The best way to draw things that do not exist in reality is to draw things that really do exist. Does that sound confusing? If so it is only because you have not yet become a Zen Master.
The first rule of designing anything in convincing way, be it machines, clothes, or characters, is to have source material to work from. Almost anything will do so long as you are taking in some kind of outside visual stimuli to help move your design along. I find myself spending a fair amount of time designing machinery, robots, and weapons. As a result I have a database of images built up to aid in the process. Having something to look at is invaluable. Without these aids I find that I invariably fall back on simplified geometric shapes in arrangements that are easy to work with, instead of convincing to the eye. Let's put forward an example.
I like robots, so we'll start there.
I start by coming up with a rough design of the form I would like the machine to take on paper. This usually amounts to some simple shapes and forms defining the character that I want the machine to have; just basics to start, a body and some limbs, maybe a gun turret. From there I get into the source material. The temptation is to cut the corner and cover your machine's skeleton with a a few details, some armor plates, etc. in order to make the invention look finished. But ultimately this is only a skin that makes it look finished at a glance and in the process you will have left out the guts of the thing. It might look alright on the surface, but if you place it next to an image of a real machine you will see the discrepancy instantly.
What you are seeing is the difference between flesh and blood and a skeleton with a sheet over it. (Actually that might be a cool image. But not as a machine. Remember, skeletons are cool, even under bed clothes.)
So let's work on the guts. I start by looking up pictures of other machines so I can steal parts of their structure or engineering to employ in my own machine. This machine will be something of a mechanical Frankenstein's Monster. Pieced together from the best of his piers he will represent the penultimate figure in mechanical warfare. I am particularly fond of steam-punk as a genre, so I often start working from nineteenth century images. Legs can be pieced together from images of crane arms and other hydraulic equipment. I like building frames for bodies and then adding tanks, engines, and hoses as necessary. Hoses have a wonderfully organic quality that contrasts well with the sharp corners of human engineering.
Side note: Industrial scenes look awesome in a way that I wouldn't want in my backyard, but that I love to see on paper. I might like to take a walk in the pure, untouched outdoors, and I loath the idea of forests and fields being replaced by abandoned factories and urban sprawl, but put me in a fictional universe and everything changes. I suddenly relish the texture and grit of filth that pervades industrial science fiction cityscapes. Rotting skyscrapers that blot out the sun captivate my imagination on paper in a way that inspires horror in real life. Have you ever been to Detroit? That's what I'm talking about. Although I have thought before that Detroit could solve a lot of its problems by allowing its burnt out buildings to be covered in thick masses of vines; sort of a post-apocalyptic look. The vines could consume the rubble like some freakish, tentacled, vegetable creature. More on this some other time.
The focus of visual invention is ultimately two-fold when you are dealing with story-telling illustration. First is the side that desires to make the invention look convincing. The second is the aesthetic side that desires to stretch the boundaries of the believable, still in a convincing way, but to create something that is visually appealing in its own right. This second consideration often comes after the first chronologically. Much of this aesthetic is contained in the execution of the design. Certainly there is something to be said for creating a design that is going to be visually appealing, but lest we forget, this design will never be created except by one's self on paper. As a result much of the aesthetic will be communicated in each individual portrayal of the invention that has been created. A design that looks convincing will be exciting to the viewer even if it isn't designed to look elegant. Elegance can be created in the scene that depicts the practical machine by employing perspective, line, texture, color, etc. to compose a visually stimulating image. There is also something to be said for the elegant design that is made believable with touches of source material but I will save that for later. That style is not one I am currently working with, nor am I terribly familiar with it on the whole.
That should be all for now on this subject. We'll come back to invention later (along with those vines) after we spend some time on turning those thumbnails we were talking about into finished sketches.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The thumbnails that you won't find on your hands.
