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...as Thomas Paine titled his pamphlet on breaking away from the British Empire. I realize that alot of these ramblings are at bottom basic observations that tend to either repeat or meander on; but as with how many of us were raised, so too was our education: Latchkey. CalArts had no interest in preparing students on the meat and potato mechanics of either drawing or the studio world back when I was there; and if the past few generations were brought up like I was, you have to learn most everything on your own anyhow from the ground up, and repeatedly. From finance to nutrition to work ethic, to separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to the people that'll rotate in and out of your life.
So, tens of readers, benefit what you can from my retarded ass having gotten lost in the weeds more than once.
- Don't sacrifice outer shape for inner. Basically, don't compromise the overall character silhouette for the sake of conforming to some series of interior details. This happens for me fairly often with armor, mech or pressure suit designs, the internal voice of the "technical director" butts heads with the "creative director," or something like that. Or more accurately, the OCD Stockholm Syndrome of having worked in production comes into conflict with the artist / audience part of my brain, the part that is able to take a step back and know what either looks good or appealing, to hell with rigid technicalities. Sometimes you have to bend reality - even the one you've created - in order to get the life out of a drawing.
- You're likely able to objectively look at what influences you when you can separate the nostalgia from the actual technique used.
Or, put another way, when you are able to assess the strengths and weaknesses in the technique used and can see what else in the drawing makes you feel the way you do about it: Themes, types of characters, situations, environment, staging. I think this is how it goes for most folks, the art being the gateway for certain kinds of genres or stories, and vice versa.
- Keep your job description clearly defined. I know it seems fun to be asked to do tasks that branch out from your main responsibilities, but more often than not you'll never be rightly credited for your contributions outside the wheelhouse you signed on for from the beginning. As with pay, so too with credit: Establish well ahead of time if it'll be forthcoming before jumping into a task that, in all likelihood, is someone else's job (or is freelance work someone should be paid for), and is only being handed to you because the management that is asking you now didn't do *their* job in scheduling it to get done beforehand.
Of course, if you think it will open doors to other job openings by being known as the guy that can do boards *and* design, then by all means take the gamble. But let's face it, it's not playtime or "Let's pretend." It's a job. Don't let boredom lead you to wearing more hats than you ought. Let them compensate you for your work, both in name and in deed (pay).
- Every artist will need hand-holding to varying degrees and on different things. If you work with others on a project or production, this is inevitable. How far you're willing to do the hand-holding is up to you, since some will need very little to none at all, while others will make a great show of needing help, yet will either refuse it when offered (maybe a case of shooting the messenger for various reasons) or will seemingly hit wall after wall no matter how many breadcrumbs or loaves you leave for them to follow. The latter may be learning curve, but otherwise it's either sandbagging or intentional handicapping.
And I can't entirely blame anyone in the lower echelons who says they have a bum knee, since it may be a case of them having passed the IQ test and realizing that no matter how much work they put into a production, the end result will still turn (churn) out at a predetermined level of quality which both budget and bureaucracy have decided on. In which case, you have larger problems to deal with than just getting everyone on the same page with what you personally want out of their art...
- Under-promise, over-perform.
Don't promise more than what you know you can deliver. In fact, under-estimating to some degree is better (perhaps a form of intentional handicapping), since it leaves room for over-performance and pleasant surprises for what can be (reasonably) delivered. Most importantly though, it protects the artist being able to deliver *consistently* and not being burnt out in the process.
More often than not it's up to those working on the ground to set the tempo for realistic expectations for a production, since most every other aspect of middle to high management are trying to please their bosses, and in turn are likely pressured into delivering pie-in-the-sky projections on delivery dates and results. They're not in the trenches doing any of the actual legwork (in this case, art), so there's an inevitable degree of corporate-style separation from factory floor to office space.
Save for a conscientious line producer, the artists need to be the gravity of the show, not to weigh it down but to ground it, firm footing so as to chart the skies and know where your ship is at. And where you need to go.
- That said, when asked to get whatever done by so-and-such a date, rather than saying "I can't do," go with "I *can* do" to whatever is reasonable and give a tentative day it'll be delivered. ("Probably by Wednesday, likely Thursday if nothing else comes up.")
