[spooge demon]

what this is about


The way I am thinking now, the first fifteen people to sign up in this thread will be chosen and critiqued. I may alter this, based on the mix of people who show up. I might take more or less. I know it sucks limiting it, but that way I can make crits that make sense. I might hand pick people to get a wide range of strengths and weaknesses.

I will be hosting this page on my own machine, so I will be handling all the admin stuff. See below for details. Use this thread for general discussion or to ask me questions. No mail, please. I just will not be able to get to it.

As I said in the other thread, please consider whether you participated in the last one of these things, and your level of seriousness and time availability.

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Assignment 1 will be two matte white cubes resting on a white surface. Cubes are the same size. One point source of light. Design the arrangement of the cubes on the surface, the angle of view, and the angle of the light source and resulting shadow patterns to reinforce the feeling of form. An extreme example of a mistake would be to graphically line up the edges of the cubes as to flatten out the image and confuse the viewer as to the 3-d reality of the scene. Part of this assignment is learning conventions of showing form in the clearest way possible.

One of the skills that this assignment should develop is your ability to draw and judge basic shapes. It is actually very difficult to draw two cubes accurately. The number of possible errors rivals the number of stars in the sky.

If you are really at a loss, and want to see what is correct first, go to tutes These are very nicely done pages by Francis Tsai with good basic info. It is probably a good idea to do the projection so you see what a cube looks like. Francis, if you want me to take this link down, feel free to tell me.

Also the arrangement should be aesthetic, whatever that means. You know, use the conventions of western art to make a composition. Again, this is not creative time. This is to learn the basics so you can successfully ignore them later, if you want.

Here is a PSD file of the first assignment. You can see from the mask channels how it was done.

You should consider making basic shapes out of cardboard (mine are wood) and making a setup. You will learn a lot from this. Try photographing it as well. See the shortcomings of photography. (Beginning photo students have to photograph these setups. They try to do with camera and film what you are doing here. It is almost more difficult to do well with a camera.)

I would stay away from 3-d. You will not internalize the lesson this way. Use it to study, that is great, but not as a crutch.

When you are ready (when I say), you move to the next assignment.

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I will be posting this page with the drawings, and updating it with further explanations of the next assignments. A rough plan. This WILL change.


2. Another arrangement, matte cubes on a white surface, but make on black, the other white. Can make them different sizes
3. One cube, one cylinder, one cone, one sphere. Cube is black.
4. Same as 4, sitting on a semi reflective surface. New composition however
5. New composition, reflective objects.
6. �Crash� several simple shapes together to make something resembling a child�s pull toy.

As you can see, the design of this is to start with the very basic aspects of form and gradually add complexity. Eventually, things can be complex enough to actually do useful things. It�s just a matter of extrapolation.

CRAP YOU MUST FOLLOW

Send the jpegs of your assignments to ftp.goodbrush.com/incoming

File names

Name_assignment_version.JPG

Ex. spoogedemon_1_v2.JPG


I will make up a page that has each person�s drawing and crits. Maybe they can be discussed in this thread. If you are not in the group I am critiquing, post here to get some feedback.

All drawings will have the aspect ratio of 3 to 2. It will try my patience if they are vertical, but I may refrain from cursing the pox on your house.

All images will be 600 by 400 pixels, jpeg format.

There is to be no smoking, eating or drinking during this assignment. You will refrain from boisterous activity.

You may wonder why I am so persnickety about this stuff. It is a very academic exercise, it is not self-expression. The more I can rub your nose in the information and keep you from �expressing,� the better.


My thanks to the creators of this way of looking and thinking. I guess it was Ted Youngkin, but I am not sure.

please speak up if I have overlooked anything major.

[ October 13, 2001: Message edited by: spooge demon ]

[Blitz]

Wow...lots to read...
Its 5 in the morning and Ive been up all night painting....Ill read when I wake up hehe.

[lel]

That would be the greatest thing, if I may!

(am I glad I finally got around and registered two weeks ago!)

[ArMaDoN]

Hi all,
Well this is interresting. it's amazing too see the amount of people interrested in Drawing and concepting in this forum.
It's flurishing so much in the past weeks.

