How much realism do you need to understand before tackling stylize/cartoonish art?
>>2337259
Depends on the style and person. Some people go straight to stylized art and do well, others do realism first then shift over. /ic/ usually says you need to master realism first but that's demonstrably not true. So long as you have an understanding of form and other fundamentals you can begin stylizing. The issue is people will stylize without knowledge and produce crap or symbol-based work that looks flat and terrible.
you need drawing fundamentals, that's about it
>>2337261
And what would be considered drawing fundamentals? The sticky offers some info, but is all the info necessary?
>>2337267
The ability to construct things and draw through them. Knowledge of basic forms and perspective. Understanding of space and volume. Understanding of linework.
Develop your eye enough that you can tell when something looks unrealistic and why, at least. I find when it comes to stylized stuff there's the intentionally 'off' stuff that has consistency and isn't jarring, and then the stuff that's 'off' more as a consequence of ignorance of the way things work, and those are usually pretty shit.
If you're trying to learn to draw cute anime girls, knowing the components of a cute girl in real life doesn't hurt, then you can adapt it to your needs. Funny enough our thread on hacks is a pretty good example of taking reality and twisting it a little with stylistic stuff to make it appealing.
>>2336771
No matter at what point you decide to tackle stylization you'll still have to go back and revisit fundamentals regularly if you want to improve.
In theory it's better to do a lot of fundamentals and only moving to stylization after you got good. In reality you'd probably get bored before that point and quit drawing all together with that approach. So my advice is to practice fundamentals regularly, but don't forget to have fun and just draw what you want even if it turns out to be shit.
>>2337259
When practicing, only practice realism. When you want to draw stylized stuff, it'll come naturally and be very easy if you're already proficient in your fundamentals and such.
>>2337280
>When you want to draw stylized stuff, it'll come naturally and be very easy if you're already proficient in your fundamentals and such.
I don't buy that for a second. Stylizing is a skill that needs to be practiced like anything else, being strong at drawing realism won't magically make you good at stylized works that require completely different aspects of design. You're right that you need the fundamentals in the first place but saying it'll just come with the flick of a wrist if you can draw realism is ridiculous.
>>2337259
about 16
>>2337280
Complete and utter bullshit.
>>2337285
>You're right that you need the fundamentals in the first place but saying it'll just come with the flick of a wrist if you can draw realism is ridiculous
I always thought that drawing realism = fundamentals?
>>2337259
It's a back and forth thing
>>2337306
Why would you think that? The fundamentals have nothing whatsoever to do with realism. People usually learn the fundamentals by studying life or realistic references, but that is not the same as drawing realism. If you do stylized life drawing studies while still being observant of the perspective, volume/ form, proportions etc, you are still learning the fundamentals, without drawing realism.
In many ways you are actually learning even more effectively that way, because stylization forces you to actively analyze what you are seing and think about design, appealing shapes, simplification etc. Whereis otherwise it's very easy to fall into this autopilot mode where you are just mindlessly copying what you see.
>>2337336
>Why would you think that?
Oh, I just thought that was the idea around here. Like, "how to draw" would require you to draw things realistically.
>>2337260
>>2337336
>>2337277
How do you keep your stylized drawing from just being symbol drawing shit? This drawing by Matisse is clearly stylized but doesn't look like an amateurs symbol drawing.
>>2337381
But there are cases out there were people can draw stylize but have a difficult time figure drawing or haven't touched the anatomy subject.
>>2337381
and that in of itself is a skill faggot. most okish painters are garbage at line work and usually still put too much detail into their pieces.
>>2337381
Simplifying realism =/= make realism easier. You need to choose what to keep, and what to redesign, and that requires knowledge. Personally I find it far, far easier to slap on more details and rendering to improve something than take details and rendering away / simplify them to improve it.
They're different skills and both require cultivation, you're a fucking moron if you think any realist artist can stylize.
>>2337377
Just construct everything with simple shapes.
I think even great artists have to construct everything they draw in a way, they just do it intuitively in their head. That's just an opinion though.
>>2337426
Animators usually just study the shit out of the image and go about it from there. But then again, when you animate you're dealing with a lot less shapes, so I guess it's easier to remember.
>>2337381
Not really. Good stylization is actually more difficult and requires a far greater sense of shape design than realism does. You could ask a thousand great realist draughtsmen to draw a stylized tiger and not one of them could draw something even half as good as Milt Kahl did.
Meanwhile, every Disney animator could easily draw a very well drawn realistic tiger from life. Many of them would probably even do a better job than the realist draughtsmen, because the animators have a much stronger sense of movement, life, weight and are no slaves to what they see in front of them.
>>2337377
For me, every stylization has a bit of symbol drawing in it.
Certain artists that draw from imagination can create incredibly complex stylizations, despite that, you'll always see a certain pattern behind it, it's their style, which at least for me, is nothing but a symbolic representation of the accumulated knownledge that artist has.
