Well I considered gettings back to the comic, but I did some pages, took some critique and decided against it. I need to work on a few things first, namely faces, and I may go with shorter stories to start, when I do return.
Here are the two pages I completed prior to the renewed shut down.
Ramping up to restart work on The Planet Eaters, (click at your own risk) I decided to design some stuff prior to putting it on the page for a change in hopes of saving time. I'm naive like that.
This was the result of trying to get one ship for one fucking panel, but I'll likely use them all in the end.
I don't know that months of study and practice have led to a quality upgrade, but I guess things are a little less difficult now, which is not the to say that anything actually easy, mind you. The frequency and volume of cussing which served as the sound track for this enterprise was truly womderous.
Not so bad, though.
Things didn't work out with the drawing class, maybe next term. I'm still taking GIS (computer mapping, simply put). I pulled something in my back right after recovering from a terrible stomach virus. Between to two I lost about two weeks. Ugh.
I am likely going to return to making comics, possibly as early as this evening. This is probably bad news for fans of the other blog, because all that stuff is secondary to the comic for me. Anyway, look for fresh updats in a month or two.
I am still working through the Dodson (keys to drawing) and Bridgman (100 Hands) books and I have started gesture drawing hands from reference.
That's all I got.
Welcome to today's narcissism.
Thinking about it this morning, I realized that doing anatomy chart studies has slowly transformed from a intimidating chore to an almost self-indulgent pleasure. I like to do warmup now with some charts and I have to tear my self away usually. I could do, and have done, such work all day for many days in a row. It is very much a form of meditation.
However, I did a pile of gaming maps at the end of last week, and weekends are a bit of a lost cause right now, as a result practice got dropped for a few days, which means I can blow all of today on it.
This is the cover of the third Godland HC. It is bound to me in the post, hopefully it wont arrive today and blow my plans.
It has not been a good ten days for drawing. I had some sleep issues related to my most recent foray into underemployment and lost a few days in a row, got sick and lost a few more days, and the momentum that goes with them. Momentum is important because it helps shore up what the writer John Gardner referred to as necessary delusions.
Work falters; momentum dies; confidence crashes; hope dies. I tend to avoid the crescent of shit (see pic) for a few days at the close of this cycle.
I have found practice and rote help break this cycle or, more accurately, kick into its opposite rotation.
To that end, although I still have half the hand book to get through, I added the excercises in Bert Dodson's Keys to Drawing to my routine.
And I signed up for my first ever drawing class- at the community college. Hopefully I do not embarass myself too severely. I think I may go back to making comics when the class ends in december. I may wait another year.
I started working on a map the day before yesterday. I may ink it later today.
I made this too.
Welcome to another instalment in my ongoing saga of narcissistic self-indulgence.
I went out this morning to buy a hand mirror, so I can draw my own... hands. The cashier got me talking and then gave me her dad's phone number, because he is a retired (from Notre Dame) art teacher runs a local figure drawing/ landscape group. I am going to overcome my aversion to assocaiting with other people and join, I guess. Further, as there is no real field season this year, so I'll be returning to school for some basic drawing and figure drawing classes.
I am toying with the idea of putting all my projects on indefinite hold until I get this art thing nailed down.
Well, I could go on, but there is so much to do, and you have more interesting things to do anyway.
PS: is some bullshit art math for you: discipline + time = compulsion. Compulsion> discipline.
As it turns out the Loomis Head and Hands book is more of a head book, really. Like most, I prefer head to hand, but hand is what is required in this instance.
So I picked up Bridgeman's Book of a Hundred Hands. I'm on about hand 17, (after about 6-8 hours drawing today) right now, but I'll spare you the pictures of my studies until I am on my second or thrid trip through. That should be next week or the week after.
I got his Constructive Anatomy as well, because the intro spoke to me.
Anyway, hands are one of those things that are notoriously difficult to draw, and lots of aspiring artists give them up as beyond their capacity before they even start. I am pretty good at faking (symbol drawing, if you will) like four or five handsets, but have otherwise avoided these fuckers for years.
However, since the change in my inking style, I have come to realize that I have no idea of what my true limits really are or what is (or is not) possible. That said, the path forward seems pretty clear to me. I have decided to indulge in my most hubristic delusions of adequacy, whilst working like a bastard to keep ahead of the impending doom of reality. I have to do something, anyway, 3.50 USD gas trending down has likely killed all my field work for the rest of the summer.
Thanks Obama?
Anyway, last week I had a dream that Jack Kirby came into my subterranean fastness and broke my drawing table over his knee. That can't be good.
In honor of that, here's a picture of the King with Frank Zappa. I'm out, take care, and do something for yourself today, for fucks sake.
PS I'll have something up on Metal Earth early next week. I need to set aside some time to do a finished piece. Bah.
This is a blog about my struggle to overcome my many, many shortcomimgs as an artist. I will talk about practice here and take any and all critique in the spirit which it is offered. I may even share a grain or two of wisdom I have picked up along the way.
The impetus for this renewed focus came late last year when I broke my leg. I was trapped inside all winter, and relitively immobile. I worked on my comic (same name as the blog) for the first few months and really figured out a lot of stuff regarding inking. This advance in skill, however, only served to highlight how much I suck at most stuff, especially, especially, especially anatomy. However, I remained resitant to some good advice for a bit longer. Nobody who thinks they are working hard wants to be told they need to work smarter and harder.
That said, I faced the wall of my own mediocrity with increasing desperation. I am incapable of quitting anything that isn't alcohol, cigarettes or opiates; so I knew that giving up was not the solution.
And then, one day it happened. I was gimping up the stairs and a thought crossed my mind...
What if I really, really really made an effort to improve and put all my energy into it? What if I laid aside my ego and assumed that I knew not a fucking thing?
I ceased production of the comic that same day, facing the fact that I am just not ready was really a relief, to be honest.
I still make the odd finshed piece as readers of the other blog know, but for the last two or three months, I mostly I do shit like this:
Before that I did months worth of gesture drawing, which I'll get back to once I have a better understanding of anatomy.
Here is a recent doodle, wherein I tried to put what I have learned over the last few months together:
As you can see: still not ready.
As of today, I am adding hand studies to my rotation, beginning with the plates in the Loomis book.
I'll let you know how that goes and maybe talk about my routine next time...
