Traditional media artists--identify yourselves!

[Nerys Ghemor]

Who else here does their art mainly by traditional (hands-on) media, rather than digitally?

Link me to your stuff...I'd love to see it!

Also, for those of you who are fellow traditional media artists, do you find it difficult to get your head around computer programs that simulate what you do the hands-on way?

 

[Warped9]

I drafted my stuff by hand up until about five years ago. Now I still sketch and draw ideas by hand, but I do finished work by computer.

 

[TerokNor]

I am creative the traditional way, however I cannot draw at all.
I mostly use Acryl and than whatever gets in my fingers, for example for a present I wanted to create a simple picture with something that had to do with Hobbits, so I made mushrooms out of dried apple pieces and sewed them on a canvas and colourd them with Acryl-colours.
Most things are not Star Trek related, just the last thing I made was a collage as a present for my cousin...on that one you also find Damar and Madred.


TerokNor

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Learned my drafting skills in college on the board. Drew a full set of of Battleship Deckplans on the board years ago.
Then went to Autocad mostly self taught. Could never get
a handle on 3d though so I've stuck to 2d othos.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I'd love to be able to do 3D. I think in 3D easily enough when I'm drawing and designing.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Wow...why is it that a lot of the traditional artists seem to be abandoning traditional media?

 

[Kaiser]

Well if i ever get around to it i'll add my ship designs i had here to photobucket they were drawn with Pencil on Paper but sadly that all i have art wise now uuntil i get a new scanner or use my webcam instead

 

[Warped9]

Wow...why is it that a lot of the traditional artists seem to be abandoning traditional media?

Depends on what you're doing. If you're trying to do schematics and blueprints then the computer is more accurate, easier to correct mistakes and less messy. Of course, you can't do 3D on paper. The only non computer 3D you can do is build actual models like kits or scratch built. Beyond that there are artworks, which while they can be simulated on computer it takes a practiced hand as well.

 

[Shaw]

Well, I've never considered myself an artist as most of what I do (Trek wise at least) is reverse engineering what others had done before me.

That having been said, because large sections of my models are scratch built, I had to hand sculpt the surfaces... which is a pretty non-computer-ish technique.

And long before I had a computer that could help me with my drafting, I used traditional ink-on-vellum techniques for drawing my blueprints.

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But I, again, don't consider that stuff art for me... as it was reproducing someone else's workmanship. I would consider the type of mathematics I do (differential topology) to be more like art, and I do all of it by hand. Because of the amount of visualization involved, I find computers to be more of a handicap than an aid. When drawing surfaces out by hand, you have to know what the surface is doing. It is the difference between active learning and passive learning.

As I said though, it is more like art than anything else I do...

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Hopefully some day in the near future I'll do some real art. I just need to find the inspiration.

 

[havoc92]

Ok, I'm a traditionalist. I am primarily a portrait artist. My favorite medium is colored pencil on board. But, I do graphite, pen and ink, etc as well. I scratch build and have been doing so since I was about 7 years old. I also build kit models. And as of now, I have about 10 of them in the works in various stages of completion (lots of trek, Titanic..) And a scratch built project of the Darth Vader 3 piece helmet to go with my full set of storm trooper armor..

I like to create. The computer is just another medium. Talent goes wherever curiosity leads IMHO. So far, mine has known no boundaries other than what God puts on me and I decide I don't like or am simply not interested in. lol.

I have a spattering of odd images on my website in the gallery section if anyone wants a look at some of my serious art and not so serious doodles and dabbles.

http://home.comcast.net/~havoc211/index.html

 

[Marie1]

I used to work with clay a lot, and I loved it!

Now it's mostly drawing with pencil, and painting, and I'm going to try inking.

I do a lot of digital art though, I find the practical art experience helps my digital work.

 

[Ptrope]

I still occasionally dabble in traditional media - it's more a matter of forcing myself away from the computer than anything. After seeing all the great traditional work being done in the comic project last year, I even joined in with my own (even if it was somewhat patterned after MAD's Don Martin )

 

[Kaiser]

I still occasionally dabble in traditional media - it's more a matter of forcing myself away from the computer than anything. After seeing all the great traditional work being done in the comic project last year, I even joined in with my own (even if it was somewhat patterned after MAD's Don Martin )

hehehe Don Martin indeed

 

[1968gtcs]

modeling in 3d with a program actually takes just as much if not more thought and skills......to do it right you have to be able to spatially comprehend everything just as much if not more that hand drawing it. You have to understand it and then translate it to get the computer to understand it.

 

[Shaw]

modeling in 3d with a program actually takes just as much if not more thought and skills......to do it right you have to be able to spatially comprehend everything just as much if not more that hand drawing it. You have to understand it and then translate it to get the computer to understand it.

