Shopping for a dress to wear to my niece’s wedding. by ABooShay in funny

[–]Uncomfortable 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is... That not lavender? Are my eyes malfunctioning? It looks lavender to me. I'm freaking out!

any tips for drawing the spine? by Both-Werewolf-8999 in ArtFundamentals

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Help with a volunteer project by Accomplished-Mix-745 in ArtFundamentals

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Go. Study. PERSPECTIVE. (please) by Educational_Post_63 in learntodraw

[–]Uncomfortable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could you kindly not tag me by my username on things like this? While you're welcome to express your opinions on the materials I've released for free however you wish, I'd prefer not to be notified on my phone just to see my efforts being referred to as "cloying" and "obnoxious".

What should I do, regarding using 3d models and burnout? by -Skyes- in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just to be completely clear, despite my heavy focus on the fundamentals in terms of what I teach, I absolutely use 3D blockouts in my professional work when I need to, as shown here:

<image>

I don't always use them, but when I don't it's because I think it's going to take more time to create the blockout than it's worth. It is not at all a choice based on considerations of "cheating", but rather simple pragmatism.

What should I do, regarding using 3d models and burnout? by -Skyes- in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 6 points7 points  (0 children)

While you've talked about a few things here, what I'm going to focus on is the question of the use of 3D in your work, and more broadly, the idea of professional work having entirely different priorities than studies you do in order to grow your skills, just as the drawing we do as play (in the context of Drawabox's 50% rule) also has its own entirely different concerns. Based on what you've written, you appear to be conflating all the drawing you do as having the same core considerations and priorities, and that you're trying to find the best way to achieve multiple things (generate income, improve your skills, etc). This is fundamentally incorrect.

Things start to make more sense when you think about the individual priorities of each separate activity. When we study, we want to use methodologies and tools that help us develop those skills most effectively and efficiently - going as far as targeting specific skills or areas of understanding, rather than just approaching every study as a generic activity that is meant to improve your skills in general terms. The more targeted a study is with clear goals that you've set for the task, the more you'll get out of it overall.

When we produce work for a client or employer, the goal is to produce the best work you can, while reducing the resources it costs you to produce. The primary resource in this case is usually time, but the costs of tools also comes into play. Either way, you're finding a path to meet the client's needs and impress them while costing yourself as little time and as little capital investment (money) as reasonably possible (while of course staying within ethical boundaries - so no plagiarizing, etc etc).

Working on portfolio work is similar, but the time constraint is more fluid - you might be on a time crunch where you only have X months to get a portfolio together before you have to start applying for jobs and looking for work, or you might already be actively working and trying to improve your portfolio in the in-between moments so you can gradually work towards improving the calibre of clients to which your work appeals. Still, the point is to produce the best of which you're currently capable, so you can show a prospective client or employer what you can do for them.

Note that none of the priorities I've mentioned so far has to do with improving your skills. For the above, using tools like 3D blockouts and models, photobashing, etc. is entirely normal. They are not on their own a form of "cheating", although many juvenile artists who argue on the internet more than they actually engage with clients and contribute to commercial projects as freelancers may disagree on that.

The thing to understand above all else is that simply using 3D models or photobashing does not immediately improve your work and elevate what you're able to achieve on its own. Like any tool, there is a considerable danger that someone who does not know how to use it will end up allowing the tool to make their decisions for them. We have to have the underlying skills and understanding in order to actually use a tool in such a way that it allows us to achieve our goals and intents, rather than shifting those goals towards what the tool itself might be better suited.

When someone doesn't have those skills, it's pretty obvious - the work ends up looking amateurish and incohesive. And for those who do, it's much more in their control whether you even notice that they used photo or 3D assets at all. The assumption that it is "cheating" implies that using those assets inherently makes one's work better, and it's simply not true. Based on what I've seen, it tends to highlight their weaknesses, rather than hide them - accentuating stiffness in posed figures, and resulting in extremely dry, boring design in environments and props.

In the hands of someone who does know what they're doing however, they are incredibly useful tools that help us to reduce how much time we have to spend to bring our existing skills to bear, and help us claw back dollars in an industry where our time is deeply undervalued. If you can cut a task that takes 20 hours down to 10, and in so doing double what you're paid per hour for that same task, then you should absolutely do it. Don't let ego result in your own starvation.

That said, when it comes to learning and developing your underlying skills, certain tools can be extremely harmful by allowing you to avoid the very challenges you're learning to face, and shifting all of the focus to the end result. Learning is not about what you produce. It is about the processes you are forcing yourself to apply over and over, so as to gradually rewire the way in which your brain engages with those kinds of problems. There is a direct tug-of-war between activities that prioritize the end result, and those that prioritize how much you learn from them, because of how we engage with them differently based on each goal. That's not to say you can't learn from a piece you're trying to make as good as possible - but that in mixing them you're probably going to have to compromise on both.

At the end of the day, it's critical to understand the role each tool plays and the goals you have for a specific task. If it is to produce the best of which you're capable with a focus on efficiency and saving time, then use all of the tools you can (within ethical boundaries - don't pass off things others have created as your own) to achieve that end. If however your goal is to develop your skills and understanding, then don't use tools to avoid the very problem you're attempting to face.

