The chaotic nature of art making

Making Of / 05 May 2020



In this blog post I'd like to share some thoughts I had while creating my latest work. It proved to be, once again, a lot more chaotic than expected.

Retrospectively it's easier to see how the whole thing only resembles linearity and all I really had was an understading of an intention to create the artwork in question. Everything else is just a big drama.

Even before starting this project I knew the process would look something like this:

Intention > sculpting > hair modelling > shading > lighting > rendering > editing

This seemingly linearity is misleading and clearly seen through when breaking each step down even further. I found myself going back and forth between 'steps' so many times that I even questioned if I knew anything at all. Human culture unintentionally makes us believe that it's all about the steps. It sells really well. How is everyone doing it but me?

This dichotomy of planning and action brings me back to the fact of the limited human perspective on all things and it reminds me of this passage of a great book by Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time:

The idea that a well-defined now exists throughout the universe is an illusion, an illegitimate extrapolation of our own experience.

And later on when the author talks about Ludwig Boltzmann:  

The notion of “particularity” is born only at the moment we begin to see the universe in a blurred and approximate way. Boltzmann has shown that entropy exists because we describe the world in a blurred fashion. He has demonstrated that entropy is precisely the quantity that counts how many are the different configurations that our blurred vision does not distinguish between. Heat, entropy, and the lower entropy of the past are notions that belong to an approximate, statistical description of nature.

... entropy, as Boltzmann fully understood, is nothing other than the number of microscopic states that our blurred vision of the world fails to distinguish.

"Extrapolation of our own experience". Damn...

Anyway, this is perfectly stated and it says so much about what we call personal experience. The way it all relates back to art making, to me, is that I can't really explain how one step follows another in my own real-time experience. I extrapolate my experience by the use of language thus creating layers of concepts and layers of unquestioned assumptions about everything. All I have is a blurry view of the whole thing as it happens.

I always wonder how the tiniest of self-correcting mechanism takes place when sculpting say a small area of the human ear: how in the fuck, even though I am aware of things like shape hierarchy and shape flow, my hand is not moving a tenth of an inch to either side. The instant-to-instant feedback feels so fast and natural that I find no place to put any more intention than to when nature calls and you just have to get up or when waking up in the morning. 

Techniques, rules, experiences are nothing but blurry reflections of that which has acted on our nervous system in the past. By taking it even further "stuff" is no longer "stuff" and not even causation makes sense anymore. It all just seems to happen, through the chaos.

Explaining things only serve the purpose of sharing some sort of coherent information so to help others or fulfilling some kind of need of approval. All these false beliefs puts us further away from the natural flow of meaningful art creation. In reality, it is more like letting go of a rock from the edge of a cliff and seeing where it lands, but then the paradox: you didn't even take the rock up there yourself.


I will leave it at that for now and hopefully you will understand what I'm saying here by watching the making of video:



Links
My artwork: Terence Mckenna Tribute
Terrence Mckenna Technical shots
Book: The Order of Time
Store: My online course on sculpting and more
My instagram

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My first online course

News / 10 December 2019

Now I know why people just record their damn screen and upload the raw video as a time-lapse or something.
It is so much f* easier! Anyway, I finally finished it. That is a victory already.

So if you are willing to make this victory even sweeter and (hopefully) learn something along the way, please have a look at it and let me know what you think.

You can find all the information in here:
https://fabiopaiva.artstation.com/store


Thank you!

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Why you can't improve yourself

Article / 17 July 2019

Introduction

I am not good at many things but life led me to be obsessed with a few topics. Nowadays these are sculpting, drawing, aesthetics, health and learning in general. In other words: how and what do I study, how do I learn anything, how can I make something more appealing and why thinking about all this makes me anxious. I tend to have a not so common point of view because it's partially scientific and partially spiritual (for lack of a better word).

The "how to improve" conversation usually splits people into three groups:
- those who believe in motivation, or, I should wait until I feel a certain way.
- those who believe in dedication, or, No matter what I feel I will do it anyway because I can choose to.
- those who believe that you should shut up and do the work, or, I am in control regardless of the circumstances.

