Sources of inspiration

Where do you get your inspirtation

In lack of a functional image gallery... I´ll post this here.

From what sources do you get your inspiration..

I tend to get it from either comics or national geographics..
Everytime i read a new National geographics, I see stuff i want to model, and tweak..
If i´m stuck in a scene, i often find the a random issue, and often things solve themselves.

I often find myself reading a comic, especially sci-fi comics.. and suddenly it comes into my head..

University lectures. Sitting for an hour bored sh*tless with a drawing pad in front of you is good for productivity...

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and suddenly it comes into my head..

Sometimes that happens to me as well. Otherwise...listening to music, reading sci-fi books/watching movies/etc, and sometimes a brainstorm or two in a particularly uninteresting class (a la Jules) 🙂

Jules, on Sep 18 2004, 03:16 PM, said:

University lectures. Sitting for an hour bored sh*tless with a drawing pad in front of you is good for productivity...
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Replace 'University lectures' with 'Church' and it's exactly the same for me.

I sit down at my computer, play Matrix soundtracks, and make some shapes. I start out with just random things, constantly tweaking until I start to form something in my mind. Then I start over, working on that idea.

TheRedeemer, on Sep 18 2004, 04:07 PM, said:

Replace 'University lectures' with 'Church' and it's exactly the same for me.
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Some of my best ideas came to life scrawled upon the back of a church bulletin. I was paying attention, mind you <_< .

I drew alot of inspiration for Sephil Saga from anime, and more specifically Cowboy Bebop. Most of the technology was inspired by a somewhat obscure pen-and-paper RPG called Jovian Chronicles, however, most all of it was heavily tweaked through good old fashioned research.

Popular Science magazine has brought more than a few inspirations to the table. But as far as storyline goes, the movie Event Horizon proved to be the major turning point.

Of course, nothing beats reading this board for inspiration 😄

often I just start working.

Lecture classes definetly provide boredom time, which helps me.

UE_Research & Development, on Sep 18 2004, 06:50 PM, said:

Some of my best ideas came to life scrawled upon the back of a church bulletin. I was paying attention, mind you <_< .
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It's amazing how many ideas you'll get on those church bulletins. The only problem is the text gets in the way of the coolest stuff. Sometimes, cool churches include blank paper for "notes." Yeah, right, notes.

My sister would do origami, I would draw moon trucks.

And yes, I was paying attention, too.

I get a lot of inspiration from other peoples' work. Also, I take a pen and paper and just draw lines with a vague idea of what I'm trying to draw. Sometimes it comes out very cool.

This post has been edited by Mantaray : 19 September 2004 - 12:28 AM

Masamune, on Sep 19 2004, 04:31 AM, said:

Popular Science magazine has brought more than a few inspirations to the table. But as far as storyline goes, the movie Event Horizon proved to be the major turning point.
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Is Sephils Saga going to be that scary..?
That movie.. is so scary.. Though probably good for inspiration. If you are able to think during the movie.. I´m not..

A picture from one of the comics that i consider one of my main inspiration sources..

Posted Image

I´ve always wanted to do exactly this picture in 3D..

I´m probably going to start on it when I finish my contribution to the Aftermath competition.

This post has been edited by modesty_blaise_us : 19 September 2004 - 06:18 PM

The inspiration for my ship models comes for a dizzying amount of sources. Almost every ship came from somewhere different. I get inspiration mainly from looking at objects and pictures and wondering if they'd look cool flying. For instance, a freighter design came from the shape a footbridge made reflecting on the pool where I work. Other places include shareware games, modern naval vessels and military equipment, Popular Science, Halo, Marathon, and even some old nintendo games.

a flower; a cat; a car; a tree; an eye; an angle; the negative space; a phone; a tv program; a word; a table; a person; a concept; a line; a drawing; a map; a thought; a light; a pin; a...

Especially when sketching, I blank my mind and let my hand draw tiny sketch marks. I doodle at random in the margins and corners of the page until I get some sort of an idea. From there, my original drawing never turns out the way I originally expected- I change proportions and positions to make things look more realistic.

I start with light sketches to detail the basic position, constantly narrowing down the outline, erasing bits and modifying them, and gradually draw them darker as I become more sure of their position. Unfortunately, this technique isn't too good for drawing details, especially faces. So in my drawings, characters will often have masks or no face at all, and be surrounded with erased attempts to make a suitable face... Sometimes I get a face that works, but most often I don't even bother.

I'm much the same in 3D graphics... I use large pieces to get the basic shape I want outlined. From there, I delete the large pieces and replace them with sharper, custom formed objects in order to best join them into a whole piece. And I almost always start with a sketch. I work best from randomness, until I get a firm idea of what I want. From there, it is a matter of tweaking until I get it right.

No visual inspiration here.

~ SP

UE_Research & Development, on Sep 18 2004, 06:50 PM, said:

Some of my best ideas came to life scrawled upon the back of a church bulletin. I was paying attention, mind you <_< .
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Church bulletins are a great source of my inspriation too. I don't know what my life would be like without my good old childhood of pencil and bulletin...

University lectures don't work, because i'm usualy too busy copying down notes, from either the lecture, or another class.

Sometimes I just sit outside under a tree near a quiet street and just start noticing the different shapes that make up the objects around you. Then I draw a series of seemingly random streaks, and notice some sort of design they make, if I like it, then I clean it up, picture it in 3D, and then start drawing.

Caffeine. Sugar. Cruel and unusual boredom.

Everywhere.

Lately I've been drawing things I've been seeing in my dreams...

Buildings, the butcher who sells special meat... my dreams are highly unusual. They'd probably make a good topic actually.

Steelix

The "Alien" quadrology especially (? wording), Spielberg, Star Wars, Robotech (especially the Sentinels, although most people say that has nothing to do with Robotech).

Writing: Lovecraft, Chrichton (?sp) McKinney, Weiss and Hickman, very distantly Asimov and King.

Just like Steelix, I pretty much derive my inspiration from everywhere. Just leaving my mind open to it and I start creating things from other pop-culture, events in my life, random thoughts, and even those patterns in that horrible wood paneling that some people (i.e. mom and dad) insist on putting up in their houses.

My favorite creations, however, have always created themselves. For example, if I were to design an alien starship, I wouldn't design it at all. I would design the mind/personality of the alien who uses the ship, and tweek it until that alien took on a life of his own. Then I'd let him design the ship.

I haven't been able to create anything since starting my current job, however. 😞

This post has been edited by 6 Degrees : 09 October 2004 - 06:51 PM