putting an ink pen to paper and drawing something is about the most terrifying thing to me (second only to a paintbrush). for that reason, it has been 13 years since i last sketched something. i suspect many painters feel the same way about programming. posting my drawing progress photos here under the #learningToDraw tag, so feel free to mute that one since you're going to see some painful stuff over the next few months. this time, i'm learning from Arthur Guptill's classic book on drawing, "Drawing With Pen and Ink", which has exercises and theory on line art. for practice, one of my favourite subjects is the Ultima VIII: Pagan manual (The Chronicle of Pagan), illustrated with incredible line art by Denis Loubet. the designs have simple geometry, yet are incredibly detailed when it comes to hatching and line work. overthinking is one of my major weaknesses. so today i sketched out the design very quickly in pencil (the outer shape of the parchment and mountains), and then began filling in lines without any preparation or plan. the most fascinating part of drawing is learning how another illustrator's style works (e.g. the implicit rule-like practices they follow as they draw). Loubet's line art is consistently tight, in a way that my hand can't yet manage. his lines start light (usually with a dash or dot), and then become increasingly thick toward the bottom. i'm guessing he was using a brush-pen. i'm using a fountain pen with a 0.5mm tip. it favours lines of consistent thickness, so it produces a less painterly look. my mind/hand doesn't quite know how to produce a straight line, so i get crude wavy lines instead. i suspect real artists feel a need to doodle and sketch wherever they are, just as mathematicians have fun solving equations in the margins. i can't say that i "enjoy" illustration like i do solving a programming problem, but i'm getting something valuable from it, even if i don't know what that feeling is. #drawing #learningToDraw #dosGaming