Learning to draw?

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kuchitsu
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Learning to draw?

Post by kuchitsu »

I feel like designing levels for games is not enough for me. It's hard to actually express something serious this way as the tools are rather limited (although it's not a problem for really talented authors). I'm considering trying to learn to draw, but there are so many ways to go about it that I'm rather confused at the moment. Anyone here had a positive experience learning to draw? Do you have any stories to tell or books to recommend? Anything at all?
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Sunshine
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by Sunshine »

bob ross has nice instructional videos
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kuchitsu
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by kuchitsu »

Eh I dunno, from what I've seen all his videos are basically a professional doing his usual routine while continuously saying how it's all really easy to him. I'm not sure if they are of much use, other than pure entertainment. Although I haven't tried copying what he does.
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by insane guy »

my tip: just do it!
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Ruben
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by Ruben »

kuchitsu wrote:Eh I dunno, from what I've seen all his videos are basically a professional doing his usual routine while continuously saying how it's all really easy to him. I'm not sure if they are of much use, other than pure entertainment. Although I haven't tried copying what he does.
Stricktly speaking a pro painter, but as painters go not a particularly good one. He's excellent at speed painting Alaskan landscapes, mountains, lakes, rivers, clouds, bushes and trees, but that's where is talent stops. If you asked him to paint a human he'd refuse, simply because that's one of the hardest things to get right and it requires an obscene amount of practice.

The appeal of Bob Ross is that he made painting accessible to the public, and most of all he made it fun. Most people have never really seen a painting being painted in real time, seeing a scene slowly take shape on the canvas layer by layer. He deconstructed something most people probably didn't realize the complexity of. In a way it has the same appeal as cooking or construction shows.

To answer your initial question, Kuchi, I know nothing about drawing. But I know a lot of people who are annoyingly good at it, and they only got that way by practising. They'd just draw anything and everything. Sit down in a park and draw whatever's in front of you. Place an object on a table and draw it. Try to find interesting subjects, start with simple shapes and progress with more and more complicated things. It's gonna look shit in the beginning, but the only way to get better is to just sit down and start drawing.

I'm also sure there's lots of tutorial videos on Youtube about different kinds of perspective, shadows, colours and other things that might not be very intuitive. I actually had painting and drawing classes in school from ages 6 to 15, for most of that time using exclusively watercolour. I'm still shit =D
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pawq
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by pawq »

Ruben wrote:I know a lot of people who are annoyingly good at [drawing], and they only got that way by practising.
I've known several people who were amazing and drawing and they all just were that way the first time they took up a pencil. I believe drawing/painting is one of those things that you either have a talent for, or you don't, like me =D ofc I'm sure there's a lot of practise and learning in order to get really pro, but I wouldn't spend hours and hours and hours trying to learn it if however hard you try, the best thing you can paint looks like this:

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Ruben
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by Ruben »

pawq wrote:
Ruben wrote:I know a lot of people who are annoyingly good at [drawing], and they only got that way by practising.
I've known several people who were amazing and drawing and they all just were that way the first time they took up a pencil. I believe drawing/painting is one of those things that you either have a talent for, or you don't, like me =D ofc I'm sure there's a lot of practise and learning in order to get really pro, but I wouldn't spend hours and hours and hours trying to learn it if however hard you try, the best thing you can paint looks like this:

Image
Everyone who can draw was at that stage at some point.
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by Bludek »

As some of you know, I paint from time to time. i also draw w/ pencil. I am nowhere near pro level, but some ppl around me like it and that makes me happy :)

I took 2 semesters of drawing/painting class few years ago. The first semester helped me a fuckton, the 2nd one was the same thing again (and probably a waste of money), but I can't stress enough how important they were for me. I would never be able to mix colors correctly, learn about shadows and lights, figures and stuff like that just from videos. So I really recommend getting lessons, if you have the opportunity near you and money (1 semester was like 200euro). Papers and 3 lessons w/ live models (each semester) were included in the price. Painting naked ppl is very fun and it is hard to get the opportunity otherwise :wink:

A friend of mine took several lessons after my recommendation and her style improved like crazy. Some stuff they painted in class (diff from mine) look srsly nice.

Of course u will never be new Da Vinci, Monet or Gerhard Richter, but if you have the time for it, it is great fun to play some long music set and just paint something on canvas. The best part is when people around you appreciate it, though. Virtually noone can appreciate a good elma lev. But a lot of people think average paintings are good (like those of mine :D ), just because they are not able to do it.
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pawq
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by pawq »

Bludek wrote:Painting naked ppl is very fun and it is hard to get the opportunity otherwise :wink:
pic or didn't happen :wink:
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Ruben
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by Ruben »

Bludek wrote:i also draw
Damn! Recognized instantly as Prague.

And also lol Pawq, there was an art program in my highschool, any time you stumbed into a painting class there was some naked person posing.
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kuchitsu
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by kuchitsu »

I think at least at the beginning I won't go to any classes because I want it to be a very personal process where I'm 100% in control of everything. Like imagine getting an assignment but having absolutely no time\motivation to work on it. You would have to force yourself, but forcing yourself is often horrible and can kill your interest completely (kinda like how I kept playing WC7 even though it became really boring and now I'm very sick of the game). Maybe sometime in the future but for now I would like to stick with books, materials from the internet, etc.
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Re: Learning to draw?

Post by Mats »

If you want to draw faces or basicly anything at all I suggest just drawing lighly outlines of everything with a soft pencil. Not a regular writing pencil. Then you look at where it feels weird and adjust, adjust and adjust. Since it's so easy to erase soft pencil drawings you can do endless mistakes aswell.

The trick I always used with soft pencils is that you can drag it out with your fingers to create a image with no lines and cool shadow effects. If it gets to much you can use a normal eraser on about half the shadowed part for example and then drag out what's left. You also need to erase fingerprints that normally occur, and fix it with gentle touches, backside of the finger, cloth, glove or whatever.


When I went to middle school, my drawing teacher took me out of the classroom. He then proceeded to ask me if he could keep my drawing to show future students how good it can be. That's my craziest experience with drawing.

Im good at drawing things I see, or atleast I used to be, but drawing from imagination always turned out messy.

I've lately thought about starting to paint, but I just haven't taken initiative to start. Saw acrylic paint was really cheap so think I'm gonna experiment some. Maybe paint some happy little trees :P
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