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Throw Mom from the Train (figuratively...) - a must for artists...

By Steve Pitzel (Intel) (54 posts) on June 29, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Mom loves you.  She absolutely adores everything you do. That's why, if you want to excel as an artist, you must throw Mom from the train - in a figurative sense anyway.

Why?  Because mom loves the early stages of your art - the messed up line drawings, the noodles and doodles - exactly the way they ARE.  Mom is your number one fan...

Okay, love is not a bad thing. Moms are not bad things. But here's the problem: every great piece of art - concept, model, animation - every gorgeous piece of it - went through an "ugly stage."

Yes - truly ugly! I don't care how good your art is now - it was a sad, pathetic, ugly cherry pit once.  The weird thing is that it probably moved into that ugly stage right after an incredibly dynamic "noodle and doodle" stage.

And therein lies the problem - mom doesn't want those noodles and doodles to reach that "ugly stage," she doesn't want you to ruin it!

A lot of would-be great artists have, unfortunately, never thrown Mom from the train.  They came close - they noodled themselves into creating that amazing doodle. But then Mom's sweet Siren's voice cooed from somewhere deep within the coiled recesses of their cortex, "it's beautiful just the way it is."

Man - that is death!

Don't be afraid of the ugly stage. Embrace it. It's the portal to the nirvana of the best art you'll ever create! In fact, it's a necessary piece of any art you'll create.

The great thing about digital art - especially using digital art tools that have layers as Photoshop, ArtRage, SketchBook Pro, and others do - is that you can even keep those cursed noodles and doodles for Mom as a separate layer - and then go through the ugly stage right over the top of them!

No one else has to see the ugly stage - but damn it - you sure enough went through it!

And you can always print out the doodles for Mom.

- Pitz

* Check out Uwe Maurer's talk on ArtRage at our Siggraph booth last year.

Visit www.intel.com/software/artist/ for animation tutorials, tricks and cheats.

Categories: Art, Music, & Animation, Graphics & Media
Tags: animator, artist, artistanimator, ArtRage, digital art, photoshop, Pitz, Sketchbook Pro, Ugly Stage, Visual Computing

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