What resources and guides that can help you learn shape language? Pic related is one of them. What else is out there that teach shape language?
You're not taught shape "language", despite what these course peddlers want you to believe. If you can't think of a subject as a series of abstract symbols, shapes, silhouette, you're not going to forcibly learn to think that way by reading about it. Genuinely, unlike anatomy which has a basis in observable facts, design requires serious individual creative effort over a lifetime. But it's also the entire point of art, the actual fun part.
boring forced meme desu
>>7170604What about it is being a forced meme?
that demo should be good enough to study from but you didn't try at all now did you?
>>7170580Shape is not a language retard
>OP asks for resources>No resources are being postedWhat happened to /ic/? Meanwhile social media threads get pretty much most of the attention now.I'll contribute.
>>7171423What do you feel this "resource" is teaching you? Can you put it into words?
>>7170594100% this
>>7171436To think in terms of triangles retard
>>7171436>see face>ignore the details, just get the face shape outline in generalIt's literally just simple construction anon. Read the text above, since the chin is sharp. It'd be comparable to an upside down triangleInstead of just asking, how about you actually try to process it yourself?
>>7171423
>>7171449>>7171450The woman's face is barely even a triangle, it's completely stupid pseud pinterest-core hog-slop. Triangles have no inherent subjective value, they're merely geometric primitive forms. They only gain symbolic, cultural, or subjective significance in a specific context. For example, triangles COULD symbolize a dangerous pointy villain character, or they could suggest the opposite - a little wispy, thin wimp. All depends on the design and what is placed next to.I hate this slop because it makes idiots feel like they're learning something when they're not.Please tell me how this arbitrary, rhombus, is meaningfully different from "oval" in the same "tutorial." This tumblrnigger just made up some shit full of grammatical errors and 75000+ people just swill it down.
>>7170580I think most discussion on /ic/ surrounding shape language fall into the same problems as those about composition, golden ratios, or even threads by that one guy who keeps trying to pimp triangles - you are describing things that are naturally emergent, which don't require planning to arrive at. You're working backwards from an answer that you assume is unique, when it is only one among an infinite multitude.What makes shapes work (or not) relies on the fact we have a far greater ability to extract information like weight, perspective, force, and direction, purely from shapes and silhouette than we realize. That's because we've been observing shapes in the real world from the moment we are born. We are innately equipped to understand concepts like perspective and balance, even when we can't readily translate that understanding into a drawing on paper. You know when a person is closer or further away from you purely from silhouette. You know when a person is about to fall over, even from a still photo. But most people can't draw that.Shapes have no meaning in a vacuum. They work when they give you a sense of weight and perspective and action, all of which change that shape. In order words, designing a proper shape means you understand those concepts, and how they change the shape of an object. Study those things, and use them to arrive at a proper shape.
>>7171457I think at some point, design manuals and art books must have been rather measured in their theory - use contrasts in shape and exaggeration of forms to distinguish characters, something like that. But in a game of mentally retarded telephone, the original advice has been corrupted into "triangles = evil, intelligent, perceptive." Then again, designers can be retarded with their theory too.Really the best practice is to just stop saving tutorials that originate from tumblr.
>>7171454>>7171451>>7171423What is this? That triangle in >>7171423 is reaching beyond belief.
>>7171454Holy perma beg copePyw faggot
>>7170594/thread
>actually interesting thread i want to learn from for my designs>just crying crabs who dont get it even though its used in any cartoon everepic. never come to ic if you want to learn anything.
>>7171617might as well leave behind something b4 i leave. i heard this from saitos vids but he used it for bgs.
>>7171622This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. This is an inherent understanding of balance, not some magical property of the shape itself. Take that out of context, and you get mumbo jumbo. Does this mean people with triangular faces are "instable"? Most heroic cartoon figures are an inverted triangular silhouette. Are they unstable?This fallacy is ironically similar to people who see pyramids all around the world or that they're aligned with stars, and say that must mean aliens designed them as spaceports. Of course that's silly. Bottom heavy designs are the most stable structures, so large constructions logically converged on that shape. They matched the stars because stars are constants in the sky that aid in large scale measurements.Shape language is majority perspective and physics, and a bit of emotion and subjective priorities. All the more fanciful composition grids are simply easy-to-replicate, consistent ways of keeping measurements. There's no magic to them in and of themselves, that's in the nature we seek to recreate.
>>7170594how do you do this then ? idc if it takes years i just want the right approach
Shape Language is the Howie Grail.
