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2020: Life, Art, and What-Not
6 years ago
Happy New Year, everyone!
It's kind of hard to believe it's 2020. It's amazing, but also kind of scary too, but it's like that for every year. You never know what's gonna happen. Could be good, could be bad, but I'm gonna try to stay optimistic. With that being said though, I did do some recent reflections, what with people talking about the decade and I admit, I'm kind of bummed. Other than graduating High School, getting my Associates, and my Server+ certification, I haven't really done much else, and there's plenty of friends and relatives who are way ahead of me in terms of having a good life. I need to change that. There's a lot I want and should be doing, especially enjoying my life. I'm 28, going to be 29 this year. I don't know if this is considered a resolution or not, there is something I need to do starting this year: Get my shit together and have a great life. Will I get everything I need done this year? Most likely not, but I need to start now.
No denying that I'm pretty disappointed when it comes to my art too. While I have improved some, it's not enough. I easily could be doing full blown colored drawings and all, but I'm still stuck doing sketches. Worse is that I've done almost nothing but (male) anatomy practice and gestures and less drawings from imagination. I kind of feel ashamed. Besides the obvious things like laziness and distractions, I admit I have been feeling, kind of, I guess scared? If you've talked with me for a long time, you know how much I can overthink things. Heck, I over overthink things. With how incredibly hostile people can be nowadays over things like opinions and art, especially in this day and age of social media, I started to worry. There was a time where I wasn't sure about drawing anything muscular (the fanservice kind) and NSFW because it could be something that'd bite me in the ass in the future, especially if I ever want to go a more "professional" route. Obviously, that's not set in stone, but still. I do feel a bit better in that regard since you have artists like Jay Axer worked on Hearthstone and yet has drawn porn. He's not the only artist, but I don't know if I should outright say who.
Overthinking has also made me develop a perfectionist attitude with my stuff too. Found myself doing the same drawings over and over because I never found myself completely satisfied and sometimes find even something small off. Obviously thinking like that will result in stagnation. This also is probably what makes me keep doing all those practices, trying to get the hang of the male figure. I do know now that I should accept my mistakes and just keep drawing. When it comes to practicing, this is perfectly fine, but I should put drawing from imagination a much higher priority. I think I should save practicing when I either struggle with something, or I'm about to tackle something new. Even then, I shouldn't spend too much time with it. Maybe do a page or two, then draw my ideas with the knowledge I gathered.
I know I have brought up asking for feedback numerous times, and while I still ask for that, I know I need to do my part and post a lot of artwork. One of the reasons I keep bringing it up is because I've noticed how incredibly difficult it is to get any sort of feedback, especially if you draw niche things. It's gotten to where I've noticed artists, especially furry artists go to imageboards like 4chan, u18chan, and even 8chan to get feedback, and the most shocking thing is that they usually get legit feedback. There are multiple reasons why feedback is getting tougher to get. Too many to count. Of course, I don't want to force it. It's completely up to you. All I ask is that you be constructive and respectful.
Seems like a lot of artists are jumping into animation lately, be it tweening, frame-by-frame, or a combination of. Helps that access to the tools for animation has been a lot easier to get. I have Clip Studio EX (legit! :V), but I haven't really used the animation side of things yet. I do have the Animator's Survival Kit book, which admittedly, I should be reading now. I've gained a lot of respect for animators, what with the amount of hard work a lot put into it. Also because of other things be it the cruel environments some Japanese animators have to deal with (even the animation director of Jojo Part 4 says not to come to Japan to animate). Or dealing with all that harassment and threats over shows and what-not.
Watching all that Sakuga goodness from shows like Dragon Ball Super is also why I've kind of been inspired to get into animation. It's also great to see a lot of more recent shows take inspiration from Japanese animation and even produce some Sakuga-worthy animation. Oh, and I gotta give credit to AnimeAJay for being one of the reasons I paid more attention to animation. Oh, and here's a channel that has done some Sakuga compilations. There's other channels, but that one I'm the most familiar with.
I think that's it? This journal was more about art than anything else, no surprise. Anyway, here's hoping 2020 will be better. Again, Happy New Year, and take care!
