100:1

[Noelle]

The title is the ratio of really terrible pictures an artist often goes through comparatively to the number that are considered worthy by the artist of showing to an audience.

It's usually this failure rate that drives people to say they "wish" that they could draw/paint/sculpt/etc., but that they "just don't have the talent". It's frustrating and the results are nowhere near immediate, but it needs to be approached with the same attitude as picking up any other skill or hobby; when you first learn to hit a ball with a bat, you miss a lot until you start picking up the coordination and getting in the practice. Art is no different. It's not a matter of magic or happenstance, it's a lot of hard work and repetition, neither of which ever truly go away.

What seems to make art a bit different, or at least in my experience, is that the "failure rate" is exceptionally high. I have to doodle a lot of really crappy things before I knock out something spectacular. The difference is that nobody really sees the crappy stuff. Because it's crappy, haha ;P Granted, my failure rate has shrunk a bit. I have my methods down on what to do when I'm having troubles and how to improve when I am not confident about one area (for example, I am not the best at drawing hands, so I compensate by studying a lot of hand references while I draw them to ensure accuracy), but it greatly varies from person to person.

Another hindering issue si that many budding artists do a lot of comparing with skill level at very unreasonable levels. I'm very much guilty of doing so, and I'm sure even the pros have their hangups. The issue that discourages a lot of would-be artists is that they compare their level of skill to people whose experience beats theirs by years and years. I would reason that it's about the same as equating a Little League baseball player to someone in the MLB, but for some reason it seems so much less outrageous when comparing artistic skill. Often, they have a friend or particular artist that inspires them, but then they begin to be envious, unable to "compete" (and art can seem very cutthroat), when realistically, they simply do not yet have a comparable level of knowledge to even "play the game".

If you want to draw or paint or do X or Y badly enough, then the solution is fairly simple: do it. Be inspired, really dig into the heart of why certain things pique your interest -- why do you feel inspired by a particular artist? What elements do you admire about their work? There is nothing wrong with figuring out what appeals to you in specific and incorporating it into your own style, rather than ripping off an entire genre (sadly a very rampant trend in anime in particular). On days when nothing goes right, keep drawing, because the shitty pictures are just as important as the good ones. They're lessons learned, your own personal artistic history. The most important part about drawing is that you're doing it. Track your progress over a series of weeks, months, and even years, and you will be shocked to see the changes that take place when you hardly realized.


tl;dr - I have progress shots of a current project.



I had an initial sketch made of my idea and began to paint directly over it. I let it sit for a few months and recently needed something to work on, so I decided to revisit it, especially since my main focus lately has been on full-color illustrations instead of just plain character shots as usual.





My direct painting wasn't working out, so I decided to drop the shading under the lineart and try a different approach.





Closer shot of details as the face develops a bit.



Somewhere in here I stopped tracking my progress on the face, so this skips forward a bit.




And again, I didn't track much in between, but I tend to jump around a lot as I work -- I get really ADD about what I'm working on and need to skip to different sections to keep my interest, but really it works out for the better because the whole piece develops together as a whole instead of in separate pieces.



You'll notice that I continuously blend back different colors to try and get a good consistency all around. I don't necessarily like to hide all of my brushstrokes, but I strive for a good balance.






I'm continuously trying to push the contrast more and deepen the range of colors I use, yay! Also, the pattern I added to her shirt is getting shaded so it is continuous with the depth of the shirt.




If you look closely, I've begun to include a bit of green overlay to help make the range of shadows more interesting and dynamic. Zoomed in as this is, it seems more evident, but when you go to a 100% view or less, it is practically undetectable -- it fools the eye and blends into a deep red/dark brown.



EXTREME CLOSEUP. You can see the subtleties in shading and such. ~*~~*fancy~*~*~*~





Most recent version. Gradually going to add beads into her hair, tattoos (that red blob on her arm), and I WILL COMPLETE THAT HAND :( Hands are my weakness, so I've had to correct it a lot.
The pose needs some adjustment, as well as some anatomical mishaps, but that's why it's a work in progress :>

[Wistful Dream]

I really do love your depth of color and great pointer about the green/red shading, lovely trick. This blog was really good for me....it is really really hard not to compare yourself up against other artists, especially if you are in 'class' with them. There was this guy in my Anatomy class last semester that was just amazing, he produced master level work for that class ontop of working full time which sort of just awed me. Its a hard balance between someone inspiring you and someone making you feel like you could never measure up.

Thank you for your wonderful words and for sharing your art <3

[Noelle]

Thanks for the reply, sorry it's taken me so long, things have been a bit hectic in the midst of moving.

Very jealous you got an actual anatomy class -- my college didn't offer anything of the sort, I've been primarily self-taught on most accounts and classes have just been a good way to practice and extend a bit. I used to be really heavily competitive, especially in high school, and in some ways I still am, but I think I've chilled out quite a bit and I've focused more and more on the importance of finding my own vision. Instead of feeling as jealous as I used to, I've begun to question more of WHY that person inspires me and what parts of their artwork I can take away and incorporate into my own style, which has helped tremendously.

Glad I could be of some help :] I will hopefully be able to update this soon with more progress.

[Noelle]

I thought instead of making a separate blog for each update, it's more appropriate to post progress here...seeing as each blog is about the progress of a particular piece. I think it should be interesting to follow it from start to finish, and certainly easier to track all in the same place.

Anyway, the recent:


An EXTREME CLOSEUP of the face while I was fixing the receding eye/facial shading/hair




My thoughts:

I've been extremely fortunate to have good feedback on this. I'm constantly reshaping and restructuring the facial features, and you'll also see that I'm slowly developing the couch behind her, as well as making anatomical fixes. Her hair has been reduced, shading added, and just some subtle shading fixes here and there. I wonder how many of you out there realized how nitpicky it can be sometimes :)

One thing I've always found fascinating about being an artist is that I've found that I know much, much more about how the human body works and the more I learn, the easier it becomes to procure it on paper. Or a computer screen. Wherever. In order to be an effective artist, you have to also be willing to expand your knowledge and do your research. It's not enough to know about art alone, you have to be able to combine knowledge from other fields. Mathematics has brought us linear perspective and science has brought us understanding of anatomy which are, in my opinion, two of THE most fundamental blocks of creating art of tangible things (because...you know...abstract art doesn't much care about either!)



And no...she doesn't actually have a hook. It's filler until the hand is drawn properly! :D