Monday art megapost

I drew a lot of stuff last week! Some of it was finished last weekend, but my blog post had already gone up, so I saved it for this week. Here we go:

Gift art for people of their characters. I was practicing poses, so I might as well do something constructive with them.

Selfie! This was probably the most fun one.

Destiny had an Easter event, and it was too much fun to tell the Easter story in Destiny terms.

This was an excuse to draw angst and fight scenes at the same time.

I’m definitely improving! But I feel a gratuitous color pic coming on. Probably some kind of crazy sunset, where I can push color around. Black and white is nice, but … color …

Character art and graphic novel page

I did a ton of art last week. Let’s show it off!

Flowers are fun to paint.

A graphic novel treatment of one of the stories in the Destiny 2 lore.

Drawing people’s characters for fun.

More characters for fun.

Trying to improve my line work. My tablet draws sucky jittery lines, so I’m constantly fighting it as I go. I suppose I should do everything with the pen tool. It looks nice, but takes ages and ages, and I’m impatient. :-p

Never run down your work

Ever see a piece of artwork that just blows your mind? It’s incredible, and it looks like it was painted it just a few strokes. Yet it somehow captures the essence of the subject in a way you’ve never thought about before.

Then you read the description. And the artist says something like, “I whipped this up in five minutes. It’s not very good and I hate it. I’ll probably take it down later.”
And you feel let down, because YOU liked it. But the artist knows better than you, right? And it must be crap, somehow. So you go away slightly offended without knowing why.

Dean Wesley Smith talks about this in a blog post called No One Cares. He’s talking about writing, but the same rule applies:

When you wrote a book and got it out, it was the best you could do at the time. Some readers paid good money for it and many liked it and bought more books from you.

So you go learn something and now YOU CAN SEE WHAT WAS WRONG. Before, those same words looked fine to you, but now you can see “the problem.” Oh, no…

But no one else can see. And no one cares that you have learned something you add to future books that wasn’t in older books.

Only you know. Only you care.

And one additional thing.

NEVER PUT DOWN YOUR OWN WORK. Especially older books.

Some reader might think your older book is the best thing they ever read and the last thing they want is to be insulted by you putting down their tastes in books.

Keep your mouth shut, keep learning, write the next book, and get it out. Repeat.

And if you really do realize no one cares but you, the freedom in your writing is amazing.

Go have fun.

See, when you put down your own work, whether it’s writing, artwork, dance, music, or whatever, you’re insulting that person who liked it. Sure, you can remark that you have room for improvement. Don’t we all? But stand by your work. Don’t run it down and cheapen it. Your audience liked it. Don’t insult them.

I could go on about what’s wrong with this pic. Or I could point out what’s right with it. Negativity doesn’t make anybody feel better.

Artwork: DnD character

A friend commissioned me to draw his DnD character, so here’s what I came up with:

This sketch passed muster.

I’m getting into this black and white shading technique. The eyes got kind of funky, though.

And now with color, the eyes corrected a bit. I want to brighten up the shirt a little before I call it done, but overall, I’m happy with it, and so is my friend.

I think I’m improving. I can now draw something that is fairly close to what I envisioned, even though I still fight the artwork every step of the way. I can’t draw without reference. But even the old masters used reference for everything, so maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

I have a rant brewing about why artists should never run down their own art, and it also applies to writing. But I don’t have the energy to write it at the moment. :-p

Two progress pics this week

I actually did some artwork this week! I tried out the technique of shading in black and white first, then adding color. Amazing how well it works. No wonder the professionals do it this way!

Now, if only I could learn to draw clothing and armor in ways that don’t suck. Light on fabric is my bane.