Drawing in the Digital Age E-Book

Wei Xu

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 360

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A solid foundation for improving your drawing skills

Teaching a new observational method based on math and computer graphics principles, this book offers an innovative approach that shows you how to use both sides of your brain to make drawing easier and more accurate. Author Wei Xu, PhD, walks you through his method, which consists of scientific theories and principles to deliver real-world techniques that will improve your drawing skills. Xu's pioneering approach offers a solid foundation for both traditional and CG artists.

• Encourages you to use both sides of your brain for drawing with the highest efficiency possible
• Introduces an innovative method invented by the author for improving your drawing skills

If you are eager to learn how to draw, then this book is a must read.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Publisher's Note

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

Why I Wrote This Book

Who Should Read This Book

What You Will Learn

Pretest

How to Contact the Author

Chapter 1: Understanding the Relationship between Math and Art

Understanding How Math and Art Differ

Understanding How Math and Art Are Similar

Using Math to Create Digital Art

Using Math in Traditional Drawing

Using Math to Help You Draw

Examining Existing Drawing Methods

Stop Separating Math from Art

Chapter 2: Extracting Graphical Structures—A Scientific Point of View

Introducing CG Concepts and Principles

Unifying 2D and 3D Cases

Understanding the Properties of Basic Shapes

Understanding Graphical Structures

Extracting GSs with Triangulation

Chapter 3: Drawing with the ABC Method

Meeting the Criteria for a New Drawing Method

Introducing the ABC Method

Chapter 4: Drawing Simple Objects

Preparing to Draw

Extracting Basic Information

Demonstrations of 3D Objects

Demonstrations of 2D Images

Exercises

Chapter 5: Drawing Complicated Objects

Breaking Down Complexity

Demonstrations

Exercises

Chapter 6: Drawing Complicated Scenes

Introducing Techniques for Merging Objects

Demonstrations

Exercises

Chapter 7: Using Advanced Techniques

Working with Curved Triangles and Polygons

Drawing a Group of Ovals

Using Shadow Maps

Using Rhythms for Partitioning

Exploring Trade-Offs between Accuracy and Speed

Demonstrations

Summary

Exercises

Chapter 8: Using Special Techniques for Drawing Human Bodies

General Tips

Tips for Drawing Faces

Tips for Quick Life Sketches

Demonstrations

Summary

Exercises

Post-Test: Drawing Van Gogh

Index

Development Editor: Gary Schwartz

Technical Editor: James Haldy

Production Editor: Eric Charbonneau

Copy Editor: Sharon Wilkey

Editorial Manager: Pete Gaughan

Production Manager: Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley

Vice President and Publisher: Neil Edde

Book Designer: Caryl Gorska

Compositor: Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Kim Wimpsett

Indexer: Ted Laux

Project Coordinator, Cover: Katherine Crocker

Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Images: Wei Xu, PhD

Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-17650-4 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-118-22716-9 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-23315-3 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-26479-9 (ebk)

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Drawing in the Digital Age: An Observational Method for Artists and Animators. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, we’re still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our titles, we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how we’re doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at [email protected]. If you think you’ve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

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Neil Edde

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To my parents and family

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents for fostering my artistic dreams when I was a little child. This book originated from those small dreams.

I am grateful to my wife, Lin, for her continuous support for this book project.

Thanks also go to my lovely daughter, Alicia, and my clever son, Daniel, for being the first users of the new method I describe in this book. Their initial learning success validated that my method is easy to learn, and even kids can pick it up without difficulty.

I offer profound thanks to the wonderful team at Wiley, especially Mariann Barsolo and Jenni Housh for establishing the book project and working on the contract quickly, Gary Schwartz for polishing my scripts as well as turning my “Chinenglish” into English, James Haldy for spotting and fixing technical issues, Pete Gaughan for solving template issues, and Eric Charbonneau for making the book ready for publication. Also contributing to the book you now hold were copy editor Sharon Wilkey, proofreader Kim Wimpsett, and compositor Maureen Forys. Thanks again to all for a job exceptionally well done.