This comment seems to be out in the middle of nowhere... was this a response or aimed at something or someone?

 

[1968gtcs]

it was a response to your comments about 3d.....read through thread

 

[Ptrope]

^^

I'm guessing it's a comment on the 'distinction' between 3D and traditional art. There are many who think 3D art isn't art, at all, because it's either "not real" or doesn't require hands-on work to accomplish; many who are largely unfamiliar with the requirements think that using computers to create art is little more than pressing the "make art" button - believe me, as a Poser artist, I hear this even from other 3D artists, who think it's not art unless you model each and every thing in the image yourself (which, in some cases, I also do). In truth, each form is art, only a subset of the larger realm - Poser allows non-modelers to compose, texture, light and render objects created by others, in the same way a photographer does with still-life or living subjects - then 3D modelers go a step further and create every object, which definitely takes a strong understanding of spatial relationships and how to construct even a basic curve, compound or otherwise, so that the final object looks "real". That doesn't mean that a 3D modeler is always going to be an "artist," as far as lighting, composition, etc. go - someone can be a fantastic craftsman and make incredibly-accurate and detailed models and then have no idea how to make them appear "real" in a render, or even artistically 'unreal' - in fact, there are plenty of Poser artists who may not be able to craft a single polygon, but they could take the 3D modeler's work and create stunning art with it that the modeler could never do - it's not the tools, it's the artist himself or herself. There is no "make art" button - thankfully!

Whether creating art in 3D requires more thought and skills - I wouldn't attempt to make that distinction; they may require different thought and skills, but drawing and painting are highly-thoughtful processes that require not just skill, but talent and even maybe intuition - the same things that are required of 3D art at any level.

BTW, Shaw - I really like those topology drawings - they bring to mind works like those of M.C. Escher ("Escher-time!" ), and yes, those sorts of things are a b**** in some 3D programs, because the computer really, really wants to reconcile the shapes with what it's been told can happen in the real world, unless you're doing it more through mathematical applications, which are designed to 'know' that there's no such thing as reality.

 

[Shaw]

it was a response to your comments about 3d.....read through thread

Well, it was hard to tell... I was commenting about mathematics (specifically, differential topology). Were you commenting on mathematics? Do you even know what it was that I was doing in those drawings?

There are a number of programs (like Mathematica for example) which can display the type of surface I was drawing (the Real Projective Plane), but all you'd be doing is looking at a predetermined surface.

One such application that does a nice job is 3D-XplorMath, which produced this animation of an immersion of the Real Projective Plane...

That nicely symmetric surface is a variation by Bryant & Kusner, and in that 3D application you can rotate and look at the surface from almost any view one can think of. But the Real Projective Plane isn't any one version of the immersion, because as a topological surface, it can be infinitely deformed.

As a mental exercise I sit down with a pencil (and eraser) and a stack of paper (with absolutely no references), and start drawing a totally unique version of the Real Projective Plane. The last three images I posted in my first post are all the Real Projective Plane, they are equivalent under regular homotopy, and yet they are different from one another (because they were drawn at different times).

Do you do this type of mathematics? Do you model topological surfaces (starting with zero references)?

Don't get me wrong, I use 3D applications for mathematics. For example, this is a polyhedral version of the Real Projective Plane in a mathematics application (GeomView) that was developed at the Geometry Center while I was there...

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Again... is this the type of stuff that you do? Was this even what you were talking about? Because that is why I wasn't sure you were directing your comments towards me if this isn't what you had in mind.

I mean, I've done a (small) amount of 3D modeling... I had built a model of the USS Constellation over the course of three months back in the spring of 2007. I would say the results were mixed, but I was using antiques (1994 software on 1997 hardware).

Click to play (3.6 MB, MPEG4)​

And I'm not even remotely saying that that even comes close to truly having 3D modeling experience... because I only did it for about three months. And I surely wasn't commenting about that type of 3D work, as can be seen by looking at what I actually said (which you didn't quote)...

"I would consider the type of mathematics I do (differential topology) to be more like art, and I do all of it by hand. Because of the amount of visualization involved, I find computers to be more of a handicap than an aid. When drawing surfaces out by hand, you have to know what the surface is doing. It is the difference between active learning and passive learning."​

BTW, Shaw - I really like those topology drawings - they bring to mind works like those of M.C. Escher ("Escher-time!" ),

Thanks! Escher is one of my biggest inspirations.

 

[1968gtcs]

hey man, keep practicing....thats awesome!

 

[Warped9]

Shaw, some of the movements you used seemed to mimic what we saw in TWoK, at least it seemed so to me. All I can say is b.s. to those who continue to assert that the TOS E wouldn't work on the big screen. Your small example shows otherwise.