Let management do the internal math, and don't give them a flat out "no" or "can't" unless they keep pressing the issue. Even then, give them a "not by so-and-such date," but follow it up with a date estimate of your own. You have to do the internal math as well (even though that's their job, specifically) since you need to protect your own interests with regards to scheduling.
Develop this and you'll likely be in a better position to perform freelance work later on, and with a good reputation for reliability.
- And as always, after a dry analysis of winding one's way through the Office Space aspects of the art world, it's time to furiously contemplate one's navel and ask the burning question: Is there a balance between being rushed to draw like a stand-up comic so as to improvise and to get things done, and at the same time to not be so plotting and plodding that you end up huffing your own farts like Ben Affleck with his 2016 attempt at remaking Citizen Kane?...
There's a video that breaks down this last point pretty well, so much so that I think Affleck can be reasonably held up as the modern day poster child of Orson Welles' "victim of your own success." Or at least a stumped and deformed version of it which seems to have forgotten how to make and manage storytelling. (Or is the system so top-heavy now with every project a tent pole, that the odds of it failing at every fundamental level are that much higher?)
And another covering everyone's favorite, M. Night. A breakdown of his 2006 film Lady In The Water:
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Yes, more drawing observations
4 min read
...Thankfully I've put down the Aristotle and been listening to more Red Letter Media. Which hopefully translates to drawing observations that even Wisconsinites can approve of.
- Stiffness in drawing comes from being hesitant. Hesitance comes from lack of ideas and / or experience.
- It's not enough to just put in the drawing mileage, expecting to automatically improve while whittling away. Maybe it depends on the personality type, but at some level there needs to be either intent or experience enough to draw something substantial and intentional, even when just noodling around on the page.
- The key component of experience is a strong ability and desire for observation. Not just being passive about what you see, but cultivating the ability to take mental note of what you're doing both right and wrong, before, during, and after drawing; as well as doing this (internally) when looking at other people's work. It seems obvious, but (as with most things that are) it tends to go by the wayside if it doesn't become a habit. Or if one is rushed. Or if boredom and fatigue sets in.
- The only way to break stagnation is to, as always, know thyself. Which is just another way of saying: Be honest with yourself. If you think you're the sh*t, you'll be complacent and never improve. If you think you are nothing but sh*t, you'll likely have to drag the burden of motivating yourself to even get started in the first place because, oh no, what if I fail. woe is me, etc. In the end, there's the balance of having stored up confidence from achievement, and humility enough from experience to know wherein you want to - or need to - overcome past mistakes or weaknesses.
- Persistence is one thing, but persistence in bad habits only makes things needlessly difficult. Again, if you think you're the sh*t; if you think you're nothing but sh*t... Whether it's from confidence or comfort, in the end both aspects come into play when getting in the way of making progress.
- Define your goals. Technique? Concepts? Storytelling? All of the above? Well from each of those there are various paths and specifics which can be analyzed; knowledge of what they are, how others use them, whether you have any of these qualities or not, how to gain some foothold in them if you don't, how to maintain them, and how to improve what you already have.
I honestly think that without a serious (and periodic) appraisal of the above, any drawing goals you might have become that much murkier as you flail about, reaching blindly for whatever pie-in-the-sky accomplishments that may or may not one day come true. It's one thing to leave room to be pleasantly surprised, allowing for spontaneity and all. But leave that for brainstorm sessions, lunchtime and Christmas; otherwise your actual drawing technique shouldn't be left up to chance. The harder you work on solidifying the basic principles of perspective, anatomy, tone, lighting, etc, the luckier you'll get with drawings or concepts that go off the how-to-draw reservation and into a visually well-informed originality.
- Give yourself room to fail. In fact, give yourself plenty of room. This is the only way the process- and goal-oriented parts of your thinking will be allowed to grow as you gain experience. If you take what you do seriously enough, you won't think of room-to-fail as flaking out. Quite the opposite actually, since you're committing to the long haul approach.
- When all else fails, go forward with Rich Evans' laughter echoing in your ears. Wipe blood and other fluids away as needed.
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Who Will Advise the Advisors...
4 min read
Artistic advice is good, and is a good measure for how open you are to have another set of eyes look over your work, on a technical or creative level. But like with most anything else, it runs the risk of entailing baser motivations depending on the speaker: Power plays, ego trips, and ways to not only categorize you but to keep you in the very place the advice or critique on a surface level is supposed to raise you up from.
