Worried that my sense of what looks "right" will become warped
Snuggins
Posts: 52
The more and more I use Daz I find that I gravitate to a certain look, and that looks become "right" to me. Some of this is just "taste" and "eye of the beholder" stuff, but I have noticed some people get obsessed with a particular figure. Maybe there is a certain person in real life they spend lots of time with, so they get used to sharp deep vs soft flat facial features. I am not criticizing that, I am just wondering how to stay grounded and neutral so that if I were, say, asked to make something for somebody, I wouldn't be making something that is off somehow, in a way that would lose me a gig. I get a sense this is something anyone who does art with humans must deal with. Maybe I am crazy. Any advice?
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Actually, an edit: More worried that my sense of the zero-point, or what is "Neutral" will change. "Right" is more subjective at some axis through Neutral. That's taste. But the center, you don't want that to drift.
I don’t think there’s is much to be done about it. People like what they like and there is a lot of stylization in 3d art. So what is realistic doesn’t really come into play because it all involves deceiving the eye and making something somewhat visually pleasing with polygons and lights.and what we like is what we like.
Just look at the poses designed for women. Most real people don’t stand like that and most real people don’t have the figures of daz characters.
that said, if you want to avoid using the same figures then mix things up. Buy morphs and create your own variations and age them, try mixing genders for scenes where you might use a female character with a male character or vice versa.
if you are doing 3d to make money from others they will want certain things portrayed a certain way so I wouldn’t worry too much about your tastes overriding theirs.
I rather not do free commissions aka you can suggest something but unless you pay I am not obligated to change it to fit your whims. I am the artist, but if you want it differently, try to do it yourself from scratch or hire me for commission but do not expect me to change my art for you.
not to be rude but your art is your art. Dali made his clocks melt and Picasso made his people abstract. You create art the way you want. First create art your style, because if you get too worried if someone else may or may not like your work, your art may not be made.
however if it is for an art class or commission then it is another matter.
Best thing to do about that is to look at real people, like a lot. I like traveling with publik transport for that reason, you can watch a lot of people just the way the are. Some times I have a specific think in mid, like what do people really wear on their feet when the travel, how do they walk/move what kind of faces do they make when they justs walk the stree with nothing special happening, what do they do with their hands etc. Lots of that goes into my characters. Sometimes I goe for the most beautiful I can do as well, and I think thats ok as well.
But then I'm not (yet) making real money with daz so I might be off.
I think it goes wider than just 3D art. Just look at all the idealised images we are being given through TV, films, advertising etc. And with CGI and other digital effects they can show things that don't exist in the real world. I think the way to stay grounded is to only believe things you see that don't come on a screen.
But if you want to make money out of 3D art maybe the best way is not to be grounded but go with the flow.
Thanks all for your thoughts, much appreciated. I tend to immerse myself and it is easy to lose perspective. Sometimes I emerge with something I'm really proud of, after getting some distance from the work. Other times, I wonder how I didn't see the obvious skew in what I was making. Practice and experience does help, but it's hard to predict when a flow state is a good one vs a self-deluded one.
Just the fact that you are asking the question will help you stay neutral. Bias creeps in with those that are certain they are "right" whereas those that always consider and reflect on the other possibilities stay balanced. Be it art, be it life.
Well, i've messed with FaceGen Artist Pro and even though technically the geometry it creates for the face with good pictures are 90%+ correct I've never just glanced at a render of a model created in FaceGen Artist Pro and had that instant recognition of who the intended person was. Now that maybe partly me too because I'm not liable to recognize people unexpectedly out of context from where I am used to seeing them many times.
Some people I know visited a wax museum recently and took pictures with some very famous people done in wax statues. I was very surprised I didn't recognize most of them despite being very familiar with who those famous people were. FaceGen and DAZ Studio was as good or better so I'm guessing that had to do with texture sets used were better than the wax skin of the statues regarding similarity to the actual person. Skin & skin texture = number one point of emphasis for a good likeness.
So there is no neutral except if you sculpt the grey model the geometry should be the intended person. Ever notice how difficult it is sometimes to recognize a sculpture of even famous people? The only qualification I would use is with a quick glance do you get that feeling of instant recognition of someone you know or know of? If not, you have more work to do. FaceGen Artist Pro and Headshop and similar products aside to get an instant recognizable face in DAZ Studio you most times will need to create your own textures for the FaceGen Artist Pro morph and maybe you will even need to do a bt of extra sculpting of the face and skull 2nd. 3rd, you may need to create custom hair.
So that 'commonality' you are noticing is folk using the same skin texture sets and same hair and same clothing on all their renders and the same light sets. Even quite huge changes in geometry will be overridden by people noticing skin color and texture 1st and geometry second. People look at skin to judge health and as complex as it is, recognition of a person. In contrast, the geometry of the face and skull is much less data to process for recognition than all the geometry and color of the skin itself and also typically not indicative of immediate health problems.
