One? I am an illustration learning institution that I have never heard of. If you make random comments, be careful of getting beaten.
I don’t like the kind of people on the Internet who just slap their heads and tell others what good places are. Frankly speaking, you don’t even understand it yourself. What qualifications do you have to recommend to students? This is right Students are irresponsible, and they are also irresponsible to the institution. This is why some self-media people are easily beaten. For the sake of traffic, they talk irresponsibly, do not please both ends, and are annoying to everyone. What have you experienced? , you can talk about it objectively. If you have never experienced it or understood it, then keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, the students will scold you and the bosses will want to hammer you. 2. The world is so big and there are so many online courses. I only talk about what I know, which is safe.
Actually, I have listened to many online courses from illustration institutions. I have also gone to some institutions. Most of them are leek-cutting types. I don’t like their style. I won’t say who it is. The Internet There is no need to cause hatred, but there is an online class taught by a teacher that I really like. I often attended his class many years ago, and he still teaches now. Free board illustrations are released every night at 8 o'clock. In this class, the knowledge is taught very thoroughly and clearly, and it is very easy to understand and down-to-earth. Even students with no basic knowledge can learn happily, understand what is happening, and understand why it is happening. This is the value of an excellent teacher. , students who want to listen to his courses can go to his Weixin (homonym): the first group is: w9, and the following group is: kaka. Just combine the above two groups in order.
< p>Actually, students, if you have just started learning illustration, finding a good teacher to learn from is better than anything else. I used to like to learn programming, but the teacher who taught us back then was just a stick, talking nonsense, nonsense, and nonsense. I couldn't explain it clearly at all, which resulted in all our classmates learning in a mess. In the end, no one was engaged in programming. Therefore, a good teacher is a good starting point. On the contrary, a poor teacher is the end point of many people's learning. Full stop, third, friends who have no art foundation, how to learn illustration well?1. Let’s first tell a story about discovery.
N years ago, when everyone was using beautiful photos to make UI interfaces, I took the web interface that I had just made and was very satisfied with, and raised a question to my friends at that time: " What if I don’t find so many good picture materials? What if there are no such good photographers in the world and there are no such good picture materials? Is our excellent design just based on luck? ”
In an era where everyone is constantly seeking "originality" and "copyright", this question has been in my mind for a long time: How many of our designers' works are truly 100% original? It was not until later that I re-read "History of World Graphic Design" that I discovered that more than a hundred years ago, a poster draftsman and printing factory worker was more or less a painter.
Since I have always tried to find the context of future development from the source of history, this little detail gave me a huge warning, that is: there was no photography or photography picture material source before. It is not easy. The design of a poster usually requires the creator to start "drawing" one stroke at a time. It also requires the creator to "draw" the text himself. It turns out that design should not be "spelled" but "drawn".
Compared to this, now we just use its fonts and high-definition materials at our fingertips... Although we can definitely produce manuscripts faster than before, we have lost the thing that designers should not lose, which is the original creation. idea. The designer should have been responsible for arranging the color of the sky and the movements of the characters, but now it is all taken care of by the photographer's lens. The designer has actually been reduced to a material selector + assembler.
In fact, this conclusion is very scary. Everyone knows that artificial intelligence will replace the basic work of most of us in the future, and selecting and assembling materials is a very basic job, as long as you look at it enough If you master the rules, you will be competent. Who among us can see more than a machine?
The main difference between us and machines is that we have emotions, so illustrations can just carry your personal emotions. This core is the reverse solution I can think of: we cannot compete with machines in terms of speed or efficiency. Our only advantage is our idea.
So, when I first started learning illustration, I was rushing to fully present my idea. Although there were very few interfaces using illustrations as materials at that time. Most illustrations either appear in packaging design or are used as illustrations in books, but I have always wanted to use illustrations in UI interfaces. And I didn’t have a clue at the time what was the most appropriate form to present on the web page. Because the first two types of illustrations were still dominated by pictures with complicated details in the past. Since the illustrations of books mostly involved children's books, most of the illustrations at that time were cartoons and cute images. If these pictures were used in the UI interface, they would be somewhat inconsistent with the flat and simple style that was just beginning to become popular at that time.
Another area of ??illustration is in the impression of game original paintings and CG illustrations. Usually the characters are very sexy to help promote the game company and stimulate otaku's desire to click. They pay great attention to realism and lighting.
2. Drawing is a way of right-brain thinking.
Although I have studied art before, I haven’t touched it much since I started working. I always want to pick up the pen again, but I have to turn on the computer because of work. Although I have a foundation in art, it was shelved for a long time.
Sketching is the foundation, no one would disagree with this. But how to learn sketching is a big problem. Many people probably don't have the time or patience to start drawing from boring geometric shapes. Most of the overwhelming online courses are academic-style, and systematic learning requires a lot of time. Therefore, this is unscientific for designers who are known for working overtime 996 hours a day...
A book I have always admired is "Think Like an Artist: Learn to Draw in Five Days". After reading this If you read the book and follow the drawing, you actually don’t have to practice sketching so hard for many years, and then learn to draw after your drawing is as good as the academic ones. As long as you find the core method, you can apply this method to any painting form, even a graffiti.
This book also helps you clarify the most basic concepts of painting, such as space, shape, light and shadow, perspective, etc. After this series of exercises, you may not be able to draw very well, but at least you will have a correct and profound understanding of painting.
I don’t recommend too many related resources to everyone. Just one book is actually enough. In the process of painting, you will have new questions, and new questions will release more questions. There are so many new answers, you will find your own unique learning path, and I am just providing a starting point for your reference here.