Once I have the outline of my story laid out the rest of the process becomes more streamlined, allowing me to push ahead with production in a way that would not be possible if it were not for an efficient method. (as a side note I should mention that, when I say 'efficient,' I mean that my efforts are more focused on a goal so that the time I spend is better spent. I do not mean that I make progress quickly. I work very slowly.) After the outline the next stage of this process is thumbnailing. I find that thinking, for an artist, is often a visual process that will not adequately develop without visual aids. That's what thumbnails are. Just like the outline needs to develop on paper to help me retain my thoughts, each scene needs to be composed with simple thumbnails (often the same scene several times) in order to allow the composition to evolve to its highest form. I you have ever played Fl0w then think of it like that. Each thumbnail composition gets devoured by a larger more evolved form until the final result is a large self-confident beast, highly evolved and attractive to the females.
I usually start by breaking up the page into the moments that need to happen in that space. I then try several different visual arrangements of panels until I find one that I think is dynamic or visually stimulating in some way. From there I start working with the images that will occupy each of those panels. Thumbnails help me keep track of how all those images will look when placed next to one another. Professor David Tammany used to tell me in 2D Design that no one could know what two colors would look like together until they were placed next to each other. I believe the same is true of comic panels. You might think you know how a composition of space marines seen through an alien telescope from another planet will look when placed aside a dogfight in an asteroid field, but you don't. You will miss something if you just try and put it together in your head. You need to plan more carefully than that. I want the panels to vary from one another to create diversity of viewpoints, subject matter etc. while still retaining the compositional value of the page as a whole so that the panels work together. You see, the panels need to have contrast and diversity, and yet still be unified.
It's the oneness of duality.
Once the page layout is thumb-nailed I work on different compositional arrangements for each of the panels, again, still bearing in mind the layout. Thumbnails are not about detail, but form. The lines should be loose and electric, defining forms with quick strokes. I hold the pen further back than I usually would when I thumbnail because it forces me to surrender some control and in exchange I get more energy out of my lines. It keeps the focus of the thumbnail on composition, focal point, and motion. That energy is what ought to carry you into the pencil sketches that will be used in the final composition.
The first thumbnails I do are usually just establishing work. I'm working out what is going to be included in a scene and how I'm going to present it. The second round is often just to come up with alternate arrangements of form and to experiment with ways to make the scene look more dynamic. Some quick perspective work is helpful as well to establish how I want to incorporate the view point into the final sketch. This is also the time that I set aside to work on poses, design, and expression. If one of my marines is using a piece of alien technology then now is the time to do some concept sketches for what that piece of technology will look like. The design that goes into any object that appears on the page is crucial to having a believable world. It is so crucial in fact that I will break off abruptly here in order to devote the next whole post to the process involved in the design of unreal elements in art. Look forward to it!
That's an order Space Cadet.
I usually start by breaking up the page into the moments that need to happen in that space. I then try several different visual arrangements of panels until I find one that I think is dynamic or visually stimulating in some way. From there I start working with the images that will occupy each of those panels. Thumbnails help me keep track of how all those images will look when placed next to one another. Professor David Tammany used to tell me in 2D Design that no one could know what two colors would look like together until they were placed next to each other. I believe the same is true of comic panels. You might think you know how a composition of space marines seen through an alien telescope from another planet will look when placed aside a dogfight in an asteroid field, but you don't. You will miss something if you just try and put it together in your head. You need to plan more carefully than that. I want the panels to vary from one another to create diversity of viewpoints, subject matter etc. while still retaining the compositional value of the page as a whole so that the panels work together. You see, the panels need to have contrast and diversity, and yet still be unified.
It's the oneness of duality.
Once the page layout is thumb-nailed I work on different compositional arrangements for each of the panels, again, still bearing in mind the layout. Thumbnails are not about detail, but form. The lines should be loose and electric, defining forms with quick strokes. I hold the pen further back than I usually would when I thumbnail because it forces me to surrender some control and in exchange I get more energy out of my lines. It keeps the focus of the thumbnail on composition, focal point, and motion. That energy is what ought to carry you into the pencil sketches that will be used in the final composition.
