Techniques and tools

Most of my life I've been a traditional media guy, settling down mostly into oil painting for quite awhile. Various circumstances in my life made that impractical to pursue- made any kind of art impractical pursue- for a long time. Recently I've started to go digital, largely because it's not toxic and work can be saved in a second at a moment's notice when interruptions occur. Unlike oil paints, the working characteristics of my tablet don't change when I leave it alone for a few hours, and nothing hardens up and has to be thrown away if it isn't properly cleaned.
I've found it frustrating in many ways though. Things have come a long way technologically just recently, but the tools still feel unnatural to me (well, they are, right?). I suppose that's partly just a matter of putting in the hours- pencils and brushes were a struggle for a long time the first time around, after all. What I feel is somewhat like what an amputee must feel learning to walk with a prosthetic leg: I already know how to walk, for fuxxaches! Why is this hard? Why can't I just go run a marathon? And, unlike a lot of kids growing up with digital art, I have aesthetic standards already. I'm just not able to meet them yet. I hope that 'yet' is the operative word, anyway.
 
yup.
You & I are have an advantage, having experience with the tools on which the new, digital, tools are based. BUT, the disadvantage is, indeed with a "relearning" (or supplemental learning). I expect that soon there will be even BETTER interfaces... hopefully affordable!

There are pressure sensitive screens, which help to eliminate some of the "disconnect" of tablet-to-screen. still not the tactile feedback of texture/resistance.

oh well... all remarkable stuff.


Physical paints do require extra time and space.
Even water colors :rolleyes:

yet...the net result is still rather "tasty"
 
I agree. Every medium has things it's good for, and things it's not so good for. It's possible to paint an oil painting that looks like a water color or a pen and ink drawing, but it's a lot of trouble when you could just paint a water color or make an ink drawing. Digital drawing/painting is better for some things than others, but it is pretty versatile. There's a substantial learning curve, however, as a lot of old habits have to be unlearned and new ones established. One nice feature, though- "undo". There's simply nothing like the terror of sitting in a windowless garret, penniless, working away on a short deadline commission in ink on your last piece of illustration board. Ah, good times...
 
Hmm..

I agree with DrDelirium: It's not the tools, it's how you use them and how experienced you are.
A bad pencil drawing is (to me) as bad as the mechanical "puppets" that many make with programs like Poser.

I myself draw with pencils, pens and markers, but also with a tablet and stylus on the computer. I use photos and sometimes Poser for references, if I have trouble with putting the things in my head to paper. Anatomy is HARD, realistic anatomy is even worse.

Applying filters to a photo isn't art, it's digital editing - on the basic level... It all depends *how much* you do to the photo. It also depends on personal preference.
Is clipping 2 images together in Photoshop art? What if you add filters? Light effects? What if it's 3, 4 or 5 photos that you edit together? Masterfully done, this can be art to me. But only if the underlying idea and inspiration is good.
A picture made completely in 3d can be ridiculously amateurish or it can take your breath away.

A flawed (anatomically speaking) pencil sketch, will never be a flawless painting - no matter what you do to it. The basics MUST be solid
 
Shadowheart82~ I agree. Thanks for joining in with your insights.:)

It is interesting, as humanoids, we tend to be aware of incorrect anatomy, even if we cannot "put our finger on it."

Very often we assess what is "good", in the visual arts, by what is accurate, the trickier, and subjective assessment is when visual art expresses, more flagrantly, the artist's technique and/or interpretation.

I have seen works which seem, at first glance, rather primitive, but have nuance and a "hand" and a selectivity and are all the more powerful for it.

Very often I discard anatomy in favor of POV or visceral impact. Of course, that can become a distraction. As with good science fiction (or any fiction) one has to be able to "buy into it" and suspend one's disbelief.

a fer instance:
attachment.php


I get that many will just feel it's "weird", I also get that just because "people don't understand", that doesn't make it good either.
 
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You're right, we tend to zoom in on the correctness of anatomy. You see a lot less complaints about wrong anatomy of animals/plants than humans though. Our brains are frighteningly good at finding patterns and such, and looking at a subject we're as intimately familiar with as our own bodies... I don't think we can help it. We (generally speaking) feel uneasy when it's not as it's "supposed" to be.

