Design First For 3D Artists
posted on 08 Jul 2009 21:17 by herziign
2D Exercises—Drawing Foundations First Sketching and Illustration Sketching and illustration are the foundations of the commercial art industry, and masteringthese techniques can take a long time. Even today, I’m still learning new ways to improve mydrawing technique and how to express my ideas through media in unique and artistic ways.Much like the world of 3D animation and visual effects, the learning process never stops.Sketching and illustration classes are offered at most colleges and trade schools, which aregreat if you have the time, but my job is to get you learning to sketch as quickly as possible.In my years of teaching, I’ve developed shortcuts that will give you enough insight into theworld of illustration and design to affect your work in a positive way. I know that the followingeasy-to-learn drawing exercises will improve your work and give you the confidence to pickup a pencil before you touch the keyboard or stylus. Before you get started, I want you tokeep in mind that the drawing concepts and exercises I have developed are to get youdrawing quickly. They are by no means the all-encompassing drawing exercises you’d getfrom five months in an art class, but rather shortcuts designed for what I feel are the day-todaychallenges of designing first as it relates to an animation project. “If You Can Draw the Four Basic Shapes, You Can DrawAnything” The four basic shapes being the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. This was a theory taughtby one of my first art professors, Orrin Shively of Walt Disney Imagineering, and I find thisbasic rule to be true. The “you can draw anything” rule, as I like to call it, mostly has to dowith light, shade, and shape, because understanding how light and shade interact with themost basic shapes is directly related to how light and shade interact with the most complexshapes.How does this apply to the work we do in 3D? 3D simulates the interaction of light,shade, and shape, and it is from these fundamentals of 2D application that most 3Dprograms give you a choice to start your model with a cube, ball, disc, or cone. They knowthat the foundation of every good design starts with at least one or a combination of the fourbasic shapes, these being the root shapes of your design. Knowing the root shapes of yourdesign in 2D first makes it that much easier to later model in 3D. Since modeling in 3D canbe a labor-intensive process, drawing gives you the opportunity to experiment with a myriadof factors including proportion, value, color, volume, and concept before you turn on yourcomputer. 
Image 1 Construction ExplainedThe four basic shapes — the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone — are the most primitive andsimplistic shapes in our culture, hence we have another name for them — primitives. 
Image 2Some good examples of using primitives in design are the wheels of a car, which can beattributed to a cylinder; a computer monitor, which is essentially a cube; and a lightbulb,which is mostly spherical in shape.The real question is, how do you get from a simple primitive like the sphere to a humanhead? The answer is “construction.” Construction is defined as just that — constructing yourdesign using simple shapes first, then creating more complicated shapes using the primitivesas a guide. It’s kind of like a road map to your final design. 
Image 3The quintessential example of using construction as a road map is Mickey Mouse’s head. Atfirst glance the most obvious shapes are three primitives — one big sphere for his head andtwo small flat cylinders for his ears. With further examination, there are a lot more details likehis eyes, nose, mouth, and hairline, each represented by a basic shape. Since thefoundation for his design was conceived using these three primitives, whenever a designerdraws Mickey’s head, he or she starts with these three primitives to get overall proportion,then adds the detail. Not only do the primitives serve as a road map for Mickey’s head, butthe use of these simplistic shapes is what has made Mickey Mouse a classic design that hasstood the test of time and his head one of the most recognizable icons in the world. MickeyMouse is a fairly easy example to understand. The human head is much more complicatedwith lots of volume and subtle detail, but all in all the process of using primitives forconstruction is the same.Before we can start constructing anything, we need to focus on drawing primitives; then wecan get to more complicated shapes. The following sections focus on using exercises toimprove your drawing skills. That way, when we get to the design section, drawing will feelmore comfortable and won’t become a distraction.Just a general rule about the exercises in this book: do them over and over again until they
Image 1 Construction ExplainedThe four basic shapes — the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone — are the most primitive andsimplistic shapes in our culture, hence we have another name for them — primitives. Image 2Some good examples of using primitives in design are the wheels of a car, which can beattributed to a cylinder; a computer monitor, which is essentially a cube; and a lightbulb,which is mostly spherical in shape.The real question is, how do you get from a simple primitive like the sphere to a humanhead? The answer is “construction.” Construction is defined as just that — constructing yourdesign using simple shapes first, then creating more complicated shapes using the primitivesas a guide. It’s kind of like a road map to your final design. Image 3The quintessential example of using construction as a road map is Mickey Mouse’s head. Atfirst glance the most obvious shapes are three primitives — one big sphere for his head andtwo small flat cylinders for his ears. With further examination, there are a lot more details likehis eyes, nose, mouth, and hairline, each represented by a basic shape. Since thefoundation for his design was conceived using these three primitives, whenever a designerdraws Mickey’s head, he or she starts with these three primitives to get overall proportion,then adds the detail. Not only do the primitives serve as a road map for Mickey’s head, butthe use of these simplistic shapes is what has made Mickey Mouse a classic design that hasstood the test of time and his head one of the most recognizable icons in the world. MickeyMouse is a fairly easy example to understand. The human head is much more complicatedwith lots of volume and subtle detail, but all in all the process of using primitives forconstruction is the same.Before we can start constructing anything, we need to focus on drawing primitives; then wecan get to more complicated shapes. The following sections focus on using exercises toimprove your drawing skills. That way, when we get to the design section, drawing will feelmore comfortable and won’t become a distraction.Just a general rule about the exercises in this book: do them over and over again until they
become easy. Diligence is ultimately your best friend and it will show in your work.
Design First For 3D Artists
Kater, Geoffrey.
Design first for 3d animators / by Geoffrey Kater.
p. cm.
Includes index.ISBN 1-55622-085-5 (pbk., companion CD-ROM)
1. Animated films—Technique. 2. Drawing—Technique. I. Title.
NC1765.K38 2005
741.5'8--dc22