Yesterday was a pretty unremarkable day and I fell asleep early. Despite or maybe because of sleeping for long I woke up tired today and carried that through the whole day, causing some delays. I still got my daily work done and got a surprising reward. I am constructively confused today. Shoutout to my artist friends Deerbard and Zyalin who reminded me today that if you do studies you better have a clear goal in mind. Also with art in general. Thank you very much, from time to time we all need to be reminded of that!
I feel that up until now I tried to include anything and everything in my color studies, which made me slow and exhausted. Today, in this study of a movie still from Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) I just left my black lines in and was not half as tired. I also do not feel I missed out on something as my main concern with the piece was catching those muted movie colors as well as getting the man‘s expression right. In the movie‘s context it‘s all about his reaction to the revelation that it‘s christmas soon, the holiday he hates and fears most. I was later told my values are off. They seem to be off a lot of the time. But it seems like my study was not about the values at all. I clinged to the shapes I identified as those I could show through solid blacks and built up my piece from there. And the rest was an afterthought. I am not saying this is good or bad, it is just an observation.
I am also constructively confused why my orc studies look so good on the other hand. I was not concerned with getting anything right there, just sketchbook fun and fun exploration, sometimes deviating quite widely from the reference pictures.
Lastly, will you look at the changes our boy Felipe went through in the comic! After making the panel today it struck me that something must have happened in my art. I also remember very well how anxious I was with each panel. I was afraid one bad stroke and the characters would be ruined. Not that this isn‘t true, but nowadays I shrug and make as many versions as I need to get to an acceptable result. I think it‘s a difference of about two months we are looking at with the older Felipe. Me from two months ago would probably have wished to draw like today, but couldn‘t yet. I just have to watch my contrasts, I think my panels are getting really dim lately. But isn‘t it always like this? You fix a thing in your art fundamentals and suddenly something else is your worst and is keeping you down? I‘ll keep going, observing and taking notes. And I‘ll also watch my goals.
See you next blogpost!
