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http://www.drawright.com/ http://www.drawright.com/ I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my Amazon wishlist because it's supposed to teach you exactly this

http://www.drawright.com/ http://www.drawright.com/ I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my Amazon wishlist because it's supposed to teach you exactly this. The descriptions on the site and on Amazon don't give much insight, but you can find the introduction and first chapter on Google Books to get an idea of what it's all about. Pretty sure this was first introduced to me on HN, so others can probably expound further.

rymith 14y ago
Or just look for any 'How to draw' book ince the whole right brain/left brain is complete myth.
- XBigTK13X 14y ago
  Do you have a documented case for the claim that the right/left brain ideas are myth? I ask as someone in neither camp, who found Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to be a great introductory text on drawing.
  - nollidge 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_functio... tl;dr: it's way more nuanced than "left brain math, right brain art".
- Lambdanaut 14y ago
  It doesn't matter that the right brain/left brain thing is a complete myth. This book really works! Don't focus on the book's title so much, it's really all about looking at the world in a different way, and the "right brain" part is just the catch to make you pick the book up. I realize how wishy-washy this sounds, but artists really do look at things very differently than scribblers do when they're drawing, and it makes ALL the difference. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain teaches the fundamental concepts of drawing that applies to anything you'll ever draw, and it really just can't be ignored if you want to be able to draw anything without taking classes. Basically, there's a reason this book keeps coming up in discussions about learning to draw, and it doesn't have anything to do with neural theories.
aleyan 14y ago
I own this book, it is not the right book for learning how to illustrate. Don't get me wrong, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is a decent book. If you follow it, in a few short drawing sessions it will lift you from a person who can't draw at all to a person who is a novice at life drawing with some impressive looking portraiture. You will be amazed at your own progress at life drawing. You however will not progress much further than a novice. For drawing game assets and other types of illustrations, you need to learn to draw from your imagination. This is a very different skill from drawing from life and a skill that "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" will not teach you. I can't make recommendations of books myself, but I can suggest looking at this [1] thread over at cgsociety. [1] http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=844409 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=844409
- pcwalton 14y ago
  Well, from what I've seen the ability to draw from imagination mostly results from drawing from life a lot and remembering how things look.
- loso 14y ago
  I just went through this process myself. Drawing from your imagination takes taking the rules that a book like "Drawing from the right side of your brain" shows you and basically practicing. For example, once you learn how to draw the basic human face you can take the memory you have of drawing that face and tweak it a bit. You tweak it until you have something more monstrous, like an ogre for example. That is why most of the stuff that we see drawn from a persons imagination still has very recognizable human components to it. It takes a lot of practice but books these and other lessons you will find are meant to be a building block so that you can draw from your imagination.
SpriteAttack 14y ago
The problem the way I see it is frustration and lack of satisfying results. Most programmers I have come across in my 20+ years of making game art have tried art (even just place holder art) and have scribbled but were not happy with the results and couldn't see any progress in their art. Drawing is a lot harder than 'building' objects from simpler shapes in vector design program. It's more like playing with lego brick rather than try and convert a 3D object you see into a 2D drawing on a piece of paper. I find the 'just take pencil and paper and draw' advice not very helpful for people struggling to draw a stick figure. Usually the road to successful and rewarding results is very steep and long when you learn to draw. Placing a few shapes on the screen and playing around with those, can create results a lot faster and that's the goal of my blog. I don't have any intentions of teaching people to draw like the old masters or be the next comic book superstar. It's just about quick and easy ways to create visually pleasing art assets by people who normally shy away from anything artistic.

rymith 14y ago

Or just look for any 'How to draw' book ince the whole right brain/left brain is complete myth.

XBigTK13X 14y ago
Do you have a documented case for the claim that the right/left brain ideas are myth? I ask as someone in neither camp, who found Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to be a great introductory text on drawing.
- nollidge 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_functio... tl;dr: it's way more nuanced than "left brain math, right brain art".
Lambdanaut 14y ago
It doesn't matter that the right brain/left brain thing is a complete myth. This book really works! Don't focus on the book's title so much, it's really all about looking at the world in a different way, and the "right brain" part is just the catch to make you pick the book up. I realize how wishy-washy this sounds, but artists really do look at things very differently than scribblers do when they're drawing, and it makes ALL the difference. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain teaches the fundamental concepts of drawing that applies to anything you'll ever draw, and it really just can't be ignored if you want to be able to draw anything without taking classes. Basically, there's a reason this book keeps coming up in discussions about learning to draw, and it doesn't have anything to do with neural theories.

aleyan 14y ago

I own this book, it is not the right book for learning how to illustrate. Don't get me wrong, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is a decent book. If you follow it, in a few short drawing sessions it will lift you from a person who can't draw at all to a person who is a novice at life drawing with some impressive looking portraiture. You will be amazed at your own progress at life drawing. You however will not progress much further than a novice. For drawing game assets and other types of illustrations, you need to learn to draw from your imagination. This is a very different skill from drawing from life and a skill that "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" will not teach you. I can't make recommendations of books myself, but I can suggest looking at this [1] thread over at cgsociety. [1] http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=844409 http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=844409

pcwalton 14y ago
Well, from what I've seen the ability to draw from imagination mostly results from drawing from life a lot and remembering how things look.
loso 14y ago
I just went through this process myself. Drawing from your imagination takes taking the rules that a book like "Drawing from the right side of your brain" shows you and basically practicing. For example, once you learn how to draw the basic human face you can take the memory you have of drawing that face and tweak it a bit. You tweak it until you have something more monstrous, like an ogre for example. That is why most of the stuff that we see drawn from a persons imagination still has very recognizable human components to it. It takes a lot of practice but books these and other lessons you will find are meant to be a building block so that you can draw from your imagination.

SpriteAttack 14y ago

The problem the way I see it is frustration and lack of satisfying results. Most programmers I have come across in my 20+ years of making game art have tried art (even just place holder art) and have scribbled but were not happy with the results and couldn't see any progress in their art. Drawing is a lot harder than 'building' objects from simpler shapes in vector design program. It's more like playing with lego brick rather than try and convert a 3D object you see into a 2D drawing on a piece of paper. I find the 'just take pencil and paper and draw' advice not very helpful for people struggling to draw a stick figure. Usually the road to successful and rewarding results is very steep and long when you learn to draw. Placing a few shapes on the screen and playing around with those, can create results a lot faster and that's the goal of my blog. I don't have any intentions of teaching people to draw like the old masters or be the next comic book superstar. It's just about quick and easy ways to create visually pleasing art assets by people who normally shy away from anything artistic.