Sunday, December 9, 2012

Betterment for battered-! incl. stuff

So yeah. That title almost sounds like a political slogan, but as im sure those of you who have been following the blog the past week, or month, already know, Ive been sick. But ive good news, for I am recuperated, ill no more! I still feel some last vestige of that horrendous pain in the throat, and my lymph nodes are still swollen, but the tonsillitis is almost all better! I can  eat again! And I can go back to school!

I may have been a tad too confident in my vitality, though, earlier today, when chose to go outside ._. Came back from the blistering cold an hour later, and then I slept in fever for about 2 hours... A poignant reminder, I am still sick in glandular fever, even though I am not suffering the symptoms and do feel better. Eating is nice, though. It really is.

Art reminiscent of the past week is what you may view below. I drew it about a week ago, when truly I felt  myself being at the apex of the illness, the very worst point. And yep, after that, albeit slowly, I got better.


Rather fetching, is it not? I like how it looks as if though the lower part of the picture was drawn by a six year old, and the mushroom cloud looks quite well rendered. I do that sometimes, I just fail to focus on .. erh, the bigger picture, rather than the details. Thats why its important that we should strive to always draw iteratively, as ive written more about in an earlier entry. It makes you focus on things like composition, overall flow of the shapes, and qualitative misfits... Like that shirt. If you narrow your scope to just the figurative punchline of the drawing, then its easy to remain constricted to that smaller perspective.

Drawing iteratively is still only one of many ways to ensure that your artwork is consistent and works as a whole. Take painters, for example. Painters ideally work at arms length from their canvas, not hunched over it, scrutinizing every stroke into perfection. They do this because it gives them a better view of the wholeness, which is essentially what makes for a good painting. Another thing that they always should do is take ten steps back from their painting. This really lets you see things that you wouldnt notice up close. Always drawing up close gives you a false impression of what your artwork looks like, which isnt necessarily true to life. Its always beneficial to change your perspective.

Digital artists have tons of ways to do this. Some people like to flip their canvas about, left to right. What looks natural one way may not at all look natural when you flip it horizontally. If you can make it look nice both ways, then the result is guaranteed to look mighty fine. 

Another thing that we digital artists should keep in mind is to always strive to work in the same dimensions as the art is supposed to be viewed. If its A4 size, work in A4. Pixel count is irrelevant to what im talking about here, you need to make sure you make the art the size its supposed to be viewed in. What you dont want to be doing is when youre finished, scroll out a couple thousand percent, because working at a zoomed perspective is baad. What looks nice at 800% zoom might look awful at 100%, and as you cant possibly hope to cover all of it with that sort of detail anyway, it creates these inconsistencies in your art, where one area looks better than the other.

Regular graphite drawings are not suitable for viewing at long range. That just one of the natural drawbacks you get with such a pale and relatively bland medium. While you may get fine lines, you often lack the necessary depth of shades to create sufficient contrasts for far viewing. Unless, of course, you mash that 9b pencil like there was no tomorrow, then im sure you can do it. Im just saying, though, itd be easier with charcoal. 

Which brings me to somewhat of a conclusion; The last and maybe most important thing to keep in mind when ensuring your artwork looks good as an entirety is figuring out what medium is best suited for the job. Graphite pencils dont fit every motive, you cant paint a wall with it. Just as you wouldnt venture out drawing manga with oil-pastels. Sometimes its just better for the art to for a moment let go of your favorite set of tools, and pick up ones that are better suited for the task at hand. 

Same goes for digital. Some work, like design work for example, is best done in applications that work in curves and vectors rather than brushes and strokes. Its always nice to widen your scope.




Well, shoot, thats a nice big block of text. Sorry!

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