Week 5, let me tell you a story.

I find it highly amusing that this post was redone and changed so much as the main focus of this week was the iterative process and the importance of thumbnails.

To get started with this post, I need to paint you a scene first.

A young lady is glaring at a glowing ccuinque in a deathly silent lab, she’s been working for about 6 hours nonstop. Her pen stops suddenly; her eyes widen and a few quite frankly exasperated words slipped out under her breath. Maybe it was an extra-long blink that cleared her eyes? Maybe it was the second can of monster finally kicking in? Either way, she sits there and realise everything is wrong, down to the very composition.

This could have been avoided, if only she did thumbnails! If only she tried a few ideas instead of just running in, if only if only the woodpecker cries but the sad fact is that 6 hours was wasted.

I can assure you that my lesson has been learned, as bitter as it was; but at least it gave me the theme of today’s post.

Let me get this out of my system, Thumbnails are incredibly important!

They are pretty much your plan for one’s picture; while yes it has no details and its composition hasn’t been checked exactly and things can and often will change in the final image; Thumbnails tell us the general feel of an image without us being distracted with details.

If a thumbnail doesn’t work, then I can assure you no amount of polish or perfect rendering will save the image.it only takes 30 seconds to do a quick thumbnail and check if an image works somewhat or if it’s going to be a train crash.

Do not discount the humble thumbnail, great monuments and even greater works of art have all stranded out as a thumbnail on a bit of parchment. The little sketches take only a moment to do but can save you so much time (like 6 hours of work).lastly, They can be awful, drawn with a biro on a receipt at 2 in the morning. You don’t need to show anybody; it’s an oddly personal thing, only you know what those few marks mean and only you need to see it.

'How do thumbnails link to iteration Becky?'

Well, thumbnails are so small and fast, that you can experiment and if the result fails miserably it’s only a few seconds gone! Thumbnails let you go mad and try odd and wonderful ideas safely and without wasting time. If instead of going with your first idea, you push out 6 or so thumbnails, you’ll often or not find you’ll like an element from one or two, and incorporate it into the final piece.

It may sound like a bit of a downer, but your first idea is usually not the best one. But it can be if you iterate, critique and tweak enough.