AuthorTopic: How do you get your ideas?  (Read 14071 times)

Offline Ai

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #20 on: December 15, 2006, 08:33:37 pm
* Kon knows what he's talking about: "as for inspiration, you'll get that from any experience which moves you. all you have to do is search for them, they dont always have to be exterior things or physical things.."

* Any structural elements are likely to come jointly from my code and from photos I took -- maybe this shouldn't be counted since there is a degree of creativity required to write good code. Anyway, a digital camera is handy for isolating a salient aspect of a scene compared to actually being at the scene with your eye, I find that useful; and the structural elements based on my code are usually at least sound, and sometimes extremely sound.

* I use terminal windows a lot (Eterm), and I have it set to pick two words from the dictionary, hyphenate them, and use that as the terminal title. It also logs them for future reference. It's obviously not very good at keeping a theme between ideas, but it often provides interesting silly ones. like (indecency-utilized, cornices-syntax, expectation's-knaves, cheeseburgers-discovery, peps-veep, enumerate-obloquy, decedent's-monomania, addressee-skiing, geologic-doggy)

* For just creating pieces, I rarely get art-blocked; I don't go to start a drawing and think... '?' very much at all. For individual aspects of a piece (like 'how EXACTLY should that be shaded'), I do sometimes. I believe that art-block is just a sort of artistic doubtfulness, where your choices look too many or too few to choose, and I can usually resolve it by looking at a few places or photos and being decisive about how it will go. If I can't get a ref, I just make up a likely algorithym and execute it (haha, programmer-speak.), if I can't just scribble until it looks about right.

* For landscape, just chuck down some tiles, and more tiles, and more tiles (I can produce copious quantities of tiles with relative ease.), then I have some tiles and some elements to use in a drawing.

* The old technique of just throwing down some lines, and more lines, until it looks like something, then drawing what it looks like

* Weirding out my drawing process -- like drawing white on black rather than black on grey, incremental rather than one-shade-at-a-time,...

* Any kind of vigorous exercise is always good for clearing the mind, providing you breath properly. It usually helps me improve my perspective.
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Offline Rox

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #21 on: December 15, 2006, 08:39:29 pm
I can believe the tractor thing. Mowing huge amounts of grass and shoveling snow also generates a lot of good ideas over time. Doesn't work well for art in my case, however, as I always come up with story-related ideas, game design concepts, or catchy musical snippets. For art, the thing that makes me want to draw the most, is watch other people draw, or look at their results while discussing how it looks. Eventually, I'll feel an urge to edit something just to explain what I mean as I discuss. After that, I might end up feeling like drawing something, myself.

Happened two weeks ago or so last time. But I need a tablet for that kinda art, and I don't have one yet. Will be getting one for christmas, possibly...

Offline Panda

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #22 on: December 15, 2006, 08:51:19 pm
Taking a shower helps me a lot.
The sound of water running makes you be in your own world, and since the whole washing thing has become more of an automatic thing after years of repetition, you are left there with plenty of time to think and just think. Works nice especially when waking up.

Art blocks (normally) go away with time, but there are occasions where you can't afford suffering one (when you have tight deadlines for example), so you better keep some sort of "inspirational art library" or a brainstorming list of what you have to do, or sketches or something on those lines.

And well the normal things, I get inspired by other art, cartoons, comics, movies, games, memories, dreams, experiences etc etc...
There are many ways to get inspired, but I think it's all in perceiving things, willing/needing to create something, and keep going on avoiding rust.

Oh and of course, try to use the inspiration while it's hot. If you think too much, it most likely won't happen. So do while you can :0
« Last Edit: December 15, 2006, 08:53:48 pm by Panda »

Offline Skull

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #23 on: December 15, 2006, 08:53:58 pm
Music... TV... Video Games..

If it's going to F you up, you might as well get some art out of it.

Offline Blick

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #24 on: December 15, 2006, 10:06:50 pm
Quote
I can believe the tractor thing. Mowing huge amounts of grass and shoveling snow also generates a lot of good ideas over time. Doesn't work well for art in my case, however, as I always come up with story-related ideas, game design concepts, or catchy musical snippets.
I've always liked shoveling snow for getting ideas as well. There's just time to think and doing physical work somehow puts me in good spirits every time.

Another thing I like to do is walk around downtown at night. I live right in the middle of the city, so it's easy for me to walk around at night. I wouldn't recommend it for a dangerous city, and avoid alleyways at dark et cetera. I guess walking during the day might work too. But I prefer night. Listening to music that brings a nostalgic mood while doing this always brings me a couple ideas. It's sort of the same as that moment right before you fall asleep, when you're just laying there thinking as you slowly drift off, except with walking downtown I can actually remember what I was thinking about.

Offline Rydin

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #25 on: December 16, 2006, 09:28:56 am
For the past month or so, I've been carrying a little notebook around and just jotting down anything that seems like a good idea to me.....not really intending to use it for art related things.....but that may be one route you could go for artisic inspiration  :-\.
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Offline Meta|Fox

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #26 on: December 16, 2006, 10:12:09 am
I read somewhere that the creative half of your brain is more active during relaxing exercise (such as a nice walk) then any other time. and that seems to work well for me.

But most of the time i just start drawing and something comes out of it.

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Offline Skull

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #27 on: December 16, 2006, 10:46:55 am
For the past month or so, I've been carrying a little notebook around and just jotting down anything that seems like a good idea to me.....not really intending to use it for art related things.....but that may be one route you could go for artisic inspiration  :-\.

If I get any really good ideas, I will do my best to write them down, since otherwise you'll forget.
So I advise the use of a notebook or paper.. or a little desktop thingy.

Offline skeddles

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #28 on: December 16, 2006, 03:30:01 pm
If I get any really good ideas, I will do my best to write them down, since otherwise you'll forget.
So I advise the use of a notebook or paper.. or a little desktop thingy.

i agree. i always thing of great ideas, but then forget all about them. =/

Offline Gunne

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Re: How do you get your ideas?

Reply #29 on: December 17, 2006, 08:33:53 pm
Most of the time I go to the ideasfactory and buy me some ideas there. But when back at home I have problems executing them, ugh :P

Nah, but now serious. I get my ideas most of the time when I try to get some sleep, midnight-ish. Next day I write them on some paper somewhere laying around my room. Some movies, books, other artists may also be inspiring, but the execution of them is a very hard thing for me...
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