30 Day Digital Challenge Day 5

Good morning, and happy belated Easter!

Before I begin, Days 1-4 are not here because I didn’t really have a clear goal or system in mind yet. I’m borrowing from my 3 Hour Workday Challenge, only geared at digital art.

Why Digital Art?

Why should you make digital art? What about the feel of the pencil in your hand, the beautiful shapes and lines taking form in a classical graphite feel? The smell of oil paint? The knowledge that (if done right) your art will last several lifetimes to be enjoyed not only by this generation, but generations after?

All good questions, Ashley! 1) It’s always important to learn a new medium. One of the great things about learning a number of different mediums is that you can carry over the things you learn from one medium into another (for example, a lot of what I learned about making color in paintings work, I actually took from colored pencil classes). 2) For me, it’s not so much digital art as a medium, but it’s actually because I’m getting back into comics again. Creating comics using traditional mediums is (don’t hate me) needlessly time consuming today when digital art programs have made it so you can create comics in 1/2 the time.

Why Comics?

I used to create comics all the time in high school. When I was younger, I wanted to be a comic creator, but I was ultimately discouraged and scared off because it’s a competitive field. Everybody wants to create comics, everybody has their own story to tell.

I regret letting myself get discouraged. Especially considering how difficult it is to get any job (department store jobs are competitive if the economy’s bad). I strongly believe my art suffered as a result.

To Help Me Figure Things Out through my Story

Is Story Therapy a thing? It should be!

There’s this amazing video by Hello Future Me talking about how Tolkien partly used his writing to figure out Nietche’s “Ubermensch” and what that entailed: which he believed ulimately resulted in a Sauron character.

The reason why I got inspired to do comics again is that now that I’m not in a place where I’m going to school and working full time, there were these stories that came into my head that I’m trying to figure out.

For example, what happens when an egotistical man who used to be a beloved hero in his days of youth refuses to hang up his sword? Rather than taking the role of mentor, as what his age would have him do, he insists on always being the hero? Impeding on those he’s supposed to help mentor rather than accepting his new role (kind of like a Gaston version of the wicked stepmother who wants to hold on to her youth and beauty and will resort to killing the heroine).

Comics Improve Artwork

When I was younger, I found that when I drew comics, my art improved quickly. I had to draw things I otherwise didn’t have any interest in drawing because they were needed in the story somehow.

There’s so many things creating comics can teach you: consistancy, expressions, capturing unique features in a person that you wouldn’t get just from copying a photo (because you have to draw that face over and over in numerous expressions).

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Alright! Now that I’ve sufficiently established the “Why”, let’s go over how the challenge is going so far!

Not great! This is essentially my first time in years drawing with a tablet again. And it feels like drawing with a rock… that is three times the size of my hand and is completely round on all sides.

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Okay, I know I’m not allowed to say “My Art Sucks” anymore, but I think I can make an exception here. This DEFINITELY sucks compared to the stuff I’ve been making. (See? Don’t compare yourself to others! Just who you were yesterday!)

But that’s okay! We’re only on Day 5- and people spend years learning this sort of thing.

But, borrowing from the Three Hour Workday Challenge,

30 Minutes of Learning

30 minutes on a Comission

I don’t have any commissions for digital art yet, but a while back I did this project for my mom’s future online coding course:

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My mom has a corgi mutt who likes to sleep under her desk while she’s working, so that puppy was my own creative touch. I can’t remember who brought it up first, but she liked the idea of me making a stand-alone mascot artwork of the dog (who we’re calling Cody the Corgi).

So, I made a few quick sketches of Cody in different poses to send to Mom for her to pick:

1 Hour on Comic

I ended up spending closer to three hours on the comic, but one hour minimum. Here’s a panel:

1 Hour on Realistic Artwork

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I actually forgot to work on this today. My bad.