[Capt. Fred]

I have a feeling like I'm the only one who thinks so.
None the less, I ask, am I the only one who gets annoyed by the endless obsession people have with tutorials, tutorials, tutorials all the time?!

Why can't people just try things for themselves! learn by doing and all that? "Oh, now I want to draw a mutant dog with horns... Anyone got a link to a 'mutant dog with horns' tutorial?" No! I thought the fun was in learning. Even if you were amazingly talented, you would still get bored if you weren't experimenting and trying new things. The fun must be in the mucking about and experimenting, learning like that. In progression.

And I dunno about you but I like learning for myself, first hand. Like If I wanna draw a really pretty girl, say, I think "I wonder if having a sort of heavy eyelid is more, or less attractive, I wonder if it's better just to have dark eye sockets" or "is having a bulbous forehead gonna make this girl look cutesy? can I make her beautiful with a more receding forhead.. ?" "how can make this girl look beautiful without making the drawing incredibly stylised?" and then I get a pad of paper and try each variation and each thing and see what is like what and think okay, now I know this or that. That's learning and its much more fun than reading a page of text an then wondering why the tutorial progress pics aren't anything like your own. You get a much better understanding of what you're learning if you do it first hand, and you get a more general feel for stuff, plus, it's more fun. Teach yourself, develop as your own.

Sorry to write so much rubbish but, man, If I hear someone ask for another tutorial again ... I'm gonna burst. "how do I draw eye-lashes?" AH!! nooooo! Just, frikkin sit down a figure it out! THINK FOR YOUSELF! don't just think, oh, spooge demon says this so I'll do it. Think WHY he says that, think through why it is more real if you do this instead of that.

I'm not good myself, it's not about skill, having skill isn't the fun bit, it's developing it. I'm pretty bad at this sorta thing, not radical or different, never the less: see above!

Okay. If you don't reply, I'll just dop off the bottom pretty quick. Sorry for wasting your attention. Then again... you might agree.

[Matthew]

I totally agree and that�s why I asked Sumaleth to put up a Tutorial as a sticky cause there are so many questions about tutorials.
I am also one that needs to try out of my own even if I pick influences from here and there.
I read some tutorial about clouds, and sure tutorials gives a hint and good tips about stuff, anyway, I got very confused so I decided to make a whole bunch of landscape sketches instead and try out my own cloud design. And also looking at the sky once or twice also helps.
It should just be a matter of picking a lightsource and choose where the shadows should fall.
And as Andrew Loomis said, -"A perspective can be found in all paintings", or something like that..hehe.

Matthew

[nottoo]

flame bait

[ADoomedMarine]

What's the problem with Tutorials?

When people don't know how to draw (eg. Me) we need tutorials to see how other people accomplish it.

Learn their techniques then slowly you will learn how to draw little things, you can then derive your own version out of them.

Tutorials are there for learning.

[AndyT]

Capt. Fred - The main problem I see is that people think they don't need to learn the basics first.
I guess I'm annoying most people here already but I always write that.
For example recently I wrote:

[Socar MYLES]

Tutorials are best for the most elementary concepts, to help people grasp the basics. More refined (and specific) techniques, I find, are best learned by experience and observation. For example, people ask me all the time to do a cloth tutorial. I write back and say "I already did." Cloth's like any other object: put the shadows and highlights in the right places, and there you go! If you don't think it's that easy, you don't yet have the basics down well enough to paint realistic cloth anyway.

