Snippets of insight from Terry Pratchett

I've been rereading some of Terry Pratchett's book as a form of escapism. Some of his passages slap you in the face with insight.

Jingo
"But at a certain dark level, where the daylight seldom penetrated, he thought: of course. At a time like this men like Rust rise to the top. It's like stirring a swamp with a stick. Really big bubbles are suddenly on the surface and there's a bad smell about everything."

Guards! Guards! 
"They're hooked. Ye gods, I'm good at this, thought the Supreme Grand Master. I can play on their horrible little minds like a xylophone. It's amazing, the sheer power of mundanity. Who'd have thought weakness could be a greater force than strength? But you have to know how to direct it. And I do."

"The Supreme Grand Master smiled in the depths of his robe. It was amazing, this mystic business. You told them a lie, and when you don't need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing."

“In a world where we all move in curves he proceeds in a straight line. And going straight in a world of curves makes things happen.”
– Night Watch

“You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless, and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.”
– Guards! Guards!

“Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate.”
– Feet of Clay

there's a war brewing between Ankh Morpork and Klatch and the Commander of the Nightwatch, Sam Vines, is investigating:

"Someone’s behind this. Someone wants to see a war. Someone paid to have Ossie and Snowy killed. Someone wanted the Prince dead. I’ve got to remember that. This isn’t a war. This is a crime.
And then he realized he was wondering if the attack on Goriff’s shop had been organized by the same people, and whether those same people had set fire to the embassy.
And then he realized why he was thinking like this.
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things."
-Jingo

Global Warming Worse than Previously Thought

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over-global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html

Procedural Rock Modeling and Texturing - 3ds Max

This is a great blog! I'll be following it.
http://saschahenrichs.blogspot.com/2010/03/3dsmax-environment-modeling-1.html

Bioshock texture remastering
https://80.lv/articles/the-remastering-of-textures-in-bioshock-the-collection/

Great tool for artists - Figure drawing tool
http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/

Unity blog - Viking example scene
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/02/18/working-with-physically-based-shading-a-practical-approach/

The Last One

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmahextall/
This is the last post of the semester and, man, has it come quickly!

I have been looking forward to life drawing since I started here at Stout. Coming into this class I thought I could already draw people reasonably well. Guess what; I was wrong.

The gesture drawing came naturally to me. I draw quickly and have done gestures before. My grasp on the movement in the figure was decent but looking back through my work I had no idea about proportion or the form of limbs.

Being fast at drawing actually became a setback once we started on longer drawings. Although I had a reasonably good eye for angles I lacked the focus and patience that my colleagues had. I think, I hope, that I have since remedied this. Now I can easily stay on one drawing for two hours, though much over that is a stretch.

One thing I have learned is the logical application of light. This has always been troublesome for me. The introduction of planes to my thought process allowed me to visualize lighting without having to see an example, something that will definitely come in handy.

The mannequin was also a wonderful tool in allowing me to visualize. As every muscle looks different angle it forced us to process it three dimensionally, making us register how each muscle works together with all the others.  It was probably the most frustrating part of the class, to spend hours on the muscles just to come into class and find that they are all wrong. Despite this, by the end I loved it. It was nice to use my hands, and work with a media other than the computer or paper.

I hope to find my place somewhere in the animating world and for this goal knowledge of the figure is essential. To know which muscles are needed for each motion. Which parts of the form can be manipulated without and which ones can’t. 

Although I took this class hoping to gain knowledge of the realistic figure (which I did) I have also seen my stylized drawings improve drastically. This I credit to the class. I have enjoyed it and hope to take the next one eventually.

 

The Face and all

I enjoyed drawing this week. On Monday we started a long drawing of the head, features and all. It was more difficult than I expected even though we had already been working on all of the features separately. But we did it anyway. The class split into two groups to draw the two models. In retrospect the view I drew from was too straight on. I feel that I still did a decent job of it. On Wednesday we continued the portraits. I worked on this drawing for almost four hours. At the start of the semester I found it hard to spend over five minutes on one picture. What a difference!

On Friday we returned to the full figure. It was bad. We’ve been working on the head and facial features for about two weeks now and while it was really enjoyable and definitely good to know, it showed me how huge a difference not practicing makes. Friday’s drawing started with quick gestures as we used to do. The break really showed. The first ten of them were terrible but I picked it up again pretty quickly. It’s nice to know that even if I do let my practice slide a little that I’ll be able to come back to it. Especially as I won’t be able to take life-drawing-two next semester. Maybe in the Spring.

For the long drawing I originally got a bad angle where most of the drawing would have been leg and wanted to do a full figure. So I moved when I got the chance. It was as though I had completely forgotten how to draw. I honestly didn’t know where to start. After about 20 minutes worth or failure I thought, ‘I don’t know what to do, so lets start from the start’. I went from spine to egg through all the limbs. This may seem obvious but I didn’t use to follow the formula that specifically. Anyway the drawing turned out ok. When we finished up for the day there was still something off about it. That’s ok though, we work on it again on Monday and I’ll have fresh eyes for it.

As we near the end of the semester the classes and weeks blur together. I don’t think this is a good sign. Maybe I’m getting old. I do remember that this week has been more sociable than most. We have been pairing up (or in my case clumping together with at least two others) and drawing each other. It has definitely given me a new appreciation for the models. I discovered that I could never do it. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to sit still for that long... An absolutely impossible event.

Anyway, we didn’t have class on Monday due to Spring break. I am looking forward to the lecture on the structure of the skull. I hope it will help me improve on the structure of my skulls, they were looking either very squished or very stretched last week.

We also learnt eyes and nose time. Noses were difficult at first, at least until I started to think of them as a series of planes. It definitely helps, the only drawback is that then I make them a little over defined. 

Actually now that I look at this one again I think I need to work on noses. It looks a little wonky. 

Eyes weren’t too bad from the start. I don’t know how well I followed Amy’s way of drawing them but I like the way they turned out. Do you guys  think I need to improve on anything specifically?

Mouths and ears were harder. My ears looked like flat objects with patterns on them but Amy reminded me to use contour lines ( which I had been forgetting for no apparent reason) and they stated to look much better. Mouths were straight forward except I kept making them fuller than they need to be. Also I need to remember not to let the corners of the mouth meet.

I heard that the final project for this class will be a self portrait but I haven't decided if I'm happy about this or not yet. I have never drawn a realistic self portrait that I've been happy with. Not even close. It will definitely be a challenge.

Easter Break

I don’t really know what to say about this last week. With only two classes we didn’t have a whole lot of drawing time or any lectures. I can’t decide if drawing the skull was really hard or really easy. Have a look at my drawings and tell me what you think I should improve. 

Without the lecture it was difficult to know where to start. Usually I’ll start with which ever shape she suggests such as an egg for the ribcage or use the landmarks to find the general shape. With this I didn’t know what to look for. That being said I think the drawings turned out ok. I just eyeballed them really. The hardest thing was to decide which planes were important and what to emphasize.

I had been looking forward to drawing the skull but I’m not sure if I like drawing it or not. There is just more judgment calls than in the rest of the body. With so many tiny details I suppose it’s inevitable.

I love drawing characters and I have improved so much from this class. I can quickly get a character’s personality down on paper when before it would have defeated me.

The other end  of the spectrum is less positive. As the semester draws to a close the pressure is building up and the focus issues that I had at the start of the semester are coming back. I have all these great ideas and enthusiasm but no willpower. I really want to be able to give it my all and finish the semester on a high but I seem to have lost the ability to focus. There are so many distractions.

I have enjoyed this class and learnt a lot. I WILL focus. (I think I can, I think I can ;)