art angst? well, kind of...

[ratcreature]

I just decided to be finished with my drawing of Bob and go ahead an post it (see my previous post). Considering how much time I spent on it, it kind of sucks, partly because I tried new (to me) things, like surface textures, gradients and such digital stuff. It's not horrid or anything (well at least I don't think so) but just now I had the urge to put some disclaimer thing in the notes, i.e. listing all the things I know that are wrong with it like "I know the lightening doesn't look like firelight and the shadows are all wrong for that! and that the various metal textures suck! and the wood too! and that the candle light is all wrong, that that one candlestick turned out a bit too small and the other candle a bit too large..."

But I suspect that kind of thing doesn't go over any better for art than it does for fanfic. I myself quite dislike it when an author tells me at length all the ways their story sucks, and often I won't read it then, and with art I'll probably still look, but inevitably my attention will be drawn to all that is wrong (in the artist's mind) with the drawing, so that doesn't improve its impact any, though depending on how the artists talks about it it can be interesting from a technical viewpoint. Obviously I could have just not posted, but I spent hours on it and it's not that bad.

Beyond just being sick of the drawing after spending many, many hours on it, part of the problem is of course that I lack the skills to correct what I see is wrong with the drawing. I mean, okay, the size issues of that candlestick I could have easily corrected had I noticed earlier, not just towards the end, but it is far easier to see that the lightening and shadows don't look like what you want than to create the effects you want. So I get the urge to say that I know of the problems to not appear stupid/inept/oblivious/whatever to technical issues and give a "better" impression (well in theory, even if the realization lacks), but it's not like that makes the drawing any better, and in fact may even influence perception of the drawing negatively. Though I'm not sure whether people mind notes like that for art as much as for fic.

Anyway, I compromised by dumping my disclaiming in an extra LJ entry afterwards. And out of curiosity, a poll:

[Poll #975503]

Comments

[ratcreature]

*nod nod*
I totally see your point with the ego thing.

I like to think that I'm not all that neurotic about my art in general, and I certainly don't want to dissuade anyone from looking or tell them how to react (which is why I didn't put anything in the notes). I usually just feel the urge to distance myself like that a bit when I'm frustrated by something or when something didn't work like I wanted to.

As for perceiving problems and no fixing them, well, for me there are several factors. One is that sometimes the effort isn't worth the payoff, even when I theoretically knew how to do it better, say for example like late in the stages when I already did a lot of work I'd notice that a door in the room I'd drawn couldn't be opened the way I arranged a background, and I would have to redo everything. That kind of thing is sometimes easier with digital art, than in a traditional medium, but not always. Perhaps if I wanted to sell the drawing I'd do it, but it just wouldn't be fun to redraw the whole thing for something people who just look at it casually may never notice.

The other is that I may know something doesn't look right, but don't have the skill or practice to fix it or do it better. For example I have real problems with shadows and light sources. I mean, I understand in theory the physics behind it, but I don't have an intuitive feel for it, especially not how shadows fall with multiple and/or diffuse light sources and not patient enough to really do modelling or construction to figure it out the tedious way. I guess I could go look for photos of rooms/scenes with light conditions I want and orientate myself that way, but often I have no luck finding any. I try to fudge it by deciding on a main light direction for some drop shadows and some diffuse gradient things and such, because in my experience even some vaguely random and wrong shadows look better than *no shadows* in a drawing, but unfortunately I'm also really afraid of just making areas boldly dark (I have no idea why, I'm just timid that way, I try working on it, but without much success so far).

For example in this drawing I had a vague idea that there is some more central light source in the room to the upper left so shadows would fall to the right mostly and not be that long and then just added glow for the candles, and the it occurred to me that with the candles to the right of the catalog it would need a shadow that falls on the books, but I wasn't sure whether the skull shadow from the several candles would be visible on the catalog nor how much that light would diffuse the other shadow and nothing I tried immediately made it look better.... so I just let it be.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I do see what you're saying about all of these. I've reached a point on pretty much every one of my projects where, even though there are still things that drive me crazy, it's just not worth the time and energy to fix them. And I really hear you on this:

The other is that I may know something doesn't look right, but don't have the skill or practice to fix it or do it better.

Perspective is that way for me. I can't quite figure out why I have such a horrible time of it, because its rules are very simple and straightforward and mathematical. ANYONE should be able to do perspective just by following the rules. And yet, I try and things come out skewed almost every time. I've learned that it's almost better for me to half-ass it, because if I spent 6 hours carefully drawing perspective lines and it STILL comes out farked up, it's way more frustrating than if I spend 10 minutes doing quick-and-dirty perspective and having it be a little off.

[ratcreature]

Very true. I think part of it is that with most regular room perspectives the perspective points are so far off that construction is always cumbersome, or you have to resize things and such. Have you read "perspective for Comic Book Artists" by David Chelsea? It's a comic book about perspective and explains not just the construction rules, but also has tips and shortcuts on how to more succesfully fudge perspective without doing a full construction. I found it a bit hard to follow in places when it got to the more complicated and finer points of perspective, but overall it's very cool, and that it's a comic helps.