Easiest way out of that is to commit the Genetic Fallacy: Consider the speaker first. A broken clock can be right twice a day, but the main point here is to identify who is doing the speaking, to separate the advice from the advisor. It's not worth getting hung up on every do and don't from every quarter, given that every artistic goal out there is likely not going to mesh with your own, much less overlap in some area or other. Most folks are likely going to have no idea what motivates you, interests you, even in some cases if they've known you for awhile. Most folks aren't physicians when it comes to anything, much less getting you in better shape to improve on whatever it is you do. And there are plenty of didacts out there, managerial or otherwise, who are more than willing to get you spinning your wheels so as to satisfy some need or goal of theirs, while burning you out in the process. Are those temple steps that they're ascending, or a ladder? Because only one inclines gradually and allows for others to be alongside in the ascent without being pushed out or stepped on. And only one doesn't require others to stay put below while steadying the base.
Maybe that's a bit utopian to expect a wider path to be anything but hierarchically disorganized while everyone is climbing it, or that a narrow path can entail honest ascent without greedily shoving out others (not to mention that steps are set in stone, while a ladder is adjustable). But I think once you consider someone's aims, their goals - or as is likely, their industry institutionalization - you can probably better consider whether you'll come closer to your goal given you take their advice and internalize it.
And note, internalize. This should probably go for the whole process of consideration as well. Keep thy own council.
As always, this is all off the cuff, and not thought out.
~NB:I get that the Genetic Fallacy is about writing off the argument via writing off the speaker. But take the above as a sort of skim milk version of the fallacy, G.F. Lite: Consider the argument on its own at whatever point, but gauge initially on the one doing the speaking / advising. The Athenians and (I'm guessing) Freud had it right in that most folks are motivated by interest, usually their own first and foremost; this is why you have to separate the wheat from chaff before wasting energy on every truth claim uttered by every Tom, Dick and Harry, since most are of the second moniker in character and ready to flex the first chance they get. In Aristotelian rhetorical terms, you have to base the deliberative value of the advice given (i.e., will it benefit or harm you in the end) ultimately on the deliberative conclusions of that advice, but your initial judgement is likely going to be off the entire suite of "Cui bono?" considerations that are epideictic (is the speaker honorable and trustworthy) and forensic (are the things spoken actually based on honestly relayed experience and experiences).
TL;DR: Develop your BS Radar. Preferably by not being over-eager or a production hero.
~NBB: ...Well that was interesting. Spent a while paragraph saying some things aren't worth spending a whole lot of time thinking over.
And in my best Mike Stoklasa voice: "Now think about *that*, you mutherf*cker, you!"
Easiest way out of that is to commit the Genetic Fallacy: Consider the speaker first. A broken clock can be right twice a day, but the main point here is to identify who is doing the speaking, to separate the advice from the advisor. It's not worth getting hung up on every do and don't from every quarter, given that every artistic goal out there is likely not going to mesh with your own, much less overlap in some area or other. Most folks are likely going to have no idea what motivates you, interests you, even in some cases if they've known you for awhile. Most folks aren't physicians when it comes to anything, much less getting you in better shape to improve on whatever it is you do. And there are plenty of didacts out there, managerial or otherwise, who are more than willing to get you spinning your wheels so as to satisfy some need or goal of theirs, while burning you out in the process. Are those temple steps that they're ascending, or a ladder? Because only one inclines gradually and allows for others to be alongside in the ascent without being pushed out or stepped on. And only one doesn't require others to stay put below while steadying the base.
Maybe that's a bit utopian to expect a wider path to be anything but hierarchically disorganized while everyone is climbing it, or that a narrow path can entail honest ascent without greedily shoving out others (not to mention that steps are set in stone, while a ladder is adjustable). But I think once you consider someone's aims, their goals - or as is likely, their industry institutionalization - you can probably better consider whether you'll come closer to your goal given you take their advice and internalize it.
And note, internalize. This should probably go for the whole process of consideration as well. Keep thy own council.
As always, this is all off the cuff, and not thought out.
~NB:
TL;DR: Develop your BS Radar. Preferably by not being over-eager or a production hero.
