Striving for perfection
As my post count indicates, I do not participate too terribly much on these forums. It's not for lack of wanting to, and it's not because I feel superior in any way. It's because when I am home, I tend to be spending a lot of my time trying to become better at my artwork. I've reached a point however, where I feel I need to step back, take a deep breath, and start evaluating some things.
I have been drawing forever. It's something that has always come naturally to me. I've taken classes, I've gone to school, I've taken a year of fine arts, and I have a degree in 3D modeling and animation now. I have always prided myself on speed and efficiency of my work. Getting by in High school, my doodles were generally more detailed and refined than most things my classmates had spent hours on. This is not to brag however, I'm simply trying to give an idea of where I'm coming from.
Honestly, I don't think of myself as some great artist. I know there is plenty of room for improvement. I keep practicing and studying for hours on end, and I do so with a drive to better myself. The problem is, I think I have some illusions and it's starting to really drag my work down. Going back to the efficiency thing, somewhere along the line I decided most of the concept art for games and shows coming out are done in about 20 minutes at a desk with a #2 Pencil. That in mind, I've been trying to reach that kind of skill level.
I'm rather certain this is the wrong mindset. Further more, I think this kind of expectation of myself is doing some harm to the quality of what I've been attempting to do. I'll work on getting a rough sketch of a character or something worked out. After a little time however, I get fed up with it not being complete enough and I start to get frustrated with myself not getting it correct the first few times.
I guess what I'm looking for is some kind of idea of how much time and what goes on in a professional setting of sitting down and working out concept art and the like. I figure if I can get that phase of the creation process more refined and figured out, my modeling will undoubtedly be improved to a large degree as well. Could someone do me the courtesy of explaining what the average scenario is and what goes in to it? I'd greatly appreciate the help.
I have been drawing forever. It's something that has always come naturally to me. I've taken classes, I've gone to school, I've taken a year of fine arts, and I have a degree in 3D modeling and animation now. I have always prided myself on speed and efficiency of my work. Getting by in High school, my doodles were generally more detailed and refined than most things my classmates had spent hours on. This is not to brag however, I'm simply trying to give an idea of where I'm coming from.
Honestly, I don't think of myself as some great artist. I know there is plenty of room for improvement. I keep practicing and studying for hours on end, and I do so with a drive to better myself. The problem is, I think I have some illusions and it's starting to really drag my work down. Going back to the efficiency thing, somewhere along the line I decided most of the concept art for games and shows coming out are done in about 20 minutes at a desk with a #2 Pencil. That in mind, I've been trying to reach that kind of skill level.
I'm rather certain this is the wrong mindset. Further more, I think this kind of expectation of myself is doing some harm to the quality of what I've been attempting to do. I'll work on getting a rough sketch of a character or something worked out. After a little time however, I get fed up with it not being complete enough and I start to get frustrated with myself not getting it correct the first few times.
I guess what I'm looking for is some kind of idea of how much time and what goes on in a professional setting of sitting down and working out concept art and the like. I figure if I can get that phase of the creation process more refined and figured out, my modeling will undoubtedly be improved to a large degree as well. Could someone do me the courtesy of explaining what the average scenario is and what goes in to it? I'd greatly appreciate the help.
Replies
In my opinion, no matter how skilled a concept artist is, if the guy just sits and doodles all he gets at the end of the day are ... doodles. Handy for brainstorming, but not really pieces of concept art.
I think it's a great, trippy feeling to think alot about a piece before starting it - shaping the story, lighting, materials in your head before laying down the first stroke. But it's just my opinion...
and by days, I mean 8hr work days.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/thd01.html
I dont work in the games or concept art industry yet but Im thinking josh is right about the timescales.
Alex
So many artist face this delima. Ricks idea is probably the best idea though. Process is much easily realized when you learn from someone else rather than working blind. My 2 cents is, in addition to learning from tuts, try steps like pior said. Having an image thought of in your head is definitely a large percentage of the battle. However, past that you need to except that your not going to make a master piece the first time. Use one of those blue pencils and try realizing the image in your mind on a sketch book. I would do this for as long as it takes before you start to see progress in similarities between whats on paper and your minds image.
Lastly, Sage is right. I don't think anyone can properly improve without feedback from other artist.
Post my friend and show us the goodness.
My portfolio website is here. Yes, It's not a self made website. I figured this was fine to get me through till I could find a decent job and afford a few more things. Most of the work there took maybe around 4-5 hours, while others look 4-5 days. Hopefully this lets you guys see a bit more of what I'm struggling with. You'll have to hit View All Sets to see everything I have posted.
I'm mostly speaking from an environment artist perspective but I think it applies to characters as well. 90% of what I've cooked up in my head over the years as been greatly improved by searches for reference.
Step three would be to make it look like you drew what you saw only, as in you erase or blend out anything that shouldn't be in the drawing.
Actually forget the whole step bs, all I'm getting at is that you draw in passes. Similar to modeling a character, you start with basic shapes and then build up. Once you are a god you can try something else, but that's up to you.
I think worrying about how long something should take isn't really important at the moment since you are looking to improve. Make it look realistic if you are doing figure drawing, or practice that, since it's clear to me that you can do cartoons. Don't worry about your brain telling you that you are doing something wrong, but that is easier said than done. I know I'm repeating a bit of what I said in my first post, but really worry less, draw more, post, rinse repeat. Don't expect lovey dovey crits all the time either, just listen and try what gets said and see if it works.
I really liked the shy dog illustration.
Alex
Hey Rick is that barontieri dvd good? it looks quite useful, I might buy that.
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Yup, it's great. Ripped it to my ipod and watched it on the bus.
It's nice to see the process from a sheet of thumbs to a sketch getting picked, then the iterations of the sketch to play with variations, then taking that approved artwork into a finished piece.
Yup, it's great. Ripped it to my ipod and watched it on the bus.
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woah! I just tried to purchase it and shipping to uk made the cost go up to $121!!! did you have to pay that much!? is there not a distributer in the uk somewhere?
sorry for the off topic stuff but its all in the interest of striving for perfection