This book is the product of years of research and art learning. I’d like to thank members of the faculty and staff of the Art Institute of California at San Diego for their assistance in my art education and writing about art, particularly the following individuals (in alphabetical order): Jack Beduhn, Christian Bradley, Rebecca Browning, Dr. Alicia Butters, Elizabeth Erickson, Harry Hamernik, Jason Katsoff, Wattana Khommarath, Jack Madi, Dr. Mary McDermott, Dzu Nguyen, Lena Pham, Grace Piano, Dr. Kim Varey, and Grady Williams.

I also want to thank the students at the Art Institute of California at San Diego for attending my workshops and giving me positive feedback over the past two years. Without their involvement, my method could still be in the research stage instead of being a published book. Special thanks go to my students Alvin Revilas and Blake Fox for their proofreading of my research articles related to this book.

Of course, I cannot forget to thank Susan Varnum, Dr. Edward Abeyta, and Robin Wittman of the University of California San Diego Extension for their efforts to set up a new art class to teach my method in the winter of 2012.

I owe debts of gratitude to faculty, staff, and students at Zhejiang University, especially Dr. Weidong Geng and Ms. Xiao Li for inviting me to lecture their multimedia students on my drawing method in the summer of 2011.

I’d like to thank Alex Reed for her language assistance in preparing the first draft of this book.

Finally, I want to thank you, the reader, for picking up this book and taking an exciting drawing journey with me!

About the Author

Wei Xu, PhD, is a computer scientist, mathematician, and artist. Currently, he serves as faculty or adjunct/visiting faculty at several universities including the Art Institute of California at San Diego, the University of California San Diego Extension, and Zhejiang University (China). He is also the president and cofounder of Geomy Entertainment, a video game consulting and mobile app development firm.

Being a computer scientist and video game veteran, Dr. Xu offers a wide range of video game production classes for college students and technical training for game companies. As an artist, he has been hosting drawing workshops at the Art Institute of California at San Diego since 2009. Starting January 2012, he will officially offer drawing classes to teach his new drawing system, the ABC method, at both the Art Institute of California at San Diego and the University of California San Diego Extension.

Dr. Xu obtained his doctoral degree in computer graphics and applied mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds an MS degree in applied math and computer graphics from ZheJiang University, China, and a BS in computational mathematics from Fudan University, China. He has served as the lead engineer for game technology R&D at Sony Computer Entertainment America, San Diego. Prior to joining Sony, he was a senior computer graphics software engineer at the Schlumberger Austin Technology Center.

Introduction

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

—Toni Morrison, writer and Nobel Prize winner

Why I Wrote This Book

Up until five years ago, I honestly had never thought about writing an art book in my entire life. As a mathematician and computer graphics scientist, it seemed that I should have a million reasons to write a 3D math or mobile-game programming book before I would even think about writing a book about drawing. Also, you would not have expected a drawing book to be written by a person who does not have an official art degree. But everything has its explainable and logical reasons.

My Lost Dream

I was born and raised in a small town on the east coast of China. Because the region was so underdeveloped, I did not have a chance to get any art training beyond the school’s limited art classes when I was a child. After entering middle school, I received some special attention from my school’s art teacher. He taught me the grid method—a fancy method I had never used before. I was immediately addicted to this “magic” method because my drawing improved in no time. I practiced it a lot, until a year later when I sadly learned that I couldn’t draw anything without a grid! With my mother’s advice, I stopped using the method immediately, but it still took me more than a year to recover my freehand drawing skill. Learning the wrong drawing method was a big lesson! I considered myself a self-taught amateur because most of my time after that incident was spent on drawing without instruction. Becoming an artist was my dream since childhood, but the dream never materialized in China. When I graduated from high school, I couldn’t go to any art school because of their extremely limited enrollment size. Instead, I ended up as a math major at Fudan University, a top university in China known for its math education department. Eventually, I became a mathematician and computer graphics scientist after graduate studies in both China and the United States. I rarely drew after I started college, and my artistic dream was set aside for many years.