Serious artistic help needed!!!

Divine

Hey thanks for reading this. I'm a 3rd year student doing Computing with multimedia and for our Interactive Multimedia course we are being made to create a multimedia package which teaches the user how to surf, as in water surf.

Now i have completed the first stage of the project which entails us to come up with a list of steps in the learning of surfing and the add definations. Now as for part two we have to create a storyboard with drawings and all that to match each step. Trouble is i am completly brutal at drawing and i really need help.
Now i am not looking for an easy way out before anyone says it, its just that i cannot draw to save my life. If it were all writing i would love it but unfortunately it is not.

So if anyone has any advice on what i could do, or if anyone knows where on he net i might find some storyboards for this sorf of thing, or if some charitable artist feels like helping me out, i would be most grateful.

Apolagies if i have put this thread into the wrong section but i did not really know where else to put it.

Thanks!!!

PrecariousNuts

Would love to help, just post exactly what your steps are and I'll give it a shot. Are you looking for comic book style ones or manipulated pictures of people surfing?

Was just looking at those pics in your sig and ironically I thought I saw an artists easel in the background of the first one.

Divine

Oh man your surely gonna save my life (and my degree). ok il give you the steps here and i need a picture for each one....oh yeah thats one of those sort of big pads that lecturers use as a blackboard sometimes, Vascopads or something like that.

Short Board ****need drawing of shortboard about 6 foot 6 inches with possible man standing beside it****
Longboard ****need drawing of Longboard about 8 foot 4 inches with possible man standing beside it****

Wax: Essential for grip on the surfboard
Comes in a bar like soap
****Possibly a man rubbing wax onto a shortboard****
To clean off the wax, leave the board in the sun for a couple of hours to let wax melt. Then using a sharp plastic object or a wax comb, scrap off the old wax before applying new layer.
****However you can protray that yourself****

Flat paddle
*****just need a drawing of man out on open sea, nice calm day paddling away casually****

Safety

Safety:Never surf alone
Never surf after eating.
Never surf when tired
Never stay out too long
Never paddle too far out to sea
Never surf in unknown places
Check with lifeguards if possible
Never surf waves that are too big for you
Respect the ocean!!!
****For those if you could just draw a picture of each one and then maybe a red bold line going through each picture.


Rules

Rules: Never ever drop in on someone’s wave. If you and someone else go for the same wave and the other person gets to his feet first, then you must pull back from the wave. It is really the only rule in surfing and is taken very seriously.
****Same applies as with safety****


Dry Surfing
Lie board on sand.
Place yourself on board as you did in the water. Start going through the actions of paddling.
Grab each side of the board with both hands at the spot where it is inline with your neck
Push yourself up as if you were doing a press up. At the same time pull your legs up until your feet are at the centre of the board
Slide your left foot up to the front of the board and your right foot to the back
Stand up, letting go off the board with your hands
Move feet slightly until you have found a good centre of balance
Keep knees bent at all times
****sort of need a drawing for each of these steps (all done on shortboard****

Once you have gotten used to and got confident on the board it is time for a rough paddle. Follow along the same lines as a flat paddle only this time in rough choppy water so you will get used to being thrown about in rough choppy water as this is about to happen you a lot.
****Need drawing of man out paddling in rough waters****

Head out to small surf where waves have already broken
Face shore on board
When wave approaches, start paddling towards the shore
****need pictures of each step, show man paddling...wave catching him.....man in process of standing up and man standing up****

Wipeouts
Once you feel your balance going, simply fall backwards off the board.
Put both hands behind you head and keep them there.
While in the air, take a quick look out to see for any incoming surfers on waves so you will know how long to stay under for.
Take a deep breath before you hit the water.
Once you go under the surface of the water wait a couple of seconds, thus allowing your board to pass over you.
When coming back up to the surface, keep hands over head the whole time for protection.
****just need a drawing of a man falling towards the sea and then of one coming up with his hands around his head and board floating nearby****

Comic book style would be perfect but dont do them too advanced if you know what i mean. I'm really grateful for this, i know its rather long but any help would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah i dont mean to sound pushy or anything but when around would you be nearing completion of it do you think. And images have to be small, say 200 pixels by 200 pixels. Cant tell ya how grateful i am man, cheers!

