Creative ideas: Whats your process?

#3

The process of any given artist is limited by the knowledge and methods he posseses at that time. It is also affected by the invironment and general lifestyle and mood.

ideas are not accidents but they might appear so if you are not aware of your own process. The ideas might seem to fall from the sky but in reality it is never like that.

Personally I am a thinker. I never start out by sketching. Actually I rarely sketch anything which is also my weakness. But I can think out most ideas in seconds. I like to watch a lot of anime and character driving shows when working on characters. Pump your brain to the limit and remember to think about the characters when you see them. Who are they, where do they come from etc etc.

The brain is a mighty tool once you learn how to utilize it. Sketching is great but there is more to design than just visuals.

#4

superlayer,

I kind of disagree with the whole knowledge - methods thing. While it’s true, we are all molded by everything we’ve experienced, and everyone we’ve known, and most artists are deep thinkers, and are dreamers as well. The whole “what if” notion comes from a place beyond our methods or processes. In my own experience,(I’m 50+yrs.), the minute I latch on to an idea or a suggestion, it’s like opening up the windows and the wind starts blowing in. Often, I have to whittle away at too many ideas to see the proper one,(but, I’ve been at this for alot of years).
If one can just “let go”, it’ll happen. I’m not much of a “trial and error” guy. It usually just comes to me.
Jack, yup, I get inspired everyday by other peoples work.
E.

#5

I’m with Ed on this one mostly, especially the ‘letting go’ thing :wink:
superlayer is right though, in suggesting that acquired knowledge as a result of exratamural stimuli can bolster and ‘influence’ both our subjective and objective approaches to creativity.
Equally, As JackDeth said, people are different…

Atwooki

#6

In my case it depends…if it a personal project, It just appears, sometimes it is triggered by a memory or something I just see what I can change to fit my project.

However, when I am at work, I can’t afford to take time. I usually take a long break after the first work period. During this I go to drink with people. Civilians(I mean other than artists) have a whole different point of view on these kind of stuff, and they really help me a lot. Not sleeping for about 2 or 3 days also can trigger some delusions, but these are rarelly helpful.

#7

Dream like a puppy

#8

Isnt art a way for the artist to express him/her self? Or is it communicating an idea to an audiance through visuals? Thats a tuffy.

What I’d like to know is if there is any books or websites (or help from fellow web surfers) that teaches you how to communicate to an audiance by just drawing, painting, animation or whatever?

Cheers

#9

Drinking on a Friday night. I get some of my best ideas when I have a good buzz. Ehh works for me. :beer:

#10

I have the visions of what I want and usually lose myself in those for a while. Then I make them somehow. I’ve always been heavily drawn to comics and high fantasy art so a lot of what I create is very fantastic characters. I spend some time in complete and total lala land thinking about who the character is and what they do and why.

And then I try and put them in some form other than my imagination. Sometimes it works, sometimes…

-L

#11

I personally try to keep a sketchbook + mini voice recorder (the kind with a usb plugin that will convert the recordings to wav files automatically) + a digital camera on hand anywhere I go… and have access to a scanner at my apartment… that way I’m set to record ideas as they come and get them in to a physical form as quickly as possible, and am not limited to being able to draw them, or having to write them down in sketch book as a dialogue… still do that quite a bit though… Having all of that sorta stuff on you can get you lots of ideas while they are fresh, before they fade… In college I used to only use sketch books, and I tried to capture dreams in them to base paintings on them… If I’d had the mini recorder back then I could have done a much better job since I can only write so fast, and it’s sometimes easier to state ideas in vocal format to get ideas across than it is to sit down and start doodling and stuff as the doodling causes you to jump from the creative to the technical side of your brain, which can easily wipe out afterthoughst of dreams in less than a half a minute… as technical ideas start creeping in to the dream ideas/thoughts/etc.

#12

on the can…if you know what i mean…That is where most of my ideas come from.

#13

for me there are 2 main ways how i get ideas,
The first is watching TV and Movies I see something in a movie; the lion king for example and I imagine things; [i]my current project is trying to make my dog into a CG Disney style charecter.

[/i]The other way is I have very intersting conversations with my flatmate (who is not an artist) where we create these hypothetical situations and then try and make them as screwed up as possible, It sounds stupid but i tend to get my best original ideas from this.

oh, and if they fail I have really wacked dreams.

I think creative people suffer from some form of psychosis

#14

tis the key. Buy expose, great source of inspiration, watch futuristic movies (Mad Max, star wars, lotr, AI are great examples to boost your inspiration).

#15

i take my inspiration also from watching videos or visiting websites. www.augensound.de is always a good inspiration for me, because there is so much variation of art (3D, paintings, photography etc…)

#16

I have no ‘process’. They just happen. Sometimes daily. Sometimes weekly, and sometimes not at all. :shrug:

#17

i keep banging my head against my microwave until i get an idea or two.

or until i see pretty colors. either way, fun fun peanut butter lamp post dinner place mat fun!

mostly, ideas just come to me. mainly because i’m on a different mental plane then everyone else and can see through everyone [enabling me to see your thoughts float away].

#18

How far can your ‘borrowing’ go before it’s considered ‘stealing’? I don’t copy anyone, unless for practice, but I’m curious.

#19

Here’s an idea: pillage the fond memories of your childhood for ideas. :scream:

#20

good one :slight_smile:

#21

Good question.

Borrowing, stealing, … experience, etc… however you want to put it represent a small fraction of the creative process. Consider it like steroids. It can boost the process but lacks the longevity to step it up. The downside of such dependency is long term drought of ideas.
The key to any creative process is to shut down reception from the outside world and listen and communicate to your self. Now, this is not about good or bad art, nor about high or low quality, but it’s about a creative process that its outcome is representative of YOU. I second the fellow who recommended to go out experience a lot of things, since that could help not only the visual memory, but will certainly enhance your recognition of potential ideas.

Don’t take me wrong, shutting down your reception could take fraction of a second, or hours. The key is to connect to your self.

lol…I don’t know why I feel like a Yoga instructor :slight_smile:

#22

I don’t really have any specifc process, because it completely depends on my idea.

Usually when I come up with an idea, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with it. This completely varies from idea to idea though. For instance, sometimes I’ll want to convey a certain emotion, other times I’ll want to convey movement, other times I’ll want to just play with colors or shapes. The only real advice I could give is just go with your gut instinct. Also, never try and mimic another style just because you think it looks cool or something. Often times when an artist tries to do this, they end up being unsatisfied with the results, often because they over work the image. That’s not to say it’s bad to experiment with different styles, because different styles can work better for some situations than others.