 2D artist would be able to make appealing looking characters much quicker, even if their technical knowledge isn't so great at the start.

EDIT: Just noticed the hyper realism part! I still think what I said above applies to realism too. Someone who is great at life drawing could probably make an amazingly accurate anatomy sculpt with just the basic tools when starting  out, whereas someone with no life drawing experience might not end up with something too great to start. 

Check this out for example. It's not realism, but I think he can do realism. It's a sculpt by Jean Baptiste Vendamme, and I think it was his 3rd Zbrush sculpt after years of doing 2D images:


My 3rd sculpt? Was this absolute abomination (it's from 2012 don't shoot me)... I had no concept of making a character look good with shape and form. No knowledge of muscles. Never bothered to study it in 2d, and it really showed:




So, the moral to this story, after all that rambling... I think that starting out, a 2D artist will have a distinct advantage and they probably won't need to rely on fancy techy shortcuts as much as as result.  

jaymart15

I believe it does.It's not needed and many artists proved that. The work that I find to be the most stellar relating to characters,tend to be done by artists who are mastery level at figure drawing. I think it translates straight over because assuming that artist spent years doing studies and drawing from life,he/she wouldn't have to rely on references as much because the basics and complexities are burned into their mind from continues drawing. It's not needed but it sure helps.

Tomiajayi

Melazee said:

I find that when you learn 3D, it's mostly all about the technical side; how to sculpt this particular thing, how to generate that effect... however, there are rarely 3D tutorials that focus on how to give your work artistic appeal. I have come across very few 3D tutorials that cover how to make a character look appealing using shape language and such (I say characters because I know nothing about environments), and you actually get taught all this stuff when learning it in 2D because there is so little technical stuff to cover. Once you nail things like appeal in 2D, making appealing 3D work will be much easier. Matt Thorup's tutorials cover appeal briefly, I highly recommend them. And he can also draw!

Of course, it is possible to pick all this stuff up by only doing 3D, but I think a 2D artist would be able to make appealing looking characters much quicker, even if their technical knowledge isn't so great at the start.

EDIT: Just noticed the hyper realism part! I still think what I said above applies to realism too. Someone who is great at life drawing could probably make an amazingly accurate anatomy sculpt with just the basic tools when starting  out, whereas someone with no life drawing experience might not end up with something too great to start. 

Check this out for example. It's not realism, but I think he can do realism. It's a sculpt by Jean Baptiste Vendamme, and I think it was his 3rd Zbrush sculpt after years of doing 2D images:


My 3rd sculpt? Was this absolute abomination (it's from 2012 don't shoot me)... I had no concept of making a character look good with shape and form. No knowledge of muscles. Never bothered to study it in 2d, and it really showed:




So, the moral to this story, after all that rambling... I think that starting out, a 2D artist will have a distinct advantage and they probably won't need to rely on fancy techy shortcuts as much as as result.  

Hey your proportions werent bad though!