Sunday, November 25, 2012

There and Back Again: Days 113-118

Day 113: Having fun with lines, finding gestures and expressions I haven't played with before, and pretty ladies in poofy dresses. Also an eye, because that figure really didn't take that long.

Day 114: Really stretched [read as: incorrect] anatomy - but that push forward, that longing upward, is something I love.

Day 115: Nothing too hard, but a pretty good representation of what I like to draw: sad, quiet, elegant ladies, with the added bonus of bird things. Not shown: flowey hair, flowey fabric, low-chroma cool palettes.

Day 116: This is a Drawing about Hair, which is good because it certainly isn't about that 'horse'. There is a reason I reference so heavily when I'm doing a real drawing (as in, for an illustration), and it is because I actually don't know how to draw anything apart from hair, and faces at a certain angle, and slim/lean female bodies from certain angles. Everything else is guesswork and/or wrong, which is alright for a sketch like this but not even sort of acceptable elsewhere.

Day 117: This just works for me, from the gesture to her expression to that hair.

Day 118: The previous page worked; this one didn't. It should have been a good drawing, and the face started out strong, but I missed the mark on the gesture and spent so long messing around with it that I didn't wind up doing anything with it.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

There and Back Again: Days 102-112

Day 102: This is the drawing, more than any other drawing, which I need to take into thumbnails and find the illustration it wants to be. Because this? This is something I want to explore.

Day 103: This one, not so much. I really don't know how to draw wings without reference, so while I do like her body and the general feel of this, the wings are just wrong.

Day 104: The gesture of the figure, especially above the hips, worked out real nicely here. Things like this - moments of intense personal drama - are what I really want to explore with my art, so getting it in a sketch like this gives me a good feeling about taking other figures with other emotions forward to finish.

Day 105: Sometimes, you just gotta draw a naked lady with a ferret and weird hair.

Day 106: And then I drew one of Lauren Cannon's ladies without realizing. (Well. Needs more creepiness and less softness to actually be one of Lauren's. But still!)

Day 107: I think there's something to be said about a person who enjoys doing brickwork as much as I do. But hey at least there is a lot of dramatic drapery!

Day 108: This feels like a cop-out, because all of that intricacy in the halo? I can do that stuff in my sleep. It's a null-space time-filler for me. It looks nice, though, and further it apparently looks impressive?

Day 109: So I broke the poor girl's neck in this, and what, just what re: the spacial relationship between her and the boy - but even so, I'm... surprisingly fond of this.

Day 110: I asked my roommate to give me a prompt; she said, 'a monastic order of a fictional god'. So there's this. Those are meant to be braids, for what it's worth. There's a whole lot of untapped potential in this...

Day 111: So many of my ladies are soft and sad and flowey, that I decided to take a day to do a lady who looks like Business. Also, drapery.

Day 112: ...and to follow up a badass, I do one of the softest, flowey-est ladies I've done in a long time. Oh there are no regrets, because as much fun as it is to draw hard-edged women, this right here will always be at the core of my aesthetic.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Illuxcon V

Illuxcon was this weekend, and I'm still not sure how to approach the process of digesting it.

Unlike the IMC, which was one solid week of an experience, made up as it was by many moments, this year I experienced Illuxcon in a series of rapid but discrete moments. They added up to something monumental for me - I have a sensibility that's not just in my head but visible to peers and idols and art directors, and while I'm not 'there' yet I am close - but they break down in my head to individual conversations and reviews, and so make the overall weekend harder to parse.

This was my third year at the show. Each time I've attended, it's been important: the first year, when I was a junior, Illuxcon was a weekend of inspiration and encouragement in the middle of the awful pit of thesis that I'd spend the next five months crawling through; last year, as a senior, I felt like a part the fantasy illustration community for the first time. But this time -

- this time each critique focused on polish, on being aware of the pitfalls I was hitting that were holding down the average, on building a consistent portfolio, because the consensus was that the work I was doing was good and very nearly there. This time I hung out with people I privately have always thought of as 'the cool kids'. This time I had conversations with artists whose work has been inspiring me deeply for years. This time, I had a Showcase table that my idols were stopping at to compliment my paintings; this time, one of them nearly sold.

I have not been making art long; I haven't been serious about it for much more than four years. But I have worked hard to make up for the gap, and it's things like the IMC, like this past weekend, that make me feel like I'm not a fool for going to art school in the middle of an economic meltdown, nor for dedicating my life to a field that's notorious for the lack of security it affords.

There are too many people to thank; there is too much inspiration to express. So I guess I'll go back to painting.