A decent amount of art got done the past few months, and a few stray thoughts were had!
FanArt
Narshe from FF6, accidentally by way of Kinkade
After the Xenoblade Chronicles fan art last time, I was still feeling pretty invigorated about using fan art as a way to immediately plumb into a more emotionally motivated place when making a piece- where decisions were less drawing on spontaneous whims and more on the love and nostalgia of some piece of art or another that has sat with me for a long time. I spent a number of hours on this piece of Narshe, trying to approach it a bit as “FF6 through the lens of FF9”- a remake I’d be happy to see (keeping the fixed camera style of the PSX era games preferably).
As usual, I started hitting an uphill climb on this piece and eventually entered into the “just finish it” mode, generally meaning I will end up unsatisfied with the result. We’ll revisit that idea in a minute.
COZY SEASON
Anime-styled Francesca demon inspired by the Witch From Mercury character designs
As summer finally began to yield to autumn, the company I work at, Spry Fox, got acquired by Netflix! Simultaneously a tectonic shift, but low enough on the richter scale that our day-to-day has not drastically changed. As the temps dropped, I started focusing on more cozy and cute subjects.
This drawing started out inspired by the character designs from THE WITCH FROM MERCURY, the new Gundam show- continuing to try and learn some of the nuances of anime-oriented designs; hyper thin lines, strong shape design while retaining a high level of physical realism. It slowly morphed from a generic drawing into a fun Spooky-sona of Francesca <3 .
Cafe sketching. Breakfast Taco daydreaming!
Here are some doodles while sketching at one of the best outdoor cafes in Seattle- trying to embrace a more spontaneous “stream-of-consciousness” drawing approach, vs. trying to always create an under-drawing sketch. I think of it as being very ‘reactive’, so you make decisions you wouldn’t necessarily have made if you were planning it out more carefully.
Cozy SeasON CONTINUED: CHIBI
Cozy Crow Friend
I was also experimenting with much thicker outlines, trying to get in touch with the more chibi\mascot side of my brain. I love using hyper-thick outlines as a style constraint; the way you design shapes completely changes. With thinner lines, you gain a kind of “resolution” that you become somewhat responsible for, and you have different tools and different expectations about the function your line serves; it’s more of a “boundary” that is defining dimensions, and less of an element of the art itself than with super-thick lines. With super-thick lines, your toolsets are different and the rules of shape appeal become different; you can still define volume but it’s interpreted differently.
Chibi-tactics
It’s also nice in this sense that it can be “easier” to push and pull proportions and things, because there are so few lines that changing each one even a little has a substantially large impact on the overall thing.
This drawing went through a few phases- but my main goal was thinking about a human charaacter design with modestly thick lines and chibi design. But it actually brings me a bit to another fun point.
“don’t stop iterating until you are inspired by what you make”.
Lately, this is a mantra that has been ringing in my ears. I wrote a bit about this on twitter, which I’ll paraphrase here:
I’ve been applying this thought to try and goad myself into being more patient and more intentional and less complacent about what I make. There was a time before, during, and after art school where it was “easy” to improve- but after a few years, it has gotten much more difficult, which I think is just how things go. Especially as a commercial artist, when time is such a scarce resource, a lot of “improving” is getting faster- put another way, you get really good at making something just good enough to pass muster so you can move on to the next thing. It is very hard to make time for pushing to 110% when 75% is more than acceptable, and more than that will block other people you work with.
I don’t think this is necessarily good broad artistic advice, but it’s a form of creative practice I wanted to share in case it helps other people consider their own relationship to their work. It has certainly driven me to think differently about what I’m working on- to picture it as an outside observer and to think about what particular things give me the spark of inspiration, and how I can incorporate those things into what I’m working on. It is currently a very intuitive phrasing- and is more of a sort of tool for breaking patterns of complacency rather than specific advice.
Simultaneously, I feel that I’m currently juggling a number of artistic priorities for self improvement at any given point. Currently, these are:
Observational drawing (figure drawing and photo studies)
A habit I haven’t been active with for several years, largely thanks to arm injury and the pandemic.
Digging in to comfort zones
Painting landscapes and fan art and gratuitous, unquestioned things that I try to extricate from thinking about in a capitalist lens (i.e. “for work”)
Branching out from comfort zones
Approaching aesthetics I haven’t exercised (photorealism, ‘mascot\kawaii’, anime)
Chasing Joy and Sincerity
For a very long time I have styled myself a pragmatist- largely trying to focus effort of improvement towards what was mostly likely to get me a job. Thanks to prior-mentioned acquisition, I feel like there is a moment to take a breath and try to re-indulge in a more spontaneous and somewhat exploratory joy of art making! Something that I feel is very much a privilege.
In the spirit of Self Improvement, I’ve tried to get back on the figure drawing horse (literally and figuratively). Since the unfortunate political affiliations of one popular Youtube drawing resource, I’ve found this which appears to be almost a descendant, which has excellent photography and models.
LAST THINGS
Alright, I think I’ve probably gone on too much for now.
Here is a random fun character I think of as a Highlands Postal Service mailcarrier, which started off of a spontaneous doodle. I’d like to try developing\revisiting this, as it seemed to resonate with a lot of people. Below that are just a few other bits from this past 2 months.
Thank you for reading!
-Justin