All the recognization is independent of 'style' though - the style can be realistic or it can be multiple styles or toon or artistic abstraction styles - you need a knack of emphasizing artistically what people are apt to instictively notice about a unique person.
It's funny reading the title of this thread since I had this same idea in real life years ago. I was a rock musician and my life was not tthe norm for most people at that time. I looked and acted larger than life, and had semi celebrity status most places I went. I was never home, always out. The people I associated with were other musicians, dancers and models, so what most in these forums consider normal looking people, they were not the norm for me, and to a smaller degree it's still that way.,
My best friend from school reconnected with me when he moved into town and he was as normal as they came and the topic came up a few times about how I viewed myself and those around me and my perspectives on things based on my lifestyle and how different he and I were now and it was something to think on for sure.
The other side of the argument in art is you have to stay consistant, particularly in things like comics. People don't like the characters to change appearances. So there is some reason to stick with a certain style once you get a following in it. It's pretty much true with physical art and music also, changing your style is always a risk. Of course you have to attract some kind of following to start with before you run into this ;)
My friend and I were discussing a phenomenon recently that runs directly counter to the "draw every day" idea: when we take long breaks from art, a lot of times we come back to find we've improved a lot. It's usually because while we're not doing our own work, we're engaging with lots of other different peoples' art and ideas, and getting some distance from any frustrating habits we've fallen into. Picking it up again means we've gotten inspiration to try new things.
I think constantly engaging with other people's ideas and creativity is crucial for staying out of ruts, no matter what kind of art you're creating--but like Serene Night and Miss Bad Wolf said, sometimes you just like what you like and that's fine! It's easier to be confident in it when it's a conscious choice. And while it helps to have a broad range, a good commission client is hiring you because they're familiar with your style and want a piece from you specifically.
It could help to study your work and make a list of things you see yourself doing over and over again, and try to sort them according to taste vs. "looks right." Mine would look something like:
Taste
"That looks right"
In the latter category I don't quite do those things deliberately. I had to fight against overexposing stuff because I wasn't confident in my lighting. Scenes are harder to set up than portraits and I'm afraid of cluttering them. I don't have a lot of experience with dynamic angles so I avoid them.
The same thing applies to character appearances. Part of my job is doing screenshots for a video game studio, and in a game with customizable characters novelty is at a premium. It's very easy to make a video game character who slots neatly into a Western media beauty ideal, and because of that after a while the eye just kind of slides past them. I can use the default character settings, but our audience has seen those exact characters roughly one billion times (give or take a few).
When I play MMORPGs or other games with robust customization--which DAZ has a lot in common with--the characters I make who get the most compliments stretch the system at least a little. My rule is that if a customization option looks "wrong" to me in some way, I should probably try to make a character with it because my brain is flagging a learned bias. In many cases, the more I work with it the more I like it.
We are bombarded with stylized versions of reality every day. The only time anyone uses "a real person" for an advertisement is when they're talking about crime - mug shots, police photos of battery victims, etc.
If you want to look and smell and get jiggy widdit like the fashion model, get the fragrance, wear the clothes, shop at the stores, drive the car shown in the ad.
But then, I'm sure people in L.A. or New York or Milan or Paris see those stylized versions of people in reality all day long - the models used in the ads and the videos and the magazine covers. They walk a certain way and stand a certain way and look a certain way because it's their job. Consumers buy it because it's what they identify with on some level.
However, there's a psychological phenomenon that happens when we see someone on TV or in a movie: unless they're absolutely deformed, we identify them as being "pretty", because "pretty people" get to be on TV. It's not like Ye Olden Days with Welcome Back Kotter, where Horshack was the worst-looking one of the bunch, or even Screech from Saved By The Bell. Today they either aren't trying as hard to focus on "the pretty people" or they're using After Effects on everyone equally to make them appear less "god-like" and more "like you and me, but better". Look at the cast of Daredevil: I remember the days when the only time a woman with that many moles on her face and neck was dressed in a potato bag and played the Crone of the Bog, or a patient with a terminal disease.
And wrinkles? No way! Spackle what you can and Photoshop the rest!
We slowly come to accept actors with the same imperfections we have, and our definition shifts, until we are hit with a Flawless Beauty again, and they get elevated to Celestial Status, even higher than they would have been 10 years prior.
And so it translates to art - first, we do what we like to see, for if an artist cannot please themselves, they cannot please someone else.
But there's the double-edged sword: an artist is never truly happy with their work, and art is never about acceptance, but merely doing the bidding of the muse.