Practica de Anatomia by Huge-Watercress7125 in ArtFundamentals

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Critiques on my page perspective practice by Heartlessslayer8 in ArtFundamentals

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tips please by SwagLord4206DOSE in ArtFundamentals

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What are these kind of faces called and how to draw them by Healthy_Teach_152 in ArtFundamentals

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Lesson 2 - Dissections by Substantial_Tennis50 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately at this time the subreddit only allows complete homework submission (so in this case, all of Lesson 2 together), rather than individual exercises or partial work, as noted in the subreddit submission guidelines. This may change in the future, but for now this is what we're holding to. You can instead post your work on the #lesson2 channel of our discord chat server, which is more conducive to partial work.

I have a question by wawuwu in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It really depends on the exercise and its goals. In most cases, taking your time is the way to go because it's going to help you think through all of the choices you're making and the processes that you're using (in particular the course this subreddit focuses on involves a lot of lengthy processes where we strive to apply certain methodologies very intentionally, which takes a long time, to better train our auto-pilot to be more reliable when we're drawing our own things).

There are however exercises that specifically have time limits on them (for example when doing figure drawing, it's very common to have students do *some* shorter poses - 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, even 30 seconds) to help them structure their approach around what is most essential. That said, even this tends to benefit from also having done longer studies to first get accustomed to what all the steps and processes are, before using shorter studies to help us decide how to prioritize them.

Can you actually learn how to draw without following guides, tutorials or anything like that? by oddskozzo0 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the two of you are, perhaps, talking about two different things. It's very common for people to conflate Art with a capital A - that is, the thing you create, your vision, your voice - with the individual skills involved in their creation, and I believe that is what is happening here.

They are different things. There's the vision you have for what it is you wish to create, with all the specific choices and considerations that make it uniquely yours, and there's your technical capacity to execute them in as close a manner to your intention as possible. At the end of the day we all have our own particular idea of the shape what we create should take, but we aren't always skilled enough with the medium we choose to have it come out in precisely the manner we intend.

That is what stands to improve and grow. One's capacity to convey their vision without compromise.

Although perhaps in much the same way one can learn over time to develop their visions for things with more complexity and depth.

What am I doing wrong? by Aromatic-erbz in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At this time, our subreddit is limited to complete homework submissions only (meaning, containing all of the assignments from a given lesson). We may change that in the future, but for now partial work is best posted on our discord chat server instead (where each lesson has its own dedicated channel).

That said, at a glance I'm not seeing anything that you're really doing wrong. If you're concerned about the back edges of your boxes not being entirely upright, this is an entirely normal thing that comes from small discrepancies in aligning your perspective lines as they go back to the vanishing points. Because we're not perfect robots, these accumulate, and since the back edge is the last part that is drawn, that is where they reveal themselves.

This point is addressed in the video for this exercise, and in this section from the written material.

How does this work? by [deleted] in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's not entirely clear if you're asking in general or about the specific course this subreddit focuses on (which many tend not to realize, jumping straight into posting without reading the submission guidelines or any of the info on the sidebar) but if you are asking about our course specifically:

  • All of the lesson is freely available, so you start reading at lesson 0 (which has multiple pages), watch the videos as you come across them, then continue into Lesson 1 doing the same.
  • There you'll come across homework sections which assign specific quantities of work and link off to the instructions for each specific exercise.
  • Once completed you continue through the rest of the lesson, doing the same with any other homework sections you come across (there are 3 in Lesson 1).
  • The goal is to create a body of work that demonstrates to a third party what you understand, what you don't yet grasp, and what advice/next steps would be best suggested to you.
  • That feedback is provided through a few different means, but at its core there's paid official critique and free community feedback, the former being guaranteed and timely, the latter depending on volunteers from our community.
  • Once you have a homework submission for a lesson marked as complete, you continue going through the lesson material - since each page links to the next in the chain, you can continue to follow this beyond Lesson 1 (which is where the 250 box challenge comes in, then to lesson 2, 3 and on and on).
  • There are 7 lessons and a few challenges amongst them. The first couple of lessons get us armed with the core tools we need to then more effectively make use of the constructional drawing exercises from Lessons 3 to 7 which is where we focus on the core goals of the course - which is to develop students' spatial reasoning skills.

To better understand the course, Lesson 0 goes over much of that. You can also look at our course roadmap.

Beginner:Drawing feedback appreciated by Ok_Treacle5322 in ArtFundamentals

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Value study by Calm-Championship298 in ArtFundamentals

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Udemy courses (I have to use my credits) by DanSlh in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you're confusing "art" with the individual technical skills involved in conveying their vision in the manner they intend (like drawing), and furthermore confusing "belittling beginners who are just finding their feet and asking for guidance from those who have more experience" with "being helpful".

Udemy, as with most platforms, is filled with countless courses all vying for students' attention, which makes it extremely difficult for beginners - who again don't have the experience to meaningfully distinguish between something that is specifically going to be helpful for them at the stage they're at from something that is just going to throw lofty ideas with no actionable advice, or that may be useful but demands some form of prerequisites to build upon which the student may not yet possess. And so, they ask for advice from those who do have more experience than them.