PrecariousNuts

Wow, didn't expect a post that long. I'll give it a good shot and see what I come up with. You do need a lot of stuff so I could get most of it done over the weekend don't have a huge amount of time myself during the week.

Haven't a clue how to draw an aero board or fibre glass surfboard so you might want to get proper pictures of them yourself.

The surf safety ones should be easy to google.

The rest shouldn't be too hard anyway.

Cake Fiend

Why do you need to draw it? Are you sure you can't use photos or computer-drawn images? I don't see why a Computing and Multimedia course should be examining your hand-drawing ability, you might want to talk to your lecturer to see whether you're going to be marked on artistic talent or not.

I can't draw a straight line with my hand (although set me in front of Flash or PSP and I can at least produce something vaguely presentable) and if I were asked to draw something for a computer-related course and told I was going to be marked on it, I'd be venting my anger on some lecturer/coordinator.

PrecariousNuts

oh. I'm confused now. Do you need hand drawn storyboards or images to accompany the text i.e for a website? Website images I can do, but hand drawn ones you really should be able to do yourself.

Anyway, I gave it a quick try to see how it would turn out and came up with this:

www.blisteringpeanut.com/images/surfingstanding.jpg

Victor

Originally posted by Sico
if I were asked to draw something for a computer-related course and told I was going to be marked on it, I'd be venting my anger on some lecturer/coordinator.

But if you are in front of a client, you may need to be able to hand sketch stuff.

One thing you might try doing is getting grid paper (like graph paper, but with a 5mm grid). It means you can draw straight lines where appropriate with relative ease. Also use a soft pencil.

Divine

Oh PrecariousNuts that is just perfect that is really truly amazing i wish i could do that, yeah its exactly what im looking for except i need each one to match the steps. Thats great work though although without trying to tell you what to do but would it be possible to do them of poorer quality than that, see my lecturer knows im not the greatest drawer so i dont want her to see that someone else done them for me but keep up the good work and thanks again.

As for Sico, we were 'advised' by our lecturer to hand draw and this is my diploma year i am in now so i want my grades to be good. Also i need a good overall grade to go onto the degree year as i plan to do a masters in VB or Web Development so it has to be all good.

And Victor i considered what you said but i dont see how that will be of any help to me when i am trying to draw a person going through the stages of standing up on a surf board.

Thanks All!!

Victor

How about signing up for a short, say, 6 week life drawing course?

RicardoSmith

A professional would photograph someone in all of the poses then either scan them in and trace over them on the computer, or trace over them using a light box and go from there. Another alternative would be to use a program called poser which has a 3D mannequin. Pose the model in the positions you want render them out and then using a Paint Shop Pro or photoshop drop them into a suitable background. Poser was free on some magazines lately. The last thing a professional would do is handdraw them as it would take too long. They'd fudge it and make it look like it was handdrawn. Even though it wasn't. Even animators use light boxes and basically trace most of their work. You'd be insane not to do that. For your purposes if I was you I'd trace them badly. Would look more convincing. In my old college we used to reverse engineer our sketches from the finished artwork all the time. Pull a load of sport (surf?) magazines together and you are bound to get all the photos you need. Use that as reference material.

Where does a masters in VB or Web Development BTW?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Victor
How about signing up for a short, say, 6 week life drawing course?

With respect life drawing is really hard. Some people do it for years and still can't get it right. I don't think doing a course (apart from it being expensive) is going to help speed up the project.

Divine

Naw man i'm not going to be doing one of those drawing courses, i just would'nt have the time or anything like that....dont know where they do the masters in those subjects just persumed you could more or less do them anywhere, is that not so?

Divine

Hey PrecariousNuts hows it goin man, just wondering how you were getting along with the drawings, if you were still doing them and all, anyway keep in touch yeah

cheers...

PrecariousNuts

Just finished doing these few, took an hour or two



**falling off board**



**getting ready to stand**



**paddling**



**paddling in rough water**



**resufacing after falling**



**surfing**

DeVore

This might have been better in the Art board. You might think about checking in there, there are some experienced artists there too.

Nice pics though.

Dev.

RicardoSmith

Nice pics

CuLT

Nice pics indeed.

It doesn't really fall under "Pix'n'Mix", but Precarious Nuts had already committed before I saw the thread so I left it.

Divine

Oh man they are seriously amazing pictures, how can i ever repay you. Thanks very much indeed youve really saved my bacon, thanks very much man, thank you very much.