Monthly Archives

January 2007

Finding "Your" Style

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Danie Dociu - Art Director Lead Concept Artist

What Daniel Dociu has been trying to do in his work is convey an emotion or a high-level, sometimes abstract, idea, rather than a technique-driven process. As an industrial designer over many years, honed his ability to design complex systems entirely in his head, he finds himself losing interest in the subject because he’s figured it all out before starting to draw. “So lately,” he explains, “I allow myself a bit of searching for shapes and connections in the drawing phase to keep myself entertained with the occasional surprise.”

Daniel has solid ideas about where style belongs in the design process. He says it should “happen” naturally over a long period of growth, as an evolution towards finding the means of expression that best resonate with one’s sensibility. He remembers struggling as a young art student to find a style of his own, only to fall into one trap or another. He was lucky enough to find a mentor who prompted him to dig deeper.

“You have to get yourself genuinely charged emotionally and/or intellectually, depending on how you are wired, regarding your subject,” explains Dociu. “You need to take a stance and have the urge to share. Manifesting that position through direct, raw forms of expression you will find yourself ‘stylistically’”.“In my opinion, technique should be an extension of your thought processes and sensibility,” explains Daniel.

“What I mean is that it should be a natural fit that best serves your own communication needs. Mechanically learning and adopting someone else’s technique usually leads to a partial match at best. It’s the reason I find tutorials and how-to books and workshops of limited relevance. They are an insight into another mind’s thinking patterns, where connections, choices and creative decisions happen differently. Exposure to as many other ideas as possible is important, but it is just as important to filter what resonates and works for the way you are wired.”

CG Society with Daniel Dociu

http://www.tinfoilgames.com/

Choice

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“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life…the remarkable thing is we have a choice each day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.”

Charles Swindoll