Paleclaw

So like 80% of the time I draw warriors characters, I tend to do a front or 3/4 view of the head and cut it off at the shoulders, for the simple reason that I'm most interested in the character design of the face, so I tend to stop caring/lose interest with a piece once I get to the rest of the body. So I'm thinking, rather than force myself to draw stuff that just doesn't interest me as much, I'll make a series out of it where I just focus on the facial designs/contrasts of various warriors characters. Working title is maybe The Faces of Warriors? Maybe I could even post some of the concept sketches from the design process as well.

Hopefully if I feel less guilty about posting so many bodyless cats I'll be more likely to post more often? And with an actual goal in mind it might even motivate me to design more frequently as well. I'm kind of excited at the idea!

Opinions?

Yet another thing I struggled to wrap my head around clicked for me today. Silhouettes! I knew they were important, I could see the difference they made when used right, but I just couldn't understand why they worked. It's not as if things in real life always formed clear, nice looking silhouettes, so why was it good practice to make sure your drawings do? But then it clicked.

Silhouettes are a principle of design! They aren't for making things realistic. They're for making things appealing, and making them clear. Drawing a photo-realistic picture doesn't necessarily mean it'll have good design. I needed to separate design and realism in my head and realize that some things in art don't come from real life observation, because they're completely independent of realism. 

I've just discovered the secret missing puzzle piece for perspective that nobody ever seems to talk about. I've struggled so much because I just couldn't wrap my head around how to use those basic 1-2-3 point perspectives in everyday drawing rather than cityscapes or blocks. But I've learned something that changed everything.

There isn't one perspective per picture. There's one perspective per object. In other words, each object has its own vanishing point(s), and the 1-2-3 point perspectives apply to that object, not everything in the picture. However, objects that are at the exact same angle in relation to the viewer share vanishing points. 

Basically, vanishing points are where the converging lines meet, right? Well if you're looking at a cube straight on (1 point perspective), it will have different converging lines than a cube in the same environment, turned to diagonally face the viewer (2 point perspective), so each cube will have their own set of vanishing points. So having 1 set of vanishing points for the whole picture rarely works, except in the cases of things like cityscapes and other settings that have a very grid-like layout. 

This is such a major breakthrough for me, I tried so so hard to wrap my head around how to use these standard x-point perspectives that are taught everywhere, but they just never made sense to me because I couldn't see how you would apply them to objects sitting at different angles in the same picture. Now it makes perfect sense why I was struggling with it, I was completely misunderstanding what these perspectives were to be used for, and nobody ever seemed to clarify.

Now to figure out how the distance between vanishing points work, and how to properly apply perspective to less cube-like objects...

would anybody actually be interested in my plethora of study notes for art? i’ve got sooo much guys, and though i haven’t mastered applying it yet, i have to wonder sometimes if the notes themselves would be useful to people. you’d obviously have to take them with a huge grain of salt since they’re study notes rather than tutorials but…?

i've got so many notes on so many topics, from broad fundamentals in both art and animation, down to very specific things like thumbnailing and lip syncing. they also include a bunch of tips i've come across while studying and researching these things

Update: I've posted one of my notes to test the waters and see if it gets much interest. Depending on how it goes I might post more.

Study Notes: Horizon LineDisclaimer: This is not a tutorial, they're simply notes made by someone trying to understand the subject. There may be some mistakes, so take everything here with a grain of salt.
Horizon lines are also known as eye levels, and for good reason. The horizon line is the vertical level that your eyes are at. That is, how far your head is from the ground. This shouldn't be confused with point of view, which is related to eye level, but more focused on what you're looking at rather than where you're looking from. It should be noted that changing your point of view alone (that is, moving your eyes or turning your head) does not change your eye level. It's helpful to think about things in terms of a camera rather than an actual person and their eyes. With that analogy, the horizon line would be the vertical level of the lens, and the point of view would have to do with panning, tilting, and zooming.  Changing any of the latter three doesn't change t

Why is perspective so hard??? It took me at least 30 tabs (probably more like 50) in two windows (one for tutorials and one for googling unanswered question), a crapton of notes spread throughout three programs, and a whole day of studying just to get a really good understanding of horizon lines and how to use them. And I mean, I can already see the difference it made, it's huge, but why does it have to be so hard?? That was all just for one small part of what makes up perspective! I feel like it shouldn't be so hard to wrap my head around...

At least I can find some comfort in the fact that even Van Gogh struggled to learn perspective, and couldn't wrap his head around it either until he found just the right book that explained it in a way that worked for him

Edit: I condensed my notes and rewrote them to be in a logical order and make more sense, and in the end it only added up to around 750 words. That's not even a full fanfiction chapter length. I spent a whole day studying, and though I have a good understanding of how horizon lines work and how to use them now, the notes make it seem like i actually learned very little and just took a ridiculous amount of time learning that tiny bit... oh well, the proof's in the drawing I guess.