Chipping away mistakes at a snails pace

So here is a picture of a character from a comic for teenage boys involving ghosts. It is taking forever because...

1. It involves layers of clothing and folds, I am bad at drawing clothing!
2. I kinda want the picture to look nice, so I am trying to get all the details right. Man when you type that out it reads pretty whats the word, pretentious? Am I even using that word right? Basically I am not good enough at drawing.

I'll have to make the picture bigger because I want to put his swords in, maybe it will be a whole body picture because why not? He is also underwater, that's why things are randomly floating.

Design School of Rock(s)

Two months, no posts. Why?!

I am a busy bee. Design School is neither good nor bad, it just kind of is. We're being taught how to think about what we are making, kinda like a starter class on creativity and how to control our ideas. A big emphasis is being put on telling a story with your words instead of just having your work do the talking. Unless we are making something specific, art feels like it will always be subjective so I'd rather just people enjoy whatever weird thing I am making instead of trying to put an idea in their head and failing. If they think our cardboard wall thing looks like a bad dream they had, but still enjoy it, I'll always take that instead of making up some silly story about the emotions I didn't put into the inanimate object I made.

The illustration work will hopefully come, but I had expectations that we'd be learning how to do better work, faster. What does process matter if you can't accurately render what you are trying to get the viewer to feel? I guess that'll just have to be on me to teach myself. I am no artistic savant, I still have tons of things to learn, but it has just been a little disappointing so far. I keep thinking about how if we're all being taught the same way to be creative, doesn't that kind of render our creativity obsolete?

I am just talking to myself anyway, so I'll just explain what I've posted and be on my merry way.

1. We had to make a wearable object out of paper. I made a cape!

2. We had to work in groups and use cardboard to decorate our space. Our group had a whole wall so we decided to cover it. It was surprising to learn that no one ever did that before, c'mon design students!

3. I don't get to practice my animez cartoon art as much anymore, but here is a rough sketch I did of Law from One Piece. My perspective is all over the place!

Thank you for coming to visit and looking at my slow moving art blog. Even though no one comments, I get a bit warm when the viewership jumps from 1 to like 6.

Few Changes, Few Posts

Hey idiot, her cape wouldn't be going straight back on both sides if her body is turned. LERN 2 DRAW.

Still haven't given up, but have been a bit busy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm truly passionate about art because I'm not making time for it like people always say you will for things you love. I can either feel bad about this or just realize I'm not dead and until that happens there will be time for me to give it my all. Let's go positive thinking!

In the last two weeks I've moved, got transferred to a new job location (which is also in the freezer which is making me sick because I'm not dressing properly), and tomorrow I begin my education adventure at NC State's College of Design.

My goal for the year is to not get mad at the silly world of objectivity/whiny pee pee baby culture that art is slathered in. I would like to say I want to take art seriously, but not the whole "This is art, art is important, WE ARE IMPORTANT" thing that artists can tend to drape themselves with. Learning how to actually do it properly (in my case, MUCH FASTER, and all the other non speed crap I do completely wrong) is something I would hope to achieve with great skill.

Hopefully I can settle down into a regular schedule within the next week and get back to posting constant updates of unfinished/incredibly slow progressions of pictures being finished like the good ol' days.

Every once in awhile I see the little page hits spike to like 41 for a day and I think it might be one person looking at everything. If this is true, hey one person, I appreciate that. I hope you aren't spending too much time looking at my unfinished work. Go watch a movie, maybe Ex Machina. That movie didn't get nearly enough pub for how good it was. Oscar season is a big joke.

Slow and Wobbly probably isn't going to win the race

Top = Previous Version

Bottom = Updated Version

I haven't been not drawing, I just have hit a weird block again where I am not finishing anything. I've been trying to fix this Thor picture and just wanted to get her cape and armor right. It's been taking a long time and I have no real reason why. I just want to draw her Armor right, but its awkward and has been taking forever, I also want to get her cape right both physically and compositionally. I don't want to be negative artist wiener guy, but I mean I haven't been able to figure this out. Maybe this is part of my learning process? At least I'm not just drawing it wrong and being like "It looks fine!" like I used to. The paper is full of white out and tape and is kind of a disaster. Just looking at the picture while I'm posting it I can already tell I need to make the hammer thicker and add some more foreground elements.

Maybe starting Art School in August will help? Maybe it won't? I appreciate people looking at the blog though, whatever it is they are looking at I hope you are enjoying it.

Ayla from Chrono Trigger

So here we go, a finished picture of Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Since it's just Grayscale right now I decided to not go nuts with the foreground so it wouldn't just be a big gray blob. Now I have a picture that I can use to learn how to color in the future.

I have no idea what to do with my life now. I actually finished a mediocre picture. This must be like what Mallory's ghost felt like when his skeleton was found on Mt. Everest.

So I actually finished the line art

GASP!

Now I have to figure out how to add value to the picture using simple grays so it isn't flat.

That will probably take another 5 months, but hey, PROGRESS.

Ayla progress (We're getting somewhere!)

Okay, so I applied what I learned from that first attempt at a final picture to this NEW final picture...

1. I used Bristol Board instead of cheap scrap paper

2. Since my basic artistic skills haven't been honed enough to just ink right over a rough sketch I decided I would just make sure my pencils are extra tight until I get good enough to feel comfortable inking like all the cool professionals do. Maybe I'll never feel good doing it the rough way, but that doesn't seem too bad, everyone doesn't have to draw the same way obviously.

3. I used photoshop to darken the very light pencils to show my progress before I ruin it with my not so great inking skills.

I realize that this is taking an extraordinary long time for just a simple pin up of a cavewoman, but I am at least learning as I fail/succeed and that is the most important thing.

Now comes inking and the horrors of realizing I really need to practice a lot more to get better at this.

I have to add lines to her hair and clean my scanner (we have no window cleaner, AHHHH) and do a cleaner rescan of the picture.

Then I guess I will go back to working on the Chrono Trigger picture that got me down this rabbit hole in the first place.