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List:       osflash-general
Subject:    [osflash] Specializing in an area of interest... and
From:       postmaster () glenpike ! co ! uk (Glen Pike)
Date:       2008-05-21 15:34:38
Message-ID: 4834410E.5050306 () glenpike ! co ! uk
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Hi,

  I have been reading this thread and most of the comments represent my 
own sentiments.  You can skip to the bottom for some ideas on drawing or 
continue reading for a bit of background.

  I loved doing creative stuff at school, but I had to work at it.  I 
studied engineering, post 16, then combined multimedia and engineering 
for my degree.  After this, I worked for a few companies programming for 
music & TV equipment.  I moved away from the city, as I am a country boy 
at heart and I wanted some inspiration from nature rather than city life.

    It's hard to find work doing what you want outside the city, so I 
taught myself a lot of stuff - HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, Flash, 
ActionScript.  I loved Flash because I could finally get things to 
appear on screen without having to learn reams of DirectX or Windows 
code first, so I played lots...

    Eventually I got full time work as a web-developer - I settled for a 
job where I did quite a bit of programming and not much Flash.  I worked 
like this for 3 years, with me getting fed up with management decisions, 
office politics & not getting to exercise my creativity on projects 
because "I was a programmer".  Over the 3 years, I continued to 
freelance doing some nice little projects that were safe enough for me 
to try and design with and also do some Flash stuff.  Finally, I lost my 
job, which gave me the prod I needed to freelance full-time.

    It's been 6 months since then and I have been busy on projects ever 
since.  I am starting to learn to say "no" to some projects too and am 
firmly setting my sites on doing Flash based projects.
   
    I have realised that I am an engineer rather than a specialist, but 
I am striving to be build good quality Flash based projects and to know 
as much as possible about working with the Flash & the myriad of stuff 
that goes with it.  I shall never be an amazing programmer - I have 
spent too long trying to get my head around Fourier and other difficult 
maths to realise that some things are really hard and that understanding 
the principles is enough so you can always find someone who knows enough 
to actually do the work.  This applies to design as well - for some jobs 
I will recommend the client gets a designer to do the work, others, I 
feel confident in my abilities to do something good, or it's just 
artworking customers ideas rather than design, which my designer friends 
hate doing.

    Anyway, the upshot is I am doing what I enjoy, I have variety too 
and I will work hard to keep doing this.  I am always trying to learn 
about business, design, and everything else I can lay my hands on.  I 
also love working with different people on projects to get the best 
possible result.  Speaking to other people is also a great way to just 
geek out about stuff and share ideas.  I have loads of stuff I want to 
do, and hopefully will meet various people who I can realise some of my 
ideas with.  One of the most rewarding things for me in the last 12 
months was going to Flash On The Beach.  I was humbled, amazed and 
stoked to be able to meet other people like me, who understood Flash & 
ActionScript and were doing some really cool stuff - this has kept me 
going for the last 6 months in a big way.

    I think the most important thing I have learnt is to "have a go" and 
to learn about as much stuff as possible outside of what you do.  Some 
people disagree with the "jack of all trades" approach, but I think 
there are a lot of Flash people out there who can do the design & 
programming really well so as long as you have a core skill that you 
also enjoy using and developing, I think that it's okay to work around this.

    Anyway, down to brass tacks:

    For learning to draw, I would recommend doing still life drawing.  
Either teach yourself and get criticism from other artists, or if you 
can do classes, then even better.  You should/will learn about drawing 
materials, but also about observation - at the end of the day we all 
make marks on the paper that are different from the next person, but 
it's about looking that's important.  Drawing organic materials like 
fruit, leaves, trees, whatever interesting stuff you can find is good - 
use pens, pencils, ("Quink" ink & bleach is interesting), wax crayons, 
chalks, (do you get the idea? as much variety as possible).  Drawing 
machine-made items is useful too.  Photograph stuff, scan things, print 
them scan them again, cut them up - the idea is "play".  It may look 
rubbish to you, but do another variation, don't throw it away (if you 
have space).  Just experiment and try to get feedback from people.   I 
want to do figure drawing classes again - this is a good thing to do and 
the real thing is better than drawing from magazines, but if you are 
stuck, you can practice with these.  A friend of mine is always 
sketching people in his book - really quickly - when he is sitting in 
town and watching people go by - he is an animator and draws their "walks".

    I can't really say too much about graphic design - I am learning 
about the grid from reading lots of articles and experimenting a little 
when I have time.  I have a nice Typography book that explains things 
succinctly. 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Type-Typography-Portfolio-Phil-Baines/dp/1856694372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211382973&sr=8-1 \
 <http://www.amazon.co.uk/Type-Typography-Portfolio-Phil-Baines/dp/1856694372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211382973&sr=8-1>


    Lots of books on graffiti, art & some nice ones by John Maeda 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b/026-1469050-0833224?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=john+maeda&x=0&y=0 \
 <http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b/026-1469050-0833224?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=john+maeda&x=0&y=0>


    Colour theory, erm, I understand it a bit from reading books, but 
also look at photographs on Flickr to get my colour schemes :)

    For software, I am guessing that a lot of people use the Adobe Suite.

    Anyway, it's quite longwinded, what I said, and I would extend "just 
do what makes you happy" to "try a wide range of things, for fun if 
nothing else, but concentrate what makes you happy".

    Hope this helps.

    Glen
-- 

Glen Pike
01326 218440
www.glenpike.co.uk <http://www.glenpike.co.uk>

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