Uncategorized Art Pondering
some thoughts about art that don't deserve its own page yet
Tapering vs non-Tapering
💬 mentioned in 2023-03-26🌱
thinking about non-tapering vs tapering brushes
- tapering brush's biggest advantage is, well, the taper. Tapered stroke is a naturally beautiful stroke, they can connect with each other pretty easily
- however, tapering is controlled by pressure sensitivity, so if I also enable pressure sensitivity for opacity/density, I have to control 2 properties at the same time, which can be tricky and not flexible in many cases (had to manually change brush size for the right mix of taper and opacity)
- this is where non-tapering brushes shine, I can wholly focus on controlling the color mixing/ opacity/density
Texture brushes
💬 mentioned in 2023-03-19🌱
- Texture brushes combination
- Texture brush is mostly an uncharted territory for me
- I observed that there are some artists that have a really natural usage for texture brushes: like Merasgar and pofu31. All of the textured strokes blend together well, and there are pretty much no noticeable "digital stamp" artifacts.
- This will be a future research topic!
Art style development
💬 mentioned in 2023-03-19🌱
- The thing we don't like also shape our style
- example: I'm looking at Onmyoji character art and think hard about why I don't like it as much as Arknights even when I can recognize its high level technical qualities.
- superficial reasons? I might just prefer the aesthetic of modern+fantasy rather than traditional/cultural design.
- deeper reasons in design choices?
- Choice of fabrics?
- I love Onmyoji pattern and decorative work, but maybe don't like the combo of flowiness of the big shapes + small ornamental pieces
- it's hard to tell and I'm just speculating
- example: I'm looking at Onmyoji character art and think hard about why I don't like it as much as Arknights even when I can recognize its high level technical qualities.
💬 mentioned in 2023-03-12🌱
- Style formation
- current problem: regarding the combination of Graphic Design/Typography + Illustration, I'm stuck with this specific configuration:
- High detail/polished artwork with clean graphic design elements made with non-destructive effect
- It's a cool combination and I certainly haven't explored it all.
- But for this year I don't want to focus too much on the procedural/generative FX (photoshop illustrator and other software)
- I want more freeform, drawn graphic treatment, similar to 052 (should make a page to collect this kind of look Freeform graphic treatment🌱). Things that I could do solely by drawing or tools inside CSP.
- next year I will look more into visual making process in other program.
- I'm currently disinterested in doing vector because my mind is occupied with drawing!
- High detail/polished artwork with clean graphic design elements made with non-destructive effect
- current problem: regarding the combination of Graphic Design/Typography + Illustration, I'm stuck with this specific configuration:
Art challenges
💬 mentioned in 2023-02-06🌱
- I'm training to overcome one of the cause of my Garden/Roadblock while drawing: facing Unbeauty🌱
- I'm feeling physically uneasy and I don't want to continue when I see the unfinished state, sketchiness, muddy colors, etc. in the current state of the painting.
Symbol drawing
💬 mentioned in 2023-03-05🌱
- I can more clearly see that how much I've been relying on symbol drawing.
- I don't think symbol drawing is a bad thing. If I set a standard of avoiding it 100% the time, the number of problem to solve would be too much for me too actually finish an artwork.
- Symbol Drawing can be an indispensable part in a unique style if it's very consistent.
Non-verbal communication
💬 mentioned in 2023-04-23🌱
(I've been thinking a lot about visual communication. It is related to my thoughts about Tacit vs Explicit Knowledge 🌱)
Since humans don't have telepathy, the most direct way we could communicate is through language and words. If I want to discuss with someone about visual communication, I would have to use verbal communication, which in many cases would be a lossy translation, either because the idea is hard to put in words, or my language skill is not sufficient.
When I work by myself, I can address a specific feeling or vague concept by just thinking about it, and all idea synthesis would happen in my head. This is not possible in a group setting or any environments involving more than 1 person (education, teamwork or blogpost like this one).
Maybe it's (one of) the reason that in such artist communities (not general audience), people tend to value whoever can properly explain their workflow (A) more than people who can't (B). I don't mean A is better than B. but A is valued more because it's easier to logically appreciate the work and thinking process of A more than B.
- example: it's harder to appreciate the ability to draw subtle difference in emotion (like an exciting happiness of a birthday party vs a gentle happiness of receiving gift from close ones) than the ability to systemize color and lighting to represent emotions.
Unlearning
💬 mentioned in 2023-08-21🌱
- Unlearning is inevitable
- I still retain a lot of bad habit when I was a beginner. Back then I mainly draw 3/4 angle, as a result I had a really hard time to draw front view. It always skews towards the 3/4 angle.
- I was thinking if I could ever avoid Unlearning in the first place? How could I know if a piece of knowledge is right and wrong to avoid absorbing it in the first place.
- For now, I think Unlearning is inevitable, and it is a good skill to learn. however it is certainly possible to partly mitigate it by seeking high quality courses and by being more critical.