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End of Decade Address
6 years ago
Merry Christmas everyone!
Well, what a year it's been, my first full year out on my own living my own life and paying my own way as a child of only 29! Figuring out exactly where I am and where I'm going in life is still a bit of a work in progress but I've been fortunate to find that even running in place has been comfortable at worst and enjoyable at best.
I've been able to travel around Europe far more than I'd ever imagined, meeting up with friends in Germany, Norway and back home in the UK. I hope I'll be able to meet with more new people in the coming year too!
Art wise, I think I've made a few important changes, not so much to the end product of my art, but to the process of how I get there- if that makes sense. I've been sketching constantly all year at an unprecedented rate, just little throwaway "scribbles" as I've dubbed them as well as an entire gallery of "stickers" for my characters. I think this has taught me a lot of very useful processes, I set up my drawings in a more logical and methodical fashion so that whatever the subject or expression I can make it work. Where previously I started on shaky ground and furiously plastered over the cracks until a picture looked good, now I can get things pretty close to right on just one or two tries.
I feel as though I haven't yet drawn one picture that combines everything I've learned onto one canvas and frankly I'm somewhat intimidated to try. However, Praise the Anger and Hell Above Water are both pictures that I was extremely proud of this year, especially given that each of them took less than a week to complete. I just need to find a subject that inspires me enough to do a full detailed scene at that level of effort.
Ideally, I'd like to get comfortable enough in my abilities to be able to start taking commissions and I think I'm approaching that point. I've been watching with great interest the sort of prices that friends and others of similar ability to myself have been listing for, so maybe that could be something I could try out in the new year.
So far, my attempts at comics this year have ended in fairly dismal failure. For reasons I haven't grasped, Kyrophon's painstakingly finished backstory comics were all staggeringly unpopular everywhere I posted them and I eventually ran out of motivation to continue it. I also have a comic my friend reforger helped me with involving Spook that is partway through linearting, but I feel I have no idea what I'm doing with it and it fills me with dread every time I open it. I'm not sure why, perhaps it's the enormous amount of work and uncertainty presented by trying to make 30-odd panels all look presentable, presumably for it to get completely panned like the Kyro one. I get told that I need to cut corners on it, but I have virtually no conception of how to do this in a consistent manner. That said, comics still seem like the best way I have to convey a narrative even if no-one else cares to read it, so I'd like to press on and see if I can get through this block.
https://twitter.com/AberrantLynx I joined Twitter this year as well, which has been... a qualified failure. The Twitter paradigm seems very much "rich get richer" and without help from established accounts to build influence, I've summarily failed to gain any foothold there. I've toyed with the idea of deleting the account since checking it seems like a waste of time, but I think I'll stick around a little longer. I have met one or two potentially interesting people through it by chance though, so it hasn't been a total wash.
Anyhow, I guess that's the end of the 2010's as well? Where was I in 2010? I suppose partway through my undergraduate degree. A lot has changed since then but a lot has stayed the same. In all honesty, I have no idea where I'll be in another decade, but only time will tell. I hope everyone reading this had an enjoyable Christmas and all the best for the new year and new decade!
Well, what a year it's been, my first full year out on my own living my own life and paying my own way as a child of only 29! Figuring out exactly where I am and where I'm going in life is still a bit of a work in progress but I've been fortunate to find that even running in place has been comfortable at worst and enjoyable at best.
I've been able to travel around Europe far more than I'd ever imagined, meeting up with friends in Germany, Norway and back home in the UK. I hope I'll be able to meet with more new people in the coming year too!
Art wise, I think I've made a few important changes, not so much to the end product of my art, but to the process of how I get there- if that makes sense. I've been sketching constantly all year at an unprecedented rate, just little throwaway "scribbles" as I've dubbed them as well as an entire gallery of "stickers" for my characters. I think this has taught me a lot of very useful processes, I set up my drawings in a more logical and methodical fashion so that whatever the subject or expression I can make it work. Where previously I started on shaky ground and furiously plastered over the cracks until a picture looked good, now I can get things pretty close to right on just one or two tries.
I feel as though I haven't yet drawn one picture that combines everything I've learned onto one canvas and frankly I'm somewhat intimidated to try. However, Praise the Anger and Hell Above Water are both pictures that I was extremely proud of this year, especially given that each of them took less than a week to complete. I just need to find a subject that inspires me enough to do a full detailed scene at that level of effort.
Ideally, I'd like to get comfortable enough in my abilities to be able to start taking commissions and I think I'm approaching that point. I've been watching with great interest the sort of prices that friends and others of similar ability to myself have been listing for, so maybe that could be something I could try out in the new year.
So far, my attempts at comics this year have ended in fairly dismal failure. For reasons I haven't grasped, Kyrophon's painstakingly finished backstory comics were all staggeringly unpopular everywhere I posted them and I eventually ran out of motivation to continue it. I also have a comic my friend reforger helped me with involving Spook that is partway through linearting, but I feel I have no idea what I'm doing with it and it fills me with dread every time I open it. I'm not sure why, perhaps it's the enormous amount of work and uncertainty presented by trying to make 30-odd panels all look presentable, presumably for it to get completely panned like the Kyro one. I get told that I need to cut corners on it, but I have virtually no conception of how to do this in a consistent manner. That said, comics still seem like the best way I have to convey a narrative even if no-one else cares to read it, so I'd like to press on and see if I can get through this block.
https://twitter.com/AberrantLynx I joined Twitter this year as well, which has been... a qualified failure. The Twitter paradigm seems very much "rich get richer" and without help from established accounts to build influence, I've summarily failed to gain any foothold there. I've toyed with the idea of deleting the account since checking it seems like a waste of time, but I think I'll stick around a little longer. I have met one or two potentially interesting people through it by chance though, so it hasn't been a total wash.
Anyhow, I guess that's the end of the 2010's as well? Where was I in 2010? I suppose partway through my undergraduate degree. A lot has changed since then but a lot has stayed the same. In all honesty, I have no idea where I'll be in another decade, but only time will tell. I hope everyone reading this had an enjoyable Christmas and all the best for the new year and new decade!
By the way, I see on your profile you said you draw but you don't generally post. I dunno what kinda level you're at and I don't want to presume, but if you'd like some feedback/advice on your work, I'd be very happy to take a look and try and help out. Feel free to DM me if you'd like. :)