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I would give anything to be able to draw this well... Pretty cool demos

mistercow 14y ago
>I would give anything to be able to draw this well... Not to be a smartass but if you'd give anything, why not buy some art books and put in a few hundred hours of practice?
- manuscreationis 14y ago
  Not to be a smart ass, but what makes you think I haven't tried, and found that I lack a certain artistic eye for shapes, shadows, and colors that prevents me from even having the slightest chance at reproducing things from my imagination, or even physical source material, in any recognizable way? Although I pretty much gave up on trying to improve years ago. I switched focus to creating things with code, and have been faaaar more successful. So your comment is fair, in that I certainly could put time in to learn to draw and animate well, but I have a lot of other focuses for my life right now that can't spare that kind of time. But, it doesn't stop me from dreaming :)
  - mistercow 14y ago
    > Not to be a smart ass, but what makes you think I haven't tried, and found that I lack a certain artistic eye for shapes, shadows, and colors Well, mostly the fact that most people lack "a certain artistic eye" until they develop it, including people who later become competent artists. >So your comment is fair, in that I certainly could put time in to learn to draw and animate well, but I have a lot of other focuses for my life right now that can't spare that kind of time. A valid choice. So when you said you'd "give anything" what you really meant was not that you would actually give anything, but rather that you just wish that you could draw well.
  - kristiandupont 14y ago
    Did you read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain? I am (slowly) working my way through it. Have a look at this before/after (a 5-day workshop) gallery: http://drawright.com/gallery.htm http://drawright.com/gallery.htm
  - Robin_Message 14y ago
    If you haven't read Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, do so. I think it can teach that artist eye. She also has a book on colour - I haven't read it yet.
- neverm0re 14y ago
  A few hundred hours? More like just shy of ten thousand. Would take roughly five to ten years of solid application of several hours a day to approach that level. Never underestimate just how many hours of hard repetition and practice it takes to be a decent artist.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    To reach true mastery, yeah you need 10,000 hours, but the drawing we're looking at on this page, while nice and competent (and certainly better than I can do), does not look to me like the product of artistic mastery.
    - rcfox 14y ago
      10000 hours would be doing something as your day job for 5 years. (5 * 50 * 40) I don't think that you'd qualify as a "true master" with 5 years of experience.
      - pavel_lishin 14y ago
        You might, if every one of those hours was spent perfecting your craft. For most of us, a lot of what we do at work is diluted by secondary tasks - meetings are the most common scapegoat.
      - mistercow 14y ago
        A few points 1. The concept of "mastery" is both relative and subjective, so if a skill is particularly common, then an aptitude which could be considered "masterful" in another field might simply be considered "experienced". In addition, for some skills there is not that much difference between competent work and masterful work; as a result, we'd be unlikely to consider someone a "master" of, say, bussing tables. 2. Most jobs are "unskilled", and those who have them are not practicing what they do with an eye toward improvement. They are completing the task to get their paycheck. 3. Jobs that do involve some skill typically also involve a fair amount of unskilled work (note that "unskilled work" in this sense can still require education and experience). They also tend to involve splitting one's time between multiple skills. Working full time as a lawyer for 5 years does not mean that you have spent 10,000 hours in a court room, much less arguing in front of a jury. Now, with all that said, it's true that practice doesn't scale linearly such that you can simply say "you need x hours of practice". The human brain stops responding well to practice in the short-term and needs time to incubate, so practicing 40 hours a week for 5 years is probably not as effective as practicing 20 hours a week for 10 years. Still, if you actually did practice the same small set of significantly overlapping skills full time for 5 years, you would be extremely good at those skills.

>I would give anything to be able to draw this well... Not to be a smartass but if you'd give anything, why not buy some art books and put in a few hundred hours of practice?

manuscreationis 14y ago
Not to be a smart ass, but what makes you think I haven't tried, and found that I lack a certain artistic eye for shapes, shadows, and colors that prevents me from even having the slightest chance at reproducing things from my imagination, or even physical source material, in any recognizable way? Although I pretty much gave up on trying to improve years ago. I switched focus to creating things with code, and have been faaaar more successful. So your comment is fair, in that I certainly could put time in to learn to draw and animate well, but I have a lot of other focuses for my life right now that can't spare that kind of time. But, it doesn't stop me from dreaming :)
- mistercow 14y ago
  > Not to be a smart ass, but what makes you think I haven't tried, and found that I lack a certain artistic eye for shapes, shadows, and colors Well, mostly the fact that most people lack "a certain artistic eye" until they develop it, including people who later become competent artists. >So your comment is fair, in that I certainly could put time in to learn to draw and animate well, but I have a lot of other focuses for my life right now that can't spare that kind of time. A valid choice. So when you said you'd "give anything" what you really meant was not that you would actually give anything, but rather that you just wish that you could draw well.
- kristiandupont 14y ago
  Did you read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain? I am (slowly) working my way through it. Have a look at this before/after (a 5-day workshop) gallery: http://drawright.com/gallery.htm http://drawright.com/gallery.htm
- Robin_Message 14y ago
  If you haven't read Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, do so. I think it can teach that artist eye. She also has a book on colour - I haven't read it yet.
neverm0re 14y ago
A few hundred hours? More like just shy of ten thousand. Would take roughly five to ten years of solid application of several hours a day to approach that level. Never underestimate just how many hours of hard repetition and practice it takes to be a decent artist.
- mistercow 14y ago
  To reach true mastery, yeah you need 10,000 hours, but the drawing we're looking at on this page, while nice and competent (and certainly better than I can do), does not look to me like the product of artistic mastery.
  - rcfox 14y ago
    10000 hours would be doing something as your day job for 5 years. (5 * 50 * 40) I don't think that you'd qualify as a "true master" with 5 years of experience.
    - pavel_lishin 14y ago
      You might, if every one of those hours was spent perfecting your craft. For most of us, a lot of what we do at work is diluted by secondary tasks - meetings are the most common scapegoat.
    - mistercow 14y ago
      A few points 1. The concept of "mastery" is both relative and subjective, so if a skill is particularly common, then an aptitude which could be considered "masterful" in another field might simply be considered "experienced". In addition, for some skills there is not that much difference between competent work and masterful work; as a result, we'd be unlikely to consider someone a "master" of, say, bussing tables. 2. Most jobs are "unskilled", and those who have them are not practicing what they do with an eye toward improvement. They are completing the task to get their paycheck. 3. Jobs that do involve some skill typically also involve a fair amount of unskilled work (note that "unskilled work" in this sense can still require education and experience). They also tend to involve splitting one's time between multiple skills. Working full time as a lawyer for 5 years does not mean that you have spent 10,000 hours in a court room, much less arguing in front of a jury. Now, with all that said, it's true that practice doesn't scale linearly such that you can simply say "you need x hours of practice". The human brain stops responding well to practice in the short-term and needs time to incubate, so practicing 40 hours a week for 5 years is probably not as effective as practicing 20 hours a week for 10 years. Still, if you actually did practice the same small set of significantly overlapping skills full time for 5 years, you would be extremely good at those skills.