3. Sketching and sketching: one input and one output.
Light and shadow not only make the picture three-dimensional, but many beginners are confused about light and shadow. Judging from the feedback from students in our flat illustration training club. Everyone’s problems mainly focus on:
(1) Can’t find the light source
(2) Don’t know how to simplify light and shadow
(3) Ignore light and shadow Color
(4) It is easy to make mistakes when expressing light and shadow details
......
(1) See the world through sketching.
In fact, The real world is always a huge treasure trove of inspiration for our learning. So this is also combined with the sketch in the previous step. Sketch does not teach you to draw, but teaches you to observe.
You can carefully observe an apple, and then draw the apple. During the drawing process, you can experience the light and shadow changes caused by the light entering the apple surface from the light source. These light and shadow changes can be described through sketching. It becomes the five most basic major keys in sketching.
The process of painting an apple is a process of recording how light and matter interact. In this process, you will also observe the color and texture of the apple's surface... When these information are connected in series, you will get more than just It’s not what an apple looks like, but how light works in this visual world. And this is the most critical information we need to draw.
(2) Sketch the details of life.
Light and shadow are still hidden in all the details of life. If you don’t have time to draw a sketch, if you are busy commuting to and from the subway every day, you can still collect information by observing all the light and shadow presented in front of you. : For example, the light and shadow produced by the muscles on your boss's face, the light and shadow performance of a glass of water under a fluorescent lamp, your lover's fingers... Where is dark, where is light, where the shadow has a boundary, where the boundary is blurred...
Sketching is a process that helps observation, but observation can be in any form.
Therefore, sketching can be simplified to sketching, and you can quickly express an object in one minute a day. A box of chocolates bought at a convenience store on the way home from work, a hat that I liked but didn’t buy, a person’s background...
The sketch can be drawn on A4 paper or on a napkin. . You can use pencils, pens, etc. Don't be formal.
Drawing and sketching are definitely two wings for learning illustration. One to help you see visual relationships, and one to express what you see. One input, one output. Neither can be neglected.
(3) Two rhythms.
When you first start learning to draw, you should practice sketching diligently, no matter how hard you sketch, one sketch a day is not too much. You can start by drawing round objects, such as fruits. Start slowly and you can draw square objects, tables and stools. Then increase the difficulty for yourself, such as drawing slightly more complicated things, such as shoes, houses, etc.
When the objects are almost drawn, you can draw people, plants, animals, and gradually expand to exterior scenes, indoor scenes, etc. (Characters can be learned at the end, because characters are the most difficult)
For almost half a year, I have to maintain a rhythm of one or two days to learn sketches to endure loneliness. As your drawing skills improve, you can try sketching.
The key to sketching is the rhythm of rapid expression. Therefore, you cannot draw in detail, but can express it roughly. You can complete a sketch quickly, so practice for ten minutes every day to express various scenes and things that appear in front of you, and draw whatever you want. A pencil sharpener, a tree, a mountain, etc.
After you feel that your sketching foundation is stable, you can reduce the frequency of sketching exercises and use sketching instead of sketching. Sketching can be done once a week or once every half month, and sketching can be done in a small amount every day, for 1 to 5 minutes, focusing on imaginary scenes. If you decide to draw a mouse today, and you suddenly can't remember the details of the mouse, you can take a look at the mouse and observe again. Don't look at the painting, but continue painting without looking at the object itself.
The final result is to achieve an effect: use the speed of sketching to quickly express the quality of sketching, and be able to draw light and shadow details without reference to objects. At this point, it can be said that the basic stage is almost complete and you can take it slow. But this practice must be continued and never abandoned.
4. Take root in art
In fact, there are many forms of painting: oil painting, watercolor painting, gouache painting, acrylic painting, colored lead painting, ink painting, woodcut print... too many. But do we all have to learn? Of course not! Here you can refer to my learning path.
(1) Advance from colored pencil to watercolor
I was keen on sketching at first, but as I was drawing, I found black, white and gray a bit boring, and I have a strong interest in color. Of great interest. So, I thought of using colored pencils instead of sketching. The charm of colored pencils is that you can use the overlapping method, especially oil-based colored pencils to create different color layers, and the effect will look more attractive than sketching.
So I switched to using colored pencils to express it, but the most important thing is to see if I really like it. In this process, interest is very important. Since I was a freelancer, for a period of time, I would take orders and do design during the day, and sit in front of the table and practice colored pencils at night.
At the beginning, you will mainly use copying, because you will find that although colored pencils and sketches are both pencils, they are still very different. As you gradually become more proficient, you can try to draw on photos. Learn to create details rather than reproduce them.
Colored pencils can help you understand color expression. For example, in the expression of light and shadow, the shadow is not only dark, but also mixed with other colors: the color of the surrounding light, the color of the objects next to it, and the object itself. colors, etc.
In addition to colored pencils, I also like watercolor, so I started to learn watercolor later on. Watercolor still has different expression styles, but its color logic is similar to that of colored pencils. It also slowly layers colors one by one until it can finally express a complete object. It’s just that watercolor seems bolder and can deconstruct an object more completely.
Watercolor still strengthens your control over color, just like colored pencil plus. Therefore, in my system, watercolor is the advanced course for colored pencil.
At the same time, I also occasionally studied Chinese painting line drawing, calligraphy and other artistic expression forms, as well as comics and line style, which can help me understand line expressions and so on.
(2) Hand-painted is not equal to hand-painted board
It can be said that learning any hand-painted painting form is a package that can be freely matched according to your own taste. Although they are not directly related to illustrations, they can help you get into the core of artistic creation, which is something that no teacher, course, or book can tell you, nor can it be organized into words to convey to you.
Only with this level of influence can you truly become a creator, not a copycat. I won’t complain and say that I can only copy and know all the techniques, but it is difficult to create.
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