Day 18
If you read my first post on this blog you're probably aware that my reason for doing this is two fold. First, as a record for myself, something I can look back on at the end of all this, regardless of the outcome, and be confident that I did the best I could. That I really tried and didn't just slip away into apathy. Second, I hope that other artists will be able to get something out of it. Each struggle is unique, but I hope that in sharing my own struggles others who are on a similar path will be able to find the courage and will to push forward even when it seems like they struggle for nothing.
To that end I feel I need to share something that happened today. After finishing up my drawing for the day I was browsing around the internet and stumbled upon a drawing. I won't go into too much detail here, but my immediate reaction upon seeing what I at first took to be a very detailed pencil drawing was "Why bother?"
I was shocked by the sentiment. It had come seemingly from nowhere, and for a few hours afterward I could think of almost nothing else. Were these my innermost thoughts, brought to the surface in a moment of vulnerability? Did this mean that I really didn't want to be an artist, that my time and energy would be better spent elsewhere. After a lot of tortured thought I was forced to come to one conclusion.
Maybe. But that doesn't matter.
I realized that, while there was a distinct possibility that it was true. That deep down in my soul, despite what I feel on a surface level, that art isn't for me. But that doesn't matter. I may not be able to say for certain what place art has in my life right now. What I can say for certain is this: if I give up now, it will be the same as if I gave in to apathy and never even tried. To me that is unacceptable. The ultimate conclusion of this experiment may well be the realization that art is not what I want to be doing. But I will not arrive at that conclusion without a fight, without trying everything I can to make it a reality.
So welcome to day 18 of my journey to become a better artist, and maybe discover something about myself in the process.
That was quite the dramatic intro for a series of ultimately mundane drawings. Today was hand studies, as you can see. Not much to report on these. Experimenting with some sketchy rendering styles as I do my studies. Moderately successful in my opinion, though not hugely. Otherwise, business as usual.
For those of you who are growing tired of seeing this image show up almost every day, you're in luck. this is as far as I'm going to take it. I don't know how much of a difference is visible between this and the previous iteration, but I really tried to work the area around the eyes as much as I felt I could. Now it's time to move on. Someday I may decide to come back to this and do a bit more work on it, but I feel like I learned a lot from this experience and will probably just do something else the next time I feel like doing a long-term study.
Finally these are a few more detailed versions of elements from the demo level paintover seen above. There's something of a soft-deadline coming up on the project and the team wants to have some in-game assets ready to show off when that comes. So for now I'm putting a hold on the paintover itself and moving on to polishing up the elements that we are confident will need to be there.
In truth I hesitate to call these "concepts" as I probably won't do too many variations. There just ins't time. Gotta make a decision and move forward. Though there are a few things that I may try out some different ideas on. The various patterns of this hanging wall (directly above) are something that I may take some time to play around with, just as an example.
So that about wraps up day 18. More to come.
Jan 22, '18