~NBB: ...Well that was interesting. Spent a while paragraph saying some things aren't worth spending a whole lot of time thinking over.
And in my best Mike Stoklasa voice: "Now think about *that*, you mutherf*cker, you!"
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The Mandala Effect
4 min read
So the last time I bothered to throw up all over the journal section of this site, I'd written:
"...When doing revisions over someone else's stuff - storyboards, design work, illustration, whatever - it's difficult not to have their drawing as the template to do your own work with, complete with their own stylistic idiosyncrasies, for better or otherwise."
Is a bit like trying to take the lyrics of a song in a foreign language, and not only translating it into your own, but also trying to hit all of the syllabic phrasing in exactly the same way, while still trying to keep to the original sense of the lyrics, if not the exact same words and terms. Is the reason why Spaghetti Westerns, kung fu and Godzilla films have a bit of that charm to them, but ultimately come across as awkward.
But when it comes to drawing... is probably best to just get the sense of what the original artist (yourself included) intended, and then redo the whole thing, without having to worry about getting the words or phrasing exactly the same. When it comes to revisioning on boards, is probably a contentious issue, what with completely redoing some board artist's work from scratch - and they'll likely see it happening. And by this, I mean: not as the director would have you do, but fundamentally you taking initiative to address this as a drawing issue, so that you're not stuck with their shape or anatomical idiosyncrasies.
But, given that (at least from my experience as of late) studios on that level of production are dysfunctional (the trickle-down effect of the suits not caring enough to get it right) regardless of what you would or wouldn't do, there's probably no way around pissing somebody off eventually. If it can be helped, maybe limiting this amount of throwing out and starting from scratch to the stuff that's turned in by outside freelancers. From what I've seen, most anyone who is that fly-by-night on a production is not as likely invested in the welfare of the whole show as you and your team would be, so why tie yourself down to their rush job?...
But on the other hand, if it's a board artist in-house (or character designer, prop guy, etc) and your director isn't telling you directly "Redraw their work on so-and-such scenes," maybe add as thumbnails your own from-scratch version in the margins / notes section of the storyboards. If anything, this should be used with clarifications on how the action should go, the subtleties that may get lost in the rough boards themselves (movement; rendering of hand shapes; facial expressions; other details; etc). Ideally, these sorts of questions get covered in the design sheets, be they characters or props, but (again, seeing how dysfunctional things can get from the top down scheduling) this usually gets lost in the shuffle the further along a production goes, or depending on how involved the other artists are in spelling out certain things.
And hey, if you can, and if they're willing, talk to the original artist whose work your revisioning, and pick their brain about what all they intended with the drawings, what their general drawing approach is, and see if they can at least point you in the right direction with either their own or another's work as a style reference.
TL;DR: Any amount of from-scratch drawing you can do on a production is preferable to having to strictly rely on going over someone else's work. Purely from a technical angle, your work will suffer over a period of time if you have to constantly follow the lead on someone else's botched or rushed work. Don't let another's bad habits creep into your own.
"...When doing revisions over someone else's stuff - storyboards, design work, illustration, whatever - it's difficult not to have their drawing as the template to do your own work with, complete with their own stylistic idiosyncrasies, for better or otherwise."
Is a bit like trying to take the lyrics of a song in a foreign language, and not only translating it into your own, but also trying to hit all of the syllabic phrasing in exactly the same way, while still trying to keep to the original sense of the lyrics, if not the exact same words and terms. Is the reason why Spaghetti Westerns, kung fu and Godzilla films have a bit of that charm to them, but ultimately come across as awkward.
But when it comes to drawing... is probably best to just get the sense of what the original artist (yourself included) intended, and then redo the whole thing, without having to worry about getting the words or phrasing exactly the same. When it comes to revisioning on boards, is probably a contentious issue, what with completely redoing some board artist's work from scratch - and they'll likely see it happening. And by this, I mean: not as the director would have you do, but fundamentally you taking initiative to address this as a drawing issue, so that you're not stuck with their shape or anatomical idiosyncrasies.
