Fedodika the Koala

[Fedodika]

Noodle: Hehe thanks <3

So I had another one of those Eureka's today.. probably the last one I'll need to have to get anywhere with this. Now I've been accused before of being shifty in my thinking, and I can see where someone would be skeptical of that sort of thing, but yea I think I've figured out my biggest issue at least. 

Once a year, I relisten to a Will Terrell Video called "Why artists fail to get good feedback." And for the past two years maybe, I've always felt like I'm in the same place when I hear it. the phase he mentions of being "good, but not great." So, after I posted that glowing light thing above, which I thought was the most well executed piece I'd ever done since it was so simple, it completely flopped on social media. 

And at first I was bummed out, because I felt like I'd been fooled for years like... If i can get something to look realistic and clean people will like it. But that's not true. When I look at it now it looks very generic and has no real emotion. Kinda like if you google image search for "astral projection" or "out of body experience." 

I realized so many of my best pieces are done in maybe less than 8 hours, sometimes even less than 2 hours. The skull, you know the one with the white hair. My most successful piece, the ONLY piece that has gotten me some commissions. I did that in like.. 2015 I think? Never topped it with social media reaction. I've learned so many tricks and technical things since then, and my followers grows silently but they seem very... Not excited about anything. And that could very well do with how I'm not really excited about my work.

The most excited I ever was about my work was when I was drawing the pinup women. I really loved doing that but I also felt very awkward about it since I was doing something that is typically seen as risque or whatever. People didn't react to it well, but at least they had a reaction, I got a lot of like "butterface" comments and stuff like that people saying like, "Oh she looks like she has down syndrome." (In Retrospect, they did looks silly, but I wished I would have pushed that even more to the point it was so over the top it was cool.)

So I felt really I guess hurt by that and I said, well I should just do something safer that's more in line with realism so i don't get those hurtful comments anymore. And the period right after that was pretty cool, I felt like I was progressing and people enjoyed my work, but once it hit 2016, it just got really really rough, especially in the later months. I've just had the pedal to the medal for so long and nothing seems to be happening. If anything, I feel like the enthusiasm for my work has shrunk, and people just say an occasional nice thing out of pity, lol.

But anyways, a story Will Terrell shared about a fellow he knew at a convention who had a very beautiful portfolio resonated well with me. The people from the company he was showing his folio to were not impressed by his work, though they said it was good, it wasn't what they were looking for. Then on his way out he dropped his briefcase and many papers flew about of sketches that he had done of a Latin influence and they instantly were mesmerized by his work. He thought they weren't good enough, like they didn't fit the bill. 

I get really really jealous when I see people who stylize early on and quickly get work, like an old friend of mine from the Sycra forums named Brobossa on Deviantart. He has so much work, he has to take breaks, man I'd kill for that. I'd kill to have a commission once a month. And he's told me he doesn't practice too much, and in contrast I'm so willing to just beast through anything, but to no reward...

Basically, the biggest issue is I just didn't enjoy doing 90% of the stuff in my gallery. Just complete nightmares of forcing something out of me that I'm not. All these stupid like fears and judges in my head of what things need to be and I just need to let go, and become detatched from outcome. So people feel that when they see my stuff, they feel a bit of that anxiety and stress and shit, and it's very offputting. But now I know what I have to do.

It's a pretty dark feeling when you learn all this shit and still nobody cares; But I get why they don't care now, it makes sense now. 

Those sketches I posted maybe two days ago with the goofy faces? Yea, that... I need to develop that since well... that's the easiest thing I know how to do, it's the most expressive, the most unique, and I don't hate it to be honest, I actually kind of like it. I only really cringe at failed attempts of realism, not my stylized stuff. I problem solve a lot more on that and it's almost no stress at all. Just let the style do what it wants. And I even found this fellow on Youtube with the same sentiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aimx8YENurE

I almost feel like marking down this day in my life, like and I'm really hoping this isn't just hyperbole. I feel like it's an end to a dark age. If i could go back in time I'd tell myself this quote from Todd McFarlane, "Yea my anatomy's broken but it's cooler than anything you can draw." He's soooo right. Mike Azevedo can draw a pig in the woods and it's cooler than anything I've ever done! It's just style man, that's what sets you apart. 

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/ima...1487189833

My buddy showed me an oil painter who paints photoreal portraits the other day and I just didn't care. I wasn't impressed at all, if anything I felt kind of stressed out looking at it. Like it was really grueling to create. If I had to start over, well I'd probably not be able to do it again but if i had to, I'd tell myself to draw from the mind 90% of the time and focus on a word like:
Cool, scary, sexy, funny, exciting, expressive, epic, savage, stuff like that. Focus on one or several of those words when you draw instead of words like, "Good, realistic, industry standard, (Like X famous artist,) employable, or any kind of box you could put it in like concept art or illustration." 

Don't even worry about improvement, because you'll never be the best, I mean, just have fun you know? Focus on what you think is cool when you were a kid. I shoulda listened when people told me that, but to be honest I thought I was listening. Every artist I love right now stylizes,  every single one; Serge Birault, Even Amundson, Mike Azevedo, Paul Richards, just crazy fuckin lines. I still love the realistic stuff too like Ruan Jia and Boug, but I gotta you know, focus on something else for a while. Ugh, I wish this all wasn't such an emotional maze, but more of a direct and clean cut solution to developing, but then it wouldn't be worth doing. 

So for the month of March, that's what I'll do is just draw whatever the fuck i want. No filter, just anything my hand puts on the page. Could be an alien, could be a face, could be a machine, a lamp, whatever. I'm gonna get all the bad out of me, the stiff lifeless shit that plagues my gallery. It's all bullshit! And I don't know what it's gonna look like, but I'll figure it out and you can join me.