The problem with those three assumptions is that they share the same basic underlying premise, especially the last two: there's an agent turning the wheels, and whoever is incapable of doing what is right is blameworthy.

So whether these assumptions are valid or not I just want to present another way of looking at things that may seem quite alien and counterintuitive to many. I do not necessarily intend to convince you of anything here, or argue a point. Rather, it's best to simply let these ideas roll around in your mind for a while and consider their implications.


The impossible task

Improve yourself! What an impossible task we've been given. In psychology, this kind of contradictory objective is what is called a double-bind. This is how wikipedia describes it:

A double bind is an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one negating the other.

We are all so involved in it that we are not even aware of its contradictions. Any objective which imposes a forced expression of an involuntary behaviour is a double-bind. Consider the following: "You must get hungry" or "You must love me" or "You must, at this very moment, sculpt something that is totally out of all your life experiences and that you have never seen before...". You got the point.

Take a moment to wonder what your world-view is. And then ponder on some questions that may seem to have an obvious answer, such as: Why do I choose what I choose? At which point this feeling of agency stops and I feel like I am no longer in control of things? So on...

There are obvious places where we can draw a line, right? Say you can move your body if you want to, but you can't control what each muscle fiber is doing. But... are you really doing the former? If we are really true to ourselves, we will realize that thoughts or even words simply arise unauthored and then fade out as unexpected as they came. It's a big claim, but one that anyone can realize.

Virtually everything we think and do are culturally biased and as such another basic aspect of human society is the allocation of blame and praise. This idea of agency is the base of our justice system and also reinforces social rankings and hierarchies and a strong feeling against people's actions. By imagining that individuals could have done differently, the illusion of choice was created. The reality is, however, that all this reasoning is just a complex attempt to cover up the basic reality that no one has any clue as to why or how they do what they do. The feeling we can willfully control anything is a social hoax and not physical reality.


The current state of affairs

The difficulty in accepting this is mainly psychological. Given our western culture and bias towards a rational arrangement of things, we tend to ignore our inconceivable connected existence and how inseparable we are from it. Our culture tells us that human success is how much rational control we can apply over our environment and so it is damaging to admit how absolutely reliant to it we actually are. We are not only a part of it, but we are fundamental to it.

To help illustrate this idea, here are a few quotes from Robert Sapolsky's great book "Behave - The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst":

(...) human social behavior (...)  a subject involving brain chemistry, hormones, sensory cues, prenatal environment, early experience, genes, both biological and cultural evolution, and ecological pressures, among other things.

(...) What features of the environment in the prior weeks to years changed the structure and function of that person’s brain and thus changed how it responded to those hormones and environmental stimuli?

(...) What happened one second before the behavior that caused it to occur? This puts us in the realm of neurobiology, of understanding the brain that commanded those muscles. What happened an hour, a decade, a million years earlier? What happened were factors that impacted the brain and the behavior it produced.

When pondering over the above questions, I hope it's clear to most people that the answers to them won't be far from the questions themselves. Do you imagine the answer to be a huge no-no, from a completely different point of view or explanation to what que questions are implying?

By asking the wrong questions you will most likely end up getting wrong answers.

The general public opinion is that only some mechanisms (bodily functions, for instance) are out of conscious control but the really complex ones, which require planning and long term thinking are within a whole different realm: IT IS I THAT DID THIS!!!


And yet, what every research and scientific knowledge is pointing to is that motor skills, thinking patterns, short term goals or long term life decisions are functioning under the same rules. They may differ in energy pathways, neural connections and complexity, but either way, it leaves no room for this "something else", unity or center to force the bodily and universal mechanism to change its inner workings. No matter how hard or extreme the turn, shouldn't it be still following the same mechanisms? At which point would the mechanism pause for this "something else" to take control?