But, given that (at least from my experience as of late) studios on that level of production are dysfunctional (the trickle-down effect of the suits not caring enough to get it right) regardless of what you would or wouldn't do, there's probably no way around pissing somebody off eventually. If it can be helped, maybe limiting this amount of throwing out and starting from scratch to the stuff that's turned in by outside freelancers. From what I've seen, most anyone who is that fly-by-night on a production is not as likely invested in the welfare of the whole show as you and your team would be, so why tie yourself down to their rush job?...
But on the other hand, if it's a board artist in-house (or character designer, prop guy, etc) and your director isn't telling you directly "Redraw their work on so-and-such scenes," maybe add as thumbnails your own from-scratch version in the margins / notes section of the storyboards. If anything, this should be used with clarifications on how the action should go, the subtleties that may get lost in the rough boards themselves (movement; rendering of hand shapes; facial expressions; other details; etc). Ideally, these sorts of questions get covered in the design sheets, be they characters or props, but (again, seeing how dysfunctional things can get from the top down scheduling) this usually gets lost in the shuffle the further along a production goes, or depending on how involved the other artists are in spelling out certain things.
And hey, if you can, and if they're willing, talk to the original artist whose work your revisioning, and pick their brain about what all they intended with the drawings, what their general drawing approach is, and see if they can at least point you in the right direction with either their own or another's work as a style reference.
TL;DR: Any amount of from-scratch drawing you can do on a production is preferable to having to strictly rely on going over someone else's work. Purely from a technical angle, your work will suffer over a period of time if you have to constantly follow the lead on someone else's botched or rushed work. Don't let another's bad habits creep into your own.
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Quote and Query - More Random Observations
10 min read
...which could just as easily be "Sound and Fury." Whether these random notes and observations signify anything or not, well, that's up to you my tens of readers:
- When stuck on a drawing in any respect, it's worth thinking out what exactly you anchored yourself to when you first started. The ground-plane? A perspective grid? Character pose, facial expression, hand gesture, their interacting with something?... Any number of things that, consciously or otherwise, you may have started the drawing with or had in the back of your mind as the reason you started the pic in the first place, and thus linked every drawing decision afterwards to revolve around.
- When stuck on a drawing in any respect, it's worth thinking out what exactly you anchored yourself to when you first started. The ground-plane? A perspective grid? Character pose, facial expression, hand gesture, their interacting with something?... Any number of things that, consciously or otherwise, you may have started the drawing with or had in the back of your mind as the reason you started the pic in the first place, and thus linked every drawing decision afterwards to revolve around.
Which is why it's best to look at any drawing - or anything in a drawing - as a mandala: Nothing so precious that it can't be erased and done over again if you have the energy for it.
- And given, when doing revisions over someone else's stuff - storyboards, design work, illustration, whatever - it's difficult not to have their drawing as the template to do your own work with, complete with their own stylistic idiosyncrasies, for better or otherwise.
Which again is why it's good to get a breath of fresh air and start from scratch, even if it's simply as a thumbnail or something that won't end up being the final product. Every drawing gets you closer to the goal, gets you to consider a subject or object from different angles (more than just literally), and with any luck gets the bad drawing habits out of you.
Which again is why it's good to get a breath of fresh air and start from scratch, even if it's simply as a thumbnail or something that won't end up being the final product. Every drawing gets you closer to the goal, gets you to consider a subject or object from different angles (more than just literally), and with any luck gets the bad drawing habits out of you.
- If you've seen The Pacific, you'll know who Eugene Sledge is, otherwise known as Sledgehammer. After recalling his time on Peleliu, which was more than a month of some of the worst fighting in the Pacific theater (admitted to him by even some of the vets), he observed that it's not so much the intensity of the event, but rather the duration that wears on a man the most.
- Also, shifting gears a little, an observation from John Surtees, motorcyclist, who graduated from the short circuit to Grand Prix time trials (TT), and went on to eventually win several of these on the renown Isle of Man.
He stated that during his time racing, given the bikes available:
"...the most vital ingredient was getting into an established rhythm and sticking to it. On the Island, with the staggering starting intervals, and the length of the circuit, you're engaged in a much purer form of racing [than with short circuit races] - it's just you against the clock. The length is also important in that at the TT there are long sections of road where if you make even a small mistake, you can still be paying for it five miles later, in terms of an extra 200 revs you haven't attained, and so on. You must think much further ahead than on a shorter course."