The first thumbnails I do are usually just establishing work. I'm working out what is going to be included in a scene and how I'm going to present it. The second round is often just to come up with alternate arrangements of form and to experiment with ways to make the scene look more dynamic. Some quick perspective work is helpful as well to establish how I want to incorporate the view point into the final sketch. This is also the time that I set aside to work on poses, design, and expression. If one of my marines is using a piece of alien technology then now is the time to do some concept sketches for what that piece of technology will look like. The design that goes into any object that appears on the page is crucial to having a believable world. It is so crucial in fact that I will break off abruptly here in order to devote the next whole post to the process involved in the design of unreal elements in art. Look forward to it!
That's an order Space Cadet.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Skeletor!
Let's set the scene for today's topic. You sit in your creative space, surrounded by your hanging plants, with your favorite working music on. In your hand you hold your cheap disposable pen of choice and in front of you are several pages of blank, white, scrap paper. You stare at the blank sheets of paper and you think, I have no idea what to write. That's ok. You never really start by just writing. If you did your story, and all the art surrounding it, would lack form, like some kind of gelatinous amoeboid. Instead of just throwing ourselves headlong into this endeavor we are going to step back and craft our story purposefully, like a designer might make a set of clothes or an architect might design a skyscraper. And while those analogies are fine, for the purposes of this post we are going to run with the analogy of the skeleton. Why?
Because skeletons are cool.
The outline of a story is like a skeleton. The bits and pieces of plot and character come together to support the story like so many vertebrae. Starting with an outline gives you the advantage of having some concept of how the story will end while you are still working on the beginning of it. This is a very real benefit, believe me. The outline doesn't have to be much. An inciting incident and a vague layout of the rising action are a good start. From there it is good to just let your thoughts take form on paper. Lest my meaning be lost on you I will repeat that last part again, on paper. The temptation is to think a good deal faster than you write, and as a result your thoughts out pace your hands until your hands are so far behind that you stop using them. Before long you are just start daydreaming about a story that you will write some day, instead of writing a story right now. Having your thoughts collected on paper gives them focus, helps you go back to an idea to develop it, and gives you the materials you need to start putting the pieces together. All these scribblings are important. Like bone marrow.
These scribblings can be anything that helps you flesh out the world on paper. Words, pictures, doodles, whatever works is what counts. All of this should ultimately culminate into a central body of work with some thoughts falling more to the center, like ribs maybe, and others falling outside the developing focus of the story, like things that are not bones. Don't feel bad about throwing away the bits of brainstorming that don't work. Right now you are focusing on an outline. With a white sheet of paper in front of you your possibilities are infinite. Infinite is a lot. Narrowing the focus is important when you are developing your plot, and when the tidbits start running away from you so does the story.
Once you have the beginnings of an outline you have the bones all in a pile and you just need to start putting them together in the right places. Sometimes you will put the bones in the wrong places. When you do your story will turn into a circus freak of a being that people will peer through a tent flap to laugh at. So, you could say putting things together the right way is important. Often you may need to bring your story in to the chiropractor.
I have a way that I resolve this problem, and it works well for me. My focus, when it comes to telling stories, is a visual one. As a result I focus on graphic novels. You know, comics. My primary interest, when it comes to comics, is the printed page, arranged into volumes, either issues or books or strips. Whatever. With any of the above choices you have definitive start and stop points throughout the story that the plot needs to be molded around. If you work on a regularly scheduled strip it is important to keep in mind the start and stop of the work week, or whatever it is you schedule your posts around. Books have a longer cycle to work with, but even then if you have a sequence of books you need to plan the story around those divisions. Right now though, we'll work with issues. I try and think about how many issues will be in a book (and in theory how many books in a story) and then I try and wrap my mind around what needs to happen in that issue. To do that I start with the end and try and connect the dots with the beginning that I've decided on. Other people, whom rumor has it are smarter than me, call this process "reverse induction."
To do this I start with a piece of paper and then I break the story down into a number of chapters, based on what needs to happen. Then I assign each chapter its own issue, which I give a working title of some sort to help me remember what will happen in it. This all gets sketched out on paper like a tree diagram, or a bone chart for a skeleton. Then, I break each of those issues down into pages, and then what needs to happen on each page or group of pages. This leaves me with lots of sheets of paper with notes scribbled all over them, and they won't make much sense to anyone except their author. But they do mean something to me. I can read them, and that's what is important. At the end of it all you should have a rough skeletal structure that you can flesh out as you go to form the body of the story. And when all is said and done the final product will look great and you can hide the skeleton away in a closet where it will rot and fester. Later it will be found by the maid. She screams as it topples down upon her, crumbling into dust as it descends.
