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DAE remember when everyone was obsessed with super detailed line art?
I used to spend hours on a single character outline, but after seeing so much cool painterly work on ArtStation last year, I switched to blocking in shapes first. It cut my sketch time in half and feels way more natural. Anyone else move away from super clean line work?
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thomas_young3mo ago
My cousin went to art school and they made him paint with a big brush taped to a stick for a whole semester. Couldn't get near the canvas. He said it forced him to see the big shapes and nothing else. Sounds like the same idea, just a really extreme way to learn it.
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noahchen3mo ago
Actually, blocking in shapes first was always the classic way to do it, even before painterly styles got popular. That whole "line art first" thing was more of a specific digital art trend, wasn't it? Feels like we all just got stuck in that one way of working for a while.
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Is it though? I did a lot of traditional painting before ever touching digital, and line art was always step one for me. Not every style starts with big shapes, especially if you are working with a lot of detail or a really tight look. I think that whole blocking-in approach works great for certain styles, but calling it the "classic way" feels like it leaves out a ton of art history. A lot of the old masters sketched out their lines first on the canvas, then filled in the colors. In my experience, people just find what works for their brain and their favorite tools, and that's fine too. Your mileage may vary, but I've never seen it as one true path over the other.
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