A question about doodle pages

[Shehaub]

I was lurking through sketchbooks again and found this (http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2094423&postcount=68). I have seen similar assignments like this before, but until now I didn't really understand what they were.

I am just checking to see if I understand the objective. I assume this is meant to tap into your imagination. You make scribbles like this. Then you make a silhouette. From the silhouette you pick a few to develop into characters.

Is there supposed to be any real idea behind the scribble? or is it supposed to be random. I notice that people do full pages of these. Is there a reason you do so many? In this particular sketchbook, he went on to make 3 different characters from a single silhouette. I thought that was pretty cool. Is this usually a one time assignment? or is this something that you repeat often? Does anyone do this once it is no longer required as an assignment? Are you usually assigned a theme?

Sorry if this has been asked before. I finally understood what was going on with these pages of doodles and it sparked my interest.

[Miskatonika]

I had never seen this before but it looks like a very interesting exercise :) I'll have to try this sometime. Thank you for bringing this to my attention :)

[vineris]

Is there supposed to be any real idea behind the scribble? or is it supposed to be random. I notice that people do full pages of these. Is there a reason you do so many? In this particular sketchbook, he went on to make 3 different characters from a single silhouette. I thought that was pretty cool. Is this usually a one time assignment? or is this something that you repeat often? Does anyone do this once it is no longer required as an assignment? Are you usually assigned a theme?

Sorry if this has been asked before. I finally understood what was going on with these pages of doodles and it sparked my interest.

I think this is meant to solve the problem of everything looking the same. When people draw from imagination, they tend to fall into certain patterns of thinking. Certain poses and body shapes become habit and they show up in the sketchbook again and again. Going from very different abstract shapes to character designs can help break those habits.

I think the reason you do so many is to make your brain work. The first few ideas one has are usually the most obvious, least-thinking-required ones. It's when you've gotten those out of the way and are forced to think of more that you really have to start getting creative.

Creating multiple characters from the same silhouette sounds like a great exercise for game design, where NPCs often share the same 3D shape, but have to be made to look different through textures.

I would think that anyone who has to come up with a bunch of very different ideas in a short space of time would use some sort of variation on this, even when it wasn't an assignment.