Robotface

My new site is coming soon. I just have to get off my lazy arse and sort through what I want to keep and what I want to throw away then make the thumbnails.
When that’s done I send it away to my magic web elf who will do all the heavy lifting, and most of the light lifting to boot.
Until then here is my first daily sketch, which isn’t even monthly just to start the year off on the right foot :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwayneclare/4345410928/

Randomness

I intended to open this with a quote on the prescience of hindsight, but that would give the false impression that I fully understand the last half decade.

Five years ago was the first time I’d picked up a pen with the intent to draw since around sophomore year of high school. My initial attempts were pretty crude. I had no knowledge of anatomy to speak of and I certainly didn’t have an understanding of line. For someone who’d read comics religiously as a kid, I’d absorbed none of their drawing lessons, except for maybe the bad ones.

After some initial experiments for both an unauthorized Friday the 13th fan comic and a friend’s webcomic, I got my hands on a Wacom tablet with the hope to create pixel art for 2D platformers (and to a lesser degree, do print design work, my dayjob at the time).

My first digital work was radically different from what I’d produced analog. Lineweight variance was a given of the medium and, for someone who’d never touched brushes or nibs or anything other than a technical pen up to that point, digital seemed to promise capabilities that analog simply could not.

I met people online who drew things for money. Illustrators, they were called, and a goal blinked in my mind like the soft electric sex of a neon sign. Be. An. Illustrator.

My work changed rapidly and I reveled in the amount of detail I was able to heap onto images. I didn’t know much of anything about color theory, so I relied on instinct. The result was highly saturated colors and secondary and triadic color schemes that, five years ago, were a bit ahead of the ‘80s trend resurgence and more unique than they would be now. This style dominated my work for the next three or so years. I made my first forays into hand lettering. I forced my way into the jobs I wanted and was pretty fearless.

Hubris has a funny way of making its wielder plummet to the earth. The work I was creating was technically good in some ways, but inconsistent. I didn’t know much in the way of color theory, composition, or anatomy. Occasionally, something neat would happen in a piece, but I didn’t understand exactly what the magic sauce was that made it work. I started to doubt my work. My lack of a formal art education undermined my confidence. My previously prolific work life slowed to a crawl. I did only the bare minimum work required of me. Pay work got done, but personal work all but shriveled up and died. This crisis of confidence coincided with a series of crap events. My dog died. The economy collapsed. I got a Cintiq thinking it would allow me greater control and might push the next evolutionary stage of my work and it did the exact opposite.

I spent the better part of the last year making up for my lack of confidence. I moved back to analog materials in an attempt to circumvent what I felt was a lack of precision in digital tools. My precious had outstripped the Cintiqs. I drew from life and read everything I could on anatomy, color, composition, linework, and mass. I breathed a sigh of relief as work picked up and I felt productive once again.

My digital work changed. Painterly work seemed better suited to the dull instruments that digital offered. I embraced a larger scope of interest than the limited color work which had been my bread and butter.

My work has entered a state of serious flux. I struggle with my lack of formal art education. I’m a work in progress, but I’ve come to hope that I will always be. I’ll never be satisfied with my work, but that just might be more blessing than curse. Here’s to hoping that 2010 proves that true.

Finally got around to uploading it.