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Messages - API-Beast
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11
General Discussion / Re: how to calculate your rates for pixels?
« on: March 18, 2018, 01:32:22 pm »
I have to completely disagree here, a hourly contract is perfect for art.

  • How long something takes depends to a large part on the client, how much information he gives, whether he provides concept art, how often he asks for revisions, etc. Having a hourly contract makes this relationship much clearer to the client.
  • Furthermore, the time something takes is not a fixed amount, art is never finished. If the client is happy with a lower quality then that will be much cheaper than when he wants the next Mona Lisa. A hourly contract plus good communication means you can figure out what quality the client wants as you go.
  • It removes the need to renegotiate for every small thing, keeping the communication fluid.
  • Due to the aforementioned factors it's impossible to make accurate estimates unless you know both the client and the scope of work extremly well.

A flat rate is something you could do if you already know the client very well, but for new clients I wouldn't do it.

It doesn't punish fast artists, they can charge a higher hourly rate or provide a higher quality in the same time as someone else. Fast artists have a huge market advantage.

12
Portfolios / Beast - Character Sprites & Tilesets
« on: March 14, 2018, 11:31:09 pm »
Manuel Riecke
Freelance Artist
Email: api.beast@gmail.com

Hi, I am Manuel and I am mostly looking to work on environment art. I've been doing pixel art for 8 years now. Send me a email so we can figure out how I can help you. Thanks  :)




13
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: March 06, 2018, 02:01:47 am »
It's probably not quite clear why I am doing these "Cube Drills" and what they are so here is a little 2AM insomnia-fueled rant.

Basically there is two approaches to art: "Top-Down", which is perception based, and "Bottom-Up", which is based on construction.

All my experience in art comes from the top-down approach, I would either have a reference or would first visualize the final end product in my head, then perceptually try to replicate that end result on the canvas. There is no construction, it just goes from rough blobs of color to less rough blobs of color, fixing mistakes over time. This can be a extremely effective method in the hand of a seasoned art veterans, but for your average Joe artist the results will be very inconsistent.

So I completely lack any experience in the bottom-up approach of drawing which makes learning perspective a extremely daunting task where I can't even wrap my head around the simplest concepts.

This is where the "Cube Drill" comes into play. These are not to be confused with the "Draw-A-Box" exercises, which I still think are completely pointless.

The "Cube Drill" is just a practice to break established thought patterns about drawing and get yourself accustomed to bottom-up drawing by focusing on the simplest three dimensional thing you can draw: cubes. You start out with just filling out a page with cubes, it doesn't matter how they look like or how they are organized. Then you let your creativity flow free and do more things with those cubes, you start stacking them on top of each other, taper them at the end, draw them with holes, start constructing spherical connections, going wherever your mind goes. The only restriction is that the end product should be three dimensional in some way. In the past 8 days I have filled about 19 pages with very loose sketches in this manner and I will probably do another 21 pages at which point I think I am sufficiently prepared to study the mechanics of the different joints and do a similar "Bone-Drill", slowly raising the difficulty.






14
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: March 05, 2018, 10:59:04 pm »
Just stumbled upon this blog of some Japanese dude who uploads a lot of step-by-step constructions, while not particularly advanced they might be a bit helpful.

>> Imgur Album <<


15
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: February 27, 2018, 08:17:48 pm »
Didn't make much progress in the meantime. I feel like I am still missing something very basic so my plan for the next month is just drills:
  • First ten days: Drawing free form boxes and box like structures
  • Next ten days: Drawing and posing free form bone-like shapes
  • Ten days after that: Drawing and posing free form bones with connective muscles and other gravity affected soft bodies

... after which I can hopefully go back to either anatomy studies or perspective studies.

16
General Discussion / Re: "Equipment" for working on the go?
« on: February 07, 2018, 12:49:00 am »
I would suggest you to pick up drawing. If you really want to do pixel art on the go you can use squared paper and use that as pixel grid.

17
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: February 04, 2018, 08:11:04 pm »


I name this sketch "I've no idea what I am doing".  :ouch:

18
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: February 03, 2018, 01:21:09 am »
What I figured for constructing spheres is that you basically need three ellipses, one for each primary axis plane, then you just need to draw a fourth ellipse that envelopes the other three.



Not quite sure what to study next, I probably should try to define a more complex shape.

@AI: your Z axis looks off, it might help to draw a second grid layer 1 unit underneath the first to figure out how the space behaves when drawing at different levels of depth

19
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: January 30, 2018, 11:46:13 pm »


New sketch, learned that I have no idea how to construct proper spheres, so that's what I am going to work on next.

20
General Discussion / Re: Let’s Study Perspective
« on: January 30, 2018, 01:20:09 am »
I printed out the templates on 160g printer paper and made myself a little sketch book out of it. The idea is that I use it instead of my regular sketch book for all my studies and drawings to get into the habit of seeing the page as 3D canvas, regardless of whether I am carefully constructing or just making educated guesses. Right now I am studying perspective, so it doesn't make much difference. :crazy:

Here is a first sketch in the new sketchbook:


@MysteryMeat
Nsio has a lot of in-depth information on perspective as I already mentioned.
Be sure also to read the descriptions as they contain additional information.


But I think in the end learning to draw in 3D comes down to completely changing the method you use while drawing. Beginner artists often get drilled to stop thinking in symbols and instead draw what they see. That's fine for fine art, but for concept art/illustration the perception based method is lacking and you need to start using drawings as a method of studying objects and phenomena, really getting down to understanding every little detail of what you are drawing rather than just focusing on the outer appearance.

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