What we are doing, at any point, is exactly what we are capable of doing at that very moment, given preexisting experiences. Saying it's a struggle, or that was different in the past, or blaming who can't do it does not change how things came to be. We are like a car indicator claiming "I did it!" after the car turns.

So, my current view is: no lines are drawn, no choice, no effort, no intentions, no motivation, no dedication. These are all just stories, disconnected from what's actually happening.


Now what?

It is apparent that we cannot try to do something that happens spontaneously. The self that you think must be improved is exactly the same self which is doing the improving. The actual attempt to improve yourself will only put you in a state of frustration and anxiety. The trick is to just do the thing that you enjoy or interests you the most right now.

It seems paradoxical but it's just a change in the mindset that goes basically as follows:
You clicked on this blog post for whatever reason and it kept you engaged up to this point. Logical thinking, knowledge of the english language and prior experiences are now creating a new environment in the mind that will make beliefs and behavior to shift and change over time based on this new information. You will eventually unnoticeably start thinking new thoughts built up from all this new information. So on and so forth.

In the same way, art related content are constantly being digested by our senses, which in turn is driving wills, tastes and wants to new places. The more we digest it, the bigger the outcome. Every system, idea, program, school, workshop, tutorials, etc, are just ways to optimize learning. It is happening constantly, at different rates.

The changes are already happening. Even the underlying rule of this article to keep the "I must improve my self because..." reasoning out of the loop will find its way back into your thinking patterns and behaviour. This is a self-fulfilling plan. A new mind loop.

Health

Based on what I have written so far, allow me to plant a new seed into your mind. Positive health attitudes may have a bigger impact on who we are and what we do than one might think. It's not only about being able to perform better at any given task but instead having things that will completely change behaviour outcome based on what we ate or didn't eat, or how tired or alert we feel, etc.

A couple more quotes from Sapolsky's book: 

(...) One example concerns how much the frontal cortex has to do with willpower (...) when the frontal cortex labors hard on some cognitive task, immediately afterward individuals are more aggressive and less empathic, charitable, and honest.

(...) Moreover, when people are hungry, they become less charitable and more aggressive (e.g., choosing more severe punishment for an opponent in a game).

(...)Thus, sensory information streaming toward your brain from both the outside world and your body can rapidly, powerfully, and automatically alter behavior.

In short, the point is not to get into details about health and fitness. These are only basic questions that can help paint a different reality of how things work and change our prejudice against others. 

Furthermore, there are dozens of internal bodily imbalances that can change people's:
- sleeping behaviour
- energy levels
- subjective feeling of: willpower, dedication and motivation
- learning abilities
- ability to chose
- moral values, etc..

Now, try to feel your deepest belief. Is it that "you" can change anything, based on an unchanging and fixed willpower, that's totally unaffected by everything else?

If that's the case, then the outcome will probably be different from what I am implying here. But if what I am writing connects to you in some way, beliefs will shift and changes will come quickly. Just more food for thought.

Over time, these ideas made me realize, feel and do things in a different way: the actual daily learning routine, feelings of effort, expectations, source of inspiration, better attention to sculptural forms, a more constant and steady learning curve, new-found patience to do things that I felt were boring before and most importantly: less anxiety.


Conclusion

It's obvious that I touched upon many non-art related subjects: philosophy, culture, health, moral relativism, and many others, but it's hard not to do so with such a huge topic. Apologies for not providing an in-depth knowledge on every subject.

I will probably extend this topic in the future as a new article, but then focusing only on the actual sculpting task and form development. Consider this a long needed introduction, because my current approach was born out of this. So please let me know you if this interests you in some way.

My only hope is that you learned something new and that these ideas will lead you to even weirder ones.

-


Without unnecessary resistance, you will naturally improve anyway. Mastery of any skill happens in this way.  Interest comes first, improvement second. 

Everything else is just noise. Strange, beautiful and inexplicable noise.





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Anatomy Contest - Winners and afterthoughts

News / 11 May 2019

It didn’t take too long for me to realize that even a simple contest like this requires quite an effort to make sure it all workes well. Even with all the notes and thinking behind some mistakes were made, and so some changes we necessary.

