91–100 of 118 posts
This should be a competitive sport, like gymnastics. He's attempting the bevel! With extra-wide lines! Very ambitious, but unfortunately he often fails to stick the corner alignments, the bevel distances are poorly controlled, and the data is unsuitably spiky for that choice of line joint. 7/10.
Does he explain what the red dots in the titles of his work are meant to be? Possibly I didn’t read carefully enough
[0] https://www.dougmacdowell.com/hand-drawn-data-visualizations...
> A professional draftsman of the 1920's may cringe at the imperfections in my line graph above. They can suck it. I am willing to suck it but the kerning is still killing me. (I love everything about this btw)
What a astonishing and intrsting journey! Nowadays with AI with software everyone is rushing in everywhere everydays. Especially the AI come out. Sometimes in this life. We forgot how we feel this world and hot to do something in one heart. Your story tell me that. Why the world need so fast? Why we can't just enjoy the process of doing things, rather than just focusing on the result. This may me wonder that. Why peo…
What a astonishing and intrsting journey! Nowadays with AI with software everyone is rushing in everywhere everydays. Especially the AI come out. Sometimes in this life. We forgot how we feel this world and hot to do something in one heart. Your story tell me that. Why the world need so fast? Why we can't just enjoy the process of doing things, rather than just focusing on the result. This may me wonder that. Why peo…
The amount of typos in your post… cheers!
Fantastic article! Reminded me of my favorite engineering drawing class from the undergrad days.
I ended up dropping my drawing class because I kept getting docked points for my handwriting no matter how much I practiced. I think I was on track for a B or C.
I build furniture and while I do my design work digitally for remote clients, I do my shop drawings by hand. One super helpful tip I got from an actual trained draftsman is to use harder pencil lead for your layout and construction lines. Like 6H to 9H. You'll get a much lighter line to erase later. It'll also hold a finer point for longer. I prefer lead holders to wooden pencils. They take 2mm lead, and you sharpen…
I should try that. I got the exact opposite advice in university, and I have terrible line thicknesses.
I build furniture and while I do my design work digitally for remote clients, I do my shop drawings by hand. One super helpful tip I got from an actual trained draftsman is to use harder pencil lead for your layout and construction lines. Like 6H to 9H. You'll get a much lighter line to erase later. It'll also hold a finer point for longer. I prefer lead holders to wooden pencils. They take 2mm lead, and you sharpen…
With 6H you get lighter line, but only in colour. It can be actually harder to erase, because you naturally tend to push the pencil harder to see it, thus denting the paper and leaving the graphite at the bottom of a groove where the eraser cannot lift it. Those harder leads have great amounts of clay that very easily scratch the paper.
I go on the opposite direction, being my favorite lead a 4B: you need very low pressure to leave visible marks, that you can erase very easily with a kneaded eraser.
You are right that a 6H will hold the tip for way longer. Only if I don't need to remove the marks I would use the harder leads.
You should add in Calvin Schmid's Handbook of Graphic Presentation into your list Doug -- https://archive.org/details/HandbookOfGraphicPresentation/pa... Unfortunately I do not see specific discussion of how to make the lines a consistent thickness. It does have notes on how to sharpen your pencil and how to use a carpenters spline to draw smooth curves though.
Technical drawings pens are held upright and have a circular tip that gives a specific line width based on the diameter of the tip. If you're inking your drawings, you probably don't need to worry all that much about the exact line width and consistency of your pencil work. N.b. I don't ink my drawings. I've used drafting pens a couple times to experiment, but it's not part of my regular workflow. https://www.jetpens…
Set the mood for today.
Unfortunately can't upvote.. your karma says 6666. May return when the spell is broken.