Lesson 7: What Do You Want to Draw?

1. What Should You Draw?

When you can accurately draw the shape of an object (through copying or sketching from life), the question you face when entering the creative stage is: what should you draw?

Most beginners who start by copying don't know how to create original work.

For example, if the theme is an apple, how should you draw it to make your work stand out?

How should you draw it so that the audience remembers you and your work?

How should you draw it so that people who see it will like you and your work?

Once you get past the beginner stage, you will face the question of how to draw and what to draw. This question will stay with you throughout your life as a pixel artist.

2. Why Does This Problem Exist?

The most fundamental reason is that the human brain loves novelty and tires of the old. Expressing the same theme in the same way will bore people before long.

For example, when cameras became widespread, people grew tired of realistic painting. To maintain their status, painters began exploring emotional painting and self-expression, leading to the rise of Impressionism, Abstract art, and other movements.

Without seeking the new and the different, you cannot stand out.

The second reason is that the world humans inhabit is a four-dimensional space-time, with length, width, height, and time. But painting is two-dimensional, with only length and width. Any three-dimensional object, when the angle and position from which it is observed change, will appear differently in shape and light and shadow to the human eye. Therefore, due to the limitations of the medium, the painter must choose the single frame that best expresses the subject.

3. Perspective: Changes in Viewing Angle and Position

When you look up at a building, the change in viewing angle and position makes it look very different from usual.

Pose: The pose or placement angle of the subject changes.

For example, the three apples in the image above have different shapes because they are placed in different poses.

This is why shapes can be original and copyrighted. Because every painter has a different personality and different preferences, even when drawing the same apple, the resulting work will be different.

4. How to Quickly Improve Your Creativity?

After you can draw shapes accurately, you need to think about improving your creativity.

How to improve quickly? Study and learn from others. Usually, the designs of popular anime products on the market are excellent and can be directly studied and used as reference.

4.1. When drawing a certain theme, collect as many works by other artists as possible for reference.

This is to avoid working in isolation with a proud and complacent mindset. Don't find yourself satisfied with your own work, only to discover that other artists produced far more mature similar works years ago.

The difference between an expert and an ordinary person is that the expert has seen 100,000 pixel art works, while the ordinary person has seen fewer than 100. The expert knows how to judge the quality of pixel art and how to draw it; the ordinary person does not.

4.2. You can draw on the experience of other painting genres.

This includes digital illustration and traditional painting schools.

4.3. The Minimum Requirement for Creation: Let the Audience Know What It Is at a Glance

The simplest test method: color your pixel art black to make a silhouette, and show it to your family and friends. Can they tell what it is?

5. Homework

Create a pixel art piece.

If you really don't know what to draw, you can draw a character from a game or anime you like.

After completing it, post your work in the community, and the teacher will review or critique it.