packrat poll

[ratcreature]

I'm wondering what other people do with their preliminary sketches and stuff. For each actually finished piece of fanart I end up with a pile of more or less awful and hideous half abandoned sketches, rough composition doodles, sketches to work out body parts, perspective, color, textures, sometimes just a couple, sometimes dozens and more. I have packrat tendencies in general, so it is hard for me to throw things out, but otoh, what do I need a pile with failed sketches of mishapen half-finished stuff for, once I have finished the work?

So I'm curious what other people do:

Poll #452 packrat poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

View Respondents

How much of a packrat are you?

View Answers

I keep everything, I might become/already am famous and my complete work process is worth preserving for posterity. Future scholars will love my estate. (If they ever manage to find anything in the boxes full of junk.)
1 (12.5%)

I keep some preliminary work, but only if the study/sketch/doodle/whatever looks nice in its own right, might be still of use for something later, is in a sketchbook which I keep intact, or I have some other reason for keeping it. The rest I throw out.
2 (25.0%)

I throw everything out that I don't need anymore once I'm finished with a piece of art. Decluttering is my lifestyle choice.
1 (12.5%)

It's not so much that I want to throw things out, but periodically circumstances (such as moving, running out of space etc) force me to, so I have purges.
2 (25.0%)

I work fully digital, so I don't produce these kinds of paper piles in the first place (and digital storage is cheap and plenty these days).
1 (12.5%)

Your radio buttons oppress me with their limited choices. I will explain further in a comment.
1 (12.5%)

Comments

[shadowvalkyrie]

I have to admit I don't make many preliminary sketches -- usually, I erase and redraw a picture until I'm halfway happy with it. (Yes, I'm aware that's not a good idea, seeing as it leaves rough patches of paper in the difficult-to-draw places, but it's the only way I can do it.) What I do sketch seperately (usually difficult body poses) I keep for future reference if it's any good and throw away mercilessly if it's not.

[ratcreature]

I couldn't work that way, because my first scribbles aren't like the finished thing at all. Like they are a messy loose scribble or not the same size or something. I need many tries before something looks okay. Like for example just now, I came across the pile of sketches for my Waterbender!Teyla artwork, just one human and the pose wasn't that hard, and that pile has one page with small stick figures trying poses, twelve pages of attempts to get the pose and proportions and costume right in the final format, two pages to try the face, two pages to try the hands, one for the symbols, and another page that finally has the final rough pencils which I then copied with my lightbox onto the thicker paper to do the inking and acrylic paint. For my recent HP artwork (also in that pile) with a diricawl I only have two pages of attempts to draw that bird, two pages trying feathers and wings, one page to try different crosshatching textures for plants. So it varies a bit, but 5-20 sheets of paper is normal for a fairly simple artwork, more if it is complicated. I just kind of suck at drawing, I guess?

[shadowvalkyrie]

I don't think so! I rather think you are the artist and I'm the occasional doodler, so I'm just not as much of a perfectionist. I also have trouble picking a picture apart to practice details (like feathers, or hands) -- it simply doesn't work out of context. I also tend to avoid close-ups, simply because small drawings of big things camouflage mistakes well... *g*
It's probably also, that I never actually learnt to draw from books or a teacher (Art in my school was utter crap), so I got myself into a lot of bad habits, and even when I now find tutorials, it's to late and they mostly don't work for me anymore. For example, I theoretically know you're supposed to start with a rough outline: sketch the pose of the entire body, fix the proportions, and only then start on detail. I never do that. I start on one part, do it in detail, then move on to the next part. It makes all my really artistic friends throw their hands up in despair... *g*

[ratcreature]

Heh, while I don't really think that there are right and wrong ways to go about drawing something, it is never too late to try a different approach and to learn entirely new things. Didn't Vincent van Gogh only start as an artist when he was almost thirty? And then he only worked for about a decade or so before he commited suicide with not even forty, so that's not a long time he had to become a great painter. And I think when he started he mostly taught himself out of books too. Of course he wasn't all that successful as professional artist while alive iirc, and rather crazy, but still. *g*