This is a sculpting contest first and foremost but also an excuse for me to help others, therefore I picked two winners who got the prize as stated before AND I also picked three more people who I felt like would benefit from the sculpt-over video. The likes count was not a criteria after all.

A few small changes for the better… I hope :)

Here are the two winners, who got my Bundle product + sculpt-over video:
@jackson.christian_
@markymarks_

Here are the three honorable mentions, who got the sculpt-over video only:
@sinanayyorgun
@joangrassot
@Dcastroart

A big thank you to everyone that took their time to get involved!!

Here's the final video, after trying to save one model at a time #saving3dworld:


Please visit my instagram for more updates:
https://www.instagram.com/fabiopaivart


Here are the links to the time-lapse videos that inspired this contest:
https://fabiopaiva.artstation.com/store
https://gumroad.com/fabiopaiva

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Anatomy Contest

News / 29 April 2019



It's mostly an excuse for people to study and maybe get some free stuff in the process, so I hope you join it and have fun.

 

Please follow all of these steps to compete:

  1. Follow me on instagram: @fabiopaivart
  2. Like this instagram promotion post
  3. Sculpt a human nose OR eyes OR mouth OR ear (using any 3D software)
  4. Post your work on instagram and tag me: @fabiopaivart
  5. Use the hashtag: #saving3dworld
  6. Read the rules!!!

 

Rules:

  1. Prizes: a copy of "Human Head time-lapse Bundle" from my artstation store PLUS a time-lapse sculpt-over of your submitted model done by me.
  2. Duration: ends on 07/may/2019 (around a week to finish)
  3. Who: anyone can do it
  4. 2 (two) winners will be chosen based on instagram likes and my own judgement.
  5. Once the winners are picked, I will personally get in touch so we can find the best way to transfer files, etc.
  6. By entering this contest you agree that I can use your submitted model and the video correction to promote my product, etc.

***This contest is not sponsored by or associated with Instagram or Artstation in any way***


Links:

My instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabiopaivart
Artstation store: https://fabiopaiva.artstation.com/store
Gumroad store: https://gumroad.com/fabiopaiva



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Thoughts on sculpting

Article / 10 March 2018

As artists, we are trying to explain life; to give it meaning and purpose. My intent with this article is to share some insights and my own mindset when sculpting. My main tool of choice is ZBrush, but the same ideas can be applied to other methods: clay sculpting, VR sculpting, drawing, etc.
I neglected drawing for a long time, but its importance and benefits become apparent once you start this lifelong project. Since I will also be quoting Edouard Lanteri to a potentially shameful degree, let me begin by sharing his thoughts on this:


...and as Drawing is the principal foundation of Sculpture, and a good sculptural work depends largely on good drawing, the student should draw as much as, if not more than, a student of painting.


I won't be discussing drawing from this point on, but this quote illustrates well that time invested  in drawing is never time wasted.
There are no secrets when it comes to learning a new skill: it requires enough repetition until it becomes second nature. Noticing new forms and being able to interpret the shapes are essential skills to be learned but will usually come with daily sculpting and drawing practice. The method by which you learn these skills doesn't really matter, as long as you practice frequently and try to challenge yourself once the current task becomes too easy.
Our brain has a particular and astonishing way of dealing with the learning process, as Sam Harris points out in one of his books, Waking Up: 


Many other findings attest to the importance of our unconscious mental lives. Amnesiacs, who can no longer form conscious memories, can still improve their performance on a wide variety of tasks through practice. For instance, a person can learn to play golf with increasing proficiency, all the while believing that whenever she picks up a club it is for the first time. The acquisition of such motor skills occurs outside of consciousness in normal people as well. Your conscious memories of practicing a musical instrument, driving a car, or tying your shoelaces are neurologically distinct from your learning how to do these things and from your knowing how to do them now. People with amnesia can even learn new facts and have their ability to recognize names and generate concepts improve in response to prior exposure, without having any memory of acquiring such knowledge. In fact, we are all in this position with respect to most of our semantic knowledge of the world. Do you remember learning the meaning of the word door?

