作者：Mike Jungbluth

美工都经常听到“你应该画画”这样的话语，从同伴那，从导师和偶像那，还有从自己身上。在撰写本文时我反复思考这句话，这是经常困扰我的“咒语”。

你应该画画

为什么这句话包含如此强大的威力？它弊大于利？绘图的重要性何在？

关于此问题我听到的最佳答案是，“大家小时候都画过画，但多数人长大后都逐步放弃画画。我从未将此放弃。”就我来说，这很好地总结了我为什么要画画。这源自于最本质的创造性和趣味性。

画画是玩耍和沟通工具，这是个非常强大的工具。这既可以是学术形式，也可以是自由形式；可以是永久的，也可以是瞬间的；可以是精致的，也可以是粗糙的；可以是真实的，也可以是欺骗性的。最重要的是，任何人都可以随时随地进行绘画。

通常大家会这么说：“但我只会画粗糙的人物线条。”那又怎么样，这并没有阻挡其他人的成功之路。人物线条画是永远不会破裂的人形公仔。技术水平并不重要，就连会议涂鸦也颇具价值。

重要之处在于，画画给我们创造只需依靠基本工具和技术（游戏邦注：工具和技术将根据艺术家的个人需求而相应扩充）的发泄渠道。画画让你摆脱任何技术或大制作限制，能够直击执行要点。你需要做的就是像在游戏设计中那样处理艺术元素。

像玩耍一样画画

Akuma By Limb from gamasutra.com

画画归根到底就是玩耍。你被赋予一个开放的世界，连同系列工具和唯一的核心目标。然后你开始做标记。这就是为什么孩子喜欢画画，但成人却对其望而生畏。画面的结构是出自你的手中，成人在作画时常常引入众多荒谬的结构，以致于他们对此心生畏惧。

享受画画过程的第一步是，抛弃预先形成的好坏观念，尽情享受其中。

要放弃这些概念，就得像你对待游戏设计那样对待画画，设计游戏是通过手边工具，随意添加自己期望的规则。

从鼓励用户活跃进行标记的工具着手。手指绘画、葡萄藤炭笔和粉笔。会让你手忙脚乱、不要求准确性的工具是进行绘画的“火箭发射器”。它们通常非常光鲜、华丽，能够让绘画者小范围地实现自己的目标。

然后，随着“火箭发射器”准确度的越来越高，你就朝“机关枪”迈进，如水彩颜料。铅笔、炭笔和硬蜡笔等都是艺术的“狙击枪”。从这些工具着手你很容易就会陷入沮丧的境地，因为它们通常要求绘画者操作熟练。只有频繁使用这些工具，你能够放心地不对其进行仔细琢磨。

这促使我们希望创建若干嬉戏规则。在页面上绘制若干随机形状，然后像凝视白云一样，将它们变成你想象中的样子。尝试倒着绘制图像。或通过另一只手，或通过脚，或者凭借紧闭的双眼。

试着寻找能够让你无需考虑实际绘画操作过程的规则，将你的构思转化成纯粹的创造过程。你定希望规则能够创造趣味性，且无需担心自己会遭受评论。因为一旦你将他人评价融入考虑范围之内，你就需要完全投入，这就完全变成工作。

你应该持续发展

评价给绘画行为带来复杂性。从根本来说，评价本身就不是什么坏事；你需要将其控制到一定程度，这样你的成功机率就不会让你陷入失望的境地。从根本来说，你需要平衡自己的图画。

和平衡游戏一样，你需要了解自己的潜在玩家和它们的技能水平。若你将困难程度设定得过高，你最终只会愤怒地退出活动。若难度水平过低，你将感到厌倦，不再投以关注。和进行其他活动一样，真实判断自己想从体验中获得什么，然后将难度调高一个层次，挑战自己（游戏邦注：同时确保这不会阻碍自己进行体验）。

你是否想要学习如何设计更富有吸引力的角色？你是否想要学习色彩理论？你是否想要学习如何绘制环境？选择具体的目标，这和设计游戏一样，然后朝此迈进。只是表示“我想要画得更好”就好比是只基于“拯救世界”的目标着手游戏设计。

没有具体任务或方向，多数人，和多数玩家一样，就只会毫无目的地徘徊。除非你将难度设定得很高，否则这多半不是适合你的方式。

akuma render from gamasutra.com

当你开始满意于自己所取得的成就时，要对所完成的内容进行测试。目前有很多在线论坛和社区乐于向各水平的有抱负美术人员提供真实的评价和建议。当地的学院或学校也经常会向感兴趣的人士提供现场绘画教学课程。你工作室的美工甚至可能还会在当地的酒吧或咖啡厅熬夜绘图。

这些是你提高自我的渠道，他们也经历过相同过程，会给予你自己的意见，呈现你需要的真实反馈信息，会配合你所创建的难度。找出这样的团队：他们基于合作游戏模式应对自己的美工社区，旨在获得大家的支持。待到你准备就绪，能够承受偶尔的火箭式跳跃后，寻找死亡模式的美术团队，真正测试自己的技能。

即便难度水平设置得当，你有时依然还会失败。但这没有关系。你拥有无数的继续机会，只要选择备份铅笔，记录上次促使自己步入陷阱的元素，你就可以点击重新开始。所以下次当你再碰到此元素时，扑向它的上方，将其击倒。尽管体验毫无难度的自由模式游戏颇具趣味，但没有什么比克服会将你击倒的棘手障碍更有满足感。

你应该培养动手能力

这不仅仅是指绘画。这也可以是举重、烹饪和园艺，这归根到底就是睁开自己的眼睛，观察周围的世界，然后将这些观察结果制作成你能够表达的内容。这就是以自己的方式锻造脑中的构思。这就是玩耍，有时这包含特定目标。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Opinion: You should be drawing

by Mike Jungbluth

[In this reprinted #altdevblogaday opinion piece, Zenimax Online Studios' Mike Jungbluth senior animator explains why you should be drawing, and how to get started even if all you can draw are stick figures.]

