I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this here before, but it's worth mentioning: I have a condition known as Aphantasia. Wikipedia calls that the inability to create mental imagery, but sometimes I will (not really correctly) say that I lack a visual memory. The example I'll give to people is that I can absolutely recognize my parents when I see them, but if you ask me to picture them in my mind, there's no ability at all to do that. If you ask me to describe something or someone to you, what I'm doing is recalling the features I remember of the person or object, not actually "picturing" it and describing what I see. I am worthless at those "look at this picture, then in a minute we'll show you another one and you need to identify what changed" sorts of tests.

I only found out about this in the past few years, by watching a YouTube video which described it. My reaction was apparently what most people who have this have as their reaction: Wait, you mean there are people out there who CAN actually create images in their minds?!? I always assumed "picture ___ in your mind" was just an expression not to be taken literally. It was really depressing at first; all these creatures I have "in my mind," I can't really visualize or see without actually having an image of them in front of me.

I have never been able to draw anything. I've tried, countless times, but realized with that video why: if you can't picture something in your mind, it's really hard to draw it. There are some classical artists who had it, but they tended to be very, very reference-heavy, often doing portraits, landscapes, or similar things where they can literally see a reference for what they are creating as they do the work. That's not to say it's just a copy, but that they've got a good starting point they can literally see.

I had an artist who I commissioned once tell me that I give good feedback on sketches for changes to make, that they are actionable, clear, and generally something that they end up agreeing with, once pointed out. I can see when something looks wrong, but for me to try and actually paint the image would be virtually impossible. I almost always get the perspective terribly wrong, can see that it's wrong, but if I do another sketch, it's just as wrong, just differently wrong.

Digital sculpting, though, is a totally different thing. Yeah, it's really challenging to start out a sculpt, and I need a ton of reference pictures of whatever creature I'm trying to create. The difference is that I can start to pan it around, look at it from different angles, and see the problems in the sculpt. As I pan it around, I suddenly realize things like "Oh, the eyes are too high, so if I lower them a bit, it will look better," then just do that. There's a feedback loop on the screen which fills in that gap in what I can't see in my mind. With this, I can pretty quickly move from "I'm sculpting a snake head" to "I'm sculpting this fantasy creature with a snake-like head, but one which has non-natural, fantastic features."

I'm still very much in the "learning the art" phase, as I think I really only deeply focused on the actual sculpting after seeing the YouTube video on Aphantasia around 3 years ago, hearing a comment made as an aside that while there were few painters with it, there are historical sculptors who likely had it. The ability to turn your model in the real world (or on the screen) and see the angles really fills in that missing gap in not being able to see it in your mind.

What's interesting is what I've been posting lately, with the "quick renders" of the snake dude in various settings. Those are basically doodles. Those are me, after hours and hours of sculpting and texturing, playing with the thing I just created. For every one I post, there are ten I don't bother posting. For every one I don't bother posting, there are another ten where I didn't even render it, just played around with the scene, then deleted it. Those are me, unable to picture the snake dude in my mind, picturing him on the screen in various settings. Those are me daydreaming of the creature. Those are also me brainstorming what the next set of sculpting work I am going to do is, either how that creature is going to develop over time or what the next creature I'm going to create is.

I would almost bet money that SOMEONE out there reads this and says "wow, I've got that and never realized it was a thing," just like I did. It's surprisingly common and equally surprisingly unknown. Well, there's some good news: with all this, with some exercises, I'm slowly starting to actually develop the very beginnings of the ability to create mental images. I have a more or less standard scene I put all my creatures in, and while laying in bed going to sleep, I will simply try and visualize it. It's a small thing, but in those final moments between being awake and being asleep, I can start to see the image I'm trying to create. It's not much, but it's something. For reference, the "standard scene" is one where the creature is standing in front of a class, teaching some variation of magic or demonology; the class looks like it could be something out of Hogwarts. And yes, I have renders of virtually all of my creatures in that very setting, to help "prime" those visualizations.