AfricanVoodoo's Sketchbook

[AfricanVoodoo]

Perfectionism

 Fuck I am a perfectionist. 

I never saw myself as someone who wants things to be perfect all the time but after thinking about it, I do have this problem about wanting certain things to be impeccable on the first try. If I don't get a sketch to look like what I want it to be, I won't experiment, I won't persevere, I would not even take a breather and think about it. If this or that is not what I want it to be right now, I'll pretty much just give up on it. It sucks and I tell myself to not give up but I am already in my bed sleeping so... fuck. (This applies to digital art, not so much to my traditional for some reason.)

And this is such a terrible trait to have when you need to do art professionally. My digital art is not getting any better because I always give up after realizing that this brush is not to my liking so I just go into my room and draw traditionally. I can't do that because drawing traditionally is pretty much my escape from this. And I can't escape from digital art, not right now. I have too much to learn about resolution, lineart techniques, etc. and to just give up after realizing that my fucking thumbnail phase isn't "good enough"... ugh. 

What gets to me is that I am not like a normal perfectionist where they keep on chugging and chugging into a piece/sketch to the point where it is unhealthy. I am a lazy perfectionist. Like I said above, I literally go into my bed if something doesn't go my way and I am not sure if other people have this problem as well. I tell myself that I am going to go back to it later, but I don't... I am not passionate enough about the things I do apparently...

This happened to me when I was doing Sorn and Arron's design way long ago (I think they are in this thread somewhere). I was doing my thing, just drawing normally and stuff. Then, I take a step back and see that this doesn't look like "so-so's" linework and it doesn't look crisp enough. I then get discouraged to even get back to drawing and I stopped working on it indefinitely... Such a harmful way of thinking...

Being a perfectionist sucks...

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Anyways, how are y'all doing?


















I need to start listening to music more and more now because I realize that listening to video game streams and podcasts are making me slightly less productive than when I draw. When I listen to that good ass jazz, I feel a jolt of energy that I do not get when I am just listening to people talk all day. That, and I pay too much attention to the people talking and not drawing. I need to focus dammit.

(Art): Ha! And I thought I wouldn't do 5-6 drawings a day!! Look at all of this work in just half a week! I finally reached the halfway point! I understand that these barely look finished at all and will be forever considered glorified sketches but I am more proud of the fact that I actually woke up in the morning to do these. I am proud of the fact that I realized that I set this goal for myself, temporarily forgotten about it, then told myself that this is what I need to achieve, then actually started doing it. I am proud that I finally took the time to draw some ladies because that was my weak point when it came to humans. Women. I can't wait until I finish this. I might do a second set actually, I have time now.

Still putting gesture in front because I honestly do not want to subscribe to stiff yet ultra structural looking stuff. Some of these are major duds but I feel content with the experience. Here is what I learned so far:

 - Starting very very very loose and light with the gesture then pressing harder with the final lines are good for achieving a clean look on the page

 - Establishing a floor is important. I tried to imagine a floor for the longest time but I am still not getting the feet to be at the same level at times and that was getting annoying.

- Make the heads bigger, jesus christ.

- Taking a step back from my drawing to see the full drawing is useful. This way I know if the head should be bigger or not.






(Art): Before doing my challenge, I do my warm-ups first so I wouldn't have to deal with stiff figures. These are the warm-ups I will typically do every single day. (There are a WHOLE lot more of those "perfect circles" pages)





So... I decided to redesign Garius because the last time I drew him in a full costume, he looked like a hot mess so I wanted to get something official for once. My writer friend asked for an overalls-harness hybrid type of thing. That sounds really dumb but honestly I wanted to do it because it was so weird but fitting for the setting in his book. 

(Art): I did some sketches of harnesses while looking up videos on how to put on a harness and how it works. I am sloppy when I try to do visual library stuff, sorry!




(Art): The original scanned sketches of my concepts for his primary costume and then my edited "wow so profesh!!" version that took me 4-5 hours to do which was really extraneous but I really wanted the sketches to be as clean as possible and I was looking up character concept work to get an idea of the background.

In hindsight, that drop shadow on the left are really ugly looking. I should of keep them as flat ellipses... Actually, removing them completely is a better thing to do. I also see a tangent on the very right side of the far right figure and the box. Ugh... I'll edit these later, but I will keep this version on the internet to remind myself that I still do not know shit about these types of things. I'll owe up to my mistakes!!

just kidding i'm a bitch



(Omitted the dark circles, rearranged the tiny bottom left thumbnail to not create a terrible tangent, and the right box is smaller and has a clear border.) 

The text is really nice in my opinion, It gives it that nice touch. 

Please, if you have any, give me some tips on composition and doing character concepts like these. I should look and examine other people's work to see if I find any patterns.
(I would show more art but I accidentally pressed the post button, so until next time. Bye now!)