Self training and sculpture

EmAr

I am a student of materials enineering(2nd year(I'm 19 btw.)) and it's just fun to study this subject. But looking forward, what I really want to do is graphics. I was interested in 3d before I got in the university but there was(is) no school/program related to computer art in my country(I live in Turkey) yet. So I thought it would be ok to study engr'g and also practice graphics by myself by that time. But now I have realized I had a drastic lack of traditional skills(drawing for example). So I started practicing drawing. It seems to be going fine. And here's the issue. There are many elective courses at the university including drawing. But there's also a course for sculpture which has an 8 hrs./week studio work. And I don't have enough time to take both of them. I'm not sure through which one I can get myself to have better skills for thinking-in-3d and visualizing what I have in my mind(concepting is the right word for this perhaps). I know it essentially requires hard work through each way but I can't decide which to take.
Thanks for any opinions.

Daz

Hi EmAr,
well, I see your dilemma. If 3D graphics is really what you want to pursue, then drawing *and* sculpture classes would both as you say be of benefit. However, it does sort of depend on what aspect of CG you want to pursue I think. For example, a CG modeler might arguably be perhaps better off studying sculpture, and a CG animator might be better off studying drawing. If it were me for example, and I had to absolutely choose between one or the other, I would go for the sculpture classes for two reasons. Firstly, that there are tools and expertize that are required for sculpture that make it far harder to practise on your own at home without tuition compared to drawing. And secondly, that it's a medium that is closer to CG than drawing, because of its obvious 3 dimensions. Bear in mind that this is just my opinion of course. I'm sure other folks might have different ideas.

Sage

Well I'm glad you can't take both at the same time cause then you would be defeated, since they take too much time to get any work done and also learn new things with the medium. Drawing is a bitch to take if you don't know how to do so already. Why, because you'll be comparing yourself to other students that know how to draw and it won't be productive. I suggest you take sculpture, and buy a drawing book and try to recreate the pictures and do the techniques presented there. For the first few months most of the drawings you do will probably suck but that is normal. You get better by doing it over and over and over... Sculpture in my opinion is more rewarding if you don't have an art background cause it requires alot more than just art skills. The other thing to consider is the money. Scuplture gets expensive real fast. I used to easily spend 100 bucks on supplies for projects. The other thing that's annoying about taking a Intro drawing class is all the different media that gets thrown at you at once. One day you get to draw with a pencil, then it's charcoal, then pastels then mix media, then pen and inking with a brush. Whatever you choose you should try and find out what you'll learn. Why, so you don't it up getting screwed by the professor by having to do 3 lame sculpture projects out of cardboard. True Story...When I asked my professor if we were going to learn to model with clay he told me NOOO, that was out of the scope of the class and if I wanted to model with clay I should take a ceramics class. End rant. All I suggest is that you find out what you'll be getting out of these classes before paying for them. I hope you learn alot from them and have a good time. Good luck.

As for thinking in 3D to create CG models, I think that will only come from using a 3D program. It sort of like programming, you learn by doing it and nothing else quite prepares you for it. Traditional art classes can help or they can make you hate CG. The biggest confusion I had was getting around in the 3D program and modeling, mostly because the program wasn't very useful. The only way to customize the models in that program was using loft modeling and although it had a mesh editor you could not add/delete points to the model. Just push and pull. Later...

Alex

Steve Schulze

I'd tend to agree with Daz. I came from a ceramic sculptural background, having lived at a pottery all my life. I'm pretty good with the clay and I think it goes a long way to helping me model, planning out forms and basically seeing what exactly it is that I'm doing. Drawing on the other hand is far from my forte, but that didn't stop me getting a job in the industry.

As Daz says, you'd do well to try and learn both, even if you just sit at home with your pencil or graphic tablet and practice your drawing skills after school.

EmAr

Thanks a lot people, lots of useful advice here. I'll stick to my drawing book for now. And I'm glad that doing a thing over and over again is useful in drawing. There's also a ceramics course offered at the school, I'll look into that one too. I hope at least one of these courses will turn out to be helpful for me.