- I think this is a great idea spooge. this will let people get the feel for reality as such and a great understanding knowledge for what drawing and painting is all about. the vast knowledge that you and the earlier members yield is amazing and can be greatly contributed to such a experiment.

Thanks alot for contributing in this task. i will really look forward too what you have in store for us and what will be accomplished.

[nil900]

I'm in, I'm in!!! Thank you spooge!!

[Mime]

count me in Spooge, that will be great to do this !!
for when approx is the first deadline ? I might not be able to work on it before monday.

And thanxs for doing this

[Bg]

Here's one more volunteer =)

[Dean Welsh]

Well I'll give it a try if you'll have me.

-Dean

[S4Sb]

Count me in please =)

[horstenpeter]

I'm in.

[cyBeAr]

I'm in.

[Prolix]

Ill give it a go, dont expect any spooge demon-ness out of me though

[morphgfx]

this is realy great, thanks for spending your free time on it!
count me in .

[silber]

great -thanks in advance

EDIT

Pupil NR. 13
Name: silber

Status :

Assignment 1 uploaded

[ October 15, 2001: Message edited by: silber ]

[HellSpawn]

I'm game.... Count me in if you still have room :-)

[Ben Barker]

[edit]
Actually, I've been through drawing foundations courses before. I'm not saying I've got nothing to learn from this stuff, but it would be better for someone who has never done this sort of thing before. So, you're it dude
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[ October 13, 2001: Message edited by: Ben Barker ]

[Ripelly]

Sounds cool. I'm in if there's still room.

edit:

[ October 13, 2001: Message edited by: Ripelly ]

[Tiger Eaten]

Yes, I'd like to try.

[Slicer]

I'm in.

Must they(the assignments) be totally digital or may we do them on paper use a scanner and upload them so you can see them?

[nil900]

I've got a question: I just tried to do the cubes following francids' tutorial and everything was fine while doing the first one but I don't know how high the second cube has to be (it's a little smaller cause it's a little bit behind the first one -> perspective). How do I get the hight of the second one?
I think you will understand the problem if you try to do it too.
Anybody got an answer?

[upabove]

I'd love to participate if their hasn't been 15 already.

[root88]

I wish the message would have asked for the first 15 people to actually turn an image in, not the first 15 people to merely reply to the message. That would have weeded out some of the slackers that took a spot and won't get around to doing anything.

[-Tepox-]

*sniff* too late!
for some reason I can't download "cubes.psd"
I would like to see it...

[burn0ut]

oops im too late, ill do them on my own anyways

edit: What medium did you first study this in spooge?

[ October 13, 2001: Message edited by: burn0ut ]

[Gothic Gerbil]

Sigh, too late!! You just had to post that during a rough homework week didn't you! Ah well, at least I've got fully capable teachers around here that can critique my work too. (which they do ... over ... and ... over ... ayei!)

[MoleculeMan]

I am gonna do it, even though i missed the cut off. Stupid super fragmented computer heh.

Jake

[Sumaleth]

I learned a hell of a lot when we did this exercise the first time so I'll definitely be following along again.

Row.

[cyBeAr]

Ugh,

I really have a lot to learn, can't seem to get a grip on how to draw two non-parallel cubes in perspective, basically I think I have the same problem as nil900 so if you could describe what you did that would be nice.

Think I was able to do a pretty good aproximation though.

[xXxPZxXx]

Holy Hannah!!! never done anything even close to this rendered. Never have had ANY instruction in art either so this is a HUGE help. Thank you sooo much spooge. I decided to not make the cubes cast shadows on each other because I didn't think I should jump in that far yet. I used the tut. that spooge gave the link for but it hurt my head very badly. Well since I didnt get into the 15 I am posting here to see if I can get some crits on the shadow and render job. I KNOW its messed but I just dont know WHAT is messed.




again Thanks a million

-PZ-

[Anthony J]

damn...I guess I didn't make it in time...


I'm like number 31 !

guess I'll watch on the sidelines or something??