It seems that I have a bunch of friends who do not know what I'm actually doing or can't differentiate between 2D and 3D digital arts, especially my lui-bing-mui-mui (clumsy little sister). In this post, I will explain the things that I'm doing right now and will be doing in the future.

The field I'm studying right now or I'm going to venture has strong connection to what we call "digital arts". Rather calling it "connection", you can say what I'm doing are exactly digital arts. The term "digital arts" is referring to artworks done digitally in both 2D and 3D form. IF you do not get what "digital" means, basically just imagine artworks done in computer, that's "digital art".

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For 2D arts, there are "vector" and "bitmap" art. I won't go into details about the difference between vector and bitmap, it needs hell lot of explanation. Well, when it comes to 2D art, it USUALLY refers to digital painting/drawing/sketching. In 2D art, the workspace that we are dealing is just coordinate X and Y, which means width and height. Be it a realistic drawing/painting, a cartoon, caricature, landscape, etc., as long as the art is done in a flat surface with only coordinate X and Y, that's 2D art. Examples? Classical Disney cartoon like Snow White, Lil' Mermaid, Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny, are all 2D.

Here are some samples on how I work in 2D:

For 3D arts, there are still images, animation, games and so on. The difference with 2D? It has depth and space. The coordinates involve are X, Y and Z. Usually when we do 3D arts, we do not "draw" it. "Draw" is not a correct term for it, rather we call it "model", sort of like "Hey, what creature are you modeling for your assignment?".

When it comes in working 3D, there are 3 main stages, "modeling", "texturing" and "rendering". "Modeling" is where we create the shapes or form for our object, sort of like "sculpting" our masterpiece. "Texturing" is where we apply the "skin "for our object, giving it colours, texture and so on. While "rendering", we set up the necessary light source in the 3D space, setting up the mood of environment, and finally processing our 3D art into images or animation.

Examples of 3D arts are such as Pixar's Wall-E and Finding Nemo, which has a cartoonish approach or style. Animation like Final Fantasy: Spirit Within is also a 3D art/animation (duh), with a realistic approach. Well, those uber gay landscape you saw in Lord of The Rings trilogy are done in 3D as well and it's an art/masterpiece in it's own right.

And here are some samples on how I work in 3D: