HOME | DD

Description

The stylistic journey continues.

Here's the thing: I have an extreme anxiety disorder, among other things. And it's so pervasive in my life that it makes me shake at inopportune times. That includes drawing and writing. So recently in my attempts to get a better handle on my mental stuff, as well as integrating certain realities into how I do things, I've not been fighting the whole shaky thing and instead trying to leverage it in my art. In more recent stuff, I've tried doing a very sketchy, rough look, which takes a lot of my shakes into account and makes it easier to finish the art piece, and I won't lie, it works, and I don't hate it...but I don't like it as much as I like a cleaner look. I keep gravitating back to some older stuff, so I decided to revisit that the last couple of nights and see what enticed me about it.

Here's my take on what I'm now calling "the Lumpy Look," which endears it to me a lot, because I love me some alliteration:

I like asymmetry, apparently, more than I thought I would. If it works for Guillermo del Toro, I suppose it's good enough for me. There's a hint of reality in the stylization, I suppose. So it becomes a selling point for me to draw a subject who isn't completely balanced on either side, and even has noticeable imperfections, if you will. I suppose there's almost a clay-like quality? If that makes any sense? Point being, rather than fight my line-work to make them perfect and smooth and have exact proportions...I embraced it and ended up loving the result. I get people that sometimes have a "lumpy" quality to their facial proportions, and I kind of - prefer it?

There's also the fact that I feel it actually helps my inking. I cannot do an even thick line to save my life, but I also don't like how - artificial it looks. And going over the lines again with thicker pens almost never works out the way I want it to anyway. So going back over previous lines and purposely allowing or forcing varying thicknesses actually makes me feel loads better, and I think personally looks better in the end. Some rules still apply, because craft matters, so I'm still doing thicker lines where there might be shadows cast or something, but mostly I just like that there's a strange varying thickness that adds character to the drawings, and that it's a feature, not a bug.

Speaking of: the deep, dark blacks. I'm always so afraid to commit so much darkness to a piece, but I think in being brave about it on these practice sketches, I might have nailed the effect I'm going for in my head most of the time. I love Mignola's use of blacks in his work, how stark and audacious they sometimes are, but I've never worked up the courage to really try it on a regular basis, or experiment with it enough to really get an intended look...and I think I got close, if not exactly where I want it to be.

There's also a simplicity to the stylization that I like, with some minor details and "blemished" stuff thrown in. Dimples, beauty marks, wrinkles, hairs, etc. Not too much, but just enough, I think. I always worry more about applying "realistic" attributes through color and light anyway (not that I'm great at it).

Big picture: my embracing the shaky reality I live in actually helped me approach a style I prefer to older ones I've done. By revisiting this exercise that I've done in the recent past, and really focusing on WHY I like the results as much as I do, I think I'm finally settling into a groove I can easily replicate and continue improving.

...hopefully I didn't jinx myself.

Description

The stylistic journey continues.

Here's the thing: I have an extreme anxiety disorder, among other things. And it's so pervasive in my life that it makes me shake at inopportune times. That includes drawing and writing. So recently in my attempts to get a better handle on my mental stuff, as well as integrating certain realities into how I do things, I've not been fighting the whole shaky thing and instead trying to leverage it in my art. In more recent stuff, I've tried doing a very sketchy, rough look, which takes a lot of my shakes into account and makes it easier to finish the art piece, and I won't lie, it works, and I don't hate it...but I don't like it as much as I like a cleaner look. I keep gravitating back to some older stuff, so I decided to revisit that the last couple of nights and see what enticed me about it.

Here's my take on what I'm now calling "the Lumpy Look," which endears it to me a lot, because I love me some alliteration:

I like asymmetry, apparently, more than I thought I would. If it works for Guillermo del Toro, I suppose it's good enough for me. There's a hint of reality in the stylization, I suppose. So it becomes a selling point for me to draw a subject who isn't completely balanced on either side, and even has noticeable imperfections, if you will. I suppose there's almost a clay-like quality? If that makes any sense? Point being, rather than fight my line-work to make them perfect and smooth and have exact proportions...I embraced it and ended up loving the result. I get people that sometimes have a "lumpy" quality to their facial proportions, and I kind of - prefer it?

There's also the fact that I feel it actually helps my inking. I cannot do an even thick line to save my life, but I also don't like how - artificial it looks. And going over the lines again with thicker pens almost never works out the way I want it to anyway. So going back over previous lines and purposely allowing or forcing varying thicknesses actually makes me feel loads better, and I think personally looks better in the end. Some rules still apply, because craft matters, so I'm still doing thicker lines where there might be shadows cast or something, but mostly I just like that there's a strange varying thickness that adds character to the drawings, and that it's a feature, not a bug.

Speaking of: the deep, dark blacks. I'm always so afraid to commit so much darkness to a piece, but I think in being brave about it on these practice sketches, I might have nailed the effect I'm going for in my head most of the time. I love Mignola's use of blacks in his work, how stark and audacious they sometimes are, but I've never worked up the courage to really try it on a regular basis, or experiment with it enough to really get an intended look...and I think I got close, if not exactly where I want it to be.

There's also a simplicity to the stylization that I like, with some minor details and "blemished" stuff thrown in. Dimples, beauty marks, wrinkles, hairs, etc. Not too much, but just enough, I think. I always worry more about applying "realistic" attributes through color and light anyway (not that I'm great at it).

Big picture: my embracing the shaky reality I live in actually helped me approach a style I prefer to older ones I've done. By revisiting this exercise that I've done in the recent past, and really focusing on WHY I like the results as much as I do, I think I'm finally settling into a groove I can easily replicate and continue improving.

...hopefully I didn't jinx myself.