Top all-time · #6340
James Gurney
Personal blog · gurneyjourney.blogspot.comdesignculture
James Gurney writes Gurney Journey, a personal blog at gurneyjourney.blogspot.com about design and culture. Since 2012, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 14 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-01-22, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this artist's blog for posts on drawing and painting craft, such as accurately drawing power lines, painting animation backgrounds, and myth-busting the golden mean.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.
What Hacker News says?
Brought to mind this post for artists about how to accurately draw power lines: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2016/05/what-artists-need-...
Comment linking /2016/05/what-artists-need-to-know-about-utility.html
on “Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?”Submitted What Should You Work On? (Assuming You Want to Make a Living at It.) as a story · 15 points
HN discussionAs someone who has been creating digital graphics for broadcast for over 20 years, typically at resolutions that are far lower than anything we have to deal with now, it's interesting to see all this activity lately on HN. There are times and places where "hand fitting" your pixels is useful, but they are few and far between. Good filtering will almost always get you a better looking result. The constraints on old N…
Comment linking /
on “Pixel-fitting – how antialiasing can ruin your logos and icons”Submitted From Mask to Palette (2008) as a story · 12 points
HN discussionWhat you are saying is that you either do not understand or do not care for craft (it’s an observation, not a criticism), but craft has definite value beyond the end result. Effort does play a huge part, including in animation. http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2019/03/painting-backgroun... The lights in windows on the background of Akira, for example, were painstakingly painted one by one. That takes skill. That is…
Comment linking /2019/03/painting-backgrounds-of-akira.html
on “1300 Still Images from the Animated Films of Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli (2023)”Submitted Watercolor Tips from Hayao Miyazaki as a story · 3 points
HN discussionRelevant: Mythbusting the Golden Mean http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.ca/2013/01/mythbusting-golden-... http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2013/01/part-2-golden-mean... http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.ca/2013/01/part-3-golden-mean-... http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.ca/2013/01/part-4-golden-mean-... http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.ca/2013/01/part-5-last-questio...
Comment linking /2013/01/part-2-golden-mean-and-leonardo.html
on “The Golden Ratio and Typography ”Submitted Shapewelding as a story · 1 points
HN discussionas others have already stated, art history is a pretty wonderful subject and in the pre-modern era was just as much a pursuit of science, technology & esoterica as it was aesthetics. there are also many fascinating characters > http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2016/8/15/episode-1... if you want to learn drawing i would recommend looking into peter han's dynamic sketching courses and scott robertson's how to…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How do I get into Art?”Submitted Rotating Eyeballs as a story · 1 points
HN discussion... at the end of the day, HN comment might not be the place to explain the theory and history of animation from late 18th to early 21st century, it just don't seem to make sense to do so to me. Maybe some of [0] or [1] explains why frame interpolation for animations is a bad idea(even for some of CGI animations), if they don't, I just don't have words for that right now. 0: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2014/07…
Comment linking /2014/07/elongated-in-betweens.html
on “FILM: Frame Interpolation for Large Motion”Submitted Removing Underwater Atmospherics as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'd forgotten about PageMaker. I was on my college newspaper staff and we used it for layout. It was a small college in the rural midwest, so the local newspaper ran our copies. They didn't use digital tools, so we printed our content from PageMaker and laid it out by hand on a wax board. [1] RIP and many thanks for making our jobs easier. At least to the point we waxed the master layout. [1]: http://gurneyjourney.b…
Comment linking /2009/05/dead-tech-waxers.html
on “Aldus PageMaker Founder Paul Brainerd Has Died”Submitted Is Moonlight Blue? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