I feel that what you're doing is something only experienced artists can do - you're making conscious choices to not make the anatomy the "star".
But in order to downplay anatomy you have to understand it.
Lots of people say "oh, the small feet/weird-looking fingers/bad nose/whatever is just my personal style!", but it's fairly easy to see when that's actually an excuse for not being able to draw that part correctly. (I used to be very creative indeed, when it comes to hiding feet behind other things)

I don't care about the "finish" of a piece of art - it can be a 2minute sketch or a 8-month oil painting for all I care, but it's obvious when proportions are done wrong.

The one you linked is a really good example of this done right =) Yea, you didn't make the anatomy/proportions perfectly realistic, but your angles, shortening and shades are all in the right places. Does that even make sense? :S
 
Makes sense to me.:D

also, looking at ifluke's work, you can see an understanding of anatomy and space and composition, but his style/technique shine through, and his style is somewhat interpretive.
 
You're right, we tend to zoom in on the correctness of anatomy. You see a lot less complaints about wrong anatomy of animals/plants than humans though. Our brains are frighteningly good at finding patterns and such, and looking at a subject we're as intimately familiar with as our own bodies... I don't think we can help it. We (generally speaking) feel uneasy when it's not as it's "supposed" to be.

I feel that what you're doing is something only experienced artists can do - you're making conscious choices to not make the anatomy the "star".
But in order to downplay anatomy you have to understand it.
Lots of people say "oh, the small feet/weird-looking fingers/bad nose/whatever is just my personal style!", but it's fairly easy to see when that's actually an excuse for not being able to draw that part correctly. (I used to be very creative indeed, when it comes to hiding feet behind other things)

I don't care about the "finish" of a piece of art - it can be a 2minute sketch or a 8-month oil painting for all I care, but it's obvious when proportions are done wrong.

The one you linked is a really good example of this done right =) Yea, you didn't make the anatomy/proportions perfectly realistic, but your angles, shortening and shades are all in the right places. Does that even make sense? :S

I think this is only partly about familiarity. We are hardwired to know what 'looks right' in a human being, as studies regarding hip/waist proportion and attractiveness show. I think, in fact, that our DNA-coded ideal is somewhat different than what we can generally observe in reality- in looking at women, for instance, the inner ideal for leg length is quite a bit longer than the typical reality. We want to see bigger eyes than we actually get to, also. And this is a fact that long predates Anime. When western artists began to pursue 'accuracy' they elevated a standard of what is over what ought to be, but in folk art we see what people want to see, or what they think they see. Outside of the western tradition, artists have tended to render things according to their importance, rather than their true appearance- and when wester artists render penises, they tend to continue this tradition...
 
giant Cocks!!!!:D

Giant veiny cocks!
(bit not too veiny, right, Shadowheart?);)
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giant Cocks!!!!:D

Giant veiny cocks!
(bit not too veiny, right, Shadowheart?);)
]

Indeed! And look at the "pretty" colours on that one ;)

DrDelirium: I agree partially. Yes, we're hardwired to know what looks "right". But(t)! Beauty ideals have varied enormously through the times. Look at renaissance paintings, and also the old greek/roman sculptures f.ex. Broader, child-bearing hips, a bit more plumb on the waistline, smaller breasts... Paler skin-tones to suggest the woman doesn't have to work outside...
These were all beauty ideals at one time or another.
What we find attractive or "right" now, is not the same as it will be in 100 years
 
Indeed! And look at the "pretty" colours on that one ;)

DrDelirium: I agree partially. Yes, we're hardwired to know what looks "right". But(t)! Beauty ideals have varied enormously through the times. Look at renaissance paintings, and also the old greek/roman sculptures f.ex. Broader, child-bearing hips, a bit more plumb on the waistline, smaller breasts... Paler skin-tones to suggest the woman doesn't have to work outside...
These were all beauty ideals at one time or another.
What we find attractive or "right" now, is not the same as it will be in 100 years

Yes, of course. We have biology, and we have culture. The culture changes a lot faster than the biology. A lot of the conflicts people feel are because of the mismatch between culture and biology. Some of that makes sex 'interesting' in a way that unconflicted species like rabbits will never experience, but some is just pernicious. Our culture is currently in deep denial about some basic biological levels of sexuality, and it's pernicious. The fact that the current political drive on sexuality is opposed to previous pernicious ideas does not make it better.
 
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