At the moment, I'm learning stuff by more or less blatantly swiping techniques from other artists--nobody living, though. I'm using old-masters pictures to avoid stepping on anyone's toes professionally.
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[Xyster21]

AndyT: Yup.
Everyone tries to take the short road, and some without even knowing how to draw. I am not saying that not knowing how to draw before photoshop is bad... but knowing helps 10x more than if you never picked up a pencil (for drawing). Then they can probably get the basics down in photoshop easier most likely and have fewer questions.
Alot of people seek guidance when they first come on because they aren't confident that they can learn themselves just by fiddling in photoshop. I admit that one or two simple tutorials on how to use photoshop (ie: shortcuts, how to use layers, etc) wouldn't hurt. But people just need to get comfortable with photoshop first or some of these tutorials that people have won't help improve their skills much at all... It just takes alot of time to get everything down well.
Don't tread too deeply in other peoples footprints... try to be original is what I suggest. Besides... sometimes the footprints are too deep to walk in
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[Spiral]

I think that besides learning the basics (which can be learned by tutorials or by practicing on your own) there is a need to share information, experiences and observations. The exmple Capt. Fred gave, what happens if I make a girl with eyelids like this or like that, and how does she turn out when I do this to the eyes and that, is a good example of why experience should be shared. One observes things that someone else doesn't and then when we try someone elses ideas out we may find that it works perfectly for us or we may also think of new stuff or finally reject it totally. Evidently, all this is good instead of each one of us going through all the "steps" if you will. If this sharing of info could be called a tutorial then I welcome it but I must agree that things like "drawing a mutant dog with horns" tutorial (that was funny BTW) is a little over the top.

[Frog]

When I wrote a tutorial for 3dfestival about photorealistic painting I basically wrote about the things which I though were important, ie general principles rather than specifics such as "to draw x object photorealistcally you must paint with green in a clockwise manner" or whatever.

I emphasized the need for accuracy and for careful observation, I referred to "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" for getting the basics and I made some general comments on technique such as my preference for hard brushes, and how to achieve glazes in Photoshop etc... This was the only way I could explain what's needed to achieve the results that I did - basic drawing and painting fundamentals.

The end result was of course that many people complained, they thought my tutorial was pants because I didn't show them how to copy my picture step-by-step, and that the concepts I was discussing were too difficult for newbies. The truth is that a step-by-step is useless if you don't understand what is going on behind the steps, you learn nothing if you don't learn general principles. A tutorial is good if it illustrates some fundamental principle, but without that backbone it has nothing to teach.[/i]
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[see]

Damn what do you think who you are man?

If something is allready done why should others spend time on trying out?
It's like in sport. When you start you have no idee about technic stuff. e.g. so you need a coach which pulls you forward. Cause he allready knows what its's all about. What you must take care off and what comes by time.

I cannot unterstand you Frog. I mean im from Austria. And i have "written" tutorials too. But im not sick of any question. It's exactly the point why i have to spent soo much time with things that are already done by some artists here, who think that they should keep the secrets.
That's a stupid idea man.

Tuts help a lot for many growing artists outthere.
And don't think im lazy when asking for tuts or brushes someone uses.

Even Craig finds time to do tuts. He even answers my "stupid" questions.
Steven Garofalo, too.

[Capt. Fred]

Okay, I think the main idea is this: tutorials aren't fundamnetally bad or wrong, it's just that you wanna piant a fish, for instance, it's not gonna help ou or teach you anything of you follow a tutorial that says, "pick colour 200 red, 132 green, 255 blue from the colour picker and setyou brush to a diameter of 2o pixles. Now draw a diagonal line from theleft to corner to jsut past the middle of you screen ? now do a new layer and set it to multiply and fill wit a linear gradient from 0 red, o green, 255 blue to 12 red, 12 green, 255 blue ?" you get what I'm saying.

A tutorial should aim to teach fundamental principlces whihc apply to more than just this particular pictue in that paritucalr instance. the latter kind of tutorial is worhtless. If a tutorial is teaches more underlying things then it makes a 'painting cloth' tutuorial obselete becuase you paint cloth the same way you paint anything else, as someone else has already said.

Some tutorials seem to me to be saying, " in you document window of 300 x 600 pixels, top left pixel black, the next pixel value xR yG zB, the next one aR bG cB" ... etc. The person learns nothing ?

oh SH!T gotta go ...
c'ya

[see]

Yes of course. That sounds like a tut for filterkiddies

But in my case. I need tuts who describe more about technical "tricks" cause it's not only drawing skill you need. That includes brushes , Colors, yeah sometimes Filters.
Generally a collection of ways to get rid of different problems that may happens to many artists.

