More Explorations
Hello, you all! The past time intervall was WILD. I am having massive sleep problems this week, so you‘ll see good and weak art in this post. The art naturally got weaker the longer I am awake.
I started off with making a first exploration into the world of candlelight to add this to my repertoire. These works are part study part free exploration. Magister Grimm, the antagonist of my comic, makes a first appearance on the piece to the left. I really like how evil he looks. Asmund on the right is always a pleasure to draw.
Lines VS shapes reloaded
I had problems with my linework not fitting the rather impressionistic coloration and tried to reduce it. Then I learned that impressionism hardly works on faces, at least if you want them precise. What I went with was this sort of bastardized way. And then of course I had an understandable fit of panic whether all gains from yesterday were undone as I suddenly struggled again with the lines or no lines question.
I should be happy. This whole thing challenged me well and made me think. Yes, outlines can absolutely get into the way of coloration. That is, when you try to mix styles that don‘t like mixing. Impressionist painting has no outlines for a reason. Traditional comic and manga art has outlines for different, practical reasons. Both ways of working have different goals and strengths. Yesterday I noticed how fast I could work if I relied on black lines and threw a quick coloration on them. Today I revelled in the beauty of colors and mood while playing with brushtrokes. But I would probably go crazy or need forever to draw a whole comic in this style, especially with the faces. So in the end, exploring to paint helps not only my drawings but in comicmaking.
And here have some of the better weak pieces. I made several attempts to get a panel done with Corvus and Asmund holding a candle, but each failed, even a wholly different alternative version. This is also when I realized that I probably should go and do something different (or better: find sleep) instead of obsessing over it.
Color shift VS value change
The Asmund to the right is a fascinating first experiment to use color shift instead of value change. I read that for angles up to 40° it may be enough to shift colors to indicate a shifting plane. And only when drawing I understood what this means and what potential that has. Also this Asmund is a goodbye to my classical color schemes from my time when I drew with copics. This…doesn‘t work. Hello to a future with using more references until I have a feeling for coloring skin.
Measurement
What else happened: I got fed up with how Corvus and Asmund look different every day that I‘m drawing them. I‘m actually terrible at measuring angles and proportions, therefore I‘m terrible at likeness and had no clue that this was what laughed in my face every day since forever.
To do
Tomorrow I‘ll tackle this, as well as some tonal value exercises from my notes on Alla Prima over the next days.
Also again, sleep deprivation is really really bad for you. Your body is stressed out by it and you cannot rely on your focus and performance, which might stress you out even more. Be nice to your body, sleep well, eat well, make breaks, exercise. Art is very very important to me, but it may not consume me.
See you tomorrow!
