Thursday, October 13, 2005
If a picture paints a thousand words...
I just spent the better part of 2 hours hunched over a tiny clear space on my desk, squinting at a metal ruler , drawing countless lines and circles and generally ruining my eyesight doing a scale drawing for one of my module term papers. Much erasing was done (with a miniscule piece of eraser no less), swear words were uttered and the resounding voice of Muddy Waters echoed in the background as I got reacquainted with my steel rule, compass and protractor.
As I finally filled in the last line and put down my pencil, I took a few minutes to marvel at my (ahem) masterpieces. It then occurred to me that I’d been doing almost the same thing since primary school. In between homework, computer games, Lego and TV, I often occupied my idle afternoons with drawing, even when those afternoons weren’t supposed to be that idle. This was before I had discovered guitar, so paper and pencil were my main muse.
It was on that piece of paper that my imagination was let loose. Fanciful armoured vehicles, Star-Wars inspired spaceships and weapons, robots ala Transformers and cars that probably wouldn’t be allowed on Singapore roads were all sketched out in varying levels of details, alternating with my forgettable attempts at comics and humour. I could spend the hours between lunch time and dinner time just filling sheet after sheet with the 2D interpretations of my fantasies, occasionally earning a reprimand from my grandmother (who I stayed with then) about the copious amounts of eraser dirt being generated. Needless to say, Art was one of my favourite subjects in primary school and the highlight of my week would be to have my piece selected for pinning on the class noticeboard at the back of the classroom.
My drawing tendencies carried on into secondary school and junior college, where empty spaces in my textbooks and notes became my canvas. I got caught more than once doodling when I should have been listening, but that never stopped me. I do remember doing a (flattering) caricature of my form tutor in JC for our class noticeboard, but that was probably the most publicity my drawings ever got at that time. The ones that could be publicized, that is.
When I enrolled in Mechanical Engineering after my 2.5 year stint in the armed forces, one of my 2nd year modules involved hand drawing and Solidworks modeling. Again, this was one of my favourite modules, especially since it didn’t involve much memorizing or studying.
Fast-forward to today. The carefully measured distances and angles, numerous drawing projection views, painfully straight lines and meticulous attention to detail (most of the time) are perhaps a far cry from my crude childhood drawings, but the idea behind them remains the same. The desire to put pencil to paper and create a snapshot of the object of my imagination prevents me from crushing up the paper and going insane when the going gets tough. One difference though is that these days, I have a bit of Glenfiddich to help steady my hands.
For most of my engineering projects I’d usually generate a 3D model in Solidworks and from there, generating a 2D drawing is a simple matter of choosing viewing angles, layouts and dimensioning. Hand drafting is pretty much antiquated by today’s industry standards. Even the same module I took earlier on where I learnt drawing by hand doesn’t teach that anymore, focusing instead on 3D modeling. Geez, even before my education is complete I’m already out-of-date, a product of the “old school”. Of course it used to be even more old school, with modules that taught basic machining like milling, drilling and turning in the first year, but that was way before my time, until some wise-ass engineering undergraduates felt that they shouldn’t be learning such lowly manual labour. Anyway, I made up for it by taking on most of the fabrication for my portion of this 3rd year project and learning by sheer trial and error.
Old school or not, the process of seeing your ideas come to life line by line on a piece of blank paper is still something I find rather enjoyable. Perhaps one day, I’ll come round full circle and go back to drawing the same vehicles, weapons and robots that I used to dream of, this time for a living. Que sera, sera.
As I finally filled in the last line and put down my pencil, I took a few minutes to marvel at my (ahem) masterpieces. It then occurred to me that I’d been doing almost the same thing since primary school. In between homework, computer games, Lego and TV, I often occupied my idle afternoons with drawing, even when those afternoons weren’t supposed to be that idle. This was before I had discovered guitar, so paper and pencil were my main muse.
It was on that piece of paper that my imagination was let loose. Fanciful armoured vehicles, Star-Wars inspired spaceships and weapons, robots ala Transformers and cars that probably wouldn’t be allowed on Singapore roads were all sketched out in varying levels of details, alternating with my forgettable attempts at comics and humour. I could spend the hours between lunch time and dinner time just filling sheet after sheet with the 2D interpretations of my fantasies, occasionally earning a reprimand from my grandmother (who I stayed with then) about the copious amounts of eraser dirt being generated. Needless to say, Art was one of my favourite subjects in primary school and the highlight of my week would be to have my piece selected for pinning on the class noticeboard at the back of the classroom.
My drawing tendencies carried on into secondary school and junior college, where empty spaces in my textbooks and notes became my canvas. I got caught more than once doodling when I should have been listening, but that never stopped me. I do remember doing a (flattering) caricature of my form tutor in JC for our class noticeboard, but that was probably the most publicity my drawings ever got at that time. The ones that could be publicized, that is.
When I enrolled in Mechanical Engineering after my 2.5 year stint in the armed forces, one of my 2nd year modules involved hand drawing and Solidworks modeling. Again, this was one of my favourite modules, especially since it didn’t involve much memorizing or studying.
Fast-forward to today. The carefully measured distances and angles, numerous drawing projection views, painfully straight lines and meticulous attention to detail (most of the time) are perhaps a far cry from my crude childhood drawings, but the idea behind them remains the same. The desire to put pencil to paper and create a snapshot of the object of my imagination prevents me from crushing up the paper and going insane when the going gets tough. One difference though is that these days, I have a bit of Glenfiddich to help steady my hands.
For most of my engineering projects I’d usually generate a 3D model in Solidworks and from there, generating a 2D drawing is a simple matter of choosing viewing angles, layouts and dimensioning. Hand drafting is pretty much antiquated by today’s industry standards. Even the same module I took earlier on where I learnt drawing by hand doesn’t teach that anymore, focusing instead on 3D modeling. Geez, even before my education is complete I’m already out-of-date, a product of the “old school”. Of course it used to be even more old school, with modules that taught basic machining like milling, drilling and turning in the first year, but that was way before my time, until some wise-ass engineering undergraduates felt that they shouldn’t be learning such lowly manual labour. Anyway, I made up for it by taking on most of the fabrication for my portion of this 3rd year project and learning by sheer trial and error.
Old school or not, the process of seeing your ideas come to life line by line on a piece of blank paper is still something I find rather enjoyable. Perhaps one day, I’ll come round full circle and go back to drawing the same vehicles, weapons and robots that I used to dream of, this time for a living. Que sera, sera.
# posted by BloozeGit @ 12:49 am 
