Dinosaur

Southern Custom · May 5, 2017

No I'm not engraving a T-Rex on a shotgun. I'm thinking more about me.
I noticed the digital art section of the forum today and I've never stopped in till today. After spending some time seeing what is possible with the combination of Pro Create, Ipads, photoshop and other such tools, it reminded me of something I still sorta regret.
When CAD became available to jewelers not so long ago I played around with Rhino but at the time I was also learning to engrave. I realized that either one would take a solid year of work to gain any proficiency so I had to make a choice. Engraving it was.
Now I'm looking at Pro Create etc. the same way. I'm taking a big leap forward this year with some large engraving projects in order to put together requisite material for a master engraver presentation.
Leaves me wondering if I'm once again putting myself at a disadvantage by not embracing and learning all the new technology. Am I the only dinosaur here or is paper and pencil still the predominate means of design?
Just a bit of thinking out loud today.

metalchipper · May 5, 2017

Hello Layne,
I do not have the above latest programs, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop are what I use most. For creating animal scenes, lettering, my watch knife patterns and for transferring patterns they are great to use. But for creating scrolls for me they have not been very useful. Once a smoke pull has been made of a properly hand drawn and engraved design, that can be scanned in Photoshop, cleaned up and inverted [a negative] to make a good transfer pattern.

When I look at the "paintings" on the digital art section--- I too feel like a dinosaur.
So we may both be prehistoric!

SamW · May 5, 2017

When checking into the hotel at a recent FEGA show the lady asked me for my cell phone number. I told her I had a smart phone and that it was so smart it stayed home on the wall where it belongs. After a quick startled look she said she guessed she could call me "old school".

Pencil and paper, camera obscura, acetate transfers and drawing directly onto the prepared metal have worked for me for decades and I am happy with my results.

Besides, I would rather spend all that money the "latest" would cost on old cars, guitar material and my grandson...not necessarily in that order.

RDP · May 5, 2017

Layne,
I just do this as a hobby and do not understand 99% per cent of my IPad, but using Procreate has made my drawing experience 100 times better, you
have just seen my results, what would and has taking me hours to draw/erase/change/adjust/copy/duplicate/etc... it now only takes me minutes, and for me made it easier to lay out the shading as well, I think the pressure sensitive pencil and tapered lines is the best thing to get an idea of what the finish design is going to look like and it all fits in the one thing, no different size pencils/erasers/sketch pads, sometimes I still use Illustrator, Corel draw, Ulead photo impact(that's an oldie), and will still need them to resize the design for transfer, (I am sure that will be incorporated in Procreate in future), and I am not very good with any them, with Procreate is a breeze, and is not much of a learning curve, you won't regret it.

Richard.

Southern Custom · May 5, 2017

Sam, you are my hero. No phone? My hat goes off to you. I can still hear the sound of the rotary dial. Things moved slower back then but is that necessarily a bad thing? I think not. I miss my old aluminum percolator but I did enjoy my one minute microwave beans today.
As for drawing, I use a lot of paper, a big light box and good pencils.

Southern Custom · May 5, 2017

Sam, you are my hero. No phone? My hat goes off to you. I can still hear the sound of the rotary dial. Things moved slower back then but is that necessarily a bad thing? I think not. I miss my old aluminum percolator but I did enjoy my one minute microwave beans today.
As for drawing, I use a lot of paper, a big light box and good pencils.

mitch · May 6, 2017

my relationship with computers is contentious to outright combative on my best days, so its use is limited to laying out lettering and some basic scanning & refining of images, then printing transfers. even my 'smartphone' is a long obsolete iPhone 4S that could quite likely be the single most underutilized device of its kind. i call, text, take photos and very rarely anything else.

pmace · May 6, 2017

I'm just starting out so I have no history of doing pencil drawings. I started doing pencil work but found it a pain because I spent more time erasing than drawing. The i-pad with Procreate is awesome and Illustrator with a Wacom display tablet is even better. Electronics are tools just like pneumatic engravers and power hones. If you are in business and the more you do the more you earn it's a no-brainer. If it's a hobby then it's all a matter of what you want to do.

Dani Girl · May 7, 2017

Southern Custom, that would make me a 26yr old dinosaur. I have some high tech drawing gear sitting beside me which I bought from my brother when he upgraded. I've tried to use it a couple of times, but I love my pencil. I don't know how you could think you're alone on a forum like this.

Julia.J · May 8, 2017

I use both, so guess I'm not a dinosaur, but a chicken

Were it the latest technology or the plain old pencil and paper, both are on the same line for being just tools. True, some are more fancier tools than others, but if one doesn't have the skills to use them, these gadgets can become extremely expensive and often useless. I noticed a strange phenomenon years ago, when working with a specific sepia toned pencil and then shared a WIP with others: people wanted to buy the exact same pencil, because they thought that if they use the same one, they'll be able to do what I do. They linked the tool to the skill. Same thing happens with digital, people buy a drawing tablet/iPad thinking that the tool must have the skill inserted into the hardware, because they see what can be done with ease and in no time at all. My point is: your mind is what matters, your hands are the most important tools you have and everything else is just a way to express yourself.
Embrace the old and the new, everything can be combined.

~Julia

Sam · May 8, 2017

I'm old and new school. I love 'em both. Drawing on the iPad is an exhilarating experience and I love it and do it every day.

To answer your question, no, you are not putting yourself at a disadvantage by not drawing digitally. If all of my tech was gone in an instant, I can still draw on paper or directly on the workpiece. And engrave by hammer & chisel if I have to.

Fred Bowen · May 8, 2017

Just call me Fuddosaurus.

Dinosaur

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