Let's take a look at Contour Line drawing. Basically it is a way of using a line to fill in a shape or space. By following the shape or contour of the object being drawn you will define its shape. It is important however to see the shape as it is. For example lets take a ball and an apple. When rendering a ball you would want to create the illusion of roundness as in the figure to the left. Something like a planet or beach ball.

If you were to render an apple you would want to use a line more like this one to the right. It illustrates the line more common seen in an apple. Although the shape is rendered round you can still see an apple in it. Maybe an onion or a pear, how many objects can you think of that might be rendered using these two techniques?

     Now for scribbling or sometimes called scumble drawing. Basically it is a way of using chaotic continuos line to fill in a line drawing or to render a drawing from a model. In this next example it is easy to see why I call it controlled chaos drawing. It is a real easy way to fill in an area quickly and create an interesting texture in your drawing. This illustration was rendered using one continuous line. Think of a tennis ball of twine or string.

     This illustration was rendered with wavy lines from left to right. Noticing that the lines are closer together at the bottom and farther apart at the top. This could be a Styrofoam ball or an orange.

     On the left you will see an example of crosshatching. Crosshatching creates great looking textures and suggests a more lineal definition in the drawing. It looks flat compared to the next example of crosshatching using curved lines. This would be good to use to render cloth or a wall.

Using the curved line while using this technique creates the illusion of mass and therefor roundness. Go ahead and draw all of the examples illustrated on this page. See how may objects you can think of to render using these techniques. It just depends on your particular application and what you may feel more comfortable with. You can even mix and match the different styles to create even more textures.