SkulptSketch
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 4:56 pm
Wow, that's pretty awful. Okay, I can't figure out what it should be called and it isn't even my original idea, but I'd like to talk about a drawing process here that doesn't appear to fit any traditional approach to creating images I've ever seen or heard of.
If you look at the efrontier tutorial:
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/artic ... 281/1/812/
by Professor Nick Nagel you'll see what I'm talking about. He almost casually tosses away the concept in a sentence where he describes the skulpting as follows:
"I like to start out by adding just a few points to begin with and get a rough shape.
Then I proceed to massage the shape into the form I need by adding points and translating them as needed using the add and translate tools respectively."
Now all you traditional artists will love the fact that he works from a pencil sketch but I've tried this technique and it works just fine without almost any preliminary sketch (although sometimes I work from looking at images on my other monitor). I don't actually think you need a sketch because the process is indeed more skulpting than drawing, and just like a skulptor you may or may not need to sketch out your ideas first but rather work with the raw "clay" (here the vector points) while you look at your model (a sketch or other image you have anywhere).
I find it rather startling this process works so well -- I can just push a vector point around and suddenly the shape starts to appear and I know when it's right. I can't do this with a pencil, I can't even do this using the computer and a bitmapped program (like Photoshop). It works best when the image is "cartoonish" because you are defining outlines, but I think in the hands of someone far more talented than I am it would work even if you are going for a very realistic look.
I've read dozens of books on vector drawing and never even seen this mentioned before. Those books (mostly on Adobe Illustrator) just have the person using "traditional" techniques translated to the computer -- moving the mouse around like a brush or pencil and seldom even modifying a vector point when placed. Maybe it's out there somewhere other than Nick's article, but I haven't ever come across it, nor do I think he emphasizes just how amazing this process is. I haven't tried this in AI because I'm more interested in animation right now, but I suspect it will work just as well there.
Note: you traditional artists can ignore this. You already have talents I'll never have and ways of working that do it for you. But for beginners I'd recommend at least trying this approach. For me it was revoluntionary.
If you look at the efrontier tutorial:
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/artic ... 281/1/812/
by Professor Nick Nagel you'll see what I'm talking about. He almost casually tosses away the concept in a sentence where he describes the skulpting as follows:
"I like to start out by adding just a few points to begin with and get a rough shape.
Then I proceed to massage the shape into the form I need by adding points and translating them as needed using the add and translate tools respectively."
Now all you traditional artists will love the fact that he works from a pencil sketch but I've tried this technique and it works just fine without almost any preliminary sketch (although sometimes I work from looking at images on my other monitor). I don't actually think you need a sketch because the process is indeed more skulpting than drawing, and just like a skulptor you may or may not need to sketch out your ideas first but rather work with the raw "clay" (here the vector points) while you look at your model (a sketch or other image you have anywhere).
I find it rather startling this process works so well -- I can just push a vector point around and suddenly the shape starts to appear and I know when it's right. I can't do this with a pencil, I can't even do this using the computer and a bitmapped program (like Photoshop). It works best when the image is "cartoonish" because you are defining outlines, but I think in the hands of someone far more talented than I am it would work even if you are going for a very realistic look.
I've read dozens of books on vector drawing and never even seen this mentioned before. Those books (mostly on Adobe Illustrator) just have the person using "traditional" techniques translated to the computer -- moving the mouse around like a brush or pencil and seldom even modifying a vector point when placed. Maybe it's out there somewhere other than Nick's article, but I haven't ever come across it, nor do I think he emphasizes just how amazing this process is. I haven't tried this in AI because I'm more interested in animation right now, but I suspect it will work just as well there.
Note: you traditional artists can ignore this. You already have talents I'll never have and ways of working that do it for you. But for beginners I'd recommend at least trying this approach. For me it was revoluntionary.
