ID sketching frustrations.

Hey Core,

I’m becoming super frustrated with my sketching, particularly with my rendering and would love to hear about every one else’s struggles as well. No one likes to drink alone.

Anyways, questions as follows.

About how long did it take you to really dial sketching down?

Do you feel like you have to learn to draw each object or can you just draw any object at any time?

Rendering, How long did it take you to learn? Marker? Digital?

Does anyone else get freaking frustrated on insta by looking at those super amazing digital renderings some godlike automotive designers are producing these days? Seriously.

Rate the importance each, Digital and Manual Sketching. Which do you find more difficult?

I have more, but lets start with this. Cheers to anyone who responds and I’m sorry if this is already a thread.

-Nick

practice, guidance and patients

You think those sketch god just picked up a pen one day and said “hey look what i can do” insert amzing concept art.

Hell i know some designers who as student would take a 2hr sketching class and all they would do is draw ellipse… 20deg 40 deg 60 deg… then repeat. 2 hours straight. i also know designers who put in 30 hours a week just sketching. yeah some of them have raw talent some of them just have pure determination. I had a student who in his first year decided he wanted to design for Harley Davidson - 2nd year he applied for an internship and was told his sketching was too far below their base standard. Next 2 years he gave alot of blood sweat and tears and the change was undeniable and unbelievable. to date i have seen him in 2 tv adds for bikes he has designed…

Now - post some sketches on here
Get feed back from us
get tips and trips
perhaps set up a 1 on 1 mentor - im always happy to do that via skype
practice
practice
pick a style to try and emulate
evolve your style and make your own.

Kudos for asking the questions and being honest about your frustrations about sketching! I know I’ve totally shared in those frustrations. Here are my answers below.

Like cwatkinson said, definitely post your sketches, I can personally attest to the value of sharing and listening to the feedback the Core77 family will give you on your sketches! If you keep sharing, listening and practicing, you’ll improve in no time. Good luck!

It is a journey. Think of it like trying to learn a new language. Saying I want to speak fluent French doesn’t have any result on my ability to speak French. However, speaking French every day with people who are more fluent than I am, watching French movies, listening to music sung in French, reading books written in French… that would have a dramatic impact.

Learning to sketch is the same. At my first job I sketched 50-60 hours per week and I still came home and sketched 2 hours a night and on the weekends. I did that for about 4 years. I tried to sketch with the senior designers as much as possible. When someone did a sketch better than me I photocopied it and put it in a binder to keep as reference and study. I showed my work to as many designers as possible and got their critique… do that and you will improve. It won’t be able to not improve!

Now there are so many more resources. YouTube videos, the core77 sketch forum. If you have the discipline and put in the hours you will be good in about 2-3 years of daily work at it.

Geez! You guys are so rad. I didn’t think I’d get any responses especially so quickly. Really nice, I must say, to see that everyone has gone through the struggles. I find that I go through a stretch where I’m doing quite well and I feel super good about how I am drawing and then BOOM the next day it’s like I hit my head and erased my coordination.

I will post some sketches that I have on my website, digital, but will also try to do some copic renders this weekend to post. I just launched the webport this week to explain the lack of sketch content.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Nick

http://www.nickmailhiot.com/blog/

[ Deleted ]

Keno! Thank you for sharing. I appreciate this so so so much and wish I would have posted sooner! The quest to sketch is a long strenuous roller coaster and it’s really nice knowing others have taken the trip. The struggle is real, but for me, at the moment there’s serenity is in knowing others have persevered or are in the process of.

Cheers to you rockstars!

Not to beat a dead horse or play my violin…

I started Industrial Design with little to no concept of sketching. My first sketch (which I still have) was trash…I should upload it sometime just for the laughs. My first Design Visualization class in college I got a C. That was a wake-up call for me, as it was the lowest grade I received in all of my years in schooling. Countless times I doubted, but “by looking at those super amazing digital renderings” I was inspired. I wouldn’t give up.

None of those guys had instagrams when they were born, and none of them could sketch like that either. It takes work.

I’m now sketching for a living and I rely heavily on this skill that I acquired through thousands of hours of learning/copying/practicing.

-Pb

In so many ways I wish i had this opportunity - I have never had a chance to work with any designer who was my sr. except for 6 months. instead of the sketch approach i did the same as you YO but with CAID

About how long did it take you to really dial sketching down?
There are many different sketching styles, so its tough to really put a number on it. However, I started drawing in general at around 10 years old, discovered product design when I was 17 years old, and product design sketching didnt really ‘click’ for me until I was 21 years old… So I would say about 10-11 years before I felt confident with my sketching?

Do you feel like you have to learn to draw each object or can you just draw any object at any time?
There is always going to be a learning curve. You need to study, break things down, and analyze why things look and work a certain way. However, if you know the basic geo forms you will at least have a starting point because even the most complex shapes and objects are simply a combination of basic forms: sphere, cone, cylinder, cube. If you can draw these well and at any angle, youll be able to get the hang of new object quicker than someone who cant draw the basic forms.

Rendering, How long did it take you to learn? Marker? Digital?
Still learning to this day… I’m more confident in sketching than my rendering skills. It really comes down to do you understand how light and shadows work. I guess I still don’t really get it. :confused:

Does anyone else get freaking frustrated on insta by looking at those super amazing digital renderings some godlike automotive designers are producing these days? Seriously.
No not really. I dont get frustrated by other people, I get frustrated when its not working for myself when i’m practicing. But, you need to push through it, the more you dont get something, the more important it is to figure it out before you move onto something more difficult. Tons of practice makes perfect.

