2D Analysis

2D Analysis

I’ve really enjoyed producing 2D work this year and I think it’s due to the variety of different weekly tasks that we’ve been assigned. I’ve found myself being more creative with my work when the project is set under a short time constraint since I’m forced to come up with ideas and sketches as quickly as possible and this not only helps me produce more interesting work but also helps me from procrastinating and putting things off. When there’s a long project looming ahead I find it really easy to lose motivation simply due to the amount of time there appears to be to get it done, and all of a sudden the deadline approaches unexpectedly and it’s a mad rush to get everything done in time.

Something that I found really helpful this year was purchasing a layout pad to help me come up with ideas for some of our projects. It allowed for a lot of freedom since I’m usually very precious with my sketchbook work and spend too much time on individual drawings in it rather than using it as a vessel for ideas. The layout pad just seems appropriate for sketching down quick ideas and doodles and really exploring the tasks without worrying about the results. It’s also great to be able to tear out the pages and to be able to look at all your research drawings at once. My room ended up entirely covered in pages on more than one occasion but it was really helpful stuff since you can see which direction your work is taking and what the plan of action is to make progress. I’m definitely going to continue using them for this reason and also because I had so much fun drawing in it.

I’ve had a great time doing digital painting this year although it’s still something I feel very inexperienced with. Everybody else seems to know all these cool tips and tricks and how to manipulate Photoshop to create some really stunning images whereas I just plod along using the basics. I’m going to be looking at a lot of tutorials over summer to try to figure out the real potential of the program and what I need to do to get there. I’m also going to do much more traditional painting to refresh myself with the fundamentals and hopefully translate that onto the PC when I come to do more digital painting. Something which I enjoyed but wish I’d done more of were the speed paints. They were a great exercise in loosening up and coming up with ideas quickly and it’s fun to know that everyone else is working to the impending deadline alongside you, it’s also great to see what everybody else with comes up with and the cool techniques they use to realise it making it a really good learning process since you can directly analyse your own work with everyone else’s.

My main goal for 2D is just to practice I think. But I’m gonna practice both smarter and harder so I learn lots of new things as well as doing work that I like and having fun doing it. I wonder if the speed paints will carry on over summer, and if so I’m gonna participate on a more regular basis. Overall it’s been a really fun year for drawing and I can’t wait to learn more.