IIT : Your Opinions on Thumbnails

Is this seriously a "Are thumbnails useful thread?"

Why don't you do some and find out. Do you need to ask mommy if it's worth it to wipe after shitting too?

>>2279853
So you'd say that Thumbnails are as useful for Character Design just like they'd be for Environment Illustration ?

> I believe thumbnails are useless as for character design; I don't see the use for it as thumbnail mainly helps with composition..

>>2279853

senpai desu lol

>>2279868
Wut? You do the thumbnail equivalent for a character design before doing the more detailed sketches and final. Are you saying it's useless to do them?

>being this obtuse

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I should have added. Some people my call them silhouettes, but thumbnails are also a valid term for these. The phrases have loose meanings and mean different things to different people.

But yeah you can thumbnail character design. Literally google searched "Character thumbnails"

>>2279881
When doing these, do you actually try and make something you have in mind or do you sculpt as you see stuff in it ?

>>2279990

The point of thumbnails is to get down a variety of ideas and explore. Thumb nailing is a process and in and of itself is not meant to be "good" and that's not its purpose.

The thumbnails OP attached look like they where meant to explore different possible compositions on site; someone went to the shore to paint and is deciding what could be the prettiest painting.

With character design thumbnails could be considered or equated to anything where you go quickly through tons of variations to explore your ideas and design

They're not really necessary unless you don't understand how generic and shitty everyone's initial designs are. Howard Pyle would do 50 thumbnails, just to make sure he could be satisfied.

I can guarantee you graphic designers, illustrators, and environments artists all do thumbnails for good reason.

>>2279848
If you are really wondering if thumbnails are important then you probably need to do thumbnail the most.

nope. unnecessary as fuck.

>>2279848
I used to avoid doing thumbnails because they never looked any good when I tried to do them. So I would just dive into things and fly by the seat of my pants. But there were the same problems in my work over and over, and I would spend too much time noodling around and trying to fix things. So lately I've been forcing myself to do thumbnails, and taking a very methodical and thoughtful step-by-step approach to constructing my images. It is making a huge difference. Maybe later I can wing things a bit more again. But for now I think I benefit from tackling one aspect at a time.

As for character design silhouettes, I still don't see much value in them. Unless you are doing exaggerated cartoony stuff for Blizzard or something, then they could work. For more realistic characters it is more about how you break up the interior of the silhouette. Silhouette thumbs work great for designing spaceships though.

>>2279848
Yes.
All of them.

>>2279848
I draw a thumbnail first if I have a fairly clear composition and mood in mind that I want to preserve.

Whether or not I can replicate what I capture in the initial thumbnail seems to be a hit-and-miss for me. But that's just 'cause I suck.

Other anons mentioned stuff about exploring compositions and ideas through thumbnails, which is valid perhaps, but not something I'd personally do. Drawing is a hobby so I'm generally satisfied with whatever comes to mind.

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>spent 4 hours painting miniature faces
>mfw got told "wow, nice thumbnails"