There are a good deal of other steps involved in this process, but at the risk of running on too long for one post I will break here for today. Next time I'll get into some of the art behind all of this writing by getting into the importance of thumb nailing. I really should get to the art stuff. After all I did state quite clearly that I am not a writer.
Because skeletons are cool.
The outline of a story is like a skeleton. The bits and pieces of plot and character come together to support the story like so many vertebrae. Starting with an outline gives you the advantage of having some concept of how the story will end while you are still working on the beginning of it. This is a very real benefit, believe me. The outline doesn't have to be much. An inciting incident and a vague layout of the rising action are a good start. From there it is good to just let your thoughts take form on paper. Lest my meaning be lost on you I will repeat that last part again, on paper. The temptation is to think a good deal faster than you write, and as a result your thoughts out pace your hands until your hands are so far behind that you stop using them. Before long you are just start daydreaming about a story that you will write some day, instead of writing a story right now. Having your thoughts collected on paper gives them focus, helps you go back to an idea to develop it, and gives you the materials you need to start putting the pieces together. All these scribblings are important. Like bone marrow.
These scribblings can be anything that helps you flesh out the world on paper. Words, pictures, doodles, whatever works is what counts. All of this should ultimately culminate into a central body of work with some thoughts falling more to the center, like ribs maybe, and others falling outside the developing focus of the story, like things that are not bones. Don't feel bad about throwing away the bits of brainstorming that don't work. Right now you are focusing on an outline. With a white sheet of paper in front of you your possibilities are infinite. Infinite is a lot. Narrowing the focus is important when you are developing your plot, and when the tidbits start running away from you so does the story.
Once you have the beginnings of an outline you have the bones all in a pile and you just need to start putting them together in the right places. Sometimes you will put the bones in the wrong places. When you do your story will turn into a circus freak of a being that people will peer through a tent flap to laugh at. So, you could say putting things together the right way is important. Often you may need to bring your story in to the chiropractor.
I have a way that I resolve this problem, and it works well for me. My focus, when it comes to telling stories, is a visual one. As a result I focus on graphic novels. You know, comics. My primary interest, when it comes to comics, is the printed page, arranged into volumes, either issues or books or strips. Whatever. With any of the above choices you have definitive start and stop points throughout the story that the plot needs to be molded around. If you work on a regularly scheduled strip it is important to keep in mind the start and stop of the work week, or whatever it is you schedule your posts around. Books have a longer cycle to work with, but even then if you have a sequence of books you need to plan the story around those divisions. Right now though, we'll work with issues. I try and think about how many issues will be in a book (and in theory how many books in a story) and then I try and wrap my mind around what needs to happen in that issue. To do that I start with the end and try and connect the dots with the beginning that I've decided on. Other people, whom rumor has it are smarter than me, call this process "reverse induction."
To do this I start with a piece of paper and then I break the story down into a number of chapters, based on what needs to happen. Then I assign each chapter its own issue, which I give a working title of some sort to help me remember what will happen in it. This all gets sketched out on paper like a tree diagram, or a bone chart for a skeleton. Then, I break each of those issues down into pages, and then what needs to happen on each page or group of pages. This leaves me with lots of sheets of paper with notes scribbled all over them, and they won't make much sense to anyone except their author. But they do mean something to me. I can read them, and that's what is important. At the end of it all you should have a rough skeletal structure that you can flesh out as you go to form the body of the story. And when all is said and done the final product will look great and you can hide the skeleton away in a closet where it will rot and fester. Later it will be found by the maid. She screams as it topples down upon her, crumbling into dust as it descends.
There are a good deal of other steps involved in this process, but at the risk of running on too long for one post I will break here for today. Next time I'll get into some of the art behind all of this writing by getting into the importance of thumb nailing. I really should get to the art stuff. After all I did state quite clearly that I am not a writer.
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