dA thoughts
Well I keep finding myself browsing through dA's art galleries, mostly the favorites.
What's most interesting, is the fact that I notice a trend in the things that catch my eyes. I like the figure drawings, the geological photography, and some of the glamour photography. But the figure drawings category(admittedly it's on the japanese comic-art side of things) is particularly noteworthy. Because I totally could never accomplish the things these 13 year old asian kids are doing. Now, when I first peruse them, I'm all sorts of inspired and motivated to get my own images out of my head. It isn't until I read their own comments or profile pages that I find myself getting a bit discouraged. They don't use the shift key, they misspell most everything, and most times just type like they're texting it in on their mobile phone.
That's when my shoulders slump and the voices in the back of my head start the "who cares" and "it doesn't matter" chorus. They've been quiet for a while, thankfully.
It's been a joke with a few of my friends for years, now, where some of these artists try to give tutorials on how to accomplish the things they do:
"Just sketch out the posture form you want." is accompanied by a sort of sketchy outline of a perfectly proportioned figure, with the thicker lines always around the proper place. My own pictures usually have the thick lines being the ones that wander off away from where the shape should be, and I have to rely on the tiny scratchy lines that form a sort of 'cloud' where the final line should wind up. And the proportions are -never right.
"Use harder strokes and flesh out the details of the base figure." and they just darken those already-perfect central lines, add in the shapely facial features and throw on the flowing Pantena-Pro V hair, as well as the NY Fashion designer clothes. Whereas this is usually where my pictures are starting to deviate from my original intention, and I'm having to go "Y'know, maybe she SHOULD have super-long fingers. Yeah, that's it. And short legs. She's a midget with claws!"
"Erase the sketchlines and finish shading in the shape, ink it and you're done." And boom, finished piece. And over here is me, going "It's wolverine's little disfigured neice. And she's bald! I'm done! Where's my videogames?"
I have too many 'serious' hobbies that I don't take seriously enough.
What's most interesting, is the fact that I notice a trend in the things that catch my eyes. I like the figure drawings, the geological photography, and some of the glamour photography. But the figure drawings category(admittedly it's on the japanese comic-art side of things) is particularly noteworthy. Because I totally could never accomplish the things these 13 year old asian kids are doing. Now, when I first peruse them, I'm all sorts of inspired and motivated to get my own images out of my head. It isn't until I read their own comments or profile pages that I find myself getting a bit discouraged. They don't use the shift key, they misspell most everything, and most times just type like they're texting it in on their mobile phone.
That's when my shoulders slump and the voices in the back of my head start the "who cares" and "it doesn't matter" chorus. They've been quiet for a while, thankfully.
It's been a joke with a few of my friends for years, now, where some of these artists try to give tutorials on how to accomplish the things they do:
"Just sketch out the posture form you want." is accompanied by a sort of sketchy outline of a perfectly proportioned figure, with the thicker lines always around the proper place. My own pictures usually have the thick lines being the ones that wander off away from where the shape should be, and I have to rely on the tiny scratchy lines that form a sort of 'cloud' where the final line should wind up. And the proportions are -never right.
"Use harder strokes and flesh out the details of the base figure." and they just darken those already-perfect central lines, add in the shapely facial features and throw on the flowing Pantena-Pro V hair, as well as the NY Fashion designer clothes. Whereas this is usually where my pictures are starting to deviate from my original intention, and I'm having to go "Y'know, maybe she SHOULD have super-long fingers. Yeah, that's it. And short legs. She's a midget with claws!"
"Erase the sketchlines and finish shading in the shape, ink it and you're done." And boom, finished piece. And over here is me, going "It's wolverine's little disfigured neice. And she's bald! I'm done! Where's my videogames?"
I have too many 'serious' hobbies that I don't take seriously enough.