LMAO thank you, thank you, yes he's holding a very badly drawn gun.

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Redraw tiiime *^*
Here's the original from June 2022.

Annnd the new one from today.

Some art inconsistency is going to be quite apparenty in upcoming pieces of work as I try to work out what stylistic direction I wanna go in. I'm not 100% happy with the style of the above piece, I think I do prefer a slightly more stylised/cartoon ish art style? Not sure.
We'll see! A lot of experimentation to come *^*

Some goals for myself this summer to hopefully continue to develop and improve:
Use larger canvases
Use more references [for shading and materials too!]
Look at more art
Have fun lol

Lots of rambling coming up so if you're not here for that just look at this WIP and don't bother scrolling :D
WIP redesign



So, onto the rambling. Just wanna get some of my thoughts out art-wise at the moment as I'm in a really odd/interesting place when it comes to art so I thought I might leave some of my thoughts here to come back to and reflect on in a few years.

It feels like every summer I make some promise to change my art or learn this or learn that or finally stop procrastinating on X art skill. Backgrounds, anatomy, perspective, colour theory,, the list goes on, I've always done it. I never really do the hard studies and the hours of work that I promise myself I'm going to do.
Summer is rolling around again and this year I'm not-so-tactfully naming it 'style crisis summer'. It's no secret that in the past year or so I've been in a huge rut with art, struggling with that direction I go in, feeling like I'm not prepared for the art industry or that I won't keep up with my peers. I've never been someone who has hated my art, I usually feel pretty satisfied with most of my pieces but more and more I've had a sense of dissatisfaction with things which really is no fun! I went from drawing over 600 images a year and had the insane goal of reaching an average of two art pieces a day to now, where it feels like I don't even complete one piece a week.
I'm slowly getting my speed up again but in recent years I really fell out of love with my own artwork and I've been battling with what's sellable vs what I actually want to draw and what will happen if my hobby and passion becomes my job. How do I draw the line between work and play n all that.

For anyone who is unaware, I study concept art and have been a commission artist off and on for a while. Selling digital artwork on an online market is a struggle, it's hugely competetive and can sometimes feel like you're posting into a void that no one will see, so I've felt a lot of pressure to try and make things unique or cheap enough to draw people in to no avail, it feels like I've been making no progress yet also only drawing things with the hope of being able to sell. Even the pieces I make for myself are examples for commissions or for the next YCH or the next adopt, everything is an example of something to sell.

At the start of this year I made the decision to take a month off from selling anything, but also set myself the goal of trying to earn $1000 from commissions/digital art sales. A little counter intuitive, huh? With a goal of earning around £90 from art a month, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but was definitely quite the goal still! Safe to say it's not going to happen, and I'm okay with that. A month off wasn't quite enough to really start drawing for myself again, so once again I'm back in the loop of commissions closed, trying to draw more for myself again and it's sloooowly working.

Alongside that, I want to actually improve and I want to be able to feel satisfied with my art again. I'm a bit sick of hating everything I put hours into, I'm genuinely happier with my sketches and unpolished artwork than I am with my fully fledged and rendered pieces and I'd really like to change that.
Got all sorts of little goals like using more references, using larger canvases, more experimentation more thumbnailing more planning etcetc, but also to not fear drawing things I don't like and being unhappy with outcomes. Just because I don't like my fully finished pieces, doesn't mean they weren't worth doing or I didn't learn anything, I don't have to love every art piece I do to improve. Hell, it's probably in the drawings that I spend hours fixing and refixing that I learn the most.

So,, the style bit of style crisis summer? Where does that come in? Well, I don't really have a goal art style, I never had. I've never seen a specific artist and gone 'woah!! I want my art to look like that!' I genuinely don't really know what direction I'm heading in and I never have. It makes it pretty difficult to collect inspiration or have a specific target in mind. Do I want to go more realistic? More stylised? More bold and cartoony? Lined? Painterly? Got I don't know! For a while, I'm aiming on leaning more into realistic. I want to spend some time nailing anatomy more and getting things like my lighting and rendering looking more accurate to real life - it's an important skill. But.. I don't really know if realistic art styles are my favourite thing or what I want for my art long term. I don't know what I want, really. So,,, I guess we'll have to see. That's the style crisis B)

So, what does that mean for this gallery? Probably that my art is going to look a bit wonky or a bit different from usual. Things like line thickness and cleanliness might change a bit. You might notice, you might not notice at all!

