Want to get into character modeling but lack drawing skills

prinn

Hello,

I've been recently trying to get into 3D with Maya and have been having a lot of fun with rigging. Once I have a good grasp on rigging, I would love to get into character modeling so I can rig and animate my own characters. The major problem for me is that I horribly lack drawing skills. I tried learning a couple of years ago but became demotivated by a combination of no instructed figure drawing classes in my area and regular drawing classes at weird hours like 7:00 am.

Is it imperative to learn how to draw before learning how to model humanoid characters? I understand where anatomy would come into play and that is just something I'll have to learn regardless. If it is required, is it possible to become proficient enough from online courses/classes? I've tried to get into the Bridgeman and Loomis books but just couldn't for some reason. 

oglu

drawing is no needed but it does help to train your eye... just start to model and do drawings if you dont model... you just have to work hard and do it...

Brian "Panda" Choi

You could just make character art from existing concepts.

Burpee

I know people who are crazy good at drawing and really bad a modeling / sculpting, and also the opposite. But as @oglu said it's really goood to train your eye and sketch out ideas 

prinn

Thanks for all the responses . Sorry I'm responding kind of late.

If I were to learn the fundamentals, where would be a good place to go? I have a pluralsight account from when I was learning maya and other software, but I have never used them for other than learning software or IT certs. Does anyone have experience learning how to draw from them?

Alex_J

I learned most of the software I use from pluralsight (just basic 101 familiarity anyway). They are great for learning the software, but not so great at teaching you art. That's just not really their thing. However, they do have some pretty decent tutorials covering digital painting and character design for photoshop. If you are already using pluralsight to get up to speed with your 3d software, it definitely wouldn't hurt to check out their photoshop art courses as well. Probably not as good as university classical art courses, but that doesn't mean they're worthless.

I'm glad I spent a solid 5 months devouring all pluralsight had to offer. I had plenty of holes to fill when it came to game art workflows, but all the time I see people asking basic things about software that I learned early on by following pluralsight. Given the really cheap price tag, I think there probably isn't a better option out there for getting familiar with software like Maya, Max, Blender, and Zbrush.