New to Polycount
Hey guys, not sure if there is a newcomers section, i couldn't see any, so i decided to post here. Hope that's ok.
I really want to get into the community here, it seems like a great environment to learn and Ive had some great recommendations from others.
A little about me. Im 21, currently studying my 2nd year of game art in Australia. Ive always had a love for fantasy drawing (especially dragons) and doodled pictures here and there through high school. I taught myself (poorly) and ive never had any kind of proper 2d learning environment but i have bought a lot of books and am teaching myself as well as learning from my teachers at school now.
I am finally starting to make noticeable progress and i want to soak in as much information as possible asap to improve my 2d skills so that i can improve on 3d. I have to say, after looking at some sketchbooks on here i am a little embarrassed to post any of my own work.
I was wondering if anyone else taught themselves to draw and how they did it. What gives you inspiration?
Hope to make some friends and learn a bunch! Thanks guys
I really want to get into the community here, it seems like a great environment to learn and Ive had some great recommendations from others.
A little about me. Im 21, currently studying my 2nd year of game art in Australia. Ive always had a love for fantasy drawing (especially dragons) and doodled pictures here and there through high school. I taught myself (poorly) and ive never had any kind of proper 2d learning environment but i have bought a lot of books and am teaching myself as well as learning from my teachers at school now.
I am finally starting to make noticeable progress and i want to soak in as much information as possible asap to improve my 2d skills so that i can improve on 3d. I have to say, after looking at some sketchbooks on here i am a little embarrassed to post any of my own work.
I was wondering if anyone else taught themselves to draw and how they did it. What gives you inspiration?
Hope to make some friends and learn a bunch! Thanks guys
Replies
For traditional learning go for;
Books~
Bridgeman's work and 'The skilful huntsman' Both on Amazon.
Daily practice exercises~
Thumbwar Its a how to guide to starting off concepts.
Figure and gesture drawing Real life drawing exercises. Brill for shading forms and stuff
Posematics Similar to the one above but it uses 3D models so you can see the muscle structures and stuff. Again stupidly handy.
If anything else comes to mind ill throw it up but to be honest it'll come down to how much your willing to actually work for it. Good luck!
that's the right attitude!
This might sound tricky to get into, but the amount of bands looking for cheap illustrators and graphic designers wanting to get some basic cover art and other band art is high. Just post on something like gumtree or put a note up in a music school.
You'll probably only make pennys out of it, but if your just looking to discipline your 2D this is a good way to go imo.
Welcome dude.
I, too, am new to Polycount. Love what I've seen so far (the low-poly Mass Effect models brought me here, linked from a friend).
I am a co-founder of a company called Tall Chair, Inc. - we began as a game company doing games for iPhone and iPad, but the company shifted direction towards making interactive books which is very cool, but I would rather make games. I have recently stepped down as Creative Director there and I'm spending a little time with my son and working on some personal projects while I seek out my next venture.
I look forward to posting some pics of my work here for some community feedback once I've got something to show. My first project is going to be an interactive story using 3D assets telling the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".
See y'all around!
Enjoy your stay, and let's see some art!!
Just getting into texturing in class now. Does anyone have some good tutorials/sites etc on texturing different kinds of material (wood metal etc). Im interested in diffuse, spec and normals to start off with
Polycount Wiki: Texturing
The top ten tips of texturing
There ye go. Enjoy.
regarding drawing: get yourself to some life drawing sessions and do all the old art school drills (negative space etc) and carry a sketchbook everywhere. scribble in all downtime. as for digital, start a sketchbook on a service like tumblr and post all your digital scribbles. instead of browsing [insert popular site here] between work, do a 10 minute scribble either digitally or in your notebook.
my desk at work shows my last 6 months of sketchbooks:
On a related note, i just started a new digital sketchbook at:
http://flailingchimp.tumblr.com
In regards to improving my drawing skills, I did it mostly by drawing through observation repeatedly. I'm not a magnificent artist, but it has definitely helped me make significant progress by just drawing over and over again.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63361
Welcome to Polycount!
I'm still in high school so I'm completely new at this, that is 3D art on a whole. I am a female, and I live in a country populated by people who only consider art a hobby.
I'm trying to improve in terms of traditional art, like maybe properly learning human anatomy, art classes are underfunded here so I'm on my own. 3D art is foreign territory for me, however I'm looking to correct that particular flaw.
So to wrap up, hi nice to meet you all, hope to get along well and all that.
Welcome!
Learning traditional art is very good choice (never quit practicing that!) and don't worry, although art classes would be nice, it's totally possible to learn all that by yourself from books/internet. So, what are you aiming at, character art, environment art or something else? What would be your dream job in the games industry?
welcome y'all to polycount ^^ enjoy your stay muhahahaha [/evil_laughter]
First of all, welcome to the polycount. Here you will find Critiques, Comments, tips and tricks as per your art needs. I hope you enjoy your stay.
!! a traditional artist. Are you in to pencilling? Ahh I see. Might I ask what pencils do you use for your traditonal arts at the moment?
I am in the same boat as you are, but I am way far ahead of you. Right now I spend time making quick thumbnails, choosing one thumbnail to make the final concept sketch in detail, so I can get started in 3d. My inspiration is comic book arts. I watch artists' work like Adam Hughes, David Finch, Stephen Platt and random artists found on this website.
http://www.thecomicarchive.com/
I use various type of stuff. For pencilling and thumbnails I use 2H-4H for rough and refine line, fine tipped ball point pen approx .3 mm for thumbnails, many different types of erasers. I only use three main markers for shading the thumbnails 1.0, 3.0 and BR.
I do not ink the final concept sketch. I use 2H-4H (as stated before,) rough out the sketch according to the thumbnail've picked and then detail it. I am still trying to pick the art style that fits to my liking but so far I am getting good at it. The final sketch could take you from 2-6 hours based on the amount of detail you wish to put in it.
There are also sites like:
http://www.conceptart.org/
http://www.idrawgirls.com
You might want to look in to, and see if that helps.
Glad to see someone still have a taste for the traditional arts. PM me if you require any further help.
Welcome to the Polycount once again.
EDIT: One thing I might add is you need not be embarrassed to post your work. The core reason that this website exists is for us artists to get better by posting our work and getting critique and suggestions relative to our work so that we can fine tune our set of skills. So by all means, post your work to get a solid feedback.