He stated that during his time racing, given the bikes available:
"...the most vital ingredient was getting into an established rhythm and sticking to it. On the Island, with the staggering starting intervals, and the length of the circuit, you're engaged in a much purer form of racing [than with short circuit races] - it's just you against the clock. The length is also important in that at the TT there are long sections of road where if you make even a small mistake, you can still be paying for it five miles later, in terms of an extra 200 revs you haven't attained, and so on. You must think much further ahead than on a shorter course."
He goes on: "I've always contended it's much better to make a 98% effort for the whole race, rather than ride at 101% for shirt bits and if you and the bike survive that, then stroke it at 95% for others. The Mountain Course is an ultra high speed circuit, and in my day it was vital to keep that momentum going once you'd achieved it."
And his method of prepping for the IoM race? Touring the course in a car, which was "different enough" than on a bike:
"and anyway I quite often preferred someone else to drive while I just looked around at everything. It was like making a film, really - gradually you'd be cutting and splicing whole sections together in your mind till there was a complete 37 3/4 mile long production. Then each year when I went back it was a question of using the first few laps of practice to speed the film up, till by the fourth or fifth lap it was running at full speed. I can tell you I buzzed down Bray Hill many hundred times more in my mind than I ever did in real life!"
"and anyway I quite often preferred someone else to drive while I just looked around at everything. It was like making a film, really - gradually you'd be cutting and splicing whole sections together in your mind till there was a complete 37 3/4 mile long production. Then each year when I went back it was a question of using the first few laps of practice to speed the film up, till by the fourth or fifth lap it was running at full speed. I can tell you I buzzed down Bray Hill many hundred times more in my mind than I ever did in real life!"
- One thing that keeps me inspired while drawing is determining the mood of the picture. Which in other words, means both lighting and environment. (And which may also mean: My tendency to draw unemotive characters, thus needing something like dramatic lighting to punch the overall feel.) In any event, once the character's facial expression and body language is set, the further refining of light and shadow and setting helps transport me into the picture, wanting to be there to look around and see what there is to see. (If it's a medium to wide shot, or if the character is interacting with something, I'll usually lay down environmental perspective first, ground plane, vanishing point and so forth. This may come after if my initial focus or inspiration is getting a nice character silhouette or pose first.)
If environment is the fifth character so to speak, then lighting and atmosphere is the stepping stone, the spirit, which moves the whole thing towards the ethereal. I'd say metaphysical, but that's the weightier stuff for the actual story or theme to carry.
If environment is the fifth character so to speak, then lighting and atmosphere is the stepping stone, the spirit, which moves the whole thing towards the ethereal. I'd say metaphysical, but that's the weightier stuff for the actual story or theme to carry.
- One of the several Aristotelian goods is wealth, which is defined as an abundance of any number of things that are:
- able to produce something practical or useful, or
- able to be liberally used or enjoyed for their own sake, or
- able to be secure
That last one I think is the most important. If the owner has the freedom to be able to use, sell, or give away whatever they have as they see fit: "Being wealthy consists rather in use than in possession; for the actualization (energeia) and use of such things is wealth." (Rhetoric, 1. V, 7)
- able to produce something practical or useful, or
- able to be liberally used or enjoyed for their own sake, or
- able to be secure
That last one I think is the most important. If the owner has the freedom to be able to use, sell, or give away whatever they have as they see fit: "Being wealthy consists rather in use than in possession; for the actualization (energeia) and use of such things is wealth." (Rhetoric, 1. V, 7)
Is worth thinking on this when it comes to comparing the head knowledge of art, vs. actual application. Scientiam vs. Energeia. And ultimately in the professional world, Position vs. Potential. Craft vs. Creativity. And how the former tends to get in the way of not only the latter, but of preventing the security of one's artistic or personal wealth, both in time and in creative options, well after the job is done.
- Following this, what theoretically or even practically may be correct can ultimately be less than what you intended.
I've seen this all too often in terms of perspective grids or even CG renders, technically correct in every respect, that if used as a one-to-one guide for every line while drawing can make the whole thing look forced and extremely skewed, and ultimately incorrect.