If anyone has read all of this, I do appreciate it ahah. I hope you don't mind the brief little window into my brain. Feel free to let me know if you've ever been in a similar place with art! I'm not,, negative about anything, I think I'm coming out of the far end of artblock actually.

Edit: jesus that's like 900 words, good lord, I had more thoughts on this than I thought 😭

I love all of it! It's such a fun goal to look into and I definitely understand! I took a small deviation because I thought I wanted to try a style that was going to sell but I just wasn't getting it. I couldn't figure it out, it wasn't mine. It takes a bit of a while to figure everything out! Anatomy, stylizing, brushes(ugh the worst) and it takes a while.

But you've got this. You are one of the most determined and resilient artists I know. I can't wait to see what new things you create, what you learn and how you improve!

Vah

Awe thank you! :0 your words really mean a lot. I wanna y'know, keep drawing for a long long time, I never wanna burn out or anything like that. I gotta make sure I keep my inspiration going and I'm working out how to not commercialise myself too much ahah. Brushes are absolutely the worst, omg. I love my Happy HB I don't think I ever wanna change from it LMAO
But here's to uh
A future of art hopefully making a lil more sense to me and having a little more direction.

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Here's a dog! A design from 2019 given some new life * ^*
And the process :D
Sketch


Lining


Lined + Background


Colour + Adjustment


No shading this time! :0 decided I liked how it looked like this

Ooooooooo

that looks so good like just chef's kiss

Vah

Thank you so much! <33
I'm going to try a lot more backgrounds like that, I think, they're really fun! :0

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My sona is one bright bright man

Okay I'm really bad at writing stuff like this but -

I've always loved your art style and it's amazing to see you experiment ET :D I'm also constantly fighting my own brain and trying to convince myself that whether I'm fully content with the outcome doesn't really matter! In the end, just you having MADE the artwork, sketched, lined and coloured - you'll have learnt something and you've improved one tick! That's how I like to think of it, anyways, hah

Also never forget that art has never been and will never be a straight upward line of improvement, your skill to perceive art tends to grow faster than your skill at drawing which might lead to you periodically feeling discontent with your art, but no doubts there are many who ADORE your style and would give anything to be able to draw as well as you do :D

And you also know yourself just how many hours, days, weeks, months, years you've put down in drawing and drawing to get to that level - nothing is ever for naught ^^
As long as you keep drawing what you want and don't try to pressure yourself to fit within the rigid boxes of the art market - art will always be something to fall back on, even if you in periods might be discontent, view that as a temporary low before an all-time-high!

I've been in a quite inactive art period right now myself, life's been busy and I haven't quite had the time to draw but I'm getting into it one step at a time again :0 if commissions stress you out, I'd suggest taking a small pause to draw whatever you want yourself - eventually, from my experience, you'll tire of it and you might crave those sweet commissions again XD

Art Fight's approaching as well, and that's always a perfect opportunity to draw things you haven't before and improve - the inspiration you get from AF is insane haha

Finishing up, I shouldn't clog your gallery too much with sweet words, I've been really amazed at your art lately (if not always) - but keep up the good work, man! I'll always be here to cheer ya on :D

Polar you're actually so sweet I'm gonna sob <3
I swear I didn't expect anyone to read all of that, let alone respond, you guys make me feel very special.
But I appreciate it a lot, genuinely so so so much. I've come back and read this a few times now and
wah
You're right

But the skill/perception thing is SO true, so I guess my overall unhappiness is just a sign my perception is improving and uh,, hopefully my art will catch up soon qwq
but genuinely your thoughts mean a lot, and I'm always here to cheer you on too. You've been in my gallery since like,, the first few pages and it deadass means the world

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Coughs
Sappiness aside [<3 qwq] here's a design for Toffive that I meant to do in Decemember but uhhh we'll say I got sidetracked.

Mmmmh designs

subscribing <3