Its just like those computerfreaks ( yeah me too ) . Some things we do are just easy to handle and to unterstand. Too easy . But whe you work really fast with some shortcuts they completly loose the way.
And then they see the final result, well they are happy but they could not even repeat the first few steps alone.

And the Computerfreaks remain those heros. Cause the know what it's all about. Well ... but in a forum and thats one reason i frequent sijun, its like a family where its absolutly necessary to share knowledge, tricks. Even it,s just the best bruch for clouds to draw. That surely doesn's mean that the same brush still is good for you but you can see what the artist was playing around wiht all the different options.

It's just small steps. But it's more than you can imagen.

Thx for reading along

[Capt. Fred]

Okay, I don't wanna drag this on any more han anyone else, just that I think what brush to use or whatever could be something one discovers for oneself. It's more fun like that. And often better in general. I mean, I know that was only an example, but say you do want a bruah to do clouds, there are only a finite number in the presets paletter: trey 'em all out, ee whihc one YOU LIKE most.. etc.

Anyway. this thread should be left to die now before it gets depresing, argumentative, boring, it's my fault.

[Synista]

Some tutorials are useful. Anatomy and muscles and stuff need to be studied. You can't just try. Stuff like forthshortening and perspective need tutorials.

Coloring doesn't need tuts imo. It's more experimenting. When people rely too much on tuts, they rip the other person's style.

I for one would love to see a good inking tutorial. Because I've tried and tried, but I just can't ink.
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[atomicmonkey]

I agree with some of your comments Capt. Fred.

I think one of the biggest problems though is how the inexperienced people look at tutorials, rather than the tutorials themselves. Good things can be learned from them, of course, but beginners look at them to find out "how to draw clouds". The result is finding pictures on his forum where you can spot something like "hey those clouds look familiar!".

I think the biggest problem is when people would rather look at a tutorial to find out how to draw something than going around their house or looking outside to find the REAL source and learning from that. Tutorials have nothing on studying from life. Many beginners don't realize that.

[phox3z]

I agree with the first post. I really don't understand posts like "how do I make a sig?" I've seen loads of those on other forums...
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[Arc][Pello]

GOD YES!!!! if someone asks me again for a tutorial i will surely point them to this very thread....thankyou Fred
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[Returner]

Of course they wont be a masterpainter after reading a tutorial about how to make a fish, but they will probably learn how to draw a fish nonetheless. And maybe that was all they were looking for in the first place..
They probably think that there is a magic tutorial out there that will make them paint like Sargent or at least like that Mullins guy. That sounds very sad but it is very true.

It's about they having to come to terms with that there are no shortcuts in life and certainly not in art. But many good artists here make tutorials for "how to make a green fish" and that really encourages these newbies that there is a magical tutorial out there no matter how much other people talks about those "fundamentals" and "life drawings" things.

[Impaler]

I'm willing to bet that there are more master classes for real, professional artists as there are beginning classes for noobs-- there's always something to be learned.

Nevertheless, it's annoying to see 200 threads beginning with "How Do I. .. . "

READ BACK A FEW DAYS, OR WEEKS!
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QED, sort of.

[Dr. Bang]

I believe there are a needs for tutorial, but a tutorial that show you the broad important basic of painting (block shapes first, work in details last.....etc) That'll teach them to use their brain, and learn to create more things later on. Specific tutorials only make them become too dependent.

"I WANT TUTORIALZ OF HOW TO PAINT A ROCK ON TOP OF A LEAVE"!!!!!!!!!! !!!
"OKAY I THXN , NOW I WANT PAINT TUTORIAL OF A LEAVES ON TOP OF A ROCK"
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[[666]Flat]

I care alot.
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