The ideas presented here may only be shortcuts to an unavoidable end (in this case, of learning how to create good forms) once we put ourselves on this path.


Dealing with forms

In a known language, words will be read and understood at the moment we bring our eyes to them; when listened to, sentences will make sense prior to our awareness; and our names, when heard, will activate the middle frontal cortex, providing evidence that hearing one’s own name has unique brain functioning activation in relation to the names of others (Dennis P. Carmody and Michael Lewis, 2006). Something similarly automatic, I argue, must be happening, without our conscious awareness, while we navigate through the landscape of shapes, forms, and lines.

Gestalt psychology is a philosophy that theorizes about the way in which the brain behaves while perceiving forms and images. The Gestalt principle can provide a glimpse into the similarities of people’s unconscious reasoning when it comes to experiencing, amongst other things, the effect of light on shapes without explaining why or how it happens. This concept has been criticized for “being descriptive of the end products of perception without providing much insight into the processes that lead to perception” (Wikipedia). However, this is arguably irrelevant as, subjectively, we are capable of noticing how our brain is, but not limited to, a pattern-recognition machine. This is something to be experienced in the laboratory of our minds.

While these principles may not translate directly to the anatomy or sculpting practice, this is not the point here. My claim is that we don’t have the ability to realize what is happening beyond our awareness when we find something to be beautiful or appealing. We just do. But there is a line to be found somewhere, or else we would just feel the same way about everything we see. In being aware of these aspects of the human mind, we can behave in a way that is closer to reality and allow this behaviour to guide the choices of what to do next.

Consequently, in order to actually apply this knowledge and make better choices when it comes to creating shapes or forms on a figure, it is crucial to understand that perfect anatomy is not the most important aspect. If perfect anatomy becomes the ultimate goal, a sculptor may lose sight of what truly makes a figure look good.

The focus should instead be on the gesture of the figure and on the relationship between the forms; this is a skill that live models can help you grasp and develop. I am not arguing that anatomy isn’t important, and I hope you won’t neglect this practice, but it isn’t what the brain is drawn to at first glance. 

Knowledge of anatomy will always be a reminder of what is happening under the skin and what may or may not be possible in this world. It will also provide you with the tools to bend reality in a suitable way, but it won’t work on its own. As brilliantly defined by Edouard Lanteri:

Anatomy teaches you the general laws of the human form, whilst the living model shows you the same laws applied, and modified by individual characteristics.

Moreover, I don’t believe that what has been described so far repudiates the notions that “just letting your mind flow” or “just using your feelings” are the best ways to approach artistic expression. We must follow a learning process at the beginning so that later on we can let go of a few concepts in order to be as expressive as possible. Even the British artist Stephen Wiltshire, who can draw beautifully detailed panoramas from memory, had to actively study and practice in his early years (although most likely not as much as the vast majority of us, since he was born with a unique mind and memory capacity). In short, no matter where we find ourselves on this spectrum, the inner workings of our perception machinery will always be beyond our control, leaving us with the only option of having a felt sense of the results of it all.


Sculpt development

Once again, Lanteri has thoughtful words to define the importance of the first stages of development:

The more care you spend on this preparatory labour, the less you will feel that uncertainty which is so apt to discourage one, and to destroy one’s interest in the model.

One way to achieve this is to consider the following two big concepts or ideas while developing a figure. These explanations are similar to the way the painter Steve Huston explains them in his thinking process:

Gesture

Gesture is the relationship between parts and is also the most important aspect of the sculpt. It’s where the story begins and where the beauty comes from; all the nuances of life are born here. Keep in mind that anything that is added after the gesture will usually work against it, so make sure you overdo the curves a bit at first.

Structure

Structure is what is happening between the joints and it is best to keep it simple in the beginning. For instance, when sculpting a leg it is easier to create a cylinder or two first. By making it simple we have control over it and the design can be changed later on, giving it a different quality.

