Faking artistic competence?
Fellow LDers,
I can barely draw a circle, let alone cool monster or robot sprites. I’d like my next LD entry to involve real artwork, rather than just letters and geometric shapes. I don’t expect to ever see my creations hanging on a wall in a museum. But if I need a trash can in my game, I’d like to be able to spend a couple hours in a paint app and end up with something that looks like a trash can, rather than a gray rectangle with vertical lines.
Do any of you know of books or websites whose specific goal is to teach geek coders how to draw simple iconic artwork? If so, I’d appreciate your recommendation.
By the way, if you believe this is an unattainable goal (“it’s a gift — either you have it or you don’t”), or that I’m asking the wrong question, I’d still appreciate hearing what you have to say. I know that people who don’t have the “gift” of computer programming are nonetheless competent professional software developers after being taught how to program, so I hope the same is true with art.
Please help me learn how to learn (or maybe just fake) artistic competence!
* Don’t worry about technique. How you’re creating the art does not matter as much as what it looks like.
* Don’t worry about being messy. Draw quick and rough with the forms, proportions, and perspectives of the drawing in mind. Lines can be cleaned up later on a computer, with a light-table, or, if the rough drawing is light, on the same page.
* Don’t think, feel. Does what you are drawing feel right when you look at it? Does it provoke the emotional reaction you are trying to achieve?
* Be progressive. Only a few artists can go directly from a blank page to an awesome drawing. Instead, gradually make changes bringing a drawing closer and closer to being visually appealing.
* Stay in motion. Do not focus too deeply on any one part of the page. If you go in close to try to draw ‘the perfect hand,’ for example, you might find that it is too small compared to the rest of the character’s proportions. Jump around all over the place starting rough and loose then work towards refining and adding detail.
* Keep the big picture in mind. When you start a drawing it might be best to rough in basic shapes (rectangles, circles, amorphous blobs, etc.) just to get a feel for the layout and proportions of the drawing’s elements.
* Warm up. I find that the first thing I draw usually looks terrible. Quickly get a few rough drawings out before trying to tackle a more serious one.
* Have fun. If you are stressed out about how your drawing looks it will appear stiff, awkward, and unnatural. If you are simply having fun, though, your drawings will more likely be appealing, dynamic, and pleasurable to look at.
* Go easy on yourself. People tend to judge themselves more harshly than other people would. Artists can look at their own work and see hundreds of flaws, where other people will likely never notice.
* Learn with each drawing. Take notice of what can be improved in a drawing and try not to make the same mistakes again. This may seem to contradict a lot of what I previously said, but improvements can only be made if you know what to try to improve at.
If you have a graphics tablet, you can draw your figures by hand on some paper, then just plop that down on your tablet and trace it into your PC.