I began doing 3D modeling and animation in May of 2003. I am still new to the art-form, but I bring to it many insights derived from my varied experience with other arts, particularly painting. The following are some brief thoughts concerning the creative process in 3D as compared to that of painting.
It's exciting to be involved with such a dynamically evolving and vibrant new art form as 3D. Truly art and science meet and merge in the 3D arena. Recent rapid advances in technology now allow artists such as myself (no background in computer science) to apply artistic modes of intuitive thinking to achieve results in CG that previously required skill in math and programming as well as artistic savvy - not to mention prohibitively expensive equipment.
I have long been intrigued by the artistic potential, the unlimited plasticity, of 3D computer graphics. Yet as a painter I am frequently frustrated by the lack of immediacy in the 3D technique. From my brush feelings, fantasies, and symbols may flow freely, but for me to arrive at an expression of equivalent strength in the 3D medium requires much mechanical tinkering within the program. I don't mind that so much since I enjoy the mechanical aspect of 3D, but nonetheless I am still not satisfied with the somewhat robotic looking results - the creation that does not bear the direct touch of the human artist.
I wish to achieve expressions in 3D that possess "soul." When I view a painting by the Norwegian Expressionist, Edvard Munch, (to use an intensely emotional artist as an example) I am moved by the passion that is captured in the painting, but if I view a master work of 3D I am rarely moved emotionally - perhaps my mind is fascinated, but my heart is not moved much.
Yet 3D has its avenues by which the artist may communicate his feeling. In my opinion the broadest of these avenues is animation. The spirit most strongly enters the 3D work when it is set in motion. Every 3D model can be animated in a countless number of ways. It is the timing and the motion of the model - the animation - that reveals the real expression, the soul of the artist. Let's not forget that if this technology continues to advance as rapidly as it has in recent years, we may be privileged to utilize modes of digital creation as direct and responsive as a sable brush or a lump of clay, and this will have still yet more extraordinary repercussions for the animator's art.
Some logically minded visitors may wonder why I have included stills on my "animation" page. Pragmatically, this is because I have not yet gotten around to animating all the models I have built, yet thoretically it is because every 3D still is potentially an animation. Nothing is ever really static in the world of CG (computer graphics). Every pixel and every vector is subject to infinite variation. The great pioneer of machine art, Jean Tinguely, said, "Remain Static in Motion" - this motto aptly describes the equipose of the CG creation. CG is always at the edge of reality and ready to transform - to "remain static in motion." This quality also allows the artist the freedom to try as many variations of a form as he desires (or his hard-drive can hold . . . ) without ever losing a single notable instance of the artistic expression. Hence my "static" pieces are merely instances of the actual "motion" that is the real nature and potential of the digital image. In CG this capacity to never lose anything in the act of creation is termed "non-destructive" and is defined in contradistinction to the "destructive" mode of traditional visual art creation in art-forms such as painting and carving.
A watercolorist begins with a blank sheet of paper and every brush stroke made is a subtraction from that emptiness. Henry Miller, in his novel, "Black Spring," describes his process of painting a watercolor of a horse. Every brush stroke is wrong, all wrong - the horse is a disaster - for Miller cannot really paint, and yet each brush stroke is for him a successive liberation - a liberation from emptiness, a commitment to form, and a statement that cannot be reversed. From Miller's perspective this is joyous, and of the essence of creation, as he explains. A practitioner of Zen brush painting might not be so easily satisfied, but he would agree that within the strictness of an art-form such as watercolor lays the essential creative power.
If we have the privilege of "non-destructive" creation do we retain our real strength as artists - or is it somehow lost in the mushy world of indestructable pixels?
Because of concerns like this I cannot give myself completely to 3D, but must continue to practice my painting. However, the practice of 3D gives much to my methods of visual thinking. From 3D I gain a firmer understanding of perspective, and begin to perceive the nature of light, its form and intensity, yet more lucidly. Perhaps there are deeper understandings more difficult to put into words . . .
In the future I hope to merge the painting with the 3D work. I see many ways in which these art forms can converge within the creative process. That is an exploration I look forward to making, and I hope that I may share with you.