Artists know this phrase all to well. They hear it from peers. From mentors and idols. From themselves. I am thinking it over and over now as I type this. It is a mantra that is always haunting me. Guilting me.

You should be drawing

Why does that phrase hold so much power? Does it do more harm than good? What is so important about drawing anyway?

The best answer I’ve ever heard in regards to that question is “Everyone draws when they are a kid, and then most people grow out of it. I just never grew out of it.” For me, that perfectly sums up why I should be drawing. It is creativity and fun in its purest form.

Drawing is a tool for play and communication. And an incredibly powerful tool at that. It can be academic or it can be entirely free form. It can be permanent or fleeting. It can be beautiful or it can be crass. It can be honest or it can be deceiving. And best of all, it can be done by anyone, at anytime, anywhere.

This is inevitably the part where someone says, “Sure, but all I can draw is stick figures.” So what, that hasn’t stopped others from being successful. Stick figures are action figures that can never break. Skill level isn’t important. Even your meeting doodles are incredibly valuable.

What is important is that drawing affords an outlet that requires only the most basic of tools and technology, which can then scale infinitely to the artist’s wishes. Drawing allows you to cut through any technology or large production constraints and get right to the heart of execution. All you need to do is approach art like you would game design.

You should be playing

Drawing, at its core, is play. You are given an open world with a set of tools and only one core objective. Make your mark. Which probably explains why kids love drawing and adults are terrified by it. The only structure that exists is what you bring to it, and adults bring so much ridiculous structure when they are given the chance to draw that they just freeze up.

So, the first step towards enjoying drawing again is to let go of those preconceived notions of what is good and what is bad, and just play.

So to let go, approach drawing like you would design a game, which are the tools at hand and any rules you want to add to them.

Start with some tools that encourage energetic mark making. Finger paints, vine charcoal, chalk. Tools that get you messy and have an inherent level of imprecision are the rocket launchers of art. They are inherently bright, loud, and able to make anyone hit their target at least in a small way.

Then, as your precision with the rocket launcher gets better, you can move towards a machine gun, like water colors. Pencils, Charcoal, Conte, etc are the sniper rifles of art. Starting with those can quickly lead to frustration as they inherently force a steady hand. It isn’t until you’ve used them a lot that you feel comfortable no-scoping them.

Oil paints are a genre able to be scaled amongst themselves based again on the tools. You have access to the entire dev panel with oil paints. Painting only with a palette knife vs a fine sable brush is like God mode with confetti headshots vs one hit kills.

This leads naturally into wanting to create some rules to play with. Draw some random shapes on a page, and then like staring at clouds, turn them into whatever you think they look like. Try drawing the image upside down. Or with your alternate hand. Or with your feet. Or with your eyes closed.

Find rules that allow for you to stop thinking about the physical act of drawing, and transport your mind into pure creation. You want rules that foster a sense of fun without the concern that you will be judged. Because once being judged is added into the equation, it requires dedication and becomes work.

You should be growing

Judgement is adding difficulty settings to your game of drawing. It is adding weight to the win/lose conditions of the rules decided upon when you begin to play. Inherently, judgement itself isn’t a bad thing; you just need to set it to a level where your work to success rate isn’t frustrating. Essentially, you need to balance your drawings.

Just like balancing your game, you need to be aware of the intended players and their skill level. If you set the difficulty too high, you are going to rage quit. If it is too low, you are going to get bored and lose focus. Just like with anything, honestly examine what you want out of the experience and then turn the dial up one more notch to push yourself without breaking yourself.

Do you want to learn how to design more appealing characters? Do you want to learn color theory? Do you want to learn how to paint environments? Choose a specific goal or objective, like you would in a game, and work towards that. Simply saying, “I want to draw better” is the equivalent of starting a game with the only objective being “Save the world.”

Without a specific task or direction, most people, like most players, are just going to wander around aimlessly. Unless you have your difficulty setting high, this probably isn’t an approach that will work well for you.

When you start to feel good about what you have, play test your work. There are countless online forums and communities that gladly give honest critiques and tips to aspiring artists of any skill level. Local colleges or schools often have life drawing classes available to those interested. The artists in your studio might even have draw nights at a local pub or coffee shop.

These are your lifelines towards leveling up and having gone through the same process, will gladly lend their eye and focus to give you the honest feedback you need, appropriate to the difficulty level you have established for yourself. Find groups that approach their artistic community like a game of co-op, there to get everyone’s back. And then once you are ready, and are capable of the occasional rocket jump, search out a team deathmatch art group to really have your skills put to the test.

If your difficulty level is set appropriately, you are going to fail sometimes. But that is fine. You have endless continues. Just click restart by picking that pencil back up and making a note of what knocked you into that pit last time. So when you come up against it again, you can jump on its head and knock it out. Because as much fun as just playing a free form game with no difficulty can be, there is nothing quite as rewarding as overcoming that tricky obstacle that kept knocking you down.

You should be doing

This obviously doesn’t have to just be about drawing. It could be about weight lifting. It could be about cooking. It could be about gardening. Ultimately, what it comes down to is opening your eye towards observing the world around you and then honing those observations into something you can communicate successfully. It is about taking your ideas and crafting them as only you can. It is about play. Sometimes with a purpose.

So what are you waiting for?（Source：gamasutra）