Rate the importance each, Digital and Manual Sketching. Which do you find more difficult?
Honestly, I think they are equally important. But its really less about the medium and more about do you just know how to draw/sketch? Once you know how to sketch, the only real difference between the two, is learning the medium. In manual sketching, learning how different pencils and pens behave and how to best utilize its perks. With digital, learning the various softwares you want to draw in, their pros and cons, what the various tools do, etc. The difficulty between digital and manual sketches is in learning the tools. If you don’t understand the basics of drawing, sketching, perspective, and rendering… your sketching is going to be difficult and crappy no matter which medium you use. :wink:

I love this thread.

I often find myself sitting down with the intention to practice sketching, but then decide that I just need to take a “quick look” online for inspiration on things to draw. An hour later, I realize that I just spent the entire time I had alotted for practice browsing other people’s portfolios. This is when I get those feelings of frustration. The internet makes it seem like everyone else in the world but you is putting out all of this really amazing work and it’s really easy to get discouraged.

However, you don’t get to see all of the other work/practice that happened before the designer posted their ten best sketches online. I find it really helpful to hear these real life anecdotes about how people spent periods of their lives sketching 30, 40, or 50 hours a week, which practice techniques they found most effective, etc… no wonder their sketches are awesome! This kind of stuff really helps me put my sketching ability into perspective, and set more reasonable goals for improving in the amount of time that I have to practice.

So… thanks to sketchie105 for asking great questions, and to the awesome Core77 community for answering honestly!

“Does anyone else get freaking frustrated on insta by looking at those super amazing digital renderings some godlike automotive designers are producing these days?”

Don’t look at insta. Discontent, misery, and unhappiness are the common reactions when comparing your own work (or life) to carefully curated and overly optimistic social media posts.

I’ve always been able to draw a little bit, and honestly have been a little lazy with putting in the extra work to get really good, because I was always able to get by. Now I’m trying to put in the work and discipline on the digital side. You can just ‘break’ so many rules on digital sketching, its liberating and scary.

In a way, me too. I’ve always been able to sketch pretty freely, but my car sketches were lazy. I made a commitment to get really good at car sketching over the last 12 months. I think the differences have been pretty dramatic… but it takes commitment. In the past I’d just do a car doodle and be happy with it. Now I doodle, I iterate, I overlay 5 times, I start over again, I take a break for a day and come back to it… it is more of a labor, but I’m happier with the result.

This has been so helpful. I feel, for me, there has been so many stigmas and insecurities about not being adequate at design sketching that it really inhibited my ability to understand that sketching is a craft that demands mastery.

Cheers, to all.

I think that’s the key, not just ‘‘sketching’’ but doing it with a purpose. Taking a bit of time, analyze the result and refine it. Just sketching with a purpose will improve your skills, but I think doing it this way you’ll also improve at designing.

At our company we have a good balance between sketching/cad/prototyping, definitely you can see how your skills improve on all levels. I particularly enjoy sketching the most, so I try to spend some time sketching at home as well. For me the key is finding a sketch I really like on tumblr or pinterest and trying to replicate that style. Cars and shoes are fun to sketch because you can do pretty much whatever you want and there are tons of styles and examples out there.

About how long did it take you to really dial sketching down?
For me it is different because I had always been drawing as a kid, and I intuitively started rendering objects in various materials.
So I had an advantage. To turn that into a professional ability to create design concept sketches using digital media I would say has taken me about 500 hours. Practice, repetition and refining your imagination skills are key.

Do you feel like you have to learn to draw each object or can you just draw any object at any time?
It is rather the aesthetic qualities I have to learn for new projects. For very organic, complex design languages it takes me some time to get a grip on how they ‘work’ spatially. When you have mastered enough sketching ingredients it allows you in the end to draw anything.

Rendering, How long did it take you to learn? Marker? Digital?
I still haven’t mastered marker rendering very well as I stepped to digital quite soon, driven by the company I was working at. And I am fine with that even though for some sketches markers work much nicer. Learning to decently render shadows and materials as well as developing my own style has taken about 200 hours.

Does anyone else get freaking frustrated on insta by looking at those super amazing digital renderings some godlike automotive designers are producing these days? Seriously.
I enjoy looking at those a lot and learn from them. I am also aware of the pitfall of overrendering or overdesigning - in the end it is about the quality of the entire project and sketching is only one way of developing a design.

Rate the importance each, Digital and Manual Sketching. Which do you find more difficult?

Does anyone have recommendations of Instagram accounts to follow that have great ID sketches? Perhaps some of the g0d-like and some of the more down to earth.

Lots of good posts. It boils down to drawing every day. Yo mentioned underlays and overlays on the previous page. Tracing over your own work, or a CAD image or a picture is always good. The more you draw the better. Ask for people to look at your work…most are happy to give you feedback. Follow people on Instagram. I have learned/been inspired all the time from people I follow.

People ask me how I sketch on Canson/construction paper in pen without an underlay…the answer is simple, I have done tons and tons of underlays.

I am also a believer in CAD and Sketching as partners. Each pushes the other and helps improve the “other side of the coin”.

@ceelee Here are some super sick insta accounts that I follow.

@marc_mpv
@mxrxvs
@blaster701
@reid.schlegel
@hudsonriodesign
@sketchfresh
@sketchpowers
@gaetano_crispi
@abidurchowdhury
@soyalcreative
@thesketchmonkey
@d2lo
@cardesigndaily
@alferezdesign


Just some… Literally could go all day. Great inspiration from the above.

Cheers