That's why, it's pretty hard to draw something from imagination for the first time, you need to study it first and create a symbol library of it, while for photorealism it doesn't matter, because you aren't using your visual library, all you need to know is already there, in front of you, you just need to observe it and apply the correct techniques.
Very interesting answers. I guess the question is now, rather than know how much realism, but how much "fundamentals" do you need to understand before tackling stylize/cartoonish?
What would be necessary and how would you obtain this info?
>>2337444
While I agree with your general points, realists use shape design too. They just do it in more subtle ways than Milt does. If you compared 1000 realist draftsmen to Milt you'd get a lot of drawings on par technically. They would be less stylized but of equal quality.
>>2337259
You need to master construction and proportion before you can design your own. You don't need to master anatomy, that's what reference is for.
And you need to be really good at perspective because creative and liberal use of difficult perspectives is what separates comic/manga masters from Seth McFarlane's 8U faces.
And don't listen to this imbecile >>2337280, stylization is 90% design. Good stylization is concious and deliberate, made to express visual rethoric and infinitely customizable. "Learn realism and it'll come naturally" stylization is drawing in symbols from a relatively larger mental library and only results in uncanny valley shit.
>>2337551
In my opinion, you need to perfectly understand what you're doing and why you're doing that way.
If you want to before really good in drawing from imagination, you should study from life not to produce perfectly accurate reproductions, but to understand the form and moviment.
>>2337381
You've never done stylized work and won't post your work to sustain your argument because you're a faggot.
>>2337579
>master construction
How would you go about doing that?
>>2337601
Books like Hampton's figure drawing book or Scott Robertson's perspective book will show you how to break down forms into more basic ones, and how to construct and draw through.
>>2337470
This is the most eloquent explanation of the concept I've ever seen.
>>2337616
that is a very bad example. it's a multi-hundred series anime made by a shitty anime studio.
>>2337267
Check sycra's video on fundamentals
>>2337470
I think a better way to put it, rather than a 'symbol library,' is to call it an artist's repertoire. Much like any musician, they can play(draw) whatever pieces(subjects) they've learned sufficiently. Symbol drawing would be technically correct, but I feel that the symbols would be what an untrained mind believes the object is seen as. Whereas, the learned 'symbol' is more of the actual and desired result.
Semantics, really. But I understand what you mean and agree.
>>2337267
just look at the OP pic, it looks nice because the perspective and proportions look good but it's obviously stylized, get fundamentals down
>>2337259
All good Stylized/cartoonish drawings have "realism"(don't really like that word...). Any good drawing of a character will still need to look like it exists and is planted realistically in 3d space (Aka perspective), and will still need to have appealling proportions(Generally realistic proportions), and some degree of anatomy depending on the style. Though Ive seen skilled artists make up anatomy that still looks good, probably because of the form and proportions. Basically all good(in my eyes) stylized stuff still follows pretty much all realism rules
What differentiates style from random shit? Like how some people draw chibi shit but it ends up being terrible, but, sometimes it can also be done very well.
>>2337953
Style is consistent and cohesive. People who draw random scribbles cannot apply a unified aesthetic to everything they draw.
>>2337953
Design.
Stylization is a language. Thinking you can draw good stylization automatically after "mastering" the fundamentas is like thinking you can program software because you beat a videogame.
>>2337259
Well, as an animator, I practice Figure Drawing/Life drawing for at least 3 hours everyday.
I strive for 4 hours.
>>2338588
How important is figure drawing for animation? I know it sounds stupid, but just curious.
>>2338781
It's pretty much the most important thing. Almost everything that is animated is a person. Things like cars or vehicles are usually 3d these days even in 2d animations. Also the skills required to draw and animate people properly apply to other things as well. It's one of the most difficult things, so it demands a lot of attention. Also people are familiar with what people look like and how they move, so even small errors are obvious to the layperson. If the way a horse runs is a bit off most people can't tell, but if a person runs and is a bit off it is very apparent.
Let's say, I finished up Hampton's lectures and understood it 100%. Would I be able to draw animu?
>>2338961
No, but it wouldn't take long to learn how to draw anime from that point because you'd have a solid base to work from. You would still need to learn the stylizations and shape/form language of anime though.
>>2338961
Do you know what arrangement of shapes triggers a sense of cuteness? Horror? Desire?
Do you know how to symbolize speed and the ilussion of movement?
Do you know the archetypical shapes of heroism and villainy? Of peace and danger?
Do you know the shape of bravery?
If the answer to any of these is "no", you're not ready to stylize no matter how much of an autistic russian academist you are. Stylization if a VISUAL LANGUAGE, not an afterthought.
Go study design, visual rethoric and storytelling.
>>2339188
>Go study design, visual rethoric and storytelling.
Different anon, but I wouldn't mind studying design. I'm interested in stylizing. Where do you start? And any other things that provide good info?
>>2339377
There's Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, Primer of Visual Literacy by Donis A. Dondis and Visual Communication (Images with Messages) by Paul Martin Lester.