~JT
It's kind of hard to believe it's 2020. It's amazing, but also kind of scary too, but it's like that for every year. You never know what's gonna happen. Could be good, could be bad, but I'm gonna try to stay optimistic. With that being said though, I did do some recent reflections, what with people talking about the decade and I admit, I'm kind of bummed. Other than graduating High School, getting my Associates, and my Server+ certification, I haven't really done much else, and there's plenty of friends and relatives who are way ahead of me in terms of having a good life. I need to change that. There's a lot I want and should be doing, especially enjoying my life. I'm 28, going to be 29 this year. I don't know if this is considered a resolution or not, there is something I need to do starting this year: Get my shit together and have a great life. Will I get everything I need done this year? Most likely not, but I need to start now.
No denying that I'm pretty disappointed when it comes to my art too. While I have improved some, it's not enough. I easily could be doing full blown colored drawings and all, but I'm still stuck doing sketches. Worse is that I've done almost nothing but (male) anatomy practice and gestures and less drawings from imagination. I kind of feel ashamed. Besides the obvious things like laziness and distractions, I admit I have been feeling, kind of, I guess scared? If you've talked with me for a long time, you know how much I can overthink things. Heck, I over overthink things. With how incredibly hostile people can be nowadays over things like opinions and art, especially in this day and age of social media, I started to worry. There was a time where I wasn't sure about drawing anything muscular (the fanservice kind) and NSFW because it could be something that'd bite me in the ass in the future, especially if I ever want to go a more "professional" route. Obviously, that's not set in stone, but still. I do feel a bit better in that regard since you have artists like Jay Axer worked on Hearthstone and yet has drawn porn. He's not the only artist, but I don't know if I should outright say who.
Overthinking has also made me develop a perfectionist attitude with my stuff too. Found myself doing the same drawings over and over because I never found myself completely satisfied and sometimes find even something small off. Obviously thinking like that will result in stagnation. This also is probably what makes me keep doing all those practices, trying to get the hang of the male figure. I do know now that I should accept my mistakes and just keep drawing. When it comes to practicing, this is perfectly fine, but I should put drawing from imagination a much higher priority. I think I should save practicing when I either struggle with something, or I'm about to tackle something new. Even then, I shouldn't spend too much time with it. Maybe do a page or two, then draw my ideas with the knowledge I gathered.
I know I have brought up asking for feedback numerous times, and while I still ask for that, I know I need to do my part and post a lot of artwork. One of the reasons I keep bringing it up is because I've noticed how incredibly difficult it is to get any sort of feedback, especially if you draw niche things. It's gotten to where I've noticed artists, especially furry artists go to imageboards like 4chan, u18chan, and even 8chan to get feedback, and the most shocking thing is that they usually get legit feedback. There are multiple reasons why feedback is getting tougher to get. Too many to count. Of course, I don't want to force it. It's completely up to you. All I ask is that you be constructive and respectful.
Seems like a lot of artists are jumping into animation lately, be it tweening, frame-by-frame, or a combination of. Helps that access to the tools for animation has been a lot easier to get. I have Clip Studio EX (legit! :V), but I haven't really used the animation side of things yet. I do have the Animator's Survival Kit book, which admittedly, I should be reading now. I've gained a lot of respect for animators, what with the amount of hard work a lot put into it. Also because of other things be it the cruel environments some Japanese animators have to deal with (even the animation director of Jojo Part 4 says not to come to Japan to animate). Or dealing with all that harassment and threats over shows and what-not.
Watching all that Sakuga goodness from shows like Dragon Ball Super is also why I've kind of been inspired to get into animation. It's also great to see a lot of more recent shows take inspiration from Japanese animation and even produce some Sakuga-worthy animation. Oh, and I gotta give credit to AnimeAJay for being one of the reasons I paid more attention to animation. Oh, and here's a channel that has done some Sakuga compilations. There's other channels, but that one I'm the most familiar with.
I think that's it? This journal was more about art than anything else, no surprise. Anyway, here's hoping 2020 will be better. Again, Happy New Year, and take care!
~JT