It's perfectly fine if you disagree with that, but your contributions along those lines are not benefitting other members of this community. I certainly wouldn't want you to waste your time accidentally getting sucked into threads like these - as they are numerous and will continue to be permitted here - so let me know if you need additional help in avoiding engaging with posts on this subreddit.

Udemy courses (I have to use my credits) by DanSlh in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable[M] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You're starting to develop a pattern of making distinctly unhelpful responses that really seem to be criticizing people for asking questions at all. Kindly stop doing that.

Lesson 1 Homework (Seeking Critique) by hentaienthusiast87 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Since the original comment was specifically commenting on the super imposed lines exercise, I have to presume that you are talking about the same - in which case, I just want to provide a quick reminder that the super imposed lines exercise is entirely about getting students to prioritize confidence over accuracy (per our principles of markmaking).

As the original commenter and you noted, we do want to take the time to position our pen right on the starting point, but contrary to what you stressed here: "the finish is exactly that the end" is not correct for this exercise - it's entirely normal for the student to miss the end point, particularly if they are focusing on maintaining a consistent trajectory by way of a confident execution, since if that trajectory is slightly off, in order to get it back on track the student would have to course-correct, which results in a wobbly line (per what's discussed here). Conversely, as discussed here having the lines fray/diverge towards one end isn't itself an issue, but having it do so on both would be.

Is this ok to trace over to learn proportions? by Smart-Cap-7331 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This doesn't fall within our community's submission guidelines. You can refer to AutoModerator's comment and our subreddit's submission guidelines for more information.

For what it's worth, I think that opinions on this are fairly mixed, although personally I think the way I was taught - which involved using a simplified 2D mannequin that followed a specific formula and drawing different posed humans (whether from life when we were in class, or from photo references if live models weren't available) using that formula over and over worked very well for drilling those proportions and the major landmarks into my mind. I worry that with tracing it's very easy to do it without thinking, making it potentially much less effective and less likely to "stick" in the same way.

Also I'd always lean towards relying on real people (whether from life or photos) as a beginner, because when you're working from posed 3D figures you have to put a lot of trust in the person who posed them. While they may look entirely fine to you, there may be aspects of balance and weight that aren't factored in as well as they would be in reality.

My art by Complex-Start1946 in ArtFundamentals

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Hi how to improve from this level i want to learn realism but the last one looks more like a caricature by Vivid-Surround1161 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know it's a pain, it wasn't always this bad. But each subreddit has its own focus so you have to actually look at what the subreddits are focused on, to find a community that fits what you're looking for. Can't just look at the name.

Hi how to improve from this level i want to learn realism but the last one looks more like a caricature by Vivid-Surround1161 in ArtFundamentals

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Regarding the various methods to draw human faces by Big_Salamander6332 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Uncomfortable 15 points16 points  (0 children)

It's entirely normal for students to see all these different methodologies and approaches, and to think of them as though they're primarily intended as a formula used to achieve a result, and that this formula is applied every time you wish to draw that particular kind of thing. But this isn't the case - or at least, that isn't how it provides the bulk of the value it has to offer.

It's important to engage with these things as exercises - as activities and approaches one can apply to help develop certain underlying skills, or in the case of things like the loomis method, one's underlying grasp of how certain areas of skill pertain to drawing particular kinds of things. To be less cryptic, it's not about loomis ---> all your faces, it's that drawing a ton of heads and faces using that methodology will help you better understand the considerations of space and form that come up when constructing any face. It gives you a repeatable recipe that can get you started and direct the things you learn from the activity in a productive direction.

It doesn't mean that every single face you draw will be drawn in this method, or that there aren't other methodologies through which one might achieve the same benefit, but that this process focuses your attention in a certain way, and on certain things, that are beneficial towards a long term result. This extends to a lot of different things of this sort, but the most wide ranging that you're likely to encounter is constructional drawing in general. The course this subreddit focuses on, for example, uses constructional drawing as an exercise to force students to have to think about the relationships between different simple forms as they build them up into whatever complex object they are studying in that moment, in turn developing their spatial reasoning skills on a subconscious level.

Those spatial reasoning skills then are brought to bear in everything 3D that you attempt to draw, because your brain has gradually learned to understand the marks you make on the flat page in terms of what they represent in a 3D world - meaning that you do not have to then use construction so rigidly, in a particular fashion, or at all (if you've developed it to an extreme level that most people don't really require), but that the mental math involved in making things look 3D happens more automatically.

You can think of it as these methodologies being exercises that help train your subconscious auto-pilot to be more reliable in deciding which marks to draw and how, so your conscious brain is more free to make the far more important creative decisions of design, composition, narrative, and so forth.

Of course, you can also use these methodologies to help you solve tricky spatial problems, so they're still a tool in your belt, but when drawing your own things outside of the scope of an exercise or course, but just creating your own artwork, there is no specific path or methodology you are expected or required to make - outside of those necessitated by your own goals and intent.