Help with Art and Idea development
polycounter lvl 9
Hey all.
For a long time I've meditated about this, my process to produce art has iterated quite a lot, but it's still not great, I borrowed things from other art academies, tutorials online and gnomon workshops and my own school... for idea developments.
I still don't think I am very efficient, or not as quite as I'd like to be; sometimes I lose enthusiasm, inspiration, get burned out, which to a production schedule and when delivering concept art to clients, it just can't happen!
My process as of right now is something like:
- Spend some hours Design Thinking: moodboards, mind-mapping anecdotes, listing keywords, icons, reinvent clichés, analogies, theme and metaphors, converging and connecting dots in the mind map, gameplay solutions, function and ideas... (Without looking at references, in quest for originality)
- Wireframe gameplay solutions and designs.
- A day or two building a visual library and a custom, temporary pinterest board or reference folder to feed my mind to a design language.
- Studies, sketches of props and storytelling bits to include on the final artwork and warm up.
- Iterate 5 to 10 pages of thumbnails, sketches, color comps, to arrive at a few designs compositions.
- Refine look and feel with a design pass, get rid of literal and easy details. (Take the design to the next level)
- Polish 3-7 line drawings.
- Export a project sheet with relevant props, materials and along with the polished sketches.
- Illustration and rendering
This has worked well for me in personal projects and I felt a tremendous evolution in 3 to 5 days that this process takes me, that is when I have a lot of time and the project is a mix of a hobbie along with portfolio material, but when I see people online like Feng Zhu who delivers around 5+ designs, with speed paint illustrations on top, it makes me wonder if I'm being too hard on myself. Looking back to what I wrote, perhaps I should be more loose, imagine and think for only a bit, wireframe gameplay solutions/product constraints sketch a small wireframe and rush to finish?
For a long time I've meditated about this, my process to produce art has iterated quite a lot, but it's still not great, I borrowed things from other art academies, tutorials online and gnomon workshops and my own school... for idea developments.
I still don't think I am very efficient, or not as quite as I'd like to be; sometimes I lose enthusiasm, inspiration, get burned out, which to a production schedule and when delivering concept art to clients, it just can't happen!
My process as of right now is something like:
- Spend some hours Design Thinking: moodboards, mind-mapping anecdotes, listing keywords, icons, reinvent clichés, analogies, theme and metaphors, converging and connecting dots in the mind map, gameplay solutions, function and ideas... (Without looking at references, in quest for originality)
- Wireframe gameplay solutions and designs.
- A day or two building a visual library and a custom, temporary pinterest board or reference folder to feed my mind to a design language.
- Studies, sketches of props and storytelling bits to include on the final artwork and warm up.
- Iterate 5 to 10 pages of thumbnails, sketches, color comps, to arrive at a few designs compositions.
- Refine look and feel with a design pass, get rid of literal and easy details. (Take the design to the next level)
- Polish 3-7 line drawings.
- Export a project sheet with relevant props, materials and along with the polished sketches.
- Illustration and rendering
This has worked well for me in personal projects and I felt a tremendous evolution in 3 to 5 days that this process takes me, that is when I have a lot of time and the project is a mix of a hobbie along with portfolio material, but when I see people online like Feng Zhu who delivers around 5+ designs, with speed paint illustrations on top, it makes me wonder if I'm being too hard on myself. Looking back to what I wrote, perhaps I should be more loose, imagine and think for only a bit, wireframe gameplay solutions/product constraints sketch a small wireframe and rush to finish?
Replies
Feng Zhu can spew out endless ideas quickly becaue he has already come up with thousands of designs, some bad and some good. And you shouldn't bother comparing yourself to people like him with tons of experience under their belt and then feel bad about yourself. It's not a contest. Make cool stuff. Have fun. If your clients like your stuff, great. Enjoy your life.
I suppose I'm overthinking stuff, after some rest and meditation without doing art and research, I've found that you're right, I may be working too hard and I should go simpler, with simpler techniques, like black thumbnail shapes you suggest.
Have a good weekend!