>>7171785>how do you do this then ? idc if it takes years i just want the right approachThat's part of a series of Picasso bull drawings from 1945. The bulls start out complex with lines and tonal value, and gradually lose details until they become almost like writing. He was in his mid 60s by then. He'd spent a lifetime playing with shape and form by then.That's not to say it takes decades to learn how to think abstractly, just that you never stop experimenting, ideally.In the end it's about simplifying or reducing a form/subject to its most essential character, and subjectively exaggerating certain features. You have to see the value in "informed symbol drawing," so to speak. This isn't trivial and will demand your full creative attention over a long time. But it feels very rewarding when you can draw the same subject you did a year or two ago with fewer lines and more style.https://drawpaintacademy.com/the-bull/
>>7170580This shit never made sense to me when western retards explain it but it all clicked when a korean gacha game artist explained how they apply it to character design
>>7171803no, that's negative and positive space bro lol....
>>7171972>he kept the penis in each onelol
>>7171976who and where ?
I think some anons are looking way too much into this, it's literally just simple construction
>>7170580CGMA fundamentals of design course by Tyler Edlin, it's on OCC ,it has a whole week + Q&A + feedback on shape design and shape language
https://asgg.notion.site/Krenz-Rhythm-Course-10ca655918354cc79633e1f3f15cd331https://asgg.notion.site/Krenz-Rhythm-Course-a2a926910dd54d099b4985345d41753falll you need
I often read and watch videos where artists talk about shapes designs but I dont really get what it means. I was doing some studies, where you capture the overall shape and then break it down into smallers simples shapes, so I guess what shapes language is supposed to be?
>>7171457Quality post
>>7172969>where you capture the overall shape and then break it down into smallers simples shapesthat's simplifcation or if done with design intent, can be called abstractionshape design and shape language are not the same
>>7171454And it's entirely and totally coincidental you had this visceral raging reaction to triangles, the most confrontational shape, isn't it?>>7171713>Most heroic cartoon figures are an inverted triangular silhouette. Are they unstable?Yes. Unstable=dynamic, dynamic=active, active=heroic.Shape language should be used in IQ tests to denounce people who can't contextualize.
>>7173231hi beg
>itt: a guy so flustered by triangles he'll now spend the next 2 weeks of his life samefagging a slow thread in a dying board
>>7173237You don't know what words mean. Get to drawing beggy.
Only 261 posts to go trainglefag, you can do it!
>>7172554But from a different perspective the triangle will look like a square
Not sure if this counts but it's helpful regardless I think
>>7171785play
beg thread, shit language will not gunna make it
Bump
>>7173052>>7179066westoids are fucking awful at explaining shape language
>>7179069Please share any better resources with us, then. So if this method is wrong, then what is the correct one, and why?
>>7179074the asian ones already do thatthe western ones are about as good as telling you "red means angry >:( and yellow means happy :D" for color theoryobviously color theory is more nuanced than that, and so is shape language
>>7179596The color theory tutorials by retards don't even point out that each color has a physiological component, contextual cultural components, semiological component, etc.No, the idiots will even go as far as to tell you the useless trivia that the mourning color in Asia is white instead of black, but not how that affects visual communication.
>>7179596Ok I get that basic shapes are a great tool to create compositions here. But shape *language* is about communication. What exactly is being communicated in this image, besides pretty girl being pretty? If shapes are a vocabulary in a visual language, how can we use them in a more nuanced way? Could one express a different message with the subtle difference between angles in those two diamonds, for instance? I am curious about different perspectives here
>>7179596Sauce?
>>7179596Source?
>>7179596
>>7180850
>>7180852
would you guys consider shape language as a form of stylization?
>>7180884or can it be considered a part of composition?
>>7180850loomis never fails but its harder to see how this applies to character design for a beg
>>7180884>>7180886its neither
>>7180921why not?so its just its own section?
these are mostly awful"shape language" is a shit meme
>>7181201its about the meaning behind a shape. its a method of problem solving or design thinking
>>7180886Both. You can use shapes to exaggerate a person's features, or to create a character that reads as a certain kind or person without needing to write a description. Or you can use shapes to enhance visual storytelling. Of course the viewer is going to look at the actual content of the picture first. The arrangement of shapes only serves to enhance their perception, subconsciously, of the story you want to tell. Shapes as a language are really not as important all the other fundamentals that make a piece. You don't have to use them. But you might find that thinking about them as you draw gives a little extra punch to your designs, a cohesiveness that subtly tells the viewer that you really thought about the character or the scene you drew.
>>7170580This reminds me of those awful golden ration infographics over film screencaps that pretend that whoever was filming would sit and measure all that shit beforehand. These things are intuitive to ppl who understand composition and form, so you should focus on the basics instead of putting the cart before the horse.
>>7181477>>7181297i appreciate both of you guys' perspectives and will keep it in mind
>>7180852The others I get, but how the heck does top right work?
>>7183107Feels like there are three square compositional areas to me
>>7179596Do you have any more examples of Asian-style shape language tutorials? This is the only one I could think of that's specific to anime. These styles of eyes are often used to signal a character's personality, with tsurime for haughty/cold ones, and tareme for gentle/shy ones.
>>7170580i feel like this would be helpful for designing machinery