The eye is not flat, and our vision reflects that. Look at any straight line that is long enough to extend past your immediate and peripheral vision and follow how that line looks both in front of you and in your peripheral; e.g. : Take the part of a wall that meets at the ceiling with two walls on either left and right. Try drawing in your mind's eye what you think a straight invisible line connecting one corner of the room to the next should look like, all the while keeping focused on the wall/ceiling line while slowly turning your head in either direction.
Inevitably, the line we physically see bends on the peripheries no matter which part your eye focuses on. In effect, there's a fish-eyed lens effect the further outside anything gets from your direct line of sight.
Thus! There's a certain point where our minds can instinctively pick up on how something should look in a two-dimensional drawing, and which parts would "bend" as per your peripheral. Perspective grids start to distort the further away one gets from the vanishing (or the focal) point of the drawing.
So, start thinking in terms of art rather than scientiam when it comes to bending lines and perspective to make it look more natural. This goes for both backgrounds and characters.
- Following this, what theoretically or even practically may be correct can ultimately be less than what you intended.
I've seen this all too often in terms of perspective grids or even CG renders, technically correct in every respect, that if used as a one-to-one guide for every line while drawing can make the whole thing look forced and extremely skewed, and ultimately incorrect.
The eye is not flat, and our vision reflects that. Look at any straight line that is long enough to extend past your immediate and peripheral vision and follow how that line looks both in front of you and in your peripheral; e.g. : Take the part of a wall that meets at the ceiling with two walls on either left and right. Try drawing in your mind's eye what you think a straight invisible line connecting one corner of the room to the next should look like, all the while keeping focused on the wall/ceiling line while slowly turning your head in either direction.
Inevitably, the line we physically see bends on the peripheries no matter which part your eye focuses on. In effect, there's a fish-eyed lens effect the further outside anything gets from your direct line of sight.
Thus! There's a certain point where our minds can instinctively pick up on how something should look in a two-dimensional drawing, and which parts would "bend" as per your peripheral. Perspective grids start to distort the further away one gets from the vanishing (or the focal) point of the drawing.
So, start thinking in terms of art rather than scientiam when it comes to bending lines and perspective to make it look more natural. This goes for both backgrounds and characters.
- Apropos, decide on which lens you'd likely use if the drawing you're making were shot through a camera, as well as its distance from the lens. This will determine perspective and attendant distortion of, for both background and character.
- Further... I've heard it said that when it comes to visuals or anything creative, trust your gut, feed your gut. It's one thing to have that warm fuzzy feeling of being secure in the learned, systematized, scientific method of placing everything where it should be while drawing, carefully, like a watchmaker; and of knowing that you followed the rules, that everything "lined up, jus' like a perty lil chorus line..." (And this would explain the increased uniformity of art on the internet over the past several years, and I think especially within certain areas of the animation industry.)
Unfortunately, as Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel lecture, Art is something we may try to define and contain, but as with anything mysterious or beautiful which we can't fully comprehend - either in its usefulness or its potential - we do so in vain and, in the process stifle and choke the life out of the very thing we're trying to cultivate for our own (or another's) use.
"All the irrationality of art, its blinding turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its profound impact on people, are too magical to be exhausted by the artist's view of the world, by his overall design, or by the work of his unworthy hands. Will we, before we go under, ever understand all of its facets and ends?... Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words. By means of art we are sometimes sent - dimly, briefly - revelations unobtainable by reason."
Even Aristotle warns against turning a faculty into a science. An ability that deals with almost unlimited and intangible set of possibilities and which may furnish a usable answer from those possibilities... ought no to be touted (or used) as a formula to obtain regular, expected results from a definite fixed subject. (Rhetoric, 1. IV, 5-6.) Non-linear vs. linear thinking. He uses a good example of saying that while a faculty or art may employ certain aspects of the definite, you can't try to make one-size-fits-all when it comes to diagnosing a specific case: What medicine is good for Socrates or even Hippias may not be good for a certain class of patients, and vice versa. (1. II, 11) Only in a generalized sense can larger formulas or prescriptions be handed down, until one gets to know who exactly the patient is, and what aim they're going for. Presumably health, but there are times the world (in this case, studios) force a goal that may not be towards that "realm beyond words" (Art). Or even your own health, for that matter.
"Have it your way!," as the Burger King motto goes.
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