After I completed my formal art training I went to work in the entertainment world. Unfortunately, when I started working, I realized that I was ill equipped for the profession I had managed to talk myself into. Thus, began my effort to fill in the gaps that my formal education failed to fill.
At this time, late 1989, I began going to a figure-drawing lab that Walt Disney Imagineering provided. I say "lab" as opposed to "workshop" because it was uninstructed; it was simply a place where a figure-drawing model showed up, where a model stand was provided along with drawing horses and a spot light.
The class was in the evenings, and not a whole lot of people had the discipline to go after putting in a hard days work (that's where I met Hans Bacher and Andreas Deja). I began attending regularly, but I soon noticed that there were many interferences that seemed to prevent me from attending regularly. It was at that point that I realized that I would have to be unreasonable if I were going to attend figure drawing regularly. Basically, there was no reason good enough to skip even one class. I resolved myself to attend these drawing sessions, and nothing would deter me.
Why, you might ask? In truth, I had no understanding of why it was important or relevant to my craft ... I just figured that if the old masters diligently studied the figure, it was a good thing. Three years later, after my diligent weekly attendances, it all began to make sense to me. I realized that I wasn't drawing the figure, I was designing the figure.
Ever since 1989 (not including the four years of figure drawing between 1983-1987 at my lousy art school ... which I would prefer not to mention), I've been figure drawing regularly, and recommend it to anyone starting out in his or her professional career.
--Marcelo (Vignali)
