ZBrushCentral

About 2d skills...

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#1

Before I started learning Zbrush and art in general I read so many comments and watched so many interviews with artists saying that you should practice drawing as frequently as, if not more frequently than practicing Zbrush. So that’s what I did for the last three years. Turns out learning how to draw is pretty brutal. It takes a lifetime, not a few years. I spend hours and hours and hours drawing every day, doing gesture studies, long form studies, drapery, anatomy, etc. The problem is that I end up spending like half of my practice time (after a full time grinding day job) drawing instead of sculpting in Zbrush and there are only so many hours in a day. My goal is to be a 3d artist working a steady job in a studio. I would love to be a concept artist but would also love doing other 3d jobs.

What troubles me is that I feel like I’m spending so much time drawing that it comes at the expense of learning 3d and I’m not progressing fast enough because drawing saps all of my time and energy. On the other hand I’m not sure if it’s smart to just abandon drawing altogether because I am improving, and if it really is that important like I’ve been hearing for the lsat three years, it would seem counterproductive.

It seems to me that while I spend so much time with this 2d nightmare there are other people out there who are vastly improving their 3d skills and they will be the ones who get the jobs that I want, while I’ll still be struggling with drawing and painting.

So I guess my question is, especially to pros out there, how important are drawing skills when it comes to actually finding a job in the industry?

Do your employers actually give a damn if you can draw well or not?

#2

First of all, you should put aside the notion that by practicing one you’re not also improving the other. Both are exercises in understanding and interpreting form, and both will pay dividends in either discipline. If you can look at something and draw it with a high degree of fidelity, you can also sculpt it. I often feel the understanding I gain of a subject while doing one is helping to inform the other. Everything else is technique.

Beyond that Ill leave it for others to chime in with more specifics. I think it’s important to consider it from the point of view of what you want to do, and who’d you’d be competing with though, as opposed to what employers might accept. In a concept-oriented position, you’d definitely be competing against people with confident command of multiple disciplines. Much less so in a dedicated 3d modeling niche, though 2d skills could only help you there.

Ultimately, I think the question is do you enjoy doing it. People rarely make much progress in an artistic discipline they don’t enjoy on some level. If it truly never feels like anything other than a chore, and you resent having to do it, your time probably would be better spent elsewhere.

#3

Yes, Spyndel, I can agree with you about “enjoying your work”. I remember that couple of years ago I have started to learn 3D and 2D graphics. But at this time I was younger and I thought about completely different thing. And I forced myself to learn through strength. And this didn’t give any results just because I didn’t like to do it. But now I’m enjoying of making different 3D models and stuff like that. So now I feel that I can achieve great goals with it and the most important that I want to achieve that. That’s why the desire to work is so important!

#4

To straight up answer your question. No.

Unless your job is to draw, they don’t care.

#5

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