Today's picture and lesson are pretty simple. Actually, that's the lesson: simple makes beautiful. This girl may look complex, but she is not. I use three bezier curve in this model and only two are showing. The rest is straight lines. The two bezier curves I used for the breasts were just by laziness. I didn't want to put the time into making those lines straight. But why would I want straight lines instead of curves? Well, the applicable reason is that 3d can only use triangles. No curves allowed unless they're made with straight lines. But that makes a bit of sense. Why? Well, the computer's 2d curves are made of straight lines. If you stare into your computer screen very closely, you'll see the pixels on the screen. Red green and blue, even. So when I tell the computer to draw a cyan curve from (0,0) to (50,50) through (15,20), it does the math and figures how it can display the curve as a series of lines. Then it draws a bunch of lines in the forms of pixels (might I also suggest the irony that the lines are not lines at all, either, they're simply a bunch of connected dots!). The computer's 3d curves are also made of straight lines. When I make a high-polygon model of a girl's breast, I make a curve out of a bunch of straight lines. When a person looks at it, they see a curvy breast. But when I use a low polygon model and it's from far away and it's anti-aliased in a paint program, it looks curvy anyway. But the simplicity makes it beautiful. I find the simpleness, the purity of anime to be enlightening. Not only do we forget the bad things about the world, we also focus in on the good things. So when you draw, keep it simple, stupid. You'll be rewarded for your focus.
As you might be able to see from first glance, this picture is very different from every other one before it. Yup, this one has manual 2d shading. Ugh, it wasn't easy, fun, or rewarding, either. Something is wrong with my techniques, or perhaps that's just the way it is. I assume that professionals get their assistants to do the shadows for they must just dread drawing them. Perhaps it's easier on pencil and paper. Ya, this one was pencil and paper first. It is number two of three that of that bunch that I scanned this summer that I haven't CGed yet. I tried shading it back then and I couldn't do a good job. That's what prompted me to try shading now. The lesson for today: I learned that shading is best done by shrinking the original object in such a way that it distorts the object so that a person thinks that you're actually doing shading. Yup, faking it is as good as doing it, I say.
Today's lesson is variation. If a person repeats themselves like I've told you to do in the past three "Making Of" pages, they become boring. Notice that I tell you to do something and then I tell you the opposite in the next page. As long as it fits in generally, I'm free to do that. So are you.
Unoriginality? Shameful! Not quite. You see, I got this manga called Weekly Jump yesterday after class. I had to go all the way to Chinatown to get it. It wasn't what I wanted, but it's interesting all the same. First off, it's very cheap for how extremely valuable it is. 220 Yen is remarkably little and better yet, in America, it cost me only $3.50. The exchange rate is quite nice, I must say. How do they pay for the paper, the clerks, the boat owner and crew, manga artist, assistants, and publishers with that little cash? Quantity, advertisements? I dare ask what huge quantity could pay for all this wonderful stuff. I bet that the $3.50 that I paid pays for the paper, clerk's wage, and boat owner and crew, nothing more. But who pays the rest? Advertisers and people in Japan who read it, I guess. Whoever pays for it, thank you much.
