I'm starting to draw more from reference, but sometimes I get an odd composition in my head and there's just no way to find a good model from which to draw. For example, I had this idea to draw a scene from Hamlet where Old Hamlet's ghost appears on the ramparts of Elsinore castle, but I wanted the vantage point to be from above, and I wanted to show Horatio and the guards reacting to the sight of the mute spirit. So I thought about climbing on the roof with my camera, and having my kids pose in the driveway, but...nah, there's got to be an easier way.What I really wanted was some software where I could just generate accurate, but simple figures, pose them, and then rotate the scene. Of course, there's Poser, but it's not free, and it's way overbuilt for what I need. I wanted complex functionality (3d human modeling), in a simple, easy-to-learn, free package. I ended up with Daz3d.
This is not a tutorial, just a recommendation. Daz3D was perfect for my needs. I have zero experience with this type of software, but probably an hour after downloading, I had generated 4 figures, posed them, and then rotated my scene for the angle I wanted. I really did it on a slightly extended lunch hour. And when I was done, I looked at the figures and thought, "there is NO WAY I could have gotten the perspective on this right."
So I had my figures; now I needed the ramparts. Again, I didn't need to do anything sophisticated. I just wanted a simple model so I could get the perspective right. This time it was architecture, so I went right to Google Sketchup. Again, free. Again, easy to learn. Again, very powerful under the hood. In a relatively few minutes, I had constructed my ramparts.
I rotated my little piece of Elsinore castle until I had the right angle, and then saved it as a .jpg. I did the same with my humans (and ghost), and then opened both images in GIMP (a free Photoshop knock-off). By adjusting the opacity of the images, I combined them as a 2-layer image, did a little more rotation, and voila, I had my picture composed. Now I could set to drawing, using this as a model.
I really focus on traditional art these days, but sometimes computers are just what you need. It probably took me longer to find the right tools than to use them, so I hope this is a useful recommendation to someone out there.
