A Musing 2: A Right Mickey Mouse Job

Yes, I'm still here. Things have been a little crazy lately, and what with one thing or another I've A) not been drawing much and B) been posting even less. Things are on the way though, you'll get to see them soon. For now it's time for me to gibber on about things I don't really understand in an effort to understand them better. You, if you're brave enough, can come along for the ride.

I've been threatening to write this post for quite some time, but I've been putting it off due to a vague lack of direction in what I've wanted to say, and then today the direction found itself. In an average episode of Castle (Which is a good fun show BTW) near the end of the show Castle will inevitably be chatting with his mother or daughter, and they'll say or do something seemingly innocuous and suddenly the key to the case is unlocked and Castle knows who did it. Today was a bit like that, except my Son asked me to draw something and the point of this post was clear at last. If you can't guess what he requested from the thumbnail and the title then you have my pity, but we'll get to it soon enough anyway.

There are only a limited number of ways it is possible to get an image from your noodle and onto a piece of paper:

1. Draw it raw, using what memories you have of the thing, and the vision in your mind and trying to draw that on the paper.
2. Use references to bolster your memories and aid with the transferal of what you are trying to create from your mind to the paper.
3. Copy from a reference, making changes as needed to alter the reference to your vision.
4. Copy it directly, assuming the image represents exactly what you want to draw.
5. Trace over a reference making changes as needed to alter your tracing to your vision.
6. Trace it exactly.

That's pretty much all the options. Of those the course of action taken the majority of the time is probably the second. You have a vision in your head, you need to bolster that vision (for reasons we'll discuss in a minute), so you draw from references to aid in fleshing out what you want. Now this isn't always the case - Artists who have been drawing something for a while may not need the references. I doubt Jack Kirby needed reference to draw the Hulk after issue #2 (and even then that reference was probably his initial drawing of the Hulk), but even he would need to find some reference if someone wanted him to draw a Ford Mustang. Why? Because otherwise he'd be drawing from memory, and for most people memory sucks. Which brings us to the topic at hand.

Can you picture Mickey Mouse in your head? Go on, do it now, I'm betting you can see him floating around in your Imagination without any difficulty. You can probably even see him moving and waving and jumping, just as you've seen him doing so a thousand times before. Now draw him. No, seriously, pick up a pencil or pen and doodle Mickey's head in a margin somewhere. How hard can it be, he's the most recognizable character on earth and he's really really simple?

So blogger just had a brainfart and nuked the next two paragraphs. While I write them again you can go draw the mouse because I'm sure you haven't so far.

OK, so if you actually did bother to do it you'll have found that it's much more difficult than you thought. It's as though you barely know what Mickey looks like even though you can picture him clearly in your mind. I think it's probably a case of the part of your mind that recognises things, and calls them to mind when needed doesn't correspond with the bit that sends information to your hands all that often; maybe cards at Christmas and Birthdays, but not much more. This is why reference is usually a necessity. Once you've drawn Micky from reference a few times you might never need it again, but to begin with you may have to peek at a cheat sheet. If time is of the essence, or accuracy is vital you may even trace. Oh, look at your face, you're shocked and disgusted at the very notion, so we'll get this sorted right now; tracing is not cheating, unless you really want it to be. Do I trace? depends on what I'm doing - if I'm doing something for my own satisfaction then hell no I won't trace, but if It's something thats a "commission", for someone else's satisfaction other than mine, then I'll do whatever it takes to get the best result while still maintaining as much satisfaction as I can. If that means tracing something on occasion I can deal with that, and as you've probably noted in previous posts I'm not afraid to mention it when I've done it. Many artists won't tell you how they work, like it's a magic trick or something, but some of them trace things, some of them don't, and some do it when in dire need only. Who cares? How would you ever know if they did or not if they don't just come out and just tell you, just appreciate the end result if you like it. OK, rant over, lets get back to the mouse.

So my Son asked me, when there was no paper around, to draw Mickey Mouse. Where I'm from Mickey Mouse is also a term meaning "Of poor quality" or "A poor duplicate of an original". How very apt:

So yes, I drew it on a plank, it was all I had to hand. You may note that it looks enough like Mickey for you to know it's supposed to be Mickey, while at the same time looking nothing like him. You know it looks nothing like him, but I'll bet you're hard pressed to point out exactly why. So, I decided to write this post. First, about 90 minutes later, I tried to draw the same thing in Artrage - the original being in the garage still:

So, not only a poor imitation of Mickey Mouse, but also a poor imitation of my own original. Never mind, most of the details that were wrong before are wrong in the same way this time. It looks terrible doesn't it? I find it funny.
Then, looking at the image, I tried to work out what was different between what I was looking at, and what was in my minds eye. The result? Rubbish:

MICKEY MOUSE! I think to myself, YOU'VE BEEN SEEING HIS VISAGE SINCE YOU WERE TWO! YOU WATCH HIM THREE TIMES A WEEK WITH YOUR SON! YOU KNOW WHAT HE RUDDY WELL LOOKS LIKE! Doesn't help. Pathetic brain, where did I get you? OK, time to reach for the reference:

So that's better Still wrong here and there, but enough like Mickey that instead of "Is that supposed to be Mickey Mouse?" It's "Oh, it's a slightly ropey picture of Mickey Mouse." The difference is subtle, but important. You'll also note that it no longer looks like a five year old drew it (unless he was a very good five year old... with reference). So after that I decided to trace over the reference image for comparisons sake:

Yep, it's Mickey Mouse all right, and it took less than half as long to trace it as it did to draw the inferior version from reference. It was also no fun to draw, which is why I would never do it if the object of the exercise was self satisfaction. But wait, there's more! After that I went away for about three hours, ate my dinner, played games with my Son, told him a story, and then came back. Without referring to reference I drew Mickey again (This time on paper as the screensaver was all that was keeping me from another eyeful of the original, which I was avoiding).

So, now it's much more like the Mickey you know, this time without reference. Drawing him from reference, and tracing him, has cemented aspects of him in my head meaning I can call them up whenever I need them, but that process had to be followed in order for my mind's eye to send my hand controlling brain bit a letter saying "Bloody hell, how are you, not spoken in ages!" It's still not perfect, but each time the result would be better again. Would this insight last forever? Nope! If it did I wouldn't be teaching myself to draw again, I'd just be as good as when I stopped way back when. I suspect it would last a fair while though - I could probably draw a pretty reasonable Mickey this time next week still; this time next month... maybe not.

One last thing. After all that I looked up a tutorial of a guy drawing Mickey Mouse - that was over an hour ago, and I've written this post deliberately without adding the images yet so I'm working from memory alone - let's see how well I can draw the mouse now I've had some "Tuition":

That'll do pig.