With drawing, we can usually start with light curves to define the gesture and, once settled, draw a simple structure on top of it. From there, develop the shape itself, add more details, and so on.

The sculpting principles are similar. Start with simple and manageable shapes and add details from there. The doing will become easier the more you can see things. Hopefully it will become clearer with the following example.


Sculpt example

1. The only idea I have at first is that I wanted to make the model off the ground, almost as if it was floating in space. And if a feeling of anguish is something that appears in my consciousness at this moment, this is now part of the idea and I will go with it. From here on, I know a wide open posture is something I will avoid.

With this idea in mind, I am using simple shapes to create the gesture and develop this initial vision. Notice that I am further developing the structure where needed (the torso for instance). If it helps, you can also cut the model into more pieces or make it even more geometrical: anything that helps the brain to see and feel the gesture and forms will do. Any changes to the gesture are easy to do, so spend as much time as possible here since this is the stage from which everything will be derived.

Keep in mind that this is not a production asset, so the approach is mostly artistic with little regard to the tools being used.




2. While still working with separate shapes, I am trying to feel the pose so I can find tension areas and landmarks. Rotate, scale, and move parts as needed to make it proportional and pleasing to the eye. There are also hints of the design and the look of the anatomy that I am aiming for. This is a good stage to decide what style you want to give it. In this case, I know I want a stylized look but with a realistic foundation. I won’t be too subtle when establishing it so that I can then push the forms as much as I can. If any problem arises with regard to the anatomy, I always look at references while trying not to go too aggressive with it yet. Keep it clean so that you can actually see the simple shapes first.



3. No figure is complete without hands as they will greatly influence the overall feeling of the model. There is no real reason as to why I just added them now, but if I had to find one it could be that I wanted to give their pose extra care and it wouldn’t have been as quick to get to this stage if I had spent the time working on them. From here on, only small changes will happen regarding the pose itself. Looking from all possible angles (not only the “final image” angle) will make the piece look better as a whole.



4. Separate parts are still being used, but since they can become a problem where they meet each other, I am merging some of them. Now I have only five to work with: two legs, two arms, and a torso with the head. I did this only because larger changes are not happening anymore. I feel comfortable with where this is going, so it is safe to merge them and keep working on it. 

I am using a lot of photo references during the whole process, and I even took some pictures of myself to help me visualise things. The translation to the 3D shapes is up to you, but using references is always required.

Try not to copy exactly what you are seeing or else the shapes won’t connect beautifully. We should instead study the references, find the things that are pleasing, and apply it based on our specific model. It also means having an understanding of the underlying anatomy forms, so you are not just replicating surface lines that don’t mean anything. This is how you make sure that you are heading in the right direction, even if your current skill level is not well developed yet.



5. I am constantly and patiently working on it, bit by bit, part by part. Several small changes are done, but the gesture is kept the same. Hair and a beard are added and hopefully the amount of noise on them is enough as an addition to the overall character. I am also not worried about high frequency skin detail, as this is not the intention of this piece.

In order to be as clean as possible (although not actually needed for a practice model), ZRemesher is used on each individual part so they can all be merged and welded together in Maya. Mesh projection and cleanup are required in ZBrush after this.

This is the final model, as it gave me enough room for improvement and, of course, fun and enjoyment. I have no need to go any further, but I will just render it properly for a better presentation.


Final render


Conclusion

I am aware that this thought process may not work for everyone but hopefully these words will help you develop your sculpting skills in some way, and in time you will be able to see and feel the forms, shapes, and volumes of anatomy with ease. 

I am in no way done with learning and practicing—even during the creation of this article and model I was able to notice things and make decisions that were not available to me in the past. We are all constantly learning.


I would like to thank my friend, Janine Sziklasi, for helping me with the grammar and text corrections.





Links

Edouard Lanteri book

Sam Harris book

Brain Activation Scientific Paper

Further reading: The-Scientist Neuroaesthetics



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