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  1. #1

    Unhappy Drawing is too hard...

    Hi,

    I'm not sure how I should say this. I want to embrace a workflow and stay with it. Either it's one tool, or two tools, and they need to be the best for me. I mean just for me.

    I tend to create bad art and coder art most of the time if not all the time. I can stay consistent, kind of, but it's always few graphics and bad graphics. I feel able to start to overly like and love them, but eventually someone will somehow tell me that my art is bad. And it is even objectively bad. It gets recognized as coder art (graphics drawn by a non-professional) by 9 out of 10 people.

    I could pay someone. But what format will I get? I threw away my Illustrator cs6 copy, because I didn't know how to select things, and now all Adobe software is cloud. You can just pay them €280 per year, where as I had just paid 600 for unlimited usage. I'm not sure if you can keep using the cloud products after some like 2 years maybe? And I still don't know how selecting works, it selects all I touch with the rectangle. X )

    I don't know how to approach the whole thing. A few minutes ago I thought I could make a scan of a pliable wire, and that would be the ulimate "bezier tool". I tried it.. that method is just bad.

    Xara is okay, but ... just okay. Affinity is what you can expect for €50. Corel Draw 2019 did not start, splash screen forever.

    And.. to be honest, I once wrote some app of my own. With some libraries (Antigrain, Clipper) and some blur code and things anyone could comprehend with enough time. It got a complicated mess. I was unable to rescue my code, because it was all just to special-case like. I felt like throwing it away after investing a huge amount of time and erased it. Like, there were fixed rules what paints on what, and I would need 20 years of coding to get anything that is really better.

    Now I have a 32x32 pixel drawing app that is kind of cool. It's possible to write such a thing in one day, really, and fix bugs for just one week and never notice any more bugs. But when you look at Celeste (game) there's like insanely cool pixel art. Why even bother to create 32x32 sprites that are on par with Game Gear art at best.

    There's cheap stock art, should I buy tensor flow chips and make an AI learn how to draw?

    I'm blind, kind of.

    I'm afraid my post sounds creepy, but it's my honest opinion.

    Tnx for reading...

    PS: If you know anything for me, like, if I should start learning Illustrator maybe, or just anything, would be cool to hear from you.
    PS2: I'm from Germany, please forgive me my bad English.
    PS3: Wrong sub forum also.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Placitas, New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    41,486

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    Welcome to TalkGraphics

    No software will make you an artist. First you have to have some talent. Outstanding art has been made will all the programs you list. But the artists use the software as a tool. The same way a non computer artist can use a pencil or brush or even a can of spray paint to create amazing images.

    But you can learn to be better or to use what talent you have better.

    Here is a link to the XaraXone archives where there are almost 20 years of tutorials. Start with some of these and see if they help. You will need a copy of Xara but almost any version will work.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Reading. UK
    Posts
    6,970

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    Gary: You have not posted a link to Xara Xone in your post.

    So, please click HERE for the one that I know of.

    Featured Artist on Xara Xone . May 2011
    . A Shield . My First Tutorial
    . Bottle Cap . My Second Tutorial on Xara Xone

  4. #4

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    Thanks a lot. I took the link Rik posted and I'm glad you posted. It will be quite some months that I feel I want to invest into vector and pixel graphics, because... forgetting it as a hobby didn't work either, so... I have to learn.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Reading. UK
    Posts
    6,970

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    If you want to have a bit of fun, whilst learning to draw, why not visit the Challenges forum and have a go at creating.
    It's a great way to learn the tools you may need to come up with your creation(s).

    Featured Artist on Xara Xone . May 2011
    . A Shield . My First Tutorial
    . Bottle Cap . My Second Tutorial on Xara Xone

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Placitas, New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    41,486

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    Memory loss. http://site.xaraxone.com/archives/ This has links to my Xara Xone tutorials and Gary Bouton's.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada.
    Posts
    4,619

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    Quote Originally Posted by gwpriester View Post
    ... You will need a copy of Xara but almost any version will work.
    Except 15.0
    Keith
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    There are 10 types of people in this world .... Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada.
    Posts
    4,619

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    It may be that you need some measure of talent. In my case even tracing something ALWAYS turns out different from the vision in my head. Trouble is when I ZOOM in to the vision in my head, the details are never clear, and no matter what I draw, it looks wrong. Give me a technical drawing and I'm good. Art just isn't my thing.

    Having said that, you can look at some (even expensive) art, and it looks like it's been done by a child, but it sells well. Art is in the eye of the beholder, There no way to determine good art from bad art ... It's all art, and somewhere there's someone who will like it.
    Keith
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    There are 10 types of people in this world .... Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, IL USA
    Posts
    1,138

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    Well I started with Xara X1, and have gone through Xara Pro 4, 5, and now Xara Designer Pro x11, and I am a professional cartographic illustrator creating maps for the tabletop roleplaying game industry, and video game strategy guide content creation - I'm one of the top game cartographers in the world, and I use Xara almost exclusively. I do use 3D software for elements in some maps (and some maps completely done in 3D), but I don't use Adobe anything, Affinity nor any other graphics software. Xara is the software that makes my artistry work. So different strokes for different folks - maybe Xara is not for you. I have over 1000 published maps, and almost all of them were created in Xara (those maps that weren't completely created in Xara were finished in Xara.)

    I have a long running thread in the Xara Graphic Chat forum called Fantasy Maps created using Xara, if you'd like to see samples of map work of mine created in Xara, to see what you can do with the software.
    Last edited by Gamerprinter; 18 August 2019 at 11:13 PM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    21,283

    Default Re: Drawing is too hard...

    well I'm not one of the world's top anything, but I can draw....

    Quote Originally Posted by me2
    I don't know how to approach the whole thing
    you need to focus - software has manuals and help and you are going to have to study these as well as tutorials - you are going to have to keep it simple and draw simple things whilst you learn the tools, before you can move on

    I use xara for making vector asset, but my drawing program of choice is corel painter; I have been using painter since the days of Fractel 5, 15+ years ago, and I am only some sort of expert in my kind of art, and in the uasage of 25/30% of the program which is very complicated

    yes drawing is hard, and the bad news is it stays that way... even when you have learned the program that does not make you an artist - it is stll down to you to know when something is right or wrong, finished or unfinished, derivative or original; and you have to be prepared for others to still not see what you see because not only beauty, but understanding and appreciation, are in the eye of the beholder
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

 

 

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