Pinterest Study 01

(Future Note #1: This is an old post from January of last year (lmao) that I’ve decided to post now.)

I have a Pinterest that’s flooded with too many pins, but recently I’ve finally gotten around to actually making use of all of the stuff that I’ve saved. There’s a big rabbit hole as to how I got onto what feels like a new paradigm shift, but before I get to that, I’m just going to talk about this first.

Pinterest is honestly quite terrifying because there are too many images and I lack self-control

The Pinterest Study

I really liked this middle pose — the overall shape looked really pleasing and I wanted to capture that. I haven’t developed the idea just yet, but I’ve been on a shape language/shape clarity kick, and one thing that I’ve started thinking about was how clothing can shape a person’s silhouette. In this instance, I like the way the clothing is draped off of the model here, and I liked how thick and loose his jeans are. Kind of refreshing, given that I’ve been drawing nothing but tapered pants these days ahaha

One of my favorite things about this picture are his hands, though. Every time I draw hands these days, I always sort of vaguely remember a thing that Ethan Becker said about hands (Future Note #2: I still think about this when I draw hands and now I love to draw hands. It’s a great piece of advice). And, as I drew them, I thought about how I’d go about constructing the thumb in particular, and thought of rounded triangles, since fingers tend to taper off, and aren’t perfect cylinders.

I mean, I dunno. I’m looking at my own fingers right now and they’re not triangles, but, it was a heck of a lot less frustrating to draw fingers I’ll tell you what

Note: A thing about depiction, and, how it’s representational, not literal, so it’s okay to not draw every single digit, or something of the sort. I’ll probably talk about this more as time goes on. I once scribbled something about this in my sketchbook. “Observe, appreciate, interpret.”

Lastly I tried drawing his head, and it was a huge struggle. I couldn’t quite eyeball the correct angle of his head. Semi-side profiles is often pretty challenging for me to draw. It’s not a clean side profile, and yet you’ve got a bit of the face peeking out from the other side behind the nose, but it’s not the whole face and so I’m just left staring at it like ?????????

Logically, I know that the head is turned away from the camera, and so you’ll see less of his facial features, and more of that side plane of his head, but I still couldn’t help but to draw the face practically in full view. Probably from constantly drawing all of those heads in three-quarters view. 

I traced over the image as I took a screenshot, and in retrospect, I feel like this is something that I should’ve done to begin with, especially for photo studies. It clarifies quite a bit in a much shorter amount of time, rather than eyeballing it. There are a lot of things that I missed, like how the ear is actually lower on the skull, and how, as mentioned before, the eyes-nose-mouth area takes up a much smaller mass on the head since it’s turned away. 

Feeling my way around helped me to see for myself how it should be drawn, if that makes sense. It’s easy to draw what comes naturally and feels right, which is why, I think, I defaulted, in a sense, to drawing the face in full view. 

Oh, I think it’s also good to zoom in every now on then on both your reference and your drawing. Depends on what you’re trying to get done, I think. I zoomed in on the reference picture so that I’d remember to make this point, but that’s not what I did at the time — just something I wish I had done.

What I mean is, I work zoomed out almost my default, even when I’m at my day job working on stuff, I zoom out way too much, and stay that way for most of the project. This is because I get impatient and want results and forget that you don’t just vomit out the final product, but that’s for another time. You zoom in when you need more clarity. Sometimes I brute force things without realizing that I need more clarity and before I know it I’m scribbling tiny lines and wondering why I can’t draw the thing quite like how I like it while I’m squinting my eyes it’s nuts

I realized this when I was studying some streets of rage characters. I couldn’t quite appreciate some of the design elements that I’d initially glossed over. Sometimes it’s good to listen to yourself and understand what you’re trying to get done. 

Okay, so what is this thing about shapes you were talking about?

So, lately, I’ve been a big fan of capturing good shapes. When I draw, I try to lean into what I like. For instance, when I study, I focus on what caught my attention to the thing in the first place, and when I draw my own stuff, like a character design, I think more often about the stuff that I like*. It’s been a nice ebb and flow of processing information, and seems to work in the same way as connecting ideas together. 

*It’s like a funnel. You start with your gut reaction and then you start making the creative decisions from there. Don’t quite know what the thing looks like? What does this design remind you of? Why did you choose this design? I’ve started to draw with a bit more curiosity. My eyes drink in things now.

For a while I would sort of, want to draw something that was satisfactory, and I would stress myself out. But this isn’t a post about character design. (Future Note #3: Looking back at this I have no idea what I was trying to say, but if it has anything to do with being satisfied with your work, then I do have a thing or two to say about it. Later, though. This post is long enough already.)

Some Other Things

Notion is Pretty Cool

Wow. Did you know that notion is amazing? I didn’t use it to write this post, but I use it for documenting a ton of ideas because I have too many. There was a point last year where I used it practically every day, rather effortlessly.

The Vanished is a Neat Movie

I watched this insane movie about a couple whose child went missing at a campsite, and it was the craziest thing. I was gripped by a suspense that I never recall feeling as strong in my life. Very stressful. Hard recommend.

Yakuza is Rad

I’ve started playing Yakuza on PS2 and it blows my mind. The way it seamlessly hides its jrpg mechanics almost puts me at awe. It is a success at gamification.

Fire Emblem Awakening is Also Rad

I’ve also been playing Fire Emblem Awakening. No emotional investment in the slightest. I mean, not totally true. I’ve never played a Fire Emblem before this one, and Classic mode was much too demoralizing, so I started over, even though I was 40 hours in (though lets be real, 70% of that time was nervously staring at the map and trying to think ten steps ahead). I’m not quite ready for Classic mode, I don’t think. Just not built for it, I don’t think. I mean, I did the thing of restarting, but man, that’s no way to play Fire Emblem. I think the best way is to roll with the punches and make use of what you have. But, you know, that’s ideal — it doesn’t necessarily mean that I actually play that way. Especially with it being my first playthrough and knowing that there’s a lot to discover, I really just want to maximize my options. You give me class customization and custom weapons and support combinations and I will want to keep everyone in my party you big dummy

But once I get my fill, I will definitely play on classic mode the second time around, because I really do like the idea of working with what you have. 

This is the first game that I’ve played purely for the mechanics, barring puzzle games or what have you. Not that I’ve played games much, but whenever I do, it’s usually holistically, to appreciate its creative decisions. However, this game didn’t speak to me creatively. Though I will say, I do like